Cinnamon can make anything better

It’s not that I haven’t been cooking, it’s more that I haven’t enjoyed cooking lately. Someone in the house has been sick, or work’s been crazy, or something’s been happening and I just have not been inspired.

So a couple of weekends, I was the sick one. Horrible cold – a chest cough, sore throat, sneezes, aches and pains. When Mom suggested chicken soup, it didn’t sound like it would be the magic cure it usually is. You know what sounded like the magical cure?

Cinnamon rolls!

I have issues with cinnamon rolls. They either seem to be too bread-y, so sweet, or don’t have enough cinnamon. There aren’t many cinnamon rolls I like that I haven’t made myself. So, in spite of feeling like I just wanted to roll myself up in a ball and moan, I got my butt in the kitchen and made some delisiousness that would make anyone feel better.

These were soft and full of cinnamon goodness. The bread was wonderful. My only disappointment was that flavor from the orange zest didn’t come through in the end. Next time, I’ll try adding in a couple tablespoons of orange juice and seeing if that kicks the flavor up some.

Now I’m going to be a bad blogger and just give you the ingredient list, but not the step-by-step instructions. If you’ve made a yeast dough before, this is just like that. If you haven’t, find almost any bread recipe and follow those steps. It’s really not that hard!

Cinnamon Rolls
Dough:
1 pkg yeast
1 1/4 c warmed buttermilk
1/2 c sugar
1 t salt
6 T butter, softened
2 eggs
1 T vanilla
4 1/2 – 5 c flour
1 T orange zest
Filling
1/2 c butter, softened
white sugar
brown sugar
cinnamon
nuts if you want ‘em. I used pecans cause Farmer Paul loves pecans in cinnamon rolls.

Again…bad food blogger that I am this morning, follow someone else’s directions for cinnamon rolls. They’re all assembled the same way. Be sure to butter your pans before you put the rolls in. Let them rise, bake until they’re done. I think mine took 35 – 40 minutes.

If you want icing, add it. Maybe make it with a little bit of orange juice for flavor. And eat them warm. It’ll cure what ails you.

The Color of Fall

Wow. Have you ever seen such a monochrome color photo before?

We harvested the pumpkins from the garden a couple of weeks ago. Farmer Paul and I spent a weekend roasting, cubing and canning some of them. I’d never canned pumpkin before, and information on the web had made me very nervous. There are warnings everywhere about not canning pumpkin puree. Apparently it’s a very high source of homemade botulism! But pumpkin cubes are alright to can. So we did.

It takes hours to can pumpkin. The pressure canner alone takes 90 minutes, not counting the heat-up or cool-down time. Really, after it was cooked, cubed and in the jars, it was still a full 3 hours before it was finished.

So last week I decided that I needed to know how if the whole process was worth it. But I wanted to make something out-of-the-ordinary to test it. I’d made a pumpkin custard a while ago, and it really was just a crustless pumpkin pie…good, but no Wow! to it. Pumpkin bread is always good, but nothing new & exciting there.

So I figured I’d try a pumpkin souffle. You know, there’s not a lot of pumpkin souffle recipes around. I finally found this one at Ben Bakes a Cake and decided to give it a shot.

It ended up being a very good choice. I’ve only made souffle once before, so I wasn’t entirely sure when to pull it out of the oven. If you’re nervous about making a souffle, this might be a good one to try, It’s apparently pretty forgiving…I pulled it out of the oven, put it back in, pulled it out and put it back in again before I decided that it looked close enough to what I figured “done” should look like. And it didn’t deflate at all.

I served it with whipped cream that had been sweetened with maple liqueur. Very yummy.

The souffle could be a little sweeter, but with enough maple whipped cream, you probably won’t care!

Ryan’s Birthday Wish

One thing that really has me puzzled is how my children can keep having birthdays and getting older while I really don’t think I’ve gotten older. The pages on the calendar keep turning and I guess I celebrate my birthday once a year like they do, but they seem to be growing older (and taller) much, much quicker than I do. I don’t feel like I could possibly be 11 years older than I was when my youngest child was born!

This week was Ryan’s 11th birthday so of course he got to choose his meal and his cake. His meal was homemade pizza which Nick and I have down to a science at this point. Nick makes the dough and sauce and gets all the toppings ready before I get home from work, and I spend the next 2 hours making pizza for everyone.

The cake, though, took a little bit more work. About 5 years ago, Austin “designed” his own cake (which you’ll have to wait until March to find out about), and that cake is known in our house as “Austin’s Chocolate Cake.” Ever since then, Ryan has wanted to have a “Ryan Cake” and has challenged me to make a cookie cake. Not a cookie that we put candles in, but a chocolate chip cookie and a chocolate cake merged deliciously together.

The first year I tried to incorporate cookies into the cake itself by dropping cookie dough into the cake batter and baking. That was just weird. The cookie dough pieces sunk to the bottom of the pan (of course) and it really didn’t look or taste very good. So last year I tried making a giant cookie and putting it between the layers. The problem with that was the cookie was too hard and I couldn’t cut through it. Not pretty.

So this year, I made a bigger cookie and cut out a circle the size of the cake, thereby avoiding the hard edges of the cookie. Then I cut it in wedges before putting it between the cake layers.

This time it worked! Beautifully! I don’t think I needed to pre-cut the cookie into wedges, I just need to make sure it’s not over cooked.

And I think the quest for Ryan’s cake is complete. It was interesting to have the cookie in the middle like that, but it really made for a very rich cake (so cut small pieces).

Happy Birthday, Ryan! Made for you with love, I present…
“Ryan’s Chocolate Cookie Cake”

Cake Memories

Jen was one of the three interviewers that interrogated me during my second interview for my job. The questions I remember her asking were along the lines of “Do you have a problem sharing an office? Can you focus with distractions going on?” And I walked away feeling good about the interview, and pretty sure that Jen would be my new office-mate. I was right.

Jen was a great office-mate. Her kids are younger than mine, but she’s as proud of them as I am of mine. And she has a wonderful sense of humor with just the right amount of sarcasm thrown in.

Several months ago, she brought her leftover birthday cake in for the office staff to finish off. It was a fluffy, very light pink concoction. And it was then that I heard her sorrowful missed cake opportunity story.

The story takes place back when Jen was young…kindergarten or first grade. Back in the days when hopscotch and jacks mattered and holding hands with a boy was a serious commitment. Her family was attending the annual school fair. Little Jen was running with delight from one game to the next, giggling with her school mates and trying with all her heart to win a “cool” prize in the beanbag throw.

And then she saw IT. The ultimate cake. The cake that would haunt her far into her adult life.

It was fluffy and pink and a little lopsided and…and…and perfect! She had to have it.

Little Jen tried with all her heart to win the cake walk. Round and round and round she went, eyes never leaving that cake. But, alas, it was not meant to be. Right before her eyes, the cake was chosen by someone else, and through a misty veil of tears (did I mention that we also share a love for Anne of Green Gables?), she saw her dream vanish.

Fast-forward to 2008. She’s now happily married with two wonderful boys and a fantastic office-mate. But the image of that cake has never left her. Her loving husband tries every year to find someone who can re-create the cake. But every year, there’s something just not quite right. This year, it’s not quite pink enough, and the icing isn’t swirly and fluffy enough.

As I listen to this story and her description of her cake, a memory starts to form in my mind. A memory of birthday cakes made by my Mom and covered with what we referred to as “marshmallow frosting.” It was my brother Eric’s favorite frosting and what he always requested on his birthday cakes. I resolved to test my theory for her next birthday.

But, alas, Jen is moving on to another job. There will not be an upcoming birthday cake opportunity. So I decided I had to move, and move fast if I wanted to test my frosting theory. I decided to make her farewell cake.

Since she never saw the inside of the cake, it was really open to interpretation. Her interpretation was a white cake with a “yummy” filling. But it had to be a really yummy filling. So between the layers of the cake, I filled it with some of my homemade 3 Berry Jam. After all, homemade jam is yummy. Right?

Then I made the frosting. It’s really very easy to make. It’s just a meringue with corn syrup added. And to make it pink, I added grenadine which added a wonderful flavor. The most difficult part of the whole procedure was transporting the cake. I don’t have one of those cake carrier things (probably should put it on my Christmas list), and the frosting is REALLY sticky. But with ingenuity and a combination of skewers and plastic wrap I managed to wrap it well enough for transport. And off to work we went, the cake and I.

I told Jen the cake was in the kitchen, and made sure she understood that I would not be offended to hear if it wasn’t right. After all, I was just making an attempt. But when she came back from seeing it in the kitchen, there was joy in her voice and a smile on her face. It was incredibly close to her memory. It wasn’t tall enough – one more layer would have done it, and there weren’t enough peaks in the frosting. But otherwise, Wow!

But the satisfaction is bittersweet. I’m thrilled that I got so close to that distant cake memory, but Jen, I’m going to miss you around the office. We made a great team. Good luck with your new job, and I’ll be sure to say hi when we bump into each other in the grocery store (or casino!)

Marshmallow Frosting
3 egg whites
pinch salt
1/4 c sugar
3/4 c corn syrup
flavoring (vanilla, grenadine, your choice)

Beat egg whites and salt until soft peaks form.
Add sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, continuing to beat until stiff peaks form.
With beaters still running, slowly add corn syrup and flavoring.

First, Take a Zucchini the Size of Manhattan…

This time of year you start dividing your friends into two groups. Those that have it and those that don’t. The “it”, of course, is zucchini. Cause if they’ve got zucchini, chances are you’ll get zucchini. So if you don’t want a bagful of random squashes (what is the plural of squash? squeesh?) you know who to avoid for the next couple of months.

If, however, you have a KILLER recipe for zucchini bread, then welcome your friends wholeheartedly into your home and drop hints like crazy and you may just get lucky!

In order to take out some of the more processed ingredients (mostly white flour), I made a couple of substitutions from the original recipe. But this is excellent, and as Austin and Ryan will testify to, it doesn’t taste AT ALL like zucchini.

Zucchini Bread
makes 2 9×5″ loaves

3 1/4 c whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbsp grated lemon zest
1 3/4 c sugar
3 c grated zucchini
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 c butter, melted
2 tsp vanilla
1 c chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts are excellent in this)

Preheat oven to 350. Grease 2 loaf pans.
Combine all ingredients in large bowl.
Divide batter between the loaf pans.
Bake 50-60 minutes until tester inserted in middle comes out clean.
Enjoy!