Daring Bakers: Meringue Coffee Cake

The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake. These are a close cousin to cinnamon rolls, but with a few twists (literally!).

Before the fillings are layered on the rolled out dough, meringue is slathered on.

Then comes the filling, which can be anything you chose really. I decided to follow the recipe, which included a light sprinkling of cinnamon sugar (just enough!), chopped pecans, and chocolate chips.

The dough is rolled up jelly-roll style and arranged in a ring.

The dough is cut through in various places. These slits can be as shallow or deep as desired.

The rings are allowed to rise, then brushed with egg wash and baked. And voila!!

These were very tasty and I loved the addition of chocolate chips. They were different from regular cinnamon rolls in that the filling seemed to melt into the bread, which was not a bad thing. I'd like to try this was a really generous layer of cinnamon and sugar and see what happens.

Thanks to Ria and Jaime for a great challenge! It was enough to bring me back from a long hiatus from daring bakers (I'm half surprised I haven't been kicked out).

If you'd like to see the recipe, click on the links in the first paragraph to either Jamie's or Ria's blogs.

Daring Bakers: Doughnuts (and Cinnamon Rolls!)

The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.

This was my first time making donuts. I guess I was thinking donut-making was far more complicated.

It's not.

A standard yeast dough is rolled out and the donuts are cut and allowed to rise.



A few minutes in hot oil and voila! Donuts!

Who knew?


The whole experience went really well and I didn't have any problems except one. My oil got too hot and I think some donuts got darker than I expected. However, if I ever decide to do some serious donut making, I'll dig out my deep fryer, with it's temperature control, and then I'll be golden. Like donuts.

And how did they taste? Wonderful! They were just as good or better than any purchased donuts I've tried. If I make these again, I'm definitely going to try a chocolate glaze. Those would rock!

Quickly, before I go, I'll share what I did with the rest of the dough (I made 1/2 recipe and only made 6 donuts... I don't need platefuls of donuts around my house!) I rolled out the rest of the dough into a rectangle about a scant 1/4 inch thick and layered on melted butter, a generous sprinkling of cinnamon, and sugar and rolled them up into cinnamon rolls.


I thought I'd try making them in a muffin tin, for a change of pace.


They were quite good, but I think I won't make them in a muffin tin again. They seemed dryer and more chewy on the bottoms. Still good, though.

OK, that's that. Thanks to Lori for a fun and tasty challenge!

Yeast Doughnuts:
Recipe from Alton Brown on the Food Network
Preparation time:
Hands on prep time - 25 minutes
Rising time - 1.5 hours total
Cooking time - 12 minutes
Yield: 20 to 25 doughnuts & 20 to 25 doughnut holes, depending on size

Ingredients
Milk 1.5 cup / 360 ml
Vegetable Shortening 1/3 cup / 80 ml / 70 gm / 2.5 oz (can substitute butter, margarine or lard)
Active Dry Yeast 4.5 teaspoon (2 pkgs.) / 22.5 ml / 14 gm / ½ oz
Warm Water 1/3 cup / 80 ml (95°F to 105°F / 35°C to 41°C)
Eggs, Large, beaten 2
White Granulated Sugar ¼ cup / 60 ml / 55 gm / 2 oz
Table Salt 1.5 teaspoon / 7.5 ml / 9 gm / 1/3 oz
Nutmeg, grated 1 tsp. / 5 ml / 6 gm / ¼ oz
All Purpose Flour 4 2/3 cup / 1,120 ml / 650 gm / 23 oz + extra for dusting surface
Canola Oil DEPENDS on size of vessel you are frying in – you want THREE (3) inches of oil (can substitute any flavorless oil used for frying)

Directions:
1. Place the milk in a medium saucepan and heat over medium heat just until warm enough to melt the shortening. (Make sure the shortening is melted so that it incorporates well into the batter.)
2. Place the shortening in a bowl and pour warmed milk over. Set aside.
3. In a small bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the warm water and let dissolve for 5 minutes. It should get foamy. After 5 minutes, pour the yeast mixture into the large bowl of a stand mixer and add the milk and shortening mixture, first making sure the milk and shortening mixture has cooled to lukewarm.
4. Add the eggs, sugar, salt, nutmeg, and half of the flour. Using the paddle attachment of your mixer (if you have one), combine the ingredients on low speed until flour is incorporated and then turn the speed up to medium and beat until well combined.
5. Add the remaining flour, combining on low speed at first, and then increase the speed to medium and beat well.
6. Change to the dough hook attachment of the mixer and beat on medium speed until the dough pulls away from the bowl and becomes smooth, approximately 3 to 4 minutes (for me this only took about two minutes). If you do not have a dough hook/stand mixer – knead until the dough is smooth and not sticky.
7. Transfer to a well-oiled bowl, cover, and let rise for 1 hour or until doubled in size.
8. On a well-floured surface, roll out dough to 3/8-inch (9 mm)thick. (Make sure the surface really is well-floured otherwise your doughnuts will stick to the counter).
9. Cut out dough using a 2 1/2-inch (65 mm) doughnut cutter or pastry ring or drinking glass and using a 7/8-inch (22 mm) ring for the center whole. Set on floured baking sheet, cover lightly with a tea towel, and let rise for 30 minutes.
10. Preheat the oil in a deep fryer or Dutch oven to 365 °F/185°C.
11. Gently place the doughnuts into the oil, 3 to 4 at a time. Cook for 1 minute per side or until golden brown (my doughnuts only took about 30 seconds on each side at this temperature).
12. Transfer to a cooling rack placed in baking pan. Allow to cool for 15 to 20 minutes prior to glazing, if desired.

Cinnamon Rolls with Marzipan Filling

It's a random day of the week, we've got time on our hands and some homemade marzipan from a cake recipe we never finished making.


Maybe we could whizz the marzipan in the food processor with some cinnamon and sugar?

Why not?


Yeah, that looks good. Tastes darn good too. Maybe we should just stop here, call it a day, turn on the TV...

Nah.

Hmmm... what to do, what to do?

Hmmm... some simple flour and water, transformed by yeast and butter, gentle kneading, and time.


Maybe cinnamon rolls?

Yes, cinnamon rolls.

Finally. Someone who understands how much cinnamon one needs to make perfect cinnamon rolls. Thank you, Peter Reinhardt, and your magnificent book, "The Break Baker's Apprentice".


But wait! Don't forget the marzipan.

Wonder what that would taste like swirled up with cinnamon sugar and bread.


Yea, we'll only cover half (just in case it isn't as awesome as it sounds).


And we'll cut them about twice as thick as we think we should. There we go.

I'm convinced that we make bread just to marvel at the wonder of rising dough. It's a miracle, I tell 'ya!




Oh, you gotta be kiddin' me. We made those?


The only logical thing to do at this point is to make some cream cheese icing (I'm quite certain that cream cheese icing could play a vital role in achieving world peace).


A little bitta this ...


and a little bitta that.


Yeaaah...


Nom, nom, nom.. mmmm, time well spent, I'd say.


Dude.

You totally gotta try some marzipan in your cinnamon rolls. Just trust me on this one.

I roughly followed step 2 of the instructions from the Odense site for the marzipan HERE. Except that I only mixed it with the sugar and the cinnamon.

I exactly followed the instructions from Peter Reinhardt's Cinnamon Rolls (or maybe it was Buns, can't remember) in "The Bread Baker's Apprentice. Google it. Better yet... go buy it, or borrow it. It's a keeper.

The cream cheese frosting recipe is HERE.

TWD: Brioche Raisin Snails

Hi all! You know that chocolate bread pudding the Tuesday's with Dorie crowd just made a coupla days ago? The one where I made my own brioche?

I have a confession to make.

The REAL reason I made brioche was not because I'm some sort of domestic diva who would be appalled at making bread pudding with anything other than homemade bread. Oh, no. The REAL reason I made brioche was because it's the primary ingredient in Brioche Raisin Snails.

(insert big, happy smiley face)


Brioche raisin snails. (Sigh.) To answer your question, yes, they DO taste as good as they look. Maybe even better.

They have a layer of vanilla pastry cream sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and plenty of fat, juicy raisins.

They looked so gorgeous before baking, it was hard putting them in the oven.



But I did. And I waited. Then I took them out. And waited. And then I tried one.

And I was happy.

The End

(The TWD gang made these in March, 2008. Check out Dorie Greenspan's book, "Baking, From my Home to Yours", or Culinary Concoctions by Peabody's blog to peek at the recipe )

Cinnamon Rolls, Part 2

I learned two important things this week:

1. The vacuum cleaner will eventually recover after sucking up toilet water. (Don’t ask.)

2. Grandma’s cinnamon rolls really are the best.

For me, cinnamon rolls are synonymous with “grandma”. My grandma made cinnamon rolls every week, to be eaten Sunday morning before church (how’s that for a Norman Rockwell image?). I wish I'd have known then that this was not normal. I might have appreciated them just a tiny bit more.

My grandma was first a nurse, then a farmwife. She cooked three hot meals a day, tended the chickens, and the monster-sized garden, delivered eggs to customers in town, canned beets, peaches, pears and put up pickles. She raised her children and grandchildren part-time too. She sewed clothes and quilts, knitted afghans, crocheted doilies galore. She was a baking queen. She made the title “housewife” something to be proud of.

I never remember seeing her mad. Ever.

I only wish she was here to guide me in my attempts to master cinnamon rolls. She would probably be amused to see me reading and rereading recipes. I can imagine her smirking as I measure the rectangle of dough to make sure it is rolled out to the correct dimensions.

She probably could have made cinnamon rolls with her eyes closed.


I made somewhere around half a dozen batches of cinnamon rolls (it's become a blur) in my attempt to make some like hers. You might laugh at this… after these half-dozen batches I finally got the bright idea to check my recipe box on the off chance I somehow had gram’s recipe in there. Low and behold, there it was, just waiting for me to find it. Duh!


But making all of those batches brought me some much needed confidence. Maybe it was fate… I needed to practice on other recipes before I was ready for hers, so her recipe would be just like I remember.

Here are a few things I learned along the way…

- there’s no such thing as too much cinnamon. Well, for me anyway. If you're like me and love cinnamon, don't bother measuring it out, just start shaking it on until it seems like enough.


- I like to roll them a little thinner, so there is a higher percentage of filling to dough… like closer to 1/8 inch than ¼ inch thick. In the pics of the risen rolls below, the first one was rolled to a little more than 1/8-inch...


while the second was rolled to more like 1/4-inch thick (too much bread, not enough filling).


- The electric bread maker makes acceptable dough and is a good alternative for when you don’t feel like coddling the dough. Just throw your ingredients into the canister and walk away (use the sweet bread recipe included with your break maker).

-for caramel-topped cinnamon rolls, I prefer a caramel that isn’t cooked ahead of time, and one that contains butter, brown sugar, and milk or cream. Cooking ahead of time makes the caramel too hard and sticky and makes eating the rolls unwieldy and messy, IMO. The first picture had cooked topping. I had to throw them away, the caramel was so stiff and sticky...


while these had topping that was only warmed slighly beforehand (much better!)


- dental floss makes cutting the rolls a snap!



- folding the semi-rolled out dough first into a business letter shape, and then into three again gives you the best chance of ending up with something that most resembles a rectangle after being rolled out.



No doubt I’ll be a grandma someday too. I just hope my grandkids think my cinnamon rolls are as good as hers.

GRANDMA'S CINNAMON ROLLS

Dough
1 C. milk
½ C. sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 yeast cakes, or 2 packs active dry yeast, or 4 ½ tsp active dry yeast
2 eggs
4 C. sifted flour
½ C. melted butter
1 tsp. flavoring (I used vanilla)

Filling
½ C. melted butter, cooled
1 C. brown sugar, broken up to rid it of lumps (or more, to taste) or granulated sugar
Cinnamon – I actually didn’t measure. I just start shaking it on until it looks like enough. I’m guessing I used at least a tablespoon. Use what you like.

Caramel Topping (optional)
See recipe and instructions for the glaze in ----> this post.

Cream Cheese Icing (optional)
See recipe at the bottom of -----> this post.

Instructions
Scald milk. Add sugar and salt. Cool to lukewarm. Add yeast to mixture, stirring until dissolved. (I put the ingredients in the bowl of my stand mixer and used it for the mixing.) Add beaten eggs and half of the flour. Mix. Add melted butter and beat thoroughly. Stir in remaining flour.

Turn onto lightly floured board. Let stand 10 minutes covered. (I left it in the bowl for 10 minutes.)

Knead 2 or 3 minutes until dough is smooth. (I used the dough hook and let the Kitchenaid do the kneading.) Place in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover and let rise until double in bulk.


Roll out to a rectangle about 1/8 thick. Spread butter over dough, then sprinkle on cinnamon, followed by sugar. Roll into a tight log and slice into rolls around 1 inch thick.

Grease pan with pan spray. Prepare glaze topping, if using, and place in pan. Place rolls in pan.


Cover pan with saran wrap and let rolls rise until double in bulk.

Bake at 375-400 degrees F for 25 minutes or until golden brown on top.

If using cream cheese icing, spread on the still-warm cinammon rolls.

Enjoy!

TWD: Pecan Honey Sticky Buns

This week’s Tuesday’s with Dorie recipe is Pecan Honey Sticky Buns, from Dorie Greenspan’s book "Baking, From my home to yours". Madam Chow of Madam Chow’s Kitchen must have read my mind, picking this recipe. I was just thinking I need to get back to my cinnamon roll challenge. I’ve made 5 or 6 different recipes (it’s becoming a blur) in search of a recipe I can call my own.

Here are my lovelies ready for the oven (wow, did that just sound like the witch from Hansel & Gretel, or what, LOL?). That's the lowly end-of-the-log bun there in the middle front pan,poor thing:


For my sticky buns, I left out the pecans. I should have been daring and tried them, but just looking at the picture in the book made me think "blech!". Another change I made was to make half sticky buns and half "not-sticky" buns. I frosted the plain rolls with cream cheese icing while still warm from the oven.


The verdict? They tasted great and the filling was spot on. Dorie's "goo" topping is just about perfect. Next time I'll follow her instructions, though, and bring it to a boil first rather than just warming it (I was paranoid about the goo being too sticky). Notice mine ran all over kingdom come.

One criticism, and I had suspected this based on my previous batches, (and it's not really a criticism, more of a personal preference) but I feel that brioche is too fragile to stand up to the gooey topping. I think caramel rolls like this need a regular sweet bread dough. Now, the rolls I topped with cream cheese icing were downright addictive. I would stick with brioche for those. This is only my second time making brioche and it is a melt-in-your-mouth dream. I'm thinking maybe cream cheese danishes would be great with brioche. But anyway, I'm off on a tangent here.

It was a great challenge and as always, I learned tons. For one, I learned was that seven buns in a 9-inch pan is OK...


... but nine buns in a 9-inch pan is not OK.

Seriously, how did I get seven in one and nine in the other? LOL

See you next week, when it's brownie time again!

PECAN HONEY STICKY BUNS
Makes 15 buns

For the Glaze:
1 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
1/4 cup honey *I substituted Lyle’s Golden Syrup
1-1/2 cups pecans (whole or pieces) *I omitted these
2 T. cream *this is my addition

For the Filling:
1/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons (packed) light brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

For the Buns:
1/2 recipe dough for Golden Brioche Dough (see below), chilled and ready to shape (make the full recipe and cut the dough in half after refrigerating it overnight).

Instructions
Generously butter a 9-x-13-inch baking pan (a Pyrex pan is perfect for this). *I used two 9-inch round pans.

To make the glaze: In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, bring the brown sugar, butter, and honey to a boil over medium-low heat, stirring frequently to dissolve the sugar. *(I only warmed this slightly past melting the butter.) Pour the glaze into the buttered pan, evening it out as best you can by tilting the pan or spreading the glaze with a heatproof spatula. Sprinkle over the pecans.

To make the filling: Mix the sugars and cinnamon together in a bowl. If necessary, in another bowl, work the butter with a spatula until it is soft, smooth and spreadable.

To shape the buns: On a flour-dusted work surface, roll the chilled dough into a 16-inch square. Using your fingers or a pastry brush, spread the softened butter over the dough. Sprinkle the dough with the cinnamon sugar, leaving a 1-inch strip bare on the side farthest from you. Starting with the side nearest you, roll the dough into a cylinder, keeping the roll as tight as you can. (At this point, you can wrap the dough airtight and freeze it for up to 2 months . . . . Or, if you want to make just part of the recipe now, you can use as much of the dough as you'd like and freeze the remainder. Reduce the glaze recipe accordingly).

With a chef's knife, using a gentle sawing motion, trim just a tiny bit from the ends of the roll if they're very ragged or not well filled, then cut the log into 1-inch thick buns. (Because you trim the ragged ends of the dough, and you may have lost a little length in the rolling, you will get 15 buns, not 16.) Fit the buns into the pan cut side down, leaving some space between them.

Lightly cover the pan with a piece of wax paper and set the pan in a warm place until the buns have doubled in volume, about 1 hour and 45 minutes. The buns are properly risen when they are puffy, soft, doubled and, in all likelihood, touching one another.

Getting ready to bake: When the buns have almost fully risen , center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Remove the sheet of wax paper and put the pan on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicone mat. Bake the sticky buns for about 30 minutes, or until they are puffed and gorgeously golden; the glaze will be bubbling away merrily. Pull the pan from the oven.

The sticky buns must be unmolded minutes after they come out of the oven. If you do not have a rimmed platter large enough to hold them, use a baking sheet lined with a silicone mate or buttered foil. Be careful - the glaze is super-hot and super-sticky.

Golden Brioche Dough
Make the entire recipe, then divide the dough in half after chilling. You can freeze the other half for a later date, or make a brioche loaf or a second recipe of sticky buns out of it.

2 packets active dry yeast (each packet of yeast contains approx. 2 1/4 teaspoons)
1/3 cup just-warm-to-the-touch water
1/3 cup just-warm-to-the-touch whole milk
3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1/4 cup sugar
3 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature but still slightly firm

To make the brioche: Put the yeast, water and milk in the bowl of a stand mixer and, using a wooden spoon, stir until the yeast is dissolved. Add the flour and salt, and fit into the mixer with the dough hook, if you have one. Toss a kitchen towel over the mixer, covering the bowl as completely as you can-- this will help keep you, the counter and your kitchen floor from being showered in flour. Turn the mixer on and off a few short pulses, just to dampen the flour (yes, you can peek to see how you're doing), then remove the towel, increase the mixer speed to medium-low and mix for a minute or two, just until the flour is moistened. At this point, you'll have a fairly dry, shaggy mess.

Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula, set the mixer to low and add the eggs, followed by the sugar. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat for about 3 minutes, until the dough forms a ball. Reduce the speed to low and add the butter in 2-tablespoon-size chunks, beating until each piece is almost incorporated before adding the next. You'll have a dough that is very soft, almost like batter. Increase the speed to medium-high and continue to beat until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl, about 10 minutes.

Transfer the dough to a clean bowl (or wash out the mixer bowl and use it), cover with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature until nearly doubled in size, 40 to 60 minutes, depending upon the warmth of your room.

Deflate the dough by lifting it up around the edges and letting it fall with a slap to the bowl. Cover the bowl with the plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator. Slap the dough down in the bowl every 30 minutes until it stops rising, about 2 hours, then leave the uncovered dough in the refrigerator to chill overnight.