Feast & Lore

Food stories featuring heritage recipes and new experiments.

Whole wheat

Test-Kitchen: Martha Stewart Apple-Cider Doughnut Bundt Cake

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Martha Stewart came out with a new book last May, called A New Way to Bake. Touted as “the next-generation home-baking bible,” the book claims to offer healthy alternatives to your favourite baked goods with ingredients including whole-grain flours, quinoa, chia and coconut oil. The bundt cake on the cover caught my eye so I decided to give it a try.

Cross-section of the sliced cake shows a nice crumb

This recipe takes advantage of fresh apple cider, whole wheat flour, olive oil and unsweetened applesauce.

A slide of Martha's Apple Cider Donut Cake

I found the final result was a cake with a lovely texture, moist but not too dense. It sort of reminded me of a cake doughnut/coffee cake hybrid.

For me, the one fail was the natural cane sugar coating on the outside of the cake. It just wouldn’t stick to the cake, the texture of the sugar is too coarse so I could not achieve the lovely look of Martha’s cover cake. I finally gave up and simply sifted some icing sugar with cinnamon on top instead.

Cake on pretty glass stand with soft blue background

Overall this is a solid cake recipe that tastes great. You feel a bit less guilty eating it because of the whole wheat flour and other healthy substitutions. It still has quite a bit of sugar, so I’m not sure you could exactly call it healthy, but replacing some refined sugar with the applesauce and apple cider seem like healthier substitutes. I found it was nice to take to the office for a mid-afternoon snack the next day, too. Get the recipe here.

 

 

Whole Wheat Cranberry Apple Scones

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Apples, cranberries and flour in a bowl

Ever purchase some specialty flour like cake or whole wheat, only to have it sit there for a year and never have any need for it again? Determined not to let that happen to my recently purchased whole wheat flour, I decided to try out this recipe for scones. While this scone is not the buttery, crisp on the outside, melt-in-your-mouth scone of my dreams, they were a great mid-day snack and would be a lovely addition to any brunch. Bonus: unlike their buttery brethren, these will actually leave you feeling good after you eat them.

scone broken apart showing juicy cranberries on a red rimmed china plate

Based somewhat on a recipe from Epicurious, I changed things up by using fresh apples and cranberries rather than dried. I also substituted fresh pressed apple cider for the frozen concentrate, and I didn’t have buttermilk so went with the traditional substitution of milk and vinegar (1/2 cup milk with 1/2 tbsp milk). I also didn’t want to add yet another type of flour to my pantry so used rolled oats instead of oat flour.

Upon following the recipe I found the dough was very sticky and the scones lost their shape in the oven. To minimize the loss of shape, I suggest chilling the shaped dough on the baking sheet in the fridge for 20 minutes before popping them into the oven.

If you don’t want to make 12 all at once, these also freeze quite well—place shaped scones onto a baking sheet and freeze in a single layer; remove from sheet and wrap in plastic or a ziplock freezer bag.

scone broken apart showing juicy cranberries on a red rimmed china plate
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Whole Wheat Cranberry Apple Scones

A healthy take on scones with whole grains and fresh fruit, a great snack or addition to brunch.

Course Breakfast
Cuisine American
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 40 minutes
Servings 12 scones

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
  • 1 cup rolled oats
  • 1/2 cup all purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter chilled, cut into cubes (1 stick of butter)
  • 1/2 cup fresh cranberries
  • 1/2 cup diced fresh apple
  • 1/2 cup buttermilk
  • 1/4 cup half and half cream for glaze
  • 1/4 cup fresh apple cider
  • 1 egg (large)
  • coarse sugar crystals

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 375°. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Prep work surface with plastic wrap to roll and shape dough onto.

  2. Combine first 8 ingredients in a large bowl, blend. Using a pastry cutter or 2 knives, cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add cranberries and apples and toss together.

  3. Whisk 1/2 cup buttermilk, cider and egg in a small bowl to combine. Add buttermilk, tossing until evenly moistened. Knead 2–3 turns in the bowl, then turn out onto the prepared plastic wrap, shaping into two 6" disks. Cut each disc into 6 wedges. Arrange scones onto baking sheet, spacing 1" apart. Place baking sheet in fridge for 20 minutes.

  4. Remove baking sheet from fridge, brush with half and half, and sprinkle with coarse sugar. Bake until puffed and golden, and a tester inserted into the centre comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Serve warm.