Perfect Dinner Rolls (if you’re a leprechaun!)

Posted on March 17, 2013 by Lorinda

A traditional cloverleaf roll…except it’s green!

Are you ready to get some dough under your nails? Green dough, to be exact – since it’s almost St. Patrick’s Day. I’ll give you my basic recipe for dinner rolls, and then instructions below for making the green clovers. Wow your friends and crank out the shamrocks!

Fair warning, I’m hitting the green wine, starting….NOW! I’ll try to get the recipe ingredients entered before I lose my focus, and the photos snapped while I’m still only seeing one of everything. (Disclaimer: In case you’re wondering about my wine glass, this was a gift from my daughter, who understands my obsession for blue ribbons. She’s not saying I’m a really top-notch whore…just that I will do nearly anything to add to my ribbon collection.)

Sláinte!

Remember, this is my basic dinner roll recipe. You’ll have to jazz it up with green food color and follow the photos below for making cloverleaf rolls.

Perfect Dinner Rolls

Author: The Rowdy Baker

Serves: 24

This recipe makes 2 dozen soft, fluffy dinner rolls. You can also flatten out balls of dough for delicious hamburger buns!

Ingredients

2¼ cups warm water
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
⅓ cup sugar
⅓ cup butter, softened
⅓ cup powdered nondairy creamer
1¼ teaspoons salt
6 to 7 cups bread flour

Instructions

In a large bowl, sprinkle the yeast into the warm water and let it sit for 5 minutes.
Add the sugar, butter, creamer, salt, and 5 cups of flour. Beat until smooth. Slowly add just enough remaining flour to form a soft dough that pulls away from the side of the bowl.
Knead on a floured surface until smooth and elastic, about 6 to 8 minutes. (Or, if using a stand mixer, knead with a dough hook for approximately 5 minutes.)
Place dough in a greased bowl, turning once to coat. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled. Punch down.
Divide the dough into 24 equal pieces. Shape into balls (or oblongs if you prefer) and place about an inch apart on a lightly greased cookie sheet.
Cover and allow the rolls to rise until doubled.
Heat oven to 375 F.
Bake for approximately 12 minutes, or until they are golden brown on top.
Cool on a rack.

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Powdered creamer is something I never use in coffee. Ghastly stuff. But I’ve tried this recipe without it, and the rolls just don’t turn out as fluffy. Apparently it acts as a dough conditioner. Bite the bullet and use it – you’ll love these versatile rolls!

First, a FAIL!

As so often happens, the actual results of my first shamrock experiment didn’t exactly match the picture in my imagination. It was late and I’d had my share of green wine, so I went to bed and gave it a fresh try in the morning. Here’s what the first batch looked like – not exactly something that would go viral on Pinterest.

Meh.

Plan “B” was to make cloverleaf rolls, using jumbo cupcake pans. They rose beautifully and were a perfect, delicate green; not gopher guts green – a very edible spring green shade. To make these, add green food coloring to the mixture in your bowl before you add the flour. So simple.

Roll dough into balls

Spray the pan with a little “Bakers Joy” and put 3 balls of dough in each cavity.

Mmmmm.

May the Good Lord take a liking to you… but not too soon!

Lorinda

Sophie’s Zebra Cake

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Lorinda

In a rousing change-up from my normal routine, I flew to California to visit my daughter Brenna’s family and get cuddle time with new baby Mack, and found myself in a flurry of preparations for Sophie’s 9th birthday. Birthday parties are my idea of great fun, especially since Brenna and I go by the same principle: more is better.

The theme was black, white, and hot pink zebra designs. There were three girls coming – plus Sophie – for pizza, a slumber party, and bowling the next morning. It was obvious I hadn’t thrown a slumber party in a long time, because I thought that just four girls (and little sister, Taunee) couldn’t eat that much and wouldn’t make very much noise.

Stop laughing. I can’t hear you anyway, because my ears are still ringing. This may be permanent.

The girls may not have eaten much at a time, but the foraging was constant. Picture locusts working their way through a wheat field. Luckily, Brenna was far more realistic and prepared for this situation. Pizza, bread sticks, potato chips. bowls of color coordinated candy (Good and Plenty candy provided the perfect color), drinks with festive paper straws…no one starved. And for the Pièce de résistance, she made this awesome zebra cake:

Zebra cake with hot pink icing!

Start with two batches of cake (boxed mix or scratch – your choice) one white cake and one chocolate. She added a little black food coloring to the chocolate batter. In two cake pans layer dark and white batters, pouring about 1/3 cup (or 1/2 for wider stripes) at a time in the center. Don’t spread the batter. Don’t even tap the pan! Just pour.and bake.

Pour layers of batter right in the middle of the pan. Don’t spread it!

Keep those layers of batter coming! The weight of each layer spreads the ones below it.

Cakes ready for the oven.

Baked and ready to level and frost.

Frosting the cake.

Sophie’s Zebra Cake

Brenna cut shapes out of Wilton sugar sheets (they come in beautiful designs), and placed them on the hot pink sugar covered icing, piping around each shape. If you’re not into hot pink frosting, a simple white cake with the sugar sheet design around the sides would be lovely. Just pipe around the top edge of the sheet and decorate the top however you wish.

Each shape was placed on the frosting, then Brenna piped around each shape.

I probably don’t need to tell you that the cake was a big hit!

I got up early the next morning and started the dough for homemade doughnuts. Here is a link to my recipe and instructions. Doughnut Recipe

I used butter instead of shortening this time, and they turned out great. This pleases me because I really don’t like to use shortening unless I absolutely have to. Also (and this was a wonderful discovery) if you don’t have a candy thermometer, you can put a kernel of popcorn in the oil when you start to heat it, and when it pops the oils should be between 350 and 365 degrees – which is just right for frying doughnuts.

The zebra doughnuts were an adult-pleaser, but the girls had more fun with doughnut holes, dipping them in bowls of sugar, cinnamon sugar, and maple, vanilla, and chocolate icing. With sprinkles, of course!

Zebra doughnut. Get in mah belly!!!

Messy fun! Dipping doughnut holes. (The only rule was…no double dipping!)

We had a blast decorating, baking, and listening to the giggles and shrieks. Cleaning up wasn’t quite as festive, but then – it never is!

Happy 9th birthday, Sophie Grace!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Streusel Muffins

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Lorinda

The magic combination of chocolate and peanut butter vies with maple for the number one spot in my affections. If I buy a candy bar it’s going to be a Reese’s or Butterfinger; you just can’t beat that sweet and salty blend.

I’ll have to admit that these muffins require a lot of bowls and utensils, so I must really think they’re worth the trouble, because anyone who knows me or reads my blogs can tell you that dishes are the bane of my existence. Cleaning up my messes is a miserable chore that curbs my baking enthusiasm a bit…probably a good thing!

There really is no way around the multitude of bowls you’ll need. Muffin batter doesn’t like to be over-stirred, so it isn’t a good idea to make the batter, split it up and add chocolate to one bowl and peanut butter to the other; it would take too much stirring and you’d end up with very heavy muffins. I don’t like overly sweet, light muffins (if I want cupcakes I’ll make cupcakes) but I do like to have them rise prettily.

So you have to split the dry ingredients between two bowls, mix the wet ingredients in two bowls (I use big glass measuring cups) and combine the streusel in a small bowl. Yep – 5 bowls! Have I lost you yet? Hey…if I can do it, you can do it!

I made jumbo muffins – the recipe makes six. But you can make 12-14 regular size muffins if you prefer. If you really want to take them over the top you could put a peanut butter cup in the bottom of each liner before adding the batter. Just remember that you’re displacing some of the batter, so you’ll probably have a couple extra muffins. A drizzle of chocolate over the streusel once the muffins have cooled would be lovely too.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Streusel Muffins

Without further ado…here’s the recipe:

Chocolate Peanut Butter Streusel Muffins

Author: The Rowdy Baker

Makes 6 jumbo muffins or 12-14 regular muffins.

Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour
½ cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
½ cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla
½ cup peanut butter
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon milk or buttermilk
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa
2 tablespoons strong coffee
½ cup all purpose flour
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup chopped peanuts (I used unsalted dry roasted; salted peanuts are OK)
5 tablespoons melted butter

Instructions

Heat oven to 375 F
In each of 2 medium bowls, sift together 1 cup flour, ¼ cup sugar, 1 teaspoon baking powder, ½ teaspoon baking soda, ¼ teaspoon salt.
In each of 2 small bowls, combine 1 egg, ½ cup buttermilk, ¼ cup vegetable oil, 1 teaspoon vanilla.
In one of the small bowls, add the peanut butter, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar, 1 tablespoon milk or buttermilk. Mix well.
In the other small bowl, add the cocoa and coffee. (Throw in a few chocolate chips if you desire.) Mix well.
In a small bowl combine the ½ cup flour, ½ cup brown sugar, peanuts, and melted butter. Stir lightly with a fork to blend. (This is your streusel topping.)
Gently stir the peanut butter mixture into the dry ingredients in one of the medium bowls. Stir the chocolate mixture into the dry ingredients in the other medium bowl.
Either using a “separator” cut from card stock (or a paper plate) or a wide, flat spatula, put peanut butter batter on one side of a muffin liner and chocolate in the other, filling a little more than half full. (There will be just a little more peanut butter batter than chocolate) Remove the separator and repeat.
Generously cover the top of each muffin with streusel.
Bake for approximately 20 minutes for regular size muffins or 25 minutes for jumbo. Test with a toothpick, and cool on a rack.

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Get everything ready before you mix the wet nd dry ingredients!

Get everything ready before you mix the wet and dry ingredients!

Filling the muffins liners half & half.

Generously cover with streusel, and bake.

These muffins are just begging for a cup of hot coffee. I can’t stand to hear a muffin cry, so I’ll oblige – and wash those pesky bowls in the morning!

The next blog you’ll see will probably be child-friendly, since I’m flying down to visit my grandbabies in a few days. Maybe I’ll even let one of them write the blog, too! Sounds like a great vacation for me – I’ll just sit back and be “The Relaxed Baker” for a while.

A Fly on the Wall in February?

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Lorinda

Last month I joined a group of bloggers who post a monthly “Fly on the Wall” blog. We share little tidbits of our lives – stuff you would see and hear in our homes if you were a fly on the wall and we didn’t know you were there! I loved writing it, and especially loved snooping through the other bloggers’ posts – some funny, some serious. You’ll find links to the other participating bloggers below. Make sure to check them out, because the February Fly on the Wall starts………..NOW!

Valentine’s Day was yesterday. I’m sure we’re all licking the empty cups from the box of Godiva chocolates and re-arranging our roses, right? Uh huh.

Why am I sitting at the computer at 11:30 pm (three hours past my old-lady bedtime) grinning like a maniac? Grandbaby #3 was just born, and my happy cup overflows. Our daughter lives in California, and I’ll be headed there in a couple of weeks to help out, but for now I’m at the mercy of e-mails and Facebook for updates and photos. He’s beautiful, our Mack. She had him naturally, only an hour and a half after hitting the hospital – and they’re both healthy and happy. Well…Mack wasn’t too happy in this picture, but once he got to cuddle with Mommy and Daddy he was content.

Put me baaaaaack!

His big sisters were there during labor, and the youngest had a question for the doctor: “Um. Mr. Dentist? Are you going to pull the baby out of my mommy’s body now?” (Complete with hand motions.) I sure wish they had that on video!

The cat war rages on. Some people fight about kids, in-laws, money, sex. We fight about the cats. The obvious solution would be to simply not HAVE cats, but that would mean I lost the war, and I really hate losing. After 34 years of marriage, you’d think we would have this worked out, but it may go down in history as “The 50 Year Feline War.”

The Man says he hates cats, but he’s a sucker for kittens, and forgets that they turn into cats. Once they’re no longer cute, these arguments surface:

My two cats are not allowed to stay in the house at night because he’s sure they will run around using every corner as a litter box. (Litter boxes are NOT acceptable.)
They leave hair all over the couch, and he makes a big point of grumbling and sticky-rollering when he sees visitors coming up our driveway. Our Lab and German Shorthaired Pointer are also allowed on the couch, but apparently they don’t deposit fur.
The cats are covered with germs because they eat rodents. (The Lab eats cat, chicken, and deer poop. Kissy-kissy.)
Most importantly, once the temperature rises above 20, they don’t NEED to be in the house. (The dogs do.) Can you see why the fur flies around here?

Pretend you can’t hear him!

If you’re looking around for a nice piece of meat to land on, you’re in the wrong home. We are experimenting, and have switched to a plant-based diet. Which basically means vegan, only we slip now and then and put a little meat in the beans and rice to add some interest. I am shocked to say I don’t crave sweets – for the first time in my life! This is going to play hell with the whole Rowdy Baker thing, isn’t it? It’s kind of scary…if I’m not The Rowdy Baker, then who am I?

For now I’m sitting squarely on the fence, practicing my new multiple personality disorder. Since I doubt my brown rice miso mushroom dish will go viral on Pinterest, I’ll be baking just as usual…but freezing the goodies for ~~when~~ if I cave in and bail on the healthy stuff. You may see more whole grains and coconut oil in my recipes though. You can’t say I didn’t warn you!

I’m wondering what a fly is doing on my wall in February! We have a foot of snow on the ground – aren’t you supposed to be hybernating or turning into maggots or something? Oh…I’m guessing you found the big sticky mess that is supposed to be my kitchen. What a month! Valentine’s Day is HUGE when you write a baking blog. There were so many ideas swirling around in my head – all involving chocolate, berries, cream, nuts, and butter. Some of them even made it to my Facebook page and blog. The rest will have to wait until next year. My energy and enthusiasm were damped by a festive case of sciatica, which was compounded by a case of shingles – competing with each other to see which could cause the most nerve pain. That’s why you saw me sitting in the recliner with a heating pad on my back ~~slugging down~~ with a medicinal dose of Jack Daniels.

Our youngest son (aka: “he who shall not be named on social media sites”) came for a visit during this trying time and was shocked to find that Mom was not cooking. There were no goodies to be had! He and The Man had to rough it, which they did quite well, if not cheerfully. Did I milk it a little? Maybe. 😉
I’m happy to say I’ve recuperated now and am planning ahead for St. Patrick’s Day. Yes, there will be a lot of green pastry coming your way!

You may have to visit someone else next month, because I’ll be in California for a few weeks, getting my grandchildren fix. If you have any relatives buzzing around Redding, let them know they’re welcome at my daughter’s house, but they’d better stay out of swatting range – she hates things that fly!

Now, buzzz off and visit:

Baking In a Tornado
Stacy Sews and Schools
My Brain on Kids
Just a Little Nutty
Menopausal Mother
The Sadder But Wiser Girl
The Momisodes
Follow Me Home
Big A Little a
The Insomniac’s Dream
Don’t Chew On The Dinner Table
Black Sheep Mom
Raising Reagan
Moore Organized Mayhem
Finding Felicity

Vallomar Cookies

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Lorinda

Okay, here’s the deal: I procrastinate. A lot. For weeks now I’ve had this vision of a chocolate heart with a layer of marshmallow and a cookie bottom – kind of like a Mallomar, but since it would be for Valentine’s Day I’d call it a Vallomar. I pictured it made in a mold like this:

This is what I wanted…

However, we live almost two hours away from a craft store, and the closest thing I could find in town was a baking pan with small heart-shaped cavities – much smaller hearts than I had pictured. Since I waited until the last minute, there was no time to order online, so…I made do. It worked, but it would have been SO much easier with a flexible candy mold.

With one batch of graham cookie dough, eight ounces of chocolate, and one batch of marshmallow frosting, I made 12 Vallomar cookies, 6 large heart sandwich cookies, two pre-baked heart-shaped crusts, and had a pile of little graham hearts left over. That’s a lotta love!

These aren’t meant to be graham crackers, exactly – they’re more like a graham shortbread. They won’t spread, so you can put them very close together on the cookie sheet. If you are making the Vallomars, you’ll need to get a heart-shaped cookie cutter that is a little smaller than the cavities of your heart molds. Here’s the dough recipe:

Graham Cookies

Author: The Rowdy Baker

Ingredients

1 cup butter, softened
½ cup brown sugar, packed
½ cup powdered sugar
1 egg yolk
1½ teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons milk
2 cups graham flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup cornstarch

Instructions

Heat oven to 350 F.
In large bowl (a stand mixer works best) beat butter, brown sugar, and powdered sugar until well mixed.
Add egg yolk, vanilla, and milk, and beat well.
Add graham flour, all-purpose flour, and cornstarch and beat on low until combined. (This is a very stiff dough, so you may need to use a dough hook to finish mixing.)
Roll out on lightly floured surface. These should be fairly thin - no more than ¼-inch. Cut out desired shapes with cookie cutters.
Place close together on baking sheet. Bake 9-10 minutes. Let them cool on the sheet for a few minutes and then transfer to a rack to cool completely.

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Cookies may be baked close together.

While your cookies are baking, you can coat the molds with chocolate and put them in the fridge.

Use milk chocolate or dark chocolate, whichever you prefer. I melt mine in a bowl in the microwave, beginning with 30 seconds, and then 15 second increments (stirring each time) until the chocolate is melted. If you’re using milk chocolate you may need to add a teaspoon of shortening or coconut oil to make it thinner. It will take approximately a pound of chocolate if you’re making all of the dough into Vallomars. If you’re like me, after making a dozen or two you’ll just want to be done, so you’ll cut the rest of the dough out into larger hearts and slap some chocolate on one side, marshmallow on the other, and put them together. Much easier, and if you drizzle a little chocolate over them, they’re almost as pretty as the Vallomars. Almost.

Graham cookies, marshmallow frosting, and chocolate. Yum!

Coat the molds with a layer of chocolate. Some people use brushes, but a plastic measuring spoon worked well for me. So does a (clean) finger. Make sure you bring the chocolate all the way to the top of the cavity. Put in the refrigerator to harden. Repeat with another thin layer if necessary to coat completely.

Coating the hearts with melted chocolate.

While the cookies are cooling and the chocolate molds are chilling, make the marshmallow frosting.

MARSHMALLOW FROSTING

2 egg whites
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup light corn syrup

In a medium bowl, beat egg whites, salt, and vanilla at medium speed until foamy. Gradually add sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating at high speed until soft peaks form and sugar is dissolved.
In a small saucepan over medium heat, bring corn syrup just to a boil. Holding pan high above egg mixture, pour in a very thin stream, beating at highest speed until frosting is thick.

Ready to assemble? Bring the chocolate molds out of the fridge. Fill one cavity (this is your test cookie) about 2/3 full with the marshmallow frosting (I used a sandwich baggie with the tip cut of and piped mine in) and top it with one of the graham cookies. There should be a little room around the cookie, and a little space on top. If the cookie is a snug fit, you’ll have to do what I did and use a paring knife to shave them a bit, because you want the chocolate on top to fill in between the cookie and the mold. If there’s no room on top for chocolate, don’t put quite as much marshmallow in the rest of them.

Adding marshmallow frosting and a cookie.

Now top each of them with enough melted chocolate to cover the cookie completely. Tap the mold gently on the counter to get any bubbles out. Pop the filled mold in the freezer for 5 minutes or so, until the chocolate is firm. Turn it upside down and tap gently. (Or if you were better prepared than I was and have a plastic mold, flex it a little.) The Vallomars should pop right out.

Fill with a layer of chocolate.

You could flavor and color the filling, or put a sweet little royal icing rose on top. Or…drizzle with a contrasting chocolate (dark drizzle on milk chocolate, and vice versa.)

This dough works well as a tart crust. Make sure it’s rolled thin and don’t over bake it, or it will get too hard to cut neatly. I even baked one in a small cake pan and filled it with chocolate pudding swirled with leftover marshmallow frosting and walnuts.

3 days and counting! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Jelly Doughnut Hearts – Gotta Love ’em!

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Lorinda

A puffy, sweet pastry covered in sugar and oozing raspberry jelly…what’s better than a jelly doughnut? A homemade, heart shaped jelly doughnut!

Make a batch of these for Valentine’s Day and score some serious Brownie points! It’s really not as hard as you think, but you have to be willing to deep fry these; if you bake them you’ll lose some of the flavor and a lot of the tender texture.

I tried them glazed, rolled in sugar, and dusted with powdered sugar. And when I say I tried them, I mean I tried them. I couldn’t present them to you untested, right? Oh, the sacrifices I make! They were all delicious, but I think the traditional powdered sugar doughnut was my favorite.

Love those powdered ones!

Or…glazed is nice!

Put a smile on someone’s face and give this recipe a try!

Jelly Doughnut Hearts

Author: The Rowdy Baker

Makes about 30 doughnuts.

Ingredients

1-1/2 cups milk (2% or whole milk is best. I added a little half & half to my 2%)
⅓ cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
⅓ cup shortening
1-1/2 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cinnamon
⅓ cup warm water
2 packages active dry yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
2 eggs
5 cups all-purpose flour
peanut oil for frying

Instructions

In a small pan on medium-high heat, scald the milk. To do this, let the milk heat until there are bubbles all the way around the outer edge, but catch it before it boils. Remove from heat.
Add ⅓ cup plus one tablespoon sugar, shortening, salt, and cinnamon. Allow the mixture to cool down until it’s lukewarm.
In a large bowl (I use my stand mixer) combine the warm water, yeast, and 1 teaspoon sugar. Let it sit until bubbly – about 5 minutes.
Mix the lukewarm milk mixture into the yeast mixture. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well.
Slowly add the flour, mixing until combined. Knead well–5 minutes with stand mixer using the dough hook, or 7-8 minutes by hand on a lightly floured surface. If you're using a mixer, it will look very sticky at first, but at the end of the kneading time it should be a soft, elastic dough. If it is still sticky, add a little more flour and knead for another minute.
Set the dough to rise in a large oiled bowl, turning once to coat the dough with oil. Cover and allow to rise until double–about an hour. Punch down.
On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to about ⅓ inch - definitely no thicker than ½ inch. They will puff up a lot when they're fried!
Cut with a heart-shaped cookie cutter, getting the hearts as close to each other as possible. The first rolling is definitely the best; re-rolled dough is tougher. Remove the extra dough around the hearts, cover them with a clean dishtowel, and let them sit for 30 minutes.
Heat at least 2 inches of oil in a large pan until it's between 350 and 365 degrees.
Drop a few hearts into the hot oil at a time, giving them lots of room to move around. Once the bottom is a dark golden brown, flip the hearts over. If yours are like mine, they’ll have minds of their own and might insist on flipping right back over. Don’t let them win!
When both sides are brown, remove and drain on paper towels. Move to a baking rack to cool.
When the doughnuts are just barely warm, shake them gently in a bag of powdered sugar, or roll them in granulated sugar. If you prefer glazed doughnuts, mix a little water into powdered sugar (a drop or two of vanilla is nice, too) until you have a thin glaze. Dip the doughnuts or brush the glaze on with a pastry brush.
To fill, use a pastry bag with a piping tip. Fill with jelly and poke the tip in the side of the doughnut, squeezing firmly. OR (this worked best for me) use a chopstick to poke a hole in the side and use a zipper bag filled with jelly (cut one tip off) to fill the doughnut.
Make sure to wipe the powdered sugar off your chin before your family comes home!

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Cutting out heart shapes.

Filling the doughnuts.

Oh, yum!

I know for a fact that the glazed doughnuts freeze well, but I haven’t tried freezing the sugared doughnuts. So I guess I’ll just have to freeze the eight glazed hearts and eat all the rest. Yep – works for me!

Cinnamon Spiral Bread

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Lorinda

My love of cinnamon toast brings back one of my earliest memories. I remember the night a babysitter made us cinnamon toast (a real treat, because my mother didn’t have a sweet tooth in her head) and then made me more when I asked for it. This was obviously a BIG DEAL. We certainly weren’t starved as children – Mom and Dad always cooked us wholesome meals – but we were rarely indulged when it came to sweets. Nothing tasted as good as that cinnamon toast, even though I knew I was playing that poor babysitter for a sucker!

I’m sure if I were stretched out on a psychiatrist’s couch right now, he’d be connecting the dots between my sweet “deprivation” as a child and my obsessive baking now. Pffft.

Since I’m in Valentine’s Day mode, I took my cinnamon spiral bread recipe and played with it just a bit. Instead of rolling each half out into an 8×12-inch rectangle, I rolled it out into approximately a 14×16-inch rectangle with the long side towards me, added cinnamon and sugar and rolled it up, then cut it in half, pinched the ends closed, and stuffed the rolls into buttered heart shaped canape tubes. (Or save yourself some work and use a baking spray that has flour in it.) I left one of the caps on, but I don’t think it makes a lot of difference.Don’t stand the pans upright – keep them horizontal to rise and bake. And remember, they’re smaller loaves, so only bake them about 35 minutes.

(You may have noticed that those canape tubes have been getting quite a workout lately. They were in my Valentine’s Day tub, so the novelty factor has been calling to me.)

When cooled and sliced, you’ll get pretty little spiral hearts. When toasted and buttered…heaven. And if you want to put a simple powdered sugar and milk glaze over the wide end of the heart loaf before slicing it, I won’t tell. Here’s my basic recipe:

Cinnamon Spiral Bread

Author: The Rowdy Baker

This is a sweet white bread that makes 2 standard loaves, or 1 standard loaf and 2 canape bread loaves.

Ingredients

2 cups very warm water
1 package active dry yeast
½ cup plus 1 teaspoon sugar
1-1/2 t. salt
¼ cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons softened butter
6 cups white flour
⅔ cup sugar
2 tablespoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon flour

Instructions

In a small bowl, combine the warm water, yeast, and teaspoon of sugar. Let the mixture sit for 5-10 minutes.
In a large bowl (a stand mixer works best) mix together the sugar, salt, vegetable oil and butter.
Add three cups of the flour and the yeast mixture to the large bowl and mix until well combined.
Add the remaining flour a cup at a time until the dough comes cleanly off the side of the bowl. This should be a fairly soft dough, but not sticky.
If you are kneading by hand, turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for about 8 minutes. If you’re using a dough hook to knead, 5 minutes is plenty.
Place dough in a large oiled bowl, cover, and set aside in warm spot to rise until doubled (about 90 minutes.)
Punch down the risen dough and let stand for 5 minutes. Divide into 2 equal chunks and roll each one out approximately 8-inches by 12-inches, with the short end facing you.
Combine the ⅔ cup sugar, 2 tablespoons cinnamon and 1 teaspoon flour. Sprinkle half of the mixture (you don’t have to use this much – just make sure the dough is covered) evenly over each rectangle, pat the surface firmly, and roll, beginning at short end. Pinch the seams to seal.
Place in 2 generously greased bread pans and cover with a towel. Allow to rise until double – about an hour. Depending on the temperature of your house, it may take a little longer.
Heat the oven to 375 F.
Bake the loaves for 40-45 minutes, or until the top is a deep brown. Let the bread sit in the pans on a rack for 10 minutes and then turn the loaves out on their sides to cool.

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The photos below will show you how to make the heart shaped bread.

For canape pans, roll dough out to 16″x14″

Pinch the seam.

Cut the roll in half and pinch the ends to seal.

Place dough roll in prepared canape pan to rise.

Slide the bread out and cool on a rack.

Slice and serve!

Of all the fragrant aromas of baking, breads and pastries containing cinnamon are the most exquisite. Maybe I need to develop a perfume; I’ll bet cinnamon and vanilla would work better than any pheromones. Of course, women would probably end up walking around like the Pied Piper, with a trail of hungry men following them. Hmm, that’s sounding better and better…

Boston Brown Bread (without the can!)

Posted on January 19, 2013 by Lorinda

When I was young, B&M Boston Brown Bread (straight from the can) and baked beans were the traditional side dishes for hot dogs or hamburgers. I’m sure there was a bowl of fruit, too, but this was probably the only meal my mom made that wasn’t accompanied by at least one vegetable. Rarely did we get a meal that didn’t have a protein, a starch, a fruit, a vegetable, and milk. I still feel guilty if I don’t follow this rule.

A bite of Boston Brown Bread – sweet, a little grainy, and full of plump raisins – immediately takes me back in time. I made some today that tastes exactly the same, and it wasn’t difficult at all, once I figured out the best way to steam it.

Traditionally, homemade Boston Brown Bread is baked in coffee cans. I can’t bring myself to do this (nasty BPA linings) so I tried some in a standard loaf pan. Meh. Just not the same. I made some in tubular canape pans, and that worked very well, but they were too tall for most of my steaming options.

I sent an e-mail to King Arthur Flour (whose catalog is dog-eared even more than my seed catalogs) and begged them to make brown bread pans, about the size of large bean cans. Ideally they’d have tight fitting (or screw-on) bottoms. Their customer service wrote back to me, saying it was a great idea and they’d pass it along to the right people. I’m desperately hoping that this wasn’t a form letter – that they’ll really consider manufacturing these. I know I’d buy several, and I’d browbeat all of you to do the same so I didn’t look like a total idiot!

Update: I contacted them again six months later, and though the pan is still on their “Customer Wish List”, they have no plans of adding them to their line. So…I wrote to USA Pans to see what they would say. Their pans are made in the USA and are PTFE free, a big plus for me. I’ll keep you posted.

For now, my best results came from the canape pans, using my big pressure canner as a steamer – not locking the lid, of course. Any kind of tall pot with a lid will work, as long as the lid can fit over the upright canape pans that are sitting on a rack in the pan.

Here’s my recipe:

Boston Brown Bread (without the can!)

Author: The Rowdy Baker

This will make 3 tubular canape pans of bread.

Ingredients

1 cup rye flour
1 cup corn flour (or you can put cornmeal in the blender briefly for finer texture)
½ cup whole wheat flour
½ cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1¼ cup molasses
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups buttermilk
1 cup raisins

Instructions

Generously butter (or use a baking spray with flour - my favorite method) the insides of the tubular canape pans. Put a piece of foil over the bottom of each pan and place each firmly into their bottom caps. Put a larger piece of foil on a flat surface. Set one of the canape pans in the middle and bring up the foil, wrapping the pan snugly almost to the top. (This will keep any water from getting in from the bottom.) Repeat with the other two pans. Set aside.
In a very tall pot with a rack on the bottom, add about 2-3 inches of water. Bring it to a simmer while you're making the batter.
Blend the flours, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl.
In a medium bowl, stir together the molasses, vanilla, buttermilk, and raisins.
Stir the molasses mixture into the flour mixture until it is well combined.
Divide the batter between the three canape pans, approximately ⅔ full. Cover the tops with a piece of foil, pressing around the sides firmly.
Set on the rack in the simmering water. Cover. Turn heat up to medium and allow the bread to cook for about an hour and a half, checking the water level occasionally. You may need to pour in a little more water if it gets too low.
Test with a long skewer to make sure the bread is cooked through.
Move the pans to a cooling rack and remove the top foil. The bread should be pulling slightly away from the pan. Allow them to cool for an hour, and then remove the foil and bottom cap and press gently on the end of the bread. It should slide right out of the pan. Cool completely before slicing and serving.

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Steaming rack in the bottom of my big canner

Filling the canape pan

Wrapped and ready for the steamer.

Remove the cap and press the bread out!

Some people steam their bread in the oven. I tried it, and found that the bread didn’t bake as evenly. But if you don’t have a pot tall enough for the stovetop method, use the tallest oven-proof one you have and follow the same procedure. Just lay a loose foil tent over the top. Bake for about 1 1/2 -2 hours at 325 F.

This bread ages well; it just keeps getting better and better. The flavors stand out even more after a couple of days of rest – if you can keep it around that long! Refrigerating can dry it out, so make sure you keep it well wrapped if you like it cold. I do…with a scraping of butter. And beans and hot dogs on the side!

A (eeeeuw) Fly on the Wall

Posted on January 18, 2013 by Lorinda

For those of you with voyeuristic tendencies, or who just want to see if someone else has a home that is more dysfunctional than yours, wouldn’t it be fun to be a fly on the wall – to see how their household rolls when they think no one is looking?

A group of bloggers gets together every month to give you an “up close and personal” glimpse of their lives, and this month I’m joining them – so put on your sticky shoes and goggles and enjoy!

But first, I’ve just got to say…I’m having a hard time getting past the whole concept of you being a fly on my wall. I hate the damn things! Did you know they vomit in your food before they eat it? If that isn’t bad enough, they also quickly lay eggs and poop in your meal too. So…we have a vomiting, egg-laying, pooping, buzzing creature with its sticky feet on MY WALL watching me do things that will certainly blow my credibility as a clean, cheerful, fun baker??

Sounds good…I’m in!

The first thing you will see today is dishes. Lots of dishes, pans, utensils. Ugh. That’s the problem with having a baking addiction – unless you’re married to someone who is willing to run behind you tidying up, it piles up quickly. Everything comes to a screeching halt when the clean equipment runs out, and that’s when you’ll see me drinking a cup of coffee, glaring at the bowls and pans that are “soaking” in the sink. Eventually I get them done, but right now you have a nice sticky mess to go buzz around, and I am relaxing with a cup of coffee…studiously ignoring the mess.

So I just heard that in New Guinea a woman is measured by how many pigs she’s worth! Well, I’ll tell you what – bring on the pigs! I am at least a 10 pig woman today. I made homemade raspberry turnovers, which was a much bigger project that I expected (involving most of the day), cleaned up after myself, and still served up a lovely meatloaf dinner. That should be worth 10 of those little buggers, right?

The Man has been ill. I’m not allowed to discuss “his business” on public sites, so suffice it to say the crisis has thankfully evolved from a serious life-threatening situation to a he’s-not-an-invalid-but-trying-to-achieve-tenure status because of the perks involved. He loves being coddled (as do all of us) and is milking it for all it’s worth. After being scared to death, I’m a willing enabler. I will regret this soon, I know.

I watched “The Secret” tonight. At first I thought it was new-age BS, but the more I thought about it the more possible the concept seemed. It would explain why an old friend would call out of the blue right after I was thinking about her. I always assumed it was a psychic experience – knowing what was going to happen beforehand. But maybe it’s a matter of your mind/desire/want attracting the communication. I liked the idea that people need to focus on what they want, need, or desire and try not to think about everything else. If you think about good things, you will attract good things. If you think about bad things, you will attract bad things. Sounds perfect to me; I’m definitely a head-in-the-sand person and am thrilled to have an excuse for ignoring the news. That’s why you are watching me sit here with my eyes closed, visualizing a mailbox full of checks!

My Facebook page hit 300 likes the other day, so I threw my first party – with a little hand holding by Karen (Baking in a Tornado), who basically confirmed what my mother had taught me: Invite everyone so feelings aren’t hurt, make sure things look nice, see that everyone feels welcome, be appreciative of gifts, and thank everyone sincerely for coming. Oh, and let the booze flow freely. Well…that didn’t apply in this case, but in the real world (as in, not my alter-ego blogging world) it’s still an important factor. I’ve had some very bad parties. Some real stinkers, where I put a lot of thought into the food, drinks, and decorations and didn’t consider what people would actually DO at the party. I remember one Halloween party we threw where everyone left early and went to a bar! (I still think the whole crisis could have been averted if I’d just cranked the music up.) Another parallel between a real party and a Facebook party is pretty basic: to enthusiastically return the favor and go to other people’s parties when you’re invited (or to crash them when you’re not.)

Here I am, lying curled up on the loveseat with a major backache. I am wishing I had the heating pad that is, at this very minute, underneath the cat. He has discovered its soothing warmth and appropriated it for himself, and I’m too big of a sucker to go steal it out from underneath him. Stop laughing – flies can’t laugh. Can they?

If flies CAN laugh, you might get a giggle out of this joke: Two flies are sitting on a piece of shit, one of them cuts a fart and the other one says, “Hey! I’m eating here”

I unfriended someone today. I won’t go into details, but I guess it was for the same reasons I would back away from someone in the real world…our beliefs and opinions were incompatible. Unlike the real world, it’s pretty hard on Facebook to say “hey, let’s just not talk about that, okay?” which led to a lot of eyebrow raising and eye-rolling on my part; probably on hers, too.
I didn’t understand that I could just “ignore” her, so I made that very final decision that led to a tirade of hurt/angry/accusatory personal messages. I can’t undo it, and wish I had handled it differently, and hate feeling guilty. But…I don’t have to roll my eyes as often now!

Speaking of rolling my eyes (and no, this has nothing whatsoever to do with 50 Shades of Grey) if you had your sticky feet on my wall right now and were spying on me, you would see a wonky-eyed woman trying to read her laptop screen with the help of a pair of Walmart reading glasses that only have a lens on the right side. That’s because I have one nearsighted eye and one farsighted eye, and I ran out of contacts six months ago. Since my vision coverage only covers an exam every two years, I’ve been stubbornly doing without. Usually I can make my eyes work independently, but age is really beginning to laugh at this ability, and my eyes are not cooperating. So the farsighted one wanders somewhere off to the right, which probably makes me look a lot like a frog – and this should be making you, my buzzing little friend, very nervous!

As a fly you have approximately 30 days to live, so if I were you I’d fly to some of these other awesome blogs and see what THEY are doing. Hopefully they’ll be a lot more interesting than I. Oh,and if you take a quick look in the front yard, on top of the two feet of packed snow you should find lots of good eats, thanks to the dogs, cats, and turkeys. Knock yourself out – my pleasure!

Shoo!

Baking In a Tornado
The Insomniac’s Dream
Stacy Sews and Schools
My Brain on Kids
Just a Little Nutty
Sanity Waiting to Happen
Menopausal Mother
IBD, Daddy and Me!
The Sadder But Wiser Girl
When Crazy Meets Exhaustion
The Momisodes
DeBie Hive
SpecialEd/Army Wife

Chocolate Cherry Angel Cakes

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Lorinda

When I think of Valentine’s Day, I don’t think of fancy dinners, champagne toasts, flowers, or candlelight. Oh, I’ve experienced those moments a time or two, but most of my memories are of last-minute scrambling to complete Valentine cards (one for everyone on the list…yes, even the dorky kids) and frantically baking for class parties. In my next life I’ll be wined and dined. In this one, it’s okay that romance took second place to cookies and cupcakes!

If you’ve never made an angel food cake from scratch, now’s the time. It really isn’t hard at all. And you don’t have to bake it in a tube pan…cupcakes or loaf pans work very well. Here’s the recipe I used for these pretty little cakes: If you don’t have superfine sugar, you can put sugar in a blender and blend it briefly. The goal is to make very fine sugar, NOT powdered sugar!

This is one of those recipes where you do actually have to follow rules. Sorry. That means room temperature eggs, careful measuring, thorough sifting, gentle folding. It’s all about getting a light, airy texture – worth the extra effort, right?

Chocolate Cherry Angel Cakes

Author: The Rowdy Baker

If you're making little bite-size cakes, this recipe will make approximately 7 dozen. (I made 2 dozen regular sized cupcakes and 24 bite-size cakes.)

Ingredients

18 maraschino cherries
⅓ cup finely chopped dark chocolate
1 cup sifted cake flour
1½ cups superfine sugar
1⅓ cups egg whites (11 or 12 eggs), room temperature
1¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon Rodelle Pure Vanilla Extract

Instructions

Heat oven to 325 F.
Finely dice the maraschino cherries. Roll them in a couple of layers of paper towel and press to remove as much of the juice as possible.
Set aside the cherries and chocolate - those will get folded into the batter last.
Sift flour 3 times with ½ cup of the sugar into a small bowl.
Beat the egg whites until foamy. Sprinkle the salt and cream of tartar over eggs and beat until they hold soft peaks.
Add the rest of the sugar, ¼ cup at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition. Stir in the vanilla.
Add the flour mixture in three additions, folding gently each time with a large metal spoon.
Fold in the chocolate and cherries, being careful not to stir. You don't want to lose any of those precious bubbles!
Spoon into cupcake liners, ⅔ full.
Bake bite-size cakes for about 20 minutes. Bake regular cupcakes for 30-35 minutes, or until golden brown.
Cool on racks.

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Fold the flour into the egg and sugar mixture.

Fold in the cherries and chocolate

Fill the cupcake liners 2/3 full.

Bake to a light golden brown.

I like a dollop of whipped cream on my angel food cake, but it’s not very practical unless you’re serving dessert immediately. So I used a marshmallow-type frosting. It is very soft and fluffy when you are working with it, and then it firms up to more of a soft marshmallow texture. Not too sweet – perfect for these cupcakes. Here’s the recipe.

Marshmallow Frosting
2 egg whites
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons Rodelle Pure Vanilla Extract
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup light corn syrup
Red or pink food coloring, if desired.

In medium bowl, beat egg whites, salt, and vanilla at medium speed until foamy. Gradually add sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating at high speed until soft peaks form and sugar is dissolved.
In a small saucepan over medium heat, bring corn syrup just to a boil. Holding pan high above egg mixture, pour in a very thin stream, beating at highest speed until frosting is thick. Blend in food coloring, if desired.

I piped melted chocolate onto waxed paper, making little heart shapes for decorating. You could also use sprinkles or Valentine’s candy. If you’re making the larger cupcakes, a chocolate covered cherry on the top would be lovely!

This recipe makes a lot of cupcakes. Take one to a neighbor or a shut-in; everyone needs a little love!

“Women wish to be loved not because they are pretty, or good, or well bred, or graceful, or intelligent, but because they are themselves.” – By Henri Frederic Amiel