Gorilla Bread

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Gorilla Bread

While hunting for a monkey bread recipe a while back, I came across a Gorilla Bread recipe. I was intrigued and have wanted to try out the recipe. Here goes...

I sort of invented this recipe from three different recipes. One recipe is basically the monkey bread recipe I link to above, with cream cheese and cinnamon sugar added to the middle of each dough ball. The second recipe is Paula Deen's Gorilla Bread. The third recipe is here and just sort of talked me through Paula's recipe, but with frozen Rhodes Rolls instead of the refrigerated rolls from a can that she has in her recipe.

Ingredients:
Rhodes Frozen Dinner Rolls
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
Cinnamon
Sugar
4 oz. cream cheese
pecans or walnuts (1/4- 1 1/2 cups depending on your preference)

Directions:
To begin with I thawed 12 Rhodes Frozen Dinner Rolls in a greased, 9X13 casserole dish covered with Saran Wrap on top of my dryer.

After they had risen, I flattened them out and filled each circle of dough with 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon sugar. I only used 4 oz. of cream cheese (and I used the kind with 1/3 the fat). Cut the cream cheese into 12 cubes and place a cube in the center of each dough circle. Bundle it back up. Paula used walnuts. I hate walnuts so I used pecans, which I neither love, nor hate so I only used 1/4 cup instead of 1 1/2 cups. And I chopped them. Sprinkle some in the bottom of your bundt pan. My bundt pan is silicone, so I didn't grease it. Place half your dough balls in the bundt pan. Sprinkle with some cinnamon sugar. Meanwhile you should have melted 1 cube of butter and 1 cup of brown sugar in a small saucepan. Pour half of this mixture on your first layer of rolls. Sprinkle with more pecans. Repeat with the second layer of dough balls, then cinnamon sugar, butter/brown sugar mixture, and pecans. Return to the top of your dryer, or other warm spot in your house and let rise again.

Preheat your oven to 350. Once the dough has risen, bake for 30 minutes. (I covered mine with foil for the first 25 minutes or so).

End result: Yum. The brown sugar mixture was a little bit to grainy in some parts (mainly what was stuck to the pan still that I scraped out and placed on my plate.) I like the cream cheese in the middle. It reminds me a little bit of this dessert Jed and I loved at the restaurant Rubio's in California called Zango or something. It was cheesecake, wrapped in a tortilla and deep fried with caramel and cinnamon sugar on top. Then they stopped making that dessert and our eating at Rubio's dropped off rapidly. As for the Gorilla Bread, I read some comments on the recipe from people that said they like it with the ready-made cheesecake filling in the center. That sounds delicious as well, but for another day...

*Sorry the pictures aren't in any chronological order. I'm too lazy to upload all those pictures, and Picasa's collages just randomly place and shuffle them. I did shuffle until I got the final product in the center, even though it almost cut PS's eyeballs out of another shot. :)

Zucchini Fritters

for Wendys (Bake and Blog Contest Winner)

In the summertime, when all of you backyard farmers have zucchini coming out of your ears, here's a recipe for you:

Zucchini Fritters *

Ingredients:
4 normal sized zucchini (grated)
1 tsp paprika
5-6 green onions (chopped finely)
1 cup flour
9 oz. feta cheese
small bunch of parsley (chopped)
3 eggs (beaten)
small bunch fresh mint (chopped)
1 TBSP dried mint
olive oil for cooking
limes

Directions:
Coarsely grate the zucchini. Lay on paper towels for 20 minutes to drain of excess water.
Place chopped green onions in a bowl and crumble feta. Stir in chopped parsley and mint along with dried mint and paprika. Add the flour and season well with salt and pepper. Slowly add beaten eggs and mix well. Stir in zucchini. The batter will be lumpy. Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil in a large frying pan (over medium flame). Drop batter by tablespoons full onto hot oil. Flatten the little cakes with the back of the spoon. Cook these little patties for about 2 minutes on each side until golden brown. Sprinkle cooked fritters with more chopped mint and spritz with lime juice. Eat them hot or cold. Eat them as your main, vegetarian dish with a nice salad on the side. Or eat them as a nice summer side dish to BBQ chicken or something of that sort.


*I saw Nigella Lawson make these several years ago on TV. I'm sure if you did a google search, you'd find much nicer looking fritters than mine.

Creme Brulee

For Bake and Blog Contest Winner: Mormon Scientist

Creme Brulee (original recipe from here)
I thirded the recipe and made 4 small creme brulees rather than 8 medium-ish ones.

The ingredients, simple enough.

1 1/3 cups heavy whipping cream
3 egg yolks
1/4 cups sugar
1/3 tsp vanilla
4-8 tsp brown sugar


I used Pampered Chef Prep Bowl Set bowls. You should use ramekins since every recipe I read called for ramekins.


Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Combine the cream, egg yolks and white sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir.
I started with a whisk, but when I poured it into the little dishes, a lot was clumped into the edge of the pan, so I would suggest a spatula that can handle high heat.



When it reaches 160 degrees (I used a candy thermometer that I got awhile ago at Walmart for under $5) or is thick enough to coat the back of a metal spoon, remove from heat and add vanilla.



Transfer to your bowls/ramekins. Ramekins are shallower than my bowls, so, I only filled these 8 oz. bowls about half full. Place the little bowls in a 9x13 casserole dish, then fill the casserole dish with 1 inch of boiling water. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until centers are set (mixture will still jiggle).


i
Remove from water bath and cool for 10 minutes before covering and refrigerating for at least 4 hours.



Remove from fridge. Sprinkle 1-2 tsp on top of each cup.



Place on pan in broiler for 2-4 minutes, just until brown sugar on top is carmelized.



Remove from broiler and cool slightly before returning to the fridge for 1-2 hours.
If you were to use a torch rather than a broiler, you could probably eat it at this point. But when the entire thing is heated, the cream part became runny.



Ta da!

Reactions:
The kids loved poking their spoon through the hard, sugar layer, but didn't care much for the creme brulee.

Jed and I have never actually had creme brulee before, it's not really our kind of dessert. So, we're probably not the best judges. It tasted yummy, but I don't know that I'm going to make this again, or order it at a restaurant in the future. Although, maybe I will order it at a restaurant so I can compare it to this one I made.


Fun fact:
Creme Brulee is a cousin to Flan, also known as Creme Caramel.

I got a Creme Brulee set for Christmas complete with Ramekins and a torch. As soon as I find a store that sells the butane for my torch, I'll give creme brulees another shot.

Hints:
A friend told me to make a regular instant vanilla pudding recipe, and add extra vanilla, vanilla bean seeds, or use scraped vanilla pods. Cover it with brown sugar and torch the sugar.


Recipes I looked at:
This recipe/site was helpful.
As was this one.