Peanut Butter & Chocolate Crescents

Posted on July 21, 2011 by sparecake

I don’t know that I’d technically call these “crescent rolls,” as they’re not a light flakey thing, but they’re crescent shaped and delicious! I love things that I can tag as both breakfast and dessert…

These are from breadworld.com, which is run by Fleishmann’s, so, not surprisingly, they use a decent amount of yeast. Sorry Catie!

Make the dough by combining four cups of flour, the sugar, yeast, and salt in a large bowl. Heat the milk and water to 120-130 degrees (hot but not burney, if you don’t have a thermometer) and stir into the flour mixture. Add the peanut butter.

When the dough is combined well enough that it mostly sticks together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface.

Knead until smooth and elastic, adding up to another half a cup of flour if the dough remains sticky. Cover the kneaded dough and let it rest ten minutes.

You don't want to see any big peanut butter spots.

While the dough rises, make the filling by mixing the peanut butter and chocolate in a small bowl.

When the dough has risen, divide it in half and roll each half into a 14″ circle. I’m not super skilled at rolling circles, but if you start off by shaping the dough in the shape you want by hand, that helps. Cut each circle into six even wedges, and spread the filling evenly along the outside edge. (If you’re rolling the halves out one at a time, make sure you save half the filling for the other circle!)

Roll up each wedge from the wide end, curving to form a crescent. Pinch shut the corners and push the end point in a bit to seal. Place six on a greased baking sheet.

Cover and let rise until doubled in size, 30 to 45 minutes. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes, rotating pans halfway through. Remove from the oven and cool on wire racks.

Ready to be iced.

To make the icing, combine the ingredients in a bowl and stir until smooth.

You can use 2 tablespoons of peanut butter, two of cocoa powder, or one of each. You also have a bit of control over the amount of milk you add, one to two tablespoons. It took about one and a half for me to get a pourable icing – don’t use too much or it’ll just be a thin, watery glaze that half runs off your crescents.

And you’re done! Yay for that. These are fairly large – If you don’t want them to be basically a whole meal, I can see cutting the dough ball into 3, and rolling out three smaller circles. If you did that, I suggest making a bit more of the filling, and a shorter baking time. Speaking of more of the filling… These are delicious how they are. That said… I wouldn’t judge if you doubled the filling.

There's room for more chocolate in there.

I’ll be submitting this to yeastspotting.

Peanut Butter & Chocolate Crescents

From BreadWorld.

Dough:

  • 4 to 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 envelopes/4 1/2 teaspoons RapidRise yeast
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

Filling:

  • 1 cup semisweet chocolate pieces
  • 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter

Icing:

  • 1 cup sifted powdered sugar
  • 2 tablespoons creamy peanut butter or cocoa powder
  • 1 to 2 tablespoons milk

In large bowl, combine 4 cups flour, sugar, undissolved yeast and salt. Heat milk and water until very warm (120 to 130oF); stir into flour mixture. Stir in peanut butter and turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead until smooth and elastic (6-8 minutes), adding up to another half cup of flour if needed.  and enough remaining flour to make soft dough. Cover; let rest 10 minutes.
In small bowl, combine filling ingredients; blend well. Set aside.

Divide dough in half; roll each into 14-inch circle. Cut each into 6 wedges; place filling, dividing evenly, at wide end of each wedge. Beginning at wide end, roll up tightly; curve to form crescent. Arrange six crescents, seam side down, on a greased baking sheet. Pinch ends at center to seal. Repeat with remaining crescents on separate pan. Cover; let rise in warm, draft-free place until doubled in size, 30 to 45 minutes.

Bake at 375oF for 15 to 20 minutes or until done, switching position of pans halfway through baking for even browning. Remove from pans; cool on wire racks.

In small bowl, combine icing ingredients; stir until smooth. Drizzle on rolls.

Posted in Breakfast, Dessert | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Wordless Wednesday (buying time edition)

Posted on July 20, 2011 by sparecake

Posted in Pictures | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Frosted Flake Cookies

Posted on July 18, 2011 by sparecake

Ted got back from his wedding recently, and had with him the deep fryer I got him and Deborah. We used it last week to fry Rice Krispie Treats wrapped in beignet dough, which was ridiculous and good.

When I picked up the Rice Krispies, cereal was buy one get one, so I also got some Frosted Flakes. Rather than sit around and eat an entire box over the course of an afternoon, I decided to do something with them. I’ve made cookies in the past that used crushed up Captain Crunch as some of the flour. I was curious if Frosted Flakes were sugary enough to make up for both sugar and flour, and, as expected, they were. In the end, actually, Alex thought that they were just Corn Flake cookies, not Frosted Flakes! (Obvious answer: more sugar?!)

I used a food processor to grind up enough Frosted Flakes (pretty much a whole box) to get 2 1/2 cups.

Cream 3/4 of a cup of the cereal with butter and shortening. Here the cereal’s playing the roll of sugar.

Stir in the egg and vanilla, and then the remaining ingredients until evenly mixed. The cereal’s acting as flour here.

I think with a stand mixer, rather than a hand mixer, this would look a bit more clumpy and less powdery.

Roll the dough into walnut-sized balls, and place on a lightly greased cookie sheet. You can put them fairly close together.

Bake, rotating the pans halfway through if you have more than one pan in the oven. Halfway through, mine didn’t look like they’d changed at all. They spread a tiiiiny bit by the end.

Alex and Kyle liked these, and they’ve really grown on me over the last few days. I thought they were a bit too salty, so I’ve cut the salt in the recipe below.

Worth the price of the cereal! =P

Frosted Flake Cookies

  • 1/3 cup shortening
  • 1/3 cup butter
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 1/2 cups crushed Frosted Flakes (nearly a box of uncrushed cereal), split 3/4 cup/1 3/4 cups

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease 2 cookie sheets.

Cream butter, shortening, and 3/4 cup of the cereal. Beat in the vanilla and egg. Add the remaining ingredients and blend until well mixed.

Roll dough into walnut-sized balls and place on your cookie sheet. Bake 12 minutes, rotating halfway through. Move to a wire rack to cool.

Cookie!

Posted in Dessert | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Banana Coffee Cake with Chocolate Chip Streusel

Posted on July 15, 2011 by sparecake

It’s time for another delicious breakfast food! I’ve been eating this for the last few days (it lasts well!), and it’s actually surprisingly filling. I make it past 9:05 am without wondering when second breakfast is, which is practically unheard of!

If you don’t have buttermilk, and don’t want to buy it for a recipe that just uses a few spoonfuls, remember that you can make buttermilk by adding lemon juice to milk and letting it curdle for 5 minutes. The generally accepted measurements are just under 1 cup of milk to 1T lemon juice (or white vinegar), but, since I didn’t need that much, I just sorta …winged it? wung it? Guesstimated with less milk, and it came out tasting fine.

Begin by greasing and flouring an 8X8″ pan. Make the streusel by just mixing the ingredients together, and then set it aside. You could use chocolate chips and walnuts, but that’s gross so I just used even more chocolate.

Mm, sugary!

Mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and set that aside as well.

It’s then time to mash your bananas, and, yes, set that aside too.

Way easier than potatoes!

Beat together the egg, sugar, and butter until light and fluffy, and then beat in the bananas and buttermilk.

Erg...

Beat the flour mixture in until well mixed.

Spread half the batter in your pan and smooth out.

Sprinkle half the streusel on top.

Repeat with the other halves, and then bake for 45 minutes.

Cool in the pan, and then eat the heck out of this!

Banana Coffee Cake with Chocolate Chip Streusel

Adapted from Lovin’ From the Oven.

Streusel:

  • 1 cup chocolate chips
  • 2/3 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup chopped walnuts/more chocolate chips
  • 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Batter:

  • 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 1 large egg
  • 4 mashed bananas
  • 3 tablespoons buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour 8×8 baking pan.

Stir chocolate chips, brown sugar, cinnamon, and walnuts if using; set aside.

Mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into medium bowl. Set aside. Mash bananas and set aside as well.

Using electric mixer, beat sugar, room temperature butter, and egg in a large bowl until fluffy. Beat in mashed bananas and buttermilk.  Add flour mixture and blend well.

Spread half of batter in prepared baking pan. Sprinkle with half of streusel. Repeat with remaining batter and streusel.

Bake coffee cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool coffee cake in pan on rack.

Posted in Breakfast, Brunch | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Pear Bread

Posted on July 12, 2011 by sparecake

I got a bundt pan weeeeks ago, but had never used it, which was basically a tragedy. So here’s my first bundt, a tasty pear bread for breakfast. If you’ve got a bundt pan you don’t use nearly enough, you should check out the Food Librarian, she seems to be obsessed with them. (In good way!)

Other than grating the pears, this bread comes together really fast.

Begin by combining the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a large bowl and mix.

Peel and grate the pears, enough to get 2 cups. It took about 2 1/2 pears for me. Keep in mind when you’re choosing where to grate that this will get juicy. Combine the grated pear, butter, eggs, sugar, and vanilla. Stir to mix well.

Well that's unattractive...

Pour the pear mixture into the dry goods and stir until evenly mixed and the flour has just disappeared.

Pour into a greased bundt pan (or two bread pans) and bake until browned and firm on top, and a wooden skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool the pan for 10 minutes, and then turn out to cool on a wire rack to cool completely. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, or make a glaze by whisking 3 tablespoons buttermilk, a dash of vanilla and 2 cups of confectioners’ sugar together.

Tasty breakfast!

Pear Bread

Marginally adapted from smitten kitchen.

  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
  • 3/4 cup butter, softened
  • 3 eggs, lightly beaten
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 2 to 4 firm, ripe pears, depending on size
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Heat your oven to 350°F and lightly grease and flour a bundt pan.

Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl, and stir well.

Peel and grate pears to create 2 cups of grated pear.  In a medium bowl, combine the butter, eggs, sugar, grated pear, and vanilla, and stir to mix everything well. Scrape the pear mixture into the flour mixture and stir just until the flour disappears and the batter is evenly moistened.

Quickly scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake at 350°F for 60 to 70 minutes, or until the bread is handsomely browned and firm on top and a wooden skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool the bread in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn it out onto a plate or a wire rack to cool completely, top side up. Serve it as is, sprinkle it with confectioners sugar or drizzle it with a simple glaze made from whisking 3 tablespoons buttermilk, a dash of vanilla and 2 cups of confectioners’ sugar together.

Posted in Bread, Breakfast | Tagged , | Leave a comment

My New Kitchen Idol

Posted on July 11, 2011 by sparecake

via Tumblr.

Posted in Pictures | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Dalek Cupcakes – a picture-y post

Posted on July 10, 2011 by sparecake

After last week’s cake, I still had a whole bunch of marshmallow fondant left over in the fridge. On Tuesday someone in a Doctor Who LiveJournal group (shutup, LJ is still a good place to get news/downloads for shows you like!) posted pictures of some Dalek cupcakes she and a friend had made, and I thought they were super cute. So cute, in fact, I wanted to make my own!

Now, if you don’t know what Daleks are, go watch some Doctor Who! They’re one of the main bad guys. Big fans of killing any/everything that isn’t also a Dalek.

As of last year, they even come in colors!

To start off, I made a dozen cupcakes and a dozen mini-cupcakes. I cut off the rounded tops so that they’d lay flat upside-down.

Terrifying.

After using a big blob of frosting to hold the two together, I covered each one in frosting. Unfortunately, the cupcakes were super crumbly so I couldn’t get the sides very smooth, and lost some bits from the bottom of some of them.

Frosting cupcakes, rewatching Trigun... wicked cool kid. There are several pictures where I'm holding up a single one and it looks a lot like a poop=/

I left them alone for several hours to allow the frosting to dry/harden up a bit, and then started working on the various Dalek limbs.

I started off dying a bunch of fondant grey. As I mentioned in the post on working with fondant, adding dye later brings it back to a gross sticky mess. Uuuunfortunate!

I tried using mini-M&Ms to give some shape to the plunger arms, but in the end it was easier to just use another blob of fondant.

I made a ton of limbs, since you need 3 each for each cupcake, plus I expected breakage (which happily never happened).

Later remembered that the "eye" is blue and swapped out M&Ms.

Leaving the grey fondant aside, I made a few other colors, rolled it out, and covered the cupcake…piles. Partly because I was afraid of running out and rolled the fondant too thin, partly because the cupcakes were crumbly/lumpy, and partly because I just haven’t had much experience with this stuff, they were kinda wrinkly. Ah well. Went back to the grey, and rolled out the middle band that goes around Daleks.

Then I  stabbed in the pretzels in roughly the right places and attached the light antenna doo-dad M&Ms to the top with little drops of water.

The one in the middle in the back that you can sorta see is aimed way up was subsequently named Derp.

A little bit more water to attach some more M&Ms for the bumps, and they were finished. Yay!

Exterminate!

Bad news for earth!

Derp is the right-most, and my camera lense is covered in powdered sugar!

Much better than some ugly chewed-bubble-gum-looking alien inside.

Not exactly the Genesis Ark...

Fun way to kill an afternoon, and these bad guys are delicious!

Oh, towards the end, as my shirt was getting just crispy with sugar, and the floor looked like you could ski on it, I came up with a different, far too long blog name: Eat, Drink, and Be Merry, for Tomorrow We Mop!

Posted in Dessert | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Greek Orzo Salad

Posted on July 9, 2011 by sparecake

This recipe would be good to bring to a cookout. Unfortunately,I was bringing it to was work – my temp project didn’t let us work on the 4th, but wanted us to make up the hours over the rest of the week, so I needed something more substantial than usual to make it through 10 1/2 hour days. (A good rich husband is hard to find…)

I’ve beefed up the original recipe by adding chicken, which, at least to me, gives it enough variety to make it a pretty decent meal all by itself. The ingredient list may look really long, but you probably have most, if not all, of the dressing ingredients already in your cabinets.

Combine all the dressing ingredients and blend. If you don’t want to clean your blender later or don’t have one, whisking will be ok.

I do like owning an immersion blender!

Pour half the dressing into a large ziplock and add your chicken. Seal, pressing out all the air, and turn all around to make sure the chicken gets well covered. Allow to marinate in the fridge for several hours. Put the rest of the dressing aside somewhere to wait.

Once the chicken’s had time to marinate, get out your veggies and chop them into bite sized pieces. Dice the onion. The original recipe called for tomatoes, cucumber, and pepper. I’m not into peppers, so I doubled the tomatoes and added squash, but you can swap in pretty much any fresh vegetable you like if you don’t like one of those.

My mom's nauseous at the sight of so many vegetables.

Put a pot of water on the stove, and put a pan over medium-high heat. Drain any excess marinade out of the bag with the chicken, and cook the chicken until it’s no longer pink inside.

When the water reaches a boil, add the orzo and cook according to the package instructions. Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces and add to the vegetables. Drain the cooked orzo, and add to the bowl. Add the feta as well, and olives if using.

Mix/shake/whisk the remainder of the dressing back together, and pour over the mixture. Stir well and chill at least an hour before serving.

It's good!

This keeps well for days, and is filling. If you are keeping it around for days, it’s a decent idea to stir it up before taking out a portion a day later, as you don’t want your last bite to be just oil and vinegar!

Greek Orzo Salad

Adapted from my baking addiction.

Dressing:

  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 2 cloves fresh garlic; finely chopped
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
  • 1 teaspoon pepper
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon onion powder
  • 1 teaspoon Dijon-style mustard
  • 1/2 cup red wine vinegar

Salad:

  • 1 – 1  1/2 pounds chicken breast
  • 1 1/2 cups uncooked orzo pasta
  • 1/2 cup grape tomatoes
  • 1 cucumber
  • 1/4 red onion (hah, Giant didn’t have a single red or yellow onion that wasn’t rotting, I had to go with white…)
  • 1 yellow squash
  • 1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
  • 5-10 green olives, drained and halved

Place all dressing ingredients in a blender and pulse until well incorporated. Pour half of the dressing into a ziplock and add the chicken. Allow to marinate for several hours.

Chop all the vegetables into bite-sized pieces (or smaller for the onion!), and place in a large bowl.

Place a pot of water on the stove to heat. Place a pan over medium-high heat, and cook chicken until browned on the outside and no longer pink inside.

As the water reaches a boil, cook the orzo according to the package directions.

Slice the cooked chicken into bite-sized pieces and add to the vegetable bowl.

Drain the cooked orzo and add to the bowl. Add the olives, if using, and feta, and stir well. Chill for at least an hour before serving.

Posted in Dinner, Picnic | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Fun with Fondant

Posted on July 7, 2011 by sparecake

Alright! As promised in the marshmallow fondant recipe, here is my wisdom from a single attempt at covering a cake with fondant. Clearly, there is a lot more to learn, but I’ve got a few tips now that I wish I knew a few days ago…

To start off, you want your cakes as even as possible. I had a spare chocolate cake in the freezer, and didn’t notice until later that I’d cooked it in a different pan than the red and blue cakes, so it was sliiiightly larger. D’oh!

Next, crumb coat your cake. Spread a thin layer of buttercream over the cake and allow it sit out for an hour or two so that that frosting dries and hardens. That layer of dried frosting keeps the crumbs in, helps keep the cake fresh, and helps the fondant stick in a fondant coated cake. You want your crumb coat to be a smooth as possible, as bumps in the frosting will create bumps in the fondant.

Not entirely like this...

Then you’re ready to coat your cake!

When working with fondant, use powdered sugar much they way you would use flour when working with dough, to prevent things from sticking when you knead and roll. In these videos, the cake decorator has a tied off bit of a pair of nylons filled with powdered sugar, which allowed him to tap the little satchel on his work surface or on the fondant and get a thin, even coating. More reasonable than my “throw a handful!” technique, but I didn’t have any tights to spare.

Roll out your fondant into roughly a circle. Keep moving it as you work, so that the bottom doesn’t attach to your counter.

Entirely not like this.

Lightly sugar the top of the fondant, and then very loosely roll half the fondant around your rolling pin. This really requires one of those massively long rolling pins. (Like my ex-roommate Alex had and I always thought was ridiculous. Who knew?!) My rolling pin was nowhere big enough to lift all that fondant, so I ended up loosely folding it, which left a seam directly across the middle of the cake.

A stumpy, ugly ghost.

You then use a smoother to rub the fondant on to the top, and then down the side. Keep a bit of tension on the fondant farther out from where you’re pressing it on to prevent wrinkles. Supposedly you can use a sugared lump of extra fondant as a smoother, but I found that that actually caused small rips, so try with caution. They make specific flat doohickies as smoothers, I had to do it hand.

When attaching other, decorative pieces of fondant, the generally accepted glue is buttercream. I found that, at least for lighter pieces, rubbing a wet finger on the back of the piece you want to attach is enough to make it stick. I think if you were sticking on a larger, heavier piece, you would attach it with a small blob of buttercream and support it overnight or so until the frosting sets.

These unicorns aren't going anywhere.

The recipe I followed for the fondant had mentioned that it was easier to color the fondant while you were making it, rather than once you are using it. I had thought that was just because it was hard to get the color even in later kneading. Wrong! Adding even the limited moisture of the food coloring turned the fondant back into a ridiculously sticky mess. It took tons more powdered sugar to get the dyed fondant to a texture I could roll out.

I mopped later that day...

If you have flower cookie cutters, you can press a toothpick in the petals to create veins and creases real petals have. I don’t have flower cookie cutters, so I made…fireworks? I guess?

Tinsey bits of water held these together like glue!

The extra fondant got turned into unicorns, obviously. It’s only patriotic!

Stuck ’em on the cake, and got ready to travel.

The most reasonable walkin' mug.

The cake make it up to the roof where we watched fireworks…

Sugar fishing!

…and was well enjoyed. Super popular cake! Everyone really liked the flavor of the fondant with the cake and frosting.

I...I don't recognize what country that's representing... ><

Another thing I learned – I took this cake out of the freezer and coated it immediately. Mistake! Apparently you should put fondant on room temperature cakes, or the difference causes condensation that melts the fondant. You also shouldn’t store a covered cake in the fridge, just in a box on the counter – the crumbcoat and fondant protect the cake well enough to keep it fresh for several days.

That is about all I can think of that I’ve learned. If you’ve got any questions, feel free to ask, but I’m definitely no expert! It was kind of a pain, but from a taste standpoint, definitely worth it. Yum!

Posted in Dessert | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Marshmallow Fondant

Posted on July 6, 2011 by sparecake

I’ve been wanting to try working with fondant for a while, and the Fourth of July seemed a good an excuse as any for some fancier cake-making. I watched some videos online about it first, but really only figured out some tips that would have been useful as I was going and/or after, as I googled problems I’d had. I’m going to post the recipe today, and a post full of tips and things I figured out as I went tomorrow.

Ok for a first try, I think?

Begin by putting your marshmallows and water in a large bowl.

Microwave for a minute, stir, and then microwave another 30 seconds and stir again until completely even. Stir in half the powdered sugar.

Now it gets gross. Grab a big blob of shortening and spread it all over your work surface and hands. Get a good thick coating, you’ll want it later. I used a silpat to work on, which was something of a pain, as it kept lifting off the counter. Spreading the shortening directly on the counter, however, seems straight up impossible to clean.

Hopefully you know bike people or car people, someone that has this orange scrubby cleany stuff, as Crisco-ed hands are no easy clean.

Pour the other half of the powdered sugar on your greased surface, and then turn out the marshmallow mixture on top.

Knead until no longer sticky. This took until about two minutes after I wanted to quit, and was messy as all heck. If I had a stand mixer with a dough hook, I’d definitely try greasing that up and letting it do the work.

Sugary mess.

Once you’ve finished kneading, coat the fondant with a thin layer of shortening.

Wrap with cling wrap and let it rest half an hour.

At this point you can use it or put it in the fridge for up to two weeks. If you refrigerate it, let it come back to room temperature before using.

The cake I coated with this was just regular boxed cake mix and buttercream, but was probably the most complemented, flavor-wise, of any cake I’ve ever made. People were really into this fondant!

Tips/thoughts/very basic how-to ideas on using fondant. Also, photographic advice on how to get a cake on your roof.

Marshmallow Fondant

From cookies and cups.

  • 8 cups mini marshmallows
  • vegetable shortening
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 2 lbs powdered sugar

Place marshmallows and water in a large bowl and microwave 60 seconds. Stir, and then microwave another 30 seconds. Stir, and then add in half the powdered sugar and continue stirring.

Coat your work surface and hands with shortening, and pour the other half of the powdered sugar on the counter. Turn out the marshmallow mixture onto the powdered sugar, and knead until no longer sticky.

Once done kneading, coat the fondant with a thin coating of shortening, wrap in cling wrap, and allow to rest at least half an hour before using.

Posted in Dessert, Party! | Tagged , , | 9 Comments