One year ago today, Sweet & Natural was born.  My baby’s growing up!  I feel so old.

I started this blog out of a desire to keep track of my baking adventures and a desperate need for a creative outlet.  With a vision of what baking could be – always whole grain, always naturally sweetened, always delicious – I staked out my little niche in cyberspace.  And much to my delight, there were people out there – you! – who shared my vision!

This past year has been SO fun and rewarding.  I’ve stretched my culinary imagination, learned about new ingredients, developed my written voice, played with photography and connected with others who have similar interests.

And you wonderful readers have been with me through it all!  Though there have been times when I wasn’t able to post as much as I’d like – I refer to those periods as the Dark (Chocolate) Ages – you kept coming back.  Just know, if I haven’t updated in a while, it’s only because I truly care about each and every post and simply don’t have the time to give one the attention it deserves.  No brownie or cookie of mine will ever receive sub-par treatment, no siree.  Trust me, unless I tell you the blog has been put to rest, I will always be back!  Your comments and e-mails help keep me motivated to get in the kitchen to bake up my next new treat.  So keep ‘em coming!  I love hearing from you when you bake up one of my recipes or have a question about ingredients or share a tasty treat of your own.

To celebrate Sweet & Natural’s first birthday, below are some of my personal favorite baked goodies from the past year.  They all received rave reviews from Dan, my family, friends and/or readers as well so are guaranteed to be scrumptious.  If you’ve made any of my recipes and have your own preferences, please chime in!  Enjoy!

Maple Almond Butter Cookies

Chocolate Carrot Cake & Cream Cheese Frosting

Crumbly Peanut Butter Oat Bars

Maple Banana Cornbread

Walnut Chocolate Chip Spelt Cookies

Spice Pumpkin Honey Muffins

Honey Yogurt Cheesecake Bars with Cinnamon Graham Cracker Crusts

Here’s to another Sweet & Natural year!  Thanks for reading!

I found myself with a whole lot of of pumpkin to use up the other day – remains from the giant-sized can I was forced to buy when my grocery store ran out of cans for normal-sized people.  What else is a girl to do but purchase enough squash for a small army when pumpkin pancakes are on the mind?  I promised myself I’d bake something with the leftovers.  And so here I am!

There’s obviously LOADS you can do with pumpkin, but I wanted to get creative.  Actually, what I really wanted was a brownie.  But I couldn’t forgo the pumpkin mountain in my fridge to fulfill my chocolate-y desires.  How utterly wasteful that would be.

Then it hit me. Pumpkin. Brownies. Half fudgy brownie.  Half dense, pumpkin-y delight.  I was so very excited about my highly original, super fun, and simply ingenious idea. Then I found out Martha Stewart had already done it.   Of course she had.

Not to be outdone by the diva homemaker, I set out to put my own twist on the pumpkin brownie idea.  And twist it I did!  Along with performing my standard Sweet & Natural adaptations to Martha’s recipe – whole wheat pastry flour for all-purpose, Sucanat for sugar, etc. – I made a bunch of other changes to ensure I got exactly what I was looking for.  Added some extra spice to the pumpkin…used a bigger pan…but most importantly, eliminated the baking powder.  Martha’s brownie pics look too much like cake, right?  Now, I have nothing against cake.  Unless it’s trying to pose for a brownie.  In that case, believe you me, I will not be fooled.  I want fudge, not fluff.  No baking powder = lower rise = density-dense flavor-packed yumminess.  Yes.

Here’s my take on Pumpkin Brownies:

Base mixture:

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 3/4 cup Sucanat

4 eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Chocolate mixture:

6 ounces grain sweetened chocolate chips

1/3 cup vegetable oil

Pumpkin mixture:

1 1/4 cup pumpkin

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon cloves

1/4 teaspoon ginger

Preheat the oven to 350*F.  Spray an 11×7-inch pan with cooking spray and set aside.  For the base mixture, mix together whole wheat pastry flour and salt in a bowl.  In a separate bowl, mix together Sucanat, eggs and vanilla until well-combined.  Stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients until blended.  Divide this mixture into two bowls.  For chocolate mixture, melt chocolate chips and oil in a bowl.  Stir into one half of the base mixture.  (Note: If batter feels dry, just steal some base mixture from the remaining half and add it in.  I found the chocolate batter to be drier than the pumpkin batter, so this is totally cool to do.  The pumpkin batter is very generous and will not hold it against you.)  For pumpkin mixture, combine pumpkin, oil, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger in a bowl.  Stir into other half of base mixture.  Spread chocolate batter evenly into prepared pan.  Top with pumpkin batter.  Bake for 25-30 minutes.  Makes 24 brownies.

Success!  The no baking soda idea did the trick in making these Pumpkin Brownies brownies and not cakey, chocolate-and-pumpkin flavored squares.  They were indeed the fudgy, dense, pumpkin-y delights I set out to achieve.  They also just so happen to be orange and black – quite fitting for the upcoming Halloween holiday, wouldn’t you say?

What’s the most interesting brownie you’ve ever eaten?

P.S. After mentioning it in my last post, I’ve had a request to share my European vacation with you all. Now I know such a trip is totally unrelated to Sweet & Natural baking, but I’m highly tempted to oblige – mostly because I love reliving it! Would you guys be interested?

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiii.

I’m back!  You’ll have to forgive me for the past couple months.  They were arguably the busiest of my entire life.  But I am baking once again!  Before we get into the details of my latest delicious creation, here’s a brief recap of recent events to give some context for my absence and perhaps entice understanding from my wonderfully patient readers:

• Moved into my new apartment
• Unpacked – umm…amidst the busyness, this took several weeks
• Waited for cable / internet to be installed…twice – thanks for not showing up the first time Time Warner!
• Travled to Rhode Island for a weekend to attend a wedding
• Planned and conducted a major brainstorming workshop for clients at work
• Cheered for the Cardinals at a Mets game – they’re in the playoffs now!
• Celebrated a good friend’s birthday
• Drove to CT and back for work meetings – times two
• Vacationed in Europe with Dan for 10 days – an absolute DREAM!  If this were a travel blog, I could do a billion posts about that trip!
• Worked 75+ hour weeks for a month straight, including through Labor Day weekend…
• …while I was in Chicago visiting my sister – and having lunch with Jenn!
• Traveled across the country for a week to watch market research focus groups
• Played host to my parents while they were in NYC for a weekend
• Researched and bought a new bike – wheeee!
• Brunched with old friends from high school
• Went to several doctor appointments
• Plus a whole bunch of other very important stuff that I need to keep secret for now…shhh…

Whew!  A lot of work (sad…) but a lot of fun (happy!) in there too.  With all of the above going on, I haven’t had much time – or kitchen access! – to make my own meals, let alone do any awesome baking.  However, the dust seems to be settling – knock on wood – so I am keeping my fingers crossed that we can now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

To kick it off, let’s play a little game of Train of Thought, shall we?  I’ll show you how I decided to make what I’m sharing with you right now!

Today = October.  October = fall.  Fall =  pumpkin.  Pumpkin = great oatmeal mix-in.  Great oatmeal = pumpkin + mashed banana + flax + …  Ooh – I got it!

These Pumpkin Banana Oat Muffins both welcome the new season and celebrate my re-found ability to make breakfast in the morning.  Pumpkin, banana, flax and maple syrup are the ingredients that make up my favorite bowl of oatmeal – and they’re now brought to you in muffin form!  Top these off with some peanut butter and you’re good to go.  Yum!

Here’s my recipe for Pumpkin Banana Oat Muffins, adapted from this recipe:

1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin

2 ripe bananas, mashed

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs

3/4 cup flax seed meal

2/3 cup maple syrup

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1 cup oats

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 375*F.  Spray muffin tins with cooking spray and set aside.  In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin, mashed bananas, vanilla, eggs, flax seed meal and maple syrup until well blended. In a separate bowl, mix whole wheat pastry flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients until just blended.  Pour into prepared muffin tins and bake for about 20 minutes.  Makes 18 muffins.

I was quite pleased with these muffins!  Seems like the ole baking skills haven’t gotten too rusty from lack of use.  Dan liked them too – though his enthusiasm might have been more reflective of the fact that I was baking anything at all!  Moist, chewy and filled with healthy ingredients – they’re a perfect way to start the day.

Do you eat oatmeal?  What would your fall + oatmeal muffins look like?

Well, bloggie friends, I’m moved into my new place!  And couldn’t be happier.  I can’t wait to explore the hood!  I’ve already spotted a health food store, mentally noted at least a dozen restaurants to try and bought a loaf of fresh bread from a nearby bakery.  Life is sweet.  Now if only the rest of my boxes would unpack themselves…

Oh, and did I mention that my fridge now has a freezer?!  Take that old apartment!  I’m sure it will soon be filled with yummy baked goodies.  And on that note, can someone tell me how to freeze things?  I’ve had nary an opportunity to do such a thing so am clueless re: avoiding freezer burn.  Help!

The recipe I’m sharing with you today was actually not made in my new apartment, but in my old apartment…um…two weeks ago.  I know, bad blogger.  Life got hectic!  But the photos I took ages ago have been staring at me from my desktop for too long.  I could wait no more to bring you Banana Coconut Bars.

B-t-dubs, if you think my pictures are prettier than usual, it’s because THEY ARE!  That’s courtesy of my awesome new camera, which is courtesy of my more awesome, #1, best-in-the-world boyfriend who proudly encourages my pursuit of the arts.  Yes, I am now the grateful owner of an SLR.  And my new apartment has natural light.  Things are looking up!

Back to the food…

These bars were born of a combined need to use up a bunch of uber ripe bananas and my recent interest in coconut.  Riddle me this:  I was never a fan of coconut.  I then made Super-Charge Me! cookies, which contain said ingredient.  Ever since, I’m drawn to all things coconut!  What?! I really do think those cookies are crack.

Here’s my recipe for Banana Coconut Bars:

3 ripe bananas, mashed

2 tablespoons molasses

1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce

1/4 cup agave nectar

1/4 cup maple syrup

2 cups white whole wheat flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

Preheat the oven to 350*F.  Spray an 8×8-inch pan with cooking spray and set aside.  In a large bowl, mix together mashed bananas, molasses, applesauce, agave and maple syrup until well blended. In a separate bowl, mix white whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir dry ingredients into banana mixture until just blended. Stir in coconut.  Pour into prepared pan and bake for about 50 minutes.

Coconut flakes!  Banana chunks!

These were go-od.  So good, in fact, that Dan ate nearly half the pan in one evening.  So good that I’m sort of regretting giving him so many…  They were super moist and banana-ey.  Like delicious banana bread in little square form.  And low in fat to boot!

What’s your favorite banana recipe?

She’s alive!!!

I hope you guys are still out there.

So I’ve been super MIA for the past few weeks!  Many apologies to you, but I promise it is not without good excuse.  I’ve been traveling like a mad women – for work and for play.  And my time actually in NYC has been devoted to apartment hunting.  For my non-New-York friends, let me tell you that this is a job in and of itself.   I adore this city, but looking for a home here is like nothing you will ever experience.  Very stressful and exhausting and you have to act FAST or your potential digs will be snatched up in the blink of an eye! 

Great news though!  I found my new place and signed the lease on Friday.  West Village here I come!  Could not be more thrilled.  Imagine walking out of your building to this…

Le sigh.  So quintessential West Village.

Alright, enough about me and my obsession with my new hood.  Let’s talk about brown rice flour!

BRF is ground from brown rice kernels.  Duh. The grains are harvested and then dried so they can be processed in the mill. Most mills make their BRF with a coarse grind, so the flour is slightly grainy and gritty.  You can feel the difference between BRF and whole wheat just by grabbing a handful of each and letting them slip between your fingers.  Try it!

You’ll get a mild, nutty flavor to your baked goodies when using BRF.  It’s also high in fiber, vitamins and minerals.  Love it.

BRF is entirely gluten-free.  Because of this, it does not behave exactly like wheat, so bakers like us should be ready to experiment with proportions and grain mixtures.  Now, I’m not an expert whatsoever in baking with this ingredient, so here’s where I ask for your help! 

Do you guys have any brown rice flour baking tips for me?  I’ve heard about adding gums – xanthan or guar – but have no clue how to do it or if I really have to!  Tell me what I need to know!

Summer, summer, summer.  It’s finally here!  I don’t know about your town, but summer in New York took its sweet time to arrive.  It was unusually chilly for far too long and I heard somewhere that it’s rained 75% of the days in June.  Acting out on a little Seattle envy, my dear NY?   

Good news is that it seems warmer days are now upon us.  Hooray!  In an attempt to celebrate the recent summertime glow enveloping the city, I decided to bake a sunny treat.  And to me, sunny means lemon! 

Now I’ll be up front with you here.  I’m not the biggest lemon fan.  Yeah, a nice lemon bar is alright every once in a while, but I’m not really a refreshing treat kind of girl.  I much prefer rich, deep flavors to light, airy ones in my sweets.  So I didn’t go the super sweet route with this recipe.  Instead, I concocted something slightly sweet – a lemon-infused cornbread type of thing.

Here’s my recipe for Lemon Honey Corn Muffins:

1/4 cup honey

3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 (6 ounce) container plain nonfat yogurt

1 egg

1 lemon, juiced and zested

1 cup brown rice flour

1 cup stone ground cornmeal

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 375*F.  Spray a muffin pan with cooking spray and set aside.  In a large bowl, mix together honey, applesauce, yogurt, egg, lemon juice and lemon zest until well blended. In a separate bowl, mix brown rice flour, baking soda, salt and nutmeg. Stir the dry ingredients into wet ingredients until just blended. Pour into prepared pan and bake for about 25 minutes.  Makes 12 muffins.

These were an interesting twist on traditional cornbread!  I’ve clearly taken a liking to creating recipes like that – as can be seen here and here.  The lemon makes the muffins taste quite fresh and the honey adds just the right amount of sweetness.  Perfect for summer!

What’s your favorite lemon baked goodie?

I have a very exciting announcement today…

My little sister started a blog! 

Guys, my sister is AWESOME – and gorgeous, right?  Look at that hair!  Her name is Amanda and she just finished her sophomore year in college and she’s one of my favorite people ever.  She got sucked into the food blog world when I started mine last fall and has taken the plunge and begun one of her own!  Check out My Summerizations to follow “an independent girl’s attempt at entertaining herself all summer long through food, words and exploration.” 

From the darling girl herself: “This summer I hope to discover new facets of myself as I do things I always wish I would: experiment with food, begin yoga, read more books and reflect on my thoughts…whatever they may be.”

Oh, and she’s a journalism major, so I know the writing will kick booty.  Love ya sis!

She loves me too.

For another announcement…my oven has been fixed!  At least, I think it has.  I haven’t officially tested it yet, but apparently it’s good to go.  So I’ll be back in the kitchen soon and share a recipe with you all this week!  Hooray!

Hello hello!

I returned last night from a wonderful, fun-filled, active and - importantly! – much-needed VACATION! My parents and I made our way around northern California like it was our job. Exploring San Francisco – Fisherman’s Wharf, Boudin Bakery, Victorian houses, Haight Street. Seeing the Full House house – yes, it was awesome. Walking the Golden Gate Bridge and back. Visiting my bro outside Sacramento. Touring Napa Valley vineyards and tasting wines. Relaxing in beachy Monteray and Carmel. Driving the coast and admiring the cliffs along the way. Hiking the Muir Woods redwood forest. Dining on the water in Sausalito. It was glorious!

With all my travels, I haven’t had a chance to get back in the kitchen and write a new Sweet & Natural post for you all. But I do have something to share! Mere hours before I left for the airport, miss Angela from Oh She Glows e-mailed me to see if I’d do a guest post on her blog. Seeing as I had a 6.5 hour plane ride from NYC to San Fran ahead of me – aka plenty of time to kill – I was more than happy to do so. Plus, Angela inspires her readers daily with her contagious enthusiasm for healthy living, so I was excited to contribute to the cause!

Head on over to her blog to read about my Top 5 Favorite Sweet & Natural Ingredients.

Guess what?

My oven broke.

Ha! I think this was its way of getting back at me for my negligence these past couple of weeks. I already knew it was temperamental, but this takes sensitivity to a whole new level. You don’t want to use me? Fine, I’ll stop working. A little passive aggressive, no?

So that’s getting fixed. But in the meantime, I couldn’t leave you all hanging with no new recipe! So today I’m sharing a sweet treat that requires no oven. Now I know this is a “baking” blog, but I personally would rather have a no-baked treat than no treat at all. So let’s roll with it.

Last summer, I came across this recipe for chocolate mousse made from avocados, or – in Jason Mraz The Creator’s words - chocomole. Cute name, right? I was instantly intrigued. It was right after a beach vacation where my friends and I made a GINORMOUS bowl of guacamole and proceeded to devour it quicker than I thought humanly possible that we really enjoyed. My friend, Kristen, Co-Guacamole Maker Extraordinaire, spotted the chocomole recipe the same day and forwarded it to me. It was clearly a must-try. So when I thought about making a no-bake sweet, guess what immediately came to mind?

The recipe is SUPER easy and all you need is a food processor to make it happen. But! It is pretty vague about how much of each ingredient to use. So I got to Googling and found a billion different versions, including one by the lovely Gena. Most of them seemed to suggest the same taste, adjust, taste, adjust process as Mr. Mraz. So that’s what I did – and I’m quite pleased with how it turned out!

You can add some extra sweetness if you’d like – agave nectar or maple syrup would be great and make it nice and smoooooth! – but I just wanted to keep the recipe as simple as possible.  Plus I think it’s really cool that there’s absolutely no added sweetener in this version.  This really is health food my friends.  

Here’s my Chocolate Avocado Mousse:

1 avocado

8 Medjool dates, chopped

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Place all ingredients in food processor. Blend, blend, blend – scraping sides when necessary – until smooth. That’s it! Makes 2-3 servings.

I loooooved this. It was so thick and fudgy. I am amazed at how so few and healthy – and maybe odd? – ingredients can come together to create something so delicious. Will definitley be making this again and again.

Have you ever made a sweet treat from avocado?

Molasses is:

(a) an awesome natural sweetener

(b) an example of how slow I’ve been at getting a new post up.  Badum-ching!  Cue laugh track.

How about all of the above?

Friends!  I know, I know.  I’ve been gone for far too long.  It’s been a busy couple of weeks – full of work craziness, business travels, fun travels, friends in town, etc.  And this post just sat on my To Do list.  And sat.  And sat.

And molasses doesn’t deserve that!  It treated me so well in my Walnut Molasses Whole Wheat Bread.  It’s only right that I return the favor and write it up for you all!  So here goes.

Molasses is the thick by-product from the processing of sugar cane into suger.  It has a syrupy texture, dark, caramel color and robust, bittersweet flavor.  Quick history…It was first imported into the U.S. from the Caribbean during colonial times – for use in rum!  It was a very popular sweetener until the late 19th century because, at the time, it was much more affordable than refined sugar.  But when refined sugar got cheaper, molasses was displaced.  It still has a fan in me!

To make molasses, the sugar cane plant is harvested and its juice is extracted.  The juice is then boiled, which causes the sugar to crystallize. This happens in three different stages.  When this first boiling is over and the sugar crystals are removed, you have first molasses, or light molasses.  Light molasses has the highest sugar content of all types of molasses because not much sugar has been taken out.  Second molasses, or dark molasses, comes from the second boiling and crystal removal.  The third creates blackstrap molasses, which has the least amount of sugar of all the molasses types.  Blackstrap molasses is pretty great.  Extracting all the sugar leaves behind a bunch of good stuff – manganese, copper, iron, calcium, potassium, magnesium.  Vitamins and minerals galore!

Molasses can be sulfured or unsulfured.  But go for the unsulfured.  That means the fumes used in processing the sugar aren’t retained as sulfur in the molasses.  No one wants that!

Molasses is about 65% as sweet as refined sugar.  If you want to substitute it in your recipes, your best bet is to use it in place of brown sugar.  The flavor profile and moisture content of molasses lend themselves well to this swap.  Try 1 cup molasses for every 3/4 cup brown sugar.  Molasses can also be used cup for cup in place of honey, agave nectar or maple syrup.  The taste will obviously change, but it could make for some fun experiments!

Do you use molasses in your baking?  What’s your favorite recipe?