Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with Brown Sugar Icing

It has been an eventful week (okay, okay, eight) since I last blogged and summer reluctantly, finally expired.  It's cold now! And while it was becoming such, a lot happened. I moved from the house that feels like Christmas to the house that feels like Thanksgiving, started selling earrings in an awesome store that newly opened in DC, took a vacation to visit my parents in Maine (where we discovered the perfect flat-iron building for housing a dream bakery), became briefly obsessed with religious snake-handlers after reading a memoir about the exploits of one, acquired shared responsibility for a Rottweiler named Emma Jane who looks cute as pie dressed like a banana, and gave all of the Tootsie pops to a five-year-old who was dressed like Harry Potter and holding the hand of his curly-haired baby sister. I have yet to go apple-picking (for shame!), but a group of considerate folks from New York brought us a bushel of upstate apples that have been put to good use inside cheddar cheese pie crust and given as consolation prizes to the post-candy trick-or-treaters that were banging on our door at 10:30 on Sunday.

And while I hope you haven't tired of the lone September recipe that I bequeathed--and really how could anyone tire of a doughnut recipe?--I come bearing a new autumn-appropriate recipe for pumpkin cinnmon rolls that I hope you'll try. This was originally posted on TheKitchn a few weeks back, and while I was skeptical about the instructions that don't require you to activate the yeast or knead the dough, my dough was nice and puffed the next morning when I pulled it out of the fridge, and these rolls baked up delicious! I would have liked them better with the cream cheese icing from over here, but it's real hard to go wrong with cinnamon rolls of any kind, especially on a Sunday morning when enjoyed first hot and second cold after a bike ride and during a retreat to plaid blankets.

P.S. Please don't forget to vote today!

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with Brown Sugar Icing

Adapted from TheKitchn.com

Makes about 16 rolls

As I said, I was skeptical about the yeast, so I've provided instructions for activating yeast as I normally would have done. If you'd like to skip that step and want some validation about it, go ahead and consult the original recipe over here.!

For the dough

1/4 cup water, warmed, not hot

1 package active dry yeast (just shy of 1 tablespoon)

1 cup milk

1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)

1/2 cup sugar

1 15-ounce can pumpkin puree

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

For the filling

1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)

1 cup packed dark brown sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 1/2 cups toasted pecans, chopped and divided

For the icing

1/4 cup melted butter

1/2 cup milk

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup brown sugar

2 to 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar (I don't like the taste of powdered sugar, so I try to get away with using as little as possible)

Pinch of salt

1.  Mix the yeast, warm water, and a pinch of sugar in a small bowl, and set aside. Mixture will become foamy if years ts alive and ready to rise.

2.  Warm the butter and milk in a small saucepan until butter is melted.  Combine in a very large bowl with sugar and stir until sugar is dissolved.  Let the mixture cool somewhat until it is just warm (as opposed to piping hot), then stir in your foamy yeast mixture and the pumpkin.  Add the salt and five cups of flour, stirring until the flour is well-incorporated.  The dough should come together in a shaggy ball, but if it still feels moist, add the remaining half-cup of flour (I did).

3.  Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm, dry place for one to three hours; it should double in size.  Then gently deflate it by pressing two fingers into the top, cover it again, and pop it in the fridge overnight for up to eight hours.  If you'd rather bake the dough right away, deflate it and begin shaping instead of refrigerating overnight.

4.  To shape the rolls, shake some flour onto a large work surface.  Dump the dough out, pat it into a rectangle, and use a well-floured rolling pin to push it into a rectangle that's about 1.5 inches thick, and longer than it is wide (mine ended up being about 20 inches by five inches).  To make the filling, mix the melted butter, milk, sugar, and spices in a medium bowl.  Pour the filling onto your dough rectangle, and spread it around evenly, leaving a half-inch border. Sprinkle one cup of the toasted pecans on top.  Working long-ways, roll the dough into a cylinder and pinch it closed at the top. Using a sharp knife or bench cutter, cut cylinder into rolls about 1.5 to two inches thick.  Arrange them side by side in a few buttered caked pans, cover, and allow them to rise until they look puffy, about 30 minutes.

5. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.  When the rolls have puffed and are all squished together, bake them for 20 to 25 minutes until golden.  Rotate the pan halfway through baking.  Meanwhile, make the glaze by heating the butter, milk, and brown sugar in a medium saucepan until sugar is dissolved.  Remove from heat, and sift in the powdered sugar; blend thoroughly with a fork. You now have pourable, awesome glaze. 

5.  When the rolls are golden, remove from the oven. Pour on the glaze and the remaining chopped pecans.  These are best if eaten immediately, but will keep for a day, covered. 

Buttermilk Cake Doughnuts (with Cinnamon, Sugar, and Cardamom)

I have been craving doughnuts for roughly two years.  Sure, I eat doughnuts in Maine every summer, and yes, I ate that crumb doughnut from a corner shop in Portland, Oregon not too long ago, but I had been drinking then, and it was a yeast doughnut, so it doesn't really count. Southern California is all kinds of famous among Californians for being the mecca for sprinkle-drenched cake doughnuts, twisted maple doughnuts that are just this side of being too much (read: awesome), and apple-filled bear claws with crackled glaze that are actually too much, but my god, how could you resist? 

My sister is an east coast doughnuts denier who believes, as I do, that cake doughnuts (and popsicles for that matter) are the best when left to Southern California and its sugar trails that weave through gas stations and wander into corner lots by defunct copy stores and auto shops; the gritty doughnut is the legit doughnut. My mom, a flight attendant for 38 years and simultaneously a toy-store owner for approximately three, thought about cashing it all in to open a tiny doughnut shop that would focus exclusively on doughnut holes -- just the right size for people who needed a break from their day, she said. She also once scolded me for getting her a chocolate doughnut in the morning, asking, "Why would you ever want to dip that in your coffee? Old-fashioned is the best."

While I've got an insatiable, hereditary craving for deep-fried cake batter, I had neither found a favorite doughnut shop in DC, nor mustered the energy to make homemade doughnuts until last Saturday, after a long, dumb week and with a killer weekend ahead. I'm kicking myself for not having made doughnuts sooner! Don't  be daunted by the length of the recipe -- few things are better than fried cake, especially early on a Saturday morning. It's also entirely likely that your main squeeze will wake up and look at you as if you're made of magic when you slide a plate of fresh, hot doughnuts (beautiful words!) and a coffee press in front of him. 

Buttermilk Cake Doughnuts

Adapted from The Art of Baking by Karen DeMasco

DeMasco uses a KitchenAid mixer for this recipe, but I did the whole thing by hand.  I'll give you the by-hand version since it's less dish-intensive (read: more lazy and thus better for an early Saturday morning), but just note that she uses a KitchenAid with a paddle attachment beginning with step two. I shook my doughnuts with cinnamon, sugar, and cardamom, but there are lots of good glaze recipes hanging around the internet, and powdered sugar (oh man, or vanilla sugar! or maple syrup glaze!) would be great too. You can do no wrong.

3/4 cup buttermilk (or make your own with 3/4 c. milk + 1 1/2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar)

1 large egg

3 large egg yolks

1/3 cup grapeseed oil

3 3/4 cups cake flour, sifted, divided, plus more for dusting (I used all-purpose)

1 cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoons nutmeg

1 teaspoon kosher salt

Zest of one lemon

Peanut oil for frying, enough to pour about two inches deep into your pan (about five cups for me)

1.  Whisk together the buttermilk, eggs, and oil in a small bowl.  Set aside.  In a large bowl, sift 1 3/4 cup of flour, the sugar, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and lemon zest.

2.  Using a fork (or egg beater or KitchenAid), blend the dry mixture just to evenly distribute the ingredients.  Slowly add the buttermilk mixture, and mix with your fork until just combined.  Use a rubber spatula to fold in the remaining two cups of flour. The dough will be very sticky.

3.  Plop the dough on to a floured sheet of parchment paper that's about 12" by 14".  Lightly dust the top of the dough with flour, cover with a second sheet of parchment paper the same size, and roll out dough into an oval 3/4" thick. Slide your dough baby into the fridge for about a half-hour, until dough is firm enough to cut.  Remove, peel off top parchment sheet, flour the sheet place dough on top, and then pull off and discard the second sheet of parchment. You should now have a slab of dough that moves freely along a well-floured piece of parchment.

4.  Using a floured three-inch doughnut cutter (I used a three-inch drinking glass and a bottle with a one-inch mouth for cutting out the center hole), cut your doughnuts as closely together as possible.  Place them and the holes on a cookie sheet sprayed lightly with oil.  You should get close to 13 doughnuts.  Rerolling scraps is not advised for the actual doughnuts, but I did it to make doughnut holes out of leftover dough and they worked just fine!  Slide the cookie sheet in the fridge for a half-hour.

5.  In a wide pot with high sides, pour your peanut oil so that it covers the bottom of the pan by about two inches.  Heat the oil on medium to 350 degrees F.  Working in batches of three, plop your doughnuts into the oil, and turn after about a 1 1/2 minutes, so that each doughnut cooks for three minutes.  Using a slotted spoon, transfer doughnuts to paper towels to soak up excess oil, and then shake them in a bag with your spice mixture (recipe follows).  Repeat for remaining dough, keeping an eye on the temperature of the oil. For doughnut holes, cook about a minute each, turning halfway through if you can.  Once drained and sugared, doughnuts will keep for about a day, but I recommend eating them the morning of.  Voila!

Cinnamon-Sugar-Cardamom Mixture

3/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon cardamom

A little less than 1/8 teaspoon salt

1.  Pour ingredients into a plastic resealable bag, zip, and shake up to mix.  Once doughnuts have drained but while still hot, put them in the plastic bag and shake 'em up to distribute sugar and spices on both sides.  The same technique could be used for coating your doughnuts with powdered sugar or a different spice mix of your choosing. 

Caramelized Plum Galette

Two weekends ago I visited my sister in Pittsburgh, where among sisterly activities such as thrifting, eating corn fritters, and tallying the number of cicadas that Trout (cat) killed, we also had a dinner party of sorts.  I'm going to hijack the nuanced reason and say that it was a test drive for Olly Oxen Free, which is the secret cafe that I've been doing in Washington, DC (well, did once anyway).  The menu, was a simple savory tomato and thyme tart, an all greens and herbs salad with shallot vinaigrette, a super delish roasted chicken, our adopted and adapted recipe for truffled macaroni and cheese, sweet corn custard with blueberry compote, and a plum and apricot galette with an almond-y crust.  Oh and an assortment of bar drinks, especially red wine spritzahs and a seriously good Katie-made St. Germain cocktail.

The dinner was awesome, the kitchen only a mild disaster, and the food coma so very severe that we skipped the Night of a Thousand Bowies in favor of unzipping on the couch and listening to the addling 4:00 a.m. ramble of a well-meaning neighbor.  In addition to learning that truffle is best goddamn flavor I have ever put in my mouth, I also discovered that plum desserts are totally underrated and  fully delightful. I got zero pictures of the evening (well almost zero, here's an iPhone snap), but the macaroni and the plum galette were my favorite edible parts, so I tinkered with and recreated the dessert recipe last weekend.  What follows is a caramelized and more buttery (and more photogenic) version of the galette from Pittsburgh. Baby, it's pure late summer in a pie shell. 

All-Butter Pastry Dough
(Makes enough for two crusts)

2 sticks unsalted butter, very cold
1 cup ice water, divided
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt

1.  Read this if you want to get some good advice about pie crust. I'll throw in some of my own hints, but Deb has compiled some excellent suggestions about how to keep your dough cold and your crust flaky.  Start by cubing your butter into small, half-inch pieces.  Put these in the freezer while you ready the rest of the ingredients.  Measure one cup of water, add some ice cubes and set aside to chill.

2.  I use a food processor for my dough, but was making wonderful crusts with a pastry blender until very recently. If your kitchen is very warm, you might want to chill the bowl or the blade of the processor to ensure that it cuts rather than melts the butter. Add all of your dry ingredients to the bowl of the processor, and pulse once or twice to blend the mixture. Sprinkle the cubes of butter over the top, and blend in pulses about 15 times, or until some pieces of butter are the size of peas, and the rest resembles oatmeal.

3.  Dump the mixture into a chilled, shallow bowl, and drizzle a half-cup of the ice water (minus de cubes) over the top.  Using a rubber spatula, cut the moisture quickly into the dough, gathering it together as you do. If the dough is too dry, add more water 1 tablespoon at a time until the dough comes together in a shaggy mess. (Sidenote: I never use more than two or three additional tablespoons of water, and generally keep it to a half-cup anyway, but this all depends on the moisture and heat in your kitchen!) Knead the dough gently a few times to make it come together more, divide into two equal pieces, and wrap in plastic wrap.  Flatten into disks and store in the fridge for at least an hour, preferably longer.

4.  If not using all of the dough that day, it will keep in the fridge for up to a week, wrapped in an additional layer of plastic.

Plum Filling 
Freely adapted from Sunday Suppers at Lucques

Suzanne Goin's recipe is for a plum tarte tatin with puff pastry, but since I lack a cast iron pan and love galettes, I used her caramelizing technique and scaled back the filling to make this summery tart with a crust.  Do not be dissuaded by all the text -- this recipe is simple and delightful.

1 1/2 pounds of plums, or about 12 small (I used a combination of Italian, red, and black), sliced vertically and pitted
1/4 cup + 6 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon lemon zest, optional
Pinch salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 egg

1.  In a medium bowl, gently mix plums, quarter-cup sugar (or less if your plums are real sweet), pinch of salt, and zest if you're using. Allow to macerate for half-hour.

2.  Meanwhile, heat a large, flat skillet over medium heat for one minute.  Add butter and melt until foamy, then add the six tablespoons of white sugar, stirring quickly just to evenly distribute.  Over medium-low heat and swirling often, cook the mixture for about six minutes, or until it's the color of dark caramel.  Remove from heat and allow to cool for 20 minutes.  It will harden, but that's okay!

3.  Once the plums are finished macerating, drain the liquid.  Arrange the plums cut side down on your skillet and return stove to medium heat.  Cook the plums in the caramel for 20 minutes without stirring.  They'll release a lot of liquid and essentially stew in their own awesome juices.

4.  Allow to cool for an hour or two.  Then preheat the oven to 375 degrees F, and roll out one piece of dough to a 13-inch round and trim the edges so they're smooth (If it's hot in your kitchen, place the rolled-out dough onto the back of a cookie sheet and slide it into the freezer or fridge for ten to fifteen minutes to keep the butter from melting).  Slide your dough onto a sheet of parchment on the back of a cookie sheet. Maintaining a three-inch border of crust, arrange the plums cut side up in a tight concentric circle. Gently fold the edge of the dough over the fruit, pleating as you go.

5.  Brush pastry with the beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar if you wish.  Bake in the middle of the oven for 45 to 55 minutes, until pastry is deep golden brown and fruit is bubbling.  Allow to cool on cookie sheet for ten minutes, then eat it up or let it cool further on a cooling rack.  Whipped cream or ice cream would be excellent companions here.

Pine Nut Rosemary Cookies

Dudes, trust:  These cookies are the jam.  I have a friend who jokingly refers to them as "roasted chicken cookies" (I hope you're already sold) because rosemary is so elemental to oven meats, and another friend who started talking to me about pesto after he had them, but these aren't the unclassifiable troll child of a savory-sweet marriage that friendly jokes make them out to be -- these are an awesome cookie reinvention.  They're also a completely crossable bridge between savory and sweet, falling deliciously short of being overwhelmed by either flavor.  And as we know, savory-sweet land is, of course, the most addictive land of all.   

Bonus summer-awarded points for level of ease too!  While I am generally uninterested (disinterested?) by claims of ease in the kitchen, on this fifty-first day of heat above 98 degrees in the swampy wonderland that I call home, I'll grasp onto anything that minimizes my time in the kitchen.


Pine Nut Rosemary Cookies
Via Martha Stewart

I'd say these are pretty customizable too.  If you're not a fan of pine nuts, try hazelnuts and a pinch or so of cardamom instead of the rosemary, or maybe walnuts with thyme.  Lemon thyme is supposedly budding in everyone's backyards these days, and I think that could make a bright substitution for the rosemary.

1 tablespoon + 1/2 teaspoon finely chopped fresh rosemary
1/4 cup pine nuts,* toasted + extra for topping cookies
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger (remember, trust!)
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1 cup + 2 tablespoons granulated white sugar
2 tablespoons good-quality olive oil
3 tablespoons heavy cream (I used half-and-half)
1 large egg, lightly whisked
About two tablespoons raw or turbinado sugar for sanding

1.  Preheat oven to 325 degrees F., and line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.  Finely chop rosemary some more in a food processor. Add pine nuts, and pulse until coarsely ground, about like the consistency of coarse corn meal. Transfer to a large bowl; whisk in two cups of the flour, baking soda, ginger, and salt, and set aside.

2.  In another large bowl, cream butter with white sugar on high until light and fluffy, two to three minutes (may take less time if your kitchen is of hellish temperature). Slowly mix in oil. Reduce speed to low. Mix in flour mixture in three increments, and then add cream. Using a fork, mix until well combined.  Mix in egg, then final 1/4 cup of flour.

3.  Using a 1 1/2-tablespoon ice cream scoop, scoop balls of dough onto cookie sheets, leaving at least an inch between each mount. Very slightly flatten tops, top each with a pine nut or two, and then shake some raw sugar on there.

4. Rotating halfway through, bake cookies until edges are golden, about 13 minutes.  Let cool on sheets for ten minutes, and then transfer to wire racks to let cool completely. Cookies are best if eaten the same day, though they'll be fine for a day if store in an airtight container.

* Moment of Science:  Instances of "pine mouth" have reportedly been on the rise in recent years, so to avoid turning your mouth into a piney wonderland, be sure to use pine nuts that are neither rancid nor imported from China. Thems the rules.

Summertime Strawberry Mascarpone Tart with Chocolate Cookie Crust

This has been a dreamy-as-fuck summer.  I was feeling a little snarky when I started writing this, as recent experiences with aggressive basil-plant death, terrible things happening to a hazelnut-cardamom-tartlet experiment, and a traveling Joey and faraway Molly had left me feeling a little crotchety, but then I remembered how I recently learned that the Potomac is home to four-foot long water snakes and probably water moccasins too (awesome), and that if someone hollers at you to shout the name of a state capital when you're swinging off a tree, you might possibly shout back "Maryland!" but no one will hold it against you. 

Multiply that by a bunch of seriously good-times trips to Maine, Seattle, Portland, and Richmond and a perpetual marathon of beer, bikes, and dance parties, and well, it's no wonder I've totally been cheating on this blog with summertime and instant ramen. Let me make it up to us though: This recipe is shamefully easy and it's practically no-bake! It's a take on last year's nectarine tart (You should click that. I use the phrase "fickle produce mistress."), adapted since the strawberries in Maine are baby jewels of awesome. If you're like me and have been completely underusing your farmers' market's supply of berries and stone fruit this summer, then this is an excellent recipe for getting back into the rhythm of fruity dessert accountability (for you and me both); it would be equally and possibly more awesome with gingersnap crust and blackberries drizzled with honey on top. Get yr summer on. 

Strawberry Mascarpone Tart 

Adapted from SmittenKitchen

Crust
About 3 1/2 cups of crushed chocolate cookies
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted 

2 tablespoons brown sugar, or more, if you prefer a sweeter crust

Filling
1 8-ounce container mascarpone cheese
6 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Topping
1 quart of the tiniest strawberries around, with their tops cut off
1/4 cup strawberry jam, warmed (I skipped this, it felt cheap)

For crust: Preheat oven to 350°F. Finely grind cookies and sugar in food processor. Add melted butter and pulse on and off until crumbs are evenly moistened. Press mixture over bottom and up sides of 10-inch-diameter tart pan with removable bottom. Bake crust until color darkens, pressing sides with back of spoon if beginning to slide, about eight minutes. Cool completely.

For filling: Beat first six ingredients in medium bowl until smooth.  You can make this ahead and keep refrigerated for up to one day, or proceed and spread filling in prepared crust. Cover loosely and refrigerate at least two hours and up to one day.

For topping:  Place hulled strawberries bottom up across your filling. Alternatively, you can cut the berries into thin slices and fan them across the top. Brush with jam if you're using. Serve, or cover loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to six hours. (We actually had leftovers for about two days and they kept okay, but the crust gets soggy and the fruit degrades after about a day, so this is definitely best if eaten in the same day.)