finding time for cooking

for the time-starved or curious culinary adventurer

Snickerdoodle Zucchini Bread

This bread is the BOMB!

Snickerdoodle zucchini bread...cinnamon-sugar is my kryptonite

Cinnamon-sugar is my kryptonite in general, so it’s no surprise that I was drawn to this recipe.  It’s all the best things about my snickerdoodle bread (which is amazing, but also will make a major dent in your calories for the day), combined with a bit of whole wheat flour and fiber from zucchini.  Make no mistake, this is definitely a breakfast dessert, but it’s now only a bit of splurge rather than a complete diet derail.

Snickerdoodle zucchini bread...plenty of sweet, with a bit of healthy mixed in

The hardest thing is finding the cinnamon chips—if you see them, buy like 6 bags!  (Though this may be part of the scarcity problem…).  I think Hershey’s discontinued theirs, so I’ve been buying them on the Amazon black market, and will need to look elsewhere soon.  Cinnamon chips are seriously the best, and appropriate in all manner of delicious breakfast and dessert recipes.

Snickerdoodle zucchini bread

This was a hit at work.  And I had trouble keeping my hands off it.  I had a piece with my morning espresso, but went back several times throughout the day for another bite.  I probably had three pieces total, one bite at a time!READ THE POST

Cinnamon Swirl Bread

I’ve been sitting on this one for a while.

Cinnamon Swirl Bread

Why, you ask?  It’s cinnamon swirl bread, which is a total no-brainer.  Gooey, cinnamony goodness spiraling through a tender, crumby loaf.  And it is.  But for some reason when I made it a few months ago, I wasn’t totally in love with it.  The filling was awesome, but the bread was just…fine.  The texture was good, but the outside was crustier than I wanted and the bread’s flavor (it tasted like…bread) was a disconnect from the sweet filling.

Cinnamon Swirl Bread done

But I’ve come to see the error of my ways, because you deserve cinnamon swirl bread in YOUR life too.  I’ve made a few adjustments to the recipe to make the bread and filling feel like they’re part of the same recipe, including adding a teaspoon of cinnamon and a little extra sugar to the dough.  The filling was perfect just as it was.  READ THE POST

Pioneer Woman’s Cinnamon Rolls with Maple Frosting

“Life is too short for self-hatred and celery sticks.” ~ Marilyn Wann

That quote basically encapsulates my struggle right now. I love food. I don’t believe in diets, because I think that permanently denying yourself foods will just make you want them more. Plus, why take all the fun out of life?? But I am trying to be good most of the time right now. And looking at these pictures is pure torture, because I remember how GOOOOOOD these cinnamon rolls were.

Cinnamon Rolls with Maple Frosting

But I have a secret. I’m not really into cinnamon rolls. Except these cinnamon rolls. These cinnamon rolls are like if you just took the gooey center of the roll (the only good part) and made it ALL of the roll.

THESE CINNAMON ROLLS ARE EVERYTHING.

Cinnamon Rolls with Maple Frosting done

People had raved about The Pioneer Woman’s cinnamon roll recipe, so when I decided to try my hand at cinnamon rolls I knew I had to try these ones. I was scared, honestly. Cinnamon rolls look like so much work, and I’ve never thought they were worth the effort. Boy, was I wrong.

cinnamon rolls with maple frosting cut2

These are 5-star levels of gooey, they’re sweet, they’re maple-y, the bread is moist and soft. Perfect. They’re perfect. And they were actually not that hard to make. Yes, there were a few steps, but they weren’t hard or even super time consuming. I just had to plan ahead in terms of starting them the night before, but otherwise they came together pretty easily.

Cinnamon Rolls with Maple Frosting 2

How decadent are these cinnamon rolls?? Well, I polished off the last four (DON’T JUDGE.) the morning that I gave blood (so I could start eating healthy the next day, natch), and when my cholesterol results came back they were like 50 points higher than normal. It was insane. Granted, I’d also had like seven of them the day before. Still. Crazy.READ THE POST

Churro Popovers

Oh my word, THESE POPOVERS.

Churro Popovers

These are heaven. They are light, puffy, buttery, cinnamony-sweet heaven. And they’re so fast and easy!

Churro Popovers done

I halved the recipe, since I was only cooking for me (yes, it still made 7 popovers, DON’T JUDGE ME). It’s so insanely fast, you just blend up the ingredients in your blender (or with a whisk) while the oven heats up, and like 20 minutes later you have piping hot popovers. It’s impressive, really.READ THE POST

Brown Butter Snickerdoodles…Plus, How to Brown Butter

Sometimes I feel like snickerdoodles are kind of the red-headed stepchild of cookies. How often do you see them in sandwich shops or on restaurant menus? Pinterest is chock-full of chocolate chip cookies, lemon cookies, chocolate cookies, and peanut butter cookies, but only occasionally do you see a snickerdoodle pop up.

Brown Butter Snickerdoodle

I rarely think about them until it’s right in front of me. And only then do I remember how much I totally LOVE  them. I mean, cinnamon sugar and tangy cream of tartar? What’s not to love??

Brown Butter Snickerdoodles

Then I saw this recipe and was super intrigued, because not only do I love cinnamon sugar, but I have recently discovered how much I love browned butter. It just adds a whole other dimension to cooking and baking, a depth of flavor beyond what regular butter can bring. And it’s really quite easy.

Browning butter, while a tiny bit more time consuming than just throwing in solid sticks of butter, is totally worth it. The most important thing is to continually stir it, so the bits browning on the bottom don’t begin to burn. Say that five times fast…

brown butter snickerdoodles dough ball2

These cookies had an awesome richness to them, with the normal bite of a snickerdoodle as well as a silkiness from the brown butter. My co-workers raved about them, and I’ll definitely be re-creating them soon.
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Unleavened Treats: Cottage Cheese Rolls

Since I was such a tease with the leavened cake the other day, here’s a real unleavened treat. Though we’re close to the end of the Days of Unleavened Bread, there are still a couple days left to make this DOUB classic. I know some people already use this recipe (because I’ve seen them talk about it on Facebook), but if you haven’t then you must immediately!

cottage cheese rolls finished

This was my mom’s go-to recipe during this season. I never could understand why people would want to eat matzo, because it’s like eating cardboard. These, on the other hand, are moist and buttery and chewy and flavorful and FULL OF AWESOME.

cottage cheese rolls dough ready to bake

This recipe is really versatile. You can make it as-is, substitute whole wheat flour for part, add savory or sweet flavors, make rolls or roll out flat. I mixed it up a lot this week, using some rosemary, some cinnamon-sugar, and some whole wheat flour.
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Snickerdoodle Biscotti

Hmm…I’m seeing kind of a theme here. First it was actual snickerdoodles, then snickerdoodle bread, and now snickerdoodle biscotti? I guess I just don’t know how to resist a great cinnamon-sugar combination.

snickerdoodle biscotti finished

I was planning to make something else a little more labor-intensive last weekend, but then I ran across this recipe. I was in a particularly lazy mood and didn’t feel like putting much effort into anything, so I decided to try it out. Because you want to know a secret? Biscotti are (is?) actually very easy to make. Sure, the baking time is a little longer, but from an effort standpoint they’re a breeze.

snickerdoodle biscotti finished coffee

This recipe is also particularly great, because I had all the ingredients on-hand already. Many biscottis you need special nuts (hazelnuts, pistacchios) or some other add-in (citrus zest, etc.), but these were all normal ingredients pretty much everyone already has.
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Cinnamon-sugar magic (Snickerdoodle Bread)

This bread is magical.

I’m not someone who could generally be accused of being a snickerdoodle freak. I like a cinnamon-sugar combo as well as the next person, but I can take or leave the specific snickerdoodle cookie flavor. I might change my mind after having this bread.

snickerdoodle bread finished

The blog I got this recipe from (Lil Luna) warns that the cinnamon chips are usually only in grocery stores during the holidays, so best to stock up on a few bags right now while the getting is good.

snickerdoodle bread finished slice

The other great part about this bread (besides its amazing taste) is that it literally takes five minutes to mix together, then you just pop it in the oven and go about your business! I realized late in the day that the next morning was my “breakfast day” at work and I didn’t have much of an evening to make something, and this turned out to be the perfect option (and I carefully packed the second loaf in my carry-on bag to visit my family the next day!). READ THE POST

Coffee cake in cookie form? (Snickerdoodles)

I have made hundreds, if not thousands, of cookies in my life. But if I think back on it, snickerdoodles were probably like .01% of them. I just never think about them for some reason. While I enjoy them, they’re not my favorite cookie. But then I realized—that’s why they’re perfect to make, because I won’t be as tempted to chow down 24/7.

Other thing I realized? That other people LOVE them. They rave about them, write odes to them, and break diets to devour on them. Also, they’re kind of like coffee cake in cookie form—or at least that’s what I told myself when I was eating one with my morning espresso last week.

Also, I got to thinking about it and I could probably count the number of homemade snickerdoodles I’ve ever had on my hands. Or hands and toes now that I’ve made them. For some reason, all I ever get is store-bought snickerdoodles. So it’s time to change that.

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