However, we are also running a stomach flu through our household - today it is my youngest daughter Allison who is sick. So, we also have plenty of laundry.
To be clear, when I stated we were lazy (which I thoroughly meant) my husband and I have been baking most of the day. AND, the best part is that our hand mixer broke (I haven't been blessed with a stand mixer yet) and we mixed everything by hand. Elbow grease is a good thing.
~ If you are on a DIET in any way - STOP reading now. Seriously. ~
It started with the cinnamon buns recipe discussed on Foodess.com. However, there is very serious error in the recipe (see note later in post) which has caused a delay in our consuming these. Then came a couple loaves of 5-minute Artisan Bread started yesterday (yummy). After allowing those to cool we turned to Chocolate Mint Cookies also from Foodess.
These cookies are totally addictive. I thought with the ridiculous amount of cocoa and semi-sweet chocolate that they would be decadent enough to prevent over eating. Wrong.
As it turned out, I was running out of chocolate chips. So instead I used 1 cup chopped semi-sweat chocolate squares. The recipe instructs you to make 1" balls of cookie dough, slightly flattened. I found this to be best, especially if you wish to take these to a Christmas party or give away as they make lots (we got about 112 small cookies). Alternatively, I think these would work well if you wished to extrude in a cookie press and add a chunk of chocolate (or other garnish) to the centre before baking. In any case, if you like chocolate and mint - these are worth a try. A very easy cookie with enough decadence to impress guests, a hostess or a teacher for a lovely, edible holiday gift.
Okay, now to the cinnamon buns. Note these are risen yeast rolls, not the biscuit type cinnamon buns (which, by the way I hate, and yes, you can read this as full hate - if you really love cinnamon buns, biscuit-style, rip-off cinnamon buns are NOT going to cut it, no matter how desperate or how bad your baking skills are. At this point you are likely to go Pillsbury on me since I have digressed - my bad).
This recipe is also featured on Epicurious.com with many raving reviews. This is where I found out I wasn`t in fact crazy - at least not this time.
When I started making the recipe, I realised right away there was a serious problem. It calls for 2 1/4 tsp of rapid rise yeast with "2 envelopes" in brackets. Any baker will tell you that 1 packet is 2 1/4 tsps, not 2 packets/envelopes and packets of yeast are pretty standard. My question was - which one is it? Some people will likely measure without worrying about packets, some will just use 2 packets and others will question this whole thing (and probably over complicate things for several hours - I am the latter). I realised after making the dough that because of the rave reviews, most people probably used the 2 packets without question (or measuring). As it turns out, reading the reviews more closely, this is likely what has happened. Those who were more exact, realised their mistake and that the dough does not rise on 2 1/4 tsp yeast in 2 hours. Because I am exact myself, I needed to wait a full 4 hours for this dough to rise to double. And, for the second rise, I also had to double the time. This means that all told, it needed to rise for 5 1/2 hours! WOW.
After contemplating for hours and looking at another bread recipe on Robin Hood I finally thought of a possible answer for the mix up. The Robin Hood recipes have the packets listed first and then the size in brackets, like this: 2 envelopes (2 1/4 tsp/11 ml) whether it is one or two envelopes it has the same "size of the packet" clarification listed - what would happen if you mixed up the order of the words? It would look like you meant the packet size for the quantity or: 2 1/4 tsp (2 envelopes). If I am right, it means this recipe is being passed around without correction and many are suffering as they either a) give up in the middle with a hard dough, b) pay no attention to if it has doubled and bake hard dough balls, or c) wait 5,000 hours and at least come up with something edible. Serious bakers might tell you it has more to do with instinct, experience and common sense than exact times and measurements - so the extra waiting is likely worth it if you need to wait longer for your dough to rise.
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| Lovely cinnamon buns - much yummier than a phone pic can show |
Thankfully, the extra rising time did the trick. These did work. So by 3 in the afternoon, we were eating luscious cinnamon rolls (I started at 8am). Actually, they were quite easy - the worst part was them not rising despite my putting them in a nice warm oven with the oven light on and my whittling away the hours attempting to figure out who and what went wrong with the recipe. Too bad some of my crew can't eat them right now (heh, more for the rest of us).
The best part was that this is my first attempt at a yeast dough that actually worked. I haven't tried bread making from scratch for about twenty years. Back then, when I was a mere babe (ha) I was not successful at making from scratch bread. My results were very discouraging and I hadn't tried again since.
At this point, I must also be frank in that I have many times made the cinnamon bun recipe that came with my breadmaker. In fact, it is a family tradition in our house to have this for Christmas morning, and I love to start them the night before and pop them in the oven in the morning for a no-mess easy breakfast treat. However, that recipe has really let me down for flavour and texture. It just wasn't as good as a great bakery cinnamon bun (or Pillsbury) and I never knew what to do - it was dry too. For several years I had this Clone of a Cinnabon recipe from Allrecipes.com saved to my recipes. What I loved about it was that it was a breadmaker recipe that I knew I could handle. It has even more than rave reviews and I still plan to try it out soon for which I promise to post an update for those of you who aren't ready to try rolls without a breadmaker. For now, I am happy at what I accomplished for our lazy Sunday at home in our PJ's.
~Ciao
PS: The purse organizer I made for my aunt was verified as "perfect" so, despite my misgivings, I actually did measure correctly. She just has the mother of all purses. :)
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