Cranberry Lemon Scones

Scones are a pastry I did not enjoy until I went to London. 

I would anticipate tea time every day just so we could venture out and find a Patisserie and enjoy some delicious freshly baked tea and scones. 

But I've never attempted to make them myself, and man what was I thinking: They are so easy!

So I had some fresh cranberries and lemon on hand and decided they would be the perfect fit for my first attempt at scones.

I used the methods from an article in the Atlantic: The Secret of the Irish Scone, as well as from the blog skinnytaste, to create a fluffy, golden brown, and healthy-for-you scone. 

Ingredients: 
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup buttermilk 
1/4 cup granulated sugar +3 tsp, divided
1 tbs baking powder
3 tbs extra virgin olive oil*
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 egg white**
2 tbs lemon juice + 1 tsp, divided (fresh or from a container) 
1 cup fresh cranberries, chopped

* I used 3 tbs but I could taste it  in the final product, and feel like maybe 2 will be enough--I'll try that next time and update) 
**If you don't have egg white or don't want to waste a yolk, use milk.

Directions:
Preheat oven to 500 degrees (yes, that high!), place rack in the middle
Line large baking pan with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, mix flours, salt, and baking powder, set aside. 
In a smaller bowl, mix buttermilk, sugar, whole egg, vanilla extract, 2 tbs lemon juice and olive oil 
Mix in chopped cranberries into the flour mixture
Slowly add in buttermilk mixture, blending flour mixture the whole time.

Dump dough onto a well floured surface (yes, it will be sticky) and with floured hands kneed dough 3-4 times. 
Place dough onto parchment lined baking sheet and press into 8 inc circle--should be easy now that dough is floured. 

Using dental floss slice dough into 8ths but gently pressing the taught string into the dough. 
Glaze the to of the dough with egg white, 1 tsp of lemon juice and 2 tsp of sugar. 

Place in oven turn oven down to 425 and bake for 15-18 min, until top is golden brown and tester comes out clean. 

Serve warm with Tea, Coffee and or course JAM!

Enjoy!!!!

Strawberry Cream Pastry Bake

 

Mhmmm mmm Hmmm!  

This was so delicious and very simple to put together. 

I found this recipe from this lovely website, and made some minor adjustments, but my oh my, it was wonderful! 

I made it as a breakfast treat and it was devoured in seconds by the family.

The key to this recipe is making homemade strawberry filling. 
The canned stuff makes it even easier to put together, but I was willing to sacrifice 15 min of my time to make this WAYYYYY healthier version myself.
No artificial flavoring, no high fructose corn syrup, no RED DYE 40! --which I'm extremely allergic too-- Just natural goodness. 

Roll it, and pat it, and cover it with cream cheese, then put in the oven and enjoy it like me!

Ingredients:
2 can of refrigerated crescent rolls
1 8oz  package of cream cheese, softened*
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
Homemade strawberry pie filling** --or any fruit flavor you want!

*To easily soften cream cheese complete unwrap from packaging, and place on plate. microwave for 8 sec. Flip cheese and microwave for another 8 sec. Should be pretty mushy but still holding its shape.
**You can find the recipe HERE for the strawberry pie filling

Directions: 

Roll out the crescent rolls and separate the triangles. Put aside 4 of the triangles.
Take the remaining triangles and align them  on a 10x15 pan so that the wide edges of the triangles are touching the edges of the pan and the thin part of the dough is laying to the center of the pan forming about a 3 inch circle. Flour  lightly and pinch seams together on all open parts (I tore some of the triangles apart to fill gaps).

Preheat oven to 350.

Beat softened cream cheese, powdered sugar, egg, and vanilla together. 
Top dough with cream cheese mixture leaving 1/2 inch uncovered on both edges. 
Spread Strawberry filling over the top of the cream cheese mixture. 
Take the remaining 4 dough triangles and cut them in thirds. 
Arrange them over the top of the strawberry mixture, pinch seams together. 

Bake for 25-30 min until dough is golden brown. 

Slice up and serve with some home brewed coffee.

ENJOY!!!!

Simple Coffee Cake

Simple & Sweet 

are the best two words to describe this breakfast treat. 

I love it with coffee...obviously

but my husband who despises the rich dark nectar--I know, I know don't get me started-- LOVES to eat it all by its self....well maybe with a glass of milk :) 

Any-who, he had been asking me to make it for quite sometime and so one fine evening I put it together and when he got home to the smell of cinnamon deliciousness, he was all smiles.

The recipe originally comes from his mother, but I had to make some little adjustments to make it healthy-foodielious. 


Ingredients:
 Cake
1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup white flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1-2 tsp cinnamon (my husband LOVES the stuff) 
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup milk of choice
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbs butter (you could use applesauce) 

Topping
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tbs white sugar
1 tsp vanilla

If you want a streusel topping check out my streusel cream cheese coffee cake!
Directions:

Non-stick a 7x11 pan, set aside
Preheat 350


Blend ingredients for topping together and set aside

Mix flours, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a small bowl.

Beat sugar and butter together until creamy.
Next, whip/whisk in egg, vanilla, and milk.

Add dry ingredients into wet and blend until smooth and well combined.

Pour half batter into pan. 
Sprinkle 1/4 of  Topping mixture on top. 
Pour rest of batter on top and spread out rest of the topping over batter. Gently pat down topping to help it set in the batter.

Bake for 30 min or until knife comes out clean. 

Enjoy with some steamy, rich, dark coffee of choice. 

Homemade Apple Fritters

These are not healthy, but they sure were a treat!

I am a HUGE advocate for allowing all foods into one's diet, even the bad stuff as long as it's in moderation. 

Fats are good for us, 

we just have to be careful how much and what kind.

So just relax, have a few fritters, and enjoy your day!

To be honest I was nervous when it came to the frying part. A sauce pan full of REALLY REALLY hot oil just seemed like an accident waiting to happen. BUT it was SUPER EASY. 

So get your breakfast on  in sweet way

Adapted from seeminglygreek.com
Ingredients:

Fritters
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 white flour (you can use 1 heaping cup all white flour)
1/3 sugar
1/8 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp vanilla
1 tbs butter, melted
1 egg
1/3 cup milk of choice
1-1/2 cup chopped apples-peanut size

oil for frying....about 3-4 inches in a 2 quart sauce pan (You can recycle the leftover oil afterward by placing it in an empty jar)

Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
1tbs milk + more if you want it thinner.

Directions:

Option 1) The Original
Mix flour, cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg in a small bowl. Whisk egg, vanilla, sugar, milk, and melted butter in another small bowl. Blend dry into wet. 
Gently fold in apples. 

Option 2) What I did...however it made them runny and i should have left out the milk but was able to fix the problem later..read on!

The night before, blend apple pieces, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a bowl and let sit overnight in the fridge. It will sweeten and juice up--the cause the runny part--but tastes DELICIOUS!
Blend the dry ingredients as above and then fold in the apple mix. Like I said you should probably leave out the milk, because the apple juice created was more than enough liquid. 

Heat 3-4 inches of canola oil in a small sauce pan on medium to medium-high heat

THE AWESOME FRY-READY TEST:
To test if oil is ready for frying, take a small drop of the fritter mixture and plop it in the oil if it bubbles and floats to the top the oil is ready! If it sinks its not hot enough, if it burns its too hot so reduce heat. 


Scoop out golf ball sized dough and plop them in the oil, I used an ice cream scoop and just plopped them in, this created some odd shapes sometimes but still worked. 
let them cook about 35-60 sec each side, or until the dough is nice and golden all around. (mine took awhile longer, I believe because of the wheat flour and the runnyness of the dough)

Remove from oil with tongs and dry on a paper towel to catch oil.
Once warm enough to handle submerge in glace and place on a plate to cool--glaze will harden. 

SUCCESS!

Now....if you run into the problem of having wonderfully outside cooked fritters but when you cut them open and you notice the inside is not fully cooked--my problem with the runny dough--, HAVE NO FEAR. Just turn your oven to 350 degrees and bake for 10-13 min. Even if you've glazed them-- I did--the glaze won't melt and you'll have crunchy, yummy, fully cooked fritters. 

ENJOY!!!!

No Yeast- Cinnamon Rolls

Funny story. 

It was my husband's birthday and I know his deep love for cinnamon rolls so I thought as a nice gesture I would wake up early and take the time to make them fresh on the day of his birthday.

Right after that thought things started rolling downhill.

First I realized homemade cinnamon rolls take a long time to bake from scratch and since I wake up at 5:30 am for work waking up at 3 didn't seem the best idea.

Second I noticed every recipe I found called for the use of a stand mixer. Now I love to cook and bake but I actually don't own one! Seriously. Don't get me started on why.

Alight, so things were not too dandy.....until I saw this awesome pre-add for Aldi's saying they were going to have a stand mixer for 29.99!!!!! (insert angles singing)
Okay, now this is nowhere near close to a Kitchen Aid but it was seriously an answer to my prayer. So the mixer went on sale the day before his birthday and it was purchased and set up and ready to be used.

The awesome continued as I was able to find a recipe that claimed 72 min homemade cinnamon rolls. This was a huge time saver and all it called for was triple yeast. No problem...

So I thought.

My husband's birthday rolls around, I wake up at 4:30 am (it was a sacrifice I did not mind making for my husband) start compiling all the ingredients (the blogger stated it was easier to have them all pre measured for times savings sake). However, by the time I reach into my cupboard for the yeast I was all too sure that we had plenty off since my husband just bought it, I only found one measly packet! Apparently it completely slipped my mind that my husband made bread and pizza crust recently which used a good amount of the yeast.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO THIS CANT BE HAPPENING!!!!!! " were my thoughts.

5 am rolls around... I feel like a failure....

until I remember pinning a No Yeast Recipe on pinterest months ago....BINGO!!!!!

(THANK YOU PINTEREST and Recipe Girl!!!!)

I scramble, find it, praise GOD and get started.

Now, having no yeast makes for a very sticky dough which was a pain in my tukus to roll and looked like rolled gloop when I put them in my pie pan. But, none the less I was determined, and with another prayer, I put them in the oven.

My resultt?

AMAZING MIRACLE CINNAMON ROLLS. 
Ready by 6:15 and eaten with love.

Happy End.
*P.S. I will be making the yeast ones soon. Keep posted.

Ingredients

Filling:
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Dough:
2 cups bread or all-purpose flour, + more for rolling
2 tablespoons granulated white sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup milk
1 large egg, beaten

Cream Cheese Frosting:
2 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature ( I used 8oz, we like it thick)
2/3 cup powdered sugar
3 tablespoons milk or buttermilk

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Spray a muffin tin with nonstick spray. ( I used a pie tin)
2. Prepare the filling: In a small bowl, combine the filling ingredients with a fork until a crumbly mixture is formed.
3. Prepare the dough: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Use clean hands (or a pastry blender) to work the butter into the dry ingredients. Add the milk and the egg and stir to combine.
4. Roll the dough out on a floured surface into roughly shaped large rectangle (about 1/4-inch thick). I had to use a LOT OF FLOUR TO ROLL THEM. but I think if you notice dough is too sticky just add more flour to make it workable.
Sprinkle the filling evenly over the surface of the dough, leaving a 1/2-inch border all the way around. Carefully roll up the rectangle (the dough will be soft, sticky).
 Use a sharp knife to cut 12 rolls for a muffin tin or 8 for a pie tin.
5. Bake 20 to 25 minutes. While the cinnamon rolls are baking, prepare the frosting: Combine the cream cheese, powdered sugar and milk/buttermilk in a medium bowl. Use an electric mixer to combine. Add a little more milk if you wish to have a thinner frosting. Spread the frosting on top of warm rolls or drizzle on top. Serve warm.

 ENJOY!!!!

Have a funny yeast or non yeast story/catastrophe you'd like to share?