The post that needs no title. See below photo.

 

Even without a blog post in the past 8 weeks, I’ve still been busy in the kitchen.  Baking up a “bun in the oven”, that is.  That’s right, I’m pregnant!  So I actually do have a good excuse for not staying on top of my blog posts…it’s called morning sickness and the morning part actually means all friggin day long.  I’ve barely been able to heat up a microwavable dinner for Gus (due to the smell of just about anything…I have the nose of a nauseous bloodhound these days), let alone cook an actual meal in the kitchen since early August.  I certainly miss cooking, but I miss eating even more.  Pregnancy does really weird things to your appetite, so my meals of choice change on a daily basis.  Lately I’ve survived on bananas, bran cereal, edamame, peanut butter sandwiches, cheese, and lemons.  Lots and lots of lemons.  I have a thing for sour stuff… so this leads me to believe that I’ll be popping out a Sour Patch Baby sometime in April.  And I’m certain my little Sour Patch Baby is a vegetarian since protein of any animal nature disgusts me.  I’m slowly coming around though and am looking forward to getting back to my regularly scheduled meat eating.

No fear on the blog though…I’m here to stay and luckily have a few saved up recipes from our last few weeks in Chicago to share.  We got so busy with the goodbye parties and packing that I saved up a few dishes and thankfully I can put them to good use now until this baby decides to let me back in the kitchen again.  And in honor of our little bun, I have a delish Cinnamon Bun recipe to share.  Homemade breads always seem to intimidate people, but in reality, there’s very little you can screw up.  You pretty much throw the dough together and let it “rest”…aka, sit in the corner of your kitchen while you watch the Tori and Dean marathon…see, baking bread ain’t so hard.  The dough base can be used as is for simple dinner rolls or just add some sweetness for these sinful breakfast treats.  A topping of cream cheese glaze puts an extra helping of sin on them and that may require a trip to confession upon consumption.  It’s well worth it though. 

 

Here is where the real sinning takes place…and if you know me, you know that I do not scrimp on the icing. 

 

Homemade Cinnamon Buns

Dough Ingredients: (warning..this makes a ton of dough, but it’s great to freeze and then roll out into Cinnamon Buns for breakfast if you have company over.  Overnight guests will be oh so impressed.)

• 4 cups whole milk
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 9 cups flour
• 2 packages or 4.5 teaspoons of dry active yeast
• 1 heaping teaspoon baking powder
• 1 scant teaspoon baking soda
• 2 tablespoons salt

Filling ingredients:

• 1/2 cup melted butter
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 4 tablespoons cinnamon

Glaze Ingredients:

• 4 oz. cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1.5 cups powdered sugar, sifted
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• Splash of Milk (adjust to achieve the right glaze consistency…it should not be thick like frosting)

 

1. Pour milk into a stock pot and add sugar and vegetable oil.  Stir and turn burner on medium to medium low to scald the mixture (just before boiling). 
2. Before it boils, turn off the heat and let the mixture cool to lukewarm.  Once it’s cooled, add 4 cups of flour and 2 packages of yeast. 
3. Stir together to incorporate yeast, then add another 4 cups of flour.  Stir together and allow to sit, covered with a lid for an hour in a warm environment. 
4. Once it has poofed up, add 1 cup of flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.  Stir together or knead slightly to combine ingredients.  Once it’s mixed, you can refrigerate it covered for up to 2 days.  Keep in mind, though, that the dough will continue to rise (though more slowly in the fridge) so you’ll have to occasionally punch it down if it overflows. Note: If you do refrigerate the dough, be sure to remove it from the fridge an hour or two before you need it.
5. Form a dough rectangle on a clean, floured surface.  Roll the dough thin while keeping the shape. 
6. Now brush on 1/2 cup of melted butter over dough.  Sprinkle white and brown sugar over the dough, followed by the cinnamon.  Starting at the end opposite you, roll the dough towards you as tightly as possible.  Pinch the seam to the roll to seal it. 
7. Spread 1 tablespoon of melted butter in cake pans and then cut the rolls in 1 inch slices.  Let the rolls rest for 20-30 minutes and then bake at 400 till lightly golden brown or 15 to 18 minutes. 
8. To make glaze: beat together all ingredients and pour over warm buns.  Enjoy!  (and say 1 Hail Mary afterwards).

Our Frugal French Toast Fate.

Eggs are a big weekend breakfast item in our house.  We’re pretty boring with breakfast during the week…fiber one for me and cheerios for my better half…but something about Saturday and Sunday mornings makes a “real” breakfast that much more tasty.  I never blog about our egg breakfasts because it’s not really a recipe to just scramble up some eggs and my egg photos always look like crap.  A couple weekends ago, I decided to switch things up and go the sweet route with our weekend breakfast by using those eggs to whip up some French Toast.  It’s not often we eat sweet breakfasts like french toast/pancakes/waffles, but it’s not because we don’t love them…it’s just usually a treat to eat something so dessert like as the first meal of the day, so we reserve it for special occasions.  And this special occasion happened to be that…well, let’s just say the stars just aligned in a French Toast like shape…eggs were on sale for .57 cents a dozen and I bought enough to make our condo look like a small chicken farm…plus, when you bought a gallon of milk, you could get a loaf Wonder Bread (the only type of bread that should ever be used for French Toast) for only .75 cents…so clearly the grocery store Gods were telling me to make French Toast.  I mean, I could whip up breakfast for less than .30 cents a serving!  Take that IHOP! 

Beyond the budget friendliness of this meal, I had been wanting to try a new method and recipe for French Toast.  I received a fabulous cookbook as a gift from one of Gus’ friends (kudos to a non-cooking 28 year old man for picking out such a great gift!), and if you’re ever going to buy one cookbook, this is the one: America’s Test Kitchen.  The recipes have been thoroughly tried and tested, with great technique tips and pictures to help you along the way.  One of my pet peeves is soggy in the middle French Toast and ATK’s recipe claimed to have the solution to my problem.   The result?  A rich, custard like, cinnamoney, crisp French Toast with no soggy grossness in sight.  So after you make this delicious breakfast, run out and buy the ATK cookbook and you’ll thank me for meals to come.  I promise that ATK isn’t paying me for this cookbook plug…but if you’re reading this Mr. ATK Public Relations Department, have your people call my people and we’d be happy to work something out. 

 

 

Perfect, Soggy-free French Toast

• 8 slices Wonder Bread (except no substitutes)
• 5 tbsp. Butter
• 1 cup Milk
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 3 tbsp. Sugar
• 1 tsp. Vanilla
• 1 tsp. Cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. Salt
• 1/2 cup All Purpose Flour (mwahaha…the secret ingredient to prevent gross sogginess!)

 

1. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 200 degrees. Arrange the bread on a wire rack set over a baking sheet and bake until slightly dry, about 15 minutes.
2. While the bread is in the oven, melt 3 tablespoons of the butter and whisk it with the milk, egg, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt in a medium bowl. Slowly whisk in the flour until smooth. Pour the batter into a shallow dish large enough to hold 2 slices of bread.
3. Transfer 2 pieces of the bread from the oven into the batter and soak both sides, about 30 seconds per side. Meanwhile, melt 2 more tablespoons of the butter in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium heat until beginning to brown, swirling to coat the pan.
4. Remove the bread from the batter, allowing excess batter to drip back into the dish, and lay it in the hot skillet. Cook until golden brown on both sides, about 2 1/2 minutes per side.
5. Transfer the French toast to the wire rack and keep warm in the oven. Repeat with the remaining butter, bread, and batter. Serve with warm maple syrup and a pat of butter…because you can never have too much buttah when you’re already basically eating dessert for breakfast. 

2 little monkey’s jumping on the bed…or eating all the bananas.

You know how people usually bake Banana Bread when they have leftover bananas going bad on the counter?  Yeah, well that never happens in my house.   I think we’re part monkey because we never have leftover bananas.  So what’s a monkey to do???  Hide a secret stash of bananas in the back of the pantry and try to forget about them until they’re all tan and ready for baking.   I am of the opinion that Banana Bread should be really banana-ey, so this recipe definitely does not skimp on the banana flavor.  The extra helping of bananas also helps to keep the bread very moist.  And the chocolate chips AND chunks (2 types of chocolate are always better than one, except in The.Best.Chocolate.Chip.Cookies.Ever.)…well, those are optional, but only if you want the option of making a less than stellar baked good.  It’s a no brainer.  Bananas+Chocolate might not be the new Brangelina like Pumpkin+Cream Cheese Frosting, but it’s up there…it’s at least the new TomKat.  Minus the creepy Scientology part, of course. 

 

 

Banana Chocolate Chip AND Chunk Bread

• 6 large overripe Bananas, mashed (should be about 2 1/2 cups)
• 2 cups All Purpose Flour
• 1 tsp. Baking Soda
• 1/4 tsp. Salt
• 1/4 tsp. Ground Cinnamon
• 1/2 cup Butter, softened
• 3/4 cup Brown Sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 tsp. Vanilla
• 1/2 cup Milk Chocolate Chips
• 4 oz. Semisweet Chocolate, chopped into chunks

 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Lightly grease a 9×5 loaf pan. (I like Baker’s Joy or Pam with Flour)
2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. 
3. In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar.  Stir in the eggs, mashed bananas, and vanilla until well blended.
4. In a small bowl, combine the chocolate chips and chunks with a dusting of flour.  (Do you like your chocolate to sink to the bottom of your bread?  I didn’t think so. ) Put a handful of chips/chunks aside to use as topping.
5. Add the banana mixture and chocolate chips/chunks to the dry ingredients and fold in gently, just to moisten.  Just like my muffin advice, do not over mix.  
6. Pour batter into the loaf pan and top with the reserved chips/chunks. 
7. Bake at 350 for 60-65 minutes.  Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes and then turn out onto a wire rack to continue cooling. 

The grocery store forced me to make muffins.

 

Why?  Because they refuse to sell buttermilk in smaller jugs, so I ended up with practically an entire carton leftover and rather than toss it, I decided to make 4 dozen muffins.  We love muffins in our house, but half a dozen was enough for us, so the rest went to work, as my coworkers love anything edible that is free.  This was the first time I made muffins from scratch, so I did a lot of research and was very careful to not over mix, as this results in a flat, dense muffin.  When incorporating the wet ingredients with the dry, I would recommend not mixing over 12 strokes. 

 

Blueberry Crumb Muffins

I used the same base for the Blueberry Crumb and Raspberry Chocolate Chip flavors, and think you could use just about any fruit combination with this base.  The recipe below would make 6 muffins, using a jumbo sized muffin pan. 

 

 

Muffin Base:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup white sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 egg

1/3 cup buttermilk

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1.5 cup fresh blueberries

Crumb Topping:

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup butter, cubed and softened

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

 

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.
2. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl.  Stir together. 
3. Place vegetable oil in a measuring cup and add the egg, buttermilk, and vanilla.  Beat together slightly to incorporate the egg with the wet ingredients. 
4. To make the crumb topping, mix together the brown sugar, flour, butter, and cinnamon with a fork.  
5. Mix the wet ingredients with the flour mixture.  Fold in the blueberries.  Fill muffin cups right to the top and sprinkle with the crumb topping.  (Don’t go too heavy on the topping or else it will cause your muffin tops to collapse.)
6. Bake for 20-25 minutes in a preheated oven, or until done. 

 

 

 

Raspberry Chocolate Chip Muffins

• Use the same base as above, just swap out the blueberries for 1.5 cups of fresh raspberries and 1 cup of mini chocolate chips.  Before folding in the chocolate chips, lightly coat them in 1 tsp of flour so they don’t sink to the bottom of the muffins. 
• Rather than use the crumb topping, I sprinkled white granulated sugar crystals on top of the muffins, prior to baking.  I found these in the baking department at Joann’s or any store that carries Wilton products should have them. 
• Follow the same baking instructions as above.  

 

 

 

 

Double Chocolate Chunk Muffins

For the Double Chocolate Chunk Muffins, I used a popular Dorie Greenspan recipe from one of her great cookbooks, with some slight modifications.  Dorie describes the muffin as “slightly sweet” and I didn’t want the flavor to be too dark or rich, so I used half semisweet and half bittersweet chocolate chunks.  I also topped these with sugar crystals and mini chocolate chips before baking for a more finished look.  I used jumbo sized muffin pans and got 12 muffins from this recipe.  

 

 

6 tablespoons unsalted butter

3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

3 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsley chopped

2 cups flour

2/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1-1/4 cups buttermilk

1 large egg

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

 

1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease muffin cups or line with paper muffin liners
2. Melt the butter and half the chopped chocolate together in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water; or do this in a microwave. Remove from the heat.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
4. In a large glass measuring cup or another bowl, whisk the buttermilk, egg and vanilla extract together until well combined.
5. Pour the liquid ingredients and the melted butter and chocolate over the dry ingredients and, with the whisk or a rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to blend. Don’t worry about being thorough — a few lumps are better than over mixing the batter.
6. Stir in the remaining chopped chocolate. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin molds.
7. Bake for 20 minutes, or until a thin knife inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool 5 minutes before carefully removing each muffin from its mold.