Homemade Larabars

Am I the only one who finds the granola bar section of the grocery store just a little out of control?

Cliff Bars.  Power Bars. Luna Bars.  Nature Valley Bars. Nutrigrain Bars. Special K Bars. Quaker Chewy Granola Bars. Kashi Go Lean Bars. Cascadian Farm Granola Bars.  Kashi TLC Chewy Granola Bars.  Atkins Advantage Bars. 18 Rabbit Granola Bars. Kudos Granola Bars. Health Valley Granola Bars. Purefit Nutrition Bars.

Chocolate Chip.  Honey Nut Apple.  S'mores.  White Chocolate Macadamia Nut. Chocolate Fudge Brownie.  Ginger Cookie.  Vanilla Crunch.  Oatmeal Raisin.  Apple Pie.  Strawberry Yogurt.  Crunchy Peanut Butter.  Carrot Cake. Mint Chocolate. Key Lime Pie. Oats n' Honey. Cranberry Maple Nut. Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter. Cranberry Orange. Honey Almond. Chocolate Hazelnut. Sweat and Salty Nuts. Apple Crisp. Chocolate Coffee.

For an indecisive person like myself, I find the process of selecting a granola bar impossible.  If I manage to pick a brand, I can't decide on a flavor.  After going back and forth between Strawberry Yogurt and Super Fudgy Chocolate Brownie with Peanut Butter, I usually lose interest and buy a candy bar instead.

Despite this, I've managed to discover Larabars.  In a world of overly processed foods containing a plethora of chemical ingredients, I love the simplicity of Larabars.  The base of Larabars is chopped dates, and they're jazzed up with healthy items such as nuts and spices to create the different flavors.  Larabar's cashew cookie bar, for example, contains just dates and cashews!

Not only are Larabars void of unpronounceable chemical ingredients, but they taste delicious.  While eating a cashew cookie bar a few days ago, I realized these bars should be simple to make myself.  After some reading, I came up with a few different recipes, all of which taste great!

California Food Adventures.

The 'little rabbit' has returned from California.

After meeting up with another 'little rabbit' and picking up a rental car, two little rabbits set off on a California adventure.  Yes, the forecast all week was rain, but that wasn't stopping us.

So we set off.

When California grows you lemons...

...bake Baby Lemon Angel Food Cakes!  

 

The Little Rabbit is preparing for a visit to the golden state.  

The timing couldn’t be better.

As I lay out my lightweight jacket, short sleeved shirts, flips flops and even a pair of shorts, I look out my window and can’t help but laugh at the three feet of snow Vermont was recently slammed with. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I love the snow.  But when mother earth teases you with sunny days in the high 40s, you start to believe Spring is right around the corner.  As you consider packing away the hats, mittens and scarfs galore you've been cocooning yourself in everyday,  it starts to snow again. 

And it keeps snowing.

And snowing.

Three feet of snow later, Spring is but a distant memory. It's reminiscent of C. S. Lewis' never-ending winter in Narnia.  Would someone defeat the evil White Witch already?

Understandably, nothing delights me more than planning and packing for a trip to sunny California.  Perhaps while I'm gone the snow will melt as Spring nudges the winter away with warm temps and afternoon showers.

In preparation for my upcoming trip, I thought I’d bake with one of California’s leading food products, the lemon.  California is the leading citrus producer for the US, producing 87% of US lemons.  This equates to 745 million tones of lemons annually.

That’s a lot of lemons.  I’d better get baking.

Boozy Cranberry-Prune Custard Tart

I know what you’re thinking. 

You're wondering why anyone would want to eat a dessert with prunes. 

Well, let me assure you, these aren’t your Grandmother’s prunes.

These prunes are soaked in orange liqueur and black tea, then baked into a creamy custard and enclosed by a spiced tart shell.

Yum!

The inspiration for this tart came from a recipe in The Art of the Tart by Tamasin Day-Lewis.  This was my first time baking a custard filled tart, as I usually bake tarts with fresh fruit and frangipane.  My only words of advice are add the hot milk and cream to the egg mixture very, very slowly to temper the eggs.  Otherwise you'll end up with half scrambled eggs and half custard.

Matcha-Red Bean Swirl Loaf

After baking a delicious loaf of cinnamon-swirl bread, I was inspired to investigate other types of swirl bread.  I've compiled a long list of flavors to experiment with, but I was most eager to bake a matcha-red bean swirl loaf. 

The inspiration for this loaf came from the blog Cosy Bake, where Honey Boy baked a beautiful matcha-red bean swirl loaf.  

This was my first time working with Matcha.  Matcha can be found at your local Japanese market or online.  Luckily I recently visited my family in Massachusetts where there is a nearby Japanese market.  Otherwise I would have ordered matcha and red beans online, as there certainly aren't any Japanese markets nearby in Vermont!

I also picked up some other treats for myself. Yum!

Cinnamon Swirl Bread

Who doesn’t love cinnamon swirl bread?  

I remember eating it as a child, toasted with butter.  I loved pulling it apart by the swirls and eating the uncoiled bread slowly, feeding it into my mouth inch by inch.  

I hadn't had the bread for several years, and I was happy to discover it's still just as fun pulling the swirls apart.  Actually, it's even more fun now, since I get to bake the bread first.

A lot was left to be desired the first time I baked cinnamon swirl bread back in December.  The bread itself was delicious, but I wasn’t happy with the copious amounts of cinnamon-sugar filling and the huge gaps between the swirls.

The baking was also problematic.  The excess filling not only leaked from the dough into the pan, making the bread stick, but also bubbled over onto the bottom of the oven. 

I was left with a smoke filled house, despite all the open doors and windows, as well as two burns on my arms from wiping the filling off the bottom of the oven.  At least I still had the bread.

I was comforted after reading the introduction in Baking Illustrated for cinnamon swirl bread.  Apparently these are common problems.  I’ve since learned how to make delicious cinnamon swirl bread properly.  No smoke and no burns.

Italian Hazelnut Cake

Last week I ran in the hills behind my house.  It was a 14 mile run, which isn't too long when it's a distance you've worked up to.  But when it's a 14 mile run with constant elevation changes, it gets a whole lot harder.  Add 20 degree weather with snow blowing in your face, and it's downright miserable.

It's moments like that when I really want to give up, grab my cell and call the local taxi service to take me home. But just as I looked up from my plodding feet, I saw something standing alone in the woods, watching me from between the trees.

I saw my first moose in Vermont.

For all the moose crossing signs on the highway, you'd think they're everywhere, but they're not.  I've seen plenty of deer, wild turkeys, great blue herons, beavers, woodchucks, and even a bear.  But never any moose.  And here in the magical silence of the falling snow in the dirt roads of Vermont, was a moose.

I stopped and watched the moose for quite a while, and she just stood in the woods looking back.  Snow was collecting on her head, and I couldn't help but feel sorry for her.  Alone in the woods on a snowy afternoon with no one else around.  I could have stood there for hours staring back, but I soon felt my sweaty back catch a chill, so I had to move on.

Luckily, the short break motivated me to run a little faster and push a little harder, all the while keeping a watchful eye on the woods for more winter friends.

After I made it home, I tried my hand at this Italian Hazelnut cake.  Along with a hot cup of espresso, it quickly boosted my energy levels back to normal. However, I couldn't help but wonder whether the moose was still standing alone among the trees, snow collecting all around her.

 

Continue reading for more pics and the recipe!