Sinful Cinnamon Rolls

I hosted a brunch a few weeks ago and used it as an excuse to make these insanely decadent cinnamon rolls.  I don't care much for Bobby Flay, but I happened to be flipping past the Food Network one night as he was talking about the sticky buns from Flour bakery in Boston, and the food porn shots of these rolls hooked me.  When I googled for recipes, I was delighted to discover that they had the actual recipe on Food Network's website since the owner of the bakery had gone up against Flay (and won!) on his "Throwdown" show.  

I made a few slight tweaks to the FN recipe based on my own personal preference and instincts since what they mentioned on the show did not seem to identically match what was in the FN recipe or other versions I'd found online that purported to be from the Flour cookbook.  Also, I went ahead and baked up a double batch since the dough recipe was scaled that way and I had a large number of people coming over. My "doubled" version is what's below.  

Warning: this recipe is not for the feint of heart, both literally and figuratively. Not only does it use about a pound and a half of butter, but it is also pretty labor intensive, requiring at least 1 1/2-2 days of prep and rise time. It will also give your stand mixer a serious workout.

Ingredients

Brioche Dough

2 1/2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more if needed

2 1/4 c. bread flour

1 1/2 pkgs (3 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast 

1/3 c. plus 1 tablespoon  sugar 

1 TBSP  salt 

1/2 c. cold water 

5 eggs

1 3/8 c. (2 3/4 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into 10 to 12 pieces

1. Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle, combine the all-purpose flour, bread flour, yeast, sugar, salt, water, and the eggs. Beat on low speed for 3 to 4 minutes, or until all the ingredients are combined. Stop the mixer, as needed, to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl to make sure all the flour is incorporated into the wet ingredients. Once the dough has come together, switch to the dough hook and beat on low speed for another 3 to 4 minutes. The dough will be very stiff and seem quite dry. If your dough does not seem to want to come together, add some more cold water, a teaspoon at a time, until it does.  Don't overdo it though - it is supposed to be dry-looking at this stage.

2. With the mixer on low speed, add the butter, 1 piece at a time, mixing after each addition until it disappears into the dough. Continue mixing on low speed for about 10 minutes, stopping the mixer occasionally to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. It is important for all the butter to be thoroughly mixed into the dough. If necessary, stop the mixer occasionally and break up the dough with your hands to help mix in the butter.  This is greasy messy process, so an apron would be a good call here.

3. Once the butter is completely incorporated, turn up the speed to medium and beat until the dough becomes sticky, soft, and somewhat shiny, another 15 minutes. It will take some time to come together. It will look shaggy and questionable at the start and then eventually it will turn smooth and silky. 

4. Turn the speed to medium-high and beat for about 1 minute. You should hear the dough make a slap-slap-slap sound as it hits the sides of the bowl. Test the dough by pulling at it; it should stretch a bit and have a little give. If it seems wet and loose and more like a batter than a dough, add a few tablespoons of flour and mix until it comes together. If it breaks off into pieces when you pull at it, continue to mix on medium speed for another 2 to 3 minutes, or until it develops more strength and stretches when you grab it. It is ready when you can gather it all together and pick it up in 1 piece.

5. Put the dough in a large bowl or plastic container and cover it with plastic wrap, pressing the wrap directly onto the surface of the dough. Let the dough proof (that is, grow and develop flavor) in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours or up to overnight At this point you can freeze the dough in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

Goo

1 1/2 c. (3 sticks) unsalted butter 

3 c. firmly packed light brown sugar 

2/3 c. honey 

2/3 c. heavy cream 

2/3 c. water 

1/2 tsp salt

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Whisk in the brown sugar and cook, stirring, to combine (it may look separated, that's ok). Remove from the heat and whisk in the honey, cream, water, and salt. Strain to remove any undissolved lumps of brown sugar. Let cool for about 30 minutes, or until cooled to room temperature. You should have about 6 cups. (The mixture can be made up to 2 weeks in advance and stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator.) 

The rolls

In a small bowl, combine:

1/2 c.  light brown sugar 

1/2 c. granulated sugar 

2 tsp ground cinnamon 

1 c. pecan halves, toasted and chopped

This will be the filling for the cinnamon rolls.

1. Take your brioche dough and divide it in half.

2. On a floured work surface, roll out the brioche into rectangle about 12 by 16 inches and 1/4-inch thick. It will have the consistency of cold, damp Play-Doh and should be fairly easy to roll. Position the rectangle so a short side is facing you. 

3. Sprinkle half the cinnamon/sugar mixture evenly over the entire surface of the dough. Starting from the short side farthest from you and working your way down, roll up the rectangle like a jelly roll. Try to roll tightly, so you have a nice round spiral. Trim off about 1/4- inch from each end of the roll to make them even. 

4. Use a bench scraper or a chef's knife to cut the roll into 8 equal pieces, each about 1 1/2-inches wide. 

5. Repeat for the other half of the dough. (At this point, the unbaked buns can be tightly wrapped in plastic wrap and frozen for up to 1 week. When ready to bake, thaw them, still wrapped, in the refrigerator overnight or at room temperature for 2 to 3 hours, then proceed as directed.) 

6. Divide the goo between two 9 by 13-inch baking dishes, covering the bottom evenly. Sprinkle an additional 1/2 c. pecans evenly over the surface of each pan. Arrange the buns, evenly spaced, in the baking dish. Cover with plastic wrap and put in a warm spot to proof until the dough is puffy, pillowy, and soft and the buns are touching-almost tripled in size, about 2 hours. [Alternately, you can also let them proof overnight in your refrigerator, which is what they supposedly do at Flour.  I have, however, read some people's comments that they can get soggy from being in the Goo too long, so try at your own risk.]

7. Position a rack in the center of the oven, and heat to 350 degrees F. 

8. Bake until golden brown, about 35 to 45 minutes. Let cool in the dish on a wire rack for 20 to 30 minutes. One at a time, invert the buns onto a serving platter, and spoon any extra goo and pecans from the bottom of the dish over the top.   Makes 15 large rolls.

The buns are best served warm or within 4 hours of baking. They can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 day, and then warmed in a 325 degree F oven for 10 to 12 minutes before serving. 

The Verdict

As I mentioned before, these are pretty labor intensive.  Being the procrastinator that I am, I waited way too long to start these - like at 11pm on Saturday night with the intention of serving them at 11am on Sunday.  Not the best idea, especially since mixing the dough was a long and somewhat loud process and I had to babysit my mixer to keep it from jumping off the counter.  

So yes, it was a time crunch, and they were a bit late to the table, but these cinnamon rolls were TO. DIE. FOR. Like, everyone-was-stuffed-full-and-still-had-to-eat-some-scrumptious.  I did realize too late that I had rolled mine along the long side instead of the short, so mine were tall instead of wide and a bit misshapen, but they were still fantastic.  I love nuts, so I think I may double the pecans next time.  

Other random notes: 

I was a bit short, so I subbed agave nectar for about half of the honey.  I found the goo to be surprisingly thin, which was nice in that I didn't have to strain it, but made it less satisfyingly gooey. I may cut back on the water next time, or allow it to cool overnight in the fridge to see if it thickens up more.  Not sure if using the agave nectar factored into the thinness or not.

I also used two disposable aluminum pans for the final proof and baking.  This was initially out of necessity, since my glass baking dishes were being used for other brunch items, but turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it meant I avoided having to scrub baked-on goo out of my pans.  

Here's a pic of the rolls before I turned them out of the pan.

 

And after. Yum.

As I said before, this made 16 giant rolls, and while they were tasty, they are not the type of thing you want to eat a lot of. I packed most of the leftovers up and sent them home with our guests, and T declared that these were so good they should only be made once or twice a year.  I will probably bust them out again at Christmas.

Snow Day

 On Tuesday, we had a normally rare snow day due to the freezing rain/sleet the night before, followed by freezing temperatures which resulted in the roads turning into solid sheets of ice.  Being from the Midwest, this type of thing never used to phase me, but since they don't have salt trucks down here (and barely even have sand), it makes driving pretty hazardous.  So E and I took advantage of the lazy day at home to hang out, do some craft projects and bake!

First, I made my friend Jacki's super yummy bread recipe.  Basically, you toss all the ingredients into a bread machine and let it mix and rise, but then take it out to form it into loaves and bake it in your regular oven.  Works like a charm and it's a great, no-fuss no-muss way to have freshly baked bread almost anytime.  I bought a cheap used bread machine pretty much just for this purpose. 

One minor change I make: since I substitute slightly less than half the white flour for whole wheat, I've found that it tends to rise a bit less than I'd like, so I compensate by increasing the yeast to 1 full tablespoon.  Both Troy and the kiddo go crazy for this bread whenever I make it and usually we manage to plow through an entire loaf in less than a day.  Luckily, the recipe makes enough dough for 2 loaves. ;)

 

After the bread was done, I let E help me mix up a batch of Congo Bars from Bakerella's website.  As per her recommendation, we mixed them completely by hand, but I'm not sure it made much of a difference in the texture since they came out so underbaked, even after I added about 5 minutes to the bake time. I think next time I will bake them for longer at a lower temperature.  

 

Even underbaked, they are still sinfully good and so easy to make with ingredients I keep on hand. I added a cup of butterscotch chips, just because I had them handy, and it might have been a bit over the top since they are already so sweet.  I may also try cutting the sugar next time by a couple ounces and see what happens.

Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

Last month, I had a few friends over for an impromptu knitting night, and I used that as an excuse to bake up some cookies.  Here's my version of a cranberry oatmeal cookie, adapted from an Allrecipes recipe.  I like this recipe because it's a bit more heavily spiced than your average oatmeal cookie, so it's especially good around the holidays.  I used cranberries because I hate raisins, but you could easily swap them out.  I did think these were a tad sweet the last time I made them, so I will likely cut out at least 1/4 c. of the brown sugar for a slightly milder cookie.
 

Ingredients

1 c. (2 sticks) unsalted butter

1 c. packed brown sugar

1/2 c. granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 c. all-purpose flour

1/2 c. whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cloves

3 c. rolled oats

1 c. dried cranberries

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a small bowl, combine both flours, baking soda, salt cinnamon and cloves. 

3. In your mixer bowl, cream butter and both sugars together until light and fluffy.

4. Add eggs, one at a time, scraping down the bowl in-between each addition.  Add vanilla and combine.

5. Add flour mixture and mix on low until just combined.

6. Add oats and cranberries and stir to combine.

7.  Drop rounded tablespoons onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet.  Bake 10-12 minutes or until golden around the edges.  Do not overbake.  Allow to cool on cookie sheet for about 2 minutes before transferring to cooling rack. 

I can't quite remember since it's been a while, but I think this makes about 4 dozen cookies.

Fudge puddles

 

I've been dying to make these ever since my friend Abbie posted them on her website, The Green Wife (she has lots of great stuff there - recipes, crafts, giveaways, etc).  I mean, who doesn't love peanut butter and chocolate together, right?

Well with the big snowstorm here in Texas, we were more or less housebound today so I decided to give it a whirl.  They're a teeny bit labor intensive, but totally worth it.  These cookies were absolutely fabulous, bordering on sinful.  I'm actually almost glad that I waited so long to make them because they are crazy addictive too.  I don't know if she mentions it on her site, but the recipe makes a TON - I ended up with about 8 dozen.

I made it pretty much exactly as written with the exception of the fact that I halved the salt.  I figured that with all that peanut butter, it'd be plenty salty already.  I also recommend waiting until you've finished baking all the cookies before you make the fudge filling.  I made mine too early and after a while, the fudge cooled and set a bit and didn't look as pretty after being scooped and filled.  They still tasted the same, I'm just obsessive about things being pretty. ;)

Check out the recipe here.  And don't say I didn't warn you!

Lemon cake

This is one of the very first recipes that I came up with totally on my own, from scratch.  I'm not generally one to brag, but I will say that this cake usually earns raves whenever I make it.  It was inspired by the store-bought packages of sliced lemon cake my brother and I used to eat as a kid.  That stuff was a frightening shade of neon yellow but it was super lemony and I don't think I've had a cake since that had the same intense lemon flavor (although I'm sure if I went back home and ate it now, I'd find it nasty).

There was a lot of trial and error involved in coming up with this recipe, and I still tweak it from time to time, especially if I don't have all the ingredients I need on hand.   You always hear a lot about how baking is a science and requires precision.  Well, that's only really half-true.  Sure, there are certain formulas that generally need to be followed, but I think that once you know the basic rules of how ingredients interact, it's much easier to experiment. 

I usually let my daughter help me measure and pour in ingredients, which sometimes leads to unintended variations.  This time, she spilled most of an egg white on the counter but still managed to get the yolk into the mixer bowl.  I was actually quite pleased with how it turned out, so here is the version we made. ;)

Ingredients

1 c. butter, softened

1 1/2 c. sugar

2 whole eggs, plus 1 yolk

1 lemon, zested & juiced (1/8-1/4 c)

1/2 tsp lemon extract

2 c. all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 c. milk*

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a bundt pan with butter or spray oil.

2. In a small bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt.

3. In the bowl of stand mixer, cream butter and sugar with paddle attachment until light and fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, and mix till combined.  Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl with a spatula after each addition. Stir in the lemon zest and lemon extract.

4. Alternate adding the flour mixture and milk in 2-3 parts, each time mixing until just barely combined.  Scrape down sides and bottom of bowl to make sure everything has been incorporated.  Add lemon juice and stir to combine.  The batter may look a little curdled, but that's ok.

5. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out mostly clean.  Cool in pan for about 15-minutes, then turn out onto wire rack to cool completely.

6.  Drizzle with lemon glaze (recipe below) and serve.

Lemon glaze:

In small bowl, combine 3/4 c. powdered sugar and 2-3 Tbsp of lemon juice.  Whisk until there are no lumps.  Glaze should be about the consistency of syrup.  To thicken, add more powdered sugar.  To thin, add water a few drops at a time until it reaches desired consistency.

*I normally prefer to use whole milk when baking, or sometimes half & half or heavy cream.  I've even used sour cream for this recipe when I've been in a pinch.  I didn't have any of those on hand this time, so I just used good old skim milk.

Whole-Wheat Pita Bread

I randomly decided I wanted to try to bake some pita bread today.  Well, not totally randomly.  I actually wanted to make naan, but as I was searching through The Bread Bible by Beth Hensperger for a recipe (sadly to no avail), I came across this recipe for Country-Style Whole-Wheat Pita Bread and decided to try that instead since I already had all the ingredients for it.

Ingredients

2 1/2 c. warm water (105-115 degrees), divided

1 Tbsp (1 packet) active dry yeast

pinch of sugar

1/4 c. olive oil

1 Tbsp salt

3 c. whole-wheat pastry flour

3-3 1/2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour

Directions

1. Pour 1/2 c. warm water in a small measuring cup, and sprinkle in yeast & sugar.  Stir to dissolve and let stand until foamy, 5-10 min.

2. In a bowl of a stand mixer, combine whole-wheat flour, salt, olive oil and remaining 2 c. of water.  Mix on med-high with the paddle attachment until creamy, about 1 minute.  Stir in yeast mixture.

3.  Add the all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup at a time until a soft shaggy dough that just clears the sides of the bowl is formed.

4. Switch to dough hook and knead for 2-3 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and springy and springs back when pressed.  Or if you prefer, transfer the dough to a floured surface and knead by hand.  Dough will be very soft.

5. Place the dough in a lightly-greased, deep container or bowl.  Turn the dough so that it is coated with oil on all sides.  Cover with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until doubled in size, about 1-1 1/2 hours.

6. Preheat the oven to 475 degrees with a baking stone set on the bottom rack. Line several baking sheets with parchment paper, or heavily flour a pizza peel.

7. Gently punch down the dough and divide it in half.  Keep whatever dough you are not working with covered with plastic wrap or a clean towel to prevent a skin from forming.  Divide each half into 8 equal portions and form each into a ball.  Let rest 10 minutes while dividing the second half of the dough.

8.  Dust the work surface with whole-wheat pastry flour.  Using a rolling pin, roll the balls into 6-inch circles about 1/4-inch thick.  Loosely cover the circles and let rest 15 minutes, or until puffy.

Do not stack, as they will stick together.  If the dough does not roll out easily, let it rest for 10 more minutes to relax the gluten.  Move the dough circles by draping them, one at a time, over a flour-dusted rolling pin and place them on a floured dish towel before transferring them to the peel or baking sheets.

9. Transfer the circles to the peel or baking sheet.  With a quick action of the wrist, slide the pita rounds from the peel directly onto the hot stone.  You should be able to fit 4 at once.  Or alternately, place the baking sheets (one at a time) on the bottom rack directly on the hot stone.  Do not open the oven door for a full 4 minutes.

10.  Bake 8-10 minutes, total, or until fully puffed and light brown.  Watch carefully that the pitas do not overbake or burn.  The baking sheet pitas will take longer to bake than the stone-baked ones.  Remove the puffed hot breads with a wide metal spatula and stack between clean dish towels.

Makes 16 pitas.

Notes

These were fantastic, especially right out of the oven.  My daughter wolfed down a whole one by herself, plain. 

I made this recipe pretty much exactly as written - don't ask me why I happened to have whole-wheat pastry flour on hand, I have no idea.  Also, I'm not sure why she says to use one package of yeast or 1 tablespoon - I've always been under the impression that at package of yeast is 2 1/4 tsp (so 3/4 tsp shy of a tablespoon), but I went with the tablespoon measurement.  Which reminds me to mention something: if you make bread or pizza dough or anything with yeast even semi-regularly, it's really in your best interest to just buy a jar of active-dry yeast instead of the packets.  It's WAY cheaper.

However, when I baked the first few, I had missed the step of letting the rolled-out pitas rest 15 minutes so they did not puff up.  They still tasted great, they just didn't have pockets in the middle.  All the subsequent ones turned out fine.

I also forgot to set my timer for one batch and I think I horribly overbaked them, but after cooling a bit in the dishtowel, they were fine.  I will say, with the whole-wheat flour, it's a bit difficult to tell the doneness by color, as advised in the recipe.  But I really liked the flavor the whole-wheat flour added.  I think using the pastry flour was key - a lot of regular whole wheat flours I've used before tend to be coarser, which would definitely have affected the texture.

A few warnings:

1. You're going to need a lot of open surfaces or counter-space to do this.  Even if you don't roll them all out at once, you'll probably have 4-8 pitas sitting around and resting at any given time before being baked.

2. You will more than likely end up with a fine layer of flour covering most of your kitchen.

Neither of these things was a big issue for me, but I just thought I'd put it out there.

3.  I'm not sure I'd bother to attempt this recipe without the baking/pizza stone.  I know it seems like a pain to get one, but it's really a wonderful tool.  It makes even store-bought frozen pizzas taste worlds better.  You can usually find them for $10-$20 and they are worth every penny.

Oh also, the author did have a note in her recipe that these stale rather quickly, but toast nicely, so you may want to freeze a bunch if you don't think you'll use them all in the next few days.  After cooling them completely while still wrapped in towels, I put them in two ziploc bags, and I'm going to freeze one bag for later.  I'll update with how well they freeze & reheat when I get a chance.

Or alternately, she suggests you make pita chips with them:
Brush both sides with olive oil, cut each round into wedges and place in a single layer on a baking sheet.  Bake in the center of a 300-degree oven for 7 minutes, turn once and cook for another 7 minutes.  They will crisp as they cool.

Chocolate-Sour Cream Bundt Cake

 

Have I mentioned that I love the new bundt pan I got for Christmas from my lovely sister-in-law?  It's not often that I will bake twice in the same day, let alone using the same pan, but I couldn't resist trying out the recipe that came on the back of the box last night.

You can also find a slightly different, scaled-down version of this recipe on the Williams-Sonoma website that's geared towards fitting a 10-cup pan.  It leaves out the chocolate chips and uses a glaze in lieu of ganache. I think it's probably pretty close to this recipe, but having never made it, I can't vouch for it.

Ingredients

1 c. non-alkalized cocoa powder, sifted; plus more for dusting pan

7 1/2 oz. semisweet chocolate, finely chopped

1. c boiling water

2 1/4 c. all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/4 tsp kosher salt

2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter (room temperature)

2 1/2 c. packed light brown sugar

5 eggs, lightly beaten (room temperature)

4 tsp. vanilla extract

1 1/2 c. sour cream (room temperature)

1 1/2 c. semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Grease a large bundt pan and dust with cocoa powder, tapping out excess.

2. In a small bowl, combine the cocoa powder and 7 1/2 oz chocolate.  Add boiling water and whisk until the chocolate melts and the mixture is smooth.  Set aside to cool.

3. In a separate bowl or over parchment paper, sift together flour, baking soda and salt.

4. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs a little at a time, stopping occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl.  Add vanilla and beat in.

5. On low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and the sour cream in 3 parts, beginning and ending with the flour, beating until just combined.  Slowly pour in the chocolate-cocoa mixture and beat until no white streaks are visible, occasionally stopping the mixer to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl.  You want to mix until no white streaks are visible.  Then, using a rubber spatula, gently fold in the chocolate chips.

6.  Pour the batter into the prepared pan, spreading the batter so that the sides are about 1-inch higher on the sides than in the center.  Bake until a toothpick or skewer inserted in the center comes out mostly clean, approximately 60-70 minutes.

7. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let the cake cool upright in the pan for 15 minutes.  Invert the pan onto the rack and lift off the pan.  Let the cake cool completely, at least 1 hour.

Notes

This recipe makes a LOT of batter.  Seriously, a crazy amount.  Like, it filled most of my mixer bowl, most of my 15-cup bundt pan, and puffed up and over it during baking.  You either need to have a BIG bundt pan to make this, or be prepared to make cupcakes on the side.

I made a few very minor changes.  I didn't have enough cocoa powder left to dust my pan, but it didn't end up being an issue since my fancy new pan is still super nonstick.  I did, however, substitute white sugar for a cup of the brown since I ran out.  And I used regular old table salt instead of kosher, which I find to be a pain to measure as accurately.  The original recipe also called for you to return the cooled cake back to the pan so that you could "gently saw off" any excess than extended over the edge of the pan and have a level bottom, but honestly, I didn't bother.

Also, when it says to scrape down the sides (steps 4 & 5), make sure you do a thorough job.  I thought I had, but when it came time to pour the batter into the pan, I found a pool of batter at the bottom that had not been mixed properly with the chocolate mixture.  If this ever happens to you, you basically have two options.  If you've already poured most of the batter out, just leave it.  Mixing it in now is only going to make your cake all streaky and weird.  Otherwise, you can try to mix it in with the rest of the batter by hand.

The original recipe also called for a ganache topping (6 oz chopped semisweet chocolate, 2 Tbsp unsalted butter, 1/2 c. heavy cream; heat cream to boiling and pour over butter & chocolate, whisking until smooth), but it really doesn't need it.  It is probably one of the most insanely chocolate-y cakes I have ever baked or eaten in my life.  The combination of cocoa powder, melted chocolate and then chocolate chips too bordered on unnecessary, and coming from me, that's saying something.  I think next time I may use mini-chocolate chips or leave them out altogether.

All in all, this earned raves.  It was rich, moist, super chocolatey and delicious. We all ate the cake with a generous scoop (or two) of vanilla ice cream to cut the intensity a bit.  SO good.  In fact, this might be my new favorite cake recipe.  But like I mentioned before, it's enormous, so you may want to save it for really special occasions or large gatherings.

Monkey Bread, Take 2

Happy New Year!!

For New Year's Day breakfast, I decided last minute to give Monkey Bread another try, this time using the shortcut that seems to be most popular, store-bought dough.  I actually happened to have a tube of refrigerated French bread dough on hand (bought for some other recipe that I never got around to making), so I opted to use that over biscuit dough.  But it was otherwise the same basic methodology: cut dough into small pieces, dip in a mixture of 1 c. melted butter, 1 1/4 c. brown sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon and 1 c. chopped pecans, toss in a bundt/tube pan and bake.

This time I used the brand-new Nordic Ware Nonstick Bundt Pan I got for Christmas and wow, what a difference that made!  For one thing, there was no burnt sugar all over the bottom of my oven, like last time (haha).  Seriously though, this pan is awesome.  Despite having gooey molten sugar in it, it pretty much unmolded the bread instantly and rinsed clean.  I'm pretty much a total Nordic Ware snob when it comes to shaped cake pans.  They are well worth the extra price, although they do occasionally turn up at discount stores like TJ Maxx, and I usually have to resist the urge to buy shapes I don't need like, say a rose-shaped bundt or a football stadium pan.

Anyhow, I thought that this batch of monkey bread was much better than last time, at least in terms of the texture of the dough.  It was also much more gooey, which was also a huge plus.  However, in terms of taste, Troy said he preferred the other dough, so I will probably go back to that recipe next time and just make it to order instead of the night before.  Still, Troy and my in-laws demolished this whole thing in no time, so I consider it a hit.

Coming up (in fact, in my oven right this moment), Chocolate-Sour Cream Bundt Cake. :)

Happy Holidays!

We decided not to travel for the holidays this year and have our first real family Christmas at home.  It was especially exciting because this is the first year that our daughter really understood the concept of holidays, and it was fun to see how much she enjoyed the lights and decorations and of course, the presents.

Since it was just the three of us, I didn't want to do anything too complicated for breakfast, so I nixed my original plan to make cinnamon rolls and decided to make Monkey Bread instead.  I've heard many people rave about Monkey, but I've actually never eaten any myself.  Most of the recipes I came across called for store-bought biscuit dough, cut into quarters and dipped in a mixture of sugar and butter.  I did, however, find a recipe that used yeasted dough, but it was geared towards a bread machine.  I decided to try and adapt it for my stand mixer and give it a try.

Monkey Bread

Ingredients

One packet or 2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast

3 c. all-purpose flour

1/4 c. white sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp salt

2 Tbsp butter, softened

1 c. warm water

1 c. butter

1 c. packed brown sugar

1/2 c. chopped pecans

Directions

1. Proof the yeast in the warm water.  (I sometimes also add a pinch of flour or sugar to get it going.)

2. In the bowl of your mixer, combine flour, sugar, cinnamon, salt, and softened butter.

3. With the mixer running on low speed, slowly add the water & yeast mixture.  I use the paddle attachment to start.  Once the dough comes together, change to dough hook and knead on medium speed for about 5 minutes.  Dough will be fairly soft.

4.  In a medium saucepan on low heat, melt one cup of butter, stir in brown sugar and nuts. Stir until smooth. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

5. Gently shape the dough into a log and cut dough in one-inch chunks. Drop one chunk at a time into the butter sugar mixture. Thoroughly coat dough pieces, then layer them loosely in a greased Bundt or tube pan, staggering layers so you're plopping each dough chunk over a space between two below. Let rise in a warm, draft-free spot until dough is just over the top of the pan, 15 to 20 minutes.

6. Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. After removing from oven, place a plate face down in top of the pan, and (using oven mitts) flip the pan over  until bread slides out onto plate. Serve warm.

Notes:

I made this the night before, covered and refrigerated it.  I'm not so sure that was a good idea.  Even after taking it out of the fridge and letting it warm up at room temp for an hour or so, I don't think I got as much rise out of the dough as I should have and the resulting Monkey Bread seemed a bit dense to me.  I also used a tube/angel food pan, which I also don't recommend.  For one thing, it was way too big.  And then, because it was two pieces, the gooey brown sugar/ butter mixture oozed out the bottom and made a giant burn-y mess all over the bottom of my oven.   I think the loss of goo also made for a lackluster result. And there's nothing like scouring out your oven on Christmas morning to get you in the holiday spirit.

Still, Troy claimed it was good and our daughter managed to eat 4-5 pieces on her own, so I guess it wasn't a total bust.  I think next time, I will definitely make it the morning of, and use a smaller one-piece pan.  I may also try halving the cinnamon in the dough and adding some to the butter mixture.

What would Christmas be for a cookbook junkie without a few new cookbooks?  Under my tree this morning:

I spent the better part of the day reading the Momofuku book. It's unlikely that I'll ever make a single recipe from it (though the pork belly is extremely tempting), but it was still very entertaining.

I'm also looking forward to trying out some of the recipes from Martha's Baking Handbook.  Even though I have a bazillion baking books already, her approach always makes everything seem easier.  I have a feeling that I may never get back to Cooking with Claudine.

Ricotta Coffee Cake

My wonderful mother-in-law made this amazing coffee cake during one of her visits.  It was so rich and moist, I absolutely had to copy down the recipe.  Of course, being awash in thousands of recipes, I never got around to making it until just last month.  I made it for a knitting night with friends, and then again just a couple days ago for a potluck playdate.  It was every bit as good as I remembered.   The ricotta really adds a lovely moist tenderness to the texture of the cake.

The wonderful bonus of this recipe?  It's actually an overnight coffee cake, so you can get it all mixed up and ready the night before, and then just sling it in the oven first thing in the morning.

Here is the recipe, adapted from Better Homes & Gardens magazine:

Overnight Coffee Cake
Ingredients
3 c. all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 c. unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 c. granulated sugar
3 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 (15 oz.) carton ricotta cheese
3/4 c. chopped nuts
1/2 c. packed dark brown sugar
2 Tbsp toasted wheat germ
1 heaping Tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg

Directions

1. Grease bottom and 1/2 inch up sides of 13x9x2 pan
2. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, & salt.
3. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar.
4. Add eggs, one at a time, scraping down inbetween each addition.
   
5. Add ricotta cheese and mix.
6. Add as much of the flour mixture as you can, and stir in the remaining flour with spoon.  The batter will be thick - almost like a cookie dough.
   
7. Spread batter into prepared pan
8. In a small bowl, combine nuts, brown sugar, wheat germ, cinnamon & nutmeg.
9. Sprinkle cinnamon mixture evenly over batter in pan.
10. Cover & refrigerate up to 24 hours.
11. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Uncover coffee cake & bake for 35-40 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
12. Cool slightly in pan on a wire rack.  Serve warm.

Because there were young children with nut allergies at the playdate, I left out the nuts this time.  However, normally, I'm a nut fanatic and double the nuts.  I also mixed the batter the morning of the playdate and baked it immediately, and it seemed to turn out just fine.  Although, I do think that the topping benefits from soaking into the batter overnight, so if you can make it in advance, you should.  It ends up a little less loose and crumbly.

I'll also note that this last cake ended up being a tad underbaked, which I didn't realize until it sank a bit in the middle during the drive to my friend's house.  Still, it wasn't so horribly undercooked that people noticed, so I just let it go.  I'm definitely adding this to my repertoire of brunch items.

Holiday baking

Well, I suck. I can't believe it's been over a month since I last posted. Sincere apologies for my lameness, although in my own defense, I spent the better part of November (including Thanksgiving) sick. And since then...well, I guess I've just been lazy.

To make up for it, I thought I'd post a step-by-step of how I do my decorated sugar cookies. I absolutely LOVE baking and decorating. It's easily one of my favorite things about the holidays - a built-in excuse to make tons of goodies and then give them all away so I don't have to eat them.

Because this is a bit of a long process (generally, I try to allot at least 4 days for decorated cookies), I'm going to break it up into parts. For part one, I thought I'd share my sugar cookie recipe. I got it at a cookie decorating demo in Austin a number of years ago from the owner of Penny's Pastries. It is far and away the best recipe ever for decorated cookies. The edges stay very clean during baking, and the best part? You don't have to refrigerate it before using! You can mix it up and immediately start rolling, cutting and baking. Also, according to Penny, once iced/glazed, these cookies are shelf-stable for up to a month! This makes it a lot easier to get a head start when you have a huge batch to make.

Butter Cookie Dough
from Penny's Pastries in Austin, TX

Ingredients
1 c. salted butter
1 c. granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 tbsp whipping cream
2 tbsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
3 c. unbleached flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2. In a mixer combine butter and sugar. Mix until just incorporated - do not cream until light.

3. Add egg, cream, vanilla, and almond extract all at once and thoroughly blend. It may look curdled, but don't worry, the finished dough will be fine.

4. In a separate bowl stir together flour and baking powder. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ones and blend.

5. Roll out to a thickness of about 1/4 inch and cut with a cookie cutter.

6. Bake on a greased cookie sheet 8 to 12 minutes (depending on size) and cool on a rack. Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

My changes:
I only ever use unsalted butter when I bake (in fact, I don't even keep the salted kind in my house), so I added about a 1/2 tsp of salt to compensate. I also despise almond extract, so I replaced it with orange extract/oil. Also, if you don't have whipping cream, half-and-half or whole milk will work just as well. But don't use skim. You want that extra fat. ;)

I also skipped the greased cookie sheet in favor of parchment paper. If you have the option, try and find light-colored cookie sheets. Dark ones will make the bottoms brown too quickly. My favorites are these AirBake sheets- I've had the same two sheets since college and they still yield perfect cookies every time.

This year, I'm making giant snowflake cookies (using this Snowflake Cookie Cutter Set that I absolutely LOVE) to give as favors at a holiday playdate. Because my cookies were gigantic, and I needed to make a lot of them, I doubled this recipe. It pretty much filled my stand mixer bowl to capacity.

I generally only like to re-roll the scraps once. I feel like after that, the dough gets difficult to work with and the cookies end up tough. So that being said, I ended up with 16 snowflakes, plus a couple dozen or so smaller random cookies cut from the edges and in-between spaces.

Coming in part two - icing!

Dump Cake

I don't always cook from scratch, but I am normally pretty adamant about baking from scratch. However, lately I seem to be going through a phase of throwing together convenience stuff from mixes. Last night was no exception. The weather here has cooled off quite a bit in the last week, so Troy decided to make chili, which is one of his specialties. I contributed by making cornbread (from a Marie Callendar mix), and dump cake. And I have to say, it was all super delicious.

Dump cake is basically like cobbler with cake mix for the crust. It's about as easy as it gets. I literally dumped things into a 9-inch square pan, in this order:
1 can of pie filling (I used peach, but any kind will work)
1 can of crushed pineapple (juice and all)
1 package of yellow cake mix

I spread things out a little bit so that the layers were even, but that was about it for mixing. Then I put pinches of softened butter (about 1 stick) all over the top. Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour or until the top is browned and the filling is bubbly. Best served warm, with ice cream.

This was insanely sweet, so it really needed the ice cream. I've seen other versions that use canned fruit instead of pie filling. I may give that a whirl next time around.

Baby shower success!

It's rare for me to feel completely happy with anything I make, whether it's food or knitting or whatever, but I must say, I'm overall very pleased with how everything turned out for my friend's baby shower.

I actually relied quite heavily on the two Ina Garten cookbooks I have: Barefoot Contessa and Barefoot Contessa Parties! These were two of the first cookbooks I ever bought and I use them often. In fact, I think I've made almost every item in the first one, and at least half of the ones in the second. I've never been a fan of her Food Network series (I actually bought these before she had a show), but I'd say that more often than not, when I need something to make for guests, they are my "go-to" books. Her recipes do sometimes call for odd or random ingredients that I don't normally keep on hand (like say, extra-large eggs), but they are otherwise very well written and I've had consistently good results.

Today I made her Sour Cream Coffee Cake again, this time with cake flour and the full amount of sour cream (full-fat, of course). I thought that it turned out great last time with the all-purpose flour, so I was eager to see if the cake flour would make a big difference. I think it did, but then again, I'm picky like that. The one I made today had a much more delicate crumb, and was also lighter & airier (if that's a word). In retrospect, I think that the all-purpose flour version I made last time was a tad on the dense side. Today's cake earned raves all around, and there's actually only a small hunk left. Yay! I do think that I went overboard with mixing in the streusel topping though. It was prettier with more streusel on top last time.

As I mentioned in the post from a couple days ago, I also made some cranberry scones. These also turned out very good, after a few adjustments. Instead of the 14-16 large scones, I made minis, cutting 2x2" squares in half diagonally. By the way, this is the type of recipe that is great to make ahead and then freeze. I rolled and cut the raw dough, then lay the pieces on a sheet pan in my freezer. Once frozen, I threw them all (unbaked) into a ziploc bag. If you cut them small like that, it makes a LOT; I baked off about 40 today and I probably have almost that many still left in my freezer. When it's time to bake, you don't even need to thaw them. Just plop them on a pan, give them a brush of milk or cream or an egg wash, and then sprinkle sugar on top. Bake at 400 for about 15 minutes or until the edges begin to brown. These are more biscuit-y scones, which I actually prefer. I think that next time I may up the sugar just a tad more.

Last, but not least, I made Ina's Coconut Cupcakes, also from her first book. Warning: these are insanely decadent! I'm not sure I want to say exactly how much butter went into the cupcakes and frosting, but if you're curious, go ahead and click on the link above to the recipe on Food Network's website. I'm not really a huge fan of coconut, but these were fantastic! I did use a lot more coconut then she called for for the topping (probably double), and I also toasted the coconut until it was pretty brown because it was a bird-themed baby shower and I was going for a "nest" look. I attempted to put Jordan almonds on top to mimic the look of eggs, but they wouldn't stay on and frankly, I didn't think it looked that great.

Normally, when I plan a party, I go way overboard and get super ambitious about how much food I can make. Then as the date gets closer, I freak out and start dropping things and rejiggering my menu. For this shower, I knew that I was going to be on a time crunch and I tried really really hard to keep it realistic. I also tried to be extremely organized and do as much as possible in advance, even writing lists of things I wanted to accomplish each day this week. I think I achieved that goal. I rounded out my baking with a few simpler items: veggies, dips, a sandwich tray, green salad, fruit; I also asked some friends to pitch in with a few items. Here's some more pics of the food from today's brunch.

Summer fruit salad, one of my favorites. I only make this in the summer with super ripe fruit, although I've been known to occasionally sweeten it up with a couple of tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk.

Tracee's delicious focaccia.

Cara's very yummy mini cinnamon rolls

And a shot of (almost) the full spread

For more on the birds and crafty stuff, check out my other blog.

Recipe from another (book) planet

I'm starting to consider rethinking my approach to this blog. I've been cooking quite a bit lately...just not from the Pepin book. Oops.

In any case, I mixed up some mini cranberry orange scones for a baby shower I'm throwing this weekend. I won't be baking them till this weekend (no picture just yet since Troy and I ate the testers before I remembered to snap one). Like the coffee cake from a couple weeks ago, it's a recipe from Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa cookbook, which is one of my favorites. The recipe is also available on the Food Network website. I substitued orange-flavored cranberries for the dried strawberries. I meant to add orange zest too, but I forgot to buy an orange, so I used a little bit of Boyajian orange oil instead. By the way, if you've never used Boyajian citrus oils before, I highly recommend them! They are way better than any extract since they are the oil that's in the zest. I use orange & lemon oils all the time. In fact, the lemon oil is sort of the secret ingredient in my lemon cake. Shhh, don't tell!

I actually ended up having to make the dough twice. After baking and tasting my initial batch, I realized that not only were they not sweet enough, they verged on being really salty! Not that scones need to be sweet, per se, but these didn't even have a hint of sweetness. They weren't inedible or anything, but they did need a healthy amount of jam. Texture-wise, I thought they were great.

The second time around, I used 1/4 cup of sugar instead of 2 tbsp, and I also halved the salt (1 tsp). The results were WAY better. Unfortunately, I did forget to add the orange oil the second time, so they turned out to be cranberry scones instead of cranberry orange. Oh well, I guess you can't win every time.

I'm also making the sour cream coffee cake again, this time with cake flour and the proper amount of sour cream. I also used a spoon to swirl the streusel into the batter so that it'd be a little more evenly distributed. I had thought about trying to bake these as mini-muffins, but then I thought, why mess with near-perfection? The cake is so appealing to look at - and much less labor intensive.

More shower-food pictures and posts to come...

More non-cookbook cooking

Per the request of a friend, I made the lemon-raspberry swirl ice cream sandwiches from this blog yesterday. And let me just say, they are freaking super delicious. Totally worth the effort.

My very minor variations:
I did not have two 8-inch square pans, so I used one 9x12 baking sheet to make the cookie crust. Doing that meant my crust turned out smaller but thicker, which I don't really think is a bad thing, but it did make for fewer and/or smaller sandwiches. However, I do think that having the 8-inch pans would have made for more uniform-looking sandwiches, if you care about that sort of thing.

I also used a half-gallon of one of my favorite store-bought vanilla ice creams, instead of homemade and I think it worked out just fine. I'm not really sure I'd go to all the trouble to make homemade ice cream for something like this. I also left out the Limoncello, since A) I didn't have any; B) I hate having to purchase a $30 bottle of liqueur so that I can use 2 tablespoons in some recipe; and C) the friend I made these for is pregnant and can't consume alcohol. I'm sure it would have added some nice lemon flavor, but again, I thought they were pretty dang good anyways. I especially liked the touch of ginger in the cookie.

Oh, last minor thing was that I just used my microplane to zest the lemon for the raspberry compote instead of using big strips.

I will more than likely make these again. I think they'd make an excellent dessert for company. Another friend suggested I use cake pans to make what would look like one GIANT ice cream sandwich, which I thought would be funny. I may try the original blueberry version from Gourmet Magazine that this one is based on, just for kicks.

I'm back! Well, mostly...

Sorry if it seems that I have fallen off the face of the earth in regards to updating this blog. Between all the traveling we've been doing this summer, and just the busyness of life in general, I have not been very good about keeping up. After spending almost 2 weeks in Iowa, I could not get my act together to do any sort of serious cooking, especially since we took another long trip to California just a few weeks later!

But I'm back now and slowing getting back into the swing of things. I have not had a chance to do any recipes from the Pepin book, but I have made a few other yummy things I thought I'd share.

First up are these amazing chicken enchiladas with a sour cream sauce, inspired by this recipe on my friend Jacki's blog. I made a few small changes: I cooked the chicken with a drained can of Ro-tel tomatoes and about 1/3 can of green enchilada sauce; then later when it came to making the sauce, instead of combining butter and cornstarch, I sauteed some chopped onions in butter and then added flour to make more of a traditional roux. I also added the rest of the enchilada sauce to the broth/sour cream mixture before adding it all to the roux to make the sauce. Troy declared these my best enchiladas ever! Sorry for the crappy picture - I grabbed my snappy cam since it was nearby and took one quick shot before we tore into them.


I'm also getting ready to throw a baby shower brunch for a friend in a couple weeks, so I've been playing around with some different ideas for the menu. Late last night, I decided to try out Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa Parties! recipe for Sour Cream Coffee Cake. I realized at the last minute that she uses cake flour, not all-purpose, and of course I did not have any, but I decided to just go for it. I'll add that while I do love her recipes, they almost invariably call for ingredients that I don't normally have on hand. Grr.

In any case, even with the all-purpose flour (I also came up a teeny bit short on sour cream), the cake still turned out fabulous. I was nervous at first because it did not look like very much batter, but boy did that puppy rise! It looked very very pretty coming out of the oven.

And after I added the maple glaze.

It was soooooo good! Very moist, very tender, very tasty. I do wish that I'd mixed more of the crumble topping in with the batter though, as the inside seemed a bit barren, but other than that I have no complaints.

I also do feel compelled to mention that normally, when I make any kind of cake, I pretty much always alternate the wet & dry ingredients - in this case, the flour mixture and the sour cream - even when the recipe calls for you to dump it all in at once. But this time I decided to stick to Ina's instructions and added all the sour cream first and then the flour mixture (in 2 parts) and mixed till it was barely combined. I also resisted the urge to thin the batter out with some milk, as it was pretty thick. I'm glad that I followed directions (for a change, ha) because I think that's what helped keep the cake so tender. I think this is a definite keeper for the shower, and I will likely pick up some cake flour for the next run.

I also threw together a quickie little test appetizer: caramelized onions & goat cheese in a pre-baked phyllo shell. No real recipe, just sliced onions, caramelized in a pan with olive oil and a little bit of dried thyme and a splash of raspberry balsamic vinegar. Then I piled them into store-bought phyllo shells (found in the frozen section) and put a few crumbles of goat cheese on top. Baked them in the oven at 350 degrees for about 5 minutes, just to warm everything up.

They were good, but not great. I sort of added the balsamic vinegar on a whim, and I'm not sure it was the best idea. I think it took away too much from the sweetness of the onions. I think if I were to make these again, I'd probably omit the balsamic - or at least use regular, not raspberry, which was all I had. I'd also probably try to find vidalias or some other kind of sweet onion, and I'd use a lot more thyme as well, preferably fresh.

I had also never used the phyllo shells before and I didn't realize until I opened the box that they were already baked, and (according to the directions) ready to fill and serve. However, after tasting a couple filled tartlets, I realized they definitely needed to be baked again. The unbaked ones felt soggy in my mouth, even though I'd filled them just a minute or two before. Once baked, they stayed much crispier. I'm a bit on the fence as to whether these will make the brunch menu.

I'm thinking that it might be awhile before I get back to the cookbook, but stay tuned for other food-related adventures!