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.

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.

Cookies and Cream Cupcakes

I saw these and decided to make them for Arun’s House Warming / Birthday / Disco party. I wanted to try them and see what they were like, without the burden of eating 24 cupcakes. A party seems like just the answer!

These are really easy to pull together, especially if you cheated and used a box mix, like me. I’ve tried making cake mixes from scratch before and they always come out dense and heavy. I’d rather just save my time and use a box mix, lazy as that sounds. Actually, wait. I take that back. The only cake mix that I have ever successfully made from scratch is Kyle’s Red Velvet Cake, which I really love and which has always come out very tasty for me - perhaps why I love it? But that’s it. Yellow cake, white cake, brown cake … might as well be tasteless lumps of flour. Who wants cake that tastes like that?

Anyway, I made these and got lazy towards the end. I split up the cookies without making sure there was cream on both sides. Since I used double stuffed, some people had an extra special surprise waiting at the bottom and for others, well - sorry Greg!

You can always substitute your own cake recipe, of course. These were crowd-pleasing and sweet enough on their own that no frosting was needed. Good for me, because I spent so long debating what kind of frosting I wanted that there was eventually no more time and people had to eat them muffin-style.

Cookies and Cream Cupcakes

30 Oreo cookies
1 pkg. vanilla cake mix
1 cup sour cream
½ cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1- Note: This quick, easy way can be substituted with the Magnolias Vanilla Cupcake recipe. Make vanilla cupcake recipe as-is and add crushed Oreos.

2- Preheat oven to 350-degrees and place liners in muffin tin.

3- Count out 12 Oreos and separate bottoms from top, making sure there is frosting on both sides. Place one wafer, icing side up, in bottom of each muffin tin.

4- Coarsely crush remaining Oreos.

5- Combine remaining ingredients in large bowl and beat until well-mixed.

6- Measure out 1-½ cup of crushed Oreos, using the remaining Oreos for garnish.

7- Spoon batter into muffin tin in ⅓ cup amounts or until muffin tin is approximately ⅔ full.

8- Bake until toothpick comes out with wet crumbs attached. Remove from oven and let cool before serving. Frost as desired.

Servings: 24

Do you want to be a cupcake or a muffin?

Surprise, surprise from the Cupcake Muffin!

Pie Crust

I try to do a post a day or as close to one as possible, but I definitely am bad about it on the weekends. So I have a giant backlog to go through. But, luckily, Flickr keeps me honest.
And backlogged.
The last time I made pot pie, I mixed up a giant batch of gravy, vegetables and meat. Half was more than enough for one pie so the filling sat in our fridge for a few days, doing that flavor absorption thing that it does so well. And finally, on Sunday, after lots of errands and Christmas shopping and coming home to realize we had no leftovers and it was 6pm, we pulled it out again to give it a chance to shine.

In my quest to overcome my lack of pie-crust-awesome, I pulled out this one, which I had been waiting to try and which had been touted as a great easy flaky pie crust. And its true - it came out very flaky and soft and tender. I thought it was a great “standby-oh-crap-I-need-pie-crust-NOW!” recipe because it pulls together in a snap but lacked the flavor depth that butter would have added. Because, as we all know, butter makes everything better.

And the filling was once again awesome, thanks in part to the extra spice of the sausage. I would totally totally make a pot pie again with a hint of sausage. And next time I make a pot pie, this pie crust might once again save me, though I am considering making a drop-biscuit crust. Because that reminds me of cobbler (peach cobbler!) and that is a very good thing.

So here is the easy-peasy pie crust that Amy and Brian would probably sniff their noses at but could maybe save your meal one day!

Pie Crust (The East Way)

2 cups AP flour
½ tsp. salt
½ cup + 1 tbsp. vegetable oil
4-½ tbsp. milk

1- Place flour in bowl and stir in salt with fork.

2- Make a well in the center.

3- Combine oil and milk in measuring cup.

4- Pour liquids into flour all at once.

5- Stir with fork until oil is absorbed. Work into ball with hands.

6- Cut ball in half and reshape into two balls.

7- Roll each ball between two 12” squares of waxed paper and roll out.

8- Place in pie plate and bake as normal, until crust is golden brown.

Servings: 2 thin pie crusts

I told ya …. thin.

Sweet Yeast Rolls

In my curiosity of all things yeasty, I decided to make these. Anything yeasty I make is almost sure to impress Martin, another added bonus.

These sweet yeast buns pulled together very well and were very easy to make. The recipe called for 3 eggs and I halved the recipe, mostly because I happened to make a recipe that called for one egg yolk. Perfect way to use the egg whites, I thought. I think the buns came out rather well but have nothing to really compare it to. They were a very subtle sweet, I thought, not the sticky gooey sweet of cinnamon buns.

Sweet Yeast Rolls

1-1/2 cups warm water
2 tbsp. rapid-rise yeast
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
2/3 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1/3 cup unsalted butter
2-1/2 tsp. salt
5 - 7 cups bread flour

2 eggs + 1 pinch sugar

1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup white sugar
1/2 cup AP flour

1- In mixer bowl, whisk together yeast and warm water. Let sit for 5 minutes.

2- Briskly whisk in vanilla, sugar, eggs, butter and salt and blend well using paddle attachment onKitchenAid.

3- Add 3 - 4 cups of bread flour and mix. Switch to dough hook.

4- Knead with dough hook on lowest speed for 6 - 8 minutes, adding more bread flour as needed to prevent sticking. By the end, it should stick to the bottom but not the sides of the mixer. Dough is ready when its smooth and slightly sticky.

5- Remove dough hook and coat large bowl with oil. Place dough in bowl and turn to coat.

6- Let dough rise until doubled in bulk.

7- Cut dough into equal portions and roll into a round shape. Coat with egg wash and let rise again.

8- Preheat oven to 350-degrees.

9- Mash together butter, sugar and flour. Sprinkle on top of rolls.

10- Let rolls rise for approximately one hour.

11- Bake for 28 - 35 minutes or until golden brown.

Servings: 12

Letting the dough rise

Right before baking

Fresh baked and oso tasty

Pumpkin Pie

Here are the questions that were going through my mind as I researched how to make pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving dinner:

How many different ways are there to make pumpkin pie? Not too many.

Is there much you can really do to tweak pumpkin pie? Not really.

Who likes cold, somewhat gelatinous pie? Not this person here, so I hope my fellow Thanksgivingers like whatever I turn out.

Who has the worst luck with pie crust? OMG, meeeeeeeeeee.

Keeping all of this in mind, here is my pie. I won’t even post the recipe, since it is pretty much like every other recipe out there, except I amped up the spice levels since cinnamon is awesome.

Pumpkin pie lookin’ mighty fine in some Emile Henry pie plate hotness

While I was researching, I read that if I keep my pie in the warm oven, it will prevent separation as the pie will cool slower. I did it with the door closed, though upon later reflection, I was thinking maybe I should have cooled it with the oven door open. I can try that on another pumpkin pie but this one sadly separated anyway. I should have hidden it with whipped cream piping but didn’t. But Kjersti, Greg and Martin (who had never eaten pumpkin pie until that point) liked it and that’s all that matters.

Next year, I might go a different pumpkin-y route, like the pumpkin parfaits that seem uber-popular in all the food blogs this season. I might even try making that in the next few days anyway, just because all the pictures look mighty tasty!

I also made roasted sweet potatoes, steamed broccoli and Parker House yeast rolls (from the same recipe I used previously). This time, I let the dough rise to its little heart’s content and I noticed an immediate difference in this batch and the last batch I made. The dough was soft and very porous. It also deflated upon touch. And it made super soft, buttery rolls. Success!

Speaking of happy cinnamon awesomeness, do you know who supposedly has another book coming out? Jessica Seinfeld, of Deceptively Delicious fame. I heard that this one is called The Joy of Cooking with Cinnamon and is basically The Joy of Cooking recipes … with cinnamon added to all of them. I guess you can’t blame her - cinnamon is pretty tasty.

And speaking of tasty cinnamon some more, someone at a party once told me that the cinnamon we eat in the US isn’t actually cinnamon but some very similar spice. Can anyone confirm / deny?

A Weekend of Baking

This weekend, two very big food-related things happened. First, Kjersti turned 24 on Sunday and had a Birthday-Ween Costume party. And second, Michelle and Paul threw a potluck! A yummy, yummy potluck.

And I tried two new recipes for both.

So, for Kjersti’s birthday, I made beer bread for her. A few notes for next time: I poured the beer rather haphazardly so a lot of head formed. But I mixed everything up anyway and the bread was none the worse for wear. I think giving it a little time to rise made the texture a lot lighter and yummier.

And then for the potluck, I made lemon meringue pie. Finally, I rolled out a good crust without a lot of difficulty. However, this time I cheated and added about 1/4 cup less flour, added enough water to make sure it all stuck together and then used flour to help me roll it out after chilling it for a long time. Perfect. However, I think next time I will add 1/8 cup less instead because the crust came out almost too buttery.

In addition, the meringue recipe was new. A few notes for next time: I will make sure that the lemon curd has cooled more before spooning the meringue on top. I feel that the bottom of the meringue melted when it came in contact with the warm lemon curd. Also, the meringue wouldn’t form stiff peaks but I think it came out not too badly. I thought the lemon curd was tasty, though opinions on its sweetness and lemonness are appreciated so I can tweak.

Here is my pie. You can see the little piece I broke off to test its eatability:

Cinnamon Buns

So, I absolutely adore cinnamon buns. Adore. Them. I am a huge fan of cinnamon and any vehicle that packs an extra-cinnamony punch. A friend’s birthday party is coming up and I tinkered with the idea of making fresh cinnamon buns and letting her bake them the next day. Amy quickly punched a hole in that by saying that the yeast will continuously make the dough rise. True, but dang. I wish there was a way to touch the dough and command it to “Rise no more!” but that would defy all manner of biology.

So, back to the drawing board for Kjersti’s gift but I couldn’t get the idea of warm cinnamon buns out of my head. So I resolved to make them as a dessert for Martin and I that night. This recipe needs a rise time of approximately 2 - 3 hours, which makes this a bad breakfast item, considering how groggy and hungry I am once I wake up. I do not think I would have the stamina to wake up early, mix all of this together, then go back to bed for 3 hours or even to just wake up normally and then wait 3 hours for breakfast.

Also, when I took these out of the oven, they were soft and pillowy and tasty and I liked. The next morning, they were somewhat pasty and sticky looking and I liked them a lot less. So, suffice to say, these are an “eat immediately OR ELSE” food.

They’re so gooey-cinnamony-happy though, that is totally fine by me.

Okay, enough rambling. The recipe I used is the one used by The Daring Bakers, a food community devoted to stretching the limits of their baking skillz. I try to follow recipes for the most part the first time I make something - born out of a distate of the number of commentators of recipes who “change this and change that” and who DIDN’T LIKE IT OMGZ or who ABSOLUTELY ADORED YUM YUM. But if they do that, I feel their rating is unfair, as they didn’t really make the recipe they’re reviewing, did they?

But, two things I did do was to decrease the amount of icing made and tweak the filling to add a bit more kick by increasing cinnamon and adding some allspice. Because I like the zesty punch. Like it!
Cinnamon Buns

6-½ tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
5-½ tbsp. butter
1 large egg
1 tsp. lemon zest
3-½ cups AP flour
2 tsp. instant yeast
1-⅛ to 1-¼ cup buttermilk

6-½ tbsp. sugar
1-½ tsp. cinnamon
1 tbsp. melted butter

1 cup powdered sugar
1-½ to 2 tbsp. warm milk

Preparation: Oil a large bowl and line a baking pan with parchment paper for use in the not-immediate-but-not-too-distant future. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350-degrees.

1/ Cream butter, sugar and salt together.

2/ Add egg and lemon zest and beat until smooth, making sure to scrape down the bowl often.

3/ Start by adding 1-⅛ cup of buttermilk, flour and yeast. Mix on low speed until dough comes together and then switch to a dough hook.

4/ Increase the speed to medium and knead for about 10 minutes. The dough should be silky and somewhat tacky, but not sticky. A good tip: if you are using a stand mixer with a dough hook, the dough should stick to the bottom of the bowl. If it is sticking to the sides, it is too wet. If it is not sticking to the bottom, it is too dry. Add flour or buttermilk appropriately and continue kneading.

5/ Turn dough out into the oiled bowl and turn to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit at room-temperature until it is doubled in size (about 2 hours).

6/ Lightly flour a work surface and turn dough out onto it. Roll out the dough into a large rectangle: ⅔” thick and 14” x 12” for large buns, 18” x 9” for small buns. Keep dough thick or it will be too thin and will turn out tough and chewy after baking.

7/ Melt together sugar, cinnamon and butter to create a sandy mixture. Sprinkle on top of dough and press into dough with back of a spoon.

8/ Roll the dough and pinch the seam shut. If the middle is bigger than the ends, roll it out gently so the log evens out.

9/ Cut the buns into 8 – 12 pieces for large buns, 12 – 16 pieces for small buns.

10/ Place in baking pan so they are not touching but somewhat close and cover with plastic wrap.

11/ Wait for oven to preheat. After finished preheating, remove plastic wrap and bake buns on the middle shelf. Be careful not to overbake.

12/ Let buns cool until they are warm but not hot. While waiting, make fondant glaze by whisking milk with the sugar until a thick paste forms. Start with ¼ cup of sugar and slowly add more milk and sugar as consistency calls for.

13/ Drizzle over warm buns before serving.

Servings: 8 – 12 large buns or 12 – 16 small buns

Lemon Meringue Pie

This is the pie I plan to make for Michelle’s potluck, for my future reference:

Lemon Meringue Pie

1 cup sugar
2 tbsp. AP flour
3 tbsp. cornstarch
¼ tsp. salt
1-½ cups water
2 lemons
2 tbsp. butter
4 eggs
1 nine-inch pie crust
6 tbsp. white sugar

Preparation: Preheat oven to 350-degrees.

1/ Juice and zest lemons. Separate yolks from egg whites.

2/ Combine sugar, flour, cornstarch and salt. Whisk with water, lemon juice and lemon zest.

3/ Cook over medium-high heat, stirring frequently, until mixture boils.

4/ Place egg yolks in a bowl and slowly add ½ cup of hot mixture, whisking the whole time. Add egg mixture back to original mixture and whisk.

5/ Bring to a boil and stir constantly until thick. Remove from heat and pour into pie shell.

6/ In a large glass or metal bowl, whip egg whites until foamy. Add sugar gradually and keep whipping until stiff peaks form.

7/ Spread meringue over pie, sealing edges.

8/ Bake for 10 minutes or until meringue is golden brown.

Servings: 8

Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes

There was a Girl’s Night last night and it’s a known fact that women are suckers for anything in miniature. The Cuteness Factor, you see. So, with that in mind, I decided to make Amy’s Boston Cream Pie … in cupcake form. It’s all appallingly simple but amazingly tasty.

She gave me a recipe for some chocolate whipped cream but I promptly lost it. I found a similar recipe online that called for more cocoa powder and beat the heavy cream until stiff peaks form. Martin, as my taste tester, said if he hadn’t seen me beating the heavy cream, he would have thought it was a mousse. Very rich, very decadent, very AWESOME. This is definitely going into a “Will Make A LOT” pile.

Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes

1 box yellow cake mix

1 box vanilla pudding mix

1 cup whipping cream

1/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder

3 tbsp. sugar

Drizzle of vanilla

Preparation: Preheat oven to 350-degrees and prepare cupcake tins.

1/ Prepare cake mix according to box directions. Remove from oven and let cool.

2/ When cupcakes are cool, cut an x in the top of each cupcake.

3/ Prepare vanilla pudding according to directions and let set.

4/ When pudding has set, mix with spoon and pour into ziploc bag or other piping device. Place tip into cupcake and squeeze, filling the cupcake.

5/ Right before serving, combine heavy cream, cocoa powder, sugar and vanilla. Beat on high until stiff peaks form. Spoon or pipe on top of cupcakes.

6/ Serve! YUM!

Servings: 12 - 18 cupcakes