"Our Best Bites" Breadsticks

You can find the recipe for these breadsticks here. The recipe also make a great pizza dough. On the same site you can get more tips on using yeast effectively.

Sunday Morning Rolls

Lacey brought these yummy sweet rolls that are good and look easy enough to put together!

Sunday Morning Rolls

18 to 20 frozen rolls

Chopped pecans

½ pkg. of Butterscotch pudding (small box not instant)

Cinnamon

1/3 cup butter (melted)

½ cup brown sugar

The night before grease bundt pan. Put frozen rolls in pan and sprinkle with dry butterscotch pudding. Sprinkle with cinnamon (however much you like). Melt 1/3 cup butter and add brown sugar. Pour mixture over rolls and sprinkle with nuts. Cover loosely with greased foil. Let set on counter overnight. Next morning remove foil and bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes at 350. Turn out on plate.

Lion House Dinner Rolls

Last week Danell taught us how to make these delicious rolls and gave us some tips on working with yeast. Thanks Danell, it was great! Here's some of the tips and recipe she shared:

Don't those look yummy?!

When you buy a new package of yeast, test it first to be sure the yeast is still "alive" (kinda creepy huh?). Get very warm water (hot but still touchable) and sprinkle a little yeast and sugar on top. Stir gently and wait for it to froth like the pic above. If it doesn't don't bother spending hours trying to make bread, it won't work. Store your yeast in a container in the freezer and it will last forever. Danell (and many professional bakers) use SAF Instant yeast.

Danell uses dough enhancer to make her breads even better. Maybe someone can leave a comment to remind me the benefits of adding this. Sorry I guess I was more worried about the visual than the info.

When you knead your dough you'll keep adding flour and mixing until your dough starts to pull off the sides of the mixer and ball up a little but will still be moist and kind of sticky.

Lion House Dinner Rolls
2 cups warm water (110-115 F)
2/3 cup nonfat dry milk
2 Tbs active dry yeast
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp salt
1/3 c butter, shortening, or margarine
1 egg
5-5 1/2 c all-purpose flour or bread flour
1/2 c butter, melted

In lrg bowl of an electric mixer, combine water and dry milk pwdr, stirring until milk dissolves. Add yeast, then sugar, salt, butter, egg, and 2 c of flour. Mix on low speed until ing are wet. Increase mixer speed to med and mix for 2 min. Add 2 c flour; mix on low speed until ing are wet, then for 2 min at med speed. (Dough will be getting stiff, and remaining flour may need to be mixed in by hand). Add remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, and mix again until dough is soft, not overly sticky, and not stiff. (It is not necessary to use the entire amt of flour).
Scrape dough off sides of bowl and pour about one Tbs of weg oil; work oil all around sides of bowl. Turn dough over in bowl so it is covered with oil (this helps prevent dough from drying out). Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise in warm place until doubled in size, about 1 1/2 hour (Danell turms her oven on it's lowest setting long enough to get the oven warm and puts the dough in there). Sprinkle cutting board or counter with flour and place dough on floured board. Roll out and shape as desired. Place on greased or m=parchment-lined baking pans. Cover lightly with l=plastic wrap. Let rise in warm place until rolls are doubled in size, about 1- 1 1/2 hours.
Bake at 375 F for 13-20 min or until browned. Brush with melted butter while hot. Serve with honey butter. Makes 1 1/2-3 doz.
Note: You can freeze shaped rolls for later use. Simply double the amount of yeast used when making dough. After the first rise, shape the rolls but do not rise again. Place the rolls on a baking sheet and immediately place in freezer. When dough is frozen solid, remove rolls and place in plastic bag, squeeze air out and seal. Rolls can be frozen for 3 weeks.

Please leave a comment with your own tips or e-mail me a recipe you'd like to share.

Cristina’s Famous Toffee

Anyone heard of Cristina’s toffee?  It’s wonderfully sweet and delicious!  Cristina was so kind to give us a cooking demonstration and allow us to take pictures while she was cooking up her magic!

Ingredient list:

1 bag mini chocolate chips

2 sticks of butter (not margarine)

1 cup sugar

2 cup of chopped nuts

*****************************************

You ready?  Let’s go!

Begin by spreading 1 cup of chopped nuts on a greased cookie sheet. This one has a liner…

 

Here is the famous cook with one of THE most important ingredients – the chocolate chips!! 

 

Spread about half the bag over the nuts.  Then eat a small handful. :)  Shhh!

 

Take two sticks of butter (NOT Land O’ Lakes!!) and put them in a pan on the stove.

Add one cup of sugar.  Melt over medium heat.  Be ready to stir with undivided attention at this point (7-10 minutes to be exact.)  Now would NOT be the time to start helping kids with homework, start on another batch of cookies, call your sister in Kansas, etc.

Cristina is quite the model of stirring superiority, isn’t she? :)

Stir, stir, stir!

When you think you can’t stir any longer and you think your butter is going to burn, keep stirring.  It should look “caramely” brown and it will separate.  Keep stirring over heat and the liquid will “absorb” back into the solid.  Some say that when you see a small puff of smoke, you are done.

Pour over your nut and chocolate mixture.  **Note from Cristina:  This batch got a “tiny” bit too overdone.  Your batch should be a little bit lighter brown.

Spread a little.

 

Finish off by sprinkling more nuts and chocolate chips over the top.  Would you call this treat an “over the top” dish?  I would. It is fantabulous!!!

 

Let cool for up to an hour.  Your toffee should break apart and be brittle.

Thanks for teaching us, Cristina!  We are blessed to have your amazing talents in our ward! 

Reindeer Treats

Jackie Phillips brought these to the exchange but we didn't get a pic so I was glad she brought more to my house for my kids when she came visiting teaching. They look pretty self-explanatory but I'll let you know that's a graham cracker with frosting on it. Too fun!

RASPBERRY SQUARES

I'm not trying to show favoritism with this individual close-up but we missed Jackie's cookies in the photo shoot so I pulled one aside when I got home so we don't miss the recipe for this delicious cookie.

makes 16 squares

1 Cup salted butter at room temperature

1 Cup sugar

1 egg yoke

3 Cups flour

1 Cup whole almond, chopped1 1/4 Cups raspberry jam

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly coat a 9x9 baking dish with a nonstick spray oil.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and the sugar until well combined.

Add the egg yoke and mix

Add the flour and the almonds and blend well, but keep the mixture a bit crumbly and not too dry.

Pat half the mixture, about 3 cups, into the prepared baking dish.

Bake for 20 minutes.

Remove from oven and immediately spread with raspberry jam, leaving about a 1/4 inch boarder along the sides.

Crumble the remaining dough evenly over the top of the jam and pat lightly

Bake for about 40 minutes or until golden brown.

Cool completely before cutting into squares.

Store in an airtight container, with wax paper between layers, refrigerated, for several days.

May be frozen.

Easy Chocolate Truffles

1 1/2 (12 oz) semi-sweet choc chips

1 pkg (8 oz) cream cheese, softened

3 c powdered sugar

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

toppings- ground nuts, coconut, crushed candy cane, cocoa

Melt chocolate in bowl on high 2-3 min. Stir after each min.

In seperate bowl beat cream cheese until smooth. Gradually add sugar until blended. Add melted choc. and vanilla. Mix well. Refrigerate about 1 hour. Shape into 1 inch balls. Roll in toppings. Store in refrigerator.

Yield: 5 dozen (mine are kinda big so I only get about 3 1/2 doz)

-Gina Steed