Hot Cross Buns

This weekend was going to cover frosting in a can, then I realized that while mapping out future posts I had neglected to take into account the fact that it was Easter weekend; so I hastily pulled together some Hot Cross Buns yesterday (even though I'd been planning them for a while) and today we have a great recipe.

Fun Fact: The Protestant English government supposedly attempted to ban the sale of hot cross buns as they were considered a dangerous hold-over of Catholic beliefs, Queen Elizabeth the first eventually gave into the buns popularity and passed a law permitting bakeries to sell them but only at Easter and Christmas. (Or so Wikipedia tells me.)


Hot Cross Buns
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons yeast
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1/3 cup butter, melted and cooled
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoons nutmeg
4 eggs
5 cups flour
1 1/3 cups raisins
1 egg white (for brushing tops)

Mix powdered sugar with a bit of water until very thick and white, you can add lemon or orange zest or extract if you wish.

Microwave milk and butter which has been cut into small pieces in microwavable bowl or measuring cup until mixture is warm and butter is melted, about 1 minute. Sprinkle yeast over mixture and set aside for a few minutes.

In large mixing bowl blend milk butter and yeast mixture, eggs, sugar, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg, slowly add flour a little at a time. When flour is completely blended add raisins and kneed by hand to evenly distribute. Move to a lightly oiled bowl and cover with a dish towel, allow to rise for an hour.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Cut dough into equal portions and roll into round shapes, (my batch made nine large buns that were about 5 inches in diameter, you could easily make around 12 or even 18 roll size buns if you prefer.) Allow to rise, covered with a dish towel, for another half hour.

Preheat oven to 350°.

Using a sharp knife cut a cross pattern across buns, brush tops of buns with egg white for a shiny crust. Bake for about 20-25 minutes, checking often, until golden brown.

You can pipe or pour the glaze on top following the cross pattern.

From Box or From Scratch?

There’s nothing wrong with boxed cake mix. In case you missed that I’ll repeat: There is nothing wrong with boxed cake mix. How you define homemade may be different from how others do, for me homemade means I mixed some stuff together and put it in the oven; it covers everything from boxed mixes to truly from scratch recipes. Recent trends and worries about additives and high fructose corn syrup have promoted using whole food ingredients to make everything; while some can live the from scratch lifestyle without limitations, I’m not on that list. Even I’m back to looking at flour, butter, eggs, baking powder, sugar and a whole pantry of other ingredients in a whole new light. From scratch has become a badge to wear with pride.

So why do I use boxed cake mixes when I know perfectly well that I could create a nearly identical cake from scratch? For me it’s the fact that cakes are simple. They are readily available and fairly cheap. Chocolate cake, white cake, yellow cake and even red velvet cakes are pretty plain and boring when you really get down to it. What makes great cakes are the additions: fancy extracts and liquors, fruit filling, to die for frosting. If someone were to offer you the choice between chocolate cake and Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake with Chocolate Ganache icing, which one has a better ring to it? Which one would you rather try? (Assuming you’re not allergic to either chocolate or nuts.)

With cake mixes it’s easy to experiment, you’re not changing the basic chemistry that makes a cake a cake when you add a little orange zest or chocolate chips or extract. This rule does have some exceptions, times when truly ‘from scratch’ recipes are called for, but if I can get away with using a cake mix, I’m going to be using a cake mix. Life is too short to spend it worrying about hum-drum basic cake when there are so many more interesting recipes to bake.

That said if you want from scratch I can do from scratch. I started making cakes from scratch in my easy bake oven at age six after watching the cake scene in Pollyanna way to many times and realizing that those cakes were made from flour not easy bake oven cake mix. I remember that first cake well; it was chocolate and having no recipe to go by it was under flavored and quite a bit dry. If I could go back and whisper in my little-self’s ear I’d tell her the secret to making moist flavorful cakes.

So that’s my breakdown on cake mixes. Stay tuned for frosting in a can, bread mix and other episodes of: From Box or From Scratch!

Drunken Cupcakes Ver. 1.0

Lately I've been seeing a trend on spiked cupcakes, a friend shared a recipe for Guinness cupcakes and since then the idea of spiked cupcakes has been on my mind.

Years ago another friend shared the most amazing Drambuie Truffles with me (although not the secret recipe) and this morning having a box of spare German Chocolate Cake mix that was no longer needed for the purpose it was bought I set to work.

After reading a couple recipes for other liquor spiked cakes I decided on replacing 1/3 cup of the water called for on the back of the box with Drambuie.

I realized half way through baking that I had no confectioner's sugar anywhere in the house with which to make frosting. For me this is an amazing over site; it's not unusual to see several pounds of forgotten confectioner's sugar hiding in the back of my pantry. It's one of those things I forget I have at home when I'm at the grocery store and always buy more of. After thinking about making the sugar from scratch (in theory you can make it in a food processor with regular sugar) I settled on whipped cream as a topping and it worked better than any heavy butter or shortening based icing ever could.

I highly recommend trying these, there's nothing better than chocolate spiked with Drambuie and the fact that it's semi-homemade make for a quick batch.

Drambuie Spiked Cupcakes
1 box German Chocolate cake mix
1 Cup Water
1/2 Cup Vegetable Oil
1/3 Cup Drambuie
2 eggs (even though box calls for three)

Heat oven to 350°, line cupcake tin with papers. Beat cake mix, water, vegetable oil, Drambuie and eggs in a large bowl by hand or on medium speed for a couple minutes until almost smooth.

Fill cupcake papers 2/3 full and bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes.

Makes: 18 cupcakes

Vanilla Whipped Cream
3 Cups Heavy Whipping Cream
1/4 Cup Hot water
1 Package (7g) Unflavored Gelatin
Sugar and Torani Vanilla Syrup to taste (real vanilla can be substituted)

Sprinkle package of Gelatin over hot water and stir until dissolved, some of the gelatin may clump together on the sides of your bowl don't worry about it, you'll be adding this slowly by the spoon full and can avoid spooning up the clumps. When mixed completely move to fridge to chill for approximately 15 minutes, check often it should be about the consistency of uncooked egg whites when ready to use.

Beat Heavy whipping cream on high speed, slowly adding sugar a little at a time and scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally, when it's "almost" sweet enough add a few teaspoons of torani vanilla syrup and taste. Continue adding sugar and syrup in small amounts to taste.

As peaks form in whipped cream turn down the speed to low and slowly add Gelatin a spoonful at a time until incorporated.

Refrigerate whipped cream until ready to top cupcake.

Coming soon to a kitchen near you...

As a preview of whats to come I thought I'd give you this post. This weekend was supposed to be baguettes, I planned on doubling the recipe and making half into French bread rolls for dinner tonight and half into lovely baguettes to share here. Unfortunately my baguette forming skills are not what I'd hoped, and although the rolls are beautiful the baguette needs work, I'll be trying again so I can share the technique with you, but here's a pic of the rolls to tempt you.

So I was thinking.

So, as I was sitting here at my desk, late on a Monday night exhausted from work, stumbling my way through foodie blogs for the millionth time and wishing that I could do that too.

It's something I often wished but being an avid reader of blogs, and food blogs, and humor blogs, and friends blogs... I felt that I needed something to set me apart. Something that would give people a reason to read other than what they can get elsewhere, not just another blog full of recipes, or at least not quite.

And then the idea hit me, after months of wanting to begin: Dare To Bake.

What does that mean?
It means getting into the kitchen and baking something! It means I get to dare myself to bake something. It means that you get to dare me to bake something. It means that I will bake the best something-or-other that I can and then I'll share the results, or hopefully rarely the failures (soon to be followed up with a success.)

For example, a few months back I was reading Robin McKinley's Sunshine, a baker's book if I've ever read one, in which the self proclaimed Queen Of Cinnamon Rolls, bakes and has a bit of an adventure. Oh, she bakes lots and the story is actually pretty darn amazing and hard to put down I could go on an on about that but lets get back to the food part, kay? Although the book was great the first time round a few years back, for some reason I got it in my head to reread it again this year and that one phrase kept bouncing around in my head: Queen of Cinnamon Rolls, Queen of Cinnamon Rolls...

I became convinced that I had to become maybe a Princess of Cinnamon Rolls (Queen of Diabetic Kryptonite Brownies is enough, more on that later). And so I set out to bake the perfect Cinnamon Roll. So far I've made two batches, using the same basic recipe and modified slightly for the second time round, and the second time round they were almost almost perfect. I think if I'd put them in a bigger pan they might have made it. But without further adieu I present to you:

Queen's Cinnamon Rolls

This recipe makes enough to fill overflow a 9x9 inch square pan. They can be baked together in one pan or separate on a cookie sheet but I highly recommend using a pan, a key step in the process involves flipping the pan upside down for ten minutes after they come out of the oven, hard to do if they're individual.

Ingredients

Dough:
1/2 cup warm milk
1 egg
5 Tablespoons margarine, melted
2 1/4 cups AP flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons bread machine yeast

Filling:
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed (if you have the chance I highly recommend making your own, white sugar and molasses just mix until the right color use one cup sugar to one tablespoon molasses as a starter, tastiest brown sugar ever)
1 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
a good couple Tablespoons butter or margarine of spreadable consistency.

Frosting
1/4 cup cream cheese
1 Tablespoon butter or margarine
1 cup confectionery sugar
splash of vanilla (about 1/2 teaspoon)

1. If you have a bread machine stick all the stuff for the dough in there in the order recommended for your machine, select dough cycle and hit start.

If not, dissolve the yeast in the warm milk in a small bowl and sit aside. Mix flour sugar and salt in a large bowl and form a well in the center, pour in milk mixture melted margarine, and the egg and mix well. Turn out onto a flowered surface (or do what I do and just lay down a sheet of parchment paper, makes for easy cleanup) and kneed for about five minutes and form into a large ball. return to bowl, and cover with either a clean dish towel or a piece of plastic wrap with a few slits in it and let rise in a warm place about 1 hour, or until doubled in size.

2. In a small bowl combine brown sugar and cinnamon and set aside.

3. Turn dough back onto a flowered surface (again a sheet of parchment paper works just as well with less mess) and roll out into a rectangle about six inches high and as long as you can make it. I found that the easiest was to do it was to roll it out round then fold over all the sides to make it square then keep rolling in one direction to make it nice and long. In the end it ended up being about a quarter inch thick.

4. Plop the softened butter or margarine down on your rolled out dough and spread it all over the surface very thin (I honestly use my hands then wash them after, just how I learned to apply butter when I was a kid), then plop down the brown sugar mix and spread with the back of a spoon so that it's evenly distributed.

5. Here's the fun part, start rolling so that you have one thin long roll. If you end up with a very short very thick roll you're rolling the wrong way, and pinch the end of the dough together with the rest of the roll.

6. Some people say unflavored dental floss or really thick thread works best for cutting, me? I tried it and it didn't really work very well. I use a knife an cut each roll about 1 1/2 inch wide. If you want more rolls just cut thinner, depending on how thin you rolled the dough you may get anywhere from 9-12 rolls.

7. Place rolls in greased baking pan or sheet, (again I recommend a pan 9x9 or larger). Let sit out in baking pan covered for about another 45 minutes to an hour for a second rise, don't forget this, I did the first time round and while still delicious they were a million times better the second time.

8. Bake in oven preheated to 400° for 15 minutes or until golden on top.

9. Beat together icing ingredients, it should be thick, it will melt onto rolls when applied.

10. When baking is done remove from oven and carefully cover tightly with aluminum foil, no leaks! Then carefully turn pan completely over and let sit for about ten minutes, this will allow all that ooie-gooie filling to make its way back into the cinnamon rolls after melting out during baking.

11. Turn rolls back over and spread with icing.

12. Try really hard not to eat the whole pan in a day like we did.