Snickerdoodles and Smoothies
I’ve had a couple of culinary successes lately that I thought I’d share. First up are some Snickerdoodles Blondies. I got the recipe here, from Eat Me, Delicious. Strangely enough this is a vegetarian blog but I have found a lot of good recipes here. I followed the recipe on the site exactly and they turned out really yummy. They’re just Snickerdoodles in bar form, as you would imagine. I took them to a family gathering and everybody loved them! The best part is that it uses ingredients that most everybody will have on hand, nothing exotic in there.
Snickerdoodle Blondies
Dozen Flours (method slightly adapted)
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour (Jodi’s healthier version – 1 cup of this whole wheat unifine flour)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
(Jodi’s healthier version-added 2 Tbs. ground flax)
2 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup butter, at room temperature
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons white sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease a 9 x 13 inch pan.
Sift together flour, baking powder and salt and set aside. In large bowl, beat together butter, sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth.
Stir in the flour mixture until well blended. Spread evenly in prepared pan (mixture will be somewhat cookiebatter-ish.) Combine white sugar and cinnamon in a little bowl. Evenly sprinkle cinnamon sugar mixture over the top of the batter.
Bake 25-30 minutes or until surface springs back when gently pressed. Cool in pan 15 minutes on a baking rack. Once cool, cut them into bars.
I’ve also been making a lot of smoothies. I’ve been having one almost every morning for breakfast. I’ve found that I feel full longer and don’t seem to have as hard of a sugar crash a couple hours after having it. I’m very bad about eating sugary things for breakfast and this satisfies some of that sweet craving without so much of the bad stuff.
I kind of eyeball this as I prepare it, so the measurements aren’t ever exactly the same. It’s very forgiving. Here is what I’ve been tossing into the blender lately:
1/2 cup healthy berry blend (raspberries, blueberries, black raspberries)
1 container of yogurt (various flavors, keeps the every day smoothie from getting too boring)
2 tsp. honey (for sweetness – you can leave this out if you like)
2 Tbsp. ground flax
equal parts orange juice and skim milk – probably about 1/2 – 3/4 cup each
Blend it all up and enjoy! You can try different flavors of yogurt, different fruits, different juices…switch it up however you like. I haven’t made one yet that I didn’t like and I’m pretty picky!
I have also read that you can grind up oatmeal and toss some of that in there for more fiber. I haven’t tried that yet but it sounds like a good idea.
Let me know if you try either of these recipes and how you like them!
Can’t believe you like smoothies that much! I make mine with kefir. They are good. It has a nice zip and then I put in a bunch of fruit. A banana adds perfect sweetness if you don’t want honey or sugar.
I’ve been leaving out the honey lately and using french vanilla organic yogurt. I used to use kefir in them until I…um…possibly killed mine. I still need to figure out if it’s alive or not and get some creamery milk to restart it with.