Baking Blackheart: Snacks

Trying to set us up with some additional snacks for the week, we decided to make strawberry fig newtowns. The girls never had fig newtons until they started day-care a couple of months ago. But Ryan loves strawberry newtons. We kind of decided to do this last minute and just grazed the cookbook before heading to the store last night. So we made some changes simply because we wanted to, we got different ingredients than the "original" recipe called for, and we thought it would work better.

I think we'll change it up a little bit next time, but they came out good.

What you'll need:

Ingredients:

Cookie Dough:

1/4 cup shortening
1/4 cup coconut oil* optional
1cup brown sugar, firmly packed
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder

Filling:

8 oz dried figs
1 pint fresh strawberries
1/4 cup table sugar
1 cup water
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp apple juice (or you can use orange if you want.)

Tools you will need:

mixer
2 large bowls
whisk
food processor
2 medium sauce pans
large spoon
parchment paper
baking sheet

Doh, no I mean dough. Let's make some cookies!

In a mixer, mix the coconut oil, brown sugar, 2 large eggs, vanilla extract, and shortening until creamy.

Note: I hate shortening. I think it's gross and next time I will use 2 sticks of butter instead of the shortening. But this time I tried to substitute the shortening with coconut oil. It didn't work. And I had to add shortening at the end to get the dough correct. But the cookies came out good, so I figured I should put what I actually did on here. Not writing about what I had "hoped" to do.

In a separate bowl, whisk all the rest of the dry ingredients.

Slowly, add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.

(This is where I had to add the shortening to get the dough to act properly.)

Refrigerate dough for 2 hours

Make filling!

Grind the figs in a food processor

Combine sugar, water, figs and juices in to a medium sauce pan on low heat.

Put hulled strawberries into the food processor, process, then add the strawberries to the fig mixture

Turn the stove to medium heat. Stirring constantly until the mixture becomes thick. (about 3-5 minutes)

Set aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 375F

Remove dough from fridge and roll it out on a floured surface into 14" X 16" rectangle.

Cut dough into 4 equal strips (4" X 14")

Spoon filling evenly down the center of each strip

Lift sides of strips over the filling and press to seal.

Cut each strip in half cross wide making (8) 7" X 4" strips

Place strips seam down, leaving 3" between each strip on a lightly greased or parchment paper lined cookie sheet.

Cut each strip into 1" pieces, but don't separate them

Bake for 13-15 minutes

Cool on baking sheet for a couple of minutes

Separate the cookie and continue cooling on cookie racks.

These things are so freaking good. Make some! The girls loved them, and now we have homemade snacks for the week. Well, that's if I don't eat them all tonight.

We rely heavily on snacks. Kids NEED snacks. But what to give them? If it was up to Rose, the girls would have chocolate cake and ice cream for every snack. But mostly they get gold-fish, crackers, cheese, and fruit. In an attempt to make more things at home, and the fact that it's spring break, we made our own crackers.

This recipe comes from King Arther's Flour Baker's Companion.

What you're going to need:

Ingredients:

1 cup un-bleached all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 eggs
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup a sugar
1/4 cup sesame seeds
4 tbsp butter
About 1/2 cup milk
Coarse salt