Bee Hive Shaped Cake Semi Failure

5/25/17
Semi-Failure
It's Jr/Sr Day at ECHS and many of my students are out for the day. My remaining students requested a treat. I decided to repeat the Honey Lemon Beehive Cake. When baking the cake, I set the temperature but neglected to press start on the oven. 45 minutes later my cake was sitting in a warm oven and no where near done. After preheating, the cake was returned to the oven and baked until a toothpick check showed clean.

Well, the cake stuck to the pan and fell apart in pan removal. Looks terrible and tastes great. This cake did not make it to ECHS.

A good solution for a crumbled cake would be to make trifle. Layer a dish with crumbled cake and drizzle  with your choice of alcoholic beverage (rum, sherry, lemon-cello). Smooth with your choice of custard or pudding. Top with layer of whipped cream. No harm, no foul!!

Cinnamon Buns

5/23/17

My husband John enjoyed the Orange Swirl Buns. With an important meeting on Tuesday 5/23 at the office, he requested a batch of these buns. With no oranges in house, I offered to make Cinnamon Buns  and here they are. The recipe made a lovely rich dough, not to dry and not to wet. The buns held high quality for at least two days. I cut the buns at about 1/2" so they could be smaller and less messy to eat in a business setting.

 And yes, one is missing!!

Cinnamon Buns
4 1/2" to 5 cups AP flour
1 scant T rapid rise yeast
1 cup whole milk
1/3 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 t kosher salt
3 eggs
3/4 cup packed brown sugar

Filling
1/4 cup AP flour
1 T cinnamon
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup golden raisins (optional)
1/2 cup toasted pecans

Glaze: Mix together 1 1/2 cup powdered sugar, 1 1/2 T milk, and 1/2 t vanilla. Add additional milk if needed for proper consistency

1. In a mixer bowl fixed with a dough hook, combine 2 1/4 cups flour and yeast.
2. In a saucepan, combine milk, 1/3 cup butter, sugar and salt. Heat and stir to 120 degrees.
3. Add sauce pan mixture to the mixer bowl.
4. Add eggs to mixer bowl.
5. Beat on low speed 30 seconds. Scrape sides of bowl constantly.
6. Beat on high speed 3 minutes.
7. Add as much of the remaining flour to make a soft dough.
8. Knead dough 5 minutes with dough hook on 2nd speed until smooth and elastic.
9. Shape into a ball and place into a greased bowl and flip greased side up.
10. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 1/2 hours.
11. Punch down dough.
12. Bench rest covered 10 minutes.
13. Prepare 9" X 13" baking pan.
14 Prepare filling in a small bowl by mixing together brown sugar, 1/4 cup AP flour, and cinnamon. Cut in 1/2 cup butter with a pastry blender until crumbly.
15. Roll out dough into a 12" X 18" rectangle.
16. Sprinkle filling over dough. Cover with raisins and pecans.
17. Roll up lengthwise and seal edge.
18 Using a serrated knife, cut into desired size.
19. Arrange in pan.
20 Cover and let rise in warm place until doubled in size, about 45 minutes.
21. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until temperature measures 195 degrees.
22. Cool slightly and drizzle with glaze.

Pie Dough

5/21/17
It's a lazy Sunday afternoon and I think I will work with pie dough. I have been having shrinkage problems with my dough sliding down into the dish. This experiment I pinched the dough with the edge sitting up rather than pressing down the dough along the edge of the dish. I was satisfied with the dough performance but the pie split. No affect on the flavor!!

The Angus Barn Chocolate Chess Pie is a quick and easy filling for the crust practice. This signature pie has been featured by Our State Magazine, The Raleigh News and Observer, and Southern Living. The Chess Pie itself is a basic flour,eggs, butter, and sugar with many variations of flavors.

I have fond memories of dining at the Angus Barn in Raleigh, NC, on my wedding night. This small town girl was in awe of this "fancy" restaurant. The waiter placed the napkin on my lap and buttered the crackers for our appetizer. So much attention!!

Orange Swirl Buns

5/20/17
The February/March Issue of Cook's Country magazine contains a lovely recipe for "Alabama Orange Rolls." These rolls have been made famous by the All Steak restaurant in Cullman, Alabama. Similar in nature to a cinnamon roll except, the feature flavor is orange. The dough has orange juice, the filling contains orange zest, and the glaze repeats the orange juice. The recipe uses the mixer method for blending ingredients and kneading the dough. This is not my recipe to share but here are the results:

Cantuccini

5/16/17 Cantuccini


Recently, I had lunch with my friend  Giulia from Sardinia. She agreed to share her biscotti recipe following a good laugh at my pronunciation. Her recipe is titled Cantuccini which means almond cookies. Using an authentic recipe from Italy, should make wonderful biscotti.

2 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup sugar

11/2 teaspoons baking powder

2 whole eggs, plus 2 eggs yolks

Pinch of salt

3/4 cup almonds, coarsest chopped

1 tablespoon milk

Unsalted butter for baking sheet

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Butter and lightly flour a  baking sheet.

In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, whole eggs, 1 of the egg yolks and the salt.  Stir until a soft dough forms.  Add the almonds and mix until they are evenly distributed.  Divide the dough into equal portions and place them on a lightly floured work surface.  Using the palms of your hands, roll each dough portion into a sausage shape about 1 in. In diameter and 12 in long.

In a small bowl, mix together the milk and the remaining egg yolk.  Brush the dough rolls with the milk mixture.

Arrange the dough rolls on the prepared baking sheet and bake until golden, about 20 minutes.

Remove the baking sheet from the oven and, while the rolls are still soft, cut them on the diagonal into slices about 1/2 in wide. Separate the slices so they are not touching, return the baking sheet to the oven and bake until dry, 5 minutes longer.

Remove to a wire rack to cool.  Store in an airtight container.

Let me know if you like them!  Giulia

At first try, the dough was too dry and I added milk to pull dough together.

Bee Hive Cake

5/14/17 Mother's Day

For Mother's Day, I received a cake pan with recipe included. It's definitely time to venture away from Duncan Hines. After watching the Great British Baking Show, I have been wanting to experiment with the cakes they mention. A new pan and King Arthur recipe is a good place to start. The first concern was not to over bake the cake.

With a cake in the making, I invited my brother and sister in law over for dinner. This became opportunity to experiment further with other ideas.

Recently I read an article in the Raleigh News and Observer about recipes posted on Facebook showing visual appealing foods in a time lapse video seeming to be simple to prepare. http://www.newsobserver.com/living/food-drink/article131517214.html
The author felt the foods were too loaded with fat and calories and might not be so simple to make. The author found the recipes to be  more difficult than she expected and adjustments needed to be made. Of course, the appearance of the results did not match the video.
 I attempted the Creamy Spaghetti Bake.
http://www.bunsinmyoven.com/2013/06/07/creamy-baked-spaghetti/
This recipe video shows up on my Facebook page frequently and   I decided to give it a try. It was not difficult and resulting dish was delicious but not exceptional. The main difference in this dish and lasagna is pasta shape and cream cheese.

The Cake was fabulous. The cake was moist and tender with a small crumb. It was a plain cake flavored with vanilla and lemon zest. Even thought the pan was intricate, the cake came out of the mold perfectly. While still warm, the cake was glazed with a lemon and honey glaze.

Down East Light Rolls

5/13/17 Light Rolls
Down East Carteret County cooks have been making daily yeast rolls for generations. These rolls are called light rolls or lightning rolls. Usually, in the Southern US, biscuits have been the kitchen staple daily bread. Not so Down East.

Older recipes used lard as the fat ingredient, but this has now been replaced with Crisco. Lard, like cholesterol, became a bad boy in the nutrition world and disappeared from grocery store shelves. Lard is once again available in Beaufort at the Piggly Wiggly.  It has long been off the market, but seems to be making a come back. A disadvantage can be a minor pork flavor if too much lard is in a recipe.

Water for the liquid ingredient and 1/4 cup of sugar per 6 cups flour, join salt and active dry yeast in these rolls. Gold Medal plain flour is actually mentioned by name in many recipes.

These cooks used longer rising times by setting out the dough overnight in the oven or most of the day in the oven.

Particularly noted as a quality outcome is a blistered top.

Variations in Down East Rolls:

• Rolls may be placed as to brown all over or touching each other depending on cook's preference.
• An interesting addition is sweet potato for additional color and flavor.
• Down East cooks refer to sizes of the recipe as either a 6 cup recipe or 5# recipe referring to flour amount.

This is the recipe I used today. A double yolked egg was added as part of the liquid. My friend Sam Brake brought these to me from a research station near Asheville, NC. It is a good use for an egg to be included in bread. The egg adds binding quality for structure, color, nutrition, and richness.

Down East Light Rolls

2 1/2# Golf Medal Flour

2 T Kosher Salt

1/2 c Sugar

1/2 c Crisco

2 c Water

1/2 c Eggs

1 T Active Dry Yeast

Mix yeast and warm water (105 to 110 degrees). Set aside for 5 minutes

Mix flour, salt, and sugar in mixer. Blend. Add shortening and process until shortening is taken in. Add water, yeast, and eggs. Mix on 1st speed for 2 minutes. Knead in mixer on #2 for five to seven minutes until smooth and elastic in texture. 

Round dough and place in a greased bowl and cover. Let rise in a warm place, free of drafts, until doubled in size. Punch down. Scale rolls at 2 oz of dough. Pan and let rise again until doubled in size. Bake in a 400 degree oven until golden brown. Yield: 24 rolls.

Adapted from Light Roll recipes from the Harkers Island Cookbook

In this attempt, the rolls would be a more golden brown rather than dark brown with a shorter baking time. However, the flavor was excellent with tender centers. The eggs added color and a depth of flavor.