Cookies and Cream Cinnamon Rolls: In Partnership with Vermont Creamery

I add too much milk to my coffee, but it keeps me warm. I fall back asleep while I wait for it to cool a bit; I wake up and it's ice-cold. My mother got me an electric blanket for my birthday, I opened it after Paris. I fixed it on my bed this week but I don't think it gets warm enough. I still wear a ripped up cardigan to sleep in, its sleeves hanging loosely around my stomach and I hold myself to sleep.

It's always like this when you stay long enough in Pennsylvania to experience its winter. It's one you feel in your body rather than through your environments. A part of your mind you forget about for the other three-quarters of the year. As unexplainable as the starbursts that flash in your cornea when you rub the sleep away. It's there, but only for a second, and only so deep down in your instincts you can't remember if you dreamed it or not. That's winter in Pennsylvania, a period of ups-and-downs and a lot of feeling involved.

So sometimes you have to combat it, the cold that's inside and out. I keep the oven on, heat the house up. This recipe started as a simple cookie and grew to what it is today: Cookies and Cream Cinnamon Rolls. And with the help of Vermont Creamery's rich, full-flavored products, it didn't just enhance the flavors and quality, but also the experience of baking itself. Recipe is below.

Cookies and Cream Cinnamon Rolls

This is my favorite dough recipe to use (adapted from here), as it is so forgiving but light and airy. You can stop at Step 17 and refrigerate overnight if you want to bake these off in the morning. Further, this recipe has twice as much cookie dough than what you will need for the rolls, but I included it for just some extra cookies to have on hand!

Ingredients for Cookie Dough and Cookies:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon flaked sea salt
• 1 ½ cup dark brown sugar
• 8 tablespoons of room temperature butter (I used Vermont Creamery’s cultured butter for a little bit of an edge to these cookies)
• 2 tablespoons vegetable shortening, softened
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• 8 ounces roughly chopped quality chocolate, like Ghirardelli’s

Ingredients for Cinnamon Rolls:

• 1 cup half ‘n half
• ¼ cup + 1 tablespoon white sugar, divided
• 1¼ cup dark brown sugar + a little more for sprinkling
• ½ stick of unsalted butter, cut into cubes
• 1 ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup water, warm to the touch
• 5 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• 5-6 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
• 8 ounces roughly chopped chocolate
• Half of your cookie dough (reserved from above recipe)

Ingredients for Crème Fraîche Icing and Assembly:

• 8 oz Vermont Creamery's crème fraîche
• 1 cup confectioner’s sugar
• ¼ cup powdered milk
• ½ tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• Pinch of sea salt

Directions for Cookie Dough and Cookies:

1. Preheat oven to 375*F and prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper
2. In a mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, and salt
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together sugar, shortening, and butter until light
4. Add eggs, one at a time, then vanilla
5. With mixer on low (or use a wooden spoon), slowly add flour mixture into butter mixture until a dough begins to form
6. Using floured hands, knead cookie dough to come together
7. Add chocolate and knead a couple times more
8. Now, divide dough in half: one half goes into plastic wrap and will be used for the cinnamon rolls, the other half can be baked now
9. Using your hands, roll dough into 2 tablespoon balls and space them out a bit on your prepared sheet. Repeat with remaining dough; you should have 12 to 15 cookies
10. Bake for 12 minutes, remove, and allow to cool

Directions for Cinnamon Rolls:

1. In a small saucepan, combine half ‘n half, ¼ brown sugar, ¼ cup of white sugar, butter, and 1 teaspoon salt
2. Stir and heat on medium until butter is melted, remove and allow to cool
3. While mixture is cooling, combine water, yeast, and remaining sugar and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment
4. Allow to stand for five minutes or until yeast begins to foam
5. Now, turn mixer on its lowest speed and add eggs, one at a time, and vanilla
6. Keep mixer on and begin to gradually add flour, one cup at a time, wetting intermittently with your half ‘n half mixture
7. When you have a wet, sticky dough, turn mixer off and change to the dough hook attachment
8. Turn mixer on medium and allow to knead for a good five minutes or until dough pulls away from sides of your bowl (add a little flour at the beginning if dough is extremely sticky)
9. Once dough begins to pull away from the sides of your bowl, turn out onto a floured work surface and knead by hand five or six times
10. Shape into a ball and allow to rest in an oiled bowl, covered with a tea towel, for one hour
11. When dough is done resting, it should be double in size
12. Turn back out onto your work surface and punch down, divide into two, putting one half aside
13. Now, roll your dough half into a rectangle that is roughly 12” by 9”
14. Sprinkle with ½ a cup of brown sugar, 3 ounces of chocolate, and half of your remaining cookie dough
15. Take one edge of your dough and roll into itself, tucking the corners as you go, jelly-roll style
16. Slice into 9-12 rolls. Place these in a parchment-lined cake pan or greased skillet (any baking vessel works here, really) and cover with a tea towel to rise for 30 minutes
17. Repeat with remaining dough, sugar, 3 ounces chocolate, and cookie dough
18. While rolls are resting, preheat oven to 350*F
19. When resting period is complete, top with remaining chocolate and a sprinkle of brown sugar, bake for 35 minutes or until golden brown and puffed. Depending on your oven, you may want to rotate your pans at the 20 minute mark
20. Remove from oven, allow to cool slightly before topping with your crème fraîche icing

Directions for Icing and Assembly:

1. In a mixing cup, whisk all ingredients together, add a little milk to the mixture if you find it is not pourable enough to your liking
2. Pour immediately over warmed cinnamon rolls, then top with a few crumbled cookies!

This post was inspired by Vermont Creamery, who excel at making quality dairy products. In this recipe I used their cultured butter (which I had previously used here and here) and their crème fraîche, which if a thick, cultured cream that will add depth and flavor to any recipe as a substitute for sour cream (but is way more flavorful than sour cream!). Check out their website, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter for more information. Thank you!

On Design*Sponge Today

I am super excited to say that today on Design*Sponge, I am sharing a recipe for cinnamon naan elephant ears. You can read why I love this recipe below:

My father is not an adventurous eater; and there are certain days where I would say I am not, either. He’s a meat and potatoes guy, untrusting of anything he can’t pronounce or that doesn’t come in a cellophane wrapper. We used to go to the county fair, my father and I, before the ticket prices were $15 a head and parking was free at the church adjacent to the fairgrounds. And at the end of a long, long day, we’d stop at his favorite stand where he’d buy himself two elephant ears and down them with a Diet Coke. It was his reward for a hard day’s work of being a father while my mother worked the weekend shift. For this recipe, I blended my father’s county fair dessert with a naan recipe that has been sitting around, just waiting to be used at the perfect moment.

The rest of the post can be found here!

Sunday Hummus, a variation on a theme

I dream of owning a house now, I think of it every day. I've outgrown the boundaries of my family's home; I can't drift much longer. The days repeat themselves and by Thursday I'm second guessing if I missed any deadlines for the week. There's not a lot of purpose here right now.

There were years of me questioning what I wanted from life. Thinking the seeds I had sown were somehow rotten, stunted, cicadas that would spring in 7 or 13 years. But I put that all off and think about food. I think in terms of recipes, in terms of future cookbooks I want to author. I think more and more of having kids of my own with a person I love very much and the packed lunches I could make, working from home and poaching fresh, almost orange-yolked eggs every morning.

After Cynthia's baby shower post the other day, I had some extra ingredients in the fridge. I built this recipe off a soup, an afterschool snack for a future child. Whether it's Lana or one of my own, I'm already planning ahead.

Cauliflower Harissa Hummus

This is a super easy recipe and the hardest thing about it is finding the ingredients. With this one, the spice level is a little high, so you can adjust to your tastes. I paired this recipe with a homemade flatbread as well, using this recipe as my base and adding a little sour cream.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 head of cauliflower, tossed in oil and roasted at 425*F for 20 minutes, as in here
• 15 oz can of chickpeas, drained
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 TB harissa (modify to your taste buds)
• 1/3 cup tahini
• 2 TB sour cream
• Juice and zest of one lemon
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 cup olive oil

Directions:

1. Allow for your caulflower to cool before handling in this recipe
2. Put all ingredients in the bowl of your food processor and pulse until chickpeas and cauliflower are processed, it will be a little chunky
3. With motor running, pour in olive oil slowly, checking halfway through to see if you have achieved your desired consistency
4. When it is how smooth you like it, turn motor off and transfer to a bowl
5. Allow to rest for half an hour in the fridge for flavors to meld and serve with pita, flatbread, or other vegetables

Congratulations, Cynthia! A Little Baby Boy Bowl and a Cauliflower Harissa Soup Recipe!

I held my niece last night. I was square-jawed in determination, but my hands trembled as my mother reminded me to support her neck. She is beautiful, fussy. Tiny, curious. She likes her pacifier and doesn't seemed bothered when their dog barks for food. She sleeps a lot, but has the deepest, darkest irises when she's awake. 

I love this little girl and I love my sister more for having her. I love the slight disarray of their house, the boxes and recycling piled up. The honesty about the pain my sister faces, the way she can be vulnerable and rely on me to get her a glass of water. We laugh more than we used to, more than we had in years. Decades, maybe. And when the TV is on and the baby is sleeping, her small coos fill the silence, but it's not awkward anymore. Lana brought us all together and I drive the forty miles twice a week to see her, hold her, practice being a better uncle than the ones I had. 

I'm baby crazy right now, insane even. The small tufts of hair that stick up after Lana's nap make me grin, laugh, I tickle her feet before putting socks on them. More and more of my friends are having children. It hit me at 25 that I'm the same age my mother was when she had me. I'm happy for all these new families forming around me and if I were the praying type, I'd pray every night for them.

I say all of this because I am beyond happy for Cynthia of Two Red Bowls and her family, who recently welcomed Baby Luke (B3) into their lives. Two Red Bowls is one of my absolutely favorite blogs and I revisit her recipes often for inspiration. Luke is absolutely gorgeous and so lucky to have such a talented, smart, and wonderful mother as Cynthia. When Stephanie and Alana emailed me about participating in a virtual baby shower, I was all in. Here's to you, baby boy bowl, and I can't wait to see your world through your mother's blog!

Cauliflower Harissa Soup

Ingredients:

• Florets from one head of cauliflower
• 6 cloves of garlic, peeled
• ¼ medium white onion, roughly chopped
• ½ of a large apple, cored and chopped (leave the skin on if you prefer, as I did)
• ¼ cup olive oil, separated + more for drizzling
• 1 ¾ cup chicken stock
• ¼ cup half ‘n half
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 ½ teaspoon ground pepper
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 2 tablespoons butter, softened
• Harissa to finish, to taste

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425*F
2. On a sheet pan, prepared with aluminum foil, mix together your cauliflower, garlic, onion, apple, and 2 TB of your oil (Note, there is no seasoning here, but you can add a dash of salt and pepper—this is because I seasoned the whole soup after testing the broth for salinity)
3. Roast for 25 minutes or until florets are tender – do not let them burn, but the ends will brown
4. While vegetables are roasting, warm your stock in a saucepan. I used my trusty Falk saucepan, that I had previous made caramel with here. The stock does not have to boil or simmer, you just want it warmed through to agree with the temperature of the roasted vegetables
5. Now, in a blender, combine your roasted vegetables/fruit and chicken stock. Puree as smooth as you can get it – be careful, it will be hot!
6. Your soup will be a little lumpy. Add your half ‘n half and remaining olive oil and blend again to smooth
7. Season to taste (this much salt, pepper, and paprika were to my liking, but it is not a hard and fast rule how much you use), blend once more with butter
8. Transfer back to your saucepan to keep warm, or it stores wonderfully in an airtight container for a couple days
9. When you want to eat, you can heat a bowl up and drizzle with oil and harissa to finish, but would also be good with a little bacon and more cream on top!

Here are the links to all other blogs participating in Cynthia's baby shower!

I am a Food Blog | Mac and Kimcheese Dolsot Bibimbap
Fix Feast Flair | Dishoom's Chicken Ruby Murray
The Fauxmartha | Mom Lunches
A Cozy Kitchen | Cornbread Chicken + Dumplings
Cake Over Steak | Salted Caramel Chocolate Crackles
The Pancake Princess | Stovetop Pumpkin Bread Pudding
Snixy Kitchen | Chicken Pot Pie with Chestnut Biscuits
Lady and Pups | Egg Florentine in Pullman "Bowls"
Betty Liu | Honeynut Squash Congee
Style Sweet CA | Date Bourbon Cinnamon Rolls
Warm Vanilla Sugar | Broccoli Quinoa Bowl with Avocado Sauce
A Beautiful Plate | Coconut Cauliflower Soup
Girl Versus Dough | Tomato Grilled Cheese Soup
Fork to Belly | A Big Hawaiian Fruit Bowl
Donny Tsang | Chawanmushi
Wit & Vinegar | Jerk Chicken Chili
Constellation Inspiration | Salted Egg Yolk Custard Mochi
twigg studios | Katsu Udon Soup wth Popcorn Chicken Croutons
Edible Perspective | Acorn Squash Bowls with Pears, Pecans, and Vanilla Bean Cream
Coco Cake Land | Asian Bowl Cut Sugar Cookies
Southern Souffle | Sorghum Apple Biscuits In A Bowl
The Bojon Gourmet | Smoky Sweet Potato & Lentil Tortilla Soup
Flourishing Foodie | Sweet Potato and Pumpkin Soup
What should I eat for breakfast today | Little Bowl with Creamy Polenta, Cheese, Onions and Mushrooms
Top with Cinnamon | Squash & Crispy Kale Bowls with Pomegranate and Miso-Ginger Dressing
the broken bread | Roasted Celeriac + Fennel Soup
my name is yeh | Corn Dog In A Bowl
Crepes of Wrath | Mini Scallion Pancake Challah Buns
O&O Eats | Persimmon Cobbler

Ina Garten's Halloween Bark: My First Non-Recipe!

When I was younger, Halloween was always my favorite time of year. Other than for the obvious reason (my sweet tooth), Halloween was the entree into the holiday season. The leaves that fell were raked into piles, my sister and I would roll in them as children. We got older, she got a boyfriend, and still I loved Fall. To dress up, to be someone else, a form of drag and an exercise in imagination. 

I wasn't invited to a lot of parties, so I dressed up as a cowboy, a princess, and one year when we were very poor and very lazy, a dining room table. The cheap dollar store masks that stuck against  your face, breathing the stale, moist, reused breath all night. My mother and I would eat candy, watch a movie, go to sleep with a wrapper clutched in my hands. Our town was not set up for trick-or-treating back then, so we'd buy our candy in bulk and snack on it into Christmas. Santa-shaped sugar cookies found themselves next to orange and black wrappers on the buffet.

We don't do this anymore, traditions change and I changed, too. But now we have Lana, my niece, and we think back to all the old things we did as children and how we can improve on those things now. I updated a simple recipe, chocolate bark, to get rid of all of that chocolate sitting around before the holidays roll in. And it just so happens that Rebecca over at Displaced Housewife had a very similar idea too!

Halloween Candy Bark

This is essentially a "non-recipe" due to the fact that it doesn't take any skill, is totally adaptable, and requires no prep of any sort. Further, this is labeled as Ina Garten's because that's who I went as for Halloween this year!! A picture (and video!) follow the recipe below! 

Ingredients:

• 40 oz of chocolate (see note below)
• 1 1/2 cups chopped Halloween candy bars, M&M's, etc
• Pinch of flaked sea salt

Directions:

1. Prepare a half sheet pan with parchment paper
2. In a medium-sized microwave-safe mixing bowl, pour 2/3 of the chocolate you are using into the bowl (split this up if you are using 2 different flavored chocolates or chips!)
3. Microwave at 20 second increments, stirring when timer is done, until chocolate is melted
4. Add remaining chips that were reserved (this is a very easy way to "temper" your chocolate, actually learned by Ina!
5. Using a rubber spatula, pour onto your parchment paper and spread out into a rectangle
6. Repeat if using any other flavors
7. Immediately add your candy, pressing down slightly
8. Sprinkle with sea salt
9. Put in fridge for an hour or two before breaking up and serving

Note:  I had white chocolate chips and peanut butter chips on hand, but really anything will do. I do think that higher quality chocolate, even in part, would have improved this recipe, but not necessary

And here, for documentation purposes, is my Ina Garten Halloween costume!!