Foodie Friday -- Monkey Bread

I've been wanting to make Monkey Bread for a long time, but I've always been missing the key ingredient--Biscuits.

I never buy biscuits, but when I do, I buy the expensive, overly large, flaky ones. You don't need those biscuits for this recipe. Any old cheap cans will work quite well.

And if you trust your kid with a knife, this is the perfect recipe for them to bake.

Monkey Bread

4 cans biscuits

1 cup sugar

1 Tbls cinnamon, or more

2 sticks butter (16 oz)

½ cup brown sugar 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

 

Prepare tube pan by coating inside of pan with vegetable spray (Pam).

Place sugar and cinnamon into resealable plastic bag (Ziploc). Shake to mix. Set aside.

Place butter and brown sugar in heavy saucepan.  Turn on low to melt butter.

Open two cans of biscuits, separate biscuits and cut into quarters. Place cut pieces into bag, seal and shake bag to coat each piece of dough. Shake excess sugar off dough pieces and evenly place into prepared pan.

Repeat above with remaining biscuits. I added about another teaspoon of cinnamon to the mixture before tossing the biscuit pieces. 

Turn up heat on sugar/butter mixture on stove. Boil 2-3 minutes, until foamy. Immediately pour over dough.

Place pan in oven and bake for 30 minutes.  When brown, remove from oven and let sit for 10 minutes. Place large plate over top of pan and flip over to remove monkey bread . . . allowing ooey-gooey goodness to roll down the sides of bread.

Rip apart and devour.

Hints & Suggestions:

·        Find the cheapest cans of biscuits you can. They don’t need to look pretty if you’re cutting them into quarters.

·        I used a pretty Bundt pan instead of a boring old tube pan.

·        I added more cinnamon to the sugar before tossing the second batch of cut biscuits because the previous biscuits had removed almost all the cinnamon.

·        If you need to bake longer, then do, but you risk the ‘sauce’ caramelizing and burning in the bottom of the pan.

·        I didn’t have a plate large enough to place over the Bundt pan, so I used a Christmas tray. J

Enjoy!

Later, Peeps!

 

 

 

Foodie Friday -- Apple Toffee Coffee Cake

I originally found this recipe on the Baker Mama blog. But I changed it a little bit. One of the ingredients I had wasn't exactly what was called for. AND, this is the biggie, I suspect my self-rising flour had exceeded it's ability to rise--I have no idea when I had bought this flour. My bad. This didn't make it as much of a coffee cake as a 'blondie' - type brownie texture.

Don't get me wrong. This was a wonderful recipe, but I think you need to be warned that your results might be different.

Apple Toffee Coffee Cake

2 cups sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup canola oil
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 cups self-rising flour
2 cups peeled and diced tart apples
1 bag (8 ounces) chocolate toffee bits

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 9 x 13 inch baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.

In a large bowl, combine sugar, eggs, oil, and vanilla. Stir in flour. The batter will be very thick at this point. Stir in apples and 1 cup toffee bits. Spread into prepared baking dish. Sprinkle with toffee bits.

Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool slightly before cutting.

Hints & Suggestions:

• I finely diced the apples, which made the apples a little less prominent
• I didn't have chocolate toffee bits, so used plain Heath toffee bits. And the package had been previously opened, so I just saved some to sprinkle on top
• Check your self-rising flour to make sure it's still viable. Sometimes the baking powder in the self-rising flour will lose it's 'umph'.

There were three of us and we managed to demolish the entire pan in less than twelve hours. Jus' sayin'.

Enjoy!

Foodie Friday -- Blueberry Buckle

Yes, I'm off a day, so sue me.

Next year, I'll have random Foodie days, instead of just Fridays. Well, that's just one of the concepts that I'm thinking of changing on this blog. Gotta switch it up every now and then, right?

I'll be spending the next few days revamping my blog and updating the links, etc. It won't be too drastic, but I want to be ready to ring in the New Year with a new attitude!

 

Today, I'm posting a recipe for Blueberry Buckle. I had totally forgotten about this recipe until I realized I had a passel of mushy blueberries. They just weren't that tasty, so I needed to do something about it, thus this recipe. Yes, it's my mom's recipe. No, I have no idea where it came from.

 

Blueberry Buckle

 

¾ cup sugar
¼ cup shortening
1 egg
½ cup milk
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
2 cups well-drained blueberries

Mix sugar, shortening and egg thoroughly together. Stir in milk. Sift and stir in flour, baking powder, and salt. Carefully fold in blueberries. Spread in a greased and floured 9-inch square baking dish. Sprinkle with topping. Bake at 375 degrees F for 45-50 minutes.

Topping:

½ cup sugar

1/3 cup flour
½ tsp. cinnamon
¼ cup soft butter

Mix together.

Easy to throw together at a moment's notice . . .and the baking time gives you enough time to cook some bacon, make some cheesy eggs, orange juice and whatever else your heart desires.

Enjoy!

 

Breakfast Apple Cake--redo

I woke up at the abominable hour of 3:20 AM. I lay in bed until I decided that I wasn't getting back to sleep again and proceeded to haul my sorry a$$ out of bed at 4:05. After a cup of coffee, a little FB surfing and email reading, I decided to read a couple of chapters of THE HOBBIT. This is about the gazillionth time I've read this story, but I needed to read my new copy prior to the release of the first movie due out in Dec 2012. I also organized my WW blog posts so I can get to town on my non-fiction story.

Sometime during these last two hours, I decided to make Breakfast Apple Cake for the family. Usually, they wake up around 8:00-8:30 and want a coffee cake for breakfast. I usually have to break it to them that coffee cake tends to take 45-60 min. to bake, then they opt for pancakes. This time I'm thinking ahead! I had everything on hand, except raisins, but I'm not much of a raisin fan so no loss.

Plus my poor kidlet has been fighting a cold all week and this was the first day she could actually sleep past 6:10.

When I went to link the recipe to the title, I realized that the one posted was the lower calorie one with Splenda and applesauce. If you want that recipe, here's the link.

Erm . . . here's the real recipe.

Breakfast Apple Cake

1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. baking soda
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup butter, melted (1 stick-nuked in 30 second intervals until melted)
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 cup raisins (omitted)
1 cup chopped nuts (pecans)
2 1/2 cups peeled apples, small diced (2 med. Granny Smith's green apples)
1 Tbls. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray 8 x 8 square pan with cooking spray.

Mix together sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda and salt. Add melted butter (cooled), eggs and raisins. Fold in vanilla, nuts, and apples. Pour into prepared pan, spread flat. Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean in center of cake.
It took about 35 min. in a glass Pyrex dish in my gas oven.