Flour

Flour Bakery & CafeI’ve enjoyed all different foods at Flour and I will miss working right near the new Central Square location when my office moves. This one bakery/restaurant shines above all the others and I’m so glad they took a chance on Central Square Cambridge.

Everything is good. Everything is unique. Everything tastes like they made it just for you. Some of my favorite sandwiches there I COULD make myself, but they do it better.

I recently had a great tomato, mozerella, pesto sandwich and one of the homemade oreos. The sandwich is so great because instead of basil leaves, they smear pesto on and you can smell the freshness even before taking a bite.

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Another fantastic choice is the smoked turkey, vermont cheddar, and cranberry chutney. You can get any of the sandwiches pressed which brings out the love in this one. The roasted lamb, goat cheese, and tomato chutney is good, but might have too much goat cheese.Bakery items are to die for…you can’t go wrong! I had the oreo for the first time recently and thought it was great! I expected it to be more spongy, like a whoopie pie. It was perfectly crisp and delightful.

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I look forward to more of Flour’s goodies.Likes: oreos, cookies, and sandwiches
Dislikes: pricey

“Easy” Oreo Truffles

These no-bake cookies, excuse me, truffles, are by no means easier than baking a cookie. I’m not an avid baker but this turned out to be about the same amount of work. Mrs. E saw them in a magazine add so we gave ‘em a whirl. They were fun to eat, didn’t use many ingredients, but they were definitely more of a challenge than we anticipated.

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I think these “Easy Oreo Truffles” have been around for awhile but they seem to be a crowd pleaser. Kraft Foods included them in a recent magazine and the recipe is online everywhere!

Ingredients

-1 package Oreo Cookies, divided
-8 oz. Cream Cheese
-1 pkg. Baker’s Chocolate, melted

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Directions:

Set aside 6-8 cookies for the topping.
Crush cookies in food processor or in a sealed bag until finely chopped. Add cream cheese and blend.
Roll into 1″ balls with a mini melon baller or teaspoons.
Dip in chocolate, and sprinkle top with crushed cookies.
Refrigerate until chocolate hardens.

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These are extremely sticky. Mrs. E and I would advise figuring out a few tool options prior to getting your hands oreo-ified! Refrigerating the cream cheese mix and crushed oreo might have helped make it easier to form.

I also recommend melting chocolate chips instead of solid chocolate pieces. We used a double boiler allowing us to take our time to dip them. I first attempted toothpicks, to no avail…maybe it would have worked if the formed balls were frozen. I ended up dropping the formed balls into the melted chocolate on the double boiler and spooning them out.

What else could go inside? Maybe nuts would have been good for a varying texture. The recipe calls for 1” balls, we made them smaller but maybe bigger would have been better. My last thought was making them a cookie bar with a chocolate topping or making them into mini muffin tins with chocolate topping, of course.

Increasing the Fall in Pumpkin Bread

Nothing is more fall than pumpkin bread BUT with walnuts and Craisins that fall factor was just amped up about 10 times. I don’t bake much but bread seems more manageable than cookies. I have to say, while it won’t make me a baker, I’m quite proud of the results! Can you say breakfast for the week?

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Ingredients

-1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
-4 eggs
-1 cup vegetable oil
-2/3 cup water
-3 cups sugar
-3 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
-1 1/2 teaspoons salt
-1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
-1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
-1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
-1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
-1/2 cup Craisins
-1 cup walnuts 

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Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease three 7×3 inch loaf pans or one regular and 2 mini loaf pans.

In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and pumpkin pie spice. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended.

Pour into the prepared pans. Add Craisins and walnuts to taste. Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.