Cinnamon Rolls

It's shameful that I have not blogged this yet, since I've been making variations on it for years. We made these again today, and Claire remembered not liking the recipe. I told her she was creating false memories, and what she didn't like was our variations (particularly when we tried to add raisins). Turns out: I was right. Still an awesome recipe. It's basically from this recipe, though we have our own version of frosting and some minor edits.

Ingredients

• Rolls
• 4.5c all purpose unbleached flour
• 1/2c granulated sugar
• 2.25tsp yeast
• 4tbsp butter (half a stick), melted
• 1c milk, warmed in the microwave
• 1tsp salt (we didn't add this the last go-round, and it wasn't as good as it could be. Next time I think we'll do this, though).
• Filling
• 4tbsp butter (the other half of that stick), melted
• 3/4c (packed) brown sugar
• 2tbsp cinnamon
• Frosting
• 4tbsp butter
• 4oz cream cheese
• 1.33c powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Make the rolls. Basically, combine all the ingredients and knead into a dough. Turn out onto a floured counter and knead until smooth. Return to the (now liberally greased) bowl and cover to rise for two hours. THE FULL two hours. Don't skimp.

Now make the filling. Melt the butter. Mix in the other things. DONE.

After two hours have elapsed, take the dough out of the bowl and put on the counter. DON'T PUNCH IT DOWN. Just roll the dough out into a huge rectangle, like 18" wide and maybe 14" deep? As big as you can manage, keeping the dough about 1cm thick. Spread the filling across the whole dough using a spatula. Or your hands, or whatever. Now starting at the wide end, roll the dough up. Cut into 12 pieces (cut into fourths, then each fourth into thirds). Stand these up in a 9x13 casserole pan.

Now preheat the oven to 400 and cover the cinnamon rolls (loosely) to rise for another 30 minutes. When they've risen and the oven has preheated, bake for 15-20 minutes. We did exactly 15 this last time, and they were a LITTLE doughy, but who's complaining? Next time, 18-20, though.

While those go, you can make the frosting. Bring the butter and cream cheese to room temperature. Using an electric mixer of some kind, cream together the butter and cream cheese, then add the powdered sugar by 1/3 cups until you've got it all mixed. Then add the vanilla.

We recommend not frosting the cinnamon rolls until you're ready to eat them. Although this recipe has a lot of steps, it's actually not harder than making a loaf of bread. Once you do it the first time, it'll be easy from then on.

Thoughts: Just what I needed: diabetes.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Buttercream-cheese frosting

Ingredients

• 1/2 stick butter, softened
• 1/4 package of cream cheese/neufchatel, softened
• 1.3 cups powdered sugar
  
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
  
• 1 tbsp milk

In your Kitchenaid/hands, cream together the butter and cream cheese until completely combined.
Add the sugar (make sure the machine is turned off while you're adding it, and when you turn it back on, make sure it's on the lowest setting. Otherwise you will have a disaster on your hands).
Mix until combined. Add the salt, vanilla, and milk, one at a time.
If the frosting is too loose for your needs, add more sugar. You can't go wrong.

Thoughts: This is actually sort of hard to do in a Kitchenaid because the powdered sugar keeps climbing up the sides of the bowl and not incorporating into the frosting, so you have to keep scraping down the sides. But otherwise, totes awesome. I like the addition of salt, actually. Dan says he might have wanted it less sweet. If you want a frosting that's less sweet, just add less sugar and take out the milk and the stiffness should work out.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Three Cheesecake

Just as we were starting to lose faith in Martha.

Ingredients

For the crust:

• cooking spray
• 1 & 1/3 cups crushed cinnamon graham crackers
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
  

For the filling:

• 1 cup sour cream, room temperature
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 4 oz mascarpone cheese, room temp
• 4 oz cream cheese, room temp
• 2 oz soft goat cheese, room temp
• 3/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp lemon zest
• 1 cup heavy cream

Make the crust the way you normally would. Coat a 9" springform pan with cooking spray and line the bottom with parchment paper. Crush the graham crackers in a food processor, adding the butter slowly. Press the mixture into the bottom of the pan. Refrigerate while you make the filling.
Beat the sour cream, 1/3 cup of the sugar, the cheeses, vanilla, and lemon with an egg-beater on medium speed until very smooth, about 4 minutes. DO NOT pass through a sieve at this step. MARTHA. Add the heavy cream and the other 1/3 cup sugar and beat on medium until medium peaks form.
Spread evenly over the crust. Smooth top and freeze until firm, about 2 hours. Move to the refrigerator for about 45 minutes about serving.
Can be topped with fruit compote of your choosing.

Thoughts: Hot damn. This is the best cheesecake I have eaten. Dan agrees. The goat cheese really does good things here. The only thing I would do differently is add more butter to the crust. There wasn't nearly enough to make the crust adhere properly, so it sort of crumbled away when you cut a slice. But that's easily remediable. We would maybe double the amount of butter in the crust to 4 tbsp. It's also a little tricky to move the cake from the freezer to the fridge, and then back to the freezer. You have to remember to let it thaw a little before you eat it, otherwise it just sort of tastes like the freezer. But I don't think you can just leave it in the fridge 24/7, because it's no-bake and it might de-constitute itself or something. All in all, this is hella easy to make and hella delicious.

Disaster Index: 1/10, even with the imperfect crust

Hamentaschen (Dough)

A pastry dough recipe.

Ingredients

• 2c flour
  
• 2 sticks butter
  
• 8oz cream cheese
  
• 3tbsp sugar
  
• 1tsp vanilla
  

In a cuisinart (food processor, NOT a blender), add the flour and sugar and pulse once to mix. Add the butter and cream cheese, chopped into smallish pieces, along with the vanilla, and pulse until the the dough JUST sticks together. Don't overprocess. If you don't have a cuisinart, you'll need to cut the fat into the flour, which is just really annoying, so I guess what I'm saying is: don't not have a cuisinart.

Dump the (really quite loose) dough onto a piece of cling wrap. It'll be crumbly. Lump it together in the center of the cling wrap and, well, wrap it up. Then you can kind of press the dough together, turning the package of cling wrap & dough, until it resembles a disc. Don't overdo it. Put the dough into the fridge for at least 8 hours or overnight.

When you're ready to use it, take out the dough. Roll it out thin on a WELL floured surface with a well floured rolling pin. Cut the cookies, add your filling, and bake at 350 for 15-30 minutes, until browned.

Thoughts: My mother's recipe. This pastry dough is fantastic. We actually made hamentaschen AND a little pie using this dough, and it works well for any purpose. I think the cream cheese really makes it. It's tender and flaky. Just fantastic. My mother also recommends replacing the vanilla with the zest of one lemon. This is easily the best pastry dough we've ever made.

For fillings for our hamentaschen, we strayed from tradition a lot. For the first batch, we used a few types of jam mixed with blackberries and some lemon juice and sugar. We kind of boiled them with a little water and reduced until the blackberries were really soft and the mixture was adequate for filling. I think I may have added a little corn starch to encourage it. The next batch was sliced apples with cinnamon cooked down in a little water in the same pot as the previous batch, so they turned bright red. Third batch was (frozen) peaches and blackberries with a little brown sugar and lemon juice, again cooked down until the peaches were soft. My mother uses a recipe of dates processed with frozen orange juice (which is a fairly traditional recipe), and also one with almond paste, cream cheese, almond extract, and chocolate chips. But that's for another post / another hamentashen experience.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Cleaning off my desk before moving, I found this recipe we made a while ago. I need a break from taping boxes, so I thought I'd blog this. It's my mother's recipe, though I think I modified it when I actually made it.

Ingredients

• 1/4lb ginger snaps or graham crackers
  
• 1/2 stick of butter
  
• 1lb cream cheese (the real stuff)
  
• 1 can pumpkin (12 or 14oz or so - whatever it is)
  
• 3 eggs
  
• .75c dark brown sugar
  
• .75c white sugar
  
• 1.5tsp cinnamon
  
• .5tsp ginger
  
• .5tsp nutmeg
  
• or in place of the ginger and nutmeg, use 1tsp "baking spice", which also has anise and probably cloves, I'd imagine.
  

Crush the ginger snaps or gram crackers, then melt the butter and combine thoroughly. Press into the bottom of a 9-10" springform and chill for 1 hour.

Meanwhile, beat the cream cheese in a mixer, then add eggs and then everything else. Make sure the cream cheese and eggs are at room temperature when you begin, otherwise the cream cheese gets lumpy. We had this problem - if it happens, mix everything together, then set up a double boiler and stir the mixture thoroughly until the cream cheese is more or less combined.

About 15 minutes before the crust is done chilling, preheat the oven to 350 and put pan of water on the bottom rack of the oven.

Pour the mixture into the crust and bake at 350 for about 45 minutes on a middle rack, until just jiggly in the middle (about 3/4 of the way in) but mostly set everywhere else. Cool on a cooling rack (or a stove burner cover) to about room temperature, then cover and chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours. Serve!


Thoughts: Very similar to a pumpkin pie, but... well... better. The tangy bite of the cream cheese really helps combat the frequent dullness of the pumpkin pie filling. I don't have too much negative to say about it. Claire didn't love it as much - she's not a huge fan of pumpkin, but I think that for thanksgiving, this gives the original a run for its money.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Apple Carrot Cake with Molasses Cream Cheese Icing

Ingredients

Cake

• 1 and 3/4 cup old-fashioned oats
• 2 cups boiling water
• 1 cup unsalted butter, slightly softened
• 2 cups dark brown sugar
• 1.5 cups white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 tbsp rum
• 3 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp grated or ground nutmeg
• 2 apples, peeled, cored, and grated
• 4 medium carrots, peeled and grated

Heat the oven to 350.
Combine the oats with the boiling water and set aside until the oats have absorbed the majority of the water.
Beat the butter and sugar together. It will be easiest if you use a kitchenaid for this or something. We did. Cream the butter and sugar together until creamy and smooth. Add the eggs one at a time. Beat until smooth and whipped. Add the vanilla and rum and mix to incorporate. Add in the oatmeal.
Combine all the dry ingredients together and whisk well. Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet and mix until fully incorporated. Add the grated apple and carrot. Mix well.
Line a smallish spring-form pan with parchment paper (or grease it really well). Put about 1/3 of the mixture in the pan (this batter will make 3 tiers, so you'll have to do this 3 times. Just be prepared). Put in the oven for at least 40 minutes (we had to cook each tier for like, an hour), or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Cool each layer completely before adding the icing in between each layers.

Icing

• 1 cup whole milk
• 2 8-oz packages of cream cheese, very soft
• 1/3 cup molasses
• 1 tsp vanilla
• pinch salt
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• at least 2 cups powdered sugar - more if you want the icing to be stiffer.
  

Beat the whole milk for a while, then add the cream cheese bit by bit. This will help it incorporate better into the milk. Don't just dump the whole thing in there. Add the molasses, vanilla, salt, and nutmeg. Beat in the powdered sugar one cup at a time. Set aside and refrigerate for an hour while the cake bakes and cools.

Thoughts: This was hella good. There's just no way around it. The original recipe also called for like, a cup of coconut in the cake, but I suspect that would have made the cake way too sweet. It was pretty damn sweet as it is. It was also VERY moist, which was fantastic. I think next time we would put raisins in the cake as well, just for a little added texture. The carrot and apple was grated pretty finely, so they didn't really add much of a textural element at all. I felt more ambivalent about the frosting because it just tasted SO much like molasses. In the future I think we would either cut WAY back on the molasses or just not put it in at all and make a normal cream cheese frosting. Also we used whole milk instead of whipping cream for the frosting, which probably contributed to its texture (more like a loose icing than a frosting). Next time we would go ahead and use the whipping cream.

Disaster Index: 1-2/10

Key Lime Cheesecake

Incredibly successful
Ingredients

• Crust:
  
  
  
  • 12 graham crackers
    
  • 1/2 tsp salt
    
  • 1 stick butter
    
  
  
• Filling:
  
  
  
  • 16oz neufchatel cream cheese (2 packages)
    
  • heaping 2/3c granulated sugar
    
  • 2 eggs
    
  • 3tbsp key lime juice plus a little more to taste
    
  • 1tbsp lime zest plus more to taste (we used a lot)
    
  
  

Preheat the oven to 350. Crush the graham crackers with the salt. When they're ground fairly finely (we used a cuisinart) add the melted butter. Spread evenly and then press into the bottom of an 8.5" springform pan. Make sure the crust is really good and compacted. Bake for about 5 minutes or until set.

Meanwhile, just beat all of the other ingredients together. We used a whisk and did it by hand, though a kitchenaid would do wonders at this. Pour filling into cooled crust. In a separate pan with deep sides, add some water. Put it in the oven on a low rack and let it sit (oven closed) about five minutes to create a humid chamber. Now add the cheesecake onto an upper rack. Bake until the filling is set but still jiggles a little in the middle when you shake it, about 45 minutes. Let it cool completely and then cover with foil and refrigerate at least three hours before serving. Overnight is better. Serve!

Thoughts:This turned out great. The crust didn't release very well from the first slice, but I think there are ways to work around that. Otherwise, I would say this was just the ideal cheesecake. I just hope I transcribed the recipe correctly (we didn't write it down and it was sort of made up and cobbled together from a few recipes).

Disaster Index: 1/10

Mocha Cake

Ingredients

• Pam, or other cooking spray
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/2 cup Dutch processed cocoa
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 tbp canola oil
• 2 tbp melted butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 banana
• 3/4 cup lowfat yoghurt
• 3/4 cup ricotta cheese
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tbp espresso
• 2 oz. good-quality dark chocolate

For the frosting:

8 oz. cream cheese

1/3 cup powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp espresso

1 small square chocolate

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and put oven rack in center position.
Spray a 9x13 cake pan with Pam and set aside.
Whisk together flours, cocoa, salt, baking powder and baking soda.
In a large mixing bowl, mix butter and oil. Add eggs and banana and mix to incorporate.
Fold in yoghurt, ricotta, vanilla, sugar, and espresso. Melt chocolate and add chocolate.
Gradually add dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. DO NOT OVERBEAT.
Pour batter into pan and put in oven. Let bake for 25-30 minutes. Cool completely.
While cake is cooling, make frosting:
combine all ingredients into a bowl and beat until soft and creamy. Spread frosting over cake and cut into 32 squares. Shave chocolate over the entire cake. Each square = 100 calories. Not bad.

Thoughts: This was an ok recipe. The original called for 2 eggs and 2 egg whites rather than 2 eggs and 1 banana, but I think the banana worked out ok. The original also calls for 1.5 cups lowfat yoghurt rather than half yoghurt and half ricotta. If you were going to make this recipe, I would make sure you had all the ingredients before trying to make it. Substitutions can be risky.
Make sure you cover this cake immediately because it dries out quickly in the fridge. It was pretty tasty, all taken. I'll let people qualify my remarks as they see fit.

Disaster Index: 3-4/10.