Cooking With Hanzipan

Starzipan visited me on Wednesday and we started some delicious cinnamon rolls that night and baked them the next morning. I’d done this recipe before but I didn’t have any cream cheese so I’d done a different frosting. The frosting that comes with the recipe is DEFINITELY worth using. I’m going to make some comments in (italicized parentheses)…

Cinnamon Rolls

Recipe courtesy of Inside a Black Apple:

Makes four reasonably sized rolls.

- First off, set a stick of butter out on the counter to soften…hopefully a few hours ahead of time.

- Then, gather your ingredients:
(for the dough)

1/2 cup warmed milk

1 egg
2 tablespoons melted butter
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
2 1/4 c flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 c white sugar
1 1/4 teaspoon yeast

(for slathering on the dough)
1/4 c brown sugar
2 tablespoons soft butter (I’d do 3.. maybe 4 because our rolls were a bit dry)
hearty amounts of cinnamon (adjust to your tastes)

(for the icing)
2 tablespoons soft butter
3-4 tablespoons cream cheese
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
pinch salt

1/2 c confectioner’s sugar

Now, you just fling all of your dough ingredients into a bowl, mixing thoroughly. Pretty quickly, it should become smooth enough to knead with floured hands. This dough is so smooth…it’s just beautiful to work with. When you can pat it into a ball, put it back into the floured mixing bowl and let it rest for a little while (maybe 15 minutes). If you’re going to bake them immediately, pre-heat the oven to 400.

After it has rested, come back to your dough and roll it out into a rectangle on a floured surface. Take your allotted softened butter, and spread it across the surface with a spoon or spatula. Then sprinkle liberally with cinnamon and brown sugar. Roll up into a roll, and then slice. This is where you must decide whether or not to be insane. You can form this batch into two enormous rolls, or 4 smaller, more sane ones. I recommend the sane route. The huge ones are lovely and impressive to look at, but they have trouble cooking to the center thoroughly, and quite frankly, might send you into a coma.

Now, when you have your buns, you can either pop them into your preheated oven (using a greased pan) or, and this achieves slightly better results, put them in the refrigerator overnight and bake them the next morning (we decided to refrigerate over night and next time I would make sure to take them out of the fridge for at least 30 minutes before putting them in the oven to bake the next morning). Either way, you want to bake them for around 15 minutes (or slightly more if you made the huge ones).
Then, whip together the few frosting ingredients, and spread over the warm rolls when they emerge from the oven.

Dad and Mummy are headed up to Whistler for the weekend and I wanted to send them off on their 7 hour drive with something tasty to snack on. I’d found an amazing scone recipe over at The Black Apple a few weeks ago and that sounded just right. I didn’t glaze them because they’re still warm and they need to make their trip in a  ziplock baggie. Sweaty scones are definitely NOT attractive.

Glazed Orange Scones For Your Weekend Breakfasts

Recipe borrowed from Inside a Black Apple

(Makes about 8 medium sized scones)

Ingredients:
1 3/4 C flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 C white sugar
pinch salt
5 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2″ chunks
1/2 C orange juice
1/4 c sour cream
1 egg
1 teaspoon milk
Zest of 1 orange

1.   Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F/200 degrees C

2. Sift the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt into a large bowl. Add the butter using a pastry tool or your hands, until the mixture is crumbly and there are still pea-sized lumps of butter visible. Stir in the orange zest. Mix together 1/2 cup orange juice and sour cream in a measuring cup. Pour all at once into the dry ingredients, and stir gently just until blended. Do not over-do the blending.

3. With floured hands, pat scone dough into balls 2 to 3 inches across, depending on what size you want. Place onto a greased baking sheet, and flatten lightly.  Whisk together the egg and 1 tablespoon of milk. Brush the tops of the scones with the egg wash. Let them rest for about 10 minutes.

4. Bake for around 12 minutes in the preheated oven, until the tops are just golden brown. Transfer to rack to cool.

5. Once cool, you can leave them be or glaze them as I did. To make the glaze, I combined about 1/2 orange juice, the zest of 1 orange, and about 1/2 an orange cut into small chunks. I simmered the mixture lightly for about 10 minutes, and then took it off the heat and allowed to cool. Once cool, add confectioner’s sugar until it reaches a good glazing consistency, and stir til’ smooth.

6. Squirrel away any that remain in a tightly sealed container at room temperature.