Cinnamon Heaven

It was cold - it's still cold - so I made cinnamon rolls from The Breakfast Book by Marion Cunningham. 

I cook from her books a lot. She re-wrote The Fanny Farmer Cookbook, she is an incredible teacher and writer, and if you don't have at least one of her books, get one. Now. Try any of the muffins in The Breakfast Book - persimmon. cinnamon butter puffs. orange. nutmeg. Are you hungry yet?

I shared. They went fast. They're smaller than the cinnamon bombs sold in bakeries everywhere, but they have just as much flavor in a smaller package. You bake them in muffin tins...

You have to start them the night before if you want to have them for breakfast. So forego that last cocktail and mix up a batch. Because it's still cold.

Glazed Cinnamon Rolls from The Breakfast Book by Marion Cunningham. Copyright Marion Cunningham

Makes two dozen reasonably sized cinnamon rolls

1/4 cup warm water

1 package dry yeast

1 teaspoon plus 1/4 cup sugar

4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 pound (two sticks) butter, chilled

3 egg yolks

1 cup milk

filling:

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, melted

6 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon (I use Saigon cinnamon and yes it makes a difference)

glaze:

1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

2 tablespoons butter, room temperature

1 tablespoon water (a trifle more may be needed to make a manageable glaze)

Put the warm water in a small bowl and sprinkle the yeast over. Add 1 teaspoon sugar, stir, and let dissolve for 5 minutes.

In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, 1/4 cup sugar, and salt with a fork to mix them well. Cut the butter into pieces the size of small grapes and add to the flour mixture. Using either your hands or a pastry blender, rub or cut the butter into the flour mixture until it is distributed and there are coarse little lumps of butter throughout. Stir in the yeast mixture, the egg yolks, and milk. Beat until blended. Cover with plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator at least 6 hours (this dough can be refrigerated for 12 to 14 hours).

Divide the dough in half. On a lightly floured board, roll out half the dough into a rectangle about 10 by 12 inches. Spread 2 tablespoons of the melted butter over the rectangle. Mix the remaining 6 tablespoons sugar and the 1 teaspoon sugar together in a small bowl. Sprinkle half the sugar mixture evenly over the rectangle. Starting with the wide side, roll up the rectangle like a jelly roll. Divide the roll into twelve pieces by first cutting the roll into 4 equal portions, then cutting each portion into 3. Put the rolls cut side down in a greased muffin tin. Repeat these steps with the other half of the dough. Cover loosely and let rise for 1 hour.

Bake in a preheated 400 degree f oven for 20 to 25 minutes. Remove the rolls and put them on a rack set over a piece of waxed paper.

To make the glaze, sift the confectioners' sugar into a small bowl, them beat in the butter and water until smooth. Spoon a little on the glaze over each roll while still hot.

Last Thoughts on Christmas

I'm not as bad (or good depending on your viewpoint) as my friend Sue who puts up eleven trees (!) but I did have three this year - a garden tree, a kitchen tree, and a traditional tree. And a garland hung with travel ornaments. But this year the kitchen tree was my favorite. As I was hanging the ornaments I thought "this would be better if the ornaments were related" and so:

Breakfast:

Milk, pancakes, toaster, and lots of caffeine.

Baked things and sweets:

cookies, cakes, ice cream. 

Junk food:

Hamburgers and hot dogs, french fries, pizza and pretzels.

Cheese and wine. 

And you have no doubt noticed cocktails sprinkled liberally all around the tree.

So my friend Cathy comes over and I show her (she also thinks this sort of thing is fun. If you don't, then why have you read so far? Go mess something up). 

Cathy takes a tour around my tree, gets a big smile, and says "It's just like your day!"

I so love my friends. Thank you to everyone who made this the Best Christmas Ever.

Space Aliens? Or truffling eggs?

Okay it looks like an alien - but it's a white truffle from The Pasta Shop in a glass jar...

...with eggs that are being truffled. They absorb the flavor thru their shells, and softly scrambled with plenty of butter they are divine.

A little rice in the bottom of the jar to absorb any stray moisture, a few eggs (gently!) laid in, then the truffle, then more eggs and seal the jar and put it in the fridge for a few days.

I scrambled a dozen eggs for the four of us...

Thank goodness there was plenty of brioche for toasting. 

A simple memorable dinner. With dear friends. What could be better?

Stollen Moments From David Lebovitz

A friend used to bring me a stollen every Christmas - she and her German mother baked them from an old (and secret)  family recipe. But the last couple of years as mom grows older, they have baked fewer stollen, and this year they aren't baking stollen at all. So I was thrilled to find this stollen recipe by David Lebovitz, an entertaining and educating blogger who also just happens to be an ex-Chez Panisse pastry chef. And an all-round nice guy. Plus he lives in Paris - I know, I know, not the home of the stollen. Unless they're kisses. But he's closer to stollen central than am I, and he is one amazingly creative i-can-make-that-only-better sort of chef and blogger.

(photo by David Lebovitz and please visit his website. He is fabulousness incarnate)

We've all lost family recipes - my grandmother was ashamed to be a Volga German (look it up) and didn't teach us any old family recipes, though I know there were lots. Being German there must have been a family stollen recipe - alas now lost.

My mom is from the era of Kilpatrick's bread and canned everything, and I am an Adele Davis baby (look that up too) because she knew that stuff in cans could not be good for us and fed us real organic healthy food before any of you know what that was. Lucky me.

Grab your grandma and demand some recipes. Get a voice activated recorder and capture those stories before they are gone. And have some stollen moments.

Hello Cupcake!

My friend Liberty and I made ghost cupcakes, from the book Hello Cupcake!

And I finally found the frosting tip video I was trying to show her. And yes, the keys on my computer are still a bit sticky. If I'd paid attention to the video they wouldn't be...

JoAnne makes the most gorgeous cupcakes -

She made these for Cathy's birthday and there's a whole berry-filled oreo on top. And marbled cupcakes once you get past the beautiful stuff. They were fabulous.

I'm going to ask if she knows the frosting tip...and then I'm gonna ask for a frosting lesson. Everyone who saw (and ate) these cupcakes wants a lesson.  JoAnne, if I bring lunch will you teach us?

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas - again

Last year we were a bit woodsy - birch logs and white hydrangeas, candles in the snow (okay, candles in the kosher salt, but try singing that) and lots of sparkly silver. Ron Morgan taught me that you need sparkly things and light colors, or the table just dies after dark. 

And we had reindeer! Lots and lots of sparkly reindeer.

But this year I was bored with birch. Several trips to the Flower Mart with different friends I came home with all kinds of weird and wonderful stuff. And thankfully it all came together...

...and it glowed at night thanks to all I've learned from Ron.

It even looked good with the buffet stocked - 

(about 80 people and yes I am still tired, but I had a great time at my own party).

So thank you to family and friends for making this the Best Party Ever. And thanks to Scot Meacham Wood for his party tips (listed on my older post). I would add a few:

1. Make lists. Lots and lots of lists. Lists of what needs to be done day by day. Revise them as you think of new things, get behind, get ahead. If they're neat you can actually read them.

Grocery lists - first list all the stuff you need for one dish, then the next. Then revise the grocery list so all the produce is together, and all the dairy...sounds obsessive but it will save you going back to the grocery store for the one think you just didn't see on the list. I made three trips before I got this one thru my head.

2. Get help. Serving, cleaning up. Be a guest at your own party. Better to be enjoying your guests than cleaning up after them.

3. Said this before, will say it again. Set the table 2 days before. Put post-it notes on all the platters with what's going there the day of the party. 

Do the flowers the day before. If you do they will fall into place. If you're fighting with the flowers when your guests arrive you will look like a deer in the headlights, they will be uncomfortable, you will be weeping...

4. Put food in multiple locations. Avoid the gazelles-around-the-watering-hole syndrome (thank you Scot). 

Have multiples of dip dishes and trays so the old one can be whisked away and the new one plopped into place. No washing up in the middle of the party, no scooping new food into messy dishes - it makes a huge difference.

5. And here's my lightbulb moment: get prep help. I don't usually have parties catered; I like to plan menus, to cook. But I was slicing my way through the eighth potato on the mandoline and chopping my way through the seventh bunch of green onions when it occurred to me: I can get help with this!

Happy Holly Daze. Try to remember to enjoy it - it will be over all too soon. 

Peppermint Patties

I am a huge fan of peppermint patties - the creamy white peppermint center, the thin dark chocolate coating on the disc...so when I saw a recipe for homemade peppermint patties I had to try it. The recipe promised they would be far superior to any you can buy.

It took a while to get around to it - I was out of Karo syrup, I don't keep Crisco on hand, and tempering chocolate isn't something I'd ever done, altho Flo Braker made it look easy when she did a demo.  But that was a lifetime ago, and Sees really makes good peppermint patties (milk chocolate for you Philistines, dark chocolate for us purists) and the rolling out with powdered sugar sounded like a mess (it was) and freezing the centers in my tiny freezer almost backed me off entirely. Almost. 

In between plays (Monday night football) I mixed and rolled, cut and froze, then melted and dipped. And the result?

They are a bit messy around the edges, but it's my first batch. I'll get better. There is chocolate all over the stove...

and I don't care. They are sooooooooooo much better than store bought! So for those of you up for a challenge, here is the recipe from Gourmet. Even if you've never made candy these are easy (messy, but easy) and will inspire you to try other Gourmet recipes...I hope.

 I so miss Gourmet magazine!

Peppermint Patties

Gourmet  | December 2007

yield: Makes about 4 dozen candies

ingredients

1. 2 1/2 cups confectioners sugar (less than 1 pound), divided
2. 1 1/2 tablespoons light corn syrup
3. 1 1/2 tablespoons water
4. 1/2 teaspoon pure peppermint extract
5. 1 tablespoon vegetable shortening (preferably trans-fat-free)
6. 10 ounces 70%-cacao bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

1. Equipment: a 1-inch round cookie cutter; a digital instant-read thermometer

Make filling:
Beat 2 1/4 cups confectioners sugar with corn syrup, water, peppermint extract, shortening, and a pinch of salt using an electric mixer (with paddle attachment if using a stand mixer) at medium speed until just combined. Knead on a work surface dusted with remaining 1/4 cup confectioners sugar until smooth. Roll out between sheets of parchment paper on a large baking sheet into a 7- to 8-inch round (less than 1/4 inch thick). Freeze until firm, about 15 minutes. Remove top sheet of paper and sprinkle round with confectioners sugar. Replace top sheet, then flip round over and repeat sprinkling on other side.

Cut out as many rounds as possible with cutter, transferring to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Freeze until firm, at least 10 minutes. Meanwhile, gather scraps, reroll, and freeze, then cut out more rounds, freezing them.

Temper chocolate and coat filling:
Melt three fourths of chocolate in a metal bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water. Remove bowl from pan and add remaining chocolate, stirring until smooth. Cool until thermometer inserted at least 1/2 inch into chocolate registers 80°F.

Return water in pan to a boil and remove from heat. Set bowl with cooled chocolate over pan and reheat, stirring, until thermometer registers 88 to 91°F. Remove bowl from pan.

Balance 1 peppermint round on a fork and submerge in melted chocolate, letting excess drip off and scraping back of fork against rim of bowl if necessary, then return patty to sheet (to make decorative ridges on patty, immediately set bottom of fork briefly on top of patty, then lift fork straight up). Coat remaining rounds, rewarming chocolate to 88 to 91°F as necessary. Let patties stand until chocolate is set, about 1 hour.