Cherry Coffee Cake

There are some recipes that, while I’m in the process of making it, I realize I have no idea what it is supposed to look like and I start to think that I’m doing everything all wrong. This is one of those recipes. The batter was very thick and didn’t spread well at all, the batter to cherry goo ratio seemed too heavy on the cherry goo side, and it looked awful after it was assembled. Everything worked out nicely during the baking process, so I guess I can’t complain.

If you don’t like cherries, you can probably substitute the cherry pie filling for another flavor of pie filling without affecting the outcome. I don’t like almond flavoring, so I left that out and doubled the vanilla amount. Keep in mind that this recipe makes a large amount of coffee cake, so be sure you have people to share it with!

Cherry Coffee Cake (Printer-friendly PDF version)

1 1/2 C sugar

1 C butter, softened

1 1/2 t baking powder

1 t vanilla

1 t almond extract

1/4 t salt

4 eggs

3 C flour

1 can (21 oz) cherry pie filling

1 C powdered sugar

2 T milk (plus an optional dash of vanilla)

Place the sugar, butter, baking powder, vanilla, almond extract, salt, and eggs into the mixer. Mix until combined on a low speed. Scrape the sides of the bowl. Mix at a high speed for 3 minutes. The mixture will be fluffy.

Reduce the speed to low and slowly stir in the flour. Scrape the side of the bowl once or twice. The batter will be sticky and kind of thick.

Spread 2/3 of the batter on the bottom of a well greased jelly roll pan, 16 x 11 inch pan, or two 9x9 inch pans.

Dump the cherry pie filling on top of the dough and spread it out to the best of your ability. Cherry chunks don’t spread very well.

Drop spoonfuls of the remaining batter on top of the pie filling, spaced out somewhat evenly. Make a vain attempt to spread the batter. It will mix with the cherry goo and not want to spread very much.

Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 40-45 minutes, or until light brown.

Stir together the powdered sugar and milk with a fork. Drizzle this glaze over the coffee cake while it is still warm.

Serve warm or cool completely before serving.

Enjoy!

Italian Bread Fail

I think the title of this post explains it pretty well. There are so many possibilities for what went wrong here. I will say it is a combination of confusing directions and having to chill the dough overnight before baking because I ran out of time.

The bread turned out flat, very dense, and very chewy. I tried a piece. It was painful to eat.

I'll attempt this again next week. I even have half of the dough in the freezer! That means I can test and see if the rise time was too short before baking or the dough is just bad.

Danish Pastry

I actually decided to plan ahead for this recipe. So, instead of looking through the cook books minutes before baking, I looked through them the night before. I had no idea what Danish pastry was, but it sounded good. I was also hooked by the 500 degree Fahrenheit baking temperature! The recipe even informs me that 500 degrees F is "very hot" (thank you recipe, I had no idea!). I seem to be on a good run with recipes lately, because these are very tasty.

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Danish pastries in grocery store bakeries and such places. I keep thinking that they should have a blob of cream cheese in the middle. I won't be adding any to mine because cream cheese is like poison to me. Anyway, these pastries have a nice and light flavor. They are also a bit flakey. I could have made them flakier, but the amount of shortening involved in doing that wasn't appealing to me!

Danish Pastry (Printer-friendly PDF version)

1 C milk, scalded

1 packet dry active yeast

1/4 C warm water

1/3 C sugar

1 t salt

1/4 C shortening

2 eggs

1/4 t vanilla

1/2 t lemon extract (or 1/2 t fresh lemon juice with some lemon zest)

4 C sifted flour

1 C shortening

1 1/2 C powdered sugar

3 T water

1 t vanilla

Proof the yeast in the warm water. Set aside.

Place the sugar, salt, and shortening in a bowl. Add the hot scalded milk. Stir until the shortening is mostly melted. It didn't melt all the way for me, but that doesn't matter much. Let cool to lukewarm.

Once it has cooled enough, add the eggs and lightly beat. Stir in the yeast.

Add 3 cups of flour and stir until well combined.

Mix in enough of the remaining flour to make a soft ball. I had to use my hands for this mixing and I think I used a bit more than 4 C total of flour.

Cover the bowl with a non-fuzzy dish towel and let rise for an hour, or until doubled in size.

Roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Dot the dough with half of the 1 C of shortening, leaving the edges clean. (I used much less shortening!)

Fold the dotted dough in half, and press the edges to seal them. Dot the dough with the remaining shortening. (I used maybe a bit more than half a cup total.)

Fold the dough in half again and seal the edges. 

Repeat the roll out and folding process three more times, without adding any more shortening. The dough will become difficult to work with after the second repetition. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover, and let rest for 20 minutes.

Roll out the rested dough to 1/3 inch thickness. Cut into 1/2 inch strips.

Twist the strips and form them into circles. Scrunch the circles a bit so they aren't too big and open. Place the dough circles on a baking sheet. I greased mine, but that caused the bottoms to slightly burn. Try using parchment paper on the baking sheet instead.

Let the circles rise for 30 minutes.

Bake at 500 degrees Fahrenheit for 6-8 minutes or until golden brown.

Remove from oven. Let cool for a few minutes.

Meanwhile, mix together the powdered sugar, water, and vanilla. Drizzle this glaze over the slightly cooled pastries.

Enjoy!

White Bread - Final Version

I finally made white bread which I think is perfect. I took two of the previous white bread recipes, combined them, and slightly altered the result. This bread is soft and chewy. It isn't too sweet like the bread I posted last week. It tastes great warm and cool. I will have to make dinner rolls out of this recipe at some point!

The method for making this bread is exactly the same as the last recipe. You mix all the ingredients together, let it rise for a total time of nearly 3 hours, and bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Baking bread is actually very simple. And having fresh bread is a great thing!

White Bread (Printer-friendly PDF version)

1 packet dry active yeast

1/4 C warm water + 1/4 t sugar

1 C milk, scalded

1 C water, warm

2 T butter

1 t salt

2 T sugar

6 C sifted flour (perhaps a bit more)

Proof the yeast in the 1/4 C warm water (add the 1/4 t sugar to feed the yeast).

Scald the milk. Place the scalded milk into a large bowl with the warm water, sugar, salt, and butter.

Mix in two cups of the flour. Add the yeast and stir. Slowly mix in the remaining 4 cups of flour. Add the flour until the dough isn't very sticky. I added just a bit too much flour, but it turned out fine.

Knead the dough until smooth. My dough was too non-sticky to do the method I usually use, so I just kneaded normally.

Roll the smooth dough in a bit of flour and place in a floured bowl.

Cover with a towel. Place in the oven (oven OFF) with a pan of hot water. Let rise for an hour.

Punch down the dough. (The dough was sticking to the bowl a bit, but I didn't add oil or anything. The sticking won't ruin anything.)

Return the dough to the bowl (reflour the bowl!), and return it to the oven. You might want to refresh the hot water in the pan to create more steam.

Remove the dough from the bowl and cut into two pieces. Let rest for 10 minutes.

Form into a loaf shape and place in lightly greased bread pans. Cover and let rise until doubled (at least 30 minutes).

Uncover and brush the top of the dough with melted butter. Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes.

Let cool for at least 15 minutes before slicing.

Enjoy!

S'mores Cookie Bars

The internet has a lot of recipes and I have a small subset of these recipes bookmarked to make at some point in the future. For this post I wanted something simple to make that was also very unhealthy, so I looked through my bookmarked recipes. I rediscovered this one for S'mores cookie bars.

These are delicious. They're slightly too sweet for me, but that's okay. I will make these again at some point, but I'll use a good dark chocolate instead of the Hershey's milk chocolate. Dark chocolate just has a better flavor (in my opinion!).

This recipe comes from Une Gamine dans la Cuisine, which is one of the few food blogs I currently follow. She got this recipe from Baking Bites who got the recipe from...? I'm not sure. This recipe seems to be everywhere on the internet, so there is no saying where it originated. There are many slight variations as well. Here is mine.

S'mores Cookie Bars (Printer friendly PDF version)

1/2 C butter, unsalted, softened

1/4 C brown sugar, packed

1/2 C white sugar

1 egg

2 t vanilla

1 1/3 C flour

3/4 C graham cracker crumbs (or 7 full sheets, smashed to crumbs)

1 t baking powder

1/4 t salt

4 or 5 chocolate bars

1 1/2 C to 2 C marshmallow fluff

Stir together the flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. Note: If you don't have graham cracker crumbs, take the sheets of graham crackers and place them in a large sealable plastic bag. Wrap a dish towel around the bag and use a rolling pin to crush the graham crackers into crumbs. Be sure to occasionally shake up the bag to help crush the crackers evenly!

Cream together the sugars and butter until fluffy.

Beat in the egg and vanilla.

Slowly stir in the flour mixture and mix until combined. The dough will be kind of dry looking.

Press half of the dough into the bottom of a well greased 8x8 inch pan. I used a 9x9 inch pan and it worked out okay.

Layer the chocolate bars on top of the cookie dough. Leave 1/4 to 1/2 inch of dough around the edges.

Spread the chocolate bars with marshmallow fluff. To make the marshmallow easier to spread, heat up the jar in a bowl of hot water while preparing the recipe up to this point. Stir the fluff before spreading.

Using the rest of the cookie dough, make a layer on top of the marshmallow fluff. I did this by pressing the dough into flat pieces with my hands and placing it on top. Press the dough down along the edges of the pan to make a seal.

Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes or until the top starts to brown.

Let cool for 15 minutes before slicing. Or slice right away if you are impatient. It would most likely be delicious with some ice cream!

Enjoy!