Category: Breakfast

Categories
Bread Breakfast Dessert

Bread perfect for leftover that was driving me nuts

Blueberry pie quick bread, as the name suggests, is a quick recipe that uses fresh blueberries, although frozen will also do.
Blueberry pie quick bread, as the name suggests, is a quick recipe that uses fresh blueberries, although frozen will also do.

I have had this block of leftover almond paste just sitting in the back of my refrigerator for weeks.

Every time I would open the fridge, I would just stare at the container, knowing I needed to use it up but not being 100-percent sure how.

But then there were beautiful, fresh blueberries sitting in the produce department at the grocery store, and I knew what I had to do.

So, if you’re wondering, the star in this week’s recipe, for me at least, is the almond paste, because that meant I finally got it out of my fridge and out of my head,. But let’s face it: the blueberries are really king, and this was so, so good that I may have to buy more almond paste and start the whole cycle all over again.

This recipe comes from the blog “Bunsen Burner Bakery.” You can find the original at https://www.bunsenburnerbakery.com/blueberry-pie-bread/. I doubled the vanilla in my version.

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Blueberry Pie Quick Bread

Blueberry pie quick bread, as the name suggests, is a quick recipe that uses fresh blueberries, although frozen will also do.
Course Breakfast, Dessert
Keyword almond paste, blueberry, quick bread, sweet bread

Ingredients

Filling Ingredients

  • 2 cups blueberries fresh or frozen, thawed and drained
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

Bread Ingredients

  • 1/3 cup butter melted
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup milk I used skim
  • 1 1/2 cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla

Crumble Ingredients

  • 2 1/2 tablespoons butter melted
  • 1/3 cup flour
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1/3 cup almond paste

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan.
  • To make the pie filling, combine the filling ingredients in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring regularly, until the mixture thickens. Remove it from heat and set it aside.
  • For the batter, beat together the butter, sugar, eggs and milk, and then beat in the rest of the bread ingredients until it is smooth. Fold in the blueberry filling and pour the batter into the prepared pan. (Leave the mixture swirled rather than mixing it completely for a pretty finished look.)
  • In another bowl, combine the ingredients for the crumble, mixing with a fork. Break the mixture into pieces and sprinkle it evenly over the top of the bread.
  • Bake for 50 to 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out with just a moist crumb but not unbaked batter.
  • Cool completely in the pan before removing. Slice it, and then store the bread in an airtight container.

The original instructions say to only let this cool 10 minutes before trying to remove it from the pan, but my bread broke in half when I tried, and I was lucky enough to get it to adhere back together before I tried again. So even though it’s really, really hard to wait, I’d recommend letting it cool completely.

This bread was full of gorgeous berries, and the almond flavor really paired nicely, as well. If you don’t want to do the crumble on top, you could easily skip it, or I’d recommend finding a cinnamon crumble topping from a Dutch apple pie recipe and trying that, instead, if the almonds don’t sound good.

I’m sure that empty spot in my fridge will soon feature another puzzle of a leftover for me to solve, but for now, at least I finally got that one checked off my list.

This piece first appeared in print on July 2, 2020.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Breakfast Dessert

Have a ‘hole’ lot of fun with baked donuts

Coffee donuts with a coffee glaze are great for breakfast or dessert.
Coffee donuts with a coffee glaze are great for breakfast or dessert.

Several weeks ago, I got the opportunity to meet Tina Ostrander, owner of Main Street Co. & Kitchen Corner in Newton. We sat down over a cup of coffee to talk about working together, which we were both pretty excited about.

And then the world shut down, and I was super nervous that the first week of our partnership—this week—would mean I might have trouble finding more recipes to try, and Kitchen Corner wasn’t going to be open for us to do anything fun together.

But I’ve been discovering that I have lots of random ingredients hanging out in my kitchen, and despite her brick-and-mortar being closed for the time being, Tina has an online store set up.

So, for my part, I started examining my pantry and realized that I, for some reason, have quite a few instant coffee packets, so I determined it was time for something with coffee flavor—and time for something sweet. I landed on a recipe for cake donuts with a coffee glaze that ended up being a fantastic recipe.

I found this recipe on the blog “Marsha’s Baking Addiction.” You can find the original post at https://marshasbakingaddiction.com/baked-coffee-doughnuts. I added extra vanilla and nutmeg in my version.

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Glazed Coffee Cake Donuts

Coffee donuts with a coffee glaze are great for breakfast or dessert.
Course Breakfast, Dessert
Keyword coffee, donuts, glaze

Ingredients

Donut Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons instant coffee or make 1/4 cup strong coffee
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup buttermilk or use regular milk with a touch of vinegar
  • 1/4 cup canola or vegetable oil
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 1/2 cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Glaze Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup warm milk
  • 1 tablespoon instant coffee or use a tablespoon strong coffee
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 1/4 cups powdered sugar

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Prepare a donut pan by spraying it with cooking spray.
  • If using instant coffee, dissolve it into 1/4 cup of hot water.
  • In a mixing bowl, beat the egg, sugar, buttermilk, oil, vanilla and coffee until smooth.
  • Beat in the flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg until just combined and spoon the batter evenly between the six wells in your donut pan (this will fill them pretty much to the brim. If you’d rather have smaller donuts, you could fill them less and make another partial batch, too).
  • Bake for eight to 10 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in them comes out clean.
  • Let the donuts cool for about 10 minutes and then let them cool completely before glazing them.
  • For the glaze, in a shallow bowl, whisk the coffee, vanilla and milk until smooth, and then whisk in the powdered sugar, a little at a time, until you get the consistency you want. If it’s too thin, add more sugar. If it’s too thick, add a little more milk.
  • Dip the donuts into the glaze (just the tops, you don’t have to submerge them) and then place them on a wire rack to dry. I did two coatings on mine.
  • Once the glaze is dry, store any leftover donuts in an airtight container.

These were amazing. And I learned that I absolutely should never make them when only Joey and I are around to eat them, because they, embarrassingly, did not last more than a couple of days.

And, while Tina and I will have to wait on some of the in-person ideas we discussed a few weeks ago, I’m glad I can keep baking and she can still keep people’s kitchens stocked with needed supplies. If you need a donut pan, for instance, go visit her online store; she’s got ’em.

Also, if you’re bored and want to look back at some of my previous columns, I officially have my own website, and I’m still working on uploading my archives, so look for it to keep expanding over the next few weeks. You can visit it at spiceupkitchen.net.

Stay safe. Shop local online. And eat donuts.

This piece originally appeared in print on April 1, 2020.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Bread Breakfast Dessert

Sweet roll recipe is the only ‘bun’ for me

No one will be able to tell that you completely transformed a cake mix into these delectable chocolate sweet rolls.
No one will be able to tell that you completely transformed a cake mix into these delectable chocolate sweet rolls.

When I first started going solo in the kitchen as a youngster, I was very concerned with cooking by the book.

Mom never minded me hovering over her shoulder (or if she did, she hid it really well), and I asked a lot of questions.

Once I felt ready to make meals on my own, I asked her to help me write out my own recipe cards, which I still have in my recipe box at home. My favorite one is for canned corn. She didn’t make fun of me when I asked her to help me write down the steps for how to heat it up and how much salt and pepper to add, and from the food stains on my notecard, I clearly used the “recipe” more than once over the years.

Nowadays, though, I’m a lot more adventurous and tend to tweak recipes regularly and without hesitation. Such was the case recently when I used a recipe for cake mix cinnamon rolls to make chocolate sweet rolls instead.

I actually used two authors’ recipes as my basis for this week. The rolls recipe comes from the blog “Norine’s Nest.” You can find her post at https://www.norinesnest.com/cake-mix-cinnamon-rolls/. The other recipe started as the filling recipe for some sweet rolls by Kate Wood on her blog “The Wood and Spoon.” You can find her recipe at http://thewoodandspoon.com/chocolate-sweet-rolls/. I made changes to each to come up with the concoction below.

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Cake Mix Chocolate Sweet Rolls

No one will be able to tell that you completely transformed a cake mix into these delectable chocolate sweet rolls.
Course Breakfast, Dessert
Keyword cake mix, chocolate, glaze, icing, sweet rolls

Ingredients

Rolls

  • 1 Dutch chocolate cake mix
  • 2 packages yeast instant or active
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 5 cups flour
  • 2-1/4 cups hot water

Filling

  • 6 ounces dark chocolate chips or chop up a bar
  • 6 tablespoons butter or margarine
  • 3 tablespoons cocoa powder
  • 2 tablespoons espresso or instant coffee powder I used a mocha-flavored
  • 1/2 cup powdered sugar
  • about 1/2 cup sliced almonds or your favorite nut, chopped

Icing

  • 1-1/3 cups powdered sugar
  • 2 tablespoons milk you may need to add more
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla

Instructions

  • In a mixer with a dough hook (or you can start by mixing with a wooden spoon and switch over to kneading to bring it together), combine the cake mix, yeast, salt and two cups of flour.
  • Mix until it’s well combined and add the water slowly while the mixer continues to run.
  • Add in the rest of the flour, and mix until everything is well combined and the dough is pulling away from the sides of the bowl to form a ball.
  • Turn the dough out onto a well-floured workspace, sprinkle the top with more flour and knead five or six times with floured hands until it forms into a well-shaped ball.
  • Cover the dough with a clean cloth and allow it to rise until it’s doubled in size (mine took about 20 minutes).
  • When the dough is almost ready to work with, combine the chocolate chips and butter into a microwave-safe bowl and microwave for 10 to 15 seconds at a time, stirring in between, until the mixture is smooth. Add the remaining filling ingredients except the sliced almonds and set aside.
  • Punch the dough down and roll out into a large rectangle about 1/4-inch thick.
  • Spread the filling out evenly over the entire rectangle of dough and sprinkle on the almonds.
  • Tightly roll the rectangle from the long side so that you get a nice, long, snake-like roll.
  • Cut the roll into 1-1/2-inch thick slices.
  • Grease two 9×12-inch pans and place the slices, with one of the cut sides up, into the pans. Space them out a bit to give them room to rise.
  • Cover both pans with a clean cloth and let them rise for about 30 more minutes or until they double in size.
  • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and bake the rolls for 20 minutes or until they are a golden brown.
  • Before serving, mix the icing ingredients together until smooth. If it’s too thick, add a little more milk until you get the consistency you like.
  • Let the rolls cool for about 10 minutes, and then drizzle or spread the icing over top of them.
  • Store any leftovers in an airtight container.

These were absolutely delicious. I immediately delivered them to friends and family to get them out of the house before we ate too many of them ourselves.

The best part of this recipe is that it’s super easy to customize. Just choose another cake mix and filling ingredients, and you have a completely new type of sweet roll to enjoy.

Younger me would have been amazed at how off script I went with this recipe, but we all start somewhere. Looking back, I’m just so thankful I had someone willing to patiently show me the ropes in the kitchen—canned corn recipes and all.

This piece first appeared in print on June 27, 2019.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Breakfast Dessert

Coffee cake comes highly rec’almond’ed

Almond coffee cake is pretty to look at and delicious to eat.
Almond coffee cake is pretty to look at and delicious to eat.

I only have a few rules for choosing recipes I want to try.

First, it has to be decently easy and not need a bunch of weird kitchen implements. Second, the ingredients need to be something I can find locally and not have to order online. Third, I have to want to eat it.

I feel like that third one goes without saying, but I thought I’d mention it anyway.

This week’s recipe just barely met my criteria, because I had no idea almond paste even existed until I examined the ingredients list. I was able to find it in my local grocery store, so I’m hoping the rest of you can, too. If not, there are also other recipes online to make it yourself.

It also nearly upset my rules because the part of the recipe where you’re supposed to “spread” the batter is not an easy task. This stuff is thick and tough to spread, so I recommend dolloping the batter and filling into the pan before spreading it so you have an easier time.

The recipe’s author said she used her fingers to spread it, but I had more luck with a rubber scraper instead.

I found this recipe on the blog “Curly Girl Kitchen.” You can find the original at https://www.curlygirlkitchen.com/2013/01/almond-cream-cheese-coffee-cake.html. I doubled the almond extract and cinnamon.

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Almond Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

Almond coffee cake is pretty to look at and delicious to eat.
Course Breakfast, Dessert
Keyword almond, almond paste, coffeecake, cream cheese

Ingredients

Streusel Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup flour
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 3 tablespoons cold butter
  • 1/4 cup sliced almonds

Filling Ingredients

  • 8 ounces almond paste
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 4 ounces cream cheese room temperature
  • 1/4 cup sliced almonds

Batter Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup butter room temperature
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 teaspoons almond extract
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 2 cups flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
  • Prepare a 9-inch springform pan by coating it with cooking spray.
  • For the streusel, combine the flour, sugar and salt in a bowl, add the cold butter and use a pastry cutter or fork to work it in until it’s nice and crumbly and stir in the almonds. Put in the refrigerator for now.
  • For the filling, beat the almond paste, sugar and cream cheese until it’s smooth and set it aside (you’ll add the almonds later).
  • For the batter, beat the butter and sugar for about three minutes to get it light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla and almond extract until it’s well combined.
  • Beat in the sour cream.
  • Once the mixture is smooth, beat in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon until everything is just combined.
  • Put half of the batter into your prepared springform pan and spread it to an even layer (it’s a thick batter, so this is easier said than done).
  • Spoon the cream cheese filling in dollops all over the batter layer and spread it out as best as you can. Sprinkle the 1/4 cup of sliced almonds on top of the filling.
  • Spoon the remaining batter in dollops on top of the almonds and spread it again.
  • Bake the cake for 15 minutes.
  • Remove it from the oven and top it with the streusel and then bake for another 40 to 50 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean (don’t stick it all the way down to the filling layer, since that will stay gooey even after baking).
  • Let the cake cool for about 20 minutes before removing it from the pan. Let it cool completely and then store in an airtight container if not serving right away. (I kept mine in the fridge.)

While this recipe was a bit more complicated than I often choose, it was totally worth it. The cake was beautiful, and it would be great for breakfast or dessert.

And although it stretched rules one and two, definitely fit rule three, since I managed to eat more than one slice of this cake before it was gone. I guess one out of three ain’t bad.

This piece first appeared in print on May 23, 2019.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Breakfast Snack

Even granola bars can get into the mix

Trail mix granola bars come together without the oven and with lots of flavor and protein.
Trail mix granola bars come together without the oven and with lots of flavor and protein.

I made the cardinal sin of grocery shopping while hungry recently and came home with some awesome trail mix. 

It had raisins and craisins, pepitas, sunflower seeds, peanuts, etc.

Joey saw it and commented that it looked like the perfect mixture to go into some granola bars.

As always, he was right, and I started looking online for the right recipe to use my trail mix in.

The recipe I found comes from the blog “The Chunky Chef.” You can find it at https://www.thechunkychef.com/no-bake-chewy-trail-mix-granola-bars/. If you want to make your own mixture, see her post to get the amounts of each item, or just use your favorite trail mix. This recipe is infinitely customizable. I upped the amount of vanilla and cinnamon in my version, too.

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Trail Mix Granola Bars

Trail mix granola bars come together without the oven and with lots of flavor and protein.
Course Breakfast, Snack
Keyword granola bar, peanut butter, trail mix

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups old-fashioned or quick oats
  • 2 1/2 cups trail mix a combo of nuts, seeds, dried fruit, etc.
  • 1/3 cup peanut butter crunchy or smooth
  • 1/3 cup honey
  • 2 tablespoons coconut oil
  • 3/4 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions

  • Prepare an 8-by-8-inch pan by lining it with waxed paper, hanging the paper out over the edges to easily remove the bars later.
  • Add the oats and trail mix to a large bowl and stir to combine.
  • In a microwave-safe bowl, combine the peanut butter, honey, coconut oil, vanilla, salt and cinnamon. Microwave 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between, until the mixture is smooth. (It won’t take long.)
  • Pour the mixture over top of the oats and trail mix and stir until the dry ingredients are well coated.
  • Dump it into the prepared pan and top with another piece of waxed paper. Using a glass or another pan, compact the mixture down as much as possible in the pan so it’s as dense as you can get it.
  • Refrigerate for at least two hours before removing from the pan and slicing into bars. Refrigerate the bars in an airtight container.

The best part about this recipe is you can literally use whatever trail mix ingredients you want. If you’re into the raisins, M&Ms and peanuts mix, that would be delicious, or if you just want to put your favorite kind of nut or dried fruit in, that would work, too.

My bars fell apart a little, which I think was because I cut them long and skinny instead of a little wider and shorter. I also wonder if I didn’t compact them down as much as I should have.

But falling apart or not, they were really good. The honey and vanilla added just the right amount of sweetness, and the cinnamon gave them a warm, homey flavor.

These would be a great summertime snack to have around, especially since you don’t have to heat up the whole house to make them, and it’s nice to have a granola bar that isn’t full of preservatives, too.

I’m always in the mood for a good trail mix. Having some peanut butter and oats tossed in makes it even better.

This piece first appeared in print on April 18, 2019.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Breakfast Dessert

‘Pecan’ make ‘berry’ good coffeecake

A cranberry-laden coffeecake is perfect for breakfast or for any occasion where cake is present—no glazes or frosting needed.
A cranberry-laden coffeecake is perfect for breakfast or for any occasion where cake is present—no glazes or frosting needed.

Before I get any letters or people shaking their heads at me, yes, I know I did a large swath of cranberry recipes this winter, and here I am sharing yet another one with you.

I couldn’t help myself.

If you’re like me, you can’t get enough of cranberry desserts, but for those of you who are sick and tired of those little red berries, rest assured that this coffeecake would be great with blueberries, too, so if you’d rather use fresh fruit than frozen now that spring is knocking at the door, I’d go that route.

But regardless of whether you like cranberries or not, there’s no denying that they make for a beautiful dessert. There’s a great wow factor when it comes to those bright red spots poking through.

I took this coffeecake to a gathering with family, and we devoured it.

I found this recipe on the blog “Lemon Tree Dwelling.” You can find the original at https://www.lemontreedwelling.com/cranberry-pecan-coffee-cake/. I changed up the spice mixture, doubled the vanilla and decided to skip making a glaze for this coffee cake. It’s moist and perfect without it.

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Cranberry-Pecan Coffeecake

A cranberry-laden coffeecake is perfect for breakfast or for any occasion where cake is present—no glazes or frosting needed.
Course Breakfast, Dessert
Keyword coffeecake, cranberries, pecans

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup plus 6 tablespoons butter, divided and softened
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 3 eggs
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 1 cup fresh cranberries or blueberries or thawed, drained frozen berries
  • a scant 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup packed brown sugar
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon cloves
  • 1 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1 cup pecans coarsely chopped

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and lightly flour a tube pan and set it aside.
  • Cream together the 1/2 cup butter, sugar and vanilla.
  • Beat in the eggs.
  • Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda and sour cream and beat until well combined.
  • In a separate bowl, combine the remaining butter, salt, brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and pecans.
  • Pour half of the batter into the tube pan and spread it out evenly. Top with half of the cranberries and half the spice mixture.
  • Spread the rest of the batter evenly into the pan and top with the remaining cranberries and spice mixture.
  • Bake for 50 to 60 minutes until golden brown and a toothpick inserted near the center comes out dry.
  • Cool completely before removing the cake from the pan. Store in an airtight container.

I threw some extra whole pecans on the top of my coffeecake, too, to give it a prettier top.

And, yes, I probably have a cranberry addiction, but there are worse things, I suppose. I’ll try to give you more variety in my ingredients going into spring and summer, but I probably can’t make any promises.

This piece first appeared in print on March 14, 2019.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Breakfast Side Dish

Here’s an easy potato recipe you’ll really dig

Home fries use leftover baked potatoes and are a good side dish for any meal of the day.
Home fries use leftover baked potatoes and are a good side dish for any meal of the day.

While spending summer days alone at home, between bouts of trying to kill each other, my sister and I would often spend time creating stupid videos that our parents tactfully refused to watch when they came home (good move), playing with the farm cats outdoors and pretending to be world famous chefs as we prepared the few lunches we knew how to make.

Generally, lunch consisted of a sandwich, a bowl of canned soup, boxed macaroni and cheese or baked potatoes from the microwave, but that didn’t stop us from boldly describing our flavor choices as we mixed orange powder into our freshly boiled noodles.

I’ve always loved a good baked potato, and especially on cold days like we’ve been having, cutting into a hot potato and watching the steam escape makes for a comforting meal.

This past week, I had several leftover baked potatoes in our fridge, and I decided to do something more interesting with them than just warming them back up in the oven.

Apparently, a lot of diners use their leftover baked potatoes to make home fries, which explains why diner home fries are so delicious.

To get those same awesome flavors at home, I tried a recipe from “The Creekside Cook.” You can find it at http://thecreeksidecook.com/twice-baked-oven-home-fries/#_a5y_p=1845571. I didn’t change much, but I did decide to take out the amounts for the spices. I’d recommend just giving a good sprinkling of each. If you’re nervous and want to measure, I’d say you should start with about 1/4 teaspoon of each and then bump it up from there if you want more flavor.

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Home Fries

Home fries use leftover baked potatoes and are a good side dish for any meal of the day.
Course Side Dish
Keyword baked potatoes, fries, potatoes

Ingredients

  • Two to four leftover baked potatoes
  • 1 tablespoon butter or oil
  • salt to taste
  • pepper to taste
  • onion powder to taste
  • garlic powder to taste
  • paprika to taste

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 400 degrees with an oven-safe skillet already in the oven (I used my 12-inch cast iron pan).
  • Cut your baked potatoes into about one-inch cubes. Remove the skins if you like (I left them on, because I love a crispy potato skin).
  • Once the oven is done preheating, carefully remove your pan and melt/heat up your butter or oil and swirl it to coat the pan.
  • Add the potatoes, stir them around a bit to distribute the butter/oil, and get them in as much of a single layer as possible.
  • Pop them in the oven for 10 minutes. Remove and turn the potatoes so that they evenly brown and pop them back in the oven for another 10 minutes. (Keep an eye on them so they don’t over-brown.)
  • After the second time in the oven, if they still need some browning time, give them another stir and let them go another five minutes or so at a time until you’re happy with the color on them.
  • Once they’re browned to your liking, pull them from the oven and stir in the spices to your taste (throw in some cayenne, too, if you like things spicy). Let the potatoes hang out in the pan for just a moment to let the heat release some of the spices’ aroma and then serve.

We ate these for brunch over the weekend with over-easy eggs and hot coffee. It was a good way to warm up.

So if you decide to bake up some potatoes one of these cold evenings for dinner, I’d recommend tossing in a couple extra for home fries later in the week.

Just be sure to really sell your chef skills while you’re making them. I’d recommend a poorly done French accent. It seems to help.

This piece first appeared in print on Jan. 18, 2018.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Breakfast Dessert Snack

You ‘donut’ want to miss out on this recipe

Baked sugar donuts are a simple recipe with uncomplicated flavors. They pair well with a good cup of coffee or tea for breakfast.
Baked sugar donuts are a simple recipe with uncomplicated flavors. They pair well with a good cup of coffee or tea for breakfast.

I’m forever looking online for new recipes to try, and it seems like there aren’t a lot of foods I haven’t given a go over the years of writing this column.

I keep a spreadsheet of the recipes that have appeared in this space to keep track of what I’ve done and also when they came out, since I sometimes receive e-mails asking me for recipes that appeared pretty far back.

I started my 2018 spreadsheet and decided to do some counting. This column is my 288th recipe. I don’t even want to consider how many tablespoons of butter that probably represents.

That being said, I’m constantly amazed by the types of foods I haven’t tried making yet, and this week is another one to mark in the books as a new experience: donuts.

Years ago, I wrote about making fried donuts from biscuits—a childhood favorite—but until this week, I haven’t tried baking them.

I received a donut pan for Christmas, so I decided on New Year’s Eve that it was time to try out a baked donut recipe.

I started very simply with just a sugar donut recipe, and they were a great treat to accompany our game night with friends.

The recipe I used came from the blog “Brooklyn Farm Girl.” You can read it at http://brooklynfarmgirl.com/2017/02/06/homemade-baked-sugar-donuts/. I doubled the vanilla in my version.

If you don’t own a donut pan, by the way, you can make these as muffins or create your own donut pan out of a muffin tin with aluminum foil. I found a good tutorial to do that at http://tiphero.com/diy-doughnut-pan-and-recipe/.

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Baked Sugar Donuts

Baked sugar donuts are a simple recipe with uncomplicated flavors. They pair well with a good cup of coffee or tea for breakfast.
Course Breakfast, Dessert
Keyword baked, donuts, sugar

Ingredients

  • 2 eggs
  • 1/4 cup oil I used canola
  • 1/2 cup buttermilk I used skim milk with a touch of vinegar
  • 3/4 cup sugar plus more for coating the donuts
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 cup flour

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and spray your donut pan with non-stick spray and set aside.
  • With a fork, beat the eggs, oil, buttermilk, sugar, salt, baking powder and vanilla together.
  • Mix in the flour.
  • Pour the batter into the donut pan, filling each well about 3/4 of the way up.
  • Bake for about 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the donuts comes out clean.
  • Remove and let cool for a few minutes before removing the donuts from the pan.
  • Put a scoop of sugar into a Ziploc bag or a bowl and coat your warm donuts in sugar on all sides one at a time.
  • Store in an airtight container.

I actually halved this recipe, since my donut pan only makes six donuts at a time, and there were only four of us playing games, and it was super easy to do.

These aren’t fancy by any means, but I really liked how simple the flavors were. You could also coat these in a cinnamon-sugar mixture if you wanted to add a little more zip to them.

It was also such a quick recipe that I already had my pan filled with batter before my oven was finished preheating.

And now I can cross baked donuts off the list of foods I haven’t tried making yet. Who knows what culinary roads 2018 will lead me down? I’m excited to see (and so are my taste buds). I’m glad you’ll be joining me for the journey.

This piece first appeared in print on Jan. 4, 2018.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Bread Breakfast

Biscuits always rise to the occasion

This recipe for homemade biscuits claims to boast a blue ribbon from the Texas State Fair. It’s not only easy but tasty, too.
This recipe for homemade biscuits claims to boast a blue ribbon from the Texas State Fair. It’s not only easy but tasty, too.

I have a confession to make: I hate using canned biscuits.

It’s not that I don’t like how they taste. It’s not that I have some sort of environmental or moral reason I don’t like them.

Plain and simple, I hate using canned biscuits, because every time I have to open a can, it scares the daylights out of me. It doesn’t matter how ready I am for the “pop” of the container opening, it still seems to give me heart palpitations.

The problem is that I absolutely love biscuits. Joey and I regularly enjoy having breakfast for dinner with a nice big plate of biscuits and sausage gravy, so I’ve always just put up with the terror (OK, maybe that’s a bit overdramatic) of opening canned biscuits.

It’s always been a necessity, because, unfortunately, despite my love of biscuits, my attempts at making them have always fallen flat (literally. Flat and a little tough.), so recently when I found myself without a tube of biscuits in the fridge and a craving for some breakfast for dinner, I was hesitant to try to go homemade, but the craving won out, and I went searching for a new biscuit recipe to try.

Lucky for my stomach, this time I was successful in my biscuit-making attempts, and Joey has officially banned the making of canned biscuits from here on out (which is perfectly fine with me).

The recipe I tried this time is supposedly one that a woman named Ruth used to make for the Texas State Fair every year, so I figured the whole state couldn’t be wrong. You can find the original recipe at http://www.bubblews.com/news/958224-cousin-ruthhomemade-biscuits-recipe, but I’ll warn you that whoever posted the recipe forgot to mention the baking powder, so make sure you add that in if you go to the Internet to make these.

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Cousin Ruth’s Homemade Biscuits

This recipe for homemade biscuits claims to boast a blue ribbon from the Texas State Fair. It’s not only easy but tasty, too.
Course Bread, Breakfast
Keyword biscuits, easy biscuits, homemade bread

Ingredients

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 3/4 cups milk
  • 1/4 cup shortening

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
  • Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Cut in the shortening until it’s well combined (the texture will become a bit mealy).
  • Add milk and stir. Turn the dough out onto a well-floured board and knead until all of the ingredients are well-combined and the dough is soft and easy to roll. If it’s too sticky, add a bit more flour. If it’s tough and hard to work with, add a little more milk.
  • After the dough is kneaded into a soft ball, roll it out to about half an inch thickness.
  • Use a biscuit cutter or a drinking glass to cut out biscuits. Continue to roll out dough and cut it into biscuits until all the dough is used (if you have a weird little bit left over, go ahead and bake it. It won’t be pretty, but it’ll still be tasty. That’s your “taste tester” piece!).
  • Place the biscuits on an ungreased baking sheet and bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until the biscuits are golden brown.

My biscuits puffed up beautifully, and they were delicious both on their own and smothered in gravy. We did discover that they weren’t quite as good as leftovers a couple days later, though, so you may have to suffer through finishing off the batch the same day you make them. (Oh, what horrible suffering, huh?)

If you’re like me and have had bad luck with biscuits, I hope these turn out as well for you as they did for me. I was pleasantly surprised with how easy they were to make, too. To be honest, it probably only added about 10 to 15 minutes to my overall routine over using the canned biscuits, and I didn’t once have to worry about scaring myself to death with the effort, and that, combined with how good these were, was well worth it.

This piece first appeared in print on Sept. 5, 2013.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

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