Easy Cinnamon Rolls

Go to store. Buy can of Cinnamon Rolls. Open. Pull apart... I kid I kid.
Not knocking the can ones - I've made plenty batches of those.

I wanted a nice warm treat for us after we came in from the snow yesterday, so I found this recipe and whipped them up. I thought they turned out great.

Cinnamon Rolls (Recipe adapted from a recipe found on Allrecipes.com)

2 1/4 tsp Active Dry Yeast (1 pkg)
3/4 C warm water
1/4 C white sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1 egg, room temperature
2 1/2 C bread flour

1/4 C butter, softened
1 Tbs Ground Cinnamon
1/2 C Brown Sugar

Dissolve yeast in warm water - let sit about 10 minutes. Combine sugar, salt, egg, and 1 c flour with the yeast mixture. Stir in the remaining flour 1/2 c at a time. Mixing well each addition. Put dough on a floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic. Cover with damp cloth and let rest 10 minutes. (I realize now that I did not do this step... and mine turned out fine.)
Roll out dough into a rectangle about 1/4 inch thick. Spread the butter over the dough, sprinkle the cinnamon and brown sugar over the butter. Starting from one of the longer sides, roll.
Slice the roll into equal pieces - about 16.

Grease a pan, 8x8 square, 8 or 9 in circle, a larger pan you just won't fill all the way. Don't really think it matters all that much. Place rolls in pan cut side up. Cover and let rise for about 45 minutes. Mine sat longer. You can also cover the pan and put in the refrigerator over night. Preheat oven to 400. Bake until golden brown - 15-20 minutes.

The recipe I had didn't have an icing recipe included, so I whipped up one up using Shortening, Milk, Powdered Sugar, and Vanilla.

I love this frosting! I wish I could tell you exact measurements, but I really didn't keep close track... but here is what I think I used.

1/4 C shortening
1/4 C Milk
1 1/2 C powdered sugar (least sure about this one)
1 tsp vanilla

Beat together the shortening, milk, and powdered sugar. Add in vanilla. Add more of any of the ingredients to achieve desired consistency and/or taste.

"Ice Cream"

This will be a super easy recipe. In fact - it only has one ingredient. I put ice cream in quotes, because, well, there is no cream in this, no dairy of any kind, just one thing, and that thing is...a...



Banana.

Yep.

Just a banana (or two or three)

Take a banana - peel it - freeze it - cut it up - put it in a food processor (or blender) - process - Eat!

And it really does look and feel like ice cream! It just tastes like bananas. :) But it is SO much better for you than ice cream, which is why I will deal with the super banana taste.

Now, you can make it more interesting. I added a bit of peanut butter (to keep it on the healthier end of things, I used the peanut butter you grind right in the store - so all you get is just peanuts) and a drizzle of honey. I am really not a banana fan - but this was excellent.

I've heard that you can add other fruits too, as long as 1/2 of the ingredients are bananas. One banana doesn't make a ton of the tasty treat, but it was enough for me. I think next time I will throw in a few berries as well (without the peanut butter) and it is very tempting to top it off with some chocolate sauce.

As seems to be a trend here, I discovered this treat at The Kitchn. (Really, if you haven't checked them out you should. They also have some great kitchen ideas - I think there was an article today about movable islands - which I should check out.)

Speaking of movable islands - Lost starts in less than a week!!

Doughnuts, Donuts, whatever

One night last(?) week Ohlen asked me for doughnuts. (Time is slipping away, so this could have been earlier in the month than that....) Oh, now I remember - it was last Tuesday. Fitting that I write about this now seeing how it is a Tuesday, and Tuesday is the infamous Doughnut Day at our local grocer. It is a magical day where they give out free doughnuts and coffee (yay) in the morning. That morning we had gone and Ohlen got a doughnut and later that evening he wanted another. So I decided to look up a recipe for them. I didn't think I would find anything good, seeing as I don't have a deep fryer and wasn't looking forward to the prospect of frying anything anyways - not a fan. But I searched anyways.

Just a quick aside - I did a quick search of the difference between the two spellings Doughnut and Donut. Most sources call them interchangeable while one blogger insisted that doughnuts are made with dough and the others... aren't.... I'm going to go with the interchangeable call. I use the long form because I am a nerd like that.

Anyways, I found a great recipe for Baked Doughnuts from, where else, the Kitchn Blog. They provided a link to the recipe found on the blog 101cookbooks.com. I tweaked a few minor details and again used margarine instead of butter. (I should probably switch over. Any thoughts??) I also just did a half recipe - this is the full one.

Baked Doughnuts

1 1/3 cups warm milk, 95 to 105 degrees (divided)
2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast (1 package)
2 tablespoons margarine
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
5 cups all-purpose flour
A pinch or two of nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup margarine, melted (called for unsalted butter.)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon

Place 1/3 cup of the warm milk in a large bowl. Stir in the yeast and set aside for five minutes. Be sure your milk isn't too hot or it will kill the yeast. Stir the butter and sugar into the remaining cup of warm milk and add it to the yeast mixture. I used the measuring cup for this to save on dishes. Stir in the eggs, flour, nutmeg, and salt - just until the flour is incorporated. With the dough hook attachment of your mixer beat the dough for a few minutes at medium speed. I would assume you could also mix this by hand. I happen to have some dough attachments so I used them. Here add flour or milk depending on if your dough needs to be more or less sticky. You want the dough to pull away from the sides of the mixing bowl and eventually become supple and smooth. Turn it out onto a floured counter-top, knead a few times (the dough should be barely sticky), and shape into a ball.

Move the dough to a greased up bowl, cover, and put in a warm place. I usually use the preheating oven. Let sit until about doubled in size - roughly an hour.

Entertain Child... (optional) :)

Punch down the dough and roll it out 1/2-inch thick on your floured countertop. I don't think this is an exact science. I wish I would have made mine a little thicker. Use a doughnut cutter, if you have one, to cut out shapes. If you are like me and don't have one, just use what ever circular items you have available. I used some of the kids small plastic bowls to cut out the large circles and a small plastic container for the inside holes - although I think it was a little too big, next time I will try to find something smaller. Cut out the outside circle only and then transfer to you baking sheets covered in parchment paper. I didn't have any parchment paper, so I used a silicon baking sheet, which worked fine. Cut out the inner circles. (You wait to cut the inner circles as to not distort the donuts while moving.) Cover with a clean cloth and let rise for another 45 minutes.

More child entertaining, book reading, TV watching... :)

Bake in a 375 degree oven until the bottoms are just golden, 8 to 10 minutes. I would start checking around 6 minutes. You really don't want them to over bake. They get hard fast. While the doughnuts are baking, place the butter in a medium bowl. Place the sugar and cinnamon in a separate bowl.

Remove the doughnuts from the oven and let cool for just a minute or two. Dip each one in the melted butter and a quick toss in the sugar bowl. Eat right away. I did have left overs and saved them for the next day.

This was a half batch. Don't forget to bake the doughnut holes too! :)

Verdict:
This is a great recipe and I will definitely be making them again. There is alot of possibility for expanding the recipe, adding different ingredients. Mine were over done, as you can see from the picture. They still tasted ok - although they reminded me of a cinnamon and sugar pretzel (which really is not bad.) The rest of the family also enjoyed them, which is a plus. They weren't as good the next day, unless you put them in the microwave first.

Pudding... finally

So I finally made the pudding a couple of nights ago. And then just never felt up to sitting down and blogging about it. Not that it turned out horrible or anything.

Butterscotch Pudding

Before I start, the original recipe can be found here. I switched out a few things for other things that I already had on hand. I usually skip over recipes that include items that I would only use for the recipe and then the rest would go bad, but I really wanted to make this, so I just crossed my fingers and hoped it would turn out ok. I'll put what I used for the recipe, but note what I substituted for.


3/4 C Heavy Cream (they wanted not ultra pastuerized)
1 1/4 C Milk (Original called for whole - I only had 2%)
5 oz Brown Sugar (Original recipe called for Dark, I used light)
1.5 oz Margarine (Wanted Butter)
2 Tbsp Cornstarch (woah, I didn't substitute at all here...)
1 Tbsp Sugar
2 Large Egg Yolks
1 Large Egg
Pinch Salt
Splash Vanilla


In saucepan melt butter on low heat. Add Brown Sugar. Stir to incorporate - cook for 10 minutes. Add salt
Meanwhile, combine dairy and warm up - do not boil.
Whisk and egg and yolks together in a mid size bowl.
Mix Cornstarch and Sugar in a medium bowl. (They wanted sifting - I didn't do it.) Whisk to combine and make a well in the center.


After the Brown Sugar and Butter have cooked add the Dairy mixture and whisk to smooth out. When this mix is hot to the touch, turn off heat.
Next comes some crazy moving and mixing, but I think the purpose is to have very few lumps - and it did serve that purpose.
Ladle a few ounces of the liquid mix into the well in the cornstarch mix. Whisk in small circles and incorporate. Add a bit more.


Ladle and whisk some of the Dairy mix into the Egg mix. Then combine the Egg and the Cornstarch mixes. Whisk that together, and add into the saucepan with the remaining Dairy mix.
Put the pot on the stove over medium heat. Whisk like crazy - your arm will hurt - maybe even cramp. This took awhile. There was a point where I thought the mix was starting to burn so I pulled it off the stove, but kept whisking and this is when it thickened up a little - so I put it back on the burner and kept whisking until it actually started glooping (boiling).


Take off of heat and add the vanilla. Taste test! Add any salt or vanilla as you see fit.

Serve warm or cold.

Pudding Verdict:
This pudding reminded me alot of my mom's butterscotch pie. Which isn't a bad thing. However, it was too sweet for my tastes - and I think the rest of the family's taste. It probably would have been really good with some whipped cream made from some of the extra cream. Although, the next day, after cooling off, the sweetness was toned down. I think if I were to make it again, I would use less extra sugar, or take out the brown sugar and butter part and just make it vanilla pudding. I would like to make it using all the specific ingredients they wanted, just to see what the difference is, but I thought it turned out pretty good. It did exceed the amount of dishes I like to dirty for one recipe, but I'll let that slide this once. :)