Raisin Nut Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Icing

That cream cheese in the fridge was calling to me today. So I answered it with a beautiful dozen cinnamon buns. We were so excited to eat them, that they were almost half gone before I got to taking pictures!

I made half of the dozen with raisins and walnuts, and the other half were just cinnamon and sugar. I eventually covered all of them with the cream cheese icing. Yummy! Here's the recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens 15th Edition Cook Book p.116:

Best Ever Cinnamon Rolls - Raisin Nut with Cream Cheese icing

4 1/4 to 4 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 package active dry yeast

1 cup milk

1 cup mashed cooked potato

1/3 cup butter, cut up

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp. salt

2 eggs

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 Tbsp. cinnamon (or more!)

1/4 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup raisins (or up to 1 cup if you want lots of raisins)

1/2 cup nuts (or up to 1 cup if you like lots of nuts. Roasted pecans are suggested.)

1.  In a large mixing bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups of flour and yeast; set aside. In a medium saucepan, heat and stir milk, potato, 1/3 cup butter, granulated sugar, and salt just until warm (120-130 degrees F) and butter almost melts; add to flour mixture along with the eggs. Beat with an electric mixer on low to med. speed for 30 seconds, scraping bowl constantly. Beat on high speed for 3 minutes. Using a wooden spoon, stir in as much of the remaining flour as you can.
2.  Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead in enough of the remaining flour to make a moderately soft dough that is smooth and elastic (3 to 5 minutes total). Shape dough into a ball. Place in a lightly greased bowl; turn once to grease surface of dough. Cover; let rise in a warm place until double in size. (45-60 minutes).
3.  Punch dough down. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Cover and let rest 10 minutes. Meanwhile, lightly grease a 13x9x2-inch baking pan. Set aside. For filling, in a small bowl stir together brown sugar and cinnamon; set aside.
4.  Roll dough into an 18x12 inch rectangle. Spread 1/4 cup of butter over dough evenly. Sprinkle with filling, leaving about 1 inch unfilled along the long sides. Sprinkle the raisins and nuts over the filling. Roll up rectangle, starting from a filled long side; pinch dough to seal seams. Slice rolled rectangle into 12 equal pieces (use a ruler and "cut" with dental floss wrapped around the roll and pulled through). Arrange, cut side down in prepared pan. Cover and let rise until nearly double in size (about 30 minutes).
5.  Preheat oven to 375degrees F. Bake 25 to 30 minutes (23 was enough in my convection oven.) or until golden. Cool in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes; remove from pan. Spread with icing.

Cream Cheese Icing

In a medium bowl beat one 3-ounce package softened cream cheese with 2 Tbsp softened butter and 1 tsp. vanilla. Gradually beat in 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar until smooth. Beat in 4-6 tsp. milk, 1 tsp. at a time, to reach spreading consistency.



Carrot Date muffin Recipe

I've made these before, but I was asked for the recipe since I served them again yesterday. I'll post the original recipe and how I modified it.

The recipe comes from the Company's Coming Mostly Muffins book. Page 46. Here is their

Date Nut Carrot Muffin recipe
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

2 large eggs, fork beaten
3/4 cup buttermilk (or use 1 Tbsp lemon juice and enough milk to make 3/4 cup)
1/3 cup cooking oil
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped dates
1/2 cup chopped pecans

1 1/2 cups grated carrot

Measure first 8 ingredients into a large bowl. Stir. Make well in centre.
Combine next 6 ingredients in medium bowl. Add to well.
Add carrot. Stir until just moistened. Fill 12 greased or lined muffin cups 3/4 full. Bake in 375 degree oven for 20 to 22 minutes until wooden pick inserted in centre of muffin comes out clean. Let stand in pan for 5 minutes before removing to wire rack to cool. Makes 12 muffins.

Now then, Keep reading to see my variant of the recipe.
Most noticeably, after typing in this recipe, I realize that I did not remember the brown sugar! Oops. I did think as I was mixing that there should be SOME sugar, so I put in 3 Tbsp of white sugar. Here's what I actually put in the muffins in the photo:

1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3 Tbsp. white sugar
1/2 cup home-made granola (oatmeal, sunflower seeds, whole wheat flour, honey, oil, sesame seeds, wheat germ)
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/3 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
dash ground nutmeg

2 large eggs, fork beaten
1 Tbsp lemon juice and enough milk to make 3/4 cup soured milk
1/3 cup cooking oil
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup chopped dates and raisins combined
1/4 cup fine coconut

1 1/2 cups grated carrot

I used the same method as above. They made very textured, moist muffins.

New Year's Olliebollen

Well, I'll be showing my roots, but every New Year's Eve, I have always had Olliebollen. Lately, I make it, just like my mother still does and her mother before her and so on. We're Dutch. We ring in the new year by eating these deep-fried beauties.

I'm pretty sure there are as many variants on the recipe as there are Dutch out there, but here's the recipe I use:

Olliebollen Recipe - yields about 2 dozen

1 Tbsp. quick rise yeast

1 cup milk

2 1/4 cups flour

2 tsp. salt

1 egg, room temperature

1 1/4 cups dried currants (raisins if you prefer)

1 thickly grated tart apple

Warm the milk to lukewarm. Combine the milk, 1 cup of the flour, salt, yeast, and egg together in a large bowl. Mix in the rest of the flour to form a thick batter. Stir in the currants and apple until well incorporated. Leave batter to rise in a warm place until double in size, about 40 minutes. It should look like this:

Heat enough vegetable oil to 375 degrees F to deep fry these olliebollen. (I use my electric wok set on high with about 1 1/2 inches of oil in it.) Drop the batter by tablespoon into the hot oil.

I try to cook about 6 or 7 at a time, but by staggering their entry into the oil by 30 seconds or so, the first one will be done when the last one has been in a bit. This way the oil doesn't cool too much and you don't have to rush to get any in or out "on time". Fry about 4 minutes on each side. They should come out lightly brown all over. In the picture above, the bottom 3 have been flipped already. When they are that color all over, they are done. Remove to a paper towel-lined colander and sprinkle with icing sugar.

Go ahead, try one! Good luck stopping at just one! These are fantastic when served warm, but they're still great even when they've cooled off. Enjoy!

Happy New Year!

Cranberry Cinnamon-Nut Bread

The newest edition of the Better Homes and Gardens new CookBook (15th) found its way under my tree this year, and to mark the occassion, I made the Cinnamon nut Bread from page 123 with the Cranberry variation. It was so awesome, I gained 2 pounds yesterday!

Doesn't it look fabulous?  It tasted fabulous too!
Tonight I will be making Olliebollen - a drop-donut type thing that is a Dutch tradition to ring in the new year. Come back tomorrow to see it!

Happy New Years Eve!

Choco-Cherry Supreme Cookies

One day closer to Christmas, and I made cookies for a cookie-exchange party today. They were fabulous!

Here is how you can make your own - and in time for Christmas too!

Choco-Cherry Supreme Cookies Recipe

1/3 cup softened butter

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup milk

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

2/3 cup flour

1/2 cup cocoa                         

2 cups rolled oats

1/2 cup candied cherries

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder  

1/2 tsp. salt                             

Cream butter and sugars together. Beat in the milk, egg and vanilla. Add the other ingredients and stir together until well combined. Drop tablespoon of dough on greased (or parchment lined) cookie sheet. Flatten slightly. If desired, top with a half cherry. Bake for 10 minutes at 375 degrees F. Yield: 30 cookies.

Enjoy!

Stained Glass Gingerbread Church

Hello once again! Today I want to share with you my newest creation - a stained glass church made from gingerbread!

You can see the "stained glass" effect better when I was assembling the pieces:

To do this effect (thanks to Megan at Kids First for explaining this to me), just crush hard candy (I had yellow, orange, green and red hard candies in a bag and used my meat tenderizer), place the gingerbread piece on tinfoil, cut out the shape to be stained and fill the space with the crushed candy. Bake as normal for the gingerbread and carefully peel off the tinfoil when the piece is perfectly cold.

Note: Through trial and error, I found it is much easier to transfer the gingerbread piece to a baking sheet BEFORE adding the crushed candy!

Here's what the pieces looked like before they were assembled:

Make sure you use enough candy. My crushed candy looked level with the thickness of the gingerbread, but it seeped a little around the edges and now appears less than half the thickness of the gingerbread.

This is the recipe I have used for years to make lots of gingerbread houses. I don't usually eat much of the gingerbread on my houses since it hardens a lot, but you can certainly make lovely gingerbread men with it too. If you store them with a slice of bread, they will soften/stay soft and be lovely.

Gingerbread Recipe

1 cup butter
1 cup light brown sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 Tbsp. ginger
1 cup molasses
2 beaten eggs
6 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/4 tsp. baking soda

Beat all wet ingredients together. Stir in everything else. This will be extremely stiff dough. I wouldn't be able to make these without my KitchenAid mixer! Cool the dough if it is sticky. When cool, roll out 1/8 - 1/4" thick, cut shapes. Leave space between cookies on ungreased pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 11-13 minutes. If the edges are turning brown, they are done! If you want softer cookies, bake less. If you want to make walls for a house, bake longer until the edges are brown.

This recipe made my church and 15 3"- tall gingerbread men. The church is 5.5" wide x 8.5" long. The long walls are 6" high and the roof sections are 4" x 10". The peaked walls are 8.5" high at the peak, 6" high at the side and 5.5" wide.

To cut out the "cathedral" windows, I used a small round cookie cutter for the top and a knife to extend it down all the way. I should have made my door taller, so my gingerbread men would fit in! Oops.

To cement the pieces together, I used Royal Icing. I've talked about it before, but searching for things on this blog is proving to be a pain, so here's that recipe again:

Royal Icing Recipe

1 egg white

pinch of salt

1/2 tsp. lemon juice

1 1/2 - 1 3/4 cups icing sugar

Mix all ingredients together and use immediately or cover closely and refrigerate. This icing hardens quickly.

 

To assemble the pieces, fill a piping bag (fitted with a medium round tip) with icing (use the full 1 3/4 cups icing sugar to make really stiff icing) and pipe along the edges that will touch the display surface and the next piece you wish to attach. If the icing is stiff enough, two pieces should hold together without assistance. (Refer back to my second photo above. I piped the white icing along the roofline and laid the roof piece on top and it stayed exactly where I put it!)

 

I've been making gingerbread creations since I was in grade school and I have made one every year since! It is now a tradition I've been passing on to my children. They will decorate it with candy tomorrow! This is our creation from last year:

 

 

Have a great week getting ready for Christmas!

Rhubarb Apple Pie with Molasses

Have you ever heard of pie with Molasses in it? I hadn't. Until my husband re-stocked our molasses from Costco. It came as a two-pack, with a recipe book! Imagine! A recipe book suited me just fine. We were impressed to see a recipe for a rhubarb-apple pie and had to try it.

I used up a package of my frozen rhubarb and the last of the wild apples we picked a while ago. So far, so good. It baked up really nice. It looked lovely. I enjoyed it and I think the family did too. Every plate was empty. I did find that it tasted a lot like molasses, and not much like apple or rhubarb. I also went skimpy on the shortening in my crust today, so it came out tough. Since supper, my burps taste like molasses! If I make it again, I will be more careful with the crust and I will go easier on the molasses. I did like the taste of butter in the filling. It was "easy as pie" to make and if you love molasses, go for it! Here is the recipe:

Rhubarb Apple Pie Recipe
2 cups diced rhubarb
2 cups diced apples
3/4 cup sugar
3 Tbsp. flour
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 cup fancy Molasses
1 1/2 Tbsp. butter
Pastry for 1 2-crust, 9"pie

Prepare pastry lined pie plate. Mix rhubarb and apples together and pour into pie plates. Mix dry ingredients and pour over fruit. Drizzle molasses over the pie and dot with butter. Cover with pastry and cook at 400 degrees F for 20 minutes, and 375 degrees F for 40 minutes.

Enjoy!