Desert Dough Delights

Posted on September 27, 2023 by Matt U.

Welcome to the Millionaire’s Club

After a lull in new baking I finally decided to attempt something a bit more challenging: millionaire’s shortbread. Millionaire’s shortbread is a layered dessert with a shortbread crust, a layer of caramel, and then a layer of chocolate ganache. I’d made a shortbread crust before for my pecan bars and that turned out rather lackluster so this would definitely be a step up from my usual baking.

Making the shortbread crust was surprisingly easy. I’ve been getting more comfortable with the process of creaming butter so this time was a lot easier. I started by creaming 1 cup of room temperature butter until it was light and fluffy and then added in the sugar and a bit of salt. After mixing those together until well combined I added the vanilla and one egg yolk and then slowly incorporated the flour. The dough came together well and I did my best to pat it into a 9×9 parchment-lined pan.

Next was the caramel which on the surface wasn’t too hard, it’s just heating up ingredients in a sauce pan. However, this was the first thing I’ve made where temperature was key. I don’t have a candy thermometer so my trusty ThermoPop was up to the task. Mixing the butter, corn syrup, brown sugar, and vanilla took a bit since the butter wasn’t room temperature. It required near constant stirring as it darkened or else it’d burn on the bottom. Once the mixture hit 225F it thickened quite a bit so it was done. Once my shortbread came out of the oven, I poured the caramel over it and put it in the fridge to chill for about 30 minutes.

The final step was to make the ganache. Now I had intended on making it in a double boiler but unfortunately all my saucepans were dirty so I had to do the poor man’s method of using the microwave. I put the chocolate and heavy cream into a bowl and microwaved it in 20 second bursts, stirring in between until the chocolate melted and the cream could be incorporated. Once the shortbread and caramel was chilled, I poured the ganache on and flecked it with coarse salt for that little bit of salty-sweet.

Overall my first attempt was pretty good. I think my shortbread could’ve baked maybe a couple of minutes longer since it was golden brown on the outside but the middle wasn’t so it was a bit soft still. The caramel was gooey and the ganache set perfectly. It’s a perfectly rich, decadent dessert and something I can’t wait to make again!

Recipe: https://preppykitchen.com/millionaires-shortbread/

Pictures:

Ingredients (heavy cream, 1/2 cup of butter, and egg yolk not shown)

Butter after creaming

Butter with sugar, salt, vanilla, and egg yolk after further creaming

Shortbread mixture after final mix

Shortbread patted out and ready to bake

Shortbread after baking

Caramel ingredients ready to be heated

Caramel in progress

Caramel completed

Caramel layered onto shortbread

Chocolate ganache layer added with sea salt sprinkled on top

Completed millionaire’s shortbread showing the 3 layers

Posted on August 13, 2023 by Matt U.

My First Customization

As per usual lately I haven’t had much drive to do baking lately. I did make my quick sugar cookies at my wife’s request last week. However, yesterday I really wanted to modify that two-ingredient biscuit recipe I tried before and make it into jalapeno-cheddar biscuits. I still have half a large jar of pickled jalapenos and a small block of medium cheddar cheese. This time I wanted to try to do this without finding a recipe online, you know, make a custom recipe myself.

Of course I did do some research for flavorings so maybe it’s not 100% original. However, I dried maybe 2-3oz of pickled jalapenos and then chopped them roughly, just so no giant pieces of jalapenos remained. I also shredded about 1.5-2 cups of cheddar cheese. Then as bit of flavor I added 1 tsp of garlic powder. Adding those to the base ingredients of self-rising flour and heavy cream the dough came together a lit bit more sticky than usual. I’m guessing it was from the extra moisture from the pickled jalapenos. I did need a bit of extra flour to keep the dough from sticking to my work surface and not stick to my biscuit cutter. I baked a dozen of them and they came out really great. They are moist, have a great spicy cheddar flavor, and still are relatively easy to make. The only suggestion my wife had and I agreed is that it could’ve used a bit more jalapeno. Definitely going to keep this one in our recipe book!

Recipe:
Original Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeenU2T7S2U

Modifications:

When adding your flour and heavy cream together add in the following:

1-2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese (more or less depending on your cheese preference)

3oz of diced jalapenos. More if you like spice. If you use pickled or canned jalapenos make sure to pat them dry to get rid of some of the moisture. You can use fresh jalapenos, maybe 1 or 2 if you like spice.

1 tsp garlic powder.

Mix all of it in until the dough just comes together and then follow the recipe in the video as normal.

Pics:

Ingredients

Base ingredients ready to mix

Adding in jalapenos and cheese

Rough dough coming together

Dough rolled out

Dough after a bit of kneading and patting out

Biscuits shaped and ready for baking

Biscuits after baking – opted not to use an egg wash this time so they aren’t as dark

Posted on July 9, 2023 by Matt U.

Biting the Biscuit Bullet

I’ve always wanted to try making biscuits, biscuits that didn’t come out of one of those exploding Pillsbury containers. I had looked at some recipes and almost all had my nemesis: cutting butter into flour. I know the hell that it can be from all my scone making and it’s not something I like to do.

My wife was looking through her YouTube account on our TV and she stumbled across a recipe video that purported to make fluffy bakery-class biscuits with just two ingredients. The two ingredients are flour and heavy cream. I was curious but now this had my attention. Watching the video it seemed simple….almost too simple. Mix the two ingredients into a sticky dough, loose the dough onto a floured surface and do a few fold and pats and cut into biscuit shapes and bake.

I had to read the recipe because they weren’t very clear on what flour to use. I found out it’s self-rising flour, which I guess makes sense as you need something to make the dough rise when baking. So I added a 3rd type of flour to my arsenal alongside AP and bread flour. Making this recipe was as simple as the video made it seem, mix the dough, fold it over a few times, pat it out, use my biscuit cutters I ordered but never used, place in a baking dish, bake, and enjoy!

They came out a little dark but that’s also because I put an egg wash on them before baking but taste and texture-wise they were absolutely perfect. Not too dry, not too hard, that perfect crumble. I was floored at how easy this was. This will be my go to for making biscuits as it’s so easy!

Recipe video (recipe in the description): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeenU2T7S2U

Pictures:

Ingredients…all two of them

Dough before being mixed

Dough before light kneading

Dough cut into biscuit shapes and placed in baking dish

Dough with egg wash applied

Biscuits after baking.

Posted on June 30, 2023 by Matt U.

The Doldrums

I apologize for my lack of updates. Life has gotten in the way of my baking adventure alongside just not having the spark to bake anything new lately. I have made my iced lemon cookies on a couple occasions. I do have a list of things I want to make but I just need the drive to make them.

Here’s what I want to make:

1. Garlic herb focaccia

2. Millionaire’s Shortbread

3. Chocolate croissants

4. Remake my cinnamon-sugar bread.

I’m hoping I can get back into regular baking and life can get back to normal. If you’re still a reader, thank you. I’ll try to do better.

Posted on May 26, 2023 by Matt U. · 2 Comments

For the Dogs

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. Life happens in all it’s ups and downs so baking hasn’t been on the forefront of my mind lately. A while ago I made some new dog treats for a very special four-legged friend again. Rather than using my usual peanut butter-pumpkin treats, I tried a new recipe.

This recipe is pretty similar except it is just peanut butter and honey flavored. The dough was pretty easy to make. I noticed that due to the amount of peanut butter the dough became quite oily as I rolled it out to cut it. It was pretty evident based on the mismatched thicknesses of the treats that I really need to practice my rolling pin skills. However, I wasn’t too upset since they’re just going to end up in the belly of a very grateful pup.

Recipe: https://www.thecookierookie.com/pb-dog-treats/

Pictures:

Ingredients

About to mix the peanut butter in

Dough after mixing

Dough rolled out

Tray 1 ready for the oven

Tray 2 ready for the oven

Dog treats on the cooling rack

Posted on April 23, 2023 by Matt U. · 1 Comment

Jalapeno Business

My wife mentioned to me that one of her co-workers was craving some jalapeno cheese bread from me. I haven’t made any yeast breads in quite some time so I thought it’d be a good idea. I used the same recipe (linked below) that I’ve used before but this time instead of making one giant pull-apart bread loaf I made two smaller 8×4 loaves.

The only difference this time was I doubled the amount of jalapenos at the co-workers request from 6oz of chopped jalapenos to 12oz. Let me tell you, it made for some spicy bread! My tongue was on fire for a few minutes after eating it. I think though I could’ve done a better job distributing the cheese. I think I needed to use a bit more melted butter to make everything stick. One idea I had was to flatten the pieces out a bit and stick a mixture of jalapenos, cheese, and melted butter in the middle and seal it up to make a sort of bread jalapeno popper, but that’s an experiment for next time.

The bread was a hit at my wife’s work, the co-worker and those she shared it with. It left a lot of people wanting some more of it. I’d better get baking!

Recipe: https://gluesticksblog.com/dads-jalapeno-cheese-bread-lindsay-peppers-freshfinds/

Pictures

Pull-apart loaves before baking

Pull-apart loaves after baking

Posted on March 26, 2023 by Matt U.

Cookies Go Bragh

Sorry for the lack of new posts here, it’s been a month since I last updated Embarrassed smile I haven’t really done any baking lately. There’s been a lot going on in my life so it sort of sapped my drive to want to bake anything. Though I did make a banana bread with chocolate chips that I think turned out a lot better than my California tanned loaf from last time.

This time I was tasked with baking some sugar cookies for my mother-in-law’s birthday party which happened shortly after St. Patrick’s Day. I thought it’d be cute to make green cookies to celebrate. I took my butter-less sugar cookie recipe I use to make quick sugar cookies and added just a teaspoon of green food coloring to make a perfect shamrock green cookie dough.

I like using the butter-less recipe because it’s quick and easy. However I think you sacrifice a little in longevity and softness over time as these cookies tend to harden over a period of 2-4 days so they’re best eaten as quickly as possible. Though if stored airtight I’m sure they’d last a bit longer.

Unfortunately disaster struck as my wife caught ill so we were unable to attend my mother-in-law’s party and my in-laws told us to just keep the cookies so we inherited them. I did like how they turned out, perfectly soft and filled with sugary goodness.

Recipe: https://www.thefrugalsouth.com/sugar-cookie-recipe-without-butter/

Pictures:

Green cookie dough

First tray rolled in sugar, ready to bake

Second tray ready to bake

Finished cookies, all packaged up with nowhere to go.

Posted on February 26, 2023 by Matt U. · 1 Comment

Banana Tan

My wife had a couple leftover bananas from her snacks that had gone a bit past ripe. I’ve never made a banana bread before but heard it’s a fairly simple quickbread so rather than just toss the bananas I made some banana bread.

As with most quickbreads, the process was pretty easy. Mix the dry ingredients up, mix up the wet ingredients, combine, pour, and bake. It was fun being able to do this recipe with just a couple bowls and a fork. As with most of my baking I found a simple recipe to follow online and doctored it up adding some leftover walnuts.

One thing I still have trouble with is baking time. This recipe said to bake the bread for between 55 and 65 minutes so knowing our oven runs a bit hot it seems I let it go for 55 minutes. When it came out it was minorly overbaked. The bread was deep tanned but not burnt. This affected the bread a bit as it was slightly drier than I’d like it but it still tasted great with some butter. I need to make sure I start checking the goods at least a good 10 minutes before the minimum baking time.

Recipe: https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/banana_bread/

Pictures:

Ingredients

Bananas mashed up

Banana mash mixed with melted butter

Mixing dry ingredients into wet ingredients

Mixing walnuts into the batter

Batter poured into 8×4 loaf pan

Banana bread finished.

Posted on February 19, 2023 by Matt U. · 1 Comment

She Wore Red Velvet

I was recently gifted a bag of white chocolate chips from a co-worker. Instead of making white chocolate macadamia cookies again I figured I’d try making red velvet cookies, mainly for my wife since I don’t like eating red velvet anything Open-mouthed smile . I found a recipe online as I usually do (which unfortunately I didn’t save so I can’t repost it here).

I got to try out the new hand mixer I got for Christmas since I had to cream butter and sugars together. This mixer has helix shaped beaters which is supposed to be more efficient. At first I wasn’t feeling it as the butter and sugar seemed to fly everywhere, but after a couple of minutes of working it, the mixture started coming together nicely. I feel like this mixer works a lot better than my old one did. Using the red food coloring made my dough look like a murder scene, I didn’t realize how dark red the coloring is. It literally looks like blood.

The rest of the process was pretty easy. I didn’t have buttermilk so to add that little bit of bite to the cookie I added a 1/2 tsp of white vinegar. The mixture came together real nice and after a couple hours of chilling in the refrigerator, the dough was easily workable into cookies. I, myself, didn’t eat any of these but my wife and the co-workers I gave them too absolutely love them.

It still makes me happy to bake things for people. I may not always like to eat the things I bake for others but seeing them enjoy my work is totally worth it.

Pictures:

Ingredients (not pictured: 1 egg)

Dry ingredients mixed together

Sugars and butter before creaming

Dry ingredients into wet ingredients

Dough after 2 hour chill

Dough rolled out and ready for baking

Red Velvet Cookies done baking

Yield: 20 cookies

Posted on January 28, 2023 by Matt U.

Monkeying Around: The Sequel

Recently my wife suggested making some monkey bread again. If you remember from my last time making it it was less than great, way too overbaked and way too chewy. So this time armed with the knowledge of fails past I sought out to remake the monkey bread.

I fixed mistake #1 which was using bread flour by using the recipe-prescribed all-purposed flour. I fixed mistake #2 of overbaking by setting the timer to the minimum baking time and then started checking the internal temperature at about 10 minutes before the timer expired and then 5 minutes after until reaching the 195F-200F range of doneness. Fixing these two mistakes made for an absolutely delectable pull apart monkey bread. My wife and I had to pull ourselves away from the bread or we’d eat it all in one sitting.

One more change to make would be to take the remaining brown sugar mixture the dough balls were rolled in and pour it over the top of the monkey bread before it bakes (it’d become the bottom of the bread when it’s turned out) to get some extra caramel-ly goodness on it since the bottom pieces are a bit dry.

Recipe: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/272308/monkey-bread-from-scratch/

Pictures

Before baking

After baking

Turned out onto a plate after cooling a bit