Cinnamon Rolls...the quest continues

Long, long ago I spoke to you about cinnamon rolls.  They are one of Zack's favorite things to eat and mine too when I think about it.   I have to admit I've fallen down on the job when it comes to earnestly pursuing the perfect specimen.  This weekend though, I had a breakthrough.

On Thursday, Ashley and I taught a cooking class on Thanksgiving - my favorite holiday - as I've often shared here.  After the class, there were a number of leftover items.  Everyone knows that leftovers are one of the best things about Thanksgiving.  I had a batch of Moravian Lovefeast Bun dough that I'd demonstrated in class.  This is the best dinner roll you will ever eat.  I will not be challenged on this topic.  It is perfection.  Tender, slightly sweet, deep flavor, golden brown.  I also had quite a bit of Gingered Cranberry Sauce.  Fast forward to Saturday and I'm preparing for a party.  On a whim, I decided to make cranberry cinnamon rolls, using the leftover dough and sauce.  The resulting confection was something truly special and I couldn't wait to share it with you.

This dough recipe makes the best cinnamon rolls I've ever made and the second best I've tasted.  (The very best can be had at Skillet Diner, but only on Saturday or Sunday.  I warn you, one of theirs is the size of your head.)  You can use this dough to make classic cinnamon rolls, or doll the whole thing up with cranberry sauce or raspberry jam or carmelized apples, etc etc.  Really whatever you can imagine!  The basis for every good cinnamon roll is the dough, and as I've now said in triplicate, this dough is amazing.  Here is the recipe for my cranberry cinnamon rolls, but just leave out the cranberry for a very classic variation.   I also like to make my glaze with maple flavor (syrup), something I learned from Zack's Mom Suzi.  Maple and cinnamon are perfect companions. 

GINGER CRANBERRY CINNAMON ROLLS WITH MAPLE CINNAMON ICING

For the dough:
1 recipe Moravian Lovefeast bun dough (made the day before use)

For the sauce:
8 ounces fresh or frozen cranberries
2/3 cup dried sweet tart cherries (such as Montmorcey)
2/3 cup sugar
zest and juice of one small orange
⅓ cup minced crystallized ginger
1 cups water

In a large saucepan, combine cranberries (no need to thaw if frozen), cherries, zest, juice, sugar, and water.

Bring to a boil; reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer for 15 minutes, then add ginger, continue 5-10 minutes more until most berries have burst and liquid is syrupy, 20 to 25 minutes total. Transfer to a bowl, cover and refrigerate.

For the glaze:
1/4 cup melted butter
1/2 cup grade B pure maple syrup (substitute milk here if you want a classic white glaze)
2 cups confectioners sugar
1-2 teaspoons cinnamon (to taste) (or none for classic white glaze)
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

Whisk together until well incorporated and to desired consistancy.  Add a bit of milk for thinner glaze.

For the Assembly
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon

1/2 cup butter, room temperature

Mix sugars and cinnamon together in a small bowl.

Butter 9 x 13" glass baking dish.  Remove roll dough from refridgerator and roll out immediately on a well floured board/counter to 1/4 inch thick and a rectangle about 10" tall by 18" long.  Spread entire surface with softened 1/2 cup of butter.  Now spread with cooled cranberry sauce (or not, for a classic cinnamon roll).  Sprinkle with the sugar cinnamon mixture.  Now, roll into a log, from the long side.  Slice in half, then slice each half into half again, and then into thirds, making twelve total rolls.  Place in buttered dish.  Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise in a warm area until double in size, about 2 hours.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Bake in the bottom third of the oven, for 22-25 minutes, until deep golden brown.  Allow to cool for 20-30 minutes, then generously drizzle with the maple cinnamon glaze.

Thanksgiving Thoughts

Thanksgiving, that blessed event, is in just three days. I'm so looking forward to it and wanted to share that with you, as well as some practical help that might be of use. I know you're very busy this week, and may just want the practical part. If so, skip to the last paragraph. If not, and you have time for a little nostalgia, here you have it.

1) My birthday is November 26th, so each Thanksgiving is somewhere within a week of it. The holiday is not only a celebration of national, familial and faith-filled significance, it has special meaning as I personally reflect not only on what I am thankful for in life, but what the past year of my life has brought and what I look forward to in the coming one.

2) Thanksgiving REALLY IS about giving thanks! No matter what trials we may be going through, there are also immense blessings on so many levels - family, faith, freedom, provision and so on! This day is a time to look squarely at those blessings and not let them be obscured in the periphery. At the dinner table, after we are full from a wonderful meal (see #3!) we all go around and say what we are thankful for. I tell you what - it is the most beautiful part of the whole meal and probably any meal, all year long. We always thank God for this country and for the men and women who serve it, for the wonderful freedoms we often take for granted. We thank Him for freedom to worship and serve our Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave his life for ours 2009 years ago. We thank Him for family, health, provision and many individual joys and victories we each may have experienced in the past year. Last year, my Father also read the original Thanksgiving proclamation by Abraham Lincoln. Our eyes flooded with tears as we listened to these incredible words. I cherish this time of sharing so deeply.

3) The meal. Along with most of America, I love the foods of Thanksgiving; the nostalgia, the variety of options, the whole taste bud sensation! But as a person who loves to cook, host, and serve, Thanksgiving offers more satisfaction than any other meal. It's beloved family and the sky's the limit! I also delight in the process of planning the sumptuous event. I'm sure I've said this before, but I am a planner. If I was an artist, planning would be my medium. So basically, Thanksgiving gives me a chance to do most of which I most enjoy, for my wonderful family.

My first Thanksgiving in the driver's seat was the year I turned 21. That year my birthday landed on the actual day (as it does this year) and I determined that as a fully legit adult it was time to take charge. It was a shaky start let me tell you. I'm not lying when I tell you that I found myself in the fetal position on my Mother's floor at one point, crying hysterically because she had dropped my painstakingly created raspberry puree, rendering it useless. OH THE TRAGEDY!

It's been eleven years now and I've learned so much. My Mother has been a wonderful, patient teacher and along the way I know I've shown her a few new tricks as well. I've also opened my families mind to all the possibilities this meal can have, especially when you take the basics and give them a twist.

This year has been a special joy as a couple of my dear friends are cooking Thanksgiving dinners for the first time. The emails of ideas, advice and menus have been flying and I'm so excited for them. I've shared with them my planning document and they thought it was helpful, so I'll share it with you. I think its important to work within your own experience, know your space limitations (oven space, serving and cooking dishes), and determine how much help you have. Then, make a plan and refer back to it as you go along. I keep mine prominent in the kitchen. By biggest caution is not to try to do too much! As I told my friend, better to do 5 things really well, which come out hot and on time, than 8 things and some of them suffer.

Happy Thanksgiving week to you all! If you have questions or thoughts or advice desired, please post them here! I'll try to help.

Moravian Lovefeast Buns

Quite an impressive name for a dinner roll. Well, this absolutely amazing roll has its origins in a very unique religious gathering that I only know anything about because they make dang good buns. Where my darling Mother first got this recipe I do not know, but they have become an absolutely essential part of our holiday meals. In fact, despite all the wonderful things we make and bake for the holidays, these rolls are the one thing that I can't serve Thanksgiving OR Christmas dinner without and the thing that often receives the most sighs of delight. I'm sure we are not alone in finding a little piece of heaven in a truly perfect dinner roll. These buns are made with a fortified dough which includes potato, butter, eggs and a good bit of sugar. The resulting bun is slightly sweet, buttery and the texture, oh my goodness the texture! Fluffy and light but with a tight enough crumb to be just a little bit chewy. I need to tell you that these ARE your holiday dinner rolls. Please trust me. They are. Look no further.

MORAVIAN LOVEFEAST BUNS
adapted from the kitchen of my mother, Mrs. Mary Brown
Makes 12-15 rolls

4 1/4 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp fine sea salt
2 pkg. active dry yeast or 4.5 teaspoons
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup water
2 eggs
3/4 cup boiled, riced or mashed potatoes, cooled

Maldon sea salt
Melted butter, to brush tops

NOTE:  Start this dough the day before you plan to use it.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment, mix together flour, sugar, salt and yeast.

Belt the butter and add water to it.  Add riced/mashed potatoes and cool to lukewarm, when whisk in eggs.  With the mixer on low, gradually mix wet ingredients into dry.  Mix on medium low for 3-4 minutes. Dough should be quite sticky and will stick to sides but should also stay mostly on paddle.  Remove dough to a lightly oiled bowl and let rise until double, about 1.5 hours and then punch down. Refrigerate overnight, tightly covered with plastic wrap or in a large airtight container.

Remove roll dough from fridge just before you are going to form the rolls to rise, or at least 3 hours before you want to serve them.  Butter a 9 x 13 casserole. Form rolls slightly bigger than golf balls and place in pan, giving space for them to rise. 3 across and 5 down for a total of 15.  Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise until more than double in size in a warm place for 2 hours.  They can also be made individually in muffin tins, be sure to spray thoroughly with non-stick spray.

Brush tops with melted butter and sprinkle with Maldon salt.  Bake in the lower half of preheated oven at 375 degrees for 20-22 minutes. Remove when deep golden brown.

Suzi's Roast Turkey

My mother-in-law is a wonderful cook and gracious hostess. She not only makes delicious things but she is unfailingly generous with her skills. She makes many things, especially for the holidays, which I look forward to every year. I'll be posting at least one more of these in the coming month. A few years back, I had her roast turkey for the first time and was totally hooked. But it seemed somewhat complex and while Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and I plan for it with a passion bordering on the absurd, the bird is never my greatest focus. I think I was pretty resigned to it being a little dry and a little bland no matter what concoction I rubbed it with, injected it with and so forth. Suzi's turkey however, had a truly moist breast. That is the part I most remember and desired to replicate. Moist, more like cutting into beef tenderloin. Perhaps time has caused the memories to plump a bit, but I'm confident that her bird was the best I've had.

So, for my bi-weekly women's Bible study/dinner party the theme was Thanksgiving Test Kitchen and I decided to give Suzi's bird method a try. It really is a method more than a recipe and I thought the results were excellent. First, a couple things you should know. One - it wasn't as good as hers, but it WAS moist and better than any bird I personally had made before. Two - This is no fancy free-range fresh turkey. This was an 11 lb, 27 cents a lb bird from Safeway. I am not about to spend $60 on a fresh expensive bird when I can get one for $2.97 and it tastes this good. I know, how terribly NOT politically correct I am! Not that I have any problem with those that buy the expensive boutique birds, but I'll do my eating local from the produce table at my Farmer's market, where I can really taste the difference in the end product and it doesn't break the bank. Okay, back to the matter at hand.

First, start by soaking your turkey in brine. For the science behind why this is a great idea, check this out, but simply, brining your turkey forces salt and flavor into its cells, which allows the turkey to be flavored from the inside and not just during roasting with whatever you put on or under the turkey's skin.

Full-Flavored Roast Turkey
Adapted from USA Weekend magazine, from Suzi Hubert's warm and cozy kitchen.

Start this process 15-18 hours prior to roasting. And don't forget to put your turkey in the fridge 48 hours before that, if it's a frozen one. The total roasting time for a 11 - 14 lb turkey by this method will be 2.5 - 3 hours. Do not stuff your bird, it will dry it out and extend the cooking time by quite a lot. Allow 25 minutes for the bird to rest before carving. Don't cover it when its resting! It will decrease skin crispness and cause it to overcook.

Special Equipment: A roasting pan with a V-rack (easy to get at Fred Meyer, Target, all over) and a meat thermometer

STEP 1: Turkey Tea - Here is the one divergence I did from Suzi. Adds more flavor to the brine.

20-25 black peppercorns
3 bay leaves
2 tbl dried thyme
2 tbl fresh sage
2 cups boiling water

Allow the herbs to steep in the hot water for 30 minutes or so.

STEP 2: Brine

1 1/2 cups kosher salt
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 gallons of cold water
Turkey Tea
1 turkey (thawed, giblet bag, neck and tail removed)

Mix water, sugar and salt together until dissolved. Add your cooled turkey tea and your turkey - breast side down. You'll need a 5 gallon bucket or very large stockpot for this. Put this in fridge now for 15-18 hours. OR, like I did, pour 2 cups of ice over the turkey and put it in your garage if you're doing this overnight and the temperature is going to be 45 degrees or below. Cover the pot and don't worry, it will be fine.

STEP 3: Roasting

Remove your turkey from the brine, rinse thoroughly with cool water and pat very dry. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and place oven rack on the lowest position.

2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
1 carrot, coarsely chopped
1 celery stalk, coarsely chopped
3 tbl butter, melted
grey salt or kosher salt

Loosely stuff the cavity with 1/2 the chopped onion, carrot and celery. Scatter the rest on the bottom of the roasting dish under the V-rack. Add 1-2 cups of water to the pan, depending on how large it is. This helps the vegetables not burn. They are there to improve the flavor of the drippings.

Tie the turkey legs together and secure the wings, with kitchen twine wrapped around the bird. Now, place V-rack in the roasting pan and place turkey breast side DOWN, on V-rack. Brush back and sides with melted butter. Sprinkle generously with grey salt and fresh cracked pepper. Place in oven now and roast for 50 minutes.


Remove pan from oven, close oven door. Baste turkey's back with drippings. Now, with two towels, turn the turkey until it is on its side with one leg and wing up. This is why you need the V-roaster. Brush the exposed side with melted butter. Sprinkle generously with grey salt and fresh cracked pepper and place it back in the oven for 20 minutes.


Remove pan from oven, close oven door. Turn the turkey over so the opposite side is up. Brush the exposed side with melted butter. Sprinkle generously with grey salt and fresh cracked pepper and place it back in the oven for 20 minutes.

For the third time, remove turkey from oven, close door. Turn turkey breast side up and baste with drippings, melted butter and sprinkle with grey salt and fresh cracked pepper. Roast for 40 more minutes.


Remove the bird and check its temperature with a meat thermometer into the breast, but not all the way to the bone - just right into the meat about 1 inch down. You are looking for a temperature of 162-165. When you are there, remove the turkey and let rest. If you are not, put it in for 5-10 more minutes depending on how far you are away.

NOTE: My cooking times were for a 11 lb bird. Yours could very likely be bigger. You'll need to adjust, probably 30 minutes longer total time for a 14 lb one. The cooking of the turkey doesn't happen in a linear fashion. There is a point in the roasting of the bird where it starts to heat exponentially as it reaches doneness. So you could take it out after 2.5 hours and the breast could be at 150 and 15 minutes later it could be at 160-165, which is when you want to take it out. So watch it closely in the 15 minutes to ensure you don't overdo it. Use your kitchen timer!

As for serving portions, I think a 11 lb bird serves 8 people with plenty of back meat left for soups and leftovers.

The reasons for doing your turkey this way are many. The brining adds moisture and flavor, roasting it upside down keeps the most sensitive part of the turkey - the breast - from becoming overdone and too dry, and rotating the bird has the effect of establishing brown crusty skin all over the bird, which seals in moisture but also tastes delicious.

I hope someone gives this method a try, or I just spent way too much time retyping this recipe!