Baking with Less Sugar (19 page)

4.
Scrape the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until the top of the cake is firm and springs back when you press it lightly in the center. Remove the cake from the oven and let cool in the pan on a wire rack. The cake can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.

As crazy as it sounds, when people ask me, “What's your favorite recipe out of your cookbooks?” I feel like I'm being disloyal to the other recipes if I choose any one in particular. (As if the recipes had feelings!) It's really hard to pick just one favorite when you've worked so hard on each one, getting it just right to share with the world. That said, I am extremely fond of the Maple-Cranberry-Pecan Breakfast Cake from the first
Flour
book. While I won't say it's my favorite recipe, I will say that pancakes are my favorite breakfast indulgence, and this breakfast cake tastes exactly like pancakes. Here, I've created a less-sweet version that truly tastes just as good if not better than its inspiration. By using sweet crunchy cornmeal and cooking the cranberries in a little maple syrup before mixing into the batter, you get a rich, fragrant quick bread that makes for an excellent breakfast.

MAKES
ONE
9-IN [23-CM] LOAF

• 150 g/1
  ¹
  /
  ₂
  cups fresh or frozen cranberries, chopped
  
• 160 g/
  ¹
  /
  ₂
  cup grade B maple syrup
  
• 115 g/
  ¹
  /
  ₂
  cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
  
• 2 large eggs
  
• 245 g/1
  ³
  /
  ₄
  cups all-purpose flour
  
• 50 g/
  ¹
  /
  ₂
  cup medium-coarse cornmeal
  
• 1
  ¹
  /
  ₂
  tsp baking powder
  
• ¹
  /
  ₄
  tsp baking soda
  
• ¹
  /
  ₂
  tsp kosher salt
  
• 120 g/
  ¹
  /
  ₂
  cup buttermilk
  
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
  

1.
Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350°F [175°C]. Butter and flour a 9-by-5-in [23-by-13-cm] loaf pan, or butter and line the bottom and sides with parchment paper.

2.
Put the cranberries and maple syrup in a small saucepan and cook gently over medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes, or until the cranberries soften and warm up in the maple syrup. Remove from the heat and set aside.

3.
Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or with an electric hand mixer), beat the butter on medium speed for 1 to 2 minutes, or until softened and light. (If using a hand mixer, beat for a few minutes longer.) Drain the maple syrup from the cranberries and slowly add the warm syrup to the butter, continuing to beat on low speed until the syrup is completely mixed in. Scrape the bowl and the beater with a rubber spatula to ensure that the butter and syrup mix together well. Add the eggs and beat for 2 to 3 minutes, or until the eggs are mixed in.

4.
In a small bowl, combine the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir to mix well. Add about half of the flour mixture to the butter-egg mixture and, using a rubber spatula, fold by hand to combine. Add the buttermilk and vanilla and continue to fold. Add the remaining flour mixture and fold until all of the ingredients are well blended. Fold in the reserved cranberries.

5.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 60 to 70 minutes, or until the quick bread springs back when you press it in the center with your finger. Due to the lack of sugar, which contributes to browning, the quick bread won't get very golden brown; it will color a little on top, but use touch to determine when it is ready to remove from the oven. Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack. When cool, invert to pop the quick bread out of the pan.

6.
The quick bread can be stored, well wrapped with plastic wrap, at room temperature for up to 4 days. It's terrific served toasted or just as is. (I love it slathered with a little extra butter.)

Spices can be polarizing! It turns out whenever you make something with a lot of different spices, you'll end up with a lot of different opinions about whether or not there are too many spices or not enough. I felt like Goldilocks when making these muffins over and over to get the spices “just right.” I knew we finally got it down when Keith, one of my testers, made these for a brunch with a group of Flour bakers and they unanimously gave a thumbs-up. That's one heck of a group of tough critics to impress. The apple juice and chopped apples add a lovely sweetness and help make the muffins super moist.

MAKES
12
MUFFINS

• 170 g/
  ³
  /
  ₄
  cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
  
• 160 g/
  ¹
  /
  ₂
  cup mild unsulphured molasses (not blackstrap)
  
• 80 g/
  ¹
  /
  ₄
  cup grade B maple syrup
  
• 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
  
• 3 large eggs
  
• 120 g/
  ¹
  /
  ₂
  cup apple juice
  
• 420 g/15 oz pumpkin purée
  
• 420 g/3 cups all-purpose flour
  
• 2 tsp baking powder
  
• ¹
  /
  ₂
  tsp baking soda
  
• 1 tsp kosher salt
  
• 4 tsp ground ginger
  
• 4 tsp ground cinnamon
  
• ¹
  /
  ₂
  tsp freshly grated nutmeg
  
• ¹
  /
  ₈
  tsp ground cloves
  
• 1 medium Empire, McIntosh, Golden Delicious, Gala, or other sweet baking apple, peeled, cored, and diced small
  

1.
Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350°F [175°C]. Butter and flour a standard 12-cup muffin tin, spray with nonstick cooking spray, or line with paper liners.

2.
Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or with an electric hand mixer or by hand with a whisk), beat the butter, molasses, maple syrup, and vanilla on medium speed for 1 to 2 minutes, or until combined.

3.
With the mixer on low speed, add the eggs, one at a time, beating for about 30 seconds after each addition to combine the eggs and butter- molasses mixture thoroughly. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. With the mixer on low speed, add the apple juice and pumpkin purée and beat for about 30 seconds, or until combined. The mixture will look somewhat curdled—don't worry, it will all come together once you mix in the flour.

4.
In a separate large bowl, with a wooden spoon, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and apple. Dump the butter-egg mixture into the dry ingredients and fold carefully with a rubber spatula or a wooden spoon just until all of the dry and wet ingredients are well combined.

5.
Using a small ice cream scoop or a large spoon, scoop the muffin batter into the prepared tins. Fill the cups all the way to the top and overflowing. It will seem like too much batter for 12 muffins, but the batter does not spread that much so you can overfill the cups.

6.
Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until the muffins spring back lightly when you press them in the center and a toothpick comes out clean when you insert in the center of a muffin. This is a very heavy and moist batter, so don't under-bake or they will come out gummy. Let the muffins cool in the pan on a wire rack for 20 minutes and then carefully remove them from the pan.

7.
The muffins can be stored at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 3 days. Or store them in the freezer, tightly wrapped in plastic wrap, for up to 3 weeks; thaw them overnight on the counter. The unbaked muffin batter can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 2 days.

Our ginger-molasses cookies are rightfully beloved among Flour customers: the cookies are thick, chewy, spicy, buttery, and redolent with ginger. I adore them. In trying to come up with a version made without sugar, I knew that the flavor profile would work well by substituting molasses for all of the sugar. And because molasses has such a strong flavor, I also knew I could get by with less.

It turns out that
just
molasses in this cookie was a bit too distinctive. The cookie needed sweetness from the molasses, but the flavor was so sharp I had to cut down on the molasses and add a bit of mellower maple syrup. Once I got the sweetness level spot on (typically this recipe uses 400 g/2 cups of sugar), the next challenge was the texture. I wanted something different from our ginger-molasses cookie—something crispy and crunchy. But without sugar, which helps makes pastries crunchy and caramelized, I found it really challenging to get that snap I was looking for. Keith to the rescue! Keith was a cookbook tester for me for the second Flour book,
Flour, Too
, and subsequently he became a baker with us at Flour. He took this on as a personal challenge to make a crispy gingersnap, and he tested and retested various versions until he came up with this one. (The incentive that I would name the cookie after him didn't hurt, either!) So here you have it—Keith's cookies, which are named after him not only because of his work on these but also because of his super-bright, snappy nature! Note that there is a fair amount of waiting time in making these—waiting for the dough to chill and waiting for the cookies to cool and crisp in the oven.

MAKES ABOUT
24
COOKIES

• 170 g/
  ³
  /
  ₄
  cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
  
• 240 g/
  ³
  /
  ₄
  cup mild unsulphured molasses (not blackstrap)
  
• 80 g/
  ¹
  /
  ₄
  cup grade B maple syrup
  
• 1 large egg
  
• 210 g/1
  ¹
  /
  ₂
  cups all-purpose flour
  
• 4 tsp ground ginger
  
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
  
• ¹
  /
  ₂
  tsp ground cloves
  
• ¹
  /
  ₂
  tsp freshly ground pepper
  
• 1 tsp kosher salt
  

1.
In a medium bowl, vigorously whisk together the molasses, and maple syrup until well combined. Add the egg and whisk again, making sure all the ingredients are well mixed.

2.
In a small bowl, with a wooden spoon, combine the flour, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, pepper, and salt, and stir to evenly distribute the spices. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir well with a wooden spoon until well mixed. The dough will be soft.

3.
Refrigerate the dough for 1 to 2 hours, or until it stiffens up. It is really sticky, so it needs to chill before you can roll it out. Remove from the refrigerator and roll it between two pieces of parchment paper into a 10-in [25-cm] square about
¹
/
₄
in [6 mm] thick. Place the dough on a baking sheet and freeze for at least 3 hours or up to overnight.

4.
Place racks in the center and top shelves of the oven and preheat to 350°F [175°C]. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

5.
Remove the dough from the freezer and carefully peel off the parchment paper from one side of the dough. Lightly flour the dough, lay the parchment paper back on the dough, and flip it over. Carefully peel off the second piece of parchment paper and lightly flour the dough. Using a 2-in [5-cm] round cutter, dipping into flour each time to prevent sticking, cut out circles of dough and place on the prepared baking sheets, 12 cookies to a sheet. These spread a fair amount, so space them about 2 in [5 cm] apart. Reroll scraps of dough, reflour the dough, and continue to cut out cookies, working quickly to prevent the dough from softening too much. You should get about 24 cookies.

6.
Because these cookies don't contain any granulated sugar to help make them crispy, they get their snap by first being baked until they are firm in the oven and then drying out for several hours after you turn off the oven until they become crunchy. You can bake both baking sheets at once or bake them one after the other; if you bake both at once, use the top and center racks of your oven and switch the rack position about halfway through baking (that is, the top sheet moves to the middle rack and middle sheet moves to the top rack).

7.
Bake the cookies for 14 to 16 minutes, rotating the cookie sheet about 8 minutes in to ensure even baking, or until the cookies are firm to the touch and baked through. Turn off the oven and let the cookies crisp up in the oven until the oven completely cools, ideally overnight. The ginger-snaps will slowly dry out and get crispy as they cool. Remove from the oven and eat your snappy snaps! The cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week.