Farmer's Tea Pastries at Green Grocer!

We are very excited to announce that you can now find packaged Farmer's Tea pastries at the Green Grocer Store in Oregon City! Since my last post we have been busy with creating these pastries and preparing for the holiday baking season.

For Thanksgiving we baked some pies and treats for some wonderful Oregon City customers and delivered them to the Green Grocer store for pickup. That Saturday, November 24 we delivered our first batch of pastries to the Green Grocer. We now have two gluten free items available including (pictured above) our lemon gluten & dairy free snack cakes and hazelnut coffee biscotti. Also, we are offering hazelnut-chocolate madeleines, ginger scones, coconut scones, chocolate hazelnut scones and our delicious and buttery chocolate dipped shortbread! Yum!

So, if you are in the Oregon City area drop by the Green Grocer and check out our pastry selection. Or, if you'd like to special order pastries, cakes or pies for the holidays we can have them available for pick up at the Green Grocer as well.

This week we'll be busy baking cinnamon bread, cinnamon rolls, large pies and mini pies for a local Christmas tree farm in the Oregon City area. Thank you so much for your continued support! We love baking for you!

Roasted Applesauce Spice Cake with a Caramel Glaze

Lately I've been really working on using a lot of the wonderful ingredients that I have on hand in my pantry, fridge and freezer. To make this amazingly delicious cake I first roasted some of Oregon's bounty- apples- in the oven with butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. Then, I pureed those to create the applesauce used in this cake. I also used some apple pie filling I'd canned earlier in the fall season. Yum!

This cake is amazingly delicious and chock full of wonderful ingredients including some almonds that I had in the freezer as well as a lot of raisins and spices. I originally was going to put an additional vanilla glaze on top of the caramel glaze, but I found it wasn't necessary. It's so moist and good with the caramel that soaks into the cake that it doesn't need further embellishment. So, I encourage you all to raid your pantries and use the fall harvest to create something scrumptious to share with family, friends and co-workers. As you can see in the picture above the cake is full of big, juicy apple chunks! Enjoy!

Comforting Cookies

Today I decided to make some wonderful, comforting, old-fashioned cookies that I know & love. Winter is settling in and it's time to light candles and fire up the oven to make some delicious little treats!

I was thinking a lot about my Grandma Marian these days and how much she loved cookies. Her favorite cookies were Ranger Cookies because she loved coconut & the crunch of the wheat flakes in them. They are extremely delicious and I don't think I've made them since she passed away so many years ago. It brought back great memories to make them again. I remember that she used to subtly hint to me that she wanted me to make these cookies when she said "I bought some Wheaties." I knew that meant that she'd love for me to make her favorite cookies. But, she'd never directly tell me to make them. She was so sweet & so subtle in her ways.

Today I'll enjoy some of these cookies again & include the recipe in this post. Right now they are fresh out of the oven and just as good as I can remember. Many modern cookbooks do not include Ranger Cookies as I remember them because they don't add the Wheaties (or any wheat flake that you'd like to put in) which I think is essential to the cookie. And as a bonus it adds more whole grains!

Here is the recipe:

Ranger Cookies-
Makes about 48 small cookies or 36 larger cookies

Heat oven to 350 Degrees Fahrenheit

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup oats
1 cup Wheaties cereal (or any other wheat flakes such as Kashi)
1/2 cup flaked coconut

Mix the butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, egg and vanilla thoroughly. Stir in remaining ingredients. Roll into 1 inch balls and roll in plain granulated sugar or cinnamon sugar. Place cookie balls 2 inches apart onto an ungreased baking sheet. Bake 12 minutes. Cool on a cooling rack.

Enjoy this cozy recipe for a cold winter!

Goodbye! We'll miss you!

With the beautiful and delicious cake pictured above we said goodbye to our wonderful English as a Second Language secretary and great friend Apolonia yesterday. We will miss her very, very much in our department at Clackamas Community College. She is moving to Georgia..hence the lovely marzipan peaches on the cake.

Yesterday afternoon we celebrated with this cake that the ladies of Farmer's Tea made. We had a great time making this delicious cake! It's a fudge cake with custard filling iced with a rich chooclate buttercream and decorated with delicate marzipan peaches. Wow! It was so rich and good! It was a big hit at the goodbye party!

Here is a close up photo of the marzipan peaches as well:

Here's to celebrations and here's to Apolonia! May she enjoy many wonderful adventures in Georgia!! Thank you for all that you have done to help us!