Cinnamon rolls with cream cheese icing cooling,waiting on the coffee.

I made peanut butter cookies, and turned them into sandwich cookies filled with chocolate ganache.

On Monday, I baked my favorite cornbread, which is a healthier version of the usual cornbread. I used ½ cup white whole wheat flour for half the AP flour. I have some coarse grind cornmeal that I need to use, so I used ¼ cup of that with ¾ cup of fine ground cornmeal. It did not rise as high as one with the fine ground cornmeal, but it still did well, and it had a delightful slight crunch. It was excellent with our soup this evening.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 8 months ago by BakerAunt.

On Wednesday, as a break from painting the upstairs study, I used a Bob’s Red Mill recipe for Oregon Trail cookies, that I first tried last year and replaced the 4 Tbs. butter with 3 Tbs. canola oil. I also added 1 Tbs. flax meal and 1 Tbs. powdered milk and replaced the flax seed with an equal amount of sunflower seeds. I did not have dried cranberries, so I used dates. It was a very thick dough, and I had to work the seeds in by hand. I tried it as a bar cookie, by pressing it into a quarter-sheet pan lined with parchment. I overbaked them a bit. The drop cookies bake for 10 minutes, and I should have taken these out at 20 min rather than 23. They are somewhat dry, and I recall the drop cookies were also very dense. Next time I try this recipe, I plan to use quick rather than old-fashioned oats, and perhaps add a tablespoon or two of water.

On Thursday, I baked my standard bread machine kneaded loaf, this time using 1 ½ cups bread flour, 1 cup whole wheat, ½ cup dark rye, and 1 cup mixed 5-rolled grains as the grains. This was an increase in the rye, so I’ll see how we like it when we cut into it for Friday’s lunch.

On Friday, I began the morning by baking a recipe that I recently devised: Oat Bran Apple Date Walnut Muffins. I greatly adapted a base recipe that appeared in the Los Angeles Times food section over 25 years ago, so it is now mine. I used one of our regular Winesaps (supply is getting down) and left it unpeeled. I had a warm one with coffee this morning, and it was delicious and filling. The original recipe was always good warm but not so good on subsequent days. I’m hoping that grinding the oat bran—a tip from a Washington Post baking column that has worked with other oat bran muffin recipes—will give me muffins equally delicious at room temperature on subsequent days.