Gluten-free spice cake

Lately I’m making this great little spice cake a lot around here. It really resembles a quick bread more than a cake. I think of it as a snack rather than a dessert, though it’s sweet enough to round off a winter meal nicely too. Though I haven’t tried this (since we still don’t own a toaster after chucking our gluten-filled one ages ago), a slice of this cake would probably be great lightly toasted with a smear of butter and a drizzle of honey to jazz it up.

I like it plain and simple, packed in my lunch at work or just eaten around the house when I’m craving something small and tasty, but also nutritious. J is a big fan of it too, which always counts for a lot in my book. I don’t really enjoy making things if he doesn’t want to eat them too.

The recipe is very adaptable, and I really like the fact that it includes some fruit or vegetable to make it all the more healthful. It’s very easy to throw together, and I usually have all the ingredients on hand. But the most convincing argument to make this cake is that it’s so tasty. It’s moist with a deep flavour thanks to the spices, and I really like the crunchiness of the nuts throughout. The texture is also beautiful: tender but not too crumbly. It doesn’t fall apart as soon as you slice it, but stays together firmly.  I know this is a cliché, but this is one of those baked goods that no one would ever guess is gluten-free.  

After months of procrastinating, I finally did up our new household budget for the next three months. It’s a bit sobering, but also really nice to know exactly where all of our money is going. I’m definitely on a tighter grocery budget than I was before, which means I’m trying to be really creative with the cheapest, yet most wholesome ingredients possible.

Making rather than buying gluten-free snacks is a big part of this. Not only is it cheaper, but they usually taste better, and you know exactly what’s in them. My goal is to start regularly making bread and crackers so we don’t have to buy them anymore. I’ve starting experimenting with homemade crackers, and I think I’ve figured out the perfect recipe. It might need a few more little tweaks, but I promise to share it here soon.

As for sweet baked treats, they’re something I also like to have on hand as often as I can. For that reason I try not to make them too decadent, so we don’t have to feel guilty eating them. I always bake with whole grains and I often use less sugar than a recipe calls for.

This spice cake is based on a recipe from one of my favourite blogs – 101 cookbooks. It’s always a good place to go if you’re looking for cooking inspiration. I really appreciate that Heidi includes weights in her baking recipes, which makes them much easier to convert to gluten-free. This cake converted beautifully, as most quick breads do.

A few notes about the recipe: I used the gluten-free flours listed below because it’s what I had on hand. Feel free to experiment or use your favourite mix. To get the most consistent results, use a scale to make sure you keep the same total weight of flours I used. I prefer a ratio of about 70 percent whole grain flours to 30 percent starches, but it’s up to you.

If you don’t have any garam masala, don’t let it deter you from trying this. This Indian spice blend is usually a mixture of black pepper, cloves, cumin seeds, and cardamom seeds, so you could try it with a bit of each. Maybe not too heavy on the cumin. I ran out of both cinnamon and garam masala the last time I made this, so along with what I had left of those spices, I added some ginger, allspice and cardamom. Still awesome.

And finally, I’ve baked the cake with bananas and sweet potato with delicious results. I haven’t tried it with squash yet, though that’s what the original recipe calls for so I’m sure it would be great too. Depending on how sweet you want it, you could add a little more sugar if you’re using squash since it’s generally not as sweet as bananas or sweet potato.

Gluten-free Spice Cake
adapted from this recipe

1/4 cup / 35 g brown rice flour
1/2 cup / 60 g sorghum flour
3 Tbsp / 25 g millet flour
1/4 cup / 28 g tapioca starch
2.5 Tbsp / 22 g sweet rice flour 
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon garam masala
1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup  packed + 1 Tbsp. / 115 g brown sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup / 130 g ripe mashed bananas, cooked mashed sweet potato, or roasted pureed winter squash
1/4 cup / 60 ml milk or water
1/2 cup / 115 g vegetable oil or melted butter
1/3 cup / 30 g chopped almonds or walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a loaf pan that’s about 9x5x3 inches. (As you can see in the photos above, I’ve used two sizes of loaf pan and they both work fine.)

Whisk together the dry ingredients in a medium-sized bowl. In a separate bowl, mix together the brown sugar, eggs, banana or sweet potato or squash, milk or water, and oil until blended.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and fold together until there are no floury patches. Mix in most of the nuts. Pour the batter into the pan and sprinkle the rest of the nuts on top.

Bake the cake for 50 to 60 minutes, until the edges have browned and the centre of the cake is set. You can test for doneness using a skewer or toothpick inserted into the middle – it should come out clean.

This cake keeps well on the counter for a few days, wrapped in plastic wrap or stored in an air-tight container. 

Morning Smoothie

My new habit is eating a morning smoothie. I even got J into it.

It's a fresh, easy, delicious way to start the day. It may sound cliche, but I'm always trying to find easy ways to get more vegetables and fruits into our diets, and smoothies are a great one.
I also love them because they're so adaptable. You can add lots of different things - fruit, yogurt, any kind of milk, juice, vegetables (though I haven't tried this yet), ground flax seeds, nut butter etc.

Here's how I'm making mine these days:

I ripe banana
About 1/2 cup frozen fruit (we usually use berries)
About 2 Tbsp. ground flax seeds
a few spoonfuls yogurt
Enough milk or liquid to make it smooth and drinkable

Blend it up and enjoy!

We bought a new immersion blender recently, with a more powerful motor, so it makes this really easy. I find the combination of ripe banana and yogurt, plus some frozen fruit, makes the perfect consistency: thick enough, creamy and frothy. I always use plain yogurt (my fave) and I never add sugar - the fruit is sweet enough.

I've been buying Fairwinds Farm goat milk at the Italian Centre and using that in my smoothie. I tasted it on its own and was surprised to find it tasted just like cow's milk to me - no funky sharp taste like most goat's cheese and yogurt has. It blends up into a creamier mix than our other standby, almond milk, but almond milk makes the smoothie a bit sweeter. The goat milk is expensive, but it's really great to have on hand for recipes that just don't work as well without dairy.

To last through the morning without getting too hungry, I usually combine my smoothie with a bowl of whole-grain cereal with milk and raisins, or some gluten-free toast with peanut butter or avocado. Yup, I like a hearty breakfast.

What do you like in your smoothies? Do you add vegetables? Let me know, I'd love some other ideas!

Spring Entertaining: Olive and Pistachio Tartine

After a long entertaining dry spell, we decided it was finally time to clean up the place and have some people over for supper. I think it was the lovely spring weather that put us in the mood. We love to entertain, but when we're super busy we kind of forget about it. We forget how much fun it is to plan a simple menu, cook up some delicious food, and share it with friends.

In my ever-so-lucky job at CBC radio, I get the chance to test-drive lots of cookbooks. We took some inspiration for our two recent soirees from one I received recently and another I reviewed last fall: Giada At Home by Giada de Laurentiis, and French Taste by Laura Calder.

I've never used a cookbook by Giada, though I've watched her show a few times on the Food Network and mostly been impressed by the size of her cleavage. But this cookbook is good. Simple recipes and a nice style. A few too many family photos for my taste, though.

Laura Calder's French Taste is fast becoming one of our favourite cookbooks. I loved this when I reviewed it, and we're still loving it. Confession: I never used to like Laura when I watched her show. She seemed kind of uppity. But when I interviewed her she was the sweetest thing, and I quickly became converted. I love that this book has little essays on the importance of shopping well, of eating with friends, and other civilized things. She's a charmer, and her recipes are great too. She brings a chic elegance to French food that has nothing stuffy or staid about it.

We made:

Pea Pesto from Giada

Olive and Pistachio Tartine from Laura

 
Warm Roasted Potato Salad from Laura

 
Sesame Soy Avocado from Laura

 
Prosciutto-wrapped dates stuffed with goat cheese from Giada (these were good but sooo rich)

 
Pineapple Upside Down Cake from Nigella Express (another great
book)

 
Our cookbook collection has probably doubled in the past year and a half (through CBC and my own buying), and now I find myself with books on the shelf that I've barely used. This week I'm beginning our menu planning more vigorously, and I'm going to try to use some of the books I don't know very well. Up next: Michael Smith's Chef at Home, Nigella Express, and We Eat Together by Julianna Mimande and Gabe Wong.

Olive and Pistachio Tartine
Adapted from French Food at Home by Laura Calder

This is is the easiest thing in the world but so satisfying, and it was one of the most popular things on the table the night we made it. I always forget how much I like olives and this is a great way to remind yourself.

All you do is take about a cup of black or kalamata olives, pit them (or do the smart thing and buy them pitted), chop them up into small pieces, and mix them with a few tablespoons olive oil, a few teaspoons of chopped thyme, zest from about half a lemon and a little lemon juice to taste. Season with ground black pepper, and that’s it! Spread onto rounds of crisped baguette and sprinkle with chopped pistachios – the combination is so perfect. This is basically a very simple version of olive tapenade, and if you wanted a smoother mixture you could easily blitz it through a food processor or crush it in a mortar and pestle. Really, you could season olives any number of ways and they would be delicious, so experiment and see what tastes good.

Spelt Crackers

Who knew you could make crackers at home? Not me. Until I read about it on smitten kitchen, one of my favourite food blogs. We don’t usually buy crackers at the store. I’m a big fan of all the fancy-schmancy ones like Raincoast Crisps, but they’re so uber-expensive that I rarely splurge on them. But these crackers? They’re cheap, simple and delicious.

All you have to do is mix some spelt flour, yeast, salt and water in a bowl. The dough will be a bit shaggy, but keep mixing. When it’s starting to come together, stick your hands in there and bring it together in a ball. Dump it out onto the counter and knead it a few times. Then, roll it out into a large rectangle, score it into squares, spritz some water onto it, and sprinkle whatever you like on top. I decided on sesame seeds, poppy seeds, and flaky sea salt.

Pop it in the oven, and your job is done. When the crackers are browned and crispy, pull them out and break them apart. Wait until you taste them. They’re crackly, nutty, and perfect for snacking. With cheese or without.

I used spelt flour like the original recipe calls for, but I’m sure it would work with all-purpose as well, or a mixture of all-purpose and whole wheat. Since I had a big bag of whole spelt flour on hand, that’s what I used, and the crackers came out much browner in than smitten kitchen’s photos. They also took longer to bake – I think I sprayed them with a little two much water. You could top these with just about anything: a dusting of parmesan, caraway seeds, red pepper flakes, etc.

Tzatziki with Swiss Chard

Soon, the days of buying swiss chard and other greens at the farmers’ market here in Edmonton will be gone. We’re gearing up for the winter version of the market: root vegetables and not much else.

There might be a few more weeks left of greens, though, and this is a recipe that uses them up nicely. I found this recipe on Tea and Cookies, a wonderful blog with simple, honest recipes and beautiful essays and photos.

I’ve never even made regular tzatziki before, the kind with cucumbers. But this one was easy and delicious. I’m sure it would also work with spinach. I used goat’s milk yogurt from Fairwinds Fair, which makes it extra tangy. We ate it on toasted whole-wheat bread, but it would also be great with pita chips and raw vegetable, and on sandwiches. Make it now while you can still buy local greens.

Apple-Rhubarb Sauce

Some of the food I’ve been making on this cleanse feels very autumnal. Roasted acorn squash rings. Roasted sweet potato fries. Lentil soup.

I have been eating lots of salads, lots of asparagus, and lots of avocado too, so there’s definitely a healthy dose of spring on the menu. But I wouldn’t usually be roasting squash or making applesauce at this time of year.

This applesauce, however, is a perfect blend of spring and fall. I love rhubarb, and when I saw the beautiful red and green stalks appear at the market a few weeks ago I couldn’t resist them. But I usually use rhubarb in cakes or crumbles, and I haven’t been doing a lot of baking lately. So I tried to figure out how to cook with it as the stalks got limper and limper in my crisper.

I scoured the internet for “rhubarb no sugar” recipes and somewhere along the way, I got the idea to blend applesauce with stewed rhubarb. The apples act as a natural sweetener, and that’s pretty much all you need.

Thankfully, rhubarb is a hardy vegetable.  It looked limp and defeated when I plucked it from the drawer, but after I chopped it up and stewed it down with some vanilla and spices, it fell apart beautifully.

I think the rhubarb makes ordinary applesauce a lot more interesting. It adds a tangy note, and the vanilla flavour really came through, especially in my first batch. You don’t need to stew it with anything but water, though, if you don’t have the other ingredients on hand.

This sauce was one of my treats for the first few weeks of this cleanse. Spooned into a bowl and topped with a shake of cinnamon and maybe a few sunflower seeds, it makes a great snack that I often craved more than a piece of fruit.

The last of the fall apples are still at the farmers’ markets, which makes this recipe almost completely local too. Always a bonus!

For a summery variation, I think this could also work with strawberries or raspberries instead of the rhubarb. And it would be delicious spooned over vanilla ice cream …

Apple-Rhubarb Sauce

About 5 0r 6 apples, unpeeled, cored and cut into eighths
One bunch rhubarb
Seasonings (optional):
   Half a vanilla bean
   5 whole cloves
   3 cardamom pods
Honey or sugar (optional)

To make apple sauce, put apples in a heavy saucepan with about a ¼ inch of water in the bottom. Cover the pan and cook over medium heat for about 20 minutes, or until the apples are soft enough to blend easily. If there is too much liquid left, leave the pot to sit off the heat for a few minutes and it will evaporate.

Blend the apples using a food processor or immersion blender. You could probably use a potato masher or a fork too for a chunkier sauce.

Meanwhile, chop the rhubarb into bite-sized pieces and put it into a heavy pot with just a splash of water. Add the half-vanilla bean, cloves and cardamom pods. Cover the pan and cook over medium heat for about ten minutes until the rhubarb is soft and falling apart. Remove the seasonings, then blend with a fork.

Stir the two sauces together. When I made it I think I had about equal ratios between the two fruits, or more apples, maybe  two-thirds to one-third. Taste for sweetness, and add honey or sugar if you think it is too sour. 

Gluten-free muffins

As I’ve mentioned here before, J and I have been trying to eat less gluten in the past few months. We wanted to see if it would make us feel different, since we both have a few digestive issues.  So far, J is feeling better, but I haven’t really noticed any difference. The stomach aches I sometimes get don’t seem tied to gluten.

Because of this experiment, I have been doing some gluten free baking, which has been interesting, fun, and yes, expensive. Gluten-free flour is not cheap. Especially because most recipes call for several different types of flour that all blend together to become a semblance of wheat. I haven’t bought any of the gluten-free flour mixes that are on the market yet, although I’m sure there are good ones. I’ve been going solo with my chickpea flour and tapioca starch (and several others).

I’ve made several loaves of chickpea bread from Bette Hagman’s book The Gluten-free Gourmet Bakes Bread, and they are quite good. No, they are not the same as wheat bread, but they are tasty. The texture is a bit dry and spongy, but it is perfectly fine once toasted, which is the way I usually eat my bread anyway.

Last week I tried my hand at some gluten-free muffins. I had been craving some muffins, since they are a treat that I love. In an ideal world, I would whip up a batch of fruit or vegetable-filled muffins once or twice a week so we could have a constant supply in our cookie (or muffin) tin, waiting for breakfast, a midday snack, or really any time of day. Some of my favourites are zucchini, carrot, apple and cranberry. If you have the right recipe, muffins can be both nutritious and delicious. And a homemade muffins beats most cafe or store-bought ones any day, for taste and for price.

I searched the internet for some gluten-free muffins and read many a recipe before I found a few with ingredients that I (mostly) had. I used one of those as a guide for the flours, and my favourite apple muffin recipe from a Moosewood cookbook for the rest of it. I was pretty proud of myself for adapting it, because they turned out great. They tasted like yummy apple muffins, and the only difference from the wheat version was a slightly darker brown colour and a more crumbly texture.

These passed the gluten test, too: J’s aunt and cousins, who were visiting, gobbled some up. If we stick to this gluten-free thing, I will definitely be making them again. They’re also a nice way to use some of the apples that we have been constantly eating … one of the only local fruits left. We buy our apples at the BC orchard stand at the Farmers’ Market. Lately we’ve been hooked on the Aurora variety, and they are really delicious. But … I am starting to crave some berries in this never-ending winter!

Gluten-Free Apple Muffins

Adapted from this recipe and Apple muffins from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home

I made the oat flour by pulsing some oats with my immersion blender – I’d never done it before but it worked great. But I’m sure you could leave the oats whole for a slightly chewier muffin.

2 large eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
2 cups grated apples
1 tsp. freshly grated lemon peel (optional)

1/2 plus 1/3 cup sorghum flour
1/4 cup oat flour (or oats)
1/4 cup almond meal
1/3 cup quinoa flour
1/3 cup tapioca starch
1  1/4 tsp. xantham gum
2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cinnamon, or 1/4 tsp. nutmeg and 1/4 tsp. cloves

1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350.

In a large bowl, mix together the eggs, oil, sugar and vanilla. Add the apples and lemon peel and stir to combine.

In a separate bowl, whisk together all of the dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the wet, and stir just until combined. Make sure not to stir too much, or the muffins will be dense. Add the nuts if you’re using them.

Spoon the batter into oiled muffin cups, or cups with paper liners. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until puffed and golden brown. A knife inserted into the centre of a muffin should come out clean.

Cornbread

So I lied. I haven’t given you my cornbread recipe. And believe me, it’s worth giving.

But I can’t really take credit. It’s not my recipe. The one I make now is mostly attributed to the Moosewood Restaurant New Classics cookbook, with a little inspiration from Deborah Madison thrown in.

I started baking the Moosewood cornbread during my undergrad. I think it was because of a summer meal after my first year, when my friends Gavin and Phil came to visit me on P.E.I. They were at my house for supper and my sister Claire made vegetarian chilli and a huge platter of this cornbread. I fell in love with it. We ate outside in our backyard under the poplar trees. I remember my Dad telling Phil and Gavin stories about his younger days, when he drank lime ricky sandwiches.

(Lime Ricky is a kind of pop only made, to my knowledge, by the Seaman's bottling company on P.E.I. A Lime Ricky Sandwich, according to my Dad, was a shot of moonshine, a shot of lime ricky, and another shot of moonshine. I believe he drank these around the tender age of sixteen. By the time I was old enough to notice, he had long since switched to Captain Morgan on the rocks.)

I photocopied the recipe and started baking the cornbread myself when I got back to university later that year. I’ve been making it ever since. It became a hit with my roommates, particularly Rachael who actually started calling me Cornbread, a nickname that lasted right up until graduation (and possibly persists to this day).

So you see, this cornbread recipe comes with a lot of history attached. Treat it with respect. Make often, and enjoy unadorned, with butter and jam, or with a slice of aged cheddar cheese.

I’ve often meant to try a different cornbread recipe, or at least add some corn kernels, grated cheese, and/or diced green chiles to my basic recipe, as I’ve seen in so many other places. But I still haven’t gotten around to it. I guess that means this one is pretty darn good.

Isabelle’s Cornbread

Adapted from Moosewood Restaurant New Classics and Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison

Using butter in the pan means it comes out golden-crisped and fragrant. A Deborah Madison trick!

2 Tablespoons butter

1 cup cornmeal

½ cup all-purpose flour

½ cup whole-wheat flour

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 eggs

¼ cup vegetable oil

2 to 4 tablespoons honey to taste

1 cup milk (soy works fine) or plain yogourt

Preheat the oven to 425. Put the butter in an 8-inch square baking pan and put the pan in the oven while it’s heating. Meanwhile, stir the dry ingredients together and make a well in the centre of the bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients. As soon as the oven is hot, remove the pan and brush the butter around the edges. Pour any excess into the wet ingredients. Quickly mix the wet and dry ingredients together, then pour the batter into the pan and bake in the middle of the oven until golden brown on top and beginning to pull away from the edges, about 25 minutes.

Muffins, Bread, and Granola

It’s time for some recipes that I’ve been meaning to share. I kind of went on a cooking and baking spree over the last few weeks, when I was hanging around the apartment looking for a job.

Our first week at the market we bought a very, very large zucchini. Kind of baseball bat-ish, if you know what I mean. I should have taken a picture of it whole to show you how very big it was.

So even after cooking two zucchini side dishes, there was a chunk of zucchini left over. I pondered what to do with it, and the obvious conclusion was to turn it into zucchini muffins. I also thought they would be a good choice because it was a rather stringy zucchini. I actually liked the texture of it cooked (and it still tasted delicious) but J wasn’t really a fan.

So I grated that old chunk of zucchini down and made my fallback muffin recipe, Moosewood Muffins. It never lets me down. These muffins are delicious - moist with a springy texture and lots of flavour from the spices. And even though there are only two of us, they didn’t last long.

Next I decided to make something that I’ve been wanting to try since the spring: No-Knead Bread. I saw the recipe on several of the food blogs that I read, and it sounded amazing. I have only ever made bread in the breadmaker and this sounded just as easy, if slightly more time-consuming.

It was definitely worth the extra effort. Breadmaker bread is great, but this felt a lot more like real homemade bread. It was bread bliss: soft on the inside, crunchy on the outside, with a subtle flavour. And it only has four ingredients!

This is a recipe you could definitely add stuff to, though. I have read that some people use half whole-wheat flour, or spelt or other flours. Maybe next time I will experiment a bit.

And cooking bread in a pot – what could make a girl feel more rustic and domestic than that?

Well, maybe making granola. Although I guess that has more of a hippie ring to it. Granola is another one of those great recipes that you can fiddle with to your liking. You barely even need a recipe to give it a whirl (though I’m usually never brave enough to abandon the guide entirely).

This time I sort of made a cross between the recipe in my new Deborah Madison book, and Nigella’s from her cookbook Feast that I made over the summer. Deborah’s recipe calls for less sugar, which made me feel good about myself. But when J tasted it, he said it wasn’t as good as before. I thought it was still great, but feel free to add as much sweetener as you like.

By now all three of these treats are long gone. Now that I’m a working girl (Yess!) I don’t have as much time to stay home and bake all day. But I’m hoping to get in a little quality time with my oven this weekend.

Muffin Madness from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home

Basic Wet Ingredients:
2 large eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 - 1 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Basic Dry Ingredients:
2 cups unbleached flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Choose one of the following combos to add to basic ingredients (the above is NOT a plain muffin recipe, but the base for the following)

Apple muffins: Add 2 cups of grated apple and 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel to wet ingredients and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon to dry ingredients.
Banana muffins: Add 1 1/2 cups of mashed banana to wet ingredients and 1 cup chopped nuts and/or 1/2 cup of chocolate chips to batter.
Blueberry - lemon muffins: Add 1 1/2 cups of blueberries and 1 tablespoon of grated lemon peel to wet ingredients.
Zucchini muffins: Add 2 cups of grated zucchini to wet ingredients and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon of ground cardamom to the dry ingredients. Fold in 1/2 cup of raisins or currants and 3/4 cup of chopped nuts to batter (I didn’t add raisins or nuts to mine).

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, Combine wet ingredients, then stir in the zucchini (or other ingredients of your choice). In another bowl, sift together the dry ingredients, including spices. Stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients, being careful not to overmix. Fold in the additional ingredients if your variation calls for them.

Spoon batter into oiled standard muffins tins and bake for 20-25 minutes, until puffed and golden brown. (If using mini-muffin tins, bake for only 10-15 minutes.) A knife inserted into the centre of a muffin should come out clean.

Makes 12 muffins.

This recipe is really just a template for creativity. You could probably try tons of other fruit/nut/chocolate combinations that would be delish.

Granola

Adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison and Andy’s Fairfield Granola from Feast by Nigella Lawson

3 cups rolled oats

Around ¼ cup chopped nuts (I used whole almonds and sunflower seeds)

About ¼ cup sesame seeds

½ teaspoon grated nutmeg

½ teaspoon cinnamon

Pinch of salt

¼ cup applesauce (just because I had some lying around)

1/8 cup canola oil

¼ cup to ½ cup honey or maple syrup (you could also add brown sugar)

½ cup raisins, currants, cranberries or chopped apricots

Preheat oven to 300. Combine all the ingredients except the dried fruit in large bowl and mix to make sure everything is distributed.

Spread the mixture on two cookie sheets with sides and bake until golden, turning every 10 minutes so that it browns evenly. This will take about 30 – 50 minutes, depending on your oven.

Let cool on the pans, then mix with the dried fruit. Store in a tightly covered jar or plastic container.