Orange-Coconut Sweet Rolls

orange-coconut sweet rolls

My mom always made Pillsbury orange rolls as part of holiday breakfasts. I love those little suckers. I could eat a whole pan by myself. They kind of melt in your mouth like Krispy Kremes.

So for Easter breakfast, I wanted to make orange rolls. Because I love the combination of coconut and citrus, and had a can of coconut milk and a bag of shredded coconut staring at me from the pantry, I decided to mix it up a little bit and make Orange-Coconut Rolls.

coconut milk and coconut oil

I was not disappointed and I don’t think you will be either!

Just a warning, though: this recipe makes 24+ rolls. I didn’t realize that before I made the dough. So make sure you have room to store/freeze/give away some or at least 6 children before you proceed. Or cut the recipe in half.

To give credit, these are originally from The Pioneer Woman, and I looked at versions of them from The Country Cleaver, Table for Two, Running to the Kitchen, and Baked By Rachel. I took advice from all these posts, so thank you!

Orange-Coconut Sweet Rolls

Orange-Coconut Sweet Rolls

Ingredients

    Dough
  • 14 oz. coconut milk
  • 1/2 c. sugar
  • 1/2 c. coconut oil or butter
  • 2 c. white whole wheat flour
  • 2 1/2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour, divided
  • 1/2 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. baking soda
  • 2 tsp. salt
  • zest of one orange
  • Filling
  • 3-4 T butter, softened
  • 1/2 c. orange marmalade
  • 3/4 c. brown sugar
  • 1/4 tsp. salt
  • Topping
  • 1/2 c. shredded coconut (optional)
  • Icing
  • 4 T butter, melted
  • 1/2 c. milk
  • 1 to 1 1/2 c. powdered sugar
  • juice of two oranges and zest of one

Instructions

In a saucepan over medium-low heat, combine coconut milk, sugar, and coconut oil. Heat until sugar is dissolved and oil is melted. Remove from stovetop; sprinkle yeast over the top of the milk mixture. Let sit a few minutes.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl combine 2 cups whole wheat flour and 2 cups white flour. Pour milk mixture into the bowl and stir well to combine. Cover loosely and let rise at least 1 hour.

After rising, add additional 1/2 c. white flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and orange zest. Knead for a few minutes, then roll out to a large rectangle (about 10x30 inches).

Spread rectangle with butter, then marmalade. Sprinkle with brown sugar and press into the dough. Sprinkle with salt.

Tightly roll the rectangle lengthwise, pinching seam to seal. Use a serrated knife to cut into 1-inch slices and place slices in a buttered pan(s).

Heat oven to 375F, letting rolls rise a little more while you wait for the oven to heat up.

Bake rolls 17-20 minutes, until done through.

Mix all icing ingredients in a bowl. If you want more of an actual frosting, you can add a lot more powdered sugar. This is just a glaze.

Sprinkle shredded coconut over the rolls. Pour icing over hot rolls and let cool a little before serving.

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A happy (belated) Easter from our family to yours. What’s your favorite holiday breakfast?

Vanderbilt kiddos

Bread Machine Monkey Bread (Secret Recipe Club)

bread machine monkey bread

For a lot of this pregnancy, I didn’t want sweet things at all. Ice cream didn’t even sound good. I ate fruit. I craved Very Veggie salad and some days could eat a whole bag of it. Yep, pretty much crazy, although it made my midwife happy.

Perhaps that, and my on-and-off-until-22-weeks sickness can account for the fact that I’ve gained a total of 4 pounds this whole pregnancy.

But in the last four or five weeks? Oh, I want the sweet things. Specifically, sweet breakfast breads. See: Bread Machine Cinnamon Rolls, Graham Cracker Banana Bread … and my dreams are of Boston Cream doughnuts. (In my opinion, the only doughnut really worth eating.)

So I used this month’s Secret Recipe Club as an excuse to make yet another sweet breakfast bread.

My assigned blog this month was The Cookin’ Chemist. The author is Tessa, a young bride and pharmacist who uses her skills as a former chemistry major in the kitchen! I’ve bookmarked many recipes from her site to try later, like the Balsamic Chicken Noodle Bowl, Crazy Feta Dip, and Smoked Mozzarella-Stuffed Meatballs.

But for today, I decided on Monkey Bread. Because I’ve been craving it for weeks.

Despite what we told our daughter, Monkey Bread doesn’t involve actual monkeys. (Libbie thought it might have bananas in it – also not true, although an idea …) I loved that Tessa’s version features a yeasted dough in the bread machine. It’s a little different from your traditional canned biscuit dough (which I generally cannot bring myself to buy, anyway).

I would have – of course – added pecans to this if my children were not so picky. But even without them, it was darn good. Enjoy!

Bread Machine Monkey Bread

Ingredients

    Dough
  • 1 c. warm milk (I microwave for about 45 seconds)
  • 1/3 c. warm water
  • 2 T butter
  • 1/4 c. sugar
  • 3 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 2 1/4 tsp. (1 package) instant or bread machine yeast
  • Coating
  • 4 T butter, melted
  • 1 to 1 1/2 c. brown sugar
  • 2 T cinnamon

Instructions

In order listed (or according to bread machine instructions), place dough ingredients in bread machine. Set to "dough" setting and let it go! (Cookin' Chemist has instructions for doing this by hand or with a mixer, if you like.)

Generously grease a Bundt pan and set aside.

When dough is done, turn it out onto a floured surface. Roll into an 8x8" square. With a pizza cutter or knife, cut into about 64 pieces. (I have this awesome pizza cutter from my Flatout Bread Pizza Party.)

With a fork, mix together brown sugar and cinnamon. In another bowl, melt butter. Dip dough pieces into the butter, then coat with the sugar/cinnamon. Arrange in Bundt pan, staggering seams as you layer the pieces.

When you're done, cover the pan with plastic wrap and let rise for another hour or so, until the dough is 1-2 inches from the top of the pan.

Heat oven to 350. Bake for 30-35 minutes. Let sit for 5 minutes, then turn upside-down onto a platter.

Eat and enjoy!

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Graham Cracker Banana Bread {Secret Recipe Club}

Graham Cracker Banana Bread

I always get sad when I see someone has been “orphaned” in the Secret Recipe Club. My group’s reveal isn’t until next Monday, but I saw today someone in group D was orphaned—the person who was supposed to make a recipe from their site didn’t.

I hopped over to the site, Colie’s Kitchen, and determined immediately I could make something from there. Because there were SO MANY good-looking and simple dishes!

Nicole is a married full-time college student, stepmom to a tween, and still wants to get dinner on the table each night. She hates to clean, so we have that in common. If she DOES clean, we might not share that …

Anyway, I saw this recipe for Nilla Wafer Banana Bread and was entranced. But alas, Nilla wafers aren’t something I keep in the house and I just went to the grocery store. I did, however, just pick up a box of graham crackers. Close enough! I just subbed in the graham crackers and added a little vanilla extract for good measure.

baking banana bread

This bread is phenomenal. And you know how they tell you to make chocolate chip cookies when you have a house showing? They are wrong. Make this bread instead. It infused our whole apartment with amazing banana bread scent. I wasn’t even hungry but I couldn’t resist cutting off a slice from the popping-hot loaf and it did not disappoint. The graham crackers add an interesting flavor that’s not usually in banana bread.

Thank you, Nicole, for this awesome recipe! It’s one I will make often.

Graham Cracker Banana Bread

Adapted from Colie's Kitchen

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 c. flour (I use all-purpose, unbleached)
  • 1 1/4 c. graham cracker crumbs (about one sleeve, crushed, minus half a cracker or so)
  • 2 1/4 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1/2 c. butter, softened
  • 3/4 c. sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 ripe bananas, mashed
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
  • 1/2 c. milk
  • 1/2 c. walnut pieces (optional)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350F.

In a small bowl, mix together flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

With a mixer, cream butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating until fluffy. On low speed, mix in bananas and vanilla.

Alternate adding milk and dry ingredients, mixing well after each addition. Stir in all but a handful of walnuts, if using.

Pour batter into a greased 9x5 loaf pan. Sprinkle with remaining walnuts.

Baking for 1 hour 10 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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Easy Bread Machine Cinnamon Rolls

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I’m learning to appreciate my bread machine lately. In our old apartment with our giant windows, the kitchen was very warm and it was easy to get to bread to rise. In our newer basement apartment, the kitchen is, well, chilly. No windows. It’s more difficult.

The few times I’ve made homemade cinnamon rolls they have been absolutely, divinely delicious, but have taken a LOT of work. Scalding milk = one pot. Mixing bowls x dough, filling, icing = tons of dishes to wash. Not to mention rises …

Well, these are amazing, and I mixed all the dough ingredients in the bread machine itself and didn’t use a bowl for the filling ones. So there! Less time, fewer dishes, makes it a winner in my book!

Easy Bread Machine Cinnamon Rolls

Prep Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes

Cook Time: 25 minutes

Total Time: 2 hours, 55 minutes

Yield: about 20 large rolls

Easy Bread Machine Cinnamon Rolls

Delicious and simple, these rolls are adapted from Money Saving Mom and the glaze is a variation of The Pioneer Woman's cinnamon roll icing.

Ingredients

    Dough
  • 1 c. plus 2 T warm milk (microwaved for about 45 seconds)
  • 3 T coconut oil or flavorless oil
  • 2 eggs, lightly beaten
  • 1/2 c. sugar (I used turbinado)
  • 3 c. all-purpose, unbleached flour
  • 1 c. white whole wheat flour (or more all-purpose)
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 3 tsp. bread machine or instant yeast
  • Filling
  • 2 T softened butter
  • cinnamon
  • brown sugar
  • Glaze
  • 1-2 c. powdered sugar
  • 1 tsp. maple flavoring
  • 2 T brewed coffee
  • 2 T melted butter
  • pinch salt

Instructions

In order listed, place dough ingredients into bread machine. Set to dough cycle and hit go!

When dough is ready, roll out into large rectangle. Spread with softened butter, sprinkle with cinnamon, and then sprinkle with generous amount of brown sugar. If you're feeling especially loving toward your children, sprinkle with chocolate chips. (Or pecans, or raisins, or whatever you like!)

Tightly roll lengthwise; pinch seam to seal.

Use a sharp, serrated knife to cut into 1-inch circles. Place in buttered cake pans.

At this point, I refrigerated mine overnight, which is why they are SO very puffy. If you're going to do this, put fewer rolls in each pan than I did!

Bake 20-25 minutes at 325, until browned and cooked through.

A few minutes before they are done, mix glaze ingredients in a large bowl. Pour over hot rolls. You could also use a cream cheese icing, add more powdered sugar for a thicker icing, or try Money Saving Mom's simple icing.

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What’s in your favorite cinnamon rolls? I would always add pecans, but my kids aren’t crazy about nuts.

Added to Ingredient Spotlight: Coffee at Eat at Home.

Dried Cherry Biscuits and Vanilla Lemon Curd: Secret Recipe Club

IMG_1753

Welcome to another installment of the Secret Recipe Club! My assigned blog for this month was Culinary Adventures with Camilla. I really wish Camilla had about About Me page (hint, hint!), because from what she cooks I think she must be a fascinating person!

Girl seems to have limitless energy and creativity in the kitchen. Butternut squash bread? Quails in almond sauce? Apricot soup? Camilla has made them all and lived to tell the tale. I take it her kids are willing to eat a little more adventurously than mine.

Being not quite that brave, I chose a cherry biscuit recipe that I thought my family would devour. I love biscuits in any shape or form. I’ve always wanted to make lemon curd, too, and that is what Camilla recommended to go along with the biscuits.

Because I didn’t have any ginger syrup or any idea where to find some, I made a vanilla-lemon curd using plain old vanilla syrup like you find in the coffee aisle. I’m not a huge ginger fan, anyway.

I found that: (a) if you use raw (turbinado) sugar in your lemon curd, it’s going to be brown, not yellow; and (b) it’s really hard not to let the eggs scramble. I had my stovetop on the lowest setting and I STILL had to pick out a few strands of scrambled egg. I was going to strain it, but then I would have lost all my lemon zest.

[Camilla's lemon curd is yellow even though she said she used raw sugar. Maybe there is a lighter color of raw sugar I don't know about. You can substitute plain old white sugar, too, and I'm sure it will be fine.]

All in all, I think the dish turned out lovely. The biscuits are less fluffy than a normal cut-in-the-butter one, but they’re easier! And I adore the super-tart lemon curd. It has the slightest hint of vanilla. If you wanted to up the vanilla factor, you could add in some good vanilla extract or the inside of a vanilla bean or more vanilla syrup.

Dried Cherry Biscuits

Yield: about 16 small triangle biscuits

Ingredients

  • 4 c. white whole wheat flour
  • 2 tsp. baking powder
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 1/3 c. packed brown sugar
  • 4 eggs, lightly beaten
  • 1/2 c. butter, melted
  • 1/2 c. warm water
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
  • 1/2 c. dried tart cherries

Instructions

Preheat oven to 425F.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and brown sugar.

Make a well in the center. Add eggs, melted butter (cooled), warm water, and vanilla.

Stir together to combine. Knead with hands until uniform (there may still be some flour in the bottom of bowl).

Work in the dried cherries with your hands.

On a cutting board, press the dough into a 9 to 10 inch circle.

Cut into small wedges. Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake at 425 for 18-20 minutes, until brown. (You may brush them with egg wash or melted butter before baking to enhance color.)

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Vanilla Lemon Curd

Vanilla Lemon Curd

Ingredients

  • 3 small or 2 large lemons
  • 1/3 c. turbinado sugar (can sub white)
  • 4 T butter
  • 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla syrup
  • 4 egg yolks

Instructions

Zest the lemons, then juice over a fine-mesh strainer to get rid of any pulp. (I had about 1/2 c. lemon juice and 1/3 c. zest.)

In a small saucepan, combine lemon juice, zest, sugar, butter, and vanilla syrup. Bring to a boil.

Meanwhile, whisk egg yolks. Stream some of the boiling liquid into the eggs, whisking rapidly, to temper the eggs. Turn your stovetop down to low to medium-low, making sure liquid is no longer boiling. Add eggs/liquid back into it, whisking continuously. Continue to whisk until mixture is slightly thickened, never letting boil.

Pour into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap, pressing the wrap onto the curd so a skin won't form. Cool completely. Use as you would jam or jelly. Keep refrigerated.

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Sausage Gravy Cheese Grits

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Grits falls into the category of Things I Never Tried Before We Moved to Tennessee. Also in this category? Sweet tea, real cornbread, greens, and white beans as a side dish, not IN something.

My parents are from Ohio; so even though we lived in Virginia, she just didn’t cook like a Southerner. (Besides, I’ve learned that Virginia, at least Richmond, is SO NOT THE SOUTH.) Mom likes unsweet iced tea, fried mush, Jiffy corn muffins, and sugar on everything. I’ve recently become an unsweet-tea lover, but other than that, I’m not big on some of those Midwestern foods.

So when I moved to Tennessee, I hesitantly started trying some of the local foods (and ones my husband, having grown up in South Carolina, already loved).

Grits were my favorite revelation. Now I know with lots of butter, salt, and a dash of Frank’s Red Hot Sauce, they can be the perfect breakfast.

It’s Secret Recipe Club time; and when I saw this grits and sausage casserole on The Heritage Cook I jumped all over it. Cheese grits? GOOD. Jalapeno cheese grits with sausage gravy and more cheese on top? VERY GOOD.

Jane, The Heritage Cook, is not only a great chef but our Secret Recipe Club Group A hostess! She’s always generous and wonderful on our Facebook page and it was an honor to get to cook from her site this month. Her site has SO many recipes I was blown away!

(And I really did want to make Ohio Cheese Pie with Tomato Gravy, in honor of my mom, but I wasn’t sure anyone else in my family would eat it.)

So without further ado, here’s the recipe for Sausage Gravy Cheese Grits. I actually cut down the sausage from 2 pounds to 1, because Jane, as much as I love you, having 2 pounds of sausage on a breakfast for 6-8 people kind of scared me.

Sausage Gravy Cheese Grits

Yield: about 8 servings

Sausage Gravy Cheese Grits

Adapted from The Heritage Cook.

Ingredients

    Grits
  • 3 cups grits, cooked (about 3/4 c. uncooked)
  • 1 jalapeno, seeded and deveined, diced finely
  • 2 green onions, chopped
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 2 c. shredded cheddar cheese
  • Sausage Gravy
  • 1 lb. breakfast sausage
  • 2 T all-purpose flour (or gluten-free flour to make this recipe GF)
  • 1 c. half-and-half
  • pepper
  • 1 c. shredded cheddar cheese

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9x13 cooking dish.

Prepare grits according to package directions. Halfway through cooking time, add jalapenos and green onions. When the grits are cooked, remove from heat and stir in cheese. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Pour cheese grits into prepared baking dish.

Sausage Gravy

Cook sausage in a skillet, breaking up into small pieces with a wooden spoon. When it's completely cooked, sprinkle with flour. Stir with spoon to incorporate and cook for a minute. Add half and half, stir well, and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.

Cook until gravy is very thick. Poor sausage gravy over grits layer. Sprinkle with 1 cup cheese.

Bake dish for 30 minutes, until bubbly and cheese is melted. Let set for about 10 minutes then serve.

You can also prepare the night before and refrigerate, covered. Cook 45-60 minutes if your casserole is cold.

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Green Chile Egg Bake


For a long time, the only egg casserole I ever made was the very standard one I grew up with: white bread, sausage, cheddar cheese, a dozen eggs.

It’s certainly not that it’s BAD by any means! We love it here and gobble it up often. But sometimes it’s just fun to branch out, isn’t it?

I make something for my husband’s five dorm kids that he meets with every Wednesday morning for their meetings. I try to aim for breakfast food, since they meet at 9:45 a.m. I don’t think they’ve ever REFUSED cupcakes, but if they’re anything like I was in high school, they probably haven’t eaten any breakfast before class.

I’ve made them everything from Jalapeno Popper Quiche to frozen sausage biscuits and it all disappears.

This week, I pulled out this egg bake recipe that I made when we were first married and my mother-in-law bought me a subscription to Simple and Delicious magazine. Back then, I was much more obedient and I am sure I followed the recipe.

Now, I’d rather take a simple recipe and make it a little bit better with my own additions. And this one I think I improved a lot with the easy add-ons of real milk, sour cream, salt, and garlic powder.

It’s another easy breakfast for guests, and we all know they’re going to come streaming in with the holidays coming!

Green Chile Egg Bake

Cook Time: 1 hour

Yield: 9 servings

Green Chile Egg Bake

An overnight egg casserole with a twist: delicious green chiles bring wonderful flavor to basic breakfast eggs and potatoes.

Adapted from Taste of Home's Simple and Delicious

Ingredients

  • 4 c. frozen, shredded hash browns, thawed
  • garlic powder
  • salt
  • 6 to 8 oz. ham or Canadian bacon, diced
  • 4 oz. chopped green chiles (canned)
  • 1 c. sharp cheddar cheese You can use pepperjack or a mix of the two for more of a Southwest flair
  • 6 eggs
  • 1 1/4 c. milk
  • 1/4 c. sour cream
  • 1/4 tsp. black pepper

Instructions

In a greased 8x8 casserole dish, spread hash browns. Sprinkle generously with garlic powder and salt.

Layer ham/bacon, green chiles, and cheese on top of hash browns.

In a bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, sour cream, and pepper. Pour evenly over casserole.

Refrigerate overnight.

Bake at 375 for 1 hour or until eggs are set. Let cool for 10 minutes before cutting.

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Peach Breakfast Pastry

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I woke up this morning feeling almost normal. After weeks and weeks and weeks of first trimester woes and a whole week of stomach bug aftermath, I felt like throwing a party. Instead, I decided to just cook breakfast.

I found this recipe while searching for a coffee cake last week. It doesn’t really fall under coffee cake to me. I think it’s almost more like a Danish, but the dough isn’t that flaky Danish-quality. So we’re just going to call it Breakfast Pastry, OK? Call it whatever you want. It’s yummy.

In my normal existence, I probably wouldn’t feed my kids something with canned pie filling, but:

  • I’m pregnant, and I’m doing the best I can;
  • I intended for this to be for our dorm boys originally;
  • and the ingredients in the pie filling weren’t TOO bad except for food coloring (blegh).

I cut the sugar back significantly because I didn’t think it needed it with the canned filling and powdered sugar drizzle. The dough is certainly not doughnut-like, but I try not to OD on sugar before 10 a.m. Not usually.

Peach Breakfast Pastry

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 25 minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes

Yield: 15 servings

Peach Breakfast Pastry

Adapted from Taste of Home.

My dough is brown-looking because I used sucanat. If you use white sugar and flour, it will be much lighter.

Ingredients

  • 1 c. butter, softened
  • 1 c. sugar or sucanat
  • 4 eggs
  • 3 c. unbleached, all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
  • 21 oz. peach pie filling (or any other flavor)
  • Drizzle
  • 1 c. powdered sugar
  • 1/2 tsp. almond or vanilla extract
  • 3-4 T milk

Instructions

Cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition and scraping bowl as needed.

In another bowl, whisk together flour, salt, and baking powder. Add to wet ingredients all at once. Mix on low speed until well combined.

Spread three-fourths of dough into a greased, rimmed baking sheet. (You want something larger than a 9x13 if possible. If you don't have a pan that size, just adjust the cooking time up some.)

Spread pie filling on top to within an inch of the edge. Add rest of the dough to the top in spoonfuls.

Bake at 350 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Drizzle

In a small bowl, mix together powdered sugar and extract to get out any lumps. With a fork, whisk in enough milk to make mixture runny. Use a fork to drizzle over the top of cooked pastry.

For Freezing

Cut into squares and flash freeze. Put squares in gallon freezer bag. Defrost at room temperature or microwave for 30-45 seconds.

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Having company for the holidays? This would make a great breakfast for a crowd! It’s filling, delicious, and you can make it ahead and freeze it. Just defrost at room temperature, and warm slightly in the oven if you want that just-baked feel!

Do you have a favorite breakfast for company?

Added to Friday Food Frenzy.

Giant Brown Butter Granola Breakfast Cookies


Don’t you love happy accidents in the kitchen?

I put two sticks of butter in a saucepan the other night to melt for Heavenly Homemaker’s Giant Breakfast Cookies. Then I got involved in putting a child to bed and when I came back, the top of the butter was slightly crystallized. And it smelled PHENOMENAL.

I’ve seen recipes made with brown butter, of course, but I never “got it” until the fragrance of that butter was wafting through my galley kitchen. I knew it was going to make the cookies awesome.

So I started assembling just to discover that not only did I have some very brown butter, I also had no oats. None. Nada.

Not one to be discouraged, I came up with this crazy concoction of granola, more flour, and oat bran to replace the oats. It worked. I love the extra pizzazz the granola adds to these, but you can replace it with old-fashioned oats if you’d like.


Giant Brown Butter Granola Breakfast Cookies

Yield: about 21 cookies

Browning the butter is worth the time for a wonderful, developed flavor in these cookies. The whole wheat flour, oat bran, and oats will hold you over until lunchtime, and kids love having a cookie for breakfast!

Ingredients

  • 1 c. butter
  • 3/4 c. honey
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 1 tsp. cinnamon
  • 1 tsp. baking soda
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
  • 3/4 c. buttermilk
  • 2 eggs
  • 3 c. whole wheat flour
  • 3/4 c. granola (Any kind; I make Crystal's Lazy Granola with raisins.)
  • 1/4 c. oat bran (optional)
  • 6 oz. chocolate chips (about 1 cup)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Over low heat, melt butter in a saucepan until it is caramel color and smells nutty. This may take 15 minutes+.

In a large bowl, stir together butter, honey, buttermilk, salt, cinnamon, baking soda, vanilla, and buttermilk until well-combined. Add slightly beaten eggs.

Add flour, granola, and oat bran to mixture; stir well. Fold in chocolate chips.

Use an ice cream scoop or large cookie scoop to form cookies; place on greased baking sheets or ones lined with silpats or parchment paper.

Bake about 18 minutes. Let cool on trays 3-4 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool.

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Should we take a vote on whether these qualify as breakfast food or not?

 Added to Sweet Tooth Friday at Alli-n-Son

Cinnamon Sticky Bun Pancakes


I always hate when I see Secret Recipe Club “orphans.” These are the blogs who have an assignment and do theirs but the person who has their name didn’t do their assignment. Does that make sense?

For last week’s Group A revel, my assigned blog was Sustainable Eating for One. And the person who had me was Amanda’s Cookin’. So if Amanda’s Cookin’ had not made my recipe and posted about it, I would be an SRC “orphan.”

I have never been in that situation, but I imagine it’s a big bummer to do your recipe and get it up and not get to see a review of your own recipe!

When I saw that The Tasty Cheapskate was a group B orphan this month, I jumped over to her blog. Because I like tasty! And I am cheap. And she has a HUGE recipe index, so I knew I could find something to make that I had all the ingredients for. I was right!

I slightly modified Jean’s recipe for Cinnamon Swirl Pancakes with Apple Cream Topping. I added a little lemon zest, which I thought would be nice with the cinnamon. I didn’t bother with the topping, because it’s a weekday morning and I didn’t think anyone in my family would eat it except David. And I doubled the recipe, because 8 pancakes is laughable for my family of 4. David ate 3 by himself. (He’s not quite 18 months. And UNDERWEIGHT. Ha.) (Two is definitely a reasonable portion, especially with the topping, but my husband LOVES pancakes and I don’t mind having leftovers to freeze anyway.)

These pancakes are sticky and awesome. The cinnamon-sugar-butter mixture oozes out when you flip the pancakes, leaving an indentation where it was and making that side of the pancake sort of like the outside of a hot sticky bun. Thus, my interpretation of the name.

Bon Appetit, Pancake Lovers! And go give Tasty Cheapskate some extra love and comments on her blog.

Cinnamon Sticky Bun Pancakes

Yield: about 16 pancakes

Serving Size: 2-3 pancakes

Cinnamon Sticky Bun Pancakes

Ingredients

  • 4T butter
  • 6T brown sugar
  • 1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
  • 2 c. whole wheat flour
  • 1T baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 2 1/2 c. milk soured with the juice of one lemon
  • zest of one lemon

Instructions

Melt together butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon in the microwave or on the stovetop in a small saucepan. Stir very well; set aside.

Whisk flour, baking powder, salt, and lemon zest in a large bowl. Add in soured milk, whisking until the batter is runny but still slightly lumpy.

Pour batter onto a hot, greased griddle in 1/4 cup measures. Use a spoon or measuring cup or squeeze bottle to make swirl designs with the cinnamon-butter mixture. (Make sure to stir mixture well each time before you use it, or sugar will all go to the bottom.)

Cook until bubbles form; flip pancakes and cook for a few more minutes. Flip onto plate so sticky side is up. Drizzle with more cinnamon-butter-sugar stuff. Eat!

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