Chewy Sticky Yummy

Posted by Kathryn @ 10:02 AM

The month of April has officially become comfort eating April. I felt like things just didn't want to go my way, except in the kitchen. So I have baked and baked and baked. One weekend I made my mom's sticky bun recipe. Actually the dough is a really nice all purpose sweet dough good for cinnamon rolls, nut rolls, sticky buns you name it. I like the texture because they are soft on the inside with a nice tang from the buttermilk, but the outer edges toast up nicely to add some crunch. This particular weekend though I wanted to caramel flavor. My husband cannot resist anything that has a caramel or butterscotch component. This is best made on a day when your kitchen is slightly warm to help aid in the rising times. No one wants to wait until noon for the buns to come out of the oven.

2 t yeast or about 1 packet
1/4 c warm water
5/8 c buttermilk
1 egg
3 c flour
1 t salt
1 t baking powder
1/4 c soft butter
1/4 c sugar

If you desire lightly sticky buns-
1 stick butter
1 c brown sugar
1T. water
additional raisins, nuts, brown sugar, and cinnamon optional

Dissolve yeast in warm water with 1 T. sugar, let sit for 10 minutes. Add buttermilk, egg, 1/2 flour, butter, rest of sugar, and baking powder. Mix well. Stir in remaining flour. Dough should be soft and slightly stick. Knead 5 minutes. Roll out dough. Spread with softened butter. Sprinkle on cinnamon, raisins, nuts, and brown sugar as desired. Roll up and cut into 12 rolls.

Meanwhile heat 1 stick butter and 1 cup brown sugar on stove with a tablespoon of water. Bring to a boil. Pour into 8x13 Pyrex baking pan. If you want extra caramel on your rolls, then just make a slightly larger batch of this mixture. Add rolls on top of sugar in rows.

Let rolls rise for an hour. Bake 25-30 minutes at 375. You may want to put another baking pan underneath to catch any spills. I cannot begin to tell you how burnt sugar can end up ruining this or another baking experience to come.

I like to add lots of raisins or dried fruit in the filling step. Just remember when you cut the dough into rolls, some of the raisins will poke out. Try to hide these back within the dough or you can end up with slightly burnt raisins... less than yummy.

Lazy Sunday Sweets

Posted by Kathryn @ 8:00 PM

When I was about 8 or 9, my neighbors in Dhahran, the Jesson's would sometimes bring over cherry coffeecake. I adored this coffeecake, basically because I loved anything that had cherry pie filling. At the same time I was enamored with plum sauce and sweet and sour sauce at Chinese restaurants. Clearly there was something about sweet red cornstarch thickened mixtures that tantalized me.

In a moment of nostaglia, I decided to make the aforementioned cherry coffeecake. With a couple of tweaks.

Cherry Coffee Cake
* 4 eggs
* 1 cup sugar
* 1 cup vegetable oil
* 1/2 tsp. almond extract
* 2 cups flour
* 1 tsp. baking powder
* 1/8 tsp. salt
* 1 tsp. cinnamon
* 1 (15 oz.-20oz) can cherry pie filling if you do not make your own buy Comstock's Light

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In large bowl, beat eggs with sugar, vegetable oil, and almond extract until well blended. Add flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon and mix just until batter is combined.

Grease a 9x13" baking pan with unsalted butter and dust with flour. Spread half of the batter in prepared pan. Spoon small dollops of the pie filling over the batter, then spoon remaining batter on top of pie filling (the batter won't cover all of the pie filling; that's okay!).

Bake at 350 degrees F for 35-45 minutes or until coffee cake is deep golden brown. Place on wire rack to cool while making frosting.

Powdered Sugar Frosting
* 1/4 cup butter (NOT margarine)
* 2 cups powdered sugar
* 2-3 Tbsp. milk
* 1/2 tsp. vanilla
* 3 tbsp. cream cheese
* 1/2 cup sliced almonds, toasted

In small saucepan over medium low heat, melt butter. Cook butter over low heat, watching carefully, for 4-7 minutes until butter just begins to brown. Remove pan from heat and stir in powdered sugar, 2 Tbsp. milk, and cream cheese along with vanilla; beat well. You may need to add more powdered sugar or milk to reach desired consistency. Drizzle frosting over warm cake and sprinkle with almonds.

These days pre-made cherry pie filling does not draw me in quite the same way, I prefer the fresher tastes of homemade pie fillings. I also find plain powdered sugar frostings, just too sweet. So I added the cream cheese to the frosting and a handful of dried cherries to the pie filling to give it a sour oomph. Next time I am going to make my cherry raspberry pie filling for this coffee cake instead to really update it, but it was the perfect dish to perk me up after a pretty crummy month. I would love any suggestions you cooks out there may have to update this dish even more!

Memories of Katz's

Posted by Kathryn @ 2:59 PM

As a Texan, I have been to Katz's Deli in Austin. It is most famous for the fact that it is open 24 hours. This is an important thing in a college town like Austin. I cannot claim Austin as my college town, but I can claim that I love the cheesecake milkshake at Katz's. So when the cheesecake fiasco occurred, I did what every resourceful cook would do... reuse the ingredients in a new way. Many thoughts passed through my head including a cheesecake sauce for fresh berries, but what stuck was the cheesecake shake. Now milkshakes don't have precise recipes, but the jist is this:

1 part cheesecake (no crust)
1 part vanilla icecream
1/2 part milk (add slowly)
splash of vanilla.

Blend the heck out of this ( If you make a lot, it can make your blender complain)

Serve in shake glasses with whipped cream and crushed graham cracker topping. Sorry no pics available... they were devoured in seconds.