Muse & Company Fleur de lis Chair Giveaway

Hello friends!  Are you up for a giveaway? You must see this divine giveaway over at A Diva's Hammer. My friend "The Muse" & Company are hosting this wonderfully, beautiful giveaway.
See the chair below? It is the prize. Go and visit her here A Diva's Hammer and you just might win.  Regardless if you win the chair or not, you will love reading her blog(s)
Have a Beautiful Friday!!!!

Creme Caramel....Sorta

Good Tuesday morning friends! It's gonna be another wet one today. I have a busy week still ahead of me. My sweet little princess has her first ballet recital on Saturday and we have full dress rehersal tomorrow night. I can hardly wait to see her all dressed up and dancing on stage. I am sure I will get emotional. The program is called Footsteps in Faith and I just know it will be beautiful. I will post some pictures of it all for you to see.

So on to something a little more delectable for today. I should start by saying how much I love using organic foods and eggs are no exception. Being a Foodbuzz featured publisher has it's perks too. We get to try new foods and this time around it was Eggland's Best eggs. They really are delicious eggs and I am one who uses a ton of eggs in the kitchen. There are very few dishes that I make that it doesn't call for them. So of course I was excited to try the organic eggs that Eggland's Best has. did I mention they are pretty too. Brown eggs are my favorite.
What all can you make with a dozen eggs? Here are some of the things that I made. Pasta Mama, Egg Salad Sandwiches, and of course Creme Caramel. I have never made this before and was a little nervouse on how it would turn out. I did not have the little custard cups to use (feel free to donate to the cause) lol, so I just made one big custard in a 9 inch cake pan. It took me a second to get use to the caramelized sugar (or burnt) if you will. But it really adds such a wonderful flavor to the custard. So much flavor in fact, I ate half of the custard by myself in almost one sitting. shhhhhh......don't tell anyone that part.
A little breakdown of the recipe for you and some pictures for that great visual effect.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups sugar,divided

3 large eggs

2 egg yolks

1 1/2 cup evaported milk

1 cup regular milk

1 Tablespoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Place 1 cup sugar in a heavy saucepan and cook over medium heat 10 mites or until sugar caramelizes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat. Pour evenly into 8 (4-ounce) custard cups or 1 9" cake pan.

Does anyone see the pit bull in the pan? 

Heat both the evaporated milk and regular milk together until warm. I did this in the microwave.
Whisk together eggs, egg yolks, and remaining 1/2 cup sugar until blended. Gradually add warm milk, whisking constantly; stir in vanilla.

Pour mixture into prepared custard cups or cake pan. Cover each with aluminum foil; place in a 13-x9-inch pan. Add hot water to pan to a depth of 1/4 to 1/2 inch.

Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove custard cups or cake pan from water; uncover. Cool on a wire rack. Cover and chill 3 hours.
Run a knife around edge of cups to loosen; invert each onto a dessert plate.

Voila! A creamy and delicious dessert.

Important Notice!!! Banana Nut Bread Cobbler EDITED!!

Okay! I'm human. Yes! Seriously. I know. It's hard for me to believe too. And Yes! I do make mistakes. Just like the one where I forgot an ingredient in my Banana Nut Bread Cobbler recipe. gasp!!!!!

Please forgive this error. I must send a special thank you to one wonderful reader who has my back and let me tell ya, the girl can see like an eagle. WOW!!!!

Paloma at THE COFFEE SHOP posted a comment on my recipe and said she saw that my photo looks like it has oatmeal in the cobbler. She is totally right and again WOW!!! Great eyes but of course she did not see it in the recipe.

Thank YOU Paloma!!!!

I edited the post and the recipe is now correct. whew...close one.

Banana Nut Bread "Cobbler"

Do you enjoy banana nut bread?  I love making it during the holidays.  My usual routine starts sometime in late October and continues until January ans sometimes February. I have made as many as 300 loaves of Banana bread for one customer before! 
Now how about cobbler's? Do you like those too? I am in love with my version of peach cobbler. Just smelling the aroma of peaches and cinnamon bubbling makes my taste buds do a happy dance.
I use a version of the "Quick Cobbler" recipe that most are familiar with and just do my own thing with it.
  So getting to my point about all of this.  The other day I was reading in my Southern Living magazine and came across a recipe for Banana Bread Cobbler. Wow! I had never really thought about this before. It sounds delicious doesn't it. Well let me just tell y'all...IT IS!!!
I have even added the recipe for you. I did a little tweaking on it too.

Banana Bread Cobbler

1 cup Self Rising Flour

1 stick butter (melted)

1 cup sugar
1 cup milk

pinch of salt

4 Medium Ripe Bananas

Streusel Topping

1 cup regular oats

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 stick butter (softened)

1/2 cup self rising flour

1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

1/2 tsp cinnamon (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a medium bowl add the flour and sugar and salt. Whisk to remove lumps. Add the milk and whisk until blended and the butter and mix gently. Pour into a greased 9x12 baking pan or casserole dish.

Slice bananas and place on top of the cobbler mixture.

Mix together all of the streusel topping mixture until crumbly. 

Sprinkle over the bananas and bake for 45 minutes or until golden brown.

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of caramel sauce.

Would you like a bite? 

Bake Sale for Haiti Relief

Good Morning to all of my wonderful readers. I have some very exciting news to share with you. As you all know of the horrific tragedy that has taken place in Haiti and the major relief that is so needed there; A special lady, Diane of My Chic Life has put together a virtual bake sale in hopes to raise funds for  this relief. There are 65 bakers/bloggers that are participating in this event and you as our readers are our biggest helpers. Each baker will have an awesome baked item(s) that they will ship to the highest bidder. Can you believe there are 65 delicious treats to choose from and bid on? There are even gluten free and vegan items.
So on Wednesday hop on over to the link below and place your bid. You get the sweet satisfaction of special baked treats and knowing that you are helping others in need. All of the funds raised will go to the Red Cross Haiti Relief Fund.
Haiti Bake Sale Bid Page

Want to know what I am baking so you can bid on my treats?
Well here you go:
A cookie variety from "The Cookie Girl's" specialty menu. The winning bidder get's to choose his/her cookie flavors from my menu. They will be baked fresh, packaged beautifully and shipped the same day for freshness. I will even gift wrap them if you want to give them as a gift.
I look forward to seeing this awesome event take place and can't wait to see how much is raised. Good Luck to you all and THANK YOU for supporting this great cause.

XOXO
The Cookie Girl

Yeast Dough and Cinnamon Buns

So I wanted to make some yeast rolls today. This isn't something that I do often and I don't exactly have a great recipe for them yet. I did find a simple yeast dough recipe and altered it a little to suit my taste. I did everything as I thought I should and my yeast rolls turned out okay. Not the best, but okay. A little heavy for me really. I had a lot of dough from this recipe and did not need that many yeast rolls so I said to myself, "Self! Let's make some cinnamon buns." So we  umm...I did! Mini ones at that and surprisingly enough they were AWESOME. Might I even dare to say a close runner with the all time favorite CINNABON. Okay that's a little stretch.  I love CINNABON!!!
Here's how it all breaks down....

Yeast Dough Recipe

Ingredients:

2 cups hot water (not boiling. This will kill the yeast)

1/2 cup butter (melted)

1/3 cup sugar

2 1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup cold water

2 (.25oz.) pks active dry yeast

6 cups AP flour

2 eggs

Directions:

Combine the hot water and butter together then add your sugar and and salt and stir well.  Add the cold water and yeast and stir to dissolve (about 5 minutes)

Add 3 cups of flour and mix until well blended. 

Add the 2 eggs and the remaining flour and mix until completely combined.

note: I did all of this in my Kitchen Aid mixer and then transfered the dough to a greased glass bowl and turning to coat the dough.

Fill a pan with hot water and place it on the bottom rack of cool oven. Place the bowl of dough above the pan and cover with a damp cloth. Let the dough rise until it is doubled in size. This is called proofing.

Once the dough has doubled in size punch it down, cover and let it double in size again. About 30 minutes for this second process.

For the Cinnamon Buns:

1 stick butter (softened)

4 Tbs. Cinnamon

1 1/2 c.Brown Sugar

Nuts (if desired)

2-9x12 Baking pans

Parchment paper

Cooking Spray

In small bowl combine the brown sugar and cinnamon and mix well.

Spray baking pan with cooking spray and line with parchment paper.

On a generously floured surface, turn out the dough and sprinkle with flour. Knead the dough about 9 or 10 times and form a round or an oval in my case of the the dough.

 Separate the dough in half. You will have two batches of cinnamon buns. 

With one half of the dough, begin rolling it out into a rectangle shape about 1/2 inch thick. (mine is not but I wasn't going for perfection here.)

Once you have your rectangle. Brush or spread on about 1/4 cup or 1/2 stick of the softened butter.

Spread 1/2 of the cinnamon/sugar mixture over the dough.

Begin rolling the dough up into a log shape as pictured.

One you have the log shape you are ready to cut. Use a sereated knife for this process. Make your cuts about 1 inch apart to form these mini buns or a little larger if you like.

Place the buns in the baking pan about 1/2 inch apart.

Cover and set aside while working on the second pan.  Repeat the above process.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake your cinnamon buns for 30-40 minutes.

Glaze:

1 stick of butter (softened)

3 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

pinch of salt

3-4 Tablespoons milk

Combine the butter, sugar, vanilla and salt together until creamy. Add the milk a little at a time for an easy spreading consistency.

After your buns have cooled for about 10 minutes in the pan, spread the glaze over top.

You can serve these warm or even cooled down. I am eating them while posting this recipe with my morning coffee. :) It's great to have leftovers!

YUM!

YUM!

YUM!