If you want a great protein bar, I highly recommend the Bumble Bar. They’re made with sesame seeds, flax seeds, and almonds. The downside is the brown rice syrup, but it’s okay if you’re heavily into cardio, or just don’t care. (Locals: you can only get these at Zehrs in the organic section).
They’re delicious, sweet, and not heavily processed. I also suggest Lara Bars, which generally only have 2-3 ingredients. I usually have a Lara Bar for breakfast, since it’s easy to throw into my bag before walking to work. (Locals: You can get these anywhere, even Walmart).
I’m a terrible blogger. Go get some multi-coloured carrots and make something delicious today. And then listen to the new Metric song. I’m still unsure how I feel about it.
Note: this post made me realize just how much of a nerd I really, truly, am. Proceed with caution.
I’m back on Paleo. I’m enjoying it and I’m feeling better (with the exception of last week’s flu). Barring any illness, injury or deaths, I plan to stick with it. But, conflictingly, I still like to bake.
Paleo is based on the avoidance of grains and sugar. Baking, however, is built on the abundance of them. Why make banana bread for your coworkers if you don’t even get to taste it?
But I continue to make banana bread. What can I say, I love baking.
I love the smells. I love the textures of baked goods. I love the flavours of vanilla and chocolate. When I made that banana bread the intoxicating smell filled my entire loft. That smell of crisp, buttery bread, the musk of real vanilla, and sweet, overripe banana.
So that night, while the banana bread cooled, I tried to sleep. For hours I laid in bed, not sleeping, but thinking. “I will not eat banana bread. I will not eat banana bread.”
I ate a piece of banana bread.
I blame the cruel cominbation of wheat withdrawl and my awesome recipe for banana bread. I felt horrible after, but in that moment of gluten-ous bliss, it felt like the best 3 minutes of my week. Thinking about all of this makes me feel oddly existential: can I bake things that taste good, and smell like heaven, while still believing in the general principles of Paleo? Can I bake for others, but not myself? Hell, my long-term life goal has been to open a bakery! How can I do that when I believe eating sugar and grains will take years off my life?
So now, instead of baking, I’ve been wandering the gluten free aisles. Usually in the middle of the night. God, I love 24-hour grocery stores. I like to snack and I’m not fully past the wheat craving stage of Paleo. I think the store clerks find me strange. I’m always browsing the shelves, reading ingredients on one package, shaking my head in disgust, and moving on to the next. I never find anything for my particular set of dietary restrictions. No one really makes Paleo-friendly cookies. Most would argue there can be no such thing.
Grocery store gluten free cookies, for the most part, suck. Gluten free, while growing, is still niche market. I assume to broaden their addressable markets most brands try to hit the following diminutions at once:
Gluten free
Vegetarian and/or Vegan
Dairy free
Low fat
Nut free
You can’t make anything taste good with all those restrictions. Pick one diet, do it well.
Most gluten free products look like standard recipes, they just replace wheat flour with a mix of corn, rice, and garbanzo flours, using xanthan gum for binding. Sometimes you get buckwheat or sorghum. The results are always gummy, dry, crumbly cookies that taste like dirt. They’re also very high in sugar and starch.
So how do you make a good gluten free cookie? Cookies in general are a broad a topic to discuss – there are too many textures and flavour profiles. I want to focus, specifically, on the chocolate chip cookie. A good chocolate chip cookie has the following traits:
Chewy, but not too chewy
Chocolatey
Vanilla-y
Crispy edges
Can be dipped into milk
And I think I’ve done it. I’m proud to say this is the first time I’ve created a new recipe, from scratch, simply through experimenting with my general baking knowledge. It’s not how you expect to make a chocolate chip cookie, and this to me is why baking, like design and development, is so fascinating. You can use the same ingredients to make completely different things. Or, you can take completely different ingredients and achieve the same result. It all depends on your requirements.
These aren’t your grandma’s gluten free cookies – they’re as good as real chocolate chip cookies. Paleo folks could likely drop the sugar further. I took three dozen of these cookies to work and by lunch they were gone. I hope you try them and like them. And if you do, please let me know how they worked out for you. I’m still trying to work out how to make the tops look more cookie like, but the bottoms sure have the right idea:
Chocolate Chip Cookies (gluten free, low sugar, kind-of Paleo, very delicious)
1 cup toasted walnuts
1/2 + 1/4 cup maple syrup (or honey)
1 tablespoon unprocessed cocoa
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1+2 egg whites (3 total)
1 cup dark chocolate chips (or carob chips)
Preheat oven to 375°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. You must use parchment paper or silicone sheets for this recipe or your cookies will be stuck, forever, to your pans. This can only lead to heartbreak.
In a food processor, add toasted walnuts, 1/2 cup maple syrup, cocoa, salt, vanilla extract, and one egg white. Process until you have a coarse paste. Set aside.
In a stand mixer, beat remaining two egg whites on high speed until foamy. Still beating, slowly add remaining 1/4 cup of maple syrup. Beat until glossy, stiff peaks form, about 6 minutes.
Add a few tablespoons of egg whites into the nut mixture. Stir this in to lighten the mixture. Fold the nut mixture into the egg whites until well integrated. Fold in chocolate chips.
Spoon heaping tablespoons of batter onto lined baking sheets, spaced about 1-inch apart. The batter should hold its shape, but will be fluid, not like a dough. Bake both sheets at once, for 12 minutes, switching racks after 6 minutes.
Slide parchment paper from baking sheet to counter, and cool cookies completely. Sometimes these cookies will firmly stick to the parchment. If that happens, slide a butter knife or pie lifter gently under the cookie.
Music
I adore Feist. Her new album, Metals, is worthy of all the praise thrown upon it. I love this track most among them. The story builds slowly, growing, pulsing with the bass line and lulling us into the safety of a tambourine, a kick, and a couple of claps, until, finally, a chorus of girls bursts out of nowhere to question our direction and push us to find out what we really want from life.
I keep wondering why Apple would want get into the TV hardware business. I’ve thought of two reasons:
There are no great advances in displays coming. We’ve all got thin, 1080P, high-refresh rate TVs. Unless 4K resolution goes mainstream, or 3D stops being a gimmick, I see no reason to upgrade my actual TV set in the next few years. This works for and against Apple.
New TV hardware is moving in the direction of an integrated software experience, otherwise called “Smart TVs“. If your TV comes with an app store why bother getting an Apple TV box? This will only confuse consumers. If an Apple TV box has an app store and it’s connected to a “Smart TV” with an app store, which app store holds the truth? When your mom calls asking where she can download The YouTube, Netflix, or Angry Birds, which one does she open? Despite your instruction, will it be on the Apple TV or the “Smart TV”?
Number 2 is larger issue for Apple. It has too many layers. It’s too meta for the home consumer. This is where Apple has the opportunity to provide a better, lower-friction user experience or be lost to the default option. They need to create a future where “You know, honestly, just buy an Apple TV” is what we tell our less nerdy friends.
There’s a need for an easy TV. It’s been there ever since VCRs blinked 12:00 in the 1980s. We’ve accepted a poor mainstream solution for so long, yet so many times, in other markets, Apple (and others) have proven it is possible to do better. This is why we expect it, once more, from Apple.
When the latest Apple TV came out I picked one up for my mom. It took a while, but I taught her how to find YouTube and search for Serbian music and soap operas. She loved it, but her problem was the TV set. She couldn’t remember how to switch inputs:
How do you go from Cable to HDMI?
Which HDMI is it?
Why do I have to turn on the Apple TV separately?
Why do I have five remotes? Which one has input?
In the end she kept cable on and the Apple TV off. Turning your inputs into “apps” is the easiest way to solve this problem, but you can’t do it unless you make an integrated system: display, input box, and software. I think Guy English has it right:
By building an Apple TV box that can act as it does now but also deal so much more magically with a terrific television then Apple can gain traction selling the devices and accrue additional sales in a new market as users buy into the whole device chain.
I don’t know if an Apple TV set is in the cards. But I hope for a future when my dad or my sister can buy a TV, plug it in, and not have to call me until they want to discuss the program they just watched.
Sidebar: When my mom’s cancer progressed to the point she was bedridden, we used AirPlay to show her photos of her grandkids, her garden, her friends and family, all on the TV in her room. We found the Radio Serbia app, which has her hometown’s radio station. We streamed radio from our iPhones with AirPlay to the TV in her room. We could be anywhere in the house but she would always have music. This was one of her favourite things.
Sidebar 2: At the funeral my cousin used her iPhone to Skype video chat the entire service to my mom’s brothers and sisters, five of whom were gathered around a computer at my uncle’s home, in Serbia.
Samsung has been trolling the internet. They’re not posting anti-Apple articles, comments, or calling out fanboys – they’re ripping off original designs. I think this extends beyond misleading consumers at point of sale. I think they’re hoping the Apple community gets up in arms about it. Regardless of their intent, it’s working, and they’re getting a lot of free marketing for it.
Because of this you probably know more Samsung products than of their competitors. Here’s a test: Can you name LG’s flagship smartphone? HTC’s? What about their tablets?
Can you name Samsung’s?
This works tremendously in Samsung’s favour. Here’s a scenario – your non-nerdy, iPhone-hating, smartphone buying friend asks for advice:
“What do you think of the LG Optimus LTE?”
“Never heard of it.”
“What about the Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus?”
“It’s an iPhone knockoff.”
“Yay!”
Samsung’s behaviour is the marketplace equivalent of creating link-bait headlines for page hits. Apple can defend their own work and the courts can pass judgement. Public shaming won’t make Samsung repent for sleazy business tactics; it will benefit them from larger consumer awareness of their products.
Samsung knows the legal issues they face, but without legal precedent, and with the short product cycles in mobile, this is mostly irrelevant to their bottom line. It seems like long term there will be significant business ramfications in their supplier relationship with Apple. It’s a short sighted business model, but for now, it seems to be working.
Also – how many people would have seen this ad if every Apple website hadn’t linked to it?
2011 was one of the hardest years of my life. I pushed myself to do things I have never done before, personally and professionally. I felt great losses too. I don’t know how I made it through the year, but here on the other side, I’m taking stock and moving forward.
2012, I am going to kick your ass.*
* Unless they read the Mayan calendar correctly, in which case you win.
2011, in monthly summaries:
January: I started blogging again.
February: I ran more cumulative kilometres than ever in my life.
March: I got old(er).
April: I lived at work.
May: I recovered from living at work and started running again. I got a Volkswagen Golf TDI and I love it despite its many foibles.
June: I cooked a lot, mostly barbecue.
July: I swam almost every day and I made several homemade jams.
August: I sprained my ankle while running, but made up for it by discovering the Paleo Diet (Thanks Dan!).
September: I helped a good friend, and saw a lot more of Ontario.
October: Steve Jobs passed away from cancer. I took leave from work and care of my mom as she slowly did the same.
November: Funeral.
December: I made a lot of cookies.
2012:
In 2012 I will write more and be better for it. I will run a full marathon, presuming I don’t grievously injure myself training. I will learn C# and I will get better at Javascript. I will make mistakes, I will fail, and I will learn. I will spend more time with my friends. I will change my life for the better because the only option is to move forward – not backwards; upwards, not downwards; and always twirling – twirling towards freedom.
I will continue to make more comma splices than are publicly acceptable, despite my best efforts. But this can only improve and it should not stop me from writing.
I will try my best to be happy, but I know some days I’m going to be sad.
This Year
This year I will ask hard questions. This year there will be changes. This year I will follow Merlin’s advice instead of just listening to it. I agree with Merlin, we don’t need a calendar to tell us to change. But sometimes it helps us to pick a date, lift ourselves off the metaphorical ground, and stop being sad. Today is as good a day as any other.
On Blogging
On this blog I haven’t written much outside of recipes. This has caused me to write less often than I would like. I’m going to ignore any sort of format going forward. You should expect tech writing, design critiques, and a side of grass fed beef.
Another mass cookie post. Apologies for the lack of individual treatment. Life, you know. At least I’m getting better with the decorating… What are we at here, 22 varieties so far?
These have the zest of eight lemons, and have been the fan favourite of 2011. Everybody loves these. Everybody. They’re just chock full of lemon. I’m going to try an orange version.
I love this cookie. I could eat them all; there’s something umami about the flavour. Plus, these could, in theory, be made gluten free. However, most marzipan is made with wheat-derived glucose. But you can always make your own. You can also buy organic icing sugar that is corn free (with tapioca starch!)
If you’re going to make them, I suggest do a double batch and slice them like brownies, rather than individual piped cookies.
These cookies are famous at my office. Last year Janine declared for all to hear, “Marko! Your seven-layer cookies are giving me a seven-layer ass!” And thus, tradition was born. I used apricot and fig jam this year. I like the fig jam because it shows up better (and tastes good). Make sure you use gel food colouring, or beet juice, otherwise you’ll have a pink layer like me. Use a serrated knife to cut them, and do a better job than I did.
I never knew truffles were so easy (and so time consuming). These take two days and several christmas movies, but they taste better than store bought. I got Lindor dark chocolate wafers for baking from the Ayers Baking Supply in Waterloo. It was $9 for enough to make 180 truffles. These make a delicious and fancy looking gift for not a lot of money.
These are surprisingly popular (with adults). I had trouble decorating them, my icing was too thin (I’m better at it now). Use the icing if you want a chewy cookie, otherwise leave them unadorned (or with squiggles) for a cookie with snap. I did 50/50. If you can make them look like Bon Appetit‘s photo, you will be my hero of Christmastime.
Holy hell these are strong! If you’re not taking them to a party, I’d say cut the rum in half. I more or less ignored the recipe here, and used coconut instead of vanilla wafers (I didn’t have any), and pecans instead of walnuts (as above). Now they’re gluten free!
One of my personal favourites (likely because of the raspberry jam). You have to toast the hazelnuts yourself for the best taste. The recipe also dictates you rub your nuts in a kitchen towel.
Scottish Shortbread
This recipe is from the Joy of Cooking. Please pick up a copy, everyone needs it.
Do you like butter? And chocolate? And spending no more than ten minutes making a cookie with only one bowl (that’s really a pot!)? If you answered yes to the above questions, stop reading and start baking!
If you want to make this gluten free sub the oats with coconut, and the flour with tapioca starch.
This cookie is beautiful, and tastes kind of like the Bittersweet Chocolate Cookie. It’s fairly easy, but time consuming. You need to decorate them while they’re warm (but not hot). Dust with icing sugar, sprinkle with red sugar (or crushed candy canes). Then squash the cookie down with your thumb to crack it (that’s how you get the pretty dark grooves). Sprinkle a tiny bit more sugar, as your thumb will melt some of it off.
Peppermint Wreaths
More from Martha’s iPad app, which I learn to loath more every day. I can’t even find the link to this recipe. Turned out as a dry chocolate cookie, with a chocolate coating (just add 1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract). Not a fan.
Sugar Cookies
This recipe is from Joy of Cooking, and is delicious. They’re great to take to a cookie party, or to work, or with kids, and a decorating kit. I had a lot of fun making these while watching The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Here are some of the Christmas cookies I’ve started with this year. I’ve done some modifications to the recipes, but not having the time to write them all out, original recipes are linked to in the titles. I wanted to get links up before people get too far into their holiday baking. I’ll create individual posts in the future if I have more time.
Sorry about some of the photos – I forget to take them sometimes, and rush later before giving all the cookies away.
TriosThese are filled with jams I made in the summer – cinnamon blueberry, vanilla cherry with star anise, and raspberry. The dough was too soft before baking and thus they are a bit rotund.
Peppermint Meringues From Bon Appetit, December 2011
Bittersweet chocolate cookiesThey taste like ice cream. They look a bit different as I didn’t have powdered sugar. I try not to use icing sugar as it is made with corn starch, which I’m allergic to. Also the photo is out of focus. It saddens me deeply.
Walnut and brown sugar rugelachfrom Martha Stewart’s not-awful but weirdly paginated iPad app, of which the type is very hard to read and strangely aliased. But this recipe is my new favourite so far. I almost ate them all.
Short version: My mom passed away last week from a long battle with colon cancer at the age of 58. I’m now making an excessive amount of Christmas cookies while thinking about life (as I’ve been doing quite a lot of lately).
Long version: Christmas has always been interesting with my family. My parents grew up in the Serbian Orthodox Church (in Serbia), and we grew up in the Church of Santa (in Canada). So we always have two Christmases. Canadian Christmas, with the cookies, and the turkey, and presents on December 24/25; and Serbian Christmas, with the churches, and the duck, and the Jesus on January 6/7.
In the end, there is no shortage of cookies.
My mom was an excellent baker (but a terrible cook). In the nineties she had a garage-based phyllo dough business, selling kore to all the Serbian business; making pita with cheese, apple, or cherries; taking oblatne to weddings and funerals; painstakingly making (and painting) breskvice for Christmas.
She knew a lot of people. She helped a lot of people. Most importantly, she taught everyone everything she knew about baking. What good is a recipe that you keep to yourself?
She did the same for her garden, creating roots and dividing plants. I’m not sure what the neighbours will be doing for tomato plants now. She used to save seeds every summer, creating little window greenhouses every January. She’d grow a Portuguese variety she’d cultivated over the years. She said it made tomatoes, and I quote, “as big as a boob.” (It’s true statement.)
Anyway. She was awesome a lot of the time.
Last year I made around thirty or so cookie types for Christmas. I was aiming for a cookie everyday, from December 1 to 25, with a couple extra thrown in before I made the plan. I brought each of them for her to try. She always had some good tips. I want to take those tips, and improve on what I did last years. And I want to exceed my already obscene amount of cookies this year. It seems like I’m on my way (I’m at fifteen). This year’s goal is now fifty eight cookie varieties – one type for every year of my mom’s life. It seems excessive, but we all work through grief differently. It’s at least delicious.
So that’s it, I guess. I plan to write a more heartfelt post about her battle with cancer in the future, but for now that’s all I have to offer right now. Cookies.
Funny side story, my mom liked to swear. Loved to swear. She even once said to me, “Who the fuck taught you how to fucking svear!” She was self-taught five languages (including all the swear words). One day I came home from school, she was on the phone with a Romanian friend – she was talking about “fucking some cookies.”
My mom has been known to go a bit off the deep end. But no, not this time. My mom’s explanation was that “fuck” in Romanian means “do.” As in “I’m doing some cookies.” It seems like a perfectly fitting definition, either way.
(The Romanian word for “do” as far as I can tell is “face”, which is also funny out of context. My mom loved taking words from one language and using them incorrectly in another. “All words are from Serrrbian. Carribean? Serrrbian. See?”)
Well, I guess it’s time to fuck up some cookies (in the strictly platonic way).
This fall I’ve found that I’m really getting in tune with what makes Waterloo Region awesome. Being surrounded by farms is proving to be very useful; anything you want to cook with you can find it within 30-50km. You can meet the farmers, you can pick the product.
Last weekend we went spur of the moment apple picking at Orchard Home Farm in St. George. For readers from the region, it’s about 10 minutes from Cambridge – just take highway 24 through Galt, and turn left at the sign for the orchard.
Orchard Home Farm had quite a few apple varieties for picking when we were there, including some good eating apples, like Gala. We found these fantastic tasting apples – the Cox Orange Pippin. Sadly, they were almost all gone, So I set my sights on Cortland, the Apple Pie Apple. After getting 20 or so pounds, it was time for pies.
We found gangster apples from San Francisco.
Dave had fun with the bags (and the puns).
“This apple has a worm hole.”
“It can travel through the space–time continuum?!”
When choosing apples for apple pie, I strongly recommend Cortland. They’re light, have great texture, a honey undertone, and not too much juice. The Joy of Cooking recommends Golden Delicious, Gala and Fuji as well as some other varieties (like Northern Spy). When in doubt, look for something lightweight, crisp in texture and tart in taste. Avoid juicy apples, they lead to soupy pies.
The recipe below has some steps that look like they can be skipped, but don’t. Everything is required or you will have a hot soupy mess.
Traditional Apple Pie
1 recipe of pie dough
2-1/2 lbs Cortland apples (6-8, they’re small)
3/4 cup sugar
2-3 tablespoons of flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons of butter, cut into little pieces
Extra sugar and cinnamon for pie top
Preheat oven to 425°F. Peel, core and slice your apples into 1/4″ wedges. Don’t worry if your apples brown (oxidization is natural). If you want white apples, sprinkle them with lemon juice after slicing.
Get a large bowl and toss your apples, sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt together. Let it stand for 15 minutes or so, but stir it up every so often. The reason for the waiting period (don’t skip it!) is that the sugar is drawing the moisture out of the apples, and the flour is absorbing it. When your pie bakes/cools this liquid is going to create a thick “jelly” consistency, kind of like making jam. As you stir the apple mixture make sure to get the liquid evenly spread out.
When you make one recipe of pie dough you’re left with two dough balls. Roll both of them out. When rolling out dough for a pie bottom, make it about 2″ wider than the diameter of the top of your pie plate. Fold the dough in half to make it easier to carry into your dish. Unfold, and get rid of air pockets between the dough and the pie plate. Don’t worry about the overhanging edges of dough just yet.
Fill your pie crust with the apple mixture, err on the side of overfilling – the apples will reduce as you bake. Shaking the pie plate is a good way to get rid air gaps between apples.
Dot the top of the pie filling with butter. If you want an awesome tasting pie, don’t skip this step; if you slice your pie in eight, this amounts to 25 more calories per slice. Well worth it, and c’mon. It’s pie.
Roll out your top crust slightly larger than the diameter of your pie plate. Fold it in half, and cut a slit (or decorative slits) in the centre. These are required to vent steam, otherwise you get soupy pie. Place the folded dough on one edge of your pie plate, and unfold to fully cover.
Press the seams of dough together. If they don’t stick together you can use ice water to bond the dough, or an egg wash (whisk 1 egg + 2 tablespoons water or milk). Here you can do some decorative edges, or squash the rest of the dough into the edges of the pie plate, for a hand made, rustic look. You can brush the top with an egg wash for a deeper brown, shiny finish, but I don’t know that it is necessary with the high temperature start.
Sprinkle the top of the pie with sugar and cinnamon. Bake in the lower third of the oven for 30 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 350°F, and bake for another 30–45 minutes. Your pie is done when the filling starts bubbling out the top. If the bottom starts browning too quickly you can place a baking sheet underneath. Ovens vary in intensity, so keep an eye on it.
Remove your pie from the oven to a cooling rack. You need to cool your pie completely, and do not skip this step. Right now all the sugars and the glutens are in this chaotic frenzy. They need to relax, gel a bit. Wait until your pie is completely cool before slicing, about 3–4 hours. If you don’t wait, all of the liquid in the pie will spill out into the empty space of the first slice you cut out. Hot soupy mess.
Once your pie is cool, you do the completely logical thing of warming it up. Heat in a 200°F oven for 15 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream.
Kind-of Paleo Apple Pie
1 recipe nut pie crust
2-1/2 lbs Cortland apples (6-8, they’re small)
1/2 cup raw honey, maple syrup, or molasses
1 tablespoon pectin (like for jams)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons of butter, cut into little pieces
Extra cinnamon for the crumble top
Follow the same steps above, but with a different crust and less sweetener. While it’s only kind-of Paleo, it is gluten free. You’re adding 15ml of sweetener, or about 17 grams of sugar, per slice of pie. This is the minimum I’d recommend if you want non-Paleo eaters to like this pie, but reduce to your own taste/nutrition level.
You can use the same mixture from the crust as a crumble topping.
Hello. My name is Marko, and I run. And bake. And I have a voracious appetite for music. I hope to cover all those things here with some humorous colour commentary.
Real Life
I work as both an interactive designer and the art director at Igloo Software, in Kitchener, Canada.
Opinions on The Baker Runs are my own, and not those of my employer.
Running
I've been running off and on since... forever, but have been relatively dedicated since June 2009.
I've settled into a pace around 5:00/km. I've run in 3 half marathons (in roughly 1:55:ish), and I hope to run a full marathon in 2011.
If you have any tips for running tunes, please forward them along!
