Cinnamon Roll Bread Pudding

Are you sick of coming around here only to find the most recent post is still Limoncello? Me too. Ugh. Sorry about that. I've been a little preoccupied with some fun stuff and some not-so-fun stuff, and all I have to show for it is a couple completed knitting projects and a boatload of reading to catch up on. I don't have much time to talk food right now, so I'll just get straight to the recipe. It's delicious and a great way to use up stale bread or cinnamon rolls.

Cinnamon Roll Bread Pudding

Adapted from Bon Appetit, December 2003

12 ounces crustless bread, cut into large chunks (about 4 large cinnamon rolls)

7 large eggs

2-1/2 cups whole milk

1/3 cup raisins, preferably soaked in hot water for about 10 minutes until plump

1/2 cup sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1-2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

2 tsp ground cinnamon

These are the leftover cinnamon rolls that I made a couple weeks ago. The only reason I had leftovers is that I'm not really a cinnamon-roll-a-day kind of person, and after snacking on them for a few days I had to get my gluttonous tendencies in check. So I made bread pudding. Makes perfect sense, right?

Cut the crust off the rolls, and cut them into about 1" cubes.

Crack 7 large eggs into a big bowl. Lightly beat them.

Add the milk, sugar, and vanilla. Whisk to combine.

Add the nutmeg and cinnamon. I didn't actually measure the nutmeg, but I grated somwhere between 2/3 to 3/4 of a whole seed. It was pretty strong on the nutmeg flavor, which I really liked, but you could reduce the amount of nutmeg if you'd prefer the cinnamon to shine through more.

Did you know that both mace and nutmeg come from the same plant? And they grow on an evergreen tree? The ol' Myristica fragrans is the only tropical plant that's the source of two spices. Fascinating, isn't it?

Stir the egg/milk/sugar/spice mixture until everything is combined, and then pour it over the bread and raisins in a large bowl.

Use a spoon to push down any bread that isn't submerged, and let the mixture hang out for at least 20 minutes and as long as overnight.

Pour the mixture into a greased 11x7x2-inch* glass dish, cover it with foil, and put it in a cold 350 oven for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and continue baking for about 35 minutes, until the top is puffed golden brown.

*If you only have a 9x13-inch dish, that should work as well. You might need to adjust the baking time, though.

I took mine out a little too early, which I didn't realize until I started cutting pieces from the edges and the runny center rushed to fill the newly vacant space in the dish. If that's the case, just throw it back in until the center is set.

The original recipe calls for a drizzle of maple syrup and a sprinkle of toasted pecans to top it off...

But we went with vanilla ice cream. There was also a bottle of chocolate syrup that was passed around, but for some reason I resisted.

Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Frosting

It took me a long time to figure out how food advertising works. I always thought that commercials for McDonald's or Wendy's were so pointless because there was no way I was going to run out and buy a cheeseburger after watching one. Even on the day in college when my roommate and I saw ad announcing the return of the McRib and she exclaimed, "Oh my god! The McRib is back!" I chalked it up to her being an employee of the corporation rather than food advertising actually working. After spending hours upon hours (not) considering the effectiveness of food advertising I've come to the conclusion that although McDonald's advertising doesn't work on me because I don't like their food and no advertisement would get me to eat there (Sorry, Amy.), it probably works on a certain audience. If Ruth's Chris starting flashing pictures of medium-rare filet mignons on my television screen, I might be persuaded to run out the door and eat one for dinner. I would at least put that on the top of my list of places to go the next time my parents are in town. And no, Mom and Dad, let's not tell the waiter that Sean Hannity sent us.

So maybe McDonald's commercials don't do anything for me, but I've discovered something else that has the same desired effect: food blogs. Whether I'm scouring food blogs for something to make for dinner or just perusing them because I am putting off reading about tax law I can always find numerous things that I want to eat. The main thing preventing me from weighing 500 lbs. is the fact that I have to go out, buy the ingredients, and cook in order to eat what I see on a blog. I'm slightly more in control of the situation.

And then our friend Kate had to go and make big, beautiful cinnamon rolls and post them on her blog. I saw the pictures, and I wanted one so very badly that I started contemplating making a batch. I quickly talked myself out of it, though, because cinnamon rolls are the last thing I need sitting around my kitchen. I had completely pushed them out of my mind when Matt walked in a few hours later and said, "Did you see the cinnamon rolls that Kate made?" We were helpless to the power of the cinnamon rolls, and the last day of our long weekend was spent mixing, rolling, sprinkling, slicing, and, eventually, indulging. Kate (and Zach), if I put on some 300 lbs. in the near future I am going to blame it on you and your blog for planting the idea and making it look like such a wonderful thing to do.

Like Kate, we used Martha Stewart's Truck Stop Cinnamon Roll recipe. I cut the recipe in half hoping to end up with just six rolls, but I somehow ended up with eight. [Shrug.] I had originally wanted to make the recipe from Pioneer Woman, but it yields seven pie plates full of cinnamon rolls. Seven. I know a little math could have made the PW rolls a viable option, but who needs math when the alternative is Martha Stewart?

Here are the ingredients I used:

For the dough:

1-1/2 tsp active dry yeast

2-1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees)

Between 5 and 6-1/2 cups flour

1/4 cup brown sugar

1-1/2 tsp salt

For the filling:

2-3 tbsp melted butter

1/2-3/4 cup brown or white sugar

1/3-1/4 cup ground cinnamon

For the frosting I combined about 3 oz. of softened cream cheese and 2-3 tbsp. of softened butter in the bowl of a stand mixer. I used the whisk attachment to beat them together for a few minutes, poured in a little vanilla, and then added powdered sugar (maybe a few cups) until it was thick and frosting-like.

In the bowl of a stand mixer (or just a big bowl) dissolve the yeast in the water. Add 2-1/2 cups flour, and stir to combine. Add the brown sugar and salt, and stir to combine.

Keep adding flour, 1/2 cup or 1 cup at a time, until the dough is sticky and starts pulling away from the edges of the bowl.

Look, Mom, I got a haircut.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, and knead it until it comes together and is smooth and elastic. Add more flour if needed.

This was the easiest dough I've ever worked with. It was light, fluffy and very pliable, making the kneading a piece of cake.

Lightly oil a big bowl with a little vegetable oil and add the dough. Cover it with plastic wrap and let it rise for an hour or two.

This is a good point to take a walk around town for a couple hours like Matt and I did. Once you get back you'll feel like you've earned your right to eat a sweet, doughy coil of goodness. While we were out walking around I came up with about 15 ways I want to tweak this recipe and add in other ingredients, so once I run about 50 miles to work off this batch I'll try out some of the ideas and let you know how they go.

Here's the dough about 2 hours later. Super gigante.

Roll/press it out on a lightly floured surface into a big rectangle or square. If you get to a point where it's not stretching out as much as you'd like it's helpful to let it rest for a few minutes and then try to work with it again. I wasn't really trying to make this any particular size, and it ended up being about 17" long and 12 or 13" wide.

Martha tells you to drizzle the dough with oil or melted butter. The idea of using oil for it kind of skeeves me out, so I chose butter. I used 2-3 tablespoons and it was plenty.

Sprinkle the dough generously with sugar - white or brown. I stopped with the measurements at this point. Just add a bunch and when you think you have enough, add a little more.

Do the same with cinnamon, except add a lot more than this. I thought I was being pretty generous, but once the rolls had baked I wished I would have added about twice as much. This looks a lot like my dad's favorite way to eat toast - piled high with butter, cinnamon and sugar.

Roll the dough up length-wise as tightly as you can.

Mr. Squirrel is checking it out from afar.

Slice the log into uniform pieces, somewhere between two and three inches long.

Add them to a lightly oiled/buttered pan, cover them with plastic wrap, and let them rise for 30 minutes or so.

Preheat your oven to 400 at some point in here.

Make sure you use a pan with room for the rolls to grow, because after 30 minutes they will be fighting each other for space.

I had to use an overflow pan for some stragglers. I didn't plan well and slightly underestimated the size of pan I would need.

After growth spurt number one.

Bake the rolls on the top 1/3 of your oven for somewhere between 25 and 40 minutes, depending on their size. You want the tops to be golden, or slightly paler if you're going for a doughier version. These took 30-35 minutes to brown and bake through.

After growth spurt number two. I don't know how much you can tell from this picture, but if the rolls have room to expand they certainly will. This dish is 8"x11" at its widest points, so these guys got huge. The others were in a 9" cake pan, and they grew quite a bit but maybe not as much as the ones in the oval pan.

You may think these are pretty now, but just wait until we get to the frosting.

YUM! The cardinal rule of frosting (cream cheese or otherwise): Don't skimp.

Matt just told me that I look like a cinnamon roll, so I guess I'd better lay off these puppies. I don't know that I have it in me, though.

Caramelized Onion Quiche

Quiche may be my new favorite thing to make. It starts with a delicious crust made of simple ingredients you always have around. It's yet anouther device for transporting cheese into my mouth. Eggs! Who doesn't love eggs? You can eat it for any meal of the day. Much like pizza, it's a great way to use up leftover odds and ends. Most of all, there are few things more rewarding in the kitchen than pulling a pretty creation out of the oven, be it a quiche, a pie, or even a whole roasted bird. Quiche is worth making for presentation alone.

The recipe for the crust comes from an awesome cookbook I got while I was in Portland a few weeks ago: Savory Baking by Mary Cech. Unlike your standard crust this one incorporates thyme, which gives the quiche a huge flavor boost. Depending on what you're using for your filling you could swap the thyme for something like dill or oregano. This cookbook has some amazing recipes in it (like White Cheddar-Zucchini Pancakes and Sweet Potato, Golden Raisin and Cranberry Strudel), and I can't wait to try more of them.

For the filling I just used things I had around: an onion, a little spinach, and Emmentaler.

Caramelized Onion Quiche

Crust recipe from Savory Baking

For the crust:

1 3/4 cups flour

1/2 cup cold, unsalted butter, cut into 1/2" cubes

1 tsp dried thyme (or 2 tsps fresh)

3/4 tsp salt

1/3-2/3 cups cold water

For the filling:

4 large eggs

1 1/2 cups of a combination of cream, half & half, or milk

1 large white or yellow onion, sliced into strips

1 cup or more Emmentaler, grated

A few handfuls of spinach (optional)

Salt & pepper

Put the flour, butter, thyme, and salt in a food processor.

Pulse until the largest chunks of butter are pea-sized.

Slowly add water until the mixture forms into a ball.

Like this.

Transfer the dough to a floured surface.

Knead it a couple times, and then shape it into a disc that's about an inch thick. Making this dough was insanely easy and took maybe five minutes from the time I started measuring ingredients to the time I formed the dough into a disk. Working with any dough is pretty easy after making homemade pasta and dealing with very dry, crumbly dough.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes. I let it rest for over an hour while I went to pick up my awesome new toy.

When you're ready to start baking, preheat your oven to 400 with a rack in the lower third of the oven. Dust whatever surface you're going to roll the dough out on with flour.

Place the dough on the floured surface.

And roll it out until it's 12" around. My silicone mat has rulers along the edges, which makes this part very easy. I'd say that makes it worth the investment. Depending on the surface you're using, you may need to keep moving the dough around to ensure that it doesn't stick to that surface.

Fold the dough in half and transfer it to your pie pan or baking dish. I believe I used an 8" glass pan, but the actual crust recipe is for a 9" pie pan.

Unfold the dough and press it firmly into the bottom and edges of the pan. You can chop off the excess dough around the top if there's a lot. I started to even out the edges, but then changed my mind and started to reattach them. I figured I'd rather bake all of the crust that I made instead of discarding bits of it just to make it look better.

Cover the crust with a layer of aluminum foil, and fill the foil 2/3 full with dried beans or pie weights. I didn't have enough of a single kind of bean, so I made a foil boat of black beans to fill half of the crust and filled the rest with garbanzos. I saved myself from painstakingly separating bean varieties later on, and I successfully reproduced the title of a Michael Jackson song in a legume on foil medium.

Place the baking dish or pie pan on a baking sheet, and bake for about 30 minutes. Carefully lift up the foil and check the bottom of the crust; it's ready when it's beginning to brown. At that point remove the foil and the beans and continue to bake the crust until it's golden brown, probably 5-10 more minutes. Remove the baking sheet and the baking dish from the oven, place them on a cooling rack, and reduce the oven temperature to 325.

While the crust is baking, you can get the filling ready. I had a little bit of spinach sitting around that I decided to use, so I started by sautéing that.

Then I squeezed out as much moisture as I could before chopping it into smaller pieces.

Heat a little oil in a skillet over medium-high heat, and then add the onions and a little salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until they soften and brown. Set aside. I guess mine are more towards the raw end of the caramelization spectrum, but they were done enough for me.

In a large bowl combine the eggs, the milk, and the cream. I am ashamed to admit this, but I used about 1 1/3 cup cream and a tiny bit of skim milk. I thought I had more milk than that and was planning on doing more of a 50/50 mix, but as I poured the milk into the measuring cup I realized I had less than 1/4 cup of it. Sorry, arteries.

Whisk the eggs and cream together as well as a little freshly grated pepper.

Add the onions and spinach to the crust, and spread them around so they're evenly distributed.

Top the onions with a layer of grated cheese. I used Emmentaler, but you can use anything you have around.

Pour the egg mixture over the onions and cheese. You could also add the other ingredients to the egg mixture and pour the filling in all at once. Layering ensures a little onion, a little cheese, and a little egg with every bite, though.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the eggs are mostly set and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Let the quiche rest for at least 10 minutes before slicing.

Serve warm or at room temperature.

Here's a nice view of the layers: onion, cheese, and egg.