Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Dinner Rolls

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I wasn't going to post about these rolls. I've been making them forever, but they're just so good and I think I've finally gotten to where I really know how to make them. The recipe comes from one of my mom's cookbooks. I honestly don't know the name of it. We just always called it the "Mormon Cookbook".


If these are made just right they come out so soft and fluffy. Breads are fun to make, but I've noticed everytime I make some sort of bread it's always done a little differently. Sometimes I have to add more flour, while others I don't add quite as much. It's all about the touch I think. You can do exactly what the recipe calls for, but it might not turn out quite right. This recipe calls for 6 cups All-Purpose flour. I usually end up with 7-8 cups, just depending. If you have a scale and are able to weigh out your ingredients you can usually get a more accurate about of what you're suppose to put in. Weighing is better than measuring:)

When mixing dough you want to be able to touch and pick it up after it's done kneading, but you don't want it to be compeltely dry. I like my dough where there's still stickiness to it. If that makes sense. I usaully have to get a little flour on my hands to handle it and form it into a ball and let it rise. If you get it so that it's really easy to handle, then the rolls usually turn out hard and dense, not light and fluffy.

One thing that I loved learning in school was the window technique. A recipe will tell you to knead for 8-10 minutes, but how do you know you're done? The kneading process is done to make your dough elastic and that's exactly what you want. If you take a piece of the dough and slowly start to spread it and it just tears, it's not done. You want to create a "window". I usally roll a little piece into a ball and then slowly start stretching it. If I can get it pretty thin and it hasn't ripped then I usually let the rising process start.

For these rolls I weigh my pieces out into about 3 oz. portions. I'm not good at eyeballing and I like my rolls to look somewhat similar in size. 3 oz. makes a pretty good size roll. For this batch I made 2 dozen rolls with that size. If you have something to cut each roll out it works better then tearing the dough apart. I use a metal bench scraper. After cutting I rolled them, let them rise for about 30 minutes and then I baked them for 10 minutes and once they came out started rubbing butter on the tops. They're so good and make the house small so nice. I love the smell of cooked bread!

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Dinner Rolls

2 packages (2T) active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1/4 cup sugar
6 cups flour scooped
1/2 cup nonfat dry milk
1 T. salt
2 cups warm water
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup oil

Soften yeast in 1/2 cup warm water to which sugar has been added.

In a large bowl stir together flour, dry milk, and salt. Making a well in the center, add 2 cups warm water, yeast mixture, eggs, and oil in that order. Stir until well mixed, adding more flour, if needed, to make a soft dough.

Cover. Allow to rise in a warm place until double. About 1 hour.

Turn out onto a lightly floured board. Knead a few times to make dough easy to handle. Pinch off smooth round pieces about egg size; arrange 2 inches apart, on a greased baking sheet. Cover lightly with a clean towel. Allow to rise 20 minutes. Bake 10 minutes, or until golden brown, at 400F.


Sunday, August 2, 2009

Cookies N Cream Cake

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If you want a chocolate cake with a little something extra, this is perfect. Especially if you like oreos, or Cookies N Cream Ice Cream. Todd's birthday was last week and I wanted to make him something special, not just a plain chocolate cake. I found this idea on Annie's Eats. What's funny is that she uses the same chocolate cake and icing I always do. It's just the Hershey's recipe you can find on the back of Hershey's Cocoa. I love this recipe. It always turns out so moist.

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So I just used my typical cake recipe and then made the cookies n cream filling. It was just whipped cream with chopped up oreos folded in. I was a little leery about what it'd taste like, but I thought it tasted pretty similar to what the ice cream tastes like. My only problem was, was that after putting the filling on the bottom layer of cake and then putting the second layer on it would kinda slide around. I don't know if it was because our apartment was a little warmer, but maybe next time I'll let the whip cream sit in the fridge for a few minutes before putting it on the cake. It might let it chill again and be a little firmer. But that was pretty much my only problem. I thought it was going to me hard to cut into, but it wasn't. It turned out just right! We served it was Vanilla Ice Cream, but I thought with the whipped cream it could be eaten without ice cream and still be good.

Cookies and Cream Cake
Ingredients:
For the cake:
2 cups sugar
1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup cocoa powder
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
1 ½ tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
½ cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

For the filling:
1 ¼ cups heavy cream
1/8 cup confectioners’ sugar
¼ tsp. pure vanilla extract
10 chocolate sandwich cookies, chopped

For the frosting:
½ cup unsalted butter
2/3 cup cocoa powder
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:
To make the cake, preheat the oven to 350°. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.

Stir together the sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.

Bake 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely.

To make the filling, in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, combine the heavy cream, confectioners’ sugar and vanilla. Beat on low speed until all sugar is incorporated; increase speed to high and whisk until stiff peaks form. Gently fold in chopped cookie pieces with a rubber spatula.

To make the frosting, melt the butter in a medium bowl. Stir in the cocoa. Alternately add confectioners’ sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency. Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla.

To assemble the cake, place one cake layer on a cardboard cake circle. Pipe a ring of the chocolate frosting around the outside edge of the cake. Fill the area inside the ring of frosting with a thick layer of the cookies and cream mixture. Place the second cake layer on top. Frost the sides of the cake layers with chocolate frosting. Pipe a decorative border of the chocolate frosting on top of the cake. Fill the area inside this border with a thick layer of the cookies and cream mixture. Garnish with extra chocolate sandwich cookies and whipped cream if desired.


(the recipe calls for 10 cookies, I think I used about 15. I kept adding till I got it the way I liked it)