Cinnamon Rolls

It seems like just yesterday that I made these for the Morning After Mark and Emily Got Married Brunch.  But it wasn’t yesterday, it was more like yestermonth.  As you can tell, I’ve been slow with the uploading of pictures.  But I’ve just completed a giant batch, hopefully enough to last me through my next upload dry spell.

I used this recipe for the first time that day.  I woke up early-ish to make them in time for the brunch and was a little worried.  The dough didn’t look like it had risen properly, it was still somewhat soft and the filling kept inconveniently oozing out.  It took about half an hour between putting the time I sliced them and put them into a pan and the time they started baking (aka, the commute to Tara’s house).  I like to think of that half hour as when the magic happened, as they puffed up even more while sitting in the pan.  The oozing filling also created a nice caramelization affect wherever it wasn’t covered by soft bun.  And, best of all, three pans of this stuff were devoured.  I think that is a testament to deliciousness if I ever saw one

Sadly, since I was in a rush to create, this is the only picture I took of the cinnamon rolls:

That’s right, it’s the remains of the cinnamon and flour on the counter space that I used to roll them up.  And that’s it.  No pictures of them in pans, no indication of how amazingly they puffed up given another 1/2 hour to rise, no nothing.  So you’ll have to trust me.  These cinnamon buns look mighty tasty coming out of the oven.

Because the recipe I took it from makes an insane number of rolls and I didn’t always do the best job halving stuff (butter, I am pointing at you), I am going to go ahead and transcribe it.  It came from one of my favorite sites, The Pioneer Woman.  She does not hesitate to use butter.  And that’s how it should be.

Cinnamon Rolls

2 cups whole milk
½ cup vegetable oil
½ cup sugar
1 pkg. (2-¼ tsp.) active dry yeast
4 cups AP flour
½ - 1 cup AP flour
½ heaping tsp. baking powder
½ scant tsp. baking soda
½ heaping tsp. salt
1 stick butter
1 cup sugar
Cinnamon

1- Combine milk, vegetable oil and sugar in saucepan.  Heat until 105 – 115 degrees F.

2- Sprinkle yeast on top and let sit for a few minutes.

3- Add flour and mix to combine.  Mixture will be soft and soupy.

4- Cover and let rise in a warm, draft-free place for approximately an hour or until doubled in size.

5- Add ½ cup AP flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and mix together.  If mixture is still a little soft, add a little more flour.

6- Generously flour surface and pour dough onto surface.

7- Roll dough out into a rough rectangle.

8- Melt butter and pour on top.  Spread with a pastry brush if necessary.

9- Sprinkle sugar on top.  Top with a generous sprinkling of cinnamon on top.

10- Starting on the side furthest away, start rolling cinnamon up.

11- Cut into ½” pieces and place in a dish to bake.  Preheat oven to 400-degrees.

12- Let rise for ½ hour while oven is preheating.

13- Bake for 20 – 30 minutes or until golden brown.  Remove from oven.

14- Brush with glaze of choice and serve warm.

Servings:  3 pans of 9 each.

Caramel Ice Cream

I know it doesn’t look like much but this tannish blob is caramel ice cream.  In my continual quest to show Martin that other flavors besides cookie dough can be tasty, I have tried to make other flavors for us to enjoy.  This was so rich, we could only eat about a scoop at a time but it’s still pretty tasty.

I used this recipe verbatim, mostly because I’d never made caramel before.  I should have probably tried making just caramel before I muddied up the waters with an ice cream!  My first attempt was straight up DISASTER!  I am talking black burnt cesspool-style mess.  A hot mess, as it were, too.  ;)  I had to boil the caramel out of my pot before I could even start attempt number two.

The recipe is a little vague, saying things like “let boil until a light amber.”  So I’ll just comment a bit on my experiences.

First, I interpreted boil as a full-on rolling boil.  This produced disaster in a pot in a red-hot minute.  So the second time around was more of a slow simmer.  It took longer than the specified time but produced something edible, so I’m not going to complain. 

Before adding the cream, I had warmed it over the stove, which I think helped keep the sugar down to a “furious bubble” rather than “gigantic explosion.”

I also had problems brushing down the side.  Seemed like the water just evaporated on impact and didn’t do anything to dissolve sugar crystals.  Anyone with caramel-making experience, can you comment on this?

And there you go.  Next time, I will add fewer egg yolks, because it’s really, really rich and I could even detect a bit of egg flavor coming through.   This is definitely a “coat your mouth” ice cream - a little will go a long way!

Snickerdoodles

I’d recently written this post and lost it when Firefox crashed.  I was eight kinds of mad, mostly because I’ve noticed FF3 likes to shut down for no reason at all on my Windows machine (but not my iBook, amazingly enough!).

It took me awhile to work up the enthusiasm to re-write this post.  So … this post might not be enthusiastic at all. 

I decided to make these after a co-worker gave me a Snickerdoodle and I remembered how much I loved its softness and cinnamon-ness.  I had all the ingredients on hand already so why shouldn’t I make some Snickerdoodles?

Well, these were good.  But I realized they were also very sweet.  Something that tasted great when only one unit is eaten tasted significantly less good when five … six … twelve are consumed.  They were soft the way cookies should be, looked amazing and had a great buttery taste.  But just too much.

I wonder how much of this can also be attributed to the fact that I made them before going down to Santa Barbara with Martin.  I loaded up a big bag with these and proceeded to eat them all weekend because there was nothing else to snack on.  After sitting around in a plastic bag, these didn’t taste too great, I can tell you right now.

So the lesson in today’s entry is that cloying sweetness does NOT mix well with plastic mcplastic-ness.  And now you know.  But here’s some visual eye candy anyway:

Side Note:  Firefox totally crashed four times while I was writing this.  I literally screamed “DIE FIREFOX I HATE YOU!” because I was so mad.  But it somehow found my original post.  So I guess I don’t hate it.  I just don’t really like it right now.

Sweet Tea

Last night, Martin and I had a couple of co-workers over for dinner. I tried out a few new things on willing bellies but failed to do any prep work the night before. So, consequently, on the day of the dinner, I was cooking a lot and efficiently freaking out. That’s why I failed to take any pictures. Food posts without pictures are sad, but sad food pictures are perhaps even worse. I guess you can’t win them all.

I thought I would devote today’s entry to sweet tea, which I made to go with our “barbecue” theme. For many, this beverage needs no introduction. But for others, like our co-workers, sweet tea is a drink served at McDonald’s and true southerners know that just ain’t right. I took a quick poll from all my friends who have experienced real sweet tea and happened to be available online and here are the results:

I asked, When you think of sweet tea, what do you think of?

Manveer: I think of Bojangles sweet tea!

Not quite what I was looking for but let’s go on:

Martin: Bojangles.

Okay … still not quite. I’ll cross my fingers with this next person:

Stuart: Bojangles.

Did I miss something?

Arun: Bojangles. Then the Rockford.

Obviously, yes.

Who knew Bojangles and sweet tea were so irrevocably tied in people’s minds? I was hoping for awesome adjectives like “amazingly awesome” or “summer” or “end-all be-all” of drinks, but these could also describe Bojangles biscuits so that’s good enough for me.

There is a lot of debate on the proper way to make sweet tea. Everyone has a different trick to getting that ever-important crystal-clear amber color.  I’ve heard a variety of techniques, from steeping the tea in a saucepan and pouring it into the pitcher for a natural cool down to not adding any cold water to the mixture. I do subscribe to the “don’t shock the tea” superstition and abstain from pouring cold water onto it, but that’s about it. Of course, everyone is different.

This is the recipe I use to make my sweet tea. I don’t think it compares to the Bojangles version (can anything?) but at least mine doesn’t come with a gross wedge of lemon. I always forget it and sometimes don’t follow the ratios (which I’ve learned one too many times is VERY VERY BAD) so now I’m writing it down where I’ll always know to look.

Sweet Tea

2 family-size or 6 normal-sized Lipton tea bags
2 cups hot (not boiling) water
3/4 cup sugar
6 cups lukewarm water

1- Add sugar to bottom of a pitcher. Place tea bags on top. Pour hot water over mixture and stir to dissolve.

2- Let sit, covered, for 15 minutes.

3- Add remaining water and let chill in the refrigerator until cold.

4- Serve in tall glasses over a lot of ice.

Servings: 4

Homemade Butter

Recently, I tried making butter. This was mostly prompted by the fact that I had half a gallon of heavy cream in my refrigerator that expired the day before our three-day trip to Santa Barbara. There was no way that stuff was going to be used in time. So … butter, anyone?

I’ve never made butter before and this was a real adventure for me. I stuck all that heavy cream in my KitchenAid and set the whisk a-spinning. At first, I left it on about 4 or 6, worried it would splatter everywhere. Then I realized that this really only jiggled the heavy cream and we needed to get this party started.

So I turned up the heat. And got a lovely mound of soft-peaks whipped cream:

It looks like billowy clouds. I couldn’t resist taking a taste. Without vanilla and sugar, whipped cream is surprisingly disappointing.

All the blogs I read about homemade butter included rapturous sentences about tastiness and also about how the whipped cream will just “seize.” I had no clue what that meant so I kept whipping.

This looks curdly and not so appetizing. I was not tempted into taking a taste.

Finally, I heard what I thought was a seize. But I was confused. Stuff at the bottom looked mealy. Stuff along the sides looked like whipped cream. Could this be right?

I can’t believe it’s not butter! Oh, wait, yes, I can. What is that?

I let it drain for a few minutes and the amount of buttermilk generated was weak-sauce. I slid it back into the mixer bowl and set it a-churning again. I repeated this step twice because I was unsure of what my final result should be. Then, suddenly, I got this:

They weren’t kidding about the seizing. Or even the EXPLOSION of buttermilk you will suddenly see.

And now I know. And I am passing this on to you so you know, too. And knowing is half the battle.

Note: Whenever food blogs talk about making butter, they never bring up washing the butter to remove it of all buttermilk, which will turn it rancid. I had to read a recipe for that. I think that’s an important, unsaid step. Because I totally would have stuck my butter in a bowl and put it in the fridge and wondered why my butter tasted like “gross.”

I mixed it with some honey and now I have lots of honey butter. Anyone want to come over for biscuits?

I understand if you don’t.

Ice Cream Sandwich Ice Cream

I know what you’re thinking. I bet it’s similar to the look on Martin’s face, when I announced I was going to make it.

“I don’t get it.”

Yeah, I too was once like you and didn’t get it. But a recent trip to visit Blaire set me on this path and now I realize how truly amazing this stuff really is. It is almost the perfect pairing! I love ice cream! I love ice cream sandwiches! Together, how can we go wrong?

Things like butter chicken + macaroni and cheese spring to mind. But this is neither here nor now. This is ice cream. Serious business.

True story: I wanted to write that in lolcats but didn’t know the best way. So I found a lolcat translator! No joke. Their translation was “serious busines.” Also no joke.

So today, I will show you how I went about making this.

First, I started with my very very favorite vanilla ice cream recipe as a base. Even Breyers Natural Vanilla, my first love, doesn’t hold a candle to the flavor (and, most likely, fat) packed in this.

Instead of vanilla extract, though, I added this:

It has real vanilla beans flecks and packs a nice, extra vanilla-y punch with the ease and cost of using plain ol’ extract rather over buying vanilla beans. It has a thick consistency. One might almost call it paste-y.

I know, I’m not that funny. So let’s move on.

Do you see all the flecks? I do love vanilla bean flecks in my ice cream. Reminds me of childhood.

Then I chilled the custard overnight and churned it up nice and pretty in my ice cream mixer. While I let Martin wrestle with scooping out the ice cream, I focused on a more important task:

I used my dough cutter to create straight lines that didn’t mush the sandwich too much. Then I started our reliable layer effect: a layer of ice cream, a nice layer of topping, wash, rinse, repeat. This time around, I think we used around 4 - 6 sandwiches (can’t remember the exact total). I thought there should be more, but Martin said no. He also physically blocked me from adding more. However, after tasting it, he agreed that we should have added more (HA!) to create a better “ice cream sandwich” feel.

I love the soft chocolate cookie-ness of the ice cream sandwiches in this ice cream. I also like the small pockets of ice-cream-sandwich ice cream. They’re white rather than a light yellow and have almost the effect of whipped cream in comparison to the richness of my base ice cream.

Martin still prefers the cookie dough to this one, but I know I will keep this one in steady rotation. This is one big carton of delicious, I’d say.

Carrot Cake

Right now, all I can think about is the fact that I have carrot cake in our refrigerator. Before yesterday, I didn’t even know I liked carrot cake. But the slice I had today … and the three I had yesterday … are convincing me that I do. It is lucky for my hips that 5 other people helped to consume two-thirds of the cake yesterday because this stuff is good. Blissful good. Makes-me-salivate-as-I-sit-here good.

Don’t believe me?

Check out the looks of sheer satisfaction on my fellow cake-eaters faces:

Okay, so I didn’t really take a picture of everyone partaking of my cake. So you’re going to have to trust me when I say they all really liked it. And, really, would I lie to you?

This cake was full of carrot-y goodness. It had nice hints of spice (though I would like more - maybe I will amp up the cinnamon and add some clove and allspice goodness next time). And, to balance out any good feelings you might be receiving from eating your daily dose of beta-carotene, it has loads of sugar and fat.

It pulls together in a snap - you don’t even have to worry about creaming butter for the batter! As for the cream cheese frosting recipe I used, it called for an easy 4 ingredients: butter, cream cheese, vanilla and powdered sugar. One pound of powdered sugar, to be exact. I don’t have a scale but I checked online and this appeared to be around 3-1/2 cups of sugar. (Yes, I said “Holy crap!” too when I read the recipe). I ran out of powdered sugar at around 1-1/2 cups, but I tried some and thought it tasted pretty sweet as is. My fellow cake eaters agreed and said they couldn’t imagine adding more sugar to the frosting. So there you go. You can add four cups if you want to induce people into a diabetic coma or you can show restraint. Whichever way floats your boat best.

And as a random side note, the original recipe called for 1 cup of finely chopped pecans to go into the frosting. I didn’t add any, because I didn’t have those on hand. And because I don’t really like nuts in my baked goods. But more because I didn’t have them on hand. So if you have pecans on hand and like them in your baked goods, add away!

Carrot Cake

2 cups sugar (I used scant cup measures with no problem)
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
2 cups AP flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 cups packed grated carrots

1 stick butter, room temperature
1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese, room temperature
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups powdered sugar

1-  Preheat oven to 350-degrees and lightly grease and flour cake pan.

2-  Combine sugar, vegetable oil and eggs together in a bowl and mix together until smooth.

3- Sift together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon. Add to sugar mixture and mix until smooth.

4- Add carrots to batter and mix until smooth.

5- Pour into bundt pan and bake, approx. 50 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.

6- To make frosting, combine butter and cream cheese and beat until smooth and fluffy.

7- Add vanilla and beat to combine.

8- Add sugar and beat until smooth. Frost cake and serve.

Servings: 12

Oooh, lookin’ good, baby.

Gimme gimme more, gimme more.

Cookie Dough Ice Cream

Awhile ago, I made Cookie Dough Ice Cream. I feel that this one is worthy of capital letters, because this was the mother of all ice creams I had made up until that point and ever since.

Cookie dough is Martin’s very favorite flavor, despite my insistence that it be mint chocolate chip (and believe me, I tried!). Martin says this even surpasses the much loved Ben and Jerry’s Oatmeal Cookie Chunk!

I used my trusty French Vanilla Ice Cream as a base and then made my very favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies. As I was envisioning the beautiful blending of two of my favorite recipes, I was both excited by how yummy I hoped it would taste and dreading how much I’d have to run to work off the calories.

I made the cookie dough and froze it briefly. Then I chipped it apart into small chunks and froze it some more. When I made the ice cream, I followed a suggestion out of all the ice cream books I’d been researching: layering yummy mix-ins with ice cream will create a more consistent ice cream. And it worked - it was definitely more uniform than the glob of brownies we found in the center of our last mixed ice cream, Brownie Ice Cream.

The result: Martin pretty much spasmed in joy and almost had a heart attack after the first bite. The amount of fat in this makes this reaction unsurprising, but I like to think he will at least die happy if that’s ever the case.

Layers: they do more than keep you warm in the winter!

Meyer Lemon Curd

I have often seen recipes for lemon curd on Tastespotting. Very often, they are accompanied with glowing praises, like “amazing” and “mouth watering” and “would marry lemon curd and make lemon curd babies, if possible.” Okay, not really that last one but seriously. Everyone seems to love lemon curd.

When I found (heaven of heavens!) meyer lemons being sold at the local farmer’s market, I filled a plastic bag with them and decided I’d make lemon curd too. Too bad I didn’t read the recipe or I would have realized a giant plastic bag is not necessary. However, having a nice stash of them in the fridge has been pretty not bad so I ain’t complainin’ about my sweet sweet meyer lemons.

The recipe was really easy to make. I feel like anyone could really make these, but many recipes online said things like “CAUTION, EXPERIENCED COOKS ONLY.” I thought this was lame. I think it’s to make people think it’s fancier than it really is. To me, it is basically like lemon pudding or the yummy filling that goes between layered cakes.

So there you have it. I served it at my St. Patrick’s dinner as dessert on top of blueberry bread. Nothing too fancy, everything seriously tasty.

Lemon Curd

3 large eggs
1/3 cup FRESH lemon juice
1 tbsp. fresh lemon zest
3/4 cup sugar
4 tbsp. unsalted butter, cut into pieces

1- In a double broiler (or make your own by simmering water in a saucepan underneath a metal bowl placed on top), whisk eggs, lemon juice and sugar together.

2- Stir constantly to prevent curdling until the mixture is thick like sour cream, approx. 10 minutes.

3- Add butter and whisk mixture until butter is melted. Add lemon zest.

4- Remove from heat to let cool. When it has cooled, cover to prevent a skin from forming.

5- Store in an airtight container and keep in refrigerator when not using for up to 1 week.

Servings: 1-1/2 cups

Wow, this is making me really hungry.

Nutella Ice Cream

In all the hubbub, I forgot that I recently decided to make Chocolate and Zucchini’s Nutella Ice Cream. I figured I had to, when both Amy and Tommy linked me to it. Plus, the fact that the recipe has just two ingredients that I happened to have on hand was like a sign - it was practically begging, “Make me now!”

Like Amy, I am a huge fan of Clotilde, the food she makes and her writing style. Amy has successfully tried her chocolate zucchini cake but even though I faithfully bought zucchinis at the Farmer’s Market last summer with that hope in mind, the opportunity never presented itself. So this is my very first Clotilde recipe and I am pretty excited by that.

In her recipe, she suggests using a different chocolate hazelnut spread rather than Nutella, because the original Nutella recipe has changed to include goodness knows what kind of scary weird preservative-y things. Martin and I actually had lots of Nutella - and I mean LOTS, we bought it at Costco last summer. One Costco-Nutella container was the size of 2.5 normal Nutella containers. I’d made my self-frosted cupcakes with one container of Nutella and I still had the other container (they came in sets of 2). I decided to use it for this recipe.

I combined the two ingredients together and put a little elbow grease behind my whisk and kind of stirred / pushed at the Nutella clump until it was blended with the evaporated milk. This took awhile but I enjoyed watching the two very separate ingredients slowly become a smooth, homogeneous mixture. But I AM weird like that.

The only way I differed on her recipe is that I did equal parts cup measurements milk and Nutella, more for ease of measurement than anything else. After chilling it overnight, I put it in my ice cream maker and let it churn. The results were very creamy and VERY Nutella-y. I gifted this to Greg and Kjersti, because I knew one of Kjersti’s favorite gelato flavors at our local gelato place was his Caramello Crunch, which basically tastes like Nutella ice cream with random crunchies. However, before I did, I cheated and snuck a little bite - all in the interest of making sure I was giving them something edible. That’s my story and I’m stickig to it.

Out of all the ice creams I have made, I think my favorite (and Martin’s by a mile) is still Cookie Dough but this one was great as well, especially if you are a Nutella fan. Next time, I am thinking of making my own “Nutella” so I can control the ingredients that go in. We’ll see how that goes!

Nutella Ice Cream

2 (12 oz.) cans unsweetened evaporated milk (this is approx. 3 cups)
3 cups Nutella

1- Mix together two ingredients until smoothly blended.

2- Let chill overnight.

3- Place in ice cream maker and let churn until desired consistency is reached. Scoop into container and place in freezer to harden slightly. Serve.

Servings: A lot