Another Successful Adventure in Baking

Every Christmas morning, my family has some sort of baked good for breakfast. Since I’ve been working on my baking skills, I decided to try out Cinnamon Roll Cupcakes. I made them the night before and let them rise over-night so they would be ready to bake and frost in the morning.

Cinnamon Roll Cupcakes
Adapted from Pink Parsley, from Beantown Baker, originally from La Fuji Mama

Ingredients:
For the Dough:
1 Packet dry active yeast
1/2 Cup granulated sugar, divided
1 Cup warm milk (approximately 110 degrees)
2 Eggs, room temperature
1/3 Cup butter, melted
1 Teaspoon salt
4 1/2 Cups bread flour
For the Cinnamon Inside:
1 Cup brown sugar, packed
2 1/2 Tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/3 Cup butter softened and spreadable
For the Frosting:
8 Ounce cream cheese, softened
2/3 Cup butter, softened
1 Cup powdered sugar

Directions:
Heat the milk. Dissolve the yeast and 1/4 cup sugar in the warm milk. Let stand for 10 minutes, until foamy.
Mix in the eggs, butter, salt, and the remaining 1/4 cup sugar. Add the flour and mix well, until it forms a ball of dough. Lightly flour a flat surface and knead the dough 5-10 times. Place the dough into an oiled bowl and cover. Let rise in a warm place until the dough doubles in size. This will take anywhere from an hour to 2 hours. Be patient.
After the dough has doubled, turn it out of the bowl, onto a lightly floured surface and let it rest for 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, combine the brown sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. Line your cupcake pans with cupcake liners. If you have cooking spray, lightly spray over the top of the liners. My family doesn’t use cooking spray, so I didn't use any and the cupcakes stuck to the cupcake liners a bit but it wasn’t too horrible.
Roll out the dough into a 12x22 inch rectangle. Spread the butter over the dough, making sure it completely covers it. Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture over the entire rectangle. Roll up the dough. Cut the roll into 24 rolls. Do this carefully without smashing the roll.
To put the rolls into the cupcake liners, you may have to unroll them and re-roll them so they fit better. Don’t worry, it doesn’t make a mess because the sugar is already stuck to the butter.
Cover and let rise. The goal is to have them double again, but mine didn’t and they still rose just fine in the oven. I let mine sit in the refrigerator over night and it worked out just fine.
Meanwhile, cream the cream cheese and butter together and then slowly add the powdered sugar. You can add more powdered sugar if you like your frosting sweeter, but I thought that 1 cup was perfect.
When you are ready to bake the rolls, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Bake the rolls until golden brown. This will take 8-12 minutes. Let them cool completely and then frost them.

I was very happy with the outcome of these cupcakes. I’m still very intimidated by baking, but I liked this recipe a lot because the dough was very bread-like and I’m very comfortable with making bread. It was a fairly easy recipe and I definitely recommend it! Enjoy.

Oh There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: cooking is therapy to me, as is writing. After a rough quarter, I’m ready to get back in the swing of things and return to my blog. Sorry for the unexpected hiatus.

I have been longing for winter break for weeks and now that it’s here, there's nothing more I could ask for than to be right where I am, doing exactly what I'm doing! I’ve spent most of my days with my girlfriends, cooking and baking and just being happy to be near them. My friend, Kaelee, stayed with me for a few days and one day we woke up ready to bake! We made a delicious brunch and invited Alyssa over to feast. Later that day, Alyssa, Kaelee, Staecy (and later on, Christina) and I baked from 4PM to 12AM. Kaelee said she wanted something peppermint-y and as Staecy announced, there isn't enough peppermint for other people to use this winter because we took it all to bake 203948 peppermint desserts. Sorry!

Brunch started out with a simple question-"What do you want...eggs or pancakes?"-so then we started brainstorming and things sort of got out of hand...but in a completely delicious sort of way.

Simple Scrambled Eggs

Orange Muffins with an orange glaze (from the back of Trader Joe’s All Purpose Baking mix)

These muffins were so delicious! Way to go Trader Joe's and Kaelee.

Cinnamon-Banana Stuffed French Toast

This was so simple and so tasty. I made French Toast and while I had that going, I melted butter in a skillet and added bananas, cinnamon and sugar. Then I mixed together some cream cheese with sugar until it was smooth. To serve, I topped the French Toast with the cream cheese mixture and the bananas. So delicious! Sorry for the lack of measurements.


Peppermint Crunch Cookies
Recipe From Two Peas and Their Pod

Ingredients:
2 Cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 Teaspoons baking powder
1/2 Teaspoon salt
1/4 Cup canola oil
4 Ounces 99% unsweetened chocolate, melted
2 Cups granulated sugar
4 Large eggs
2 Teaspoons pure vanilla extract
5 Candy canes-crushed up

Directions:
First combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
Combine the oil, chocolate and granulated sugar and blend on medium speed with an electric mixer. Add the eggs and vanilla as the mixer is running. Add the dry ingredients and mix on low speed. Once everything is combined, place the bowl in the freezer for a few hours or over night.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line your baking sheets with parchment paper.
When the dough has been chilled, roll the dough into 1 inch balls and roll each ball into the crushed candy cane pieces, so that all sides are covered. Place 2 inches apart on the prepared sheets.
Bake for 10 minutes. The cookies will set up so even though they don’t look quite ready at 10 minutes, they will stiffen up. If you leave them in longer, the cookies will get too hard.

I tried one of these right after they came out of the oven and I didn’t really like them. The next morning, my friends were eating them and saying how good they were and so I tried another and it was so much better! It’s actually a pretty great recipe for easy holiday cookies. I highly recommend them.

Peppermint Meringues with Chocolate Ganache
Adapted from 17 and Baking

The recipe on this blog really gave us a hard time! We didn’t get the meringue to stiffen until the third try. Here is the very adjusted recipe.

Ingredients:
For the Meringue:
3 Large egg whites
1/4 Teaspoon cream of tartar
1/4 Cup sugar
1/2 Teaspoon pure peppermint extract (see extract notes above)
Red gel food coloring
For the Chocolate Ganache:
3/4 Cup heavy cream
4 1/2 Ounce semisweet chocolate, finely chopped

Directions:
Beat the egg whites, cream of tartar and peppermint extract together until it is frothy and then slowly add 1/4 cup sugar while still beating the mixture at a high speed until the mixture thickens. To test to see if the meringue has stiffened enough, take the beater out of the mixture and if peaks form and remain standing, it has stiffened enough. If the peaks fall back down into the mixture, it's not ready.
Preheat the oven to 175 degrees.
Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and dollop spoonfuls of the meringue mixture onto the paper. With a clean paintbrush, paint stripes of food coloring onto the dollops.
Bake for about 1 hour and 40 minutes. They will be crispy but not brown at all. Let them cool.
When the meringues go into the oven, begin making the ganache. Bring the cream to a simmer. Place the finely chopped chocolate in a bowl and when the cream starts steaming, pour it over the chocolate. Let it sit for five minutes and then stir the mixture to make sure all of the chocolate is melted and mixed with the cream. Let the mixture sit at room temperature. It will start to thicken and should be the perfect consistency once the meringues are out of the oven and cooled.
Once the meringues are cool, spread ganache onto the bottom of a cookie with a knife and then top with another meringue to make little sandwiches.

These came out so delicious! We learned that if you leave the sandwiches with the ganache filling for too long, the meringues will absorb the moisture from the ganache and they will be a gooey mess! Good to know. So only prepare the amount of sandwiches that will be eaten at that time. Save the rest of the meringues and the ganache separately—the meringues in an airtight container at room temperature and the ganache in the refrigerator.


Peppermint Patties
Adapted from Erin Cooks

This was so much fun to make! I’d never made candies before, besides peppermint bark, so it just felt really cool to be making peppermint patties.

Ingredients:
For the Peppermint Dough:
1 Egg white
4 Cups powdered sugar plus 1-2 cups for kneading and rolling
1/3 Cup light corn syrup
1 Teaspoon peppermint extract
Cornstarch for dusting
For the Chocolate Shell:
24 Ounces semisweet chocolate chips
2 Tablespoons of shortening (This is optional and I would suggest not using it. All it does is make the chocolate more glossy and considering shortening is ridiculously disgusting, it’s just not worth it.)

Directions:
Beat the egg white with an electric mixer until it is frothy.
Slowly add the powdered sugar while still blending. This will be really, really dry and messy. Think about it-one egg white for 4 cups of powdered sugar! That's a pretty ridiculous wet to dry ratio. The powdered sugar will be everywhere.
Add the corn syrup and 1/2 tsp of the peppermint extract and knead it together until the dough is smooth. Add more powdered sugar until it isn’t sticky.
Dust a flat surface and a rolling pin heavily with cornstarch. Roll out the dough until it is 1/4-1/6 inch thick.
Using cookie cutters, cut the dough into whatever shapes you want. After cutting out the shapes, take the extra dough around the edges and knead it back together and roll it out and cut more shapes. Repeat until there isn’t enough dough left. Place all of the shapes onto a cookie sheet lined with a silpat or parchment paper. Let them sit in the refrigerator for about 45 minutes.
Melt the chocolate chips, the other 1/2 tsp of peppermint extract and the shortening, if you want, in a double boiler over medium heat. Once it’s smooth, turn the heat to low.
To coat the dough shapes with chocolate, it works best to place the shapes on a fork-they will be stiff from being refrigerated-and dip the fork and dough into the chocolate until the shape is completely covered. Lift the dough out, still on the fork, and let the excess chocolate drip off and then set of the lined cookie sheet. This makes a complete mess but is still a lot of fun
Chill the patties for at least 30 minutes on the cookie sheets, in the fridge. Store in containers in the freezer-they taste the best when they’re really cold.

Whew! What a day! A lot of love and a lot of baking. It's good to be back home and it's good to be back in the blogging world! Happy holidays everyone.

Making use of Everything.

Caitlin had two peaches that were getting too soft. I had frozen berries…what to do? Fruit crisp of course! Definitely the best thing to make when you have lots of fruit and nothing to do with it.

Peach and Berry Crisp
1/2 Cup oatmeal
1/2 Cup brown sugar
1/4 Cup flour
1/2 Teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 Cup butter
2 Peaches peeled and cut in slices
1 1/2 Cup berries (we used raspberry and blackberry)…or however much you want really
Honey to taste

Combine the oats, brown sugar, flour and cinnamon. Add the butter slowly until the mixture is crumbly. Put the peaches and berries in an 8x8 baking pan and cover with as much honey as you want. Add the mixture on the top and more honey if desired.

Bake at 350 for 40 minutes or until the juices from the berries start to bubble along the edges and the topping looks crispy.

First Roommate Dinner

I moved into my new home last Monday. I absolutely love my apartment. My parents and Alyssa came to help me move in and I couldn’t have done it without them. I am definitely surrounded by a lot of people that I love and care about. I am living with three girls that I lived with last year. We get along really well and living together again only seemed natural. It was so nice unpacking all of the kitchen supplies and organizing the kitchen so that it would flow nicely and knowing that this would be my kitchen.

Tuesday, I went shopping with my roommates to get the staples—flour, rice, spices, honey, sugar, vinegar, etc. It felt so good to have a well stocked cupboard with all of the supplies to make delicious food. Tuesday night we had our first roommate dinner something that we want to make a monthly event. Our menu: Lemon Crème Fraiche Gratin, Autumn Apple Pear and Goat Cheese salad with Pecans, and Chocolate Covered Strawberries. It was so much fun using our new kitchen. It’s small and definitely meant for one person to function normally in it but we’re all comfortable with each other so it was fine maneuvering around each other. Melissa started making her salad while I did dishes and watched. Hillary and Caitlin stepped in once Melissa was done and made their incredible dessert. Once people were out of the kitchen, I took over. The pasta I made is one of my new favorites. Over the summer, Alyssa and I got together to make pasta and I was in the mood for something with Crème Fraiche and Lemon so we adjusted a Capellini Gratin recipe that simply used parmesan and cream and we made it our own.

Lemon Crème Fraiche Individual Gratins

Ingredients:
1 Pound angel hair
1 Container crème fraiche
1 1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan
Zest of 2 lemons (meyer lemons are especially good)
3 Tablespoons lemon juice
Sea salt
Black pepper
2 Pinches of nutmeg
3 Tablespoons butter
Reserved pasta water
2 Large leaves of basil
1/2 Cup bread crumbs

Directions:
I start by bringing a large pot of water to boil. Add a little bit of olive oil and salt to the water. Set the oven to 435
While it is coming to a boil, butter two muffin tins.
Cook the pasta al dente.
Meanwhile, in a large bowl, mix together the crème fraiche, ¾ of the the grated cheese, 3/4 of the zest of the lemon, the lemon juice and the seasonings.
Using a pasta serving spoon, spoon the pasta out of the water and into the cream mixture. Next add the reserved pasta water. I have never paid attention to how much water I add, but I can tell you it’s a good amount. A lot of the water you add will become absorbed into the pasta and you will want extra sauce left at the end to fill up the muffin tins so you’ll want a lot of liquid. I know I use at least 4 cups of reserved water. If you realize when you’re nearing the end that you’re going to need more sauce than you anticipated, just add more at that point. This is why I love cooking—it’s an art to me, not a science.
Take a fork and swirl some pasta onto it. Transfer the swirled pasta into the muffin tins. This takes a couple tries to get it right and it’s a bit messy but the end result is worth it.
Melt the butter and mix it with the bread crumbs. Top each individual gratin with bread crumbs, a little bit of the zest, basil and parmesan. Not add some liquid into each muffin tin till you can see it showing through the pasta.
Put in the oven and bake until the top is golden and bubbly. Let it cool for a few minutes before serving.
Of course, if you don’t have the time to construct the individual servings, you can skip the muffin tin part and simply put it in a large pan and bake it that way.
*The store by my house did not have crème fraiche so instead, I used mascarpone and added a little bit of milk and more reserved water than I normally would. It worked out just fine.

I love the way that these look at the end. It really doesn't take too much work either. The sauce is so easy so it's really just the construction that takes some effort. Usually Alyssa and I tag-team the construction but since she wasn't here this time, Caitlin stepped in and helped me with the toppings.

Melissa's salad was delicious.

What's better than chocolate covered strawberries for dessert?

All of the food was delicious. It was a perfect first meal in my new apartment.