Cinnamon Roll Wreath

8/20/17 Cinnamon Roll Wreath
Looking for a sweet bread to take to Prayer Breakfast on Monday morning. Found a visually appealing recipe for a Cinnamon Roll Wreath. This is a reshaping of a pan of Cinnamon Rolls into a wreath. The photo shows a small wreath fitting in a regular sheet pan.

The recipe came together easily, but there was so much dough there was no way it made a small wreath. I twirled it around like a nautilus. This recipe could be divided into 2 wreaths to achieve the appearance of the photo. Icing was drizzled on the wreath before serving.

CCC College Library Culinary Resources

8/1917
Our chefs at Carteret Community College encourage us to check the excellent resources available at the college library. I checked out two resources:

Vintage Cakes is a collection of recipes including origin information. I was interested in Old Vermont Burnt Sugar Cake with Maple Cream Ice Cream. The burnt sugar technique would be interesting to try.
A Baker's Odyssey celebrates recipes from American immigrants from all over the world. A DVD accompanies the book with demos of several of the recipes. I enjoyed watching how to prepare Cannolis, Hungarian Walnut Tart, and Apple Strudel.

Dollywood Cinnamon Bread

8/1317
My friend Anita Hardesty sent this challenge to me:
http://chindeep.com/2017/05/11/dollywood-cinnamon-bread-copycat/
Viewing the video, the recipe calls for frozen prepared dough. The dough is thawed and risen. Next, using a lame, the top of the loaf was slashed 4 times. The dough was rolled in melted butter on all sides and then rolled and coated in cinnamon sugar.

I decided to improve this recipe by making the dough from scratch. I used a rich dough recipe and set it aside to rise. Once doubled in size, the dough was divided and rolled out in 2 rectangles.  With a light brushing of melted butter, the dough was sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. A melted butter bath and a cinnamon sugar dredge was prepared in separate pie pans.

The dough was rolled up to create a log. The seam was sealed and the ends tucked under. Then the top of the loaf was slashed and the loaf was rolled in melted butter and cinnamon sugar. The loaves rose for 45 minutes. The recipe comments stated the loaves may collapsed after baking and this is what happened for me. I repeated the recipe to improve the results. I reduced the size of the loaf by half. the loaves did not collapsed with the smaller loaves. I shared the loaves with my Monday Morning Prayer group and other friends.

The large loaf just out of the oven!

Collapse after cooling

Smaller loaves solved the collapse problem

Birthday Granola

Textbook Granola

My husband's brother has a birthday on June 30 and my birthday is July 14th. This year we celebrated together between the birthday's. Finding a birthday present for Brady is challenging. I didn't want to give him the same old knit shirt this year and I don't know of anything he needs. So, I was thinking what does he like. I know he likes craft beer and I remember he likes granola.

I went to my classroom textbook and found a simple granola recipe and baked it up. Then, I went to our local Mill Whistle Brewery and picked out several kinds of beer to make up a carton. A tote was thrown in with the beer.



The birthday gifts were successful!

Blueberry Danish Rolls

For the August 7th Prayer Breakfast, I found this recipe in a Taste of Home Recipe book:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               








I change this up and used in season blueberries instead of cherries. I mixed the dough and let it rise twice without overnighting the dough.

Here are the rolls just out of the oven.

And, here they are iced.

This recipe used a rich dough with eggs and butter plus a slight amount of sweetness. This paired well with the sweet blueberries and icing. This recipe made a large amount of dough and I made two batches of the treat. There were many happy recipients!!

Italian Bread 

It's July 22 and friends are coming over for dinner. Two families have visiting granddaughters and both young girls are vegetarians and in addition, one of the Mom's is a vegan. I considered many menu items but decided to simply make spaghetti with marinara with soy crumbles. I found an Italian Bread recipe from Bread-world with no fat added and it was delicious and flavorful. Bread world is the site for Fleischman's yeast. I like the effect the slashes make on the top of the bread.

The Pioneer Woman Cinnamon Roll Recipes

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

Yum!!

On the afternoon of July 16th, I was vegging around the house watching food shows on Food Network and PBS. I caught an episode of The Pioneer Woman. I have tried several recipes form this show and they usually turn out well. The program is usually over staged and poorly acted. The events are over contrived. When the recipes are prepared, there seems to be a lack of technique.

Now, after complaining, I tried Ree Drummonds's Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls and was very pleased with the outcome. This yeast bread used little rising time by adding baking powder and baking soda. Next time I try this recipe, I would definitely reduce the amount of icing and I will increase the rising time for additional yeast flavor.

I made these for my Monday morning Prayer Breakfast and took leftovers to my friend Anita. All were very happy.

With this success, I tried Ree Drummond's Cinnamon Rolls 101. For me this recipe contained to much sugar in the dough, the filling, and the syrup. Too sweet for me.

Biscuits with Charles

Biscuits

Recently, my friend Charles Phillips requested help in learning to make biscuits. Charles remembered his Mom making biscuits many times and wanted to be able to continue this family tradition. We met at his home for our project. First, I complimented the ingredient selection. There was quality Unbleached flour which is my favorite flour for baking. We followed his recipe selection. We refrigerated all ingredients to keep them cold. Then Charles accurately measured our the ingredients. The dry ingredients were added to the bowl and were whisked to incorporation and sift. The cold fat was "cut in" until the mixture resembled small peas. A well was made in the center and liquid added. The dough was barely formed into a ball and turned out on the counter. The dough was kneaded maybe 3-4 times and patted out to 1/2" being careful for the sides to not slope down and be uneven. Charles cut out the biscuits making cuts close together to reduce leftover dough. The leftover dough was re-rolled for additional cutting. Baking directions were followed resulting in lovely biscuits. Charles commented he didn't know there was so much technique involved.