whole wheat Archives - dani california cooks

Sailing Part 2 + Multigrain Walnut and Date Muffins

March 18, 2015 by Dani 2 Comments

I want to apologize that all of my posts this week have been about my most recent sailing trip, but I'm still in such a vacation glow mode that even sitting here in rainy Olympia, WA can't kill my mood. Granted, I STILL feel like I'm swaying on a boat AND the after effects of a week on dramamine are making me foggy AND I have a bruise on my hip the size of a tennis ball. But, I figure I'd do the best of both worlds and while I really want to just post beautiful pictures of the Bahamas all week, I'll give you a recipe as well. For muffins! These would actually have been awesome to bring on the sailing trip - non-perishable, healthy, and grab-and-go. Next time I'll probably bake up a storm beforehand. One girl brought a couple of loaves of banana bread onboard and hungry sailors went to TOWN on it at all hours of the day. In the meantime, you ready for some more sailing pictures? And then muffins?

Major sigh. Okay, now onto the muffins.

Multigrain Walnut and Date Muffins | danicaliforniacooks.com

I have to admit - I didn't actually sample these muffins but I can say that they are boyfriend and grandma approved. I made these for my grandmother's birthday, and she is always saying that what I cook for her isn't "sweet enough" so I did add some sugar to this recipe. Just for grandma, alright?! Nate said they tasted "healthy" and he liked them. So I guess they were sweet enough for grandma and wholesome enough for the boyfriend - score.

If you are a muffin fan, I highly recommend making your own. They are really easy to whip up, require very little clean up, and healthy homemade muffins have an ingredients list that is a bajillion times better than anything Starbucks or store-bought. Granted, they don't taste like dessert. But I digress. You can use the base recipe I provided below, and swap in any kinds of dried nuts or fruits instead of dates and walnuts (although that combo is killer). If you don't want to add the refined sugar, try playing around with mashed banana or maple syrup, although you may need to adjust the flour ratios a bit. Hope you enjoy - and see you all in a week when I'm gloriously tan and have some serious sea legs!

Roadtripping + Sailing + Multigrain Walnut and Date Muffins

These healthy muffins combine rolled oats and wheat flour and are paired with sweet dates and crunchy walnuts for a wholesome breakfast or snack!

Author: Dani California Cooks

Serves: 1 dozen

Ingredients

2 cups whole wheat flour
½ cup rolled oats
3 tbsp coconut oil, softened
1 egg
½ cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
½ cup milk
⅓ cup chopped dates
⅓ cup chopped walnuts

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F
Combine all ingredients but the dates and walnuts, and whisk thoroughly
Fold in the dates and walnuts
Coat muffin tin with cooking spray (or use liners), and spoon batter up to ⅔ of the way to the top of the muffin
Bake 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean

Homemade Whole Wheat Poptarts for Valentine’s Day!

February 5, 2015 by Dani 2 Comments

Make your own heart-shaped whole wheat toaster pastries with strawberry and chocolate hazelnut fillings for Valentine’s Day! Use this base recipe to make homemade poptarts anytime of the year. I have a few confessions to make. 1) I had been wanting to purchase a heart shaped cookie cutter for over a year now. I had so many visions of heart shaped pancakes and toasts and cookies! and 2) The entire time while assembling and baking these all I wanted was have like 10 of my own children around to be able to bake these for. While I’m a bona fide city gal, sometimes I dream about having 10 kids and 10 dogs and 10 cats and 10 chickens and live on some ranch compound. (…All within short driving distance of LA or SF, of course. So another confession - I love Valentine’s Day). And these poptarts are perfect for your kids to bring to class, for you to woo your coworkers with a cutesy treat, or to make ahead for Valentine’s Day for a no-bake breakfast morning with your sweetheart. I employed Momma Dani California Cooks to help me with baking these.

The dough is just whole wheat flour, butter, water, and salt. The whole wheat provides a nice nuttiness to the poptart, and the butter makes them rich and flakey. I didn’t want to add any sugar to the dough, because I knew that whatever I was going to stuff inside these beauties would be sweet enough! Lisa’s base recipe from 100 Days of Real Food was perfect. We used jam and an organic version of Nutella. Did anyone else read the article about the French couple who wanted to name their child Nutella, but a judge ruled it illegal? Hah! I don’t even like Nutella that much (blasphemy - I know!) but I thought it would be a great addition in these poptarts, alongside some freshly toasted hazelnuts. Just to adult-ify these up a bit. Fill up one side of the heart with your filling of choice, match it with another heart shape, and use egg wash and a fork to seal the edges. And for extra cute-ness, sprinkle on some Valentine’s Day themed sprinkles! You can use the leftover dough to make poptarts of any size - we made a couple of baby-sized circles just for sampling. And if you want to make these year round, simply use a knife to cut out poptart-sized rectangles.
These poptarts are perfectly sweet, flakey, crunchy, and almost too cute to eat. I plan to freeze a few and check back in a couple of weeks to see how they do when they are defrosted - I’ll get back to you on that one! (I’m trying to save a few for when Nate returns). In the meantime, we are gobbling these down in preparation for Valentine’s Day. Maybe if I had those 10 kids around I wouldn’t eat them all myself. Meh, debatable. I may end up just hiding them from my kids they are so good. Anyways, I hope they inspire you to do some fun Valentine’s Day baking to shower some love on whoever you want to in your life!

Homemade Whole Wheat Poptarts

Prep time

20 mins

Cook time

25 mins

Total time

45 mins

Make your own homemade whole wheat poptarts with strawberry jam or Nutella for a festive Valentines Day treat! Adapted from 100 Days of Real Food.

Author: Dani California Cooks

Serves: 15

Ingredients

2 cups whole wheat flour
2 sticks butter
⅔ cup ice water
1 tsp salt
Egg, whisked
Strawberry jam
Nutella
Toasted hazelnuts (optional)
Sprinkles (optional)

Instructions

Cut the butter into one-inch pieces
Mix the butter, flour, and salt into a crumbly dough using your hands or a food processor
Add the water slowly, until a dough ball forms
Sprinkle flour on the dough ball, and place onto a well-floured surface. Using a well-floured rolling pin, roll into a ⅛ inch layer
Preheat your oven to 375 F
Using a heart shaped cookie cutter (or cut into whatever shape/size you want!) carve out your shapes
Take one heart shape, and fill with 1-2 tbsp of Nutella (and sprinkle toasted hazelnuts) or strawberry jam
Using a brush, brush a little of the whisked egg on the borders of the heart. Top it off with another heart shaped piece
Using a fork, press down around the two pieces to seal together
Brush a little egg on top, and then add sprinkles (if desired)
Repeat until all the dough is gone
On a lightly greased baking sheet, place each poptart
Place the baking sheet in the oven, and bake 20-25 minutes
Remove, let cool, and enjoy!

Notes

Other great fillings include different kinds of jams (blueberry, apricot), brown sugar and cinnamon, or chocolate chips!

Whole Wheat Apple Harvest Cinnamon Quickbread

October 28, 2014 by Dani 5 Comments

This wholesome quickbread is super moist, has wonderful texture and flavors, and photographs SO BADLY. I must have tried a couple of different lightings, backdrops and settings and I really could not capture the loveliness that is this loaf. We had a bunch of extra apples lying around that were starting to look kind of sad, and I wanted to make use of them with the ingredients that I already had in my kitchen. This recipe comes together so easily in one mixing bowl, and then you can enjoy the way your house smells of apples and cinnamon as it sits in the oven. So, let’s ignore the less-than-stellar headshots of this baked good. If this quickbread showed up on your Tinder app, you would be closing off a world of possibilities if you swiped “no” to the left. Swipe right, friends, swipe right!

So now that that analogy was made and published in the blogosphere, let’s talk about the ingredients of this recipe. Dry ingredients are simple - whole wheat flour, lots and lots of cinnamon, baking soda and powder, and your nut of choice. I went with pecans, but I would highly recommend walnuts. Then add your wet ingredients - freshly grated apples, one egg, a touch of maple syrup and some applesauce and vanilla. Note that this bread dough will be pretty thick, and almost knead-able. I was worried that it would come out dry when I originally whipped it together, but I can assure you that it was not. I can’t wait to pair it with the Vanilla Apple Butter recipe that Huckleberry Cafe had posted on it’s walls that I previously mentioned!

This bread would be wonderful covered in peanut butter and banana for breakfast, or a small slice with some tea in the afternoon. It’s great to grab a nibble here and there while you are cooking other things! It also makes a wonderful gift - I packaged half of this loaf and delivered it to my grandma. She was quite hesitant when I told her there was no butter and oil (and also told me that I didn’t need to bring over so many “healthy” recipes. I think I need to take the hint and use this as an excuse to make something decadent. Any grandma dessert ideas? Please pass along!) She still gave this recipe a thumbs up, as do I.

Whole Wheat Apple Harvest Cinnamon Quickbread

This easy whole wheat quickbread includes lots of freshly grated apples and cinnamon. It is moistened with no oil or butter,,just applesauce!

Author: Dani California Cooks

Serves: 1 loaf

Ingredients