Perfect Pancakes

I love breakfast food.  Every Sunday night I make breakfast food for dinner.  It's become a tradition in our house.  This pancake recipe is my favorite!  I'll never use another recipe or go back to bisquik.  Try it!  You'll love it!

1 egg
1 tablespoon melted butter
1 cup buttermilk*
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 TBS sugar

Whisk wet ingredients.  Combine dry ingredients- stir into wet.  If batter seems too thick add a little more milk.  I personally like my pancakes thin so I keep the batter pretty runny.  The pancakes will cook evenly this way too.

*If you don't have buttermilk (who does?) add a little vinegar to your milk and let it sit for a couple minutes.  Voila! Buttemilk.

This recipe makes plenty for me, my husband, and my one year old.  But as you can see, it can be easily doubled, tripled, quintupled...you get it.

Banana Muffins

I make these babies every time we have brown bananas in our house.  Which is weekly.

You will need:

 1 1/2 cups flour
 3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 bananas
1 egg
1/3 cup melted butter

Preheat oven to 350

Combine wet and dry ingredients together in seperate bowls.

Fold dry into wet.  Don't overmix!  That's the secret to good muffins.

Get out your muffins liners, or just plop them straight into your muffin tin like I did.

This recipe will make a dozen regular muffins, or six enormous muffins.

Bake regular muffins 10-15 minutes, or large for 25-30.

Top with butter and enjoy!

Modified Sugar Cake

I really had a craving for sugar cake this morning. I didn't have the patience to make the real thing, so this is what I did.

1 refrigerated pizza crust
1/2 stick butter
1/2 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Roll out crust onto cookie sheet. I didn't roll it out all the way because I wanted my sugar cake to be pretty thick (and all I had was thin crust dough). Thinly slice the butter and distribute evenly over the crust. Sprinkle sugar on top. Bake for about 10 minutes.

Although not as good as the original, (you MUST try the original!) it was delicious and certainly hit the spot this morning!

Great Grandma Schmuhl's Sugar Cake

This recipe comes from Germany and has been passed down for generations in my family. It's the most delicious thing you will ever eat. We always serve it on Christmas morning with hot chocolate. It's perfect for a chilly morning. I know we don't have very many of those left, (those of us in the valley definitely don't) so here you go!

Grandma Schmuhl's Sugar Cake

1 recipe Refrigerator Butter Rolls (see below)
1 cube butter
1 cup sugar

Divide raised dough into two pieces. Knead into ball. Let rest while you grease two large cookie sheets. Put on cookie sheet (use a pastry roller or a glass to roll out). Dot (dime size chunk) each pan with butter and sprinkle with sugar. Let raise until double and bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 min.

Refrigerator Butter Rolls

1 cup milk, scalded, poured over
1 cube (1/2 c.) butter or margarine
1 pkg. yeast dissolved in 1/4 cup warm water (it should bubble)
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs
4 cups flour

If you use powdered milk, you do not have to scald the milk. While waiting for the butter or margarine to soften or melt, you can add the sugar and the salt. Add yeast and eggs. Mix in 3 cups of flour and mix well. Add last cup of flour. You do not have to knead dough.

Cover and put in refrigerator over night, or cover and let raise until double in bulk.

The Best Cinnamon Rolls. Ever.

I am so excited that it is finally fall! For some of you it's been fall for awhile, but here in the valley it just barely started cooling down. With this wonderful cooler weather brings wonderful fall food! I have a lot of recipes I'm so excited to try. I will also be trying out lots of Thanksgiving recipes and posting the good ones on here, so everyone will know what to bring for Thanksgiving dinner! This will result in a lot of extra food, so please come and visit me and I will feed your hungry belly.

On Friday I made cinnamon rolls. I finally decided to give up on my recipe that I've had since Freshman Home Economics, and find something better (sorry Mrs. Miller). And boy did I find something better! These are the best cinnamon rolls I have ever made! Probably the best I've ever had. Except for, you know, Cinnabon. But who can compete with a 2,000 calorie roll?

Once again this recipe is based off of The Pioneer Woman's recipe. I say based, because I changed a few things, but it's basically the same. I also just pre-ordered her book!! I'm so excited! She's changed my life forever.

Okay here we go...

Ingredients:

2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup sugar
1 package Active Dry Yeast
4 + 1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tablespoon of salt

3/4 cup (or more) melted butter
another 1/2 cup of sugar
generous sprinkling of cinnamon

Frosting:
1/2 bag powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup melted butter
pinch of salt

Directions:

Mix milk, oil and sugar in a large pot. "Scald" the mixture (heat until just before the boiling point.) Turn off heat and leave to cool 45 minutes to 1 hour.



When the mixture is cool enough but still warm, add your yeast and let it work



Stir in 4 cups of flour. Then cover and let rise for about an hour.



After the dough has risen add 1/2 cup flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir mixture together.

At this point my friend Alicia called me, so I put my dough in the refrigerator for about an hour. You could put this dough in the fridge for up to two days if you wanted to. But who wants to do that?

Roll out dough into a rectangular shape. Look! I finally bought a rolling pin! In my five years of marriage I've never bought a rolling pin. It works so much better than a cup! I was singing the hallelujah chorus.



Pour on the melted butter. Don't be shy-- we all know butter makes the world better. I think butter should win the Nobel Peace Prize.


Sprinkle on sugar (the recipe says 1/2 cup, but use as much as you need! I think I used closer to 1 cup of sugar), and a very generous sprinkling of cinnamon. Be even more generous than this. I think my rolls could have use more.


Now run and get a piece of thread or dental floss. Roll up your dough, and pinch the seam. Use the thread to cut the dough. I really should have taken a picture of this part. If you've never done this before and you have no idea what I'm talking about, call me and I'll explain it to you. Or just use a sharp knife.

Place rolls in pans.


Let them rise for 20-30 minutes, then bake at 400 degrees for 15-18 minutes. Or until light golden brown.

Meanwhile mix up the frosting...

and pour it over warm cinnamon rolls.



Mmmm...



Enjoy!

Monkey Bread!

I LOVE breakfast food. We have breakfast for dinner at least once a week at my house. This is definitely going in the rotation!

I love trying out The Pioneer Woman's recipes. They are all so yummy! For step-by-step instructions and pictures, click HERE.

Ingredients:

* Brown Sugar // 1/2cup will be needed
* 2 sticks of butter (1 cup)
* Bundt Cake Pan (feel free to use dorky shapes)
* Cinnamon // 2-3 teaspoons
* 3 cans of Buttermilk Biscuits (the non-flaky ones)
* Sugar! // 1 cup


The best part of this recipe is that it only looks hard to make, it's really really easy, and probably the best thing you'll ever eat.

Cut the biscuits into quarters.

Place the cinnamon and sugar in a gallon bag.

Put the biscuits in the bag and give it a good shaking.

Place covered biscuits into a bundt pan. I used a cake pan because I don't own a bundt ("Oh, it's a cake!"). I had to use 2 cake pans for all the dough, and even then I had extra.

Melt butter in saucepan, add brown sugar and cook until it's become one color.

Poor over biscuits. It's going to look like way to much, but it'll be worth it in the end.

Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes, or until crust is a deep golden brown.

ENJOY!!!