Cinnamon Bun Bundt Cake

I seem to be in a bit of a bundt pan mode lately.  When you do cake in a 9x13 pan it just doesn't seem very special but layer cake are sometimes more hassle than I want to go through, so a nice bundt shape wins as the compromise between the two over and under achieving extremes.

It's a good thing I didn't go through a whole lot of hassle on the cake I made for my week to bring Sunday School refreshments since we ended up being snowed in and unable to show up. Definitely not a problem we would've had in San Diego! My Sunday School cake wound up being deferred to Monday night where the Readin' and Ramblin' gals ate it up.

I think I envisioned a gooey-er result with this cake, based on the name. Something more akin to a bundt pan form of those Corner Cafe super decadent cinnamon rolls that have about twelve million calories per bite. The difference isn't a bad thing and, really, I guess it isn't so surprising that a cake would have the texture of and taste like, well...a cake!

If I make this cake again, I think I'd experiment with more of the "filling". My final result didn't have as great a ratio of filling to cake as I might have hoped. Maybe I'm just looking to have a reason to be all scientific about amending a recipe?? Ever since I attended a book signing by Deb Perelman (YES!!!!!) and heard her describe the way she goes through countless carefully documented revisions on any recipe she creates, I've imagined what it would be like to be that scientific in the ktichen. Her process of writing out every single thing she does in a recipe and then continuing to write up each change sounds incredibly grown-up and proficient and professional, not to mention way more tedious than I'm willing to put up with. Chances are I'll be sticking to doing a recipe as written and then accepting what comes out.

One last thing to love about bundt cakes is the way there always seems to be an overabundance of frosting. Who doesn't like a cake drenched in lots of icing???? More importantly, who doesn't like enough frosting that you have plenty to lick and eat by the spoonful as you're frosting your cake????

Cinnamon Bun Cake

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1  1/4 cups sugar
3 eggs
2  1/4 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 smal package instant vanilla pudding mix (4 serving size)
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla
1/3 cup chopped pecans

Swirl
2/3 cup chopped pecans
1 Tbs. Cinnamon
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 Tbs. flour

Cream Cheese Glaze
4 oz. cream chesse
2 cups confectioners sugar
2-3 Tbs. milk
1 tsp. vanilla

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350. Spray bundt pan with cooking spray and flour the inside. Spread the 1/3 cup pecans on the bottom of the pan and set aside. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, and pudding mix. Set aside
2. In a standup mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and mix well. Add the flour alternatively with the sour cream and milk mixed with the vanilla and ending wit the flour. Beat well for 2 minutes.
3. Mix the swirl ingredients together. Pour half the cake batter into the prepared bundt pan, take half the swirl mixture and with your hands drop small pieces all around the center of the batter, connecting the filling like a ring in the middle. Pour the remaining batter in and top with the rest of the swirl mixture, pressing it into the batter slightly again making a ring in the middle of the batter. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Let cool for 10-15 minutes. Then carefully place on a cooling rack to cool completely. The cake is so moist it can be made a day ahead of time, wrapped with foil.
4. When ready to serve, whip together the cream cheese glaze by creaming the cream cheese until softened, slowly add the confectioners sugar and vanilla. Add enough milk for desired consistency. Beat for 3-4 minutes on high to remove any lumps. Pour over cake and serve.

Buttermilk Biscuits

I come from a long line of West Virginia cooks who would probably laugh at the idea of me having to publish a recipe for buttermilk biscuits. These women could all turn out biscuits and gravy in their sleep. Almost every morning in Tucker County started with those delicious biscuits and gravy. In my minds eye, I can see my grandmother and her sisters standing over a glass bowl beating up flour and milk to produce some the lightest, flakiest, and downright best biscuits around. Just looking at these womens' more than ample size was testimony enough of their legendary cooking prowess.

While I could easily eat that kind of hearty staple every morning (noon and night), I don't; but that doesn't mean I don't love me a biscuit as much as any full blooded Bonner/Simmons/Beckett. This week I decided to make my own batch of biscuits. Even without the slathering of gravy on top, just biting into one of those buttery breads immediately evoked sweet memories of childhood and growing up as a West Virginia hillbilly.


INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup butter (1 stick) frozen
2  1/2 cups self-rising flour
1 cup chilled buttermilk
Parchment paper
2 Tablespoons butter, melted

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 475. Grate frozen butter using large holes of a box grater. (According to Emily, Deb Perelman doesn't endorse grating the butter, preferring to use a pastry cutter to break down the butter into pea sized balls. That's how I usually do it too, but I wanted to follow the recipe so I did the grating. It was a little tedious scraping that frozen bar across the grater so I'm not sure which method is better???)
2. Toss together the grated butter and flour in a medium bowl. Chill for 10 minutes.
3. Make a well in the center of the mixture. Add buttermilk and stir 15 times. Dough will be sticky. (My dough required a bit more buttermilk to go from the crumbly dry stage to sticky.)
4. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Lightly sprinkle four over the top of the dough.
5. Using a lightly floured rolling pin, roll the dough into a 3/4 inch thick rectangle (about 9x5 inches)
6. Fold dough in half so short ends meet. Repeat the rolling and folding process 4 more times.
7. Roll dough to a 1/2 inch thickness. Cut with a 2  1/2 inch floured round cutter, reshaping scraps and flouring as needed.
8. Place dough rounds on a parchment paper lined jelly-roll pan. Back at 475 for 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Brush with melted butter.

For Pillowy Dinner Rolls - Cut in 1/2 cup cold shortning instead of the cold butter. You'll get a soft biscuit that stays tender, even when cool. Plus, shortening as a neutral flavor that will complement anything on your dinner plate.

For Sweet Shortcakes - Add 2 Tablespoons sugar to the flour, and replace buttermilk with heavy cream. The sugar lends the biscuits a subtle sweetness, and the extra fat in heavy cream gives them a crumbly texture like shortbread. They're the perfect base for shortcake desserts.

Blueberry Breakfast Crepes

Not pretty but not bad, either

I think I may have unwittingly crossbred a crepe with a tortilla. At least that's what my latest batch of crepes looked like.

Even though I have an electric crepe maker, I decided to go no-tech this time and just use a regular pan, along with the new spreader I bought at Pryde's - possibly the most amazing kitchen store ever.  I envisioned deftly spinning that spreader to create perfect crepes, just like my Farmer's Market boyfriend in San Diego. Or maybe I'd do like the recipe said and just swirl the batter into an eggy orb of perfection? That's how it went in my imagination but, in reality, the very thin dough began tearing when I tried to turn it and, even before that stage, as the batter spread over the pan, it kind of rippled, creating mini folds. As I took each out of the pan to cool, they looked more like tortillas than crepes.

Naturally, I'm not thrilled with how my crepes came out but the taste was actually very good. Light, delicate and eggy, just as you'd want for a sweet crepe. My blueberries were out of season and pretty sour, even dredged in sugar. It would've been better to have some lemon curd but I was too lazy to make a batch so the easier substitute became a squeeze of lemon juice and powdered sugar. All in all, a pretty tasty crepilla/tortepe.



INGREDIENTS
3 eggs
1 cup milk
1 1⁄2 tablespoons butter, melted
3⁄4 cup flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1⁄4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter, approximately
1 1⁄2 cups fresh blueberries
granulated sugar
powdered sugar, sifted
lemon wedge
warm melted butter (optional)
DIRECTIONS
Beat eggs well.
Beat in milk and butter.
Sift flour, measure, and sift again with sugar and salt into egg mixture.
Beat until smooth.
Heat a shallow 8-inch frying pan and butter well.
Pour in about 3 tbsp batter then turn and tilt pan so batter covers entire surface.
Cook until golden brown on both sides.
Sweeten blueberries to taste with sugar.
Spoon 3 tbsp of sweetened blueberries in centre of crepe; fold in half and lift to a heated plate; keep warm.
Repeat, buttering pan before cooking each crepe.
Serve about two filled crepes to each person.
Pass powdered sugar and lemon wedges and melted butter, if desired.

Paula Deen Meat Loaf

Not only will there be no picture of this recipe, I'm also not including the recipe for this recipe! That's when you know something went very, very wrong. 

As much as meatloaf is about as basic as you can get for an evening meal, I think it can sometimes be tricky to get just the right texture and taste out of a hunk of doctored up beef shaped into a loaf. I've had some successes with different meatloaf recipes, as well as times of definite failure. Like last night. 

I'm often prone to blame myself as a cook but, in this case, I'm giving Cook Barbara a pass on execution, though she should've perhaps recognized some warning signs in the ingredient list. Let's take the "8 oz. canned diced tomatoes with juice" for instance. When my loaf came out of the oven, I cut into it and was horrified to find what looked like chunks of raw meat interspersed throughout the mixture. Closer inspection revealed that I was actually looking at some of the tomato chunks. OK...that's well and good, but who wants that visual of raw meat in the midst of their loaf?????? Not me, for sure. 

The tomato issue was pretty off-putting but I could've MAYBE got past that visual if this meatloaf had lived up to the hype Paula Deen touted about how her version of last night's dinner was the best in the world. Sadly, I found the taste of the loaf very bland. 

I served up an end, slightly more palatable piece to Martin, treated Funston to a nibble or two,  and threw out the rest. I even deleted it from my Paprika app, just so I don't somehow forget how bad this recipe is and someday go to make it again. If you want to try it out and do a better job than I did, have at it. But go find the recipe yourself because I'm not putting it here!

Chicken Enchilada Casserole

When I lived with the Dowdle family, I sometimes took meals with them. I remember Linda being a good cook, though I have few specific memories of foods she made. There was the Portuguese sweet bread she turned out for Christmas gifts, the gloppy oatmeal served every morning to the kids, and this casserole. Linda may not have been able to make tacos like my mom (who could????) but she did often whip this Mexicany casserole out for her family - and for me.

As I think back over that period of my life, it kind of amazes me that cooking wasn't part of my job while living with the Dowdles. Was Linda aware of my complete lack of interest? I babysat a lot for this family, cleaned their home, babysat more...but never got into the kitchen to learn cooking from an older, more experienced cook. While I missed the opportunity to figure out how to put a meal on the table, I did, at least, write down this recipe. And then didn't make it until tonight.

Surprisingly, Martin liked this dish, though he thought the tortilla texture was potatoes. For me, putting it together and then tasting what I'd created brought back long ago memories of the sweet family that opened their hearts and home to me.

Chicken Enchilada Casserole
Recipe Courtesy of Linda Dowdle circa 1970's

(Note: I halved all these ingredients and baked it in a 8X8 pan.)

Ingredients:
4 1/2 cups cubed cooked chicken
1 28 oz. can green enchilada sauce
1 - 1/4 cups sour cream (I'm not a sour cream lover so I went a bit sparse on this.)
9 corn tortillas, cut into pieces
4 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese
(This is one of those recipes where you could add a lot of extras - olives, green chilis, etc)


Directions:
In a greased 9x13 backing dish layer half of the chicken, enchilada sauce, sour cream, tortillas, and cheese. Repeat layers.

Cover and bake at 375 for 40 minutes. Uncover: bake 10 minutes longer or until bubbly. Let stand for 15 minutes before serving.