Not as boring as you would think.....

I have a serious soft spot (or crunchy, if you will) for crackers. They are tasty, munchable, and portable. The drawback is that you can eat 7 million without batting an eye and they are often filled with crud that 1. does not need to be in them and 2. is really not that good for you. That said, I decided to make my own. Not too shabby.

I tweaked and based this on fairly traditional cracker recipes. Very simple, not a lot of action but ultimately a pretty tasty ending

I mixed about 1 1/4 cups flour with a hearty amount of cumin, a few shakes of chili power, and salt.


With a nice glug of olive oil and enough water to bring the dough together, it will form a nice firm dough. This ball yielded two trays of crackers.


I rolled the dough out directly on parchment with a bit of flour trying to make it nice and even and thin. Score/cut the dough in to the shape you desire and give each one a nice poke with a fork and a sprinkle of coarse salt.


These babies get popped in a 400 degree oven for around 15 minutes, till they are crispy and smell nice and toasty.


All in all they are not the buttery, transfatty crackers you will get at your local grocer, but they definitely held up to some homemade hummus or a soft cheese. Now I just need to test other flavors to mix in.....

Pupusas

The other day I stumbled across a great post on Gild the Voodoolily, in which she reviewed a Salvadorian restaurant that looked totally amazing. Needless to say the there are no Salvadorian restaurants anywhere within reasonable driving distance...

Thus a kitchen experiment was found. While I did not make a full on Salvadorian menu, I tried my hand a Pupusas. These are essentially a little pancake made out of Masa harina and filled with virtually anything you want, generally a soft cheese and meat, or cheese and beans. We opted for the bean cheese combo because really how can you go wrong.

We initially had tough time getting the filling not to squeeze out when flattening, but we got it down. These are pretty labor intensive and I wish I could say that they were worth it. They were not especially bad, just unremarkable. The hubby was content to mow on them, after my first I was content to munch the leftover cheesy beans.

Sorry that there are no process pics, the camera was being a bit cranky. This is also why the final pic is a bit grainy and cruddy, camera phones can only do so much.

Hopefully I will get a chance for some fun feed posts over the next week or so. I will have about a week and a half off before my LAST CLASS in my masters.

Fluffernutter Whoopie Pies

This adaptation started out as an all-call to the usual suspect who sample or reap the feed benefits of my cooking and baking projects. One of the responses stated anything chocolate and peanut butter.... and the fluffernutter whoopie pie was born.
The recipe for whoopie pies that I have used in the past is from The Marshmallow Fluff Cookbook. A very fun look at the history of fluff, facts and figures, and recipes.

I took the traditional whoopie pie recipe, but swapped out the filling for the fluffernutter frosting also found in the book. They were a hit. They had their debut at a cookout and there was nary a pie left!
Fluffernutter Whoopie Pies

1 egg
1/3 c. vegetable oil
1 c. sugar
2 c. unsifted all-purpose flour
1/3 c. unsweetened cocoa
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 c. milk
1 tsp. vanilla

Heat oven to 350 F. Grease two large cookie sheets and set aside. In a large bowl with mixer at medium speed beat egg and vegetable oil. Gradually beat in sugar and continue beating until pale yellow in color. In another bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. In a measuring cup combine milk and vanilla. Add flour and milk mixtures alternately to eggs and sugar, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Drop by tablespoons onto cookie sheet. These will spread a lot, so make 6 cakes per sheet at a time. Bake about 5 minutes or until top springs back when lightly touched with finger. Remove to wire racks to cool. When cool, use filling (see below) and two cakes to make sandwiches.

Fluffernutter Frosting

1 c. Marshmallow Fluff
1/2 c. peanut butter
1/3 c. butter or margarine, softened
1/4 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/3 c. confectioners’ sugar
2 T. milk

In small bowl with mixer at low speed, combine Fluff, peanut
butter and butter until blended. Increase speed to medium. Beat
in confectioners’ sugar, alternately with milk, adding just enough
milk to make frosting smooth and spreadable. Beat in vanilla.