Cinnamon Chip Bread

I love the Cinnamon Chip Bread at Great Harvest Bread Company.  A few years ago, someone made this cinnamon raisin bread for a cooking class at church and I thought it was pretty close to Cinnamon Chip Bread.  I held on the the recipe, and finally, several years later (and after discovering cinnamon chips at a local fancy grocery store) I'm trying out the recipe.  The original recipe calls for raisins (I omitted them).  And I added cinnamon chips to the recipe.  Sorry I can't credit it... I'm sure it's from somewhere but all I have is a typed up handout from the class.

 

Cinnamon Chip Bread
1 package dry yeast (not rapid rise)
3 oz. water
1 1/2 TBSP shortening
1 1/3 cups warm water
4-5 cups flour
1/8 cup sugar
1/2 cup raisins (optional)
1/2 TBSP salt

1 TBSP water
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/3 cup cinnamon chips

Dissolve yeast in 3 oz. warm water.  In a mixer, mix all ingredients together with half of the flour. Add raisins (if you are including raisins).  Add remaining flour and knead on a floured board until smooth and elastic, about ten minutes.  (I just put my mixer on the knead setting for about 10 minutes.)  Cover and let rise until double.  Roll out a rectangle (18x9).  Sprinkle with 1 TBSP water, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon and 1/3 cup cinnamon chips.  Roll up as a jelly roll and fold ends under.  Place in greased bread pan.  Let rise again.  Bake at 425 for 30-35 minutes.  Remove from pans and rub top with butter and dust with cinnamon/sugar.  Cool.  1 Loaf.

Easily doubled, I actually cut the recipe in half for me (and you) because I can't fit 9-10 cups of flour in my mixer.

Review: This is good cinnamon bread.  My rectangle didn't measure 18x9 because I skimmed that part and just read "rectangle."  Mine was probably 18x16 and that made it so I literally folded each end under so they met in the middle and doubled the height of my bread.  Then, because of that, it rose strange so I think the cinnamon would be more evenly distributed (and making a more lovely cinnamon swirl when the bread is cut into) if I'd had a smaller rectangle.  And I think next time I'll add more cinnamon chips.   Is it just like Great Harvest's?  No.  I haven't had Great Harvest Cinnamon Chip Bread in a few years, but it seems much more moist and cinnamon sugary.   But it's still yummy!

Apple Recipe Round-up

So far, I've made:
2 quarts of apple sauce (recipe)
6 cups of apple butter (recipe)
1 apple pie (and one frozen apple pie filling) (recipe plus my
     favorite apple picture books)
1 batch of apple bundles (recipe)
Apple Chicken Curry (recipe)

Still to make:
Apple Dumplings (recipe)
Apple Bread/Muffins (recipe)  - yummy, but not as good as a remembered it
Apple and Onion Stuffin' with pork chops (recipe) - 
     yummy, although I like the stuffing recipe further down the list better.
Apple Pie Pastries (recipe)
Apple-Stuffed French Toast (recipe)
Mini Caramel Apples (recipe)
Apple Fritters (recipe)
My sister-in-law's Thanksgiving Stuffing (sort of, but not quite,
      like this recipe)  -yummy, even my husband, who HATES stuffing, liked it.
Apple Strudel Muffins (recipe) - can't find cinnamon chips anywhere!
Sour Cream Apple Bars (recipe)-  
     YUMMY!  I would use all the apples I have remaining (about a peck) to make these over and over again if it didn't mean getting extremely fat and not trying any other recipes.
Apple Fritters (recipe) - Yummy!

Apple recipes I love, but probably won't get around to this time:
Glazed Apple Pie Squares (recipe)
Carver Salad (recipe)
Taffy Apple Pizza (recipe)
Apple Dip (recipe)*
Candy Bar Apple Salad (recipe)

Apples recipes I plan to try, just maybe not this time:
Caramel Apple Crisp (recipe)
Apple Crisp (recipe)
Peabody's Apple Turnovers (recipe)
A list of Martha Stewart Apple recipes that caught my eye (here)
Upside Down Apple Tart (recipe)
Candied Apple Pie Cheesecake (recipe)
Apple Turnovers  (recipe)
Bavarian Apple Tort (a friend's recipe, but close to recipe
      minus the raspberry jam and switch out almonds for walnuts)
Caramel Apple Sticky Buns (recipe)
Apple Dumplings (recipe)
Apple Fritter (recipe)


*The recipe I use is my friend Kristi's, but it's very similar to the one I link to.  The main difference is it makes a smaller batch and uses white sugar in addition to brown.  I should also note, this freezes well.  I actually have a little tub in my freezer I should pull out to dip all our apples in.

Kolaches

A homeschooling friend had a cultural gathering last week and we were supposed to bring a food from a country our ancestors came from along with some information about that country.  I decided on Kolaches which are sweet roll with a jelly top/filling. 

I've only made Kolaches one other time and I made two varieties - the one linked to above, and this Ice Cream Kolache.  I made them when I was in charge of book club in Kansas and we were reading Willa Cather's My Antonia, which is about a Bohemian girl.  They are part of our family's heritage because Jed's paternal grandmother was the first child in her family born in the United States after her family immigrated from Bohemia (now the Czech Republic). 

All of this needless background so I can show you the two ways this batch turned out. 

Perfect Batch

Crazy Batch

Orange Rolls

Orange Rolls

This is Buddy glazing Orange Rolls in April 2007 as our Easter breakfast.

Ingredients:

1 square butter
1 cup milk (scalded)
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 pkg. dry yeast
1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 cup warm water
3 eggs (beaten)
5 cups flour

Directions:

Mix together butter, milk, salt and sugar. Cool.

Separately, mix together yeast, sugar and warm water.

Let stand.

Add yeast mixture and eggs to first mixture. Then add flour gradually and beat well. (Mixture will be slightly sticky).

Let rise until almost doubled in bulk. Punch down and separate into two equal portions. Using a bread board that is heavily floured roll out one portion at a time to about a 12x18 rectangle.

Orange Filling : Mix together ½ cup butter (melted), ½ cup sugar, grated rind of one orange.

Spread on the orange filling with a knife and beginning at the long side roll up, as for a cinnamon roll. Slice off with dental floss/thread in about 1 inch pieces and place in well greased muffin tins. Let rise until light. Bake 375 for 10 to 12 minutes, or until lightly browned.
Ice with powdered sugar mixed with orange juice to separate consistency.

Makes 2 dozen.
*My recipe says, "easily doubled," except for the 10 cups of flour... yikes. My mixer can't handle that. Darn.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

Today was the Grandparents' Day Fall Party at my daughter's school and I signed up to bring baked goods. I've made this recipe once or twice before and it's a yummy, fall treat. I'm giving you my amended recipe, where the batter is 1 1/2 times the original recipe. Even following this today, I was too generous with the batter on the first dozen muffins and found myself scraping the bowl for every last tidbit of batter to finish off the second dozen decently.

Pumpkin and Cream Cheese Muffins

adjusted from a Country Living (Sept. 2004) recipe

Ingredients:

8 oz. cream cheese (softened)

4 eggs

3 ½ cups sugar

3 ½ cups flour

¼ cup pecans (roughly chopped)

3 TBSP butter (melted)

3 tsp. cinnamon

¼ tsp. salt

2 ¼ tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. baking soda

1 15 oz. can pure pumpkin

1/3 + 1/6 cup vegetable oil

¾ tsp. vanilla

Directions:

Heat oven to 375. Lightly coat 2 – 12 cup muffin tins with oil (or line with muffin liners). Mix the cream cheese, 1 egg, and 3 TBSP. sugar in a small bowl; set aside. Toss 5 TBSP. sugar, ½ cup flour, pecans, butter and ½ tsp. cinnamon together in a medium bowl; set aside. Combine the remaining 3 cups sugar, 3 cups flour, 3 tsp. cinnamon, salt, baking soda and baking powder in a large bowl. Lightly beat 3 eggs, pumpkin, oil and vanilla together in a medium bowl. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture, pour the pumpkin mixture in and mix with a fork until moistened. Evenly divide batter in half. Fill muffin cups with about 2 TBSP. batter. Place about 2 tsp. of cream cheese fillling in center of each cup and fill with remaining batter. Sprinkle some of pecan mixture on top and bake until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean; about 20-25 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

Makes 2 dozen muffins.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Muffins

Okay, so I finally got around to making these muffins I've been wanting to try. I went in with high hopes, got skeptical in the middle, and was greatly pleased with the final product. These are delicious, but make sure you have a tall glass of milk nearby.

Oh, and the smell. I wish I could capture the smell of my kitchen right now and post it for you. It smells so yummy and peanut buttery. Mmm.

Recipe and better pictures here.

Here are my notes on the recipe:

I used less salt - it calls for 1/2 a teaspoon of salt. I never put in as much salt as a recipe calls for. I used a little less than 1/2 a teaspoon of salt.

Vanilla yogurt - I didn't have a cup of sour cream. I had approximately 3/4 cup sour cream. And a sleeping baby. And I'd already been to the store today. And the batter was mixed and the oven was preheated. So, I also didn't have plain yogurt, which is a good sour cream substitute, instead I used about 1/4 cup vanilla yogurt. It seems to have worked out okay.

I set the timer for 15 minutes and started checking them then until the full 20 minutes just to be safe.

The batter is really thick... like a gooey cookie dough more than a batter. So it didn't rise much for me in the muffin tins. Luckily I took all of that into account and filled my muffin cups almost all the way full so the little bit they did rise finished it off to perfection.

Princess Sparkley's review: These are really good. I wish they were cupcakes.

Rhodes Rolls Cinnamon Knots

I wanted to make heart shaped muffins or something for Valentine's Day breakfast (which turned into a Valentine's Day afternoon snack). Then I decided to make heart shaped cinnamon rolls and found this easy recipe here.

First I sprayed a 9X13 pan with Pam, placed a dozen frozen Rhodes Rolls in and covered it with Saran Wrap. Then I placed the pan on top of my dryer while I washed and dried clothes all morning. This worked great when it's too cold anywhere else to get dough to rise.


After the dough was roll-sized, Princess Sparkley helped me roll each ball into a snake.


Then I tied them in a knot, dipped them in butter and sprinkled them with cinnamon-sugar.


I placed each roll in a heart shaped silicone muffin wrapper. You could use a regular muffin tin. You could also probably just put them back in the 9x13 pan.


Then they went back on top of the dryer to rise again.


Once I was happy with how big they were, I baked them for 15-20 minutes at 350.


And iced them with 1 cup powdered sugar, 1 TBSP butter, 2-3 TBSP milk and 1 tsp vanilla. Yum.

Apple Muffins

I came across some yummy bread recipes in Family Fun magazine and turned this Double Apple Walnut Bread recipe into Double Apple Muffins (without the walnuts because I personally hate walnuts).

I baked them in standard muffin liners for about 18-20 minutes and checked them with a toothpick. Yum. They were a big hit at our homeschool picnic (and with the wasps).

My Mom's Cinnamon Rolls

minus icing

My Mom's Potato* Cinnamon Rolls

Ingredients and Directions:

2 TBSP yeast dissolved in 1 cup warm water

Add 2 TBSP sugar. Dissolve yeast and sugar in water.

Add to the yeast mixture – 1 medium cooked potato (peeled and mashed), 2 eggs, 2 cups milk (scalded**), 1 ½ cups sugar, 3 ½ tsp salt, 4 tsp baking powder and 5 cups flour.

Mix together with mixer.

Then add: 1 ½ cubes butter (melted) and the rest of the flour (about 5 more cups, or more if needed).

Knead 10 minutes. Raise twice. After second raising, divide dough in half – do not punch down the 2^nd time. Let rest 10 minutes.

Roll into rectangle – spread with butter (about half a cube per rectangle off dough), brown sugar (about 1/2 - 3/4 cup per rectangle), cinnamon (about 2 tsp per rectangle) and raisins (1 cup which have been plumped*** – optional).

Roll and cut with thread or string or, as my mom and I do it, dental floss.

Bake in greased 9x13 casserole dish at 375 for 20 minutes.

Simple Glaze:

2 cups powdered sugar

½ tsp vanilla

3 TBSP water (or milk)

*I've always liked telling people that this recipe has a secret ingredient they'll never guess. I've come across potato roll recipes before, and seen potato bread in the store, but it seems like an ingredient in old fashioned bread recipes, and this is the only one I ever make.

**Almost every time I've made these, I've had to call my mom and ask her what scalded means.
Basically about boiling, when the milk starts to stick to the sides of the pan and the spoon.

***Soaked in hot water. I've never done this... I prefer my cinnamon rolls raisin free.