Today I took some treats to the office. They were gone in a matter of minutes. Cinnamon rolls with a twist. It’s your basic cinnamon roll, but instead of rolling the dough into a roll, you cut the dough into strips and then cut the strips into 1 1/2″ squares. Gosh darn it, I should have taken a picture of this process. But not to worry…very easy! These are really delicious, but also fun to eat as you pick apart the separate gooey messy layers of yum-mm-m-m-m. As if that isn’t enough, they are drizzled with a gooey glaze. Aren’t you anxious to whip up a batch?? I know you are! I am so excited for you!!! Yay…..go bake..go now.

this one has a glaze without the orange zest

this one below has orange zest in the glaze (my personal favorite)

Cinnamon Pull Apart Buns

Dough:
1 cup whole milk
2 tablespoons of butter
3  1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 envelope of rapid rise yeast
1 tsp salt

heat the milk and butter just until the butter melts. Should be just warm. NOT TOO HOT or you will kill your yeast. Killing is not nice. Pour into a standing mixer with a paddle attachment. Add 1 cup of the flour, sugar, yeast and salt. Beat on low for 3 minutes, scraping sides of your bowl. Add 2  1/2 cups of flour. Beat on low till flour is all incorporated and your dough is sticky. If it’s too sticky, add 1 tablespoon of flour at a time until the dough starts to form a ball and pulls away from the sides of the bowl. MAKE SURE DOUGH IS NOT TOO STIFF. Turn dough onto a floured surface. Knead it until it’s smooth and stretchy like for about 7 minutes. It’s a good workout! Whew! Form into a smooth ball. Lightly butter a bowl and plop your ball into it. Move it around so it’s coated with butter. Cover with plastic wrap and then put a clean towel over it. Let it double in size in a draft free place, about 2 hours. In the mean time, mix up your  filling.

Filling

3/4 cup brown sugar
2  tablespoons of cinnmon
1/2 stick of butter

Mix all three ingredients together till it’s nice and soft. Set aside.

Glaze

2 cups of powdered sugar and enough water or orange juice to make a nice ribbon like drizzle.

Back to the dough: Punch down the center of the dough, move it onto a floured surface. Roll out into a 15×11 rectangle. Spread the filling all over the dough. Now, cut into 1  1/2″ strips. Then cut those strips the other way, so that you now have a bunch of 1  1/2″ squares. Line a muffin tin with paper muffin cups. Place 4 or 5 squares into each cup. I like to drizzle a bit of melted butter onto each cup and then sprinkle with some sugar. Cover the top with a piece of plastic wrap and the towel again. Let it rise for about  40 minutes, or until doubled in size. Heat oven to 365. Bake for about 15 minutes total. I turn the pan after 7 minutes. Let rest for 15 minutes, drizzle with glaze.

HOLY CINNAMON roly pull aparts….Delicious with a hot cup of coffee or tea or milk or ANYTHING!

     I may have mentioned this before, but I am a biscuit fanatic. They are on my list of 5 favorite things to eat. Do you ever think about what your  top 5 things to eat are? In addition to biscuits, my other faves are brownies, spaghetti, prime rib and sushi. Ohhhhhhhh, but then there chips and salsa too. Hmmmmm, ok, so let’s make that 6 favorite things to eat!! If you feel like sharing your top 6 things, let’s hear it!
Anyway, back to the biscuits……. My sister is also a biscuit fanatic. Guess it was our upbringing. My dad always made biscuits. Biscuits with jam, biscuits and gravy, honey butter biscuits….we always had good fluffy biscuits with our meals. I will be posting the honey butter biscuits soon. Oh boy, they are decadent.
My sister sent me this recipe last week. I have made hundreds of biscuits over the years, but never one that had an egg in the recipe. But I must say, I really like this recipe. It is light, fluffy, nice and high….M-m-m-m-m. But now I have to go back and try my all time favorite recipe and compare the two. Oh gosh darn it all. But here is Sis’s biscuit recipe:

Fluffy Biscuit
2 c flour
4 tsps baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1/3 cup shortening or butter (I used butter of course)
1 egg in measuring cup with milk to equal 2/3 c liquid

Preheat oven to 425. Combine dry ingredients. Add shortening or butter and cut into small pieces till resembles course meal. Add egg/milk mixture and stir into dry ingredients gently. Turn unto floured surface and work gently for a moment until dough looks smooth. DO NOT OVERHANDLE. Roll out 1/2″ thick and cut with a round biscuit or cookie cutter. Just use a glass if you dont have a cutter. Plop em on a baking sheet and bake 8-10 minutes until barely brown. Makes about 8 biscuits. Or if you prefer a bigger biscuit, cut them bigger.

 Usually when I want cookies, the first cookie that comes to mind, is a good chocolate chip cookie. But sometimes I want a non-chocolate cookie. But it still has to be chewy, crispy and buttery. This is that cookie. I’ve tried several recipes and came up with this one that I think may be my favorite sugar cookie so far…..for now…maybe….but I am still experimenting. This one is kinda like a snickerdoodle without the cinnamon. I love the crackles on the surface, don’t you? I get so excited when I see those!!!  This is not a sugar cookie made for rolling out and painting. This one is to stack on a fancy little plate and snack on…one right after the other. Stack and snack!! Hey, I like that…….I will call these Stack n Snack Sugar cookies. You just gotta make these. I promise you will love them and eat lots of them. Stack them high on your plate and chomp, chomp, chomp away!!!

Stack and Snack Sugar Cookies

2  3/4 cup flour
1  tsp baking powder
1/2  tsp baking soda
2 sticks of butter
1  1/2 cups sugar
1  egg
1  tsp vanilla
1  tablespoon of sourcream
1  tablespoon of milk

preheat oven to 350. In a mixer, cream the butter and the sugar. add the vanilla and egg. Mix till mostly smooth. Add the dry ingredients. add the sour cream and the milk. you should have a smooth soft dough. Roll into balls that are not too small but not big…..slightly bigger than an inch and a half. Place them on a parchment lined baking sheet, preferably. Bake for  6 minutes and then turn pan and bake for another 6 minutes or just till you notice the edges getting very light brown.  let cook on sheet. If you want to make bigger cookies, just increase baking time.

By the way, these make excellent ice cream sandwiches.

I am not much of a cole slaw person. I don’t like all that runny mayo….sweet yuckiness. But I do however, love asian slaw. It’s light, crunchy and goes well as a side dish, or on a sandwhich or you can add some chicken and it’s a meal. It is just crunchy goodness and easy to put together. I hope you will try it.

Asian Slaw

1/2 head of cabbage (red or white or both) sliced thin
1/2 head of napa (or chinese) cabbage sliced thin
3 green oninons, sliced up
1 cup shelled edamame beans
2 cups fresh bean sprouts
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1 cucumber, sliced

toss everything together in a large bowl. Pour in some Asian dressing, chill and enjoy! That simple!!

Asian Dressing

1/2 cup orange juice
juice of 2 lemons or limes
2 tablespoons of FRESH grated ginger (NOT GINGER POWDER USED FOR BAKING)
2 cloves of minced garlic
3/4  cup of vegetable oil
2 tablespoons of peanut butter (optional) but delicious
2 tablespoons of soy sauce
1 tsp of chili paste (if you like spicy) I do!!!

put everything in a food processor or blender.. add salt to taste. ready to go.

A great sandwich, toast or French toast starts with really great bread. I love bread. I love a good samich made with really good homemade bread. Today I baked homemade bread. Not sure what kind of samich I will make yet. Hmm-m-m-m…..maybe a chicken salad. Maybe a BLT. Yummy.   It is super simple, delicious, melt in your mouth. I know a lot of people are afraid to work with yeast and doughs. But don’t be scared……fear not!! This recipe is super easy. It has a really tender crumb, holds up well to all of your samich fixins and it is very toast-able. Is that a word?  Anyway, I’m telling ya, you gotta try this.

Bread….Good Bread

1   1/4 cups hot water
2  tablespoons, plus 2 teaspoons of vegetable oil
2  tablespoons, plus 2 teaspoons of honey
1  teaspoon salt
2  1/4 teaspoons yeast
2  1/2 cups of flour (read carefully, below)**

In a large standing mixing bowl, mix together the hot water, oil, honey and salt. **Add about 1/2 cup of the flour ** to the water mixture. Mix for a few seconds. Add the yeast and mix for about 20 seconds. Switch to a dough hook if you are using a standing mixer. Add enough of the remaining flour, to get a soft dough that all comes together around the hook. You may not need all of the flour.  The dough should be soft but not sticky. Continue for about 6 minutes on a medium low speed. Remove the dough from around the dough hook and place the dough ball into an oiled bowl. Cover bowl and let rise for 30 minutes in a warm place.

Once the dough rises, heat the oven to 175 degrees.   Grease your bread pan with oil. Place the dough in your bread pan, slightly stretching out to fit pan. Place loaf in warm oven  for about 1/2 hour or until the dough rises to fill the pan. Then turn the oven up to 350 degrees and cook for about 30 minutes. let it cool, remove from pan and place on baking/cooling rack.

Fabulous!!