February 20, 2015 by gn0mel0ver

Brown Butter Butterscotch Monkey Bread

That’s a mouthful!

My kids love monkey bread. They love when I buy it at the local bakery. I knew they would get a kick out of this easy make-at-home recipe.

This was the first thing I ever made in the kitchen. My grandma and I would make it all of the time. Then we moved on to a children’s cookbook. We rarely made monkey bread after that. This recipe brings back such memories of nostalgia, as only the tantalizing scents of cinnamon and sugar together can evoke. Has there ever been a more perfect pairing?

This recipe is fantastic to bake with kids. They love cutting up the biscuits and shaking the dough in the sugar. It is a quick and easy treat. Perfect for those of us who need immediate gratification.

This recipe was adapted from The Pioneer Woman and the butterscotch pudding part was courtesy of my good friend, Kerri. She once made the stuff and I dreamed about it for weeks. The brown butter part is strictly from my gluttonous imagination.

Need:

Bundt Pan

Ingredients:

3 large cans of refrigerated biscuits (I use 2 regular and one buttermilk)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 cup salted butter (2 sticks)
1 3.4 oz. package of regular (not instant) butterscotch pudding

You can get crazy with this treat! Dare I say, if you monkey around with this recipe in the kitchen, the possibilities might be endless.

Groan.

Let me hang and scratch my embarrassed head.

On to the baking:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Generously grease bundt pan.

Cut biscuits into small pieces with a pizza cutter. I cut one can of biscuits into shapes of four, one can in shapes of six, one can in shapes of eight. I like a variety of sizes in my monkey bread. Let’s call them squirrel monkey, chimpanzee, and gorilla sizes. Because we can? We’re quite passed the point of should. We’re using two sticks of butter and over a cup of sugar here, peeps. Crazy names for biscuits are the least of our worries.

Combine the regular sugar and cinnamon. Add the brown sugar and mix. Place in a gallon sized bag. Or if you reach this step and realize you are completely out of gallon sized bags, call yourself a monkey’s uncle and mix the ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Primitive times are these, my friend.

Add cut biscuits in the bag of sugar mixture and shake. If you added it to the bowl, please do not shake, just mix. Of course, you knew that. But if a ~~monkey~~ child is reading this, I want to be specific.

In a small saucepan on the lowest heat on your largest burner on your stovetop melt the butter. Stir every minute or so. When the foam starts to turn a caramel brown (usually about ten to twelve minutes) turn off the heat. Your nose will be able to tell you when the butter is brown because it will smell like the most glorious nutty caramel. The foam will start to bubble up in a gluttonous display of brown surrender. This means it is done. Remove from heat.

Now pour the sugar-coated biscuit dough and all of that glorious sugar mixture evenly into the bundt pan (I have a vintage yellow one from Etsy. You can find them there for around $15. It won’t make your monkey bread taste better but it will make you feel better).

Mix the pudding mix into the brown butter. Edited to add: I do this with a fork. Beat it for just thirty seconds or so like you would an egg. It does not have to dissolve all of the way. It will do that when baking. If there is any bigger bits, just put it on the money bread. It will bubble up in the oven and become one gooey mixture. Oh, take a moment, if you must. This is the part where I get teary eyed. Pour brown butter pudding mixture over the top of all of the biscuit dough. Try to do this as evenly as possible.

And scrape up all of the decadent brown bits at the bottom of the pan and put on top of the dessert.

Place in the oven and bake for 60 minutes. Cover the top with foil after it has been baking for twenty five minutes so that it does not get too crunchy and brown on top.

Remove from the oven. Allow to cool for 20 minutes. Turn over on serving plate. It is easiest to hold the hot pan with a cloth kitchen towel versus the bulk of oven mitts. Say a quick prayer to the monkey Gods. Offer up a banana sacrifice, if you must. This part is tricky. The caramel in the pan will be hot, be careful not to burn yourself. Gently pull up on the bundt pan. If there is any caramel mixture on the bottom, scrape it up and put it on the monkey bread.

Whoooo! Whoooo! Heeee! Heeee! Haaaa!

The monkey bread will pull apart in yummy gooeyiness.

Scratch your underarms and scream in triumph at the magnificent success. And if some of the monkey bread sticks to your pan just place it back on the dessert. Or if it completely falls apart (happens to the best of us, rearrange the pieces in two loaf pans. No one will be the wiser. Besides it will be gone before anyone, or any primate for that matter, would ever notice, anyway.

Enjoy! I don’t mean to brag, but my ~~brain~~ thighs are entirely made of this stuff.

August 14, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

Chess Squares

I do not know why, but I want to say the name of this recipe in the way Spongebob would do it. Okay, I do know why. It is because his last name is Squarepants and the title has the word “square” in the name.

Don’t leave me hanging. Let’s do it together in a nasally twang, shall we?:

“Cheeeeeesss Squuuuuuuuaaaaarres.”

Whew! I feel better. Although, any recipe that starts with a paragraph about a children’s cartoon and then proceeds to use the verse, “nasally twang” generally isn’t something that wets one’s appetite. Sorry about that.

I had first seen this recipe on Pinterest and then looked it up on the internet. I found it on so many sites, with no one really knowing where the recipe originally came from. I followed the Duncan Hines’ version, but used butter instead of margarine.

I generally do not post directions if it is not my recipe, but in this case I will. I needed to mention a few tips in the directions below that were not found in the recipe I followed. This is not my original recipe. It is someone else’s. Perhaps a certain sponge’s who dwells under the sea?

Ingredients:

1 package of yellow cake mix
3 eggs
1 stick of melted salted butter
8 oz. of softened cream cheese
1 pound (16 oz.) powdered sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. If you have a convection oven then preheat to 325 degrees F.

In a stand mixer or with a hand mixer in a bowl, beat together one egg, cake mix and melted butter.

Press the dough into a greased 9 X 13 baking dish. I like to use a clear one, because it is pretty seeing the different layers.

Set aside 1/4 cup of the powdered sugar.

Combine the remaining powdered sugar, two eggs and cream cheese in your stand mixer or in a bowl with your hand mixer on medium speed until all ingredients are thoroughly mixed together.

Pour the mixture over the dough in the 9 X 13 pan.

Bake for thirty five minutes.

Remove from the oven and let cool for forty five minutes. Sprinkle the powdered sugar you set aside earlier over the dessert.

Check.

Cut into squares.

Check.

Serve (refrigerate remaining dessert).

Checkmate.

Crown yourself King Of The Sea and keep this yummy indulgence away from Patrick and Mr. Krabs. You will not want to share this.

April 4, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

Peanut Butter Nutella Cookies

Be still my heart. Girdle my belly. Cinch in my thighs.

‘Cause I am about to share a cookie recipe that has become my new favorite.

And I cannot stop making them.

And I cannot stop eating them.

This is a humble cookie. It is simple. I find I like cookies with those two descriptions the best.

Most cookies are best the very first day you make them. These cookies stay soft and yummy for at least two and a half days (this is the longest length of time they have ever lasted in our house).

When I was eight, my grandmother gifted me a cookbook called, “For Good Measure: A Cookbook For Children” (I highly recommend this cookbook for children. Heck, I still use it myself). In it, was a peanut butter cookie recipe. I have never made or had a peanut butter cookie as good as the peanut butter cookies made from that recipe. I have been making those peanut butter cookies for twenty eight years. Sometimes I change it around by adding new ingredients. This recipe is adapted from that one. Because that recipe is so simple, this makes these cookies a cinch to put together.

Here is a little poem my thighs threw together for you, in honor of these cookies:

The faster to make.
The easier to bake.
My mouth will wake.
And my thighs shall quake.
For goodness sake.
This poem shall take.
The cake.

For being the worst…

The cookies take first.

On to the recipe!:

Ingredients:

1/4 cup smooth peanut butter
1/4 cup of Nutella (chocolate hazelnut spread)
2 Tbsp. Milk
1 stick of softened salted butter (8 Tbsp.)
1 egg
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
Caviar from 1 vanilla bean (if you do not have this, you can increase your total vanilla extract to 1 1/2 tsp.)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup organic brown sugar (it makes a difference)
1 3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda

This recipe makes twenty four cookies.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. If you have a convection oven, preheat oven to 325 convect bake.

Pour the 1/2 cup granulated sugar in a separate bowl and set aside while you work on the following.

In a bowl with a hand mixer or in your bowl on your stand mixer, beat butter and brown sugar until light. Stop mixer and add in your vanilla and vanilla bean caviar. Mix.

Now add peanut butter and Nutella and mix together until completely incorporated.

Add the milk and egg and mix until light and fluffy.

Turn mixer to low and add in salt and baking soda. Mix until incorporated.

Add flour and mix.

Turn off mixer. Now take a small ball of cookie dough and roll it on your hands. Drop the ball into the bowl of granulated sugar and gently roll it around.

Place the ball of dough on a baking sheet. Repeat this step until your baking sheet is filled with cookie dough balls evenly spaced apart.

With a fork, make two flat indentations onto each cookie.

With a spoon, scoop up some of the granulated sugar and pour a little sugar over marks left from the fork.

Place baking sheet into the oven and bake for 10-11 minutes until edges are just a little brown. Do not cook longer. You do not want these overcooked.

Transfer baked cookies to a cooling rack.

Repeat with remaining dough. Turn oven off. Enjoy!

I think these cookies are better completely cooled down. There is just somethin’ that happens to the Nutella and peanut butter when they blend together at that time.

Now I’m off to make these guys.
My thighs…
They sighs.

P.S. I shared this on Savvy Southern Style.

And My Romantic Home.

December 17, 2013 by gn0mel0ver

Holiday Spaghetti Wreaths

It wouldn’t be Christmas without spaghetti. Wait. What?

Let me start over.

It wouldn’t be Christmas without me trying to make some kind of crazy fun dish that the kids can remember. This one beats tuna fish sandwiches dyed red and green…

But just by a bit. ; )

I wanted to do something special with my leftover spaghetti the other night. Well, as special as leftover spaghetti can be. With Christmas here, I had a fun idea. I wanted to make individual Christmas wreath ramekins filled with…spaghetti leftovers.

Frugal and fun?!

Happy day!

Ingredients:

Leftover spaghetti (I would say this is 2 jars pasta sauce with 1/2 pound cooked ground meat, 1/2 package spaghetti noodles)
1/8 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 diced red bell pepper
1/4 cup red wine
3 Tbsp. Olive oil
1 clove of minced garlic (I use 1 tablet from frozen packet)
1/2 block (4 Tbsp.) softened cream cheese
1/2 of a real mozarella cheese ball sliced into 1/2″ slices

Topping:

5 Tbsp. Butter
1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp. Bread crumbs
1/4 tsp. italian seasoning

Optional:

Anything green to use as filler on plate around your round ramekin. I used broccoli. It makes another pretty wreath.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small bowl, mix up your melted butter, bread crumbs and italian seasoning.

I sautéed my bell pepper in the olive oil for approximately seven minutes. Then I added the garlic and cooked the mixture for another minute. I added the wine and let that simmer for a minute.

I mixed the cream cheese, leftover spaghetti sauce and noodles, and bell pepper mixture together. I plated the ingredients into individual round ramekins.

I placed a slice of mozzarella cheese on top. Then I placed the bread crumbs into a circle around the cheese.

Place the ramekins onto a baking sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes until cheese is melted.

Turn oven to broil. Broil for approximately one minute until bread crumbs are golden brown. Be careful! You do not want your cheese to burn!

Serve up on plates.

You can also add an additional wreath of green vegetables of your choice around the ramekin for an extra wreath layer. And an extra opportunity to fill your kids tummies (or your own) with an extra vegetable.

I won’t tell if you don’t.

Enjoy!

Gnome Lover

Stumbling through life while still having fun

butter

Brown Butter Butterscotch Monkey Bread

Chess Squares

Holiday Spaghetti Wreaths