Cinnamon Flake Biscuits

          When the weather turns cool it is time to start baking again.  That's the advantage of cold weather.  This is a recipe that my mom made when I was young and I make it for my family. These biscuits are oh so tasty.

One of my sons is an expert at this recipe and when he is around I don't even attempt them.  If we need these biscuits to go with some soup for dinner I just ask him and he makes them.  But currently he is living away from home and so I have been making them again.  

Sometimes I double the batch because even if we don't eat them all at once, they tend to disappear.  Here is how to make them.

You start with a batch of baking powder biscuit dough.  You can use any recipe and in a pinch you can even use bisquick.  My mom's original recipe is at the end of the post.  

Once you have the dough, roll it out into a 10"x24" rectangular shape, about 1/4 in thick.  Spread with melted butter. Sprinkle with about ¼ cup of cinnamon-sugar mixed together. 

 Cut lengthwise into 5 two inch strips.  As you can see my edges are kind of scraggly and I never measure to see if the dimensions are exact.  The important thing is to get it rolled as thin as you want and get the butter and cinnamon-sugar all over it!

Stack the strips one on top of another. Cut the long stack into 12 pieces. 

 

Place edge side down, in greased muffin tins. Bake at 450* for 10-13 minutes, watching closely so they are browned on top but don't let them burn. 

Mmmmm! now you have a yummy snack or biscuits to go along with dinner. 

Cinnamon Flake Biscuits

Stir dry ingredients together. Cut in shortening until mixture resembles course crumbs.

3 Tablespoons sugar

2 cups flour

4 tsp. Baking powder

½ tsp. Cream of tarter

½ cup shortening

2/3 cups milk – add all at once

Mix wet and dry together and put the dough on the floured counter. Knead a minute, and then roll out into a ¼ inch rectangular shape, about 10”x24”. Spread with melted butter (about ¼ cup). Sprinkle with ¼ cup of cinnamon sugar mixture. Cut lengthwise into 5 two inch strips. Stack the strips one on top of another. Cut into 12 pieces and place edge side down, in greased muffin tins. Bake at 450* for 10-15 minutes, watching closely so they don't burn.

I use butter instead of shortening in this recipe.  I also use less butter when spreading it over the rolled out biscuit dough. 

 

A Birthday!

Always a wonderful reason to eat cake.

 

My son turned 15-years-old and decided on a peanut butter-ice cream cake.  

Other than that he left the details up to me and this is what I came up with.

I started out with a layer of cake.  I used a yellow cake mix and swirled in 1/2 cup peanut butter.  It was good but I think chocolate cake with peanut butter chips would have been really good too.  I baked the cake in a spring-form pan, and there was enough batter to make some cupcakes as well.  You could simply bake it in a round pan, but a spring-form is especially convenient for ice cream cakes.  Since I had one, I used it. 

After baking and cooling I took the sides off and sliced off the top of the cake because I didn't want too thick of a layer and I also wanted it flat. Then I put the sides back on to assemble the rest of the cake.  

I made up a batch of fudge sauce (see recipe below)  and spread some over the top of the cake.  I put it in the freezer to harden it up a bit and then spread softened ice cream over the top of the fudge layer.  I used an entire container ( I think that is 1.5 quarts) of peanut butter cup ice cream.  Then another layer of fudge sauce.  After that I left it in the freezer to harden up.  

Now for decorating the cake.  First, for the sides I used cool whip.  

Then for the best part, I made a peanut butter frosting to decorate and write "happy birthday".  (recipe below).  This frosting was seriously so good, I could eat it plain!  I should have used a lot more of it, it made the cake.  You can tell I am a peanut butter lover.  I also used some reece's peanut butter cups for decorations.  Then I wrote happy birthday.  It was difficult since my peanut butter frosting was getting a little thick by then.  

Mmmmmmm!  With only 5 of us at home nowadays we didn't finish the entire cake off  at once.  That still amazes me that a cake can last more than a day.  It made great after school snacks the next afternoon.  

 Delicious!

Fudge Sauce

1/2 cup butter

1 cup chocolate chips

1 12 ounce can evaporated milk

2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Melt  butter and chocolate chips.  Add other ingredients

 and boil over medium heat for 6 minutes.  Makes 3 cups.

 

Peanut Butter Frosting

Use equal amounts of peanut butter and butter.  I used 1/4 cup of each, but next time I will make more.  
Soften the butter and the peanut butter ( separately so you can get them the right amount of softened - not liquid just easy to stir.)  Mix together and then add powdered sugar  gradually until you have it the thickness that you prefer working with.  You could drizzle it but mine was thicker and I piped it through a decorating bag.   

Very simple, that's all there is to it!

Backyard Pizza Oven

Every Friday night we have pizza for dinner.  Usually home made, sometimes take out, or take and bake.  But the very best is when my 17 year-old son fires up the out door pizza oven he made and cooks home made pizza.  

This is the brick lined pizza oven.

 

 

 

 

He heats up the oven, then using a pizza peal with the pizza on parchment so it slides easily, loads a thin crust pizza into the oven.

 

 

 

 

 The oven is really hot so it cooks quickly.

 

 

 

 

 

We cook several pizzas and then enjoy!!

 

 

We don't do this type of cooking very often but it is a lot of fun and makes a special pizza!

 

 

 

Bread: the staff of life!

We eat a lot of bread.  Without it my children might have starved, or at least been malnourished, since their other favorite food group is sweets.  Since it is a staple at our house I often make it, that way I know just what goes into it.  After several years of doing this they have learned to eat wheat bread and even like it! 

 

 

This is how it looked a little while after coming out of the oven, and a short while later the loaf was almost gone.  

Here is the recipe I use.  It might look like a long process but when you make it regularly you get the process down and it is not difficult at all.

Whole Wheat Bread 

7 cups wheat flour     (* see note at the bottom about wheat flour)
2/3 cup wheat gluten
2 1/2 Tablespoons yeast,  I use saf-instant

mix that all together in your mixing bowl.  

Then add 5 cups very warm water  (110-115 degrees)
Mix well  for a minute and then let it sit for 15 minutes or until it starts to rise up in the bowl.

Then add the rest of the ingredients:

1 1/2 Tablespoon salt
1/3 cup oil
1/3 cup honey or sugar if you are out of honey
2 1/2  Tablespoons dough enhancer
2 or 3 cups wheat flour

Mix it all up until it is thoroughly combined and then add white flour (about 2 to 3 cups) until you get it to a good bread consistency.  If you are using a bread mixer the dough starts to pull away from the sides and bottom of the bowl.  Keep mixing it in the mixer, or kneading it,  for 6 to 8 minutes.

Dump it out on a lightly floured countertop and form into loaves.

 

Put in greased pans, cover and let rise until it's over the top of the pan. This batch made 4 regular loaves and one smaller loaf.
Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.  

* I have a wheat grinder and for this batch I used hard white wheat.  The white wheat doesn't look as "wheaty" so my kids like it better.  I grind a lot and keep it in the freezer because I don't like the grinding and the less often I have to do it, the easier it is to make bread.  You can use all wheat flour instead of combining wheat and white flours.

Ethan's night to cook

Each of my boys fixes dinner once a week.  I let them choose what to fix and they usually only make the main course so it is always good if the main course is a complete meal.  Coffee cake does not qualify as a complete meal so I added some fruit and a salad to go with it.  Here is the recipe he used:

Breakfast Cake

    cake: 

                                                             1/2 cup shortening or butter
                                                             2 1/2 cups flour
                                                             3/4 cup sugar
                                                             2 Tbsp. baking powder
                                                             pinch of salt
                                                             1 1/3 cups milk
                                                             2 eggs
Cut shortening into flour.  Add remaining dry ingredients and mix.  Add wet ingredients and mix by hand.  Pour into a greased 9x13" pan. 

topping:

                                                               1/2 cup flour
                                                               3/4 cup sugar 
                                                               4 1/2 Tbsp. butter, softened
                                                               1 teaspoon cinnamon

Sprinkle with topping.  Bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

I think next time I would recommend using brown sugar in the topping and then layering half the batter, half the topping, rest of batter, and remaining topping.