...as a foodie, I am learning more and more to despise the foods that are sold at the grocery store. The only chain store that I know of that sells good tasting stuff is Whole Foods, and they are hours away from me. There's a great little local independent, but they are kind of touch and go in their inventory.

So when I saw some thick cinnamon rolls are Meijer the other day and my mouth watered, I knew I would have to make my own. I found a recipe that had a more brioche-like dough than the one I've usually used, and I will never go back to the old recipe! I tweaked it a bit for taste, health (as healthy as pastry can be- who am I kidding?!)

Recipe adapted from this.

Ingredients:

Dough-

• 1 (1/4 ounce) package or 2 tsp instant yeast
• 1 cup warm milk, fresh or sour
• 1/4 cup honey
• (Optional) 1 tbsp malted barley syrup
  
• 1/4 cup sugar
  
• 1/3 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour

Filling-

• 1/3 cup softened butter
• 2-3 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp orange zest
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans (Optional)

Frosting-

• 1/2 cup softened butter
• 1/3 cup cream cheese
• 1 1/2 cup 10X sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp triple sec (or 1/2 tsp orange extract)
• smidgen of fresh-grated orange zest
  
• pinch salt
  

Mix the milk, sugar, and yeast. I know this is old-fashioned, but I always let it sit for a minute or two while I measure out my other ingredients, just to make sure. When it froths a bit, you know you're good to go. Pour in the liquid sweetener(s), then beat in the butter, then add egg. Mix in flour and salt, knead gently for about 5 minutes. Cover with a damp towel (or plastic wrap). Let rise for 50-70 minutes, depending on how warm your kitchen is.

After rise, turn your oven on to 375˚
Flour your surface very well and roll out dough to just a bit thicker than a pencil. Try to keep a rectangular shape. The dough is soft enough that if it rips, you can tear off a chunk, wet it slightly, and stick it back into the formation. Remember to keep the flour under, this will happily stick to your counter! Spread with butter, keeping the edge near you 'clean'. Mix sugar & spice (and everything nice...) and sprinkle over the dough. Roll up, using the clean edge as the sealing edge. Slice appx 1 1/2" thick or so, placing upright in parchment paper-lined baking dish. Place close together if you want them all soft and sticky!

Let rise again for just a few minutes, then pop them in the oven. While they're baking, whip the frosting ingredients, starting with the cream cheese & butter together, then the liquid flavors, then add the powdered sugar a bit at a time and whip until fluffly.

The rolls are done after appx 20 minutes, or when a center tears out with no elasticity.

If you can stand it, wait until they are cool, then frost. I had to do one right after they came out, and you can see the frosting melting down the side here! Sprinkle with crushed nuts and/or chopped raisins, if you'd like. Not optional: coffee or tea!

Labels: baking, food, pastry, recipe

So, my sis and I decided that we just had to learn how to make petit fours- those elegant bite-sized cake thingies.

She's pretty good in the kitchen- fairly neat, follows recipes, all the required things. I, on the other hand, tend to resemble the Swedish Chef muppet a bit more- flinging flour and utensils about and keeping a large supply of various bandages on hand at all times.

We worked out a plan whereby we would each bake a cake at our respective residences, then meet up the following day for the extensive decorating part of the process. We had no idea how challenging this was going to be! I used a pound cake recipe, baked flat in sheet cake style. Em did more of a sponge cake, which she did not like but I rather took a fancy to. We each let our cakes 'tighten up' in the fridge overnight, then spilt them the next morning and filled them with melted jam. So far, so good.

Then came the dipping. Em had a Wilton pourable fondant recipe. It was about as pourable as mashed potatoes, and set up rock hard on the few cakes we managed to cover. We thinned it, over and over, trying different application methods such as squirting the fondant out of a plastic bag, dipping the cakes right into the pan, and dripping it down the sides with a spoon. I'm sure something went wrong somewhere, but who knows what it was?
Our next idea was chocolate ganache- simple to make, much more tasty than fondant, and we just happened to have all the ingredients on hand. This went much easier, but of course did not look as 'pretty' as the pastels we had hoped for.
The raspberries were a nice natural decor, and who doesn't like raspberries and dark chocolate? We also tried a white chocolate ganache, but bought the wrong meltables at the store and wound up with grease chips, more or less, that melted into a pool of grossness and would not solidify for hours. We eventually tinted that hot pink, for the heck of it, and dipped some of our cakes in that. The hot pink/dark brown/raspberry shades wound up coordinating nicely, giving our bruised egos some solace!
I learned one thing: there is a reason petit fours are usually cut into neat little squares: pointy angles don't hold up so well under heavy drippy frosting!!
Still, my trapezoids were fun.
A terrible shot of some of the finished ones, complete with royal icing, etc.
There were my favorites- princessy!

So, all in all it was not an unmitigated disaster. However, the experience humbled us a bit in the kitchen department. Of course I'll have to tackle it again!

Labels: baking, cooking, kitchen, petit fours

So, I was lollygagging on the internet a couple of months ago, and this loaded up. Pretty nifty, huh? My (then) nine-year old daughter got all excited and requested it for her birthday. I nodded absentmindedly, clicked that ol' StumbleUpon button, and got involved in reading about how to make a proper roux.

Fast forward to this past week. Oldest was turning 10, insisted that I promised her this nearly foot-high masterpiece. Could I do it? Sure! How about- since dry cakes are almost boring- a Jell-O version? Well, why not!?!


The first (very careful) cut revealed the rainbow inside. I think people behind me may have been taking bets as to how soon the whole mess would fall over. The nice thing about it being Jell-O over white cake is that there were different flavors, kind of like Trix cereal under a mound of hydrogenated oil.
Most of the slices turned out rather sloppy, but still colorful. Kind of like the art produced by the kids consuming it...

One slice turned out near-perfect, and my husband interrupted his excellent coffee making to snap some photos:


Ironically, things like boxed mixes, tubs of partial plastic sweetness, and hyper-sugared gelatin don't normally make it into my kitchen. Sometimes a mom's just gotta cave. It was worth it!

Labels: baking, birthday, cake, fun, jello, kids, rainbow

I call these brownies 'While-you're-at-it' because the steps can be done in between other things, such as laundry, other cooking, or basic around the kitchen stuff. They are very rich, and I can generally only eat a 1" square at a time. I know, I'm a wimp!

Adapted from Practical Cooking.

1 - 6 oz bar Scharffen Berger bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped*
6 oz butter, chopped
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar
1 tbsp vanilla
1 cup plus two tbsp all-purpose unbleached flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 - 8 oz package walnuts

*Why do I command that thou usest expensive chocolate? Why, because your brownies are what they start with. You want bitter, gritty, mealy, stick-in-your-throat-sweet brownies, go ahead and use generic semi-sweet chips. I pity your soul.

Start with a smallish heatproof dish that just fits into a sauce pan without falling in. For example, I have a Pyrex bowl that is about an inch larger around than my medium saucepan. Bring your water to a boil, then remove from heat. Set your bowl into this, not touching the water, not boiling the water, and being careful not to cross your arms. Kidding on that last one there, guys, relax.
Preheat your oven to 350˚
Now drop your chopped butter and chopped chocolate together into the glass dish.
Go about your business.
Or, as my Italian nonno used to say: "bidness"
In a few minutes, drop by the dish, give it a swizzle with a whisk, and resist the temptation to lick it. Yeah, right.
You can use this time to measure out your other ingredients, unless you're a Type A and already did. If you're like me, you will start about fifteen kitchen projects that are destined to never be finished. Oh, and you'll probably clean up 1.2 kid messes, answer the phone, and spill something on yourself in this time.
Give the butter/chocolate heaven another swizzle. Is it starting to get shiny? Good. Not? Maybe you could reheat the water, keeping the glass out of it again (you knew, that, right? ok, I won't bring it up again)
Now you can suddenly remember that you need an 8" x 8" glass baking dish and scramble to wash last week's frittata out of it. Once it's dry, you can brush melty butter on it and rip off a piece of parchment paper appx double the width of your baking dish. The overhang is to allow you to pull the greasy things out of the pan when they're cool.
Squish the paper down in the dish, trying desperately not to pay attention to the fact that it doesn't fit. This part always reminds me of the classic Phil Hartman SNL skit: The Anal Retentive Chef. I wonder how he would deal with oversize parchment paper.

Now that you've wasted even more time on JibJab, your stuff should be mostly melty. Blend your sugar & vanilla with the eggs. Is your chocolate/butter mix shiny? Fold it into the egg mixture, gently. Add your cocoa powder, flour and walnuts at once, mix just until the white no longer shows (is that like holding fire until you see the whites of their eyes?) and dump unceremoniously into the baking dish. Anticlimatic, isn't it?

Bake for appx 40 minutes, dreaming of better things. I suppose this could be another moment where you do other things, like finish one of the fifteen things started or yell at your kids again.

These brownies are messy when cut while warm. I do not know if they are any different when cut while cool, because they never make it to that point in my house. They are SO GOOD that they melt in your mouth, and the bigger you leave the walnut chunks, the better, for some odd reason. No wimpy 'bits' for me, thanks.

Enjoy.

...and RIP, Phil Hartman.

Labels: baking, brownies, chocolate, cooking, humor, kitchen, walnuts