Honey Butter Pull Apart Rolls

 

No holiday meal is complete without some rolls, am I right? Now, you could go the normal dinner roll variety, or just buy some at the store, but what fun is that? For Thanksgiving, I made these delicious pull apart rolls. To be honest, I've always loved the store-bought version of these my grandparents usually have at their holiday functions, so I figured why not try to make them from scratch?

There's something fun about being able to pull apart your roll into bits that are already supposed to be pulled apart, you know? It's a tactile experience. As a note, my rolls may be a bit poofier than yours may turn out. I had to let mine sit on the counter before going into the oven for a bit, so they started rising again thanks to the yeast. It may have just made them even fluffier and more delicious, but I guess I'd have to do another batch to be sure. Oh darn!

 

As you can see from the below photo, it can also be quite pretty. The below roll is from all of the scrappy end pieces when I was cutting up the dough. I thought oh this one will be the runt of the litter and be a bit sad, but instead it turned out looking something like a flower, almost. Really, you could get creative and make all of you rolls look like flowers, I'm sure, but you can also just be more precise in your cutting and have all of your rolls be "regular" like the one above.

Now, this may seem like a lot of work, but they're actually quite easy to make when you get down to it. The only thing is the time issue. Because you are working with yeast here, it's not like you can just make these on a whim to have in a few minutes' time. But I don't think you'll be disappointed if you do decide to make these! They're delicious right from the oven, and days later when you microwave them for about 30 seconds. Yum!

Honey Butter Pull Apart Rolls
Author: Jen @ Fresh From The…
Servings: 1 Dozen Rolls
Prep time: 01:25

Cook time: 00:15

Total time: 01:40

The perfect rolls for a special holiday meal.

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cups hot water
• 1 Tablespoon active dry yeast
• 2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
• 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 ½ to 4 cups bread flour
• 3/4 stick unsalted butter, melted
• 3 Tablespoons honey
• 3/4 teaspoon salt

Instructions:

1. Spray a large bowl with cooking spray - set aside for now.
2. In a small bowl, mix together the water, yeast, and sugar. Let sit until frothy, about five minutes.
3. In a large bowl, mix together the oil, salt, 2 cups of flour, and the yeast mixture until combined well.
4. Stir in the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and isn't too sticky.
5. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead until elastic, about 8 or so minutes. As a tip, I used about 3 1/2 cups flour in the bowl, then probably added another 1/2 cup when kneading to keep it from being too sticky. You can use a stand mixer with a dough hook, but I did it by hand.
6. Place the dough in the greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and keep in a warm place until doubled in size, about an hour.
7. After doubled, punch down the dough and lay on a floured surface. Roll out the dough until about 20 inches by 12 inches.
8. Preheat your oven to 375°F.
9. In a small bowl, mix together the butter, honey, and salt, and brush the dough with half of this mixture.
10. With a pizza cutter (or a knife if you don't have one), cut the dough lengthwise into sixths, and crosswise into twelfths.
11. Make stacks of four dough squares and place each stack into a greased muffin cup. They should have the ends of the stacks placed down into the muffin so you will see the layers.
12. Brush with the remaining butter mixture (I had a little extra that I used later to butter the rolls once they were done baking) and bake for 13-15 minutes until golden brown. Serve warm.

Recipe via High Heels and Grills

French Toast

With a vast array of breakfast options set out before you at a restaurant, what do you most often choose? Waffles? Pancakes? Omelets? Something called a wolf pack? Or maybe you're just a traditional eggs, bacon and hashbrown person. For me, it just depends on my mood. But what's my favorite breakfast to make at home? Also, it should be noted, one of the easier ones to accomplish?

French Toast. The delightful eggy bread concoction that can be sweet OR savory! Sweet AND savory?! No matter your preference, you have to admit, french toast is pretty great. And this french toast? Wow. It's just your basic recipe, really, but damn is it good! I think that little bit of honey in the mix really makes it awesome.

Also - why is french toast called french toast? It is supposedly not necessarily originally a piece de resistance of France. Mysterious!

Next Level French Toast
Author: Jen @ Fresh From The...
Servings: 6-8 Slices
Prep time: 00:08
Cook time: 00:06
Total time: 00:14

Don't just make French toast with eggs and milk whisked together - make it next level with this simple recipe that adds just a few more ingredients!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup whole milk
• 3 large eggs
• 2 Tablespoons honey, warmed in microwave for 20 seconds
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3-4 Tablespoons butter
• Day old or stale bread a la Egg Bread or Challah Bread

Instructions:

1. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, honey and salt. You can do this ahead of time and keep in the fridge if you want to be ready the night before. When you're good to go, pour the mixture into a pie pan. Dip your bread into the mixture, allowing each side to soak for 30 seconds.
2. Over medium-low heat, melt 1 Tbsp butter in a saute pan. Nonstick is great if you have it, if you don't you'll still be okay. Place 2 slices of your bread at a time on the pan and cook until golden brown, about 2 to 3 minutes per side. If you're doing thick bread, you may want to press down on it a bit to make sure the middle gets cooked through. Set aside until you have all of your pieces done (probably between 6-8 slices depending on thickness and type of bread). Serve immediately with toppings of your choice - maple syrup, whipped cream, fruit, or even ice cream if you're so inclined!

Recipe adapted from Alton Brown

In photos:

 You'll want some thick slices of bread to start. This is homemade egg bread - and dang, some homemade bread just makes this all the more succulent! Preheat your oven at this point if you want to keep your finished toast warm while you make the rest.

Soak your bread in your egg mixture, about 30 seconds per side.

Add some butter to your skillet and plop that bread on there. A non-stick skillet would be easier to use, but I don't have one, so I made do with a stainless steel one instead.

You can fit two pieces of bread in the skillet usually. cook each side for about 2 minutes and flip! You'll see it's browned like so.

How can you tell if the bread has cooked through? Generally what I do is press down with my spatula, and if any liquid oozes out of the top, it's not cooked through quite yet.

Stick them in the oven to keep them warm until you're all done with the rest. Obviously this is optional, but why would you want your toast to get cold?

Once you're ready, butter that toast up!

Pour on your syrup!

Oh yeah.

Go to town on that stuff! Let your drool mix in with your syrup, I don't mind.

Honey Wheat Pound Cake

Sometimes I sit on my table and eat things while looking out the window. I mean, this is normal, right?

Oh look gold toenails! Sorry if you have some aversion to feet. That's my foot. Get over it. I was eating on the table and decided photographic proof was needed. I'm weird like that sometimes. It's a thing.

This pound cake? Less weird. Also slightly healthy? Anything that has wheat flour instead of all purpose flour has to be somewhat healthy, am I right?

You may have noticed an abundance of pound cake recipes on here recently. Or wait, I don't think I actually posted one of them that I made because the middle sunk and I just hate when that happens. But! I've been making them kind of regularly. Why, you may wonder? I wonder this too. Am I obsessed with pound cake? Not really. It usually occurs when I've run out of yogurt and need a breakfast food for the week. Ta-da! Pound cake to the rescue!

Honey Wheat Pound Cake

2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup honey
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare a 9x5" bread pan - either spray with non-stick or butter and flour, depending on your preference. In a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside for a bit.

In your mixer, beat together the butter, sugar and honey until nice and creamy, about five minutes. Beat in each egg one at a time until incorporated, about one minute apiece. Beat in the vanilla.

Mix in on low speed half of the flour mixture, then pour in the buttermilk. Slowly add in the rest of the flour mixture until just incorporated, then fold the rest by hand. Spoon into your prepared bread pan.

Bake for 55-65 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let sit in the pan for another 20 minutes to cool, then put on a wire rack to finish cooling completely. Will last up to four days well-wrapped at room temperature.

In photos:

Flour mixture. Sorry it's a little dark. But you can see the wheat flour here.

Beat together your butter and your sugars (sugar and honey). It'll look like this.

Add in the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla. Gettin' doughy!

Mix in half the flour mixture. Wheat!

Then add in the buttermilk and the rest of the flour. 

Spoon into your prepared pan. Or spatula it, as the case may be.

It comes out pretty dark looking, but the inside is moist.

See? Much lighter inside.

Good for breakfast! Or a snack. Or a healthy-ish dessert.