bake 52: cheddar cheese bread

A cheesy quick bread.  Mmmm.

 Parmesan, grated on the large side of the grater.  Cheddar cut into cubes.

Sprinkle half of parmesan on the bottom of a loaf pan.

Dry ingredients.  That red stuff is cayenne pepper.  Interesting.

Add milk, sour cream and melted butter.

Fold together until just combined.  Batter should be thick and heavy.

Put in pan and top with the rest of the parmesan.

Bake.  Allow to cool slightly in pan.

Doesn't that look yummy?  Love that melted, toasted cheese top.

Look at those cheese pockets.

Mmm.

I really loved that it was a quick bread, so no need to wait for it to rise.

For the full recipe, hop over to Betsy's blog.

bake 52: monkey bread

Monkey.  Bread.  For as much great information as this recipe book contains, even they don't know exactly why the title, "monkey bread".  But you know, who really cares?  A recipe this good, can be called anything.  It'd still get eaten.

Start with the basic sweet dough recipe.  I didn't take pictures of all the steps of the dough since it's all pretty much the same method, and similar ingredients to the other dough recipes, here and here.

So, make the dough, and let it rise once.

Combine the brown sugar and cinnamon.

Cut the dough into 36 pieces.

Melt the butter.

After rolling each piece of dough into a ball, dip into the butter, and then roll in the cinnamon and sugar.  Covering completely.

Place in a greased bundt pan.

Continue staggering the balls in the pan.  Pour any remaining butter and cinnamon/sugar mixture over top of rolls.  Allow to rise again.  Bake.

After baking, let cool for 5 minutes in the pan.

Turn upside down on plate, and allow to cool another 5 minutes.

Make the glaze.  (Milk, powdered sugar, and vanilla).

 Drizzle over monkey bread.

Serve.  Try not to eat the whole thing.  Good luck with that.

I can see us making this over and over.

Check out Jenn Z.'s blog for the full recipe.

bake 52: cinnamon rolls

Cinnamon.  Sugar.  Butter.  Cream cheese.  Enough said.

I'm STILL on vacation.  These rolls were really yummy.  I ended up doing the dough and forming the rolls, and then sticking them in the fridge overnight and baking them in the morning.  They were great.  I'm thinking it would be such an easy breakfast for Saturday or Sunday mornings (if you have church a little later).  I actually appreciated that it only made 12 rolls.  And just the right amount of frosting.  Nice.

Next week should be my last vacation post.

Check out Valerie's blog for the full recipe.

Bake 52: fresh fruit tart

This week was a fresh fruit tart. I'm out of town x2... Went to Utah to visit family, and then went on a work trip with husband. (right now we're in Ohio, yesterday we were in New York... hence the day late on the post. )

 The tart was super yummy. The pastry cream was my favorite. Mmm. The crust was like a cookie, so it kind-a reminded me of a large fruit pizza, only with pastry cream instead of the cream cheese spread. You should really try this one.

Visit Amanda's blog for the full recipe.

bake 52: black and white cookies

In one of the description of this cookie it explained that it was "cake-like".  I was interested to see what they'd be like.  I'm not a huge fan of "cake-like" stuff... unless it's really moist.  But, it's a cookie.  With chocolate and vanilla icing.

Beautiful.

Dry ingredients:  cake flour, baking powder and salt.  Whisked together and set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar.

Add the eggs, vanilla, and lemon extract.

Add the flour alternately with the milk.  Starting and ending with flour.

Here's the batter all mixed.  It really was more like a batter than a dough.  I was worried that maybe I had skipped something.  I was halving the recipe, so I was wondering if I had halved some but not others.

The dough is placed on a cookie sheet in 1/4 cup portions.

I did 6 to a tray.

The book said to smooth the tops of the cookies with the back of a spoon, or with wet fingertips.  So here's my "smoothing".  I was really starting to worry, and wonder how these would end up.

Out of the oven.

I felt like they looked okay, similar to the ones in the book, so some of my uneasiness started to diminish.

Powdered sugar, corn syrup, water, vanilla.

Split the glaze in half.  Leave half plain - vanilla.

The other half, add to the melted, unsweetened chocolate.

Frost half of each cookie with the chocolate icing, and allow to set up.

Then ice the other half with the vanilla icing.

I wasn't sure how runny or think the icings were supposed so be.  I'm thinking my chocolate was a little thick and maybe my vanilla was a little thin?  So we just scraped off the vanilla icing drips before serving.  No one had to know.  Well, except you, cause you've seen the pictures.

The sure were pretty cookies.  LOVE the brown and white.

The kids liked them okay.  They were a little too cakey for me, but I do really love the looks of them.  This technique would be fun to try on another cookie.

This was a fun pick.  Check out Janet's blog for the full recipe.

bake 52: southern-style skillet cornbread

This was such a fun recipe.  Cornbread in a skillet.  So authentic.

Start off by heating oil in a skillet.  10-inch.  (This is a 12-inch.  It's what I had.)

Meanwhile, toast the cornmeal on a rimmed baking sheet.  The book said that toasting the cornmeal "deepens the flavor dramatically."  And who doesn't like dramatic deepening of flavor?

Remove the skillet from the oven, and add the butter.

Combine the cornmeal, buttermilk, all but 1 Tbls. of the oil/butter mixture, baking powder, baking soda, salt and eggs.

Baking soda, baking powder and salt.

Two eggs.

There's the 1 Tbls. of oil/butter mixture that was reserved and poured back into the skillet before adding the cornmeal mixture.

Quickly pour the batter into the hot skillet, and get it in the oven.

The crispy crust started to form immediately after being poured into the skillet.

What's cornbread without honey butter?

Here it is out of the oven.

Look at that crispy edge!

When I dumped it out, that's what stuck in the pan.  I'm sure it's the first bit that hit the pan.

Yep.  There's the spot.

Check out that crust.

Skillet cornbread, with a smathering of honey butter.

My kids said it looked like a piece of pie, or cake.

I liked this cornbread, but, being from Utah, I'm used to a little more sweet, and slightly more cakey texture.  I'm guessing this is probably more authentic.  Of course I LOVED baking it in the skillet.  Hey, wouldn't it be so cute to serve in small individual sized skillets?  Have to keep an eye out for something like that.

Great pick Jen!  Hop over here for the complete recipe.