February » 2010 » simmiecakes

Cinnamon Buns

cinnamon_buns

Cinnamon buns. What can I say about cinnamon buns? They are awesome. When I was little I would take a cinnamon bun and start unraveling it, eating it from the outside in. My strategy was that I would start with the fluffy, bready part, and make my way into the gooey, sweet insides. Is there really any other way?

cinnamon_sugar

These cinnamon buns are finger-lickin good. They take a while to make (which you can clearly tell by the lighting quality of these pictures), but they are so worth it. I’m telling you, all this snow is teaching me some baking patience, and man is it paying off.

Cinnamon Buns

adapted from The Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion

Dough

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp yeast
3 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp nonfat dry milk
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 egg plus enough water to make 1 cup
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbsp soft unsalted butter

Filling

1/4 cup soft unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 Tbsp cinnamon

Icing

3 Tbsp heavy cream
1 cup powdered sugar

eggs

To make the dough, combine all of the ingredients, either by hand, or with a mixer until a smooth dough forms. Seriously, no special method with making the dough, I just dumped all the ingredients together until I got something nice. Take the dough and put it in a greased bowl, cover, and let rise for 1 to 1 1/2 hours until it doubles in size.

filling

flat

After the dough has risen, turn it out onto a lightly greased surface and roll out into a rectangle that measures approximately 11 x 20 inches. Spread a thin layer of butter on the dough and sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar mixture.

roll_slices

Roll the dough along the long edge into a log. Using a serrated knife, cut the log in half. Then cut each half in half (so you have 4 equal pieces), and then cut each piece into 3 pieces, so you end up with a total of 12 pieces.

pan

Place the buns into a lightly greased 9 x 13 inch pan.

risen_rolls

Cover the buns again, and let them rise for 45 minutes to an hour until they are puffy.

baked_rolls

Bake at 375º for 20-25 minutes until they are golden brown. Let them cool for 10 minutes or so before icing.

To make the icing, mix the heavy cream and powdered sugar together to make a glaze and spread over the buns. Makes 12 buns.

iced

I made…pants!

pants

My first sewing endeavor since the 7th grade when I made monkey whose head rotated around. It took me two hours and one movie about pants, but with a bit of roommate help I’ve got some cozy new pajama pants.

This past week of snow has been rather productive though. I’ve made pretzels, white bread, French bread, macaroons, chocolate chip cookies, apple pan dowdy, and cinnamon buns. I promise I’ll post them all soon.

It’s a good thing these pants have an elastic waistband.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

cookie_pile

I’ve always been at battle with chocolate chip cookies. Many a-recipe tried, many a-disappointment felt. They were always too cakey or too crispy or too dry. As a frequent baker, I have always felt a twinge of shame knowing the best chocolate chip cookies I make come from a package. Yes, that’s right. A MIX. Because sometimes mixes are dang good.

BUT. Yes, BUT. I’ve found my recipe. Actually, Melissa found my recipe a long time ago and I finally decided to get around to making it myself. So maybe it’s actually Melissa’s recipe. Let’s be fair, it’s the New York Times’ recipe. They know news and they know cookies. Who wouldda thunk?

These cookies are perfect. They are crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside. During this blizzard of ours, I want to wrap myself up in them. The ooey-gooey chocolate with a touch of salt (so elegant…even my salt-hating roommate likes it. I know, someone can hate salt??) brings these cookies to perfection.

dough_ball

They take a while to make. Perfection is found after a 24 hour waiting period, but it’s SO worth it. You can make them right away too, but the extra time makes a big difference.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

adapted from The New York Times

8.5 oz (2 cups minus 2 Tbsp) cake flour
8.5 oz (1 2/3 cups) bread flour
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp coarse salt
1 1/4 cups unsalted butter
10 oz (1 1/4 cups) light brown sugar
8 oz (1 cup plus 2 Tbsp) granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups chocolate chips
sea salt

I have a kitchen scale I use to weigh all of my ingredients. It’s definitely the more accurate way to go, but if you don’t have a scale, the volume measurements should work just fine.

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until fluffy. Then add each egg one at a time, making sure it is well mixed before adding the next. Then add in the vanilla.

batter

Sift the bread flour, cake flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda into a bowl. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the sugar and butter (and eggs and vanilla) mixture until just combined.

chocolate_chips

Mix in the chocolate chips by hand so they don’t break.

cookie_dough

Holy cow, this cookie dough is so good I kind of want to lick my monitor (is that weird? I don’t care, I’m sort of drooling right now thinking of this).

fridge

Now comes the hard part. Cover the dough with plastic wrap (so that it’s pressed down, touching the dough) and stick it in the refrigerator for at least 24 hours. I promise, it’s totally worth it.

tray

Preheat the oven to 350º.

After the dough has thoroughly chilled, scoop out golf ball sized balls out dough and place on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet with about an inch between each ball. Sprinkle lightly with coarsely ground sea salt.

Bake for 18 to 20 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies. I think I’ve already eaten at least 7.

IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD!!!!!!

snow

Snowverkill? Snowmaggedon? Snowpocalypse? In case you hadn’t heard, we’re getting a bit of snow around here.

We’ve been housebound for the better part of a week with a brief respite on Tuesday, but the winds continue to howl, the snow continues to fall, and the hysteria continues to be…hysterical.

No work means more time for baking. Oh, and baking I have done. We’re stuffed full of treats. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you posted…

Guitar Cake

guitar_cake

Sorry about the delay in posting. But now we’re currently buried under like a foot and half of snow and since there’s nowhere to go, might as well finally get off my lazy butt and write this up.

So. Guitar cake. It’s rockin’. For real. This cake plays music. In fact, it plays “Freebird”. Check it out.

I started by baking two 9×13 vanilla cakes. I found a profile of a Gibson Les Paul which I cut out to make a template for the body of the cake. Using that I traced out the right shape.

stencil

cut_out

I had to use some of judgment to get the entire shape correct. I sort of guesstimated on the shape of the head and the length of the neck.

cake_shape

After I cut out the shape, I went about adding the electrical components that make the cake play music. Just like the boxing gloves cake, I used a musical greeting card for the music.

card

I wired up the musical insert of the card to a switch. This time the switch was embedded in the cake though, so I had to make a little box for it to sit in. I used a straw as a conduit for the wiring.

switch_box

After I got all of the wiring hooked up, I put on a layer of vanilla buttercreme icing. Then I forgot to continue taking pictures through the rest of the decorating.

iced

I used red fondant to cover the body of the cake and black fondant for the neck. The accents were all done using fondant pieces and the gold parts were painted with an edible gold glaze. I spent a long time trying to figure out how to do the strings, but I ended up using this silver, elastic, thread from the craft store.

neck

The gigantic rocker switch is what makes the music play.

body

And that’s about it! Easy-peasy…

Cinnamon Buns

I made…pants!

IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD!!!!!!

Guitar Cake

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