Daring Bakers September Challenge - Lavash

Here we are - another month, another challenge. The special thing about this month's choice is that it is the first time we've made something that is vegan and/or gluten free. The participants this month had the option to make lavash traditionally (with flour) or gluten-free. I opted to make my lavash with flour and was pleased with the results.

Lavash is an Armenian flat cracker bread that pairs well with pretty much any type of dip or spread. To make it, a yeasted dough is rolled paper thin and baked. It can be topped with spices, sesame seeds, salt and even cinnamon. I chose to use whole cumin seeds since I was going to use them with an eggplant dip.

The whole process was very easy and much like making pizza dough. I scored the dough into rectangles but you can leave the dough whole and break it into shards when it is finished.

The final product came out very nice. I had no trouble with rolling out the dough. The crackers were crunchy and tasted exactly how you would imagine a cracker to taste. I enjoyed this challenge and would consider trying to make them again as my family liked them and patiently waited until I took a picture before devouring every last one.

Thanks to Natalie from Gluten A Go Go, and co-host Shel of Musings From the Fishbowl for this easy and fun challenge. Check out their websites for the complete recipe and check out the DB blogroll for hundreds of different interpretations of this recipe.

Blueberry-Brown Sugar Plain Cake

With the summer behind us and fall quickly approaching, I'm posting one of the last summer berry recipes I made this year. Blueberry-Brown Sugar Plain Cake is aptly named and quite tasty for something seemingly so humble.

What it is, is a type of crumb cake without all the fancy toppings - no streusel or crumble to be seen. What you end up with is a fairly thin cake theoretically studded with blueberries. As you can see from the picture, the blueberries settled to the bottom of the cake. I did make it in a slightly larger pan than called for in the recipe so this may account for the sinkage.

Regardless, the cake was moist and tasty with a little hint of caramel-ly flavour from the brown sugar - perfect for snacking or with tea. If desired, you could dust it with some icing sugar for a little pizazz but it really is fine all by itself.

Recipe: Blueberry-Brown Sugar Plain Cake

And the Winner is...

Hi All,

I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that I missed yesterday's deadline (sorry!) but the good news is that Carole R. is the winner of the Loblaws basket! Congratulations.

Please e-mail me (click "Email me" on the right side at the bottom) so I can get your details.

Thanks to all of you who entered!

Eat Well Save More

Recently, Loblaws, Fortinos and Zehrs launched the "Eat Well Save More" program. When I was contacted about the program, I was interested in letting you all know about it because I do quite a lot of shopping at the bagless Loblaw Superstore. Now, more than a thousand prices on items customers buy most at Zehrs, Fortinos, Loblaws, Loblaw Great Food and Your Independent Grocer locations in Ontario have been reduced. In addition to the already low prices at Real Canadian Superstore and Loblaw Superstore consumers will continue to see lower prices on even more items.

What it means is that many of the products you already buy are even more affordable.

Loblaw comparison shops weekly tens of thousands of items to ensure they offer the best prices to consumers. Loblaw strives to offer key items on the everyday shopping list at great value and for shoppers, this means not having to compromise on quality.

To find out more about Eat Well Save More and what items are part of the initiative , check out the weekly flyers at Loblaws, Zehrs or Fortinos.

Thanks to the nice people at MS&L Digital, I received a basket of products that are part of the Eat Well Save more program. If you too would like to receive a basket, just leave a comment and I will randomly choose a winner on Wednesday Sept. 10, 2008.