Cinnamon Bun Cake (Guest Blog)

Cinnamon Bun Cake (Guest blog by my wonderful sister, Amanda Wright)

Cake:

3 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
4 tsp baking powder

¾ cup milk

¾  cup buttermilk
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla

Cinnamon filling:

4 T butter, melted
2 sticks (1 cup) butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
2 T flour
1 T cinnamon
2/3 cups nuts (optional)

Frosting:

2 T cream cheese

1 cup powdered sugar

Cinnamon rolls: what’s not to love about them?  The worst part about making cinnamon rolls is the wait.  After the dough has been stretched and the yeast has been activated, you have to wait hours before you can shape your rolls.  Some recipes even make you wait doubly long—once shaped, the rolls will need to rise again.  This recipe breaks all the rules.

Originally, the recipe calls for 1 ½ cups milk.  I had buttermilk in the fridge, so I used ¾ cup buttermilk and ¾ cup milk.  It adds depth of flavor but you won’t be missing out if you use milk.  (The second time I made this recipe, I didn’t have buttermilk on hand…so I used 1 cup of milk, ½ cup of cream and a dash of lemon juice.)

In a bowl, sift flour, salt and baking powder together.  In a separate bowl, beat eggs and sugar together.  Mix in melted butter and vanilla extract.  Fold flour mixture into wet mixture, alternating flour and milk.  A little  bit of flour, a stir, a little bit of milk, stir. Don’t over mix!  Pour batter into a greased 13x9’’ Pyrex dish.  I used a slightly smaller dish (11x7’’), so my cake came out thicker.

 

In a separate bowl, combine the ooey gooey cinnamon mixture: 1 cup softened butter, 2 tablespoons flour, 1 cup brown sugar and 1 tablespoon (I used 2 because I can’t get enough cinnamon).  I used a potato masher to combine these ingredients because the butter wasn’t soft enough to use a wooden spoon.  That worked well and it was oh so tempting to lick when I was finished.  You’ll have a thick paste-like consistency.  If you’re adding nuts, add them into the cinnamon paste now.  The first time I made this recipe, I added in toasted French walnuts.  They came from a friend’s walnut tree in France.  They added a nice crunch to the cake, but if you don’t like nuts or don’t have any (or don’t feel like cracking and toasting them) the end result will be equally delicious, just less crunchy.

This is the fun part: drop spoonfuls of the mixture on top of the batter.  Don’t worry about spacing them evenly, just make sure you place some in each corner.  Corner pieces are the best and you’ll want to make sure there’s luxurious cinnamon in every bite.  Take a knife and swirl the paste into the batter.  Don’t be afraid to over swirl!

Place the dish in the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes for a 13x9’’.  I baked mine for 40 minutes.  The cake will rise quickly because of the baking powder, but you need to make sure the center is cooked.  Let the top get a dark golden brown.  Don’t worry about having a dry cake: the inside will be rich and moist.

 

While the cake is in the oven, I combined 2 tablespoons of cream cheese with the powdered sugar into a bowl.  I used ¾ cup of powdered sugar and ¼ cup of vanilla sugar because I like the flavor of the vanilla sugar—vanilla extract would make the frosting too runny.  Mix until well blended.  Use full fat cream cheese, you might as well!  It will taste better, and you won’t use that much because the cake is tasty enough on its own.  Put the mixture into a resealable plastic container; you can add a dollop (do a dollop do do a dollop…) whenever you cut a piece.  The cake won’t get soggy and you can reheat the cake without cooking the frosting.

It’s up to you whether you let the cake cool or not… I’d wait 10 minutes so it slices better.  Cut yourself a generous slice, top with a spoonful of frosting, serve with coffee or tea and ENJOY!

Guinness Onions - By Justin F. Brunelle

I've been trying to eat healthy since June stuffs me full of sweets. However, vegetables must be improved upon in any way possible. Over the weekend, we cooked some blackened tilapia on the grill and needed an accompaniment of the veggie kind. I decided on sauteed sweet onions. But, sweet onions alone are wimpy. I had to man-ify them.

I like cooking veggies in a cast-iron skillet on a charcoal grill. I also wanted a sweet flavor to my onions, with a semi-caramelized flavor. I also needed my onions to not stick to the skillet. Thus, my ingredient list was born. I added about 4-5 tablespoons of [fake] butter as my anti-stick agent, ~1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce to sweeten the onions a bit and complement the smokey flavor of the charcoal, and about 1 small clove of garlic (minced) to round out the traditional ingredients. The other two "secret" ingredients are what make the onions really stand out. I add about 2 tablespoons of Weber's Boston Bay Seasoning and about half a bottle (6 oz.) of Guinness Black Lager. The Boston Bay seasoning is a creamier version of Old Bay, so it adds some sweetness while still providing a bit of the peppery, salty flavor that I like in my onions and on my fish. 

The Guinness Black Lager is particularly interesting. It's a relatively cheap beer (~$7 per 6-pack), so you aren't poring out too much money, and it isn't a particularly "good" beer (although it is delightful), so you don't have to feel too guilty. (It only got a 70 on the Beer Advocate website, the cellar of the "Average" category.) The most relevant property of this beer is its sweetness and absence of any discernible hops; essentially, it's the more carbonated brother of Guinness Draught. The sweet, fresh, malty flavor of the beer really comes out in the onions after reducing the beer down. 

The first step is to get the grill up to medium-hot direct heat and toss the skillet on. The rest is super simple (hard to screw up if you have a tough time concentrating after disposing of the other half bottle of beer). Just dump all the ingredients in the pan. I like to allow the butter to melt and then add the beer. This, of course, makes it foam up and smell really nice, but doesn't offer any real benefit other than entertainment value. 

I cover the grill and open the vents to keep everything at the medium-hot level and stir the onions every few minutes. They will start to soften and turn the color of the Guinness.

After about 20-30 minutes, the onions will all be very soft and brown. There will be a Guinness reduction left in the bottom of the pan. This makes a great "sauce" that drips out of the back of fish tacos. You can strain this if you wish, but I don't see the benefit. As soon as I remove the pan from heat, I put the onions in another container so they don't get too crispy.

June didn't eat these in her tacos, she ate them as a side dish. They are awesome onions that take on a smokey, sweet, savory taste from the beer and smoke. The Boston Bay seasoning adds the extra peppery taste to them that makes them a great addition to an otherwise mellow dish. I highly recommend them.

-- Guest Blogger: Justin F. Brunelle

Fruit & Oatmeal Bars

My constant search for healthy snacks has led me to semi-experimenting in the kitchen. I wanted to make an oat-based cookie using apple sauce, but I have yet to find a recipe that meets all of my dietary wishes. I finally figured that I'd look for granola bar recipes to get some inspiration, and that led me to this recipe at QuakerOats.com. Of course I've adapted it some, but I followed the basic instructions.

What I used:

1 1/2 cups crispy rice cereal (I bought the store brand)

1 1/4 cups uncooked oats

1 1/2 cups dried fruit (I used dried cranberries, dried blueberries, and raisins)

1/4 cup coconut

2/3 cup honey

4 tbs buttery spread

3 tbs granulated sugar

1/2 tbs cinnamon

Ingredients--minus the apple sauce. How did that get in the picture?!

How I did it:

First I mixed the cereal, oats, fruit, and coconut together in the 8x8 pan. Simple.

Next, I heated the honey, butter, sugar, and cinnamon in a saucepan. The recipe said to put on med-low heat, stir it frequently but let it boil while stirring frequently? I was confused so I just heated it through so the sugar and honey were well-mixed. 

Before heating. 

Once the honey-buttery-sugar mixture was heated, I removed it from the heat and mixed my cereal-oatmeal-fruit mixture into the saucepan. I mixed the two mixtures together with a wooden spoon until the cereal-oatmeal-fruit mixture was well coated. I slid it all back into the 8x8 pan and pressed it with wax paper.

Rating:

They look and smell really good, and they were pretty easy to prepare. The recipe says to let them "cool completely" in the refrigerator before cutting into bars and storing in an airtight container. Justin couldn't wait. He just helped himself to a little corner piece that turned out more like granola than a granola bar. I don't think they're completely cooled, but he gave the taste 2 thumbs up at least!

Hopefully they'll come out as beautiful bars when I go back in there in a little bit!

Morning update:

"They're delightful," says Justin. The taste is a winner, but I'm a little upset that they're not coming out as perfect bars. A few of them have cut really well, but some of them don't stay together when they get to the plate. These are not eat-on-the-go bars for sure! I think that the honey mixture didn't get sticky enough when I was heating it, so it didn't make the bars stick as well as I would have hoped.

Now that I have a basic recipe down, I can play with it some more and hopefully create different oatmeal bars/cookies! I got a recipe for a peanut butter & jelly oatmeal bar. Maybe that will be next!

Mounds Bars...or should I say coconut truffles

It's a beautiful day, so I'm sitting outside as I'm writing this entry. I took the day off for a dentist appointment and wound up with a gorgeous, 70 degree March day. My whiteness is scaring the neighbors as I lay in the backyard, but who cares about the drunk college kids anyway? It seems that they're just waking up...

So I haven't spent this entire day outside. No, of course I had to do a round of baking. This time I decided to try a recipe I saw on Handle the Heat for homemade Mounds Bars. The story goes like this: I posted this recipe to my mom's Facebook wall early last week, and a few of my mom's friends commented that they'd like to try some too. One of the posters is a close family friend who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Who am I to keep these delectable treasures from a woman who is in dire need of chocolate? I decided to make them this weekend and carry them over for a visit sometime this week. Oh, and I made some for my mom as well!

What I used:
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 1/2 bags sweetened coconut
1 tsp sea salt
2 1/2 packages semi-sweet baking chocolate (yeah, a TON! I started off trying to use 10oz, but it wasn't enough)

What I did:
I combined the sweetened condensed milk, the coconut, and the sea salt in a large baking bowl. I mixed all of the ingredients together until they came to a thoroughly coated, sticky mixture. I spread the mixture into a 13x9 pan that was coated in tinfoil and cooking spray. That was my first mistake. The recipe I was using said to spread the mixture out in the pan with a spatula and press firmly into bars to freeze for 15 minutes and cut. I did all that. Either my mixture was too sticky or not frozen enough because my bars did not come out as bars...

When I took the pan out of the freezer and tried to cut the bars, I didn't like how they came out. I didn't think that these "candies" should look like brownies. I couldn't cut them as small as I wanted them because they weren't hard enough, so I just kind of sliced some rows to get the bars out. After I got some of the coconut mixture out of the pan, I tried to form it into Mounds-Bar-like heaps. I figured they looked pretty good, so I popped the chocolate in the microwave to melt. 

The Mounds Bar-ish form

When I tried to coat the little Mounds-Bar-like rolls in chocolate, I quickly saw that they were falling apart as soon as I dipped them. The coconut wasn't pressed hard enough, so the bars were just breaking with the weight and heat from the chocolate. I wanted the candies to come out like real Mounds bars, but mostly I just wanted them to come out.

I decided to try to hand-press the coconut mixture into balls. This worked for a few, but then I found that the coconut mixture was starting to soften, so I had to pop it back into the freezer.

Finally, after a few tries, I think I got it right. The coconut mixture had to be really tightly pressed and frozen--otherwise it'd just fall apart once it hit the chocolate. I spent a lot of time coating these candies. I've never used coconut as a main ingredient like this before, so this was all about trial-and-error. 

Just as a side note: as with any chocolate-coating recipe, I always line a baking sheet (or 2 in this case) with wax paper to place the candies on while they are hardening in the fridge. These sat in the fridge for about half an hour before I took them out to package them.

These are packaged in a little glass jar tied with a white ribbon.

A less fancy way that I package is by wrapping up in Saran wrap and creating a fountain effect. Then I tie a ribbon around the "fountain" and curl it. Simple, but it adds a nice touch.

Rating:

I would make these again now that I know how to do it best. From the tastes I had of the coconut mixture, I think they really do taste like Mounds Bars; they have that salty-sweet taste.

The real taste test will happen when I give these to our friend. Hope she likes them!

Oreo Truffles

I'm back! I spent the entire evening tonight making Oreo truffles, and man, I am beat. I almost forgot what it's like to work in the kitchen for hours on end. I think I need one of those floor mats that reduces the strain on your spine...


So, as stated in my last post, I gave up chocolate for Lent (gasp). Making Oreo truffles was extremely difficult, and I have to admit that I accidentally licked my fingers once or twice--followed immediately by spitting and reciting a few Our Fathers and Hail Mary's. I think God will forgive me for my sympathy baking tonight.


These Oreo truffles are going to a co-worker whose daughter recently passed away. My co-worker loves chocolate and really enjoyed these truffles when I made them for Christmas. In lieu of flowers, I send chocolates.


Down to business.


What I used:
1 package Oreos
1 (8oz) package Philadelphia Cream Cheese -- No substituting for the cheap stuff!
2 packages semi-sweet baking chocolate


1 package Golden Oreos
1 (8oz) package Philadelphia Cream Cheese -- again, no substituting!
1 package white baking chocolate


*I made 2 batches (as you can tell by the two different types of Oreos and baking chocolates). 


How I did it:
First I set out the cream cheese so it could soften to room temperature. I decided to make the white chocolate truffles first so that the chocolate from the regular Oreos wouldn't discolor the lighter ones. I used a food processor to crumble the Oreos. My food processor is little, so I had to do about 1/2 row of Oreos at a time. After all of the Oreos were crumbled (and I enjoyed a few chocolate-free Golden Oreos), I mixed in the softened cream cheese. Trying to run a spatula through the mixture is almost impossible, so I just used my hands to knead the "dough." You really have to mix the cookie crumbs and cream cheese really well so that it forms a truffle-consistency. Otherwise it'll just be like eating crumbled cookies.

My little baby food processor

Crumbled Oreos

After mixing the dough completely, I used a cookie scoop to help form the dough into balls. After I scoop each ball with the cookie scoop, I roll it in my hands to form a nice ball. I did that one-by-one and placed all of the formed balls onto a baking sheet lined with wax paper. It's really tedious and my hands are covered in oil from the dough-mixture, but hand rolling is really the best way to form the truffles.

After I form all of the truffles, I pop the chocolates in the microwave to melt (as directed on the package). Once the chocolate is melted, I take each truffle and roll it in the chocolate. I use two spoons to spin the excess chocolate off and place the truffle back onto the wax paper. One-by-one. It really takes forever, but these truffles are worth it!

Finally, after all of the truffles are covered in chocolate, I spin a few designs using the excess chocolate. Sometimes I've used sprinkles, but I love the way the chocolate looks.

The truffles have to sit in the fridge for about 20-30 minutes for the chocolate to harden completely, but then they're ready to eat!

Chocolate and white chocolate truffles

The original chocolate truffle

Out of focus, but nicely packaged for gift.

Rating:

These don't really even need a rating because I make them all of the time. They're a hit with everyone who has tried them. It's true that they're really sweet, but what's not to love about that? A lot of people ask if they're store-bought or if they come from a bakery which is definitely a compliment. They're great!

The long lost confectioner

I'm alive! My mom has been hinting that I need to update my blog, and although I don't have any new failures and miraculous recoveries from the kitchen to post, I figure that I'll write a little summary of the past few weeks.

Let's see: Superbowl weekend (yes, that long ago), I made chocolate covered pretzels and pizza muffins to take to some friends' party. The chocolate covered pretzels aren't exciting for me anymore because I've done them so many times, so blogging much about them would be a bore. I just use pretzel rods that come in a plastic container because they're easy to transport for parties. I lay out the pretzels onto wax paper while the semi-sweet chocolate is heating up. I dip and coat the pretzels in the chocolate and them roll them in sprinkles. They sit in the fridge for about 20 minutes to harden. Really good. Really easy. Wish I had pictures.

On the non-confection side, the pizza muffins were a recipe I got from Pinterest. I adapted them to include turkey pepperoni and baked them in a mini-muffin tin. The recipe called for mozzarella, parmesan, flour, italian spices, milk, egg, and baking powder. I also placed whole turkey pepperonis at the bottom of each muffin for an extra crisp of turkey. They're ready to eat as soon as they're out of the oven; just dip them in the warmed pizza (spaghetti) sauce!

What else have I been making? Lots of vegetable dishes. Nothing really exciting! We get tons of vegetables from our CSA, and I have to find some way to cook them all before they go bad. I made a cabbage casserole with a recipe from Allrecipes that turned out really good. It was cheesy and made the cabbage taste more like spinach. We've been eating a lot of potatoes and squash--you know, the boring winter vegetables...

Justin and I gave up chocolate for Lent this year (go ahead and gasp). It's been extremely difficult, and that's probably why I haven't had anything to write about. It's been 2 weeks since my last taste, and I'm fiending! I do plan on making some homemade Mounds bars this weekend for a friend, so I'll be sure to document and blog about that. I'm also planning on making some chocolate truffles (an art I've refined over the past few months), so that'll be another good blog.

So my point is that there is more to come! Stay tuned...

:)

I just thought of another thing I've tried recently! I bought a popsicle mold and started making smoothie pops. They're a nice sweet treat, and they're good for you. I blended yogurt, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, and a banana in a food processor and then spooned the smoothie-liquid into the popsicle mold and popped it into the freezer. A few hours later we had delicious smoothie pops. I just continue doing them with whatever fresh fruit I pick up at the store.

Okay, that's it! Now you can stay tuned...