Cinnamon Biscuits: For When You Just Can't Wait

A great man once said, "There is a cinnamon roll for every occasion."

Situation #1: It is just after dinner. You decide you want cinnamon rolls for breakfast in the morning, and you have nothing planned for the rest of the evening other than watching Monday's episode of Gossip Girl on Tivo.

Cinnamon Rolls for the Occasion: Cinnamon Buns from The Sweet Melissa Baking Book. They take several hours of prep the night before (although those hours include lots of waiting, so you can catch up on Gossip Girl), and a final rise and bake in the morning. If you have the time, these are delicious, and definitely worth it .

Situation #2: It is just after dinner or just before bed or any time in between. You decide you want cinnamon rolls for breakfast, but you'll be danged if you're going to spend all evening prepping them.

Cinnamon Rolls for the Occasion: Easy Overnight Cinnamon Rolls. They take about 5 minutes of prep the night before and bake right away in the morning. Finger-lickin' pull-aparts surrounded by a buttery brown sugar and butterscotch filling. The only downside is you have to have raw, frozen dough blobs on hand. But they are really delicious.

Situation #3: It is morning. Cinnamon rolls sound really good. Or sticky buns. Those work too.

Cinnamon Rolls (or Sticky Buns in this case) for the Occasion: Sticky Buns from The Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics. Pecans, raisins, brown sugar, and cinnamon tucked between layers of buttery puff pastry and drenched in a caramely sticky sauce. So easy and so delicious. But only if you have puff pastry in your freezer.

Situation #4: It is morning. Cinnamon rolls sound really good. But you didn't think about it until just this minute. And you don't have any special ingredients on hand. Just the usual stuff. But you really want a cinnamon roll. Really.

Cinnamon Rolls for the Occasion: Sweet Cinnamon Biscuits. A delicious cross between a flaky, homemade baking powder biscuit and a cinnamon roll. No yeast, no rising, no waiting. Ready in 30 minutes, start to finish. Really.

Sweet Cinnamon Biscuits

2 cups flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup buttermilk*
1 stick butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease a 9-inch round baking pan. Combine flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in a medium bowl and mix well. Stir in vegetable oil. Add buttermilk and stir until just blended. Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface until smooth. Roll dough into a 18x8-inch rectangle. Spread butter over the surface of the dough, leaving one of the long edges butter-free. Combine sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl, and sprinkle over the butter, leaving the same long edge free of cinnamon and sugar. Starting at the long edge that does have cinnamon and sugar on it and ending at the clean edge, roll up the dough. Pinch the seam shut. Cut the roll into twelve 1 1/2-inch slices. Arrange the slices in the prepared pan, and bake until golden, about 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from the oven. If you want, you can make a thick glaze out of powdered sugar, milk, and cream cheese to drizzle over the warm biscuits.

*If you don't have buttermilk in your fridge, you can make some by combining 1 Tablespoon of white vinegar with 1 cup of milk, and letting it sit for 5 minutes. But this recipe only calls for 3/4 cup buttermilk, so don't use all of it!

Pumpkin Apple Streusel Cake

Most of the time, my husband and I feel like we are two peas in a pod. One of the things that we do not see eye to eye on is pumpkin. My husband has a May birthday. When I ask him what he wants me to make him for dessert on his birthday, he always responds with, "Pumpkin Dump." The name is gross; the fact that he wants a pumpkin dessert in May is even grosser! On Father's Day, he requests pumpkin pie. The truth is, he would eat pumpkin desserts any day of the year and be completely happy. I do not feel that way about the large, orange orb. There are pumpkin desserts that I love: pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting; pumpkin chocolate chip cookies; pumpkin bread. But I really only want to eat them from late September to the end of the year. And there are some pumpkin desserts I can't stomach at all, like pumpkin pie. I know it is an American Classic, but the combination of the strong pumpkin flavor and the squishy, custardy texture is just not appealing to me. I will eat it with lots and lots of whipped cream, but one piece will fill my pumpkin pie quota for the entire year!
Apples, on the other hand, are just divine! I love any and all apple desserts. I don't dream of chomping on an apple all by itself, but I will eat apples sliced and dipped in peanut butter, caramel, vanilla yogurt, chocolate, white chocolate, some delicious dip my aunt makes, or any combination of the above listed dips. I will eat apples baked into pancakes, crepes, muffins, breads, spice cakes, pandowdies, pies, crumbles, or cobblers. I will eat them topped with streusel, powdered sugar, cinnamon, cream cheese frosting, or nothing at all.
So when you take a pumpkin cake and top it with lightly spiced, sauteed apples and a delicious, buttery streusel, it makes something that I crave all year...even in May!


Pumpkin Apple Streusel Cake
from Bon Appetit, October 2001

for the apples:
3 Tablespoons butter
4 cups peeled, diced Granny Smith apples
3 Tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Melt butter in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add apples and cook until just golden, about 5 minutes. Add cinnamon and sugar and continue cooking until apples are tender and golden, about 3 more minutes. Set aside to cool.

for the cake:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 stick butter, at room temperature, cut into pieces
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
1/3 cup sour cream
2 Tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 large eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch springform pan. Combine flour, brown sugar, butter, and salt; mix until it resembles coarse meal. Reserve 2/3 cup for the streusel topping. To the rest, add all of the remaining ingredients except the eggs and beat until just smooth. Add the eggs and mix until combined. Pour into the prepared pan, top with cooled apples, then reserved crumb topping. Bake for 1 hour 10 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool before serving. Best served the day it is made. Seriously.

Halloween Stew

Halloween 2005
10 points to whoever can guess who we were for Halloween that year. And FYI, that baby was born 6 days later, so I don't usually look that bad!

One of my favorite dishes of all time is Halloween Stew. I've written a few previous posts about how tradition-loving my mom is. I'm pretty sure she didn't get her love of traditions out of thin air. Every Halloween of her entire childhood, she ate Halloween Stew for dinner, made by Nana. Every Halloween of my entire childhood, I ate Halloween Stew for dinner, made by my mom. And every Halloween so far of my girls' childhoods, I've made Halloween Stew for them to eat. It is delicious, filling, and hearty, and we only make it on Halloween, which makes it all the more wonderful! I don't have any pictures, but I'd feel remiss if I didn't post this recipe in time for others to possibly try it. So if you don't have a traditional Halloween meal, give Halloween Stew a try!

Halloween 2006

Halloween Stew
from my Nana

Halloween 2007

5 Tablespoons pearl barley
heaping 2/3 cup split peas
2/3 cup lentils
1 1/2 cups chopped onions
lots of water
1 1/2 lbs ground beef or ground turkey
5-6 cups sliced carrots
5-6 cups diced red potatoes
brown gravy mix
salt and pepper

Halloween 2008

Rinse and pick over the split peas and lentils to make sure there aren't any rocks hiding in there. Boil the barley, split peas, lentils, and onion in 6 cups of water until legumes are tender. Meanwhile, brown and drain the ground beef. Sprinkle the ground beef with about 2 teaspoons of brown gravy mix and stir until coated. Add ground beef, potatoes, carrots, and 4 more cups of water to the legumes and simmer until the vegetables are tender. Add more gravy mix, salt, and pepper to taste. If it seems too thick, add more water. If it seems too thin, add more gravy mix. Remember, this is a stew, so it should be thicker than a soup without being gelatinous or gloopy!

Halloween 2009

Sweet Melissa Sundays: Devil's Food Cupcakes

I have inherited my mother's love of celebrations. Birthdays were always a huge deal in our family when I was growing up. We started the day with a new outfit and breakfast of our choice (we usually chose Toaster Strudel) and ended it with banners, cake, candles, and presents galore. Holidays both big and small always got the star treatment. St. Patty's Day, for example, meant that we could have Lucky Charms for breakfast, absolutely had to wear green, and ate our traditional Irish Fry. We even, on occasion, got little gift bags full of green and/or Irish-themed goodies (ask me about the notorious Irish Spring incident sometime!). And the really special holidays--Halloween and Christmas, to be exact--even got extra days of fun thrown in.

Every October 1st and December 1st of my entire life has been celebrated with a special party to kick off the holiday month (and we actually weren't allowed to celebrate until this party, which made it all the more exciting). When I was growing up, these shindigs involved eating holiday food, distributing, making, and putting up holiday decorations, and dancing around the holiday pillowcases. What was that last part, you say? You mean you don't dance around the holiday pillowcases in your family? Well then...When I was very young, my mom had someone make Halloween pillowcases and Christmas pillowcases for all of us. Our Christmas pillowcases were actually assigned to us, but the Halloween ones changed owners every year, and my mom decided who got which pillowcase by laying them on the floor, covering them with a tablecloth, and making us dance around them while she sang holiday songs. When she hollered, "Stop!" we threw aside the tablecloth and laughed with childish delight at whichever pillowcase we got. Unless you were unlucky enough to get the candy corn pillowcase. I don't know what that poor pillowcase ever did to us, but we universally hated it. Whoever got it each year was the butt of jokes for the rest of the evening!

Anyway, to make a long story short, this week's Sweet Melissa Sundays recipe was supposed to be Devil's Food Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting, but I'm on vacation, so we'll have to settle for the Devil's Food Cupcakes that I made for our annual October 1st Party this year! This cake recipe actually appears three times in The Sweet Melissa Baking Book--once as Devil's Food Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting, once as Brooklyn Brownout Cake, and once as Chocolate Malted Layer Cake. Since it pops up so many times, you have to assume that it is delicious. And it is! Rich, moist, and chocolatey. And it is pretty easy to put together (i.e. it doesn't call for any whipped egg whites, which is always a good thing if you ask me!). The Brooklyn Brownout Cake version is scaled down a tiny bit, so I used it to make almost exactly 24 cupcakes (just a tiny bit of batter left over). I can't remember how long I had to bake them, but I'm guessing I started at 20 minutes and then checked them every few minutes until they were done. The frosting I made was just a standard vanilla frosting with butter, milk, vanilla, and powdered sugar. They turned out great, and actually got better on day 2!

Many thanks to Holly of Phe/mom/enon for choosing this delicious recipe; I hope to get around to the peanut butter frosting sometime! You can find the recipe on Holly's blog by clicking here.

The Cake Slice, October 2009: Mother's Cinnamon-Pecan Coffee Cake

I'm grateful for the little things in life, things like a baby's first smile, sleeping in on a Saturday morning, and oxiclean stain remover. And I'm grateful that we've got a new Cake Slice cookbook to work from over the next 12 months, a book that has something other than layer cakes! Who would've thought that I'd get so sick of making layer cakes in the short space of one year?! Our new cookbook for the 2009-2010 Cake Slice Bakers season is Southern Cakes by Nancie McDermott, and it has already won me over completely. Beautiful pictures, yummy-sounding recipes, only one chapter of layer cakes...

This month's winning recipe was Mother's Cinnamon-Pecan Coffee Cake. In the recipe's introduction, Nancie talks about how her mother made this every Christmas morning. What a delicious holiday tradition! The cake was tender and moist, and the cinnamon made the whole house smell delightful. I cut the recipe in half and baked it in an 8" square pan, but otherwise followed the recipe exactly. My only complaint is that because the cake baked for almost 1 hour, the raisins in the top layer tasted a little charred. When I make this cake again, I plan on leaving the raisins off the top completely, and just sprinkling a few of them into the middle layer.

Mother's Cinnamon-Pecan Coffee Cake
from Southern Cakes by Nancie McDermott

Cinnamon-Raisin Filling:
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar
3 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
3 Tablespoons ground cinnamon
1 1/2 cups raisins
1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped pecans
3/4 cup butter, melted

Coffee Cake:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup milk
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9x13" pan. Combine the brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon in a medium bowl, and stir with a fork. Combine the raisins and pecans in another bowl and toss to mix. Set aside these two bowls, plus the melted butter. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl and mix well. Stir the vanilla into the milk. In a large bowl, combine the butter and sugar, and beat on high speed about 2 minutes, until pale and evenly mixed. Add the eggs and beat for another 2 minutes, scraping down the bowl occasionally. Using a large spoon or spatula, add the flour mixture to the creamed butter mixture in three additions, alternating with the milk mixture and beginning and ending with the flour. With each addition, stir just enough to keep the batter smooth. Spread half of the batter evenly oven the bottom of the greased pan. Sprinkle half of the cinnamon mixture over it, followed by half of the melted butter, and half of the raisin-pecan mixture. Repeat batter, cinnamon, butter, and raisin layers, covering the cake evenly. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 to 50 minutes. Serve warm.

Sweet Melissa Sundays: Spiced Pumpkin Cookie Cakes

Another fantastic fall recipe from The Sweet Melissa Baking Book by Melissa Murphy! This week's Sweet Melissa Sundays recipe for Spiced Pumpkin Cookie Cakes was chosen by Debbie of Everyday Blessings of the Fivedees, and it was absolutely perfect for the rainy October weather we had this week.

The cakey cookies were sweet, tender, and perfectly spiced, and the tangy orange-flavored cream cheese filling was the perfect complement. But, they reminded me of the Pumpkin Whoopie Pies from some issue of Everyday with Rachel Ray from a few years ago, and I think I liked Rachel Ray's recipe just a tiny bit more. If anyone wants to do a throwdown, I'd love to see if you agree!

PS--I followed the serving suggestion and sprinkled them with powdered sugar before taking them to bookclub (and before taking pictures), but those little suckers were so moist they sucked the powdered sugar up before I could photograph it!

PPS--Thanks to those of you who have signed up for the Brown Paper Package Exchange! I promise that it will be fun! And for anyone who still wants to sign up, you have until this Saturday, October 24th, to do so. Just click here to get started!

Cooking with Kids: The Toddler Cookbook (and Chicken Cakes)

Have you ever bought a book out of the bargain bin? If you haven't given in to the urge, you've probably at least been tempted. Who can resist discount books? Who can look at those red clearance price tags with things like "$1.00" written on them and just walk away? I already have a weakness for shopping. Combine that with my love of books and I'm completely hopeless! Sometimes you can find great books in the sale bin, but usually, they're at least a little wacky. Case in point: The Toddler Cookbook by Annabel Karmel.

The large, hardbound cookbook for kids from DK Publishing has just 19 recipes, many of which my child would never eat or I would never take the time to make! It has a section at the beginning with some helpful tips--how to crack an egg--and some that for a toddler cookbook are just plain weird--hand whisking egg whites to stiff peaks, using ring molds to make mini cheesecakes, etc. Unfortunately, my daughter loves to look at it and constantly asks me to help her make things from it.

Good things
--It has a picture index of kitchen tools, neatly labeled and everything, which would probably even be good for anyone who doesn't know their way around a kitchen.
--Each recipe gets a two-page spread, and the steps are all numbered AND pictured.
--The kids are cute.
--The pages are engaging and brightly colored without being annoying.
--We've only made one thing from this cookbook, but it was actually really tasty. Scroll down for more info on that.

Bad things
--The recipes are a little weird. Maybe mine is the exception, but I just don't think toddlers want to eat meringues or tuna salad boats. I know I don't!
--At just 19 recipes, there simply isn't a lot going on.
--Several of the recipes require a lot of parental set-up to be anything special, which just doesn't work for everyday in my house (i.e. the Artist's Fruit Palette and Dips [an actual painter's palette full of sliced fruit and four different kinds of homemade fruit dips]).
--This is another cookbook that has lots of chopping and frying, things I wouldn't let my toddler do without help, yet nowhere in the directions does it say anything about an adult helper.

Overall: If your library has a copy of The Toddler Cookbook by Annabel Karmel, it would be worth checking out, but I wouldn't recommend buying it. There are so many other cookbooks out there with more recipes and better recipes

Chicken Cakes
from The Toddler Cookbook by Annabel Karmel
I am not a seafood eater, so when my daughter kept requesting the Salmon Cakes from the Toddler Cookbook, I was at a loss. Then it occurred to me that I could easily substitute canned chicken for the canned salmon called for in the recipe. Even with that substitution, however, I was fully prepared to eat cold cereal for dinner the night my daughter and I made these! I have never been more pleasantly surprised in my life! They were actually good! Hot, savory little chicken cakes studded with scallions, covered in bread crumbs, and fried until golden brown!

1 can chicken
2 medium scallions
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 Tablespoon mayonnaise (I used probably double that)
1/2 Tablespoon ketchup
1 cup fresh breadcrumbs
2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 egg
3/4 cup dried breadcrumbs (I used Italian-style)
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil

Drain the liquid from the chicken, then put the chicken in a bowl. Mash lightly. Chop and add the scallions. Add lemon juice, mayonnaise, and ketchup and mix it all up. Add the fresh breadcrumbs, then mix again. Divide the mixture into 6 and form into balls, pressing firmly together. Then gently flatten into round patties. Put the flour on a plate. Beat the egg in a shallow dish and put the dried breadcrumbs on another plate. Take each cake, dust it with flour, then dip it in egg, and coat with breadcrumbs. Wash your hands. Heat the oil in a nonstick frying pan and fry the cakes over medium-high heat for 1 1/2 minutes on each side, until they turn golden. Blot on paper towels and cool slightly. Really good served with ranch, in my opinion!

PS--According to King Arthur Flour, tomorrow is World Bread Day. I think this is the first time I've found out about a World _______ Day or even a National _______ Day before the fact! I guess I'll be making bread tomorrow!