Month: February 2016

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Breakfast (or anytime) Biscuits

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Life is just full of surprises, and if we pay attention every day, we can see some really great things. For instance, check out these beautiful crocus that were blooming in my flower garden this morning.

003Now for those of you in warmer climates, this might not be anything unusual, but I assure you, this is HIGHLY out-of-the ordinary where we live. The blizzard we had five days ago melted in the 60 degree heat and left behind these little bits of sunshine. Spring is coming!

A Saturday morning favorite in our house is biscuits. I have tried so many different recipes for biscuits that I have lost track. Tall, flaky, buttery biscuits with homemade strawberry jam are amazing! Too often, though, I have exposed my family to little tough hockey-puck biscuits. The ones in the can were better! *Sigh*

My quest to find the perfect biscuit, though, has ended thanks to a nice surprise from King Arthur Flour. With a few simple modifications, I took their Strawberry Shortcake recipe and made a biscuit that has those beautiful layers. You know the ones I’m talking about…you can literally separate the biscuit into little pieces of biscuit joy.

Here’s what you will need for this recipe:

3 ½ c. all purpose flour

1 t. salt

1 T. baking powder

½ t. baking soda

¼ c. sugar

½ c. butter (1 stick)–cold

1 large egg

1 cup buttermilk

To make the biscuits, you will want to get out the following kitchen equipment: a large mixing bowl, 2 c. liquid measuring cup, whisk, wooden spoon, rubber spatula, measuring cups/spoons, pastry blender (or 2 knives, though the pastry blender is much easier), a cookie sheet, and biscuit cutter.077

Alright, let’s make dough! First, preheat your oven to 425° F. If you don’t have a nice, hot, oven, these little guys will not want to rise and make lovely layers.

Next, mix together your dry ingredients: flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and sugar. I use a whisk for this task. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients using the pastry blender. You will make little rocking motions. The goal is to get the butter into tiny little pieces evenly distributed throughout the dough.

After the butter is evenly incorporated, mix the buttermilk and egg together in your liquid  measuring cup. Dump all the liquid into the dry ingredients and mix together with your wooden spoon until no dry ingredients can be seen.

At this point, turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. It will be a little messy, but after a few turns kneading, the dough should stick together nicely. Don’t over knead! I would say 6 or 7 times should do it. Pat the dough out (I like to do this into a circle) until it is about 3/4 of an inch thick. Using your biscuit cutter, cut out the biscuits and place them on the ungreased cookie sheet. It is perfectly ok to smoosh the dough back together and re-pat it out until all the dough is used. Just know, that the more you work the dough, the more tough it becomes.

Bake the biscuits for 10-12 minutes, until they are golden brown and beautiful. Depending on the size of your biscuit cutter, you should get about 10 or so biscuits. It is best to wait a few minutes before devouring these, but I completely understand if that is hard for you!

071Give me some homemade jam and a pat of butter and this simple breakfast makes me very happy! And because it makes 10 or so biscuits, that means leftovers for the rest of the week! Yay! (Well, that is if you can hold yourself to only eating one!)

If jam is not something that you enjoy, you could try a more savory approach. Fry an egg to whatever doneness makes you happy, fold it gently on a sliced biscuit and you have a biscuit and egg sandwich that fast food restaurants only dream about. It is fast, easy, and much better for you because it contains real ingredients.

087Look at that egg-yolk goodness! I can’t decide which I liked better, the jam or the egg.

If you would like a printer-friendly copy of this recipe, please click here.

Life is full of wonderful surprises, but is up to us to look for these each and every day. Many of us go through our daily routines refusing to deviate from our “norm.” I am more guilty of this than anyone! As a creature of habit, I like routine. But the problem with routine is that I don’t venture far from my comfort zone. I like to park at the same spot at work, I do the exact same things every morning before I walk out the door, I even really like “Taco Tuesday” at our house because I know what we are having for supper! 🙂 It’s good that God gives us little surprises, like my crocus, when we need them to help keep life interesting. Otherwise, my life would be very boring indeed! Have a great day and thanks for reading!

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Easy-Peasy Coffee Cake

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Breakfast. It strikes fear in the hearts of many. Though studies have shown that those who eat breakfast are better able to function productively throughout the day, many Americans still skip the most important meal of the day. We want to get that extra few minutes of sleep, we need to iron our work clothes, or we just aren’t hungry first thing in the morning. I get it…sort of.  I tend to get hangry if I don’t eat. But I have a husband and daughter who would probably go without breakfast if they were left to their own devices.

Now, this recipe isn’t the most healthy of breakfast items. And, it does go against my mantra of using prepackaged goods. It is, though, fast and easy and, I have to admit, pretty darn tasty. It is a recipe that I’ve made a lot over the years, first finding it in a church cookbook when I was in high school. The recipe makes a huge pan that we can enjoy all weekend and even have leftovers to last throughout the work week. So, what do you need to make this family-pleasing Easy-Peasy Coffee Cake?

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Ingredients

1 pkg. yellow cake mix (I had white on hand, and this works just as well)

1 pkg. instant vanilla pudding

¾ c. vegetable oil

¾ c. water

4 eggs

1 t. vanilla

1 T. butter flavoring

Topping:

½ c. sugar        2 t. cinnamon            ¾ c. chopped nuts, optional (I like pecans!)

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To make this easy breakfast, first get that oven preheated to 350 degrees and grease a 9×13 pan. You want to be ready to put this in the oven as soon as the mixing is done.

Next, mix together topping ingredients in a small bowl and set aside. You will need a hand mixer for this next task, or you might be kind of worn out by the physical activity. 🙂 Combine the cake mix, pudding mix, oil, water, eggs, vanilla, and butter flavoring in a mixing bowl. Beat with your hand mixer at medium speed for 8 minutes. Yes, you need to beat it this long.

After all the mixing is done, pour ½ of cake batter into bottom of greased 9×13 pan. Sprinkle ½ of topping over batter. Then cover with remaining batter and then top with remaining topping mixture. Swirl topping into cake mix with knife. I should look something like this.

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Finally, bake the cake for 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick in the middle comes out clean. Cool slightly before slicing.

The finished product is heavenly. My kitchen smells like the best mix of vanilla and cinnamon you can imagine, and the coffee cake is a masterpiece. Some coffee cakes are dense, and you have to drink coffee to help swallow. Not this confection! It is light with a beautiful layer of cinnamon and pecans. Each bite is sweet and extremely satisfying.

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Normally, I do not advocate taking the easy way out! I believe in a strong work ethic and no short cuts. For this coffee cake, I will make an exception. If you would like a more printer friendly copy of Easy-Peasy Coffee Cake, please click here. I hope that your family enjoys this dish as much as we do, and that, if nothing else, it will get you eating the “most important meal of the day” together.

 

cinnamon rolls baked

Love Divine, All Loves Excelling

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Valentine’s Day. The day of love! What a great day to start a new journey with all of you! I thought that I would share a recipe that I baked for my family this morning. It is extremely versatile and can be made when time is really short. What recipe gets a lot of LOVE from my family? Homemade cinnamon rolls, of course! Today, I made them a little more special than usual. I’m calling them Turtle Cinnamon Rolls.

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Why are they pink? Well, I decided I’d get into the Valentine’s Day spirit…see, fully customizable!

To begin this process, you will need a few simple ingredients: 1 c. milk, 1/4 c. butter, 1/4 c. sugar, 3-3 1/2 c. flour, 1 t. salt, 1 egg, and 1 T. yeast. This is your roll dough. If you want to make cinnamon rolls, you’ll need another 1/4 c. butter, 1/2 c. sugar, and 2 t. cinnamon. To make these stupendous Turtle Cinnamon Rolls, you will also need 1/3 c. chopped pecans, 1 T. corn syrup, 1/3 c. packed brown sugar, and 2 T. butter. Of course you’ll want to drizzle a bit of chocolate on the top…melt a handful of chocolate chips (my favorite are the 60% bittersweet Giradelli chips) in the microwave for 30 seconds, stir, and drizzle away when they are completely melted. YUM!

Let’s start with the dough. You will want to heat the milk and 1/4 c. butter in the microwave until it reaches no more than 110-115 degrees. Any more than that, and you’ll kill the yeast. Dead yeast=flat dough. It isn’t pretty. In my microwave this is only one minute. I then stir the butter and milk together until it is completely melted.

Find your best mixing bowl and let’s get started. This works best with a hand mixer or a stand mixer. Honestly, I have not made them without either, but you try it and let me know how it goes. You will be mixing 1 c. flour, 1/4 c. sugar, 1 t. salt, and 1 T. yeast first. Next, slowly add the butter/milk mixture while beating. Once it is all added, mix this for two minutes. I mean it. Time it!

Next, you’ll add the single egg and one more cup of flour. (I added paste food coloring at this point, but you don’t have to.) Mix until well incorporated. At this point, I add one more cup of flour. While mixing, if it starts to climb the beaters on the mixer, I think that it’s done and I’ll work more flour in while kneading. If the mixture doesn’t seem to be climbing the beaters, add up to 1/3 c. more. However, listen to your mixer! If it sounds like it might be having a difficult time, it is best to turn the dough out on a floured surface and knead the rest of the way.

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My dough looked like this after 3 cups of flour. Beautiful and shaggy, isn’t it? I turned it out on a flour surface and kneaded for a few seconds, just until I got a nice, smooth, soft, ball of dough. Spray a large mixing bowl and plop the ball in. Cover tightly and store in the refrigerator over night. (Or, you can set this in a draft-free area and let it rise until double, about 2 hours).

059By the next morning, my dough had risen beautifully! I turned the dough out on a slightly floured surface and rolled it to a 12×18 rectangle. After melting the 1/4 c. butter, I spread it over the dough and then sprinkled with the 1/2 c. sugar and 2 t. cinnamon, combined. I rolled it up, starting with the long side, making sure to roll it tightly. Next, I crimped the seam and got ready to cut my rolls.

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In the meantime, I made the caramel and pecan topping. It is so easy to make homemade caramel, and it tastes so good! In a small sauce pan combine the 2 T. butter, 1 T. corn syrup, and 1/3 c. brown sugar. Cook over medium heat until it is melted and bubbly. Pour into a greased 9×13 pan and spread out to an even layer. Immediately sprinkle top of caramel with 1/3 c. chopped pecans, like so…

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Once dough is cut into twelve pieces, arrange in four rows of three rolls in the pan. Cover tightly and refrigerate over night. Now, plan ahead! You’ll want to give these beauties plenty of time to rise…they need about 2 hours when they come out of the refrigerator.

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These are my rolls after rising for two hours. I like to use my oven as a proofer. Basically, I turn on my oven to 100 degrees and then when it reaches that, I turn it off, place the plastic wrap-covered rolls in the oven, and wait two hours for the magic to happen. The heat warms up the little yeasties and makes them very happy.

Now, before preheating the oven to bake, be sure to take the rolls out! The oven needs to be preheated to 350 degrees. The rolls will bake for 15-20 minutes, until they are golden brown and delicious. NOTE: the pink color made it a little more difficult to check for doneness.

Because these are caramel and pecan topped rolls, be sure to have a platter ready when the hot rolls come out of the oven. Set a timer for two minutes, then carefully invert the pan. This will give you a caramel and pecan topping to your rolls. If you wish, (and why wouldn’t you?), drizzle your melted chocolate over the top.

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These were divine and a wonderful breakfast to share with my family. Healthy? Not in the least! But I am a firm believer in moderation. Otherwise, life would be boring.

I love to show my family that I care about them through my baking. It is easy to show them that I care. Where I struggle the most is showing everyone I come in contact with that I care about them, too. And you know, that’s what we’re supposed to do.  In John 13:34, Jesus said,

 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

Talk about a hard command! This week, I’m going to work on implementing this more in my life. I need to be slower to anger and quicker to forgive and love those in my little area of the world. Happy Valentine’s Day! May you spread a little love and sunshine in your walk this week. 🙂

Regular Cinnamon Roll Recipe

(Day 1)  

Thoroughly mix in a bowl:

1 Tbsp. dry yeast, 1 c. flour, 1 tsp. salt, 1/4 c. sugar

Combine in measuring cup and heat until 110-115 degrees (if it gets too hot, let it cool down):

1 c. milk and 1/4 c. butter pieces

Gradually add to flour mixture and beat with a mixer 2 minutes.

Next add:  1 egg and 1 c. flour

Beat again and add enough flour to make a soft dough (1 to 1 ⅓ cups)—do not add too much flour!

Knead, place in greased bowl, grease top of dough, cover and refrigerate.

(Day 2)

Let rise; punch down; roll out to a 12 X 8 inch rectangle. (If you want to shape the rolls differently, this does make a great dinner roll, crescent roll, tea ring, or braid.)

Cinnamon filling:

4T. melted butter—brushed on dough after rolling out

Mix together: 1/2  c. sugar and 2t. cinnamon. Sprinkle over the butter-covered dough.

Shape and put in greased baking pan; cover and refrigerate.
(Day 3)

Let rise.  Bake 350 degrees 15-20 minutes until golden brown.

Make Powdered Sugar Icing:

1 c. powdered sugar, ¼ t. vanilla, 1T. milk

  1. In a mixing bowl, combine powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk. Stir in additional milk, 1 teaspoon at a time, till it reaches drizzling consistency.
  2. Drizzle over cinnamon rolls