Oat & buckwheat pancakes (& the joy of breakfast)

Fresh, fluffy pancakes with creamy guacamole

‘When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,’ said Piglet at last, ‘what’s the first thing you say to yourself?’ ‘What’s for breakfast?’ said Pooh. ‘What do you say, Piglet?’ ‘I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?’ said Piglet.

Pooh nodded thoughtfully. ‘It’s the same thing,’ he said.

Reading this quote from A.A. Milne’s The House at Pooh Corner, I can’t help but smile. In just a few short sentences, the author manages to capture both the thrill and satisfaction of finding pleasure in food. Any foodie worth their salt (or should it be honey?) will always have thoughts of their next meal ticking over gently at the back of their mind, and after the enforced fasting that comes with a good night’s sleep, there are few greater pleasures than waking up and deciding what to eat for your very first meal of the day. Continue reading →

31Mar2011

Ottolenghi’s Swiss Bircher Muesli

Inspired by the beautiful light mornings that have arrived with the clocks going forwards, I’ve been getting up early to go to Beautcamp Pilates before work. After such a virtuous start to the day I want to put something good into my body, but at the same time, the early morning workout means I’m pretty hungry by the time I get around to eating breakfast.

Bircher Muesli is the perfect solution. Invented by Swiss doctor Maximilien Bircher-Benner for his patients in the late nineteenth century, this is the perfect morning sustenance, and totally versatile depending on the fruits, nuts and seeds you have to hand that day. Dr. Bircher revolutionized the eating habits of his era by advocating fresh fruit, vegetables and nuts over meat, white bread and other refined produce, and I guarantee that when you try this recipe you’ll be overcome with a certain feeling of smug virtuosity.

The recipe here is adapted from a Yottam Ottolenghi recipe I found in The Guardian. I love Ottolenghi’s experimental yet unpretentious use of ingredients, and this recipe is no exception. A slight departure from my beloved breads and toasts, but incredibly delicious nonetheless.

Swiss Bircher Muesli (adapted from Ottolenghi’s recipe)
Serves 2

100g rolled oats or oat mixture (I used Rude Health’s 5 grain mix, Morning Glory)
120ml cold milk
40ml cloudy apple juice
80g natural yoghurt
1/2 an apple (Braeburn or Granny Smith)
20g honey or maple syrup
Juice of 1/2 a lime
Dash vanilla essence
30g chopped walnuts or pistachios
30g raisins
Dried cranberries & pistachios to decorate

Pour the oats into a bowl and cover with milk and apple juice. Leave to rest in the fridge for at least 10 minutes (I do it just before I go to bed so that by morning the oats have absorbed all the liquid to become soft and delicious).

When ready to serve grate in the apple, and stir in the yoghurt, honey or maple syrup, lime juice, vanilla essence, fruit and nuts. Stir, transfer to serving bowls and scatter with additional toppings.

This is such an adaptable recipe. It would be delicious with banana, pomegranate, fresh berries, stewed peaches, plums or rhubarb, different nuts and seeds or even chocolate and a splash of alcohol for the ultimate indulgence. After all, you can’t be virtuous all the time.

27Mar2011

Crispy, chewy oatmeal raisin cookies

Crispy and chewy – the perfect cookie

Oats are pretty amazing things. Packed with nutrients including vitamin E, zinc, selenium, copper, iron and more, they are a good source of protein (I can almost hear carniverous boyfriend shaking his head at this claim. Ok. A good source of protein that tastes good in cookies. Chewy chicken breast cookies just aren’t going to cut it with this little loaf). They can even help lower cholesterol and blood pressure. Basically, oats are a good thing.

I first tasted Bircher Muesli several years ago on holiday in the Caribbean, and have been searching for the perfect recipe ever since. Packed with oats, fruit, and mulchy, milky goodness, it is the perfect healthy oaty breakfast. I think I may have just about cracked the perfect blend – blog post to follow soon – but in the meantime, my various attempts mean I have a big old stash of rolled oats sitting in my cupboard.

Some of them have been turned into porridge. A few more met a delicious, sticky end in my adaptation of Dan Lepard’s fudgy tahini flapjacks. And this weekend, another handful made its way into a batch of crispy, chewy oatmeal raisin cookies.

I’m quite particular when it comes to cookies. I like them big (at least the size of my palm), thick and chewy, with a slightly crispy edge. I’m not a tea drinker so I don’t care about dunkability – I want the real American doughy deal, perfect with a glass of milk and more of a delicious dessert than a flimsy biscuit. Buttery, chewy and packed with chunks of chocolate, fruit and nuts, this recipe is the answer. I slightly overcooked mine as you can see from the pictures, but follow the timings below, and they should be spot on.

Tip: To get a thick, chewy cookie that doesn’t collape in a buttery puddle across the baking sheet when heated, chill the dough for at least 2 hours before cooking. Alternatively you could freeze the slightly flattened cookie balls and cook on demand for that ‘fresh out the oven’ warmth – they just need a few minutes longer.

Crispy, chewy oatmeal raisin cookies with walnuts

75g softened butter
85g soft brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 egg, beaten
50g wholemeal flour
1 tsp ground cinammon
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
75g rolled oats
75g raisins
50g chopped walnuts
50g chocolate chips (optional)

Cream together the butter, sugar, vanilla essence and egg. If you don’t have an electric mixer you can do this by hand, but it really needs to be as smooth as possible, so a good 5-10 mins of beating is required. (healthy oats and an arm workout, this recipe is a winner!)

In a separate bowl whisk together the wholemeal flour, cinammon, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Add the rolled oats then stir into the butter and sugar mixture. Stir in the raisins, walnuts and chocolte chips if using.

Shape the dough into small rounds, flatten slightly and chill in the fridge for two hours. This is optional, but I’d recommend you be patient if you can, the results definitely are better. The dough could make anything between five and twenty cookies depending how giant you like them.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C/350 degrees F. Place cookies two inches apart on a non stick baking tray. Bake for 10-15 mins until just coloured – this will give a crispy edge but a soft, doughy middle.

Leave to cool and enjoy.

17Mar2011

Dan Lepard’s fudgy tahini flapjacks

Fudgy tahini flapjacks

When I was growing up, my Mum had a fairly puritanical approach to pudding – possibly one of the reasons I now have such a sweet tooth. She was always the one on the doorstep at Halloween, popping packets of Sunmaid raisins into the goodie bags of expectant trick or treaters . . . if they were lucky enough to get anything at all.

One enduring food memory from my childhood was a fruity surprise my Mum used to make – essentially a large cooking apple, hollowed out, stuffed with raisins and baked. For a child whose idea of the perfect pudding was chocolate, ice cream, chocolate ice cream or any variation thereof, this healthy treat wasn’t exactly top of my list. And quite strange considering my Mum has a bizarre aversion to apples, cooked or raw, and can’t bear to eat them herself (when my Dad first took her home to meet his apple farming mother for the first time, many years ago, my Grandma knew it must be some kind of ironic fate, and that this would be the woman he would end up marrying).

Having said all this, my Mum is a fabulous cook, and when she did turn her hand to a proper sweet treat, the results were, and still are, delicious. One recipe she used to rustle up as an after school snack was tahini flapjacks. Packed with oaty goodness, and rendered fudgy and sweet (without copious amounts of butter) by the combination of sesame paste and honey, they were a healthy treat that kept the hungry little loaf and her brother more than happy.

I’ve posted quite a lot of chocolatey stuff on thelittleloaf, and this week I wanted to try something different. So, with a packet of barely eaten Rude Health oats sitting in the cupboard (who am I kidding, I’ll never bother with porridge for breakfast when there’s a homemade loaf to munch), I decided to have a go at those after-school teatime treats just like Mum used to make.

Without her recipe to hand, I turned to Google, and immediately found Dan Lepard’s halva flapjack recipe from The Guardian website. With a couple of little tweaks, including a slight reduction in sugar (is that my Mum I hear applauding me?), what follows can only be described as the ultimate flapjack recipe. Carniverous boyfriend, who is doing a crazy protein only diet at the moment, with just one carb packed treat meal each week, declared them ‘delicious’ and devoured two in about as many minutes. Praise indeed.

[Adapted from Dan Lepard’s halva flapjack recipe]

100g unsalted butter
50g soft brown sugar
200g sweetened condensed milk
75g tahini
50g honey
100g chopped dried dates (you could substitute with dried figs, raisins, or even cranberries for a zingier result)
100g chopped walnuts (I think pecans or hazlenuts could also work well)
25g sesame seeds
200g rolled oats (I used a Rude Health oat mix including pumpkin and sunflower seeds)

Preheat the oven to 180C (160C if it’s fan-assisted like mine)/350F/gas mark 4.

Melt the butter in a saucepan, then stir in brown sugar and condensed milk until everything is dissolved. Remove from the heat and stir in the tahini and honey, then the dried fruit, nuts and sesame seeds. Now stir in enough rolled oats until the mixture just holds its shape – the more oats you add to the mix, the firmer the finished flapjack will be.

Line a 20cm or 25cm square cake tin (or similar) with buttered foil and pack the flapjack mixture into the base. and bake for 15-20 minutes, until the flapjack is just beginning to turn golden on top. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool before slicing.