Bunny Buns

Not quite what I was looking for. But amusing. They look like snails, right?

You know those cute little bunny buns that are all over Pinterest? And then everyone makes them and they look like little rabid demon buns?

Yeah, I decided to make them.

The original recipe is for steamed buns, which is why people who are baking traditional buns tend to have problems with the recipe.

The ears are usually the issue.

I mean, there's not much more to them than an oval ball with bunny ears.

Almost, but not quite.

But of course, bread is elastic and it doesn't always behave the way you want it to. It expands, of course. but smaller parts, like the cut ears, can move or shrink during baking. And then the bunnies look all wrong.

The first few times I made the buns, I had the same sorts of problems.

Then I thought, gee, I'll bet this would work better if I let the buns rise overnight in the refrigerator.

That's part of the premise of my book, Make Ahead Bread - you make the dough and shape it one day, and bake it another day.

Besides being more convenient, bread that has a long, slow rise has more flavor. But the other thing is that it changes the way the dough rises, and it also affects the oven spring.

Hello, bunnies! The final version was a success!

I thought it might be the answer to the bunny-ear issue. And I was correct.

I was much happier with the results when the dough had its chilly rest. It's still not a slam-dunk that every bunny will be 100 percent great - it's still bread, so it's still a little unpredictable. But this method certainly gave me bunnies instead of demon critters.

It takes a little practice to figure out how long to make the ears and how deep to cut them. So if these buns are on your agenda, you might want to practice just a little bit before you make them for a special occasion.

Bunny Buns

Bun-buns! 

1 cup room temperature water
2 1/4 teaspoons Red Star active dry yeast
2 teaspoons sugar
2 cups (9 ounces) bread flour
1/2 cup (3 ounces) semolina flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Combine all of the ingredients in the bowl of your stand mixer and knead with the dough hook until the dough is smooth and elastic.

Cover the bowl and set aside until the dough is doubled in size, about an hour.

Dust your work surface with flour and sprinkle a baking sheet with cornmeal or line with parchment paper. Turn out the dough, divide it into 12 pieces, and form each piece into an oval or egg-shape. Arrange the finished pieces on the baking sheet.

If you have another baking sheet the same size, you can use that as a lid for the pan. Secure it with rubber bands to keep it in place. Otherwise, cover the pan with plastic wrap.

Refrigerate the dough overnight, or up to 24 hours.

Remove the pan from the refrigerator and preheat the oven to 325 degrees - I like to let the buns sit at room temperature for 30 minutes while the oven heats.

Right before you're ready to bake, use a small sharp pair of scissors to cut two long bunny ears on each bun. Fold the tips over so the ears are more rounded on the top rather than pointy.

The ears are likely to shrink during baking, so pull them to make them longer. Seriously longer. Make them longer than you think you need.

Use a skewer to poke holes in the dough for the eyes. Don't be shy - poke deep. The holes will tend to close up, so a bigger, deeper hole is better than a shy little poke.

Bake the buns at 325 degrees until nicely browned, about 30 minutes.

Remove the buns from the oven and let them cool on a rack.

If you want to give them a little more character, you can use food-safe pens (you can buy them at craft stores and some supermarkets) to enhance the eyes or draw in a mouth. I didn't bother - I thought they were fine as-is.

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White Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Mousseline ~~ Recipe from The Baking Bible

You want to make these cupcakes. Trust me, you do!

For more information about Rose Levy Berembaum's new cookbook The Baking Bible, see THIS POST.

This recipe is directly from the cookbook, used with permission. All rights reserved.

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Five-Cheese, Fifteen-Minute Stovetop Mac ’n’ Cheese

I adore mac and cheese, but I'll be honest and say that most of the time it comes from that blue box. You see, that's what I grew up with. And when I'm feeling a little under the weather and I'm not ambitious enough to make real food, I grab the box.

Once in a while, though, I decide to make a "real" mac and cheese - baked, slow cooked, or stovetop. Sometimes it's just a hodgepodge of whatever cheeses are lurking in the refrigerator, and sometimes I follow a recipe.

So when I was offered a copy of Back Around the Table by David Venable to cook from, the mac and cheese recipe sounded really appealing. I mean, who doesn't want a 15-minute recipe.

Truth is, I knew it would take a tad longer than 15 minutes, because noodles take a notoriously long time to cook up here at high altitude. But that's okay. Twenty-ish minutes is fine, too. It gives me time to slice a few tomatoes while the noodles  coooooooooooooook.

While we're waiting for that water to boil, here's the hednote from the recipe:

Anyone who knows me knows that I love macaroni and cheese. It is, hands down, my favorite dish in the world. But, I have to admit, mac ’n’ cheese takes time to make and bake, so I decided to create a streamlined, stovetop version that doesn’t skimp on flavor or creaminess. The best part—besides its scrumptious goodness—is that it takes just fifteen minutes. I use five cheeses—smoky Gouda, nutty Gruyère, fruity Asiago, and two sharp Cheddars. Gemelli, which means “twins” in Italian, are a short double-twisted pasta shape that holds on to the sauce. If you love melted cheese, sprinkle some additional Cheddar on top and place the pot under a preheated broiler for 3 to 4 minutes. Of course, I would always recommend adding some divine swine—like cooked, crumbled bacon on top!

Five-Cheese Fifteen-Minute Stovetop Mac 'n' Cheese
From Back Around the Table by David Venable 
Used with permission; all rights reserved
Makes 6 to 8 servings

Photo from the cookbook; used with permission

3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon dry mustard
2 cups heavy cream, warmed
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded smoked Gouda
1/2 cup (2 ounces) shredded Gruyère
1/4 cup (1 ounce) shredded Asiago
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded yellow extra-sharp Cheddar
2 cups (8 ounces) shredded white sharp Cheddar
1 pound gemelli or other pasta twists, cooked
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon white pepper

Melt the butter in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the flour and mustard and stir with a wooden spoon or whisk until a thick paste forms, 2 to 3 minutes.

Stir in the cream and bring the mixture to a simmer, stirring until the sauce becomes thick. Add the Gouda, Gruyère, Asiago, yellow Cheddar, and white Cheddar, stirring the cheeses until melted and the sauce is smooth.

Add the cooked pasta and stir well to combine. Stir in the sour cream, salt, and white pepper and cook until the ingredients are combined and hot, 2 to 3 minutes.

Serve immediately.

This recipe is from the book, IN THE KITCHEN WITH DAVID: QVC’s Resident Foodie Presents Back Around the Table; © 2014 by David Venable. Reprinted by arrangement with Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. The book goes on sale today!

So, what did I think?

After a quick inventory, I saw that I was short by a few specific cheeses. I had gouda, for example, but not smoked gouda. I had yellow cheddar, but not white. I was about to say "close enough" but then I hit the cheese counter and went weak at the knees and wanted to take them all home.

It always happens. I stare at the cheeses and want to bring home my favorites and try all the ones I haven't tried before. But I did buy the cheeses required for this recipe.

Let me be honest. I have a love-hate relationship with smoked Gouda. I like it, but in some recipes, it's too strong. So I was a teeny bit concerned about using it here. Turns out that I needn't have worries. It added a slight smoky flavor, but it wasn't overpowering.

When I first saw the recipe, I was going to use wagon wheels for the pasta, because I had them on hand and I think they're cute. But when I went to the store and saw some corkscrew-shaped pasta called cavatappi, I bought that. What the heck. It looked fun, and it was closer to the shape used in the recipe.

I cut this recipe in half, and I was really happy to see weights rather than volume measure for the grated cheese. No two people are ever going to measure a volume of grated cheese the same - heck, one person probably wouldn't measure it the same twice.

Everything worked well, except that I thought there might have been a tad too much sauce for the pasta. But that's a personal preference, and it also might be affected by the shape of the pasta.

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Vanilla Bread Machine Loaf

I love vanilla. A lot. I buy it in quart bottles for general use, and I usually have other vanillas hanging around, as well.

So this time I decided to add it to some bread.  It's not that unusual. I've used vanilla in sweet breads before, but really vanilla isn't sweet on its own - we think of it as sweet because it's usually used in dessert. This time, I added vanilla to a loaf that was entirely savory.

The vanilla flavor wasn't in the forefront. In fact, most people probably wouldn't name it if they tasted it.

But then again, it's doubtful people would be able to name most individual ingredients in most dishes. It's not about tasting individual flavors - it's about creating a harmonious finished product.

Sure, you could make this loaf without the vanilla, but give it a try ... you might like it.

Bread Machine Loaf with Vanilla

1 cup water
1 teaspoon instant yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
3 cups (13 1/2 ounces) bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
4 tablespoons unsalted butter

Please all the ingredients in your bread machine in the order suggested by the bread maker's instructions. Press the appropriate buttons.

When the bread is done, remove it from the machine and let it cool complete on a rack before slicing.

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Little Pineapple Cakes

If you've read this blog more than once, you probably know that I absolutely love kitchen gadgets. One gadget I've looked at, but never pulled the trigger on, is a pineapple slicer gadget. I like fresh pineapple, but I'm not fond of peeling and cleaning them.

And after peeling, cleaning, and cutting a pineapple into chunks, my hands always get irritated. Which isn't fun if I've got a serious pineapple craving.

But ... I hesitated to buy a pineapple gadget. I always wondered if I'd leave too much good pineapple behind. And I wondered if it would be easy to use. And I wondered if I'd use the gadget more than once.

So when my buddies at 37 Cooks hooked up with my other buddies at Good Cook AND there was a pineapple slicer involved ... well, I had to go stock up on pineapples.

Later, I came up with a recipe. But first, I just attacked a bunch of pineapples.

And I have to say that I really like this way of cleaning a pineapple. It's not as messy as whacking at it with a knife, since the inevitable juice stays inside the pineapple shell when using this crazy gadget.

Not that I used the juice. I just drank it.

The gadget pretty easy to use - just slice the top off of the pineapple, center the gadget over the core, and start twisting to cut the spiral slices of pineapple. It was pretty quick and sort of fun. Ta da!!!

So, armed with way too much pineapple, I looked at the other things I got - a nice bowl, a spatula, and some flexible plastic cutting mats that are handy for all sorts of things. I've got the green one in the photo above.

And ... a pan for making four little loaves. Did someone say loaves?

I considered making some sort of yeast bread, but thought that dessert sounded better. So, this happened:

Pineapple Loaf Cake

1 1/2 sticks (12 tablespoons) butter
1 cup sugar
4 pineapple rings
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Cream the butter, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

Add the vanilla and continue beating until it is incorporated. Add the eggs one at a time, beating until they are thoroughly incorporated.

Add the flour in 3 additions, alternating with 2 additions of the buttermilk. Mix until well combined.

Cut each pineapple ring in half and arrange the halves into the bottoms of the four loaf pan wells.

Pour the batter over the pineapple slices, trying to use an equal amount for each little loaf.

Bake at 350 degrees until the cake springs back when touched, and a toothpick inserted in the center of the loaves comes out clean, about 40 minutes.

Let the pan cool for about five minutes in the pan, then turn them out - you can let them rest with the pineapple side up or down, depending on how you plan on serving them. I like them with the pineapple on the bottom, like a little surprise.

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Almond Espresso Cookies on a Stick

Sometimes my baking is inspired by ingredients. And sometimes it's inspired by gadgets. When I got an adorable pan for making molded flower-shaped cookies with space for adding a stick - well, it got me brainstorming.

M first thought was that they'd be really cute cookies for adorable children with big bows on their heads. But I don't have any children in stock here, with or without bows.

Then I thought they'd be really cute for a spring garden party with a bunch of ladies wearing big floppy garden hats or for a spring baby shower with the flowers decorated in baby pastel colors. But I had no plans for either of those.

Then I stopped thinking about the cute aspect and started thinking about the practical part. A cookie on a stick would be pretty darned good for dunking into hot beverages. Like coffee. So, forget the big bows, floppy hats, or pastels. I went straight for adult flavors - almond and coffee.

As far as the pan, I was really happy that the cookies popped out of the pan. Because that would have been no fun at all.

Almond Espresso Cookies on a Stick

1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon espresso powder
1 teaspoon almond bakery emulsion
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups all purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.

Spray the cookie wells with baking spray if you want a little extra insurance that the cookies will release.

In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large bowl using an electric and mixer, cream the butter and sugar.

Add the espresso powder, almond bakery emulsion, vanilla extract, and salt and beat until well combined.

Add the flour and mix in. If you're using an electric mixer, it might struggle, so you might want to finish mixing by hand.

Press the cookie dough into the wells of the cookie pan. Add the sticks - I used short wooden skewers - and make sure the sticks are covered by the cookie dough.

Bake at 300 degrees until the cookies are set and lightly browned.

Let the cookies cool before you pop the out of the pan - when they're warm they'll be soft, but they'll harden when they cool.

Decorate, if you like. Or serve as is.

I got the cookie pan from Good Cook in a box of assorted goodies, but I wasn't required to write about it.

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Hot Buttered Rum Nutella Toddy

It's mostly warm out, but the evenings here are still chilly. And the other night I was feeling a bit ... icky. A little congested and crackly, like a cold was trying to catch me.

So I snuggled up with some blankets and a hot drink.

I recently discovered hot buttered rum, and that's what I was going to make. But then I spied the jar of Nutella and decided to mix some into the drink.

Genius idea. It had the buttery rummy flavor, along with nuttiness and chocolate.

Hot Buttered Rum Nutella Toddy

3/4 cup hot water (drinkable temperature)
1/2 teaspoon butter
1 ounce Captain Morgan white rum
Generous spoon full of Nutella (to taste)

Pour the hot water into a mug and add the butter and rum.

Stir the Nutella in briskly.

Serve hot.

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Stuffed Peppers in a Slow Cooker

Some days, things just turn out right. I needed to buy some peppers to test a pepper-coring gadget that just arrived, and my husband suggested that I make stuffed peppers. Since the weather is much warmer, I didn't want to heat up the oven, so I decided to cook these in my slow cooker.

It sounded like a great idea, so I headed to the store for supplies. Since I wasn't working off of an actual recipe, I wasn't sure how much of anything I needed, but I figured that six bell peppers would be plenty. If I didn't have enough meat to stuff them, I always find good uses for peppers.

I grabbed a package of ground beef - there weren't too many size choices available - either giant packs or smaller ones. I grabbed a pack that was about 1 1/4 pounds.

When I got home, I gathered the rest of the goods. I had a small container of leftover cooked rice from another meal, so that went into a bowl with the ground beef, then I chopped half of an onion. It seemed like enough. I opened a can of petite diced tomatoes and added that to the beef, followed by about 1/2 of a jar of Goya sofrito. I knew I wanted the filling to be a loose rather than tightly packed. I added salt and pepper.

Pepper coring gadget. Say ahhhhh ...

After I cored the peppers and subjected a few of them to a photo shoot, I filled them with the meat mixture, and I had exactly enough to fill all six peppers to the top. Exactly. Nothing left over and no half-filled peppers.

How often does that happen?

Of course, if your peppers are larger or smaller, this might not fit as perfectly. But that's fine, too. When I have extra meat, I just mix it with the sauce that the peppers cook in. And if you're a little short ... oh well, one less pepper to fill.

When you're buying peppers, look for the ones with four lobes rather than three, and make sure they stand on their own. A fellow shopper at the grocery store must have thought I was a little nuts as I picked through the selection to find the ones that had sturdy bottoms, but I ended up with six peppers that stood tall.

I have a Ninja slow cooker, so all six peppers fit perfectly, and they should be fine in most oval-shaped cookers. If you've got a round cooker, check to see how many will fit - you might only have room for four.

Stuffed Peppers in the Slow Cooker

1 1/4 (ish) pounds ground beef
1 cup cooked rice
1 14.5-ounce can petite diced tomatoes
1 12-ounce jar Goya sofrito, divided
1/2 onion, diced
1 teaspoon salt
Generous grinds black pepper
6 bell peppers

Combine the ground beef, rice, petite diced tomato, half of the sofrito (eyeball it), onion, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Mix well. It will be much looser than a meatloaf mixture.

Core the peppers and rinse to remove the seeds. Save the pepper tops (remove the seeds/core) if you want to serve them with "lids" on top.

Fill the peppers with the meat mixture - just spoon it in. Put the tops on the peppers, if you're using them.

Arrange the peppers in your slow cooker and add the remaining sofrito, along with about 1/4 of the sofrito jar of water. You just need enough liquid in the bottom of the cooker so it doesn't dry out and burn. As the peppers cook, you'll get more liquid in the cooker, so you don't need to drown them.

I started my peppers on the stovetop setting, high heat, just to get things boiling and then I turned it down to the slow-cook high setting. They cooked for about 2 hours, but the timing is likely to be different in your slow cooker - some cooker hotter than others. To see if they're done, check the center of the pepper with a meat thermometer.

Serve the peppers with the sauce.

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Middle Eastern Lemon Potato Salad from Silk Road Vegetarian #VirtualPotluck

I don't think I've ever met a potato salad I didn't love. I like it hot, like German potato salad ... or cold, like the typical mayonnaise-based salad.

But I don't think I've ever had a potato salad that featured lemon. Oh, maybe a little accent. But not lemon as the featured flavor. So, when I saw a recipe in Silk Road Vegetarian by Dahlia Abraham-Klein, I knew that I had to give it a try.

The recipe isn't very complicated - nothing that would flummox a beginning cook. But because of the unexpected flavor profile, more experienced cooks won't think it's too simple.

The only thing I changed was that I used a sweet yellow onion instead of a red one. It wasn't a planned change - when I started the recipe, I thought I had a red onion on hand. But no, there weren't any. Since I had everything else I needed, I decided to proceed, anyway. The red onion would have added a little extra color, so I'll give that I try next time.

I also cut the recipe in half, because there are only two of us, and it made enough for two meals. (I've got the half-recipe below.) Although this recipe is intended to be served chilled or at room temperature, it was pretty good when it was just mixed and still warm.

Middle Eastern Lemon Potato Salad
Adapted from Silk Road Vegetarian by Dahlia Abraham-Klein

1 1/2 pounds potatoes
1/6 cup (40 ml) lemon juice (8 teaspoons, or 2 tablespoons plus two teaspoons)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
1/2 teaspoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup (82 ml) olive oil
1/4 of a red onion, diced

Cook the potatoes (skins on) in salted water until cooked through. Drain. When they're cool enough to hand, peel and cut into large chunks and place in a medium bowl.

While the potatoes are cooking prepare the dressing. Combine the lemon juice, dill, sugar, salt, and black pepper. Whisk the olive oil in slowly>

Drizzle the dressing over the warm potatoes. Add the diced onion. Stir. Let rest at room temperature for 30 minutes, then refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.

Served chilled or at room temperature.

I received this book from the publisher, Tuttle Books, for the purpose of this post for Virtual Potluck.

You can follow the author on Twitter at @SpicyVegetarian and you can find the publisher on Twitter at @TuttleBooks.

Check out the other posts from the Virtual Potluck team:

Fennel and Orange Salad over at Foodhunter's Guide
Indian Spinach Curry over at Diabetic Foodie

Want to win your very own copy of Silk Road Vegetarian? Get started with the Rafflecopter below, then go visit the other blogs. If you don't see the rafflecopter there right away, give it a few seconds to load. It's worth it!

Giveaway is now over.

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Salted brown sugar caramel walnut ice cream

What else can be said? It's ice cream. It's salted caramel. It's got brown sugar. It's got walnuts.

It's really, really, really, really good. I mean ... really.

Sure, you sort of have to make caramel first, but that's not really a big deal. I mean, that's just melted sugar and stuff.

And it doesn't have to be a perfect caramel. You're not serving it as a caramel, so the thickness isn't an issue.

As long as it melts and you don't burn it, you're good to go.

Well, except that the title is a little long. Let's just call it Caramel Walnut Ice Cream and let everyone oooh and aaaaah when they try it. We'll keep that brown sugar and salt to ourselves, shall we?

Caramel Walnut Ice Cream

1 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup heavy whipping cream
2 cups whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup walnuts, roughly chopped

Combine the sugar and butter in  a heavy-bottomed pot. I like to use a saucier, but a saucepan is fine. Heat on medium until the sugar melts. It's better to heat this slowly rather than heat it quickly and have the butter scorch or the sugar burn.

Add the heavy cream. It will bubble and perhaps spatter. The sugar mixture might harden. No worries. Just keep cooking and stirring until the sugar has dissolved.

Turn the heat off and add the milk and then stir in the vanilla.

Transfer the mixture to a storage container and refrigerate until completely chilled. I usually make this the day before I want to churn it.

When the mixture has chilled, churn it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. Add the salt and walnuts at the very end of cooking, or add them as you're transferring the ice cream to a storage container. The point is to not let the salt melt and distribute through the mixture - you want it to encounter your taste buds in little "pops" of salt.

Freeze until firm.

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Frozen Black Cow with a Kick

One of my favorite cocktails is rum and root beer. I have no idea if that's ever sold in bars, but it's something I make at home once in a while.

Meanwhile, when I was a kid, my favorite addition to root beer is vanilla ice cream, which my dad called a Black Cow.

On my way to pouring a glass of root beer that might have had a bit if rum in it, I started thinking about combining the two ... as an ice cream.

So, it's root beer and rum ice cream, AKA, Frozen Black Cow with a Kick

It tastes like a root beer float ... with a little something extra.

Frozen Black Cow with a Kick

1 3/4 cups heavy cream
3/4 cup whole milk
1 cup sugar
1 2-ounce bottle root beer extract
1/4 cup Captain Morgan spiced rum
1/2 teaspoon salt

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl or a large measuring cup. Stir until the sugar is dissolved completely.

If you're using an ice cream maker with a freezer bowl, chill the mixture completely before churning. If you're using an ice cream maker with a compressor, you can churn right away.

Churn the ice cream according to the manufacturer's directions, then transfer to a storage container and freeze until firm.

If you use this to make a root beer float, I wouldn't object.

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