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: cinnamon swirl bread

Cinnamon.  Bread.  Win.  Win.  I think I could eat this everyday.

Combine white sugar, brown sugar and cinnamon.  That's 4 tsp of cinnamon.  That's a lot of cinnamon.  mmmm.

Set aside 2 Tbls. of this mixture to sprinkle on top of the bread.

In a mixer bowl, combine flour, yeast, salt, and 1/4 cup of cinnamon sugar mixture.

Didn't get a picture of the milk mixture.  That's milk, melted butter and egg yolks.  You can just see it in this picture, being poured into the flour mixture.

The dough is kneaded until it comes together nicely.  Knead the ball on the counter until it forms a smooth round ball.  Place in a greased bowl.  Cover.  Let rise.

Risen.

Press the dough into a rectangle.  Spray lightly with water.  I thought this was a good tip.  I've always used melted butter and then put the cinnamon sugar on top.  The "test kitchen" said that to keep the cinnamon sugar glued to the dough, water is the secret.

Then sprinkle the cinnamon sugar over the water and dough.  Lightly spray with water again.

Roll-up and place in a greased loaf pan.

Let rise.  (I probably could have let it go longer, but I was getting anxious.

Brush lightly with melted butter, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, then spray lightly with water.  Bake.

Here it is just out of the oven.  Wish you could smell that cinnamon through the screen.  Heaven.

The recipe said to let it cool for 2 hours before serving.  We didn't wait that long.

Swirls.

Yum.

We toasted it the next morning for breakfast.  So good.  My cinnamon swirls separated a bit, which was supposed to be remedied by the water spritzing, but I think that was probably my fault.  Maybe I didn't roll it tight enough?

Give it try!

Cinnamon Swirl Bread

Makes one 9-inch loaf

1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/4 cups warm whole milk (110 degrees)
3 Tbls unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus extra for brushing
2 large egg yolks
3 1/2 - 4 cups all-purpose flour
1 envelope (2 1/4 tsp) instant or rapid-rise yeast
1 1/2 tsp salt

1.  Mix the sugars and cinnamon together in a small bowl.  Measure out 2 Tbls and reserve for the topping.  Whisk the milk, melted butter, and yolks together in a large liquid measuring cup.

2.  Combine 3 1/2 cups of the flour, yeast, salt, and 1/4 cup of the cinnamon sugar in a standing mixer fitted with the dough hook.  With the mixer on low speed, add the milk mixture and mix until the dough comes together, about 2 minutes.

3.  Increase the mixer speed to medium-low and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes.  If after 4 minutes more flour is needed, add the remaining 1/2 cup flour, 2 Tbls at a time, until the dough clears the sides of the bowl but sticks to the bottom.

4.  Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and knead by hand to form a smooth, round ball.  Place the dough in a large, lightly oiled bowl an cover with greased plastic wrap.  Let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

5.  Grease a 9 by 5-inch loaf pan.  Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and press into a 20 by 8-inch rectangle with the short side facing you.  Spray the dough lightly with water, then sprinkle evenly with the remaining cinnamon sugar, leaving a 1/2-inch border at the far edge.  Lightly spray the cinnamon sugar with water until it is damp but not wet.

6.  Loosen the dough from the counter using a bench scraper (or metal spatula), then roll the dough into a tight cylinder and pinch the seam closed.  Place the loaf seam side down in the prepared pan.  Mist the loaf with vegetable oil spray, cover loosely with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm place until nearly doubled in size and the dough barely springs back when poked with a knuckle, 45 to 75 minutes.

7.  Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 350 degrees.  Brush the loaf lightly with melted butter, sprinkle with the reserved cinnamon sugar, then spray lightly with water.  Bake until golden, 40 to 60 minutes, rotating the loaf halfway through baking.  Cool the loaf in the pan for 15 minutes, then flip out onto  a wire rack and let cool to room temperature, about 2 hours, before serving.

bake 52: New York-Style Crumb Cake

I think I've shared my feelings about cake here before.  So my slight skepticism is understandable.  But, lets take this piece by piece...

We start by making the crumb topping.  Here we've got some sugar, brown sugar cinnamon, salt, some melted butter, and some cake flour.

Here it is all mixed.  Now, it would have been a lot prettier, like the one in the book, had I used dark brown sugar.  Alas, I didn't have any, and didn't feel like making a run for the store just for that.  But, it still tasted super.  Set that aside.

Here's the cake:  Whisk the flour, sugar, soda and salt together.

6 Tbls. of softened butter.

Beat the butter into the flour, one piece at a time.  It was supposed to resemble moist crumbs.  I don't know.  But that's what I got.

Then we add eggs and vanilla.

Lastly the buttermilk is added.

Beat until smooth and fluffy.

The batter is put in a pan, previously lined with a tin foil sling.

The crumb topping goes on top.  The book had detailed instructions on how the crumbs were supposed to be rolled, so that they'd stay moist.  Mine didn't end up very round... but I'm thinking that maybe the over-all shape isn't so important?

Here's the cake right from the oven.  I was supposed to dust the top with powdered sugar.  I forgot to.

Looks nice.  I'm wishing I had the dark brown sugar in that crumb topping.  The pictures in the book just look so great!

It was good.  I REALLY liked the crumb topping, and may or may not have ended up taking very shallow bites of cake, resulting in high crumb to cake ratio.  Don't judge.

Check out the full recipe on Jenn's blog.  Great pick!

Bake 52: Tres Leches Cake

I have had this cake once in my life.  At a restaurant.  I actually wasn't that impressed with it.  Couldn't figure out what all the hipe was about.  So, I was a little unsure about this one.  Curious really.  Curious to see how this would turn out.  Curious to see what I'd think about this cake.

The cookbook explained that for the best flavor, the cake needed evaporated milk, cream and dulce de leche (a caramel made by boiling an unopened can of sweetened condensed milk for an hour.)  But to cut bake on time, you could microwave the sweetened condensed milk in the microwave until slightly darkened and thickened... about 15 minutes.

Slight mishap occurred here.  It explains the need for stirring occasionally.  Guess my occasionally wasn't occasional enough.  Even melted the plastic wrap.  Thankfully I had decided to half the recipe, so I had the other half of the sweetened condensed milk, just longingly waiting to be used for something.

Here's what it looked like as it cooked in the microwave.

 Stir it and then place it back in the microwave.  Keep doing this until it's slightly darkened and thickened.

I'm not sure if I allowed my "dulce de leche" to get too dark or what, but it was a little hard to get it to mix in with the other milks.  Eventually it did.  Set aside.

Dry ingredients... flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon.

Heat the milk, butter and vanilla, until butter is melted.

Here are the beaten eggs, with the sugar being added, slowly.  Then the continue to be whipped until they're thick and voluminous, 4-8 minutes.

Add the melted butter mixture, and then the flour mixture.

The batter goes into a greased and floured pan.  Bang the pan on the counter a few times to release some of those air bubbles.

Once the cake is cooked, poke holes all over the top with a skewer.

Pour the 3-milk mixture over the top of the cake.

Let it soak in the fridge for about 3 hours.

Then we frost with a slightly sweetened whip cream.  And... it was yummy.  It was fun to make.  I love moist cakes.  I really liked the soft flavor of the cinnamon.  Not too strong, but just right.

Check out Amanda's blog for the full recipe.