Tag Archives: Cinnamon

Country Blueberry Monkey Bread

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Monkey bread is the devil. I cannot resist it. I especially enjoy a new spin on it, like adding some kind of new flavor to the delicious combo of cinnamon sugar and buttery goodness.  I can more readily call it breakfast if it includes fruit which makes this blueberry filled bread perfect for supporting my delusion. So, breakfast it is. That’s when I served it to my family anyway. But, I also ate it for lunch and dessert so it’s really all-encompassing food. The oatmeal practically makes it a health food…so I figured it was ok to have it for more than one meal.

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French Toast Muffins

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I’m always on the lookout for ways to eat dessert for breakfast. These delightful little muffins have perfectly light flavor and a melt in your mouth oh-my-goodness-this-is-so-amazing texture that’s to die for. What would you call a dessert that you pass off as breakfast? I mean, besides the obvious…pie. Bressert? Deskfast?

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Snickerdoodle Blondies

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I’ve never been super attracted to blondes.  I’m more of a dark and handsome kind of gal. Brownies over blondies every time. Until now. These buttery bars have a secret weapon – glorious cinnamon sugar deliciousness swirling all thru the sweet dough.

In addition to being a bar version of one of my most favorite cookies, these are SUPER easy to make. Just slap it all in a pan, sprinkle with some cinnamon sugar and drop more dough on top.

They are even easier than my Snickerdoodle Bread. I have no idea how a flat coating of sweet cinnamon and sugar manages to appear swirled thru these blondies. It’s like magic. Sweet doughy magic. I know what you are thinking – and yes, that is powdered sugar glaze on my thumb.

I’ve decided Betty Crocker is an evil woman. That decision has been a long time coming – she’s been on my radar a while. Pure. Amazing. Evil. I love that lady.

As if ribbons of cinnamony delight weren’t enough, these blondies also have a drizzled glaze. Happiness is anything with a sweet sugar dribbling off the edges.

If you have a snickerdoodle lover in your life, make these immediately. If you don’t, go find one – they are the best kind of people and your life really isn’t complete until you know someone who goes ga-ga over cinnamon and sugar.

Snickerdoodle Blondies
from Betty Crocker

2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
 1/2 teaspoon salt
 3/4 cup butter or margarine, softened
 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
 3 eggs
 1 teaspoon vanilla
Cinnamon Filling
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
1 to 2 tablespoons milk
 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
  1. Heat oven to 350° F. Spray or grease bottom only of a 13×9-inch baking pan with cooking spray. In small bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
  2. In large bowl, beat butter with electric mixer on high speed until creamy. Beat in sugars. Gradually beat in eggs and vanilla into sugar mixture until combined. On low speed, beat in dry ingredients until combined.
  3. Spoon half the batter into pan; spread evenly. Sprinkle cinnamon-sugar mixture evenly over batter.
  4. Dollop teaspoon size amounts of remaining batter evenly over cinnamon-sugar mixture.
  5. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely, about 1 hour.
  6. In small bowl, stir glaze ingredients until smooth and thin enough to drizzle. Drizzle over bars. For bars, cut into 6 rows by 4 rows.
Makes 24 bars

Perfect Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

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Chocolate is grand, but oatmeal raisin cookies will always be my favorite. Packed with hearty rich flavor and succulent raisins, these cookies are absolutely perfect. Big and thick, soft and chewy. I love them. I’d take these over any other cookie out there. Any day of the week. And twice on Sunday. Odd saying. Anyone know where it comes from?

Soaking the raisins in the egg mixture is the key to this recipe. It produces lots of plump juicy morsels to bit into with all that oat deliciousness.

If you’ve had hard, dry versions of this cookie before and been turned off the whole notion of Oatmeal Raisin, give this recipe a whirl. They are simply delicious.

Perfect Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

-3 eggs beaten
-1 cup raisins
-1 teaspoon vanilla
-1 cup butter
-1 cup packed brown sugar
-1/2 cup white sugar
-2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
-1 rounded teaspoon cinnamon
-2 teaspoons baking soda
-2 1/2 cups old fashioned rolled oats

1- Combine eggs, vanilla, and raisins in a small bowl, cover and let stand for 1 hour.

2-Preheat oven to 350 F

3-In a large bowl cream the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar together. In another bowl sift together the flour, cinnamon, and baking soda, stir into creamed mixture. Then stir in raisin mixture, and rolled oats. Scoop 2 tablespoons of dough onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Bake for 13-15 minutes or until just set on the edges. Cool 10 minutes on the cookie sheet, then remove to a cooling rack.

Apple Oatmeal Cookies With Brown Butter Frosting

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I’m pretty conflicted about sharing this recipe. On the one hand, the cookies taste delicious. They are kind of like an apple crisp cookie. They have chewy oats and sweet apples with a hint of cinnamon. Delightful. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure the recipe was missing a key step. Chilling the dough. My cookies spread all over the pan and were very flat. I recently got a new (giant) baking sheet, and fit all but about three cookies in one batch. So I got a bunch of flat flat cookies.

When they came out of the oven I got pretty irritated. I had to smoosh the cookies back towards the middle after removing them from the oven to get them mildly presentable. I don’t really want to admit this recipe failed, and blogging it means that I have to fess up. I hate with a passion when a recipe does not turn out. I feel like I’ve wasted my time, energy and ingredients. Rgh. Annoying. I’m sure you’ve all had this experience. Which is why I’m sharing. Sometimes, baking doesn’t produce what you are expecting. At times like these, you shouldn’t throw your pans out and start claiming you are “not a baker”. No. Just blame the recipe. Seriously. Many times, you are just missing a step. Like in this case, I think the dough should have been chilled. The taste was excellent so I’ll try making these again, this time with some fridge time for the dough. The resulting things on my pan just were not really very appetizing without some chilling. This is after I’d smooshed them back in.

Here’s the tricky thing. Because these cookies have a brown butter frosting (which is amazing), I can pretty well cover the shortcomings of this recipe. Just slap some frosting on and everything looks great. I suppose I could have just shared the photo below and told you these turned out great.

Brown butter frosting covers a multitude of sins. In addition to tasting incredible, it turned these lumps of misshapen cookie dough into beautiful(ish) looking delights. See? I could have just showed you this, and you’d never have been the wiser.

But that wouldn’t be very nice. Then when your cookies spread (just like mine did) you might think you’d done something wrong. I’m just keepin’ it real here. You will never get a recipe from me that looks good but secretly didn’t actually turn out. Everyone has baking failures. All of us. It happens. So, I’m not going to pretend they don’t. Go ahead and make these cookies, but be sure you chill your dough before scooping it onto the pan. Otherwise, you’ll have to spend a whole lot of time reforming them as they are cooling to get anything close to resembling this.

Apple Oatmeal Cookies with Brown Butter Frosting
from Lauren’s Latest

1/2 cup butter, softened
6 tablespoons packed brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup all purpose flour + 1 tablespoon
1 cup quick cooking rolled oats
1/2 cup peeled, diced apple

for the frosting:
1/4 cup butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tablespoon milk {approximately}
cinnamon, for garnish if desired

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheet with silicone baking mat or parchment paper and set aside.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars together until light and fluffy. Stir in egg and vanilla. Slowly incorporate all dry ingredients. Stir in oats and apples.  Chill for 30 minutes.

Scoop onto prepared sheet (I used a melon baller) and bake 10-12  minutes or until the edges are golden.

While cookies are baking, place 1/4 cup butter into small saucepan. With heat on medium, melt and brown the butter. Once the butter is a medium brown/amber color remove from heat and pour into a small bowl. Beat in powdered sugar and enough milk to get a spreadable consistency.

Frost warm cookies and sprinkle with more cinnamon, if desired. Serve.

Cinnamon Roll Pancakes

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I had some leftover cinnamon butter in my fridge from making Snickerdoodle Bread. Not enough to make a full recipe of anything really, so I’ve been pondering how to use it. Then I thought of something I saw a while ago (on Pinterest…yes, all good ideas come from there it seems). After eating these cinnamon roll pancakes, my kids declared that I am “the best Mommy in the whole world”. So, that pretty much made my day. Even if it was a result of buttery goodness on their plates.

If you make the cinnamon butter the night before and pop it in your fridge, these pancakes won’t take any extra time in the morning. Just pop it in the microwave to soften it to a drizzling consistency and then swirl away. I used a ziploc baggie with the end snipped to swirl mine.

The big bonus for me is that instead of messy syrup which always ends up EVERYWHERE, my kids got a homemade cinnamon swirl that cooks right into the breakfast so there’s no sticky mess!

You can use your favorite pancake recipe if you’re making these for a Sunday brunch or if you are crunched for time, just whip up a batch of Krusteaz and make it special with the addition of that gorgeous cinnamon butter.

You will LOVE these. Yum!

Cinnamon Butter

1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1-2 tablespoons cream
Pinch of baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

Instructions

In a saucepan over medium high heat, melt the butter. Add in the brown sugar and whisk, bringing it up to a boil. Let it boil for about one minute, remove from heat, and whisk in the cream. Add the baking soda and cinnamon and whisk until combined. Set aside to cool slightly. Or, place in the fridge until ready to make pancakes.

Put cinnamon butter into a ziplock bag and snip one corner (microwave if necessary to bring to liquid consistency). Combine ingredients for pancake batter and dollup on hot griddle.  Swirl cinnamon butter around the pancake starting along the outside, moving to the center. Flip pancake. Allow to cook on other side, then serve.

Snickerdoodle Bread

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A few weeks ago my grandmother gave me four mini loaf pans. She knows me so well. I’ve been trying to use them ever since so I can bring her something delicious as a thank you. Yes, that’s what happens when you give me a baking item as a gift. I use it to make something awesome for you. The problem is, I got fixated on this snickerdoodle bread recipe I found. You may wonder why that’s an issue…and I’ll tell you. It’s because the recipe calls for cinnamon chips which (apparently) are seasonal. Not the season we’re currently in. But it was too late. I wanted to make a cinnamon sugary bread version of one of the best cookies ever. Nothing else would be good enough for the maiden voyage of my new pans. What to do, what to do?

I took some time reading the comments on the original recipe to find that people had substituted white chocolate chips as well as toffee chips in the bread and liked the results. Somehow I just couldn’t bring myself to spoil all that delicious cinnamon sugar goodness with a different flavor. I had just about given up and resigned myself to making some other kind of bread until cinnamon chips were back in stock, but then, a miracle!!

My wonderful cousin came up with a solution for me without even knowing it. She made some cookies today that included a cinnamon butter inside. Basically like a cinnamon sugar caramel kind of deal. As soon as I saw her recipe I knew it was the answer to my dilemma. I could make the bread per the recipe, but instead of using the cinnamon chips, I’d swirl the cinnamon butter through the batter. Genius!

We start by making our cinnamon butter swirl. Some butter and brown sugar are melted together and boiled briefly.

Add a little cream and some cinnamon then set aside to cool while we make our bread batter. Try not to eat with a spoon.

Cream butter, sugar and cinnamon together. Add some eggs, sour cream and dry ingredients. Until it looks like this. It’s very thick.

Spoon into your pans until about a third full.

Then swirl your cinnamon butter around. I did about a tablespoon straight down the center, then swished a butter knife back and forth thru it.

Top with remaining batter and another swish and swirl of the cinnamon butter. Then sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean and the bread is golden with a crusty top.

(worst part of baking) Allow to cool, then slice and enjoy. Lightly spiced sweet bread and that amazing buttery surprise in the middle topped with a craggy cinnamony crust. Yuuuum!

Three of these loaves are headed out the door as gifts. Otherwise I’m at risk of palming one and just walking around all day munching on it.

Have a slice (or a loaf) of this with breakfast. It’s not a cookie. It’s bread. That’s allowed. Just look at that gorgeous ribbon of buttery cinnamon goodness!

Snickerdoodle Bread   
adapted from Rumbly In My Tumbly and Lil Luna

Bread:
2 1/2 c. all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 c. sour cream

Topping:
3 T. sugar
3 t. cinnamon

Cinnamon Butter Swirl:
1/2 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar, packed
2-3 tablespoons cream
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon cinnamon

Instructions

For the cinnamon butter swirl:
In a saucepan over medium high heat, melt the butter. Add in the brown sugar and whisk, bringing it up to a boil. Let it boil for about one minute, remove from heat, and whisk in the cream. Add the baking soda and cinnamon and whisk until combined. Set aside to cool.

For the bread:

Cream butter, sugar, salt and cinnamon until fluffy. Add eggs and mix well.
Add vanilla and sour cream and mix well.
Mix flour and baking powder in a separate bowl. Add to wet ingredients and mix until all combined.

Spoon batter into 4 mini loaf pans until about 1/3 full. Dollup and swirl the cinnamon butter around in the batter. Add more batter on top til 2/3 full. Dollup some more filling and swirl again.
Mix 3 T. sugar and 3 t. cinnamon in a bowl and sprinkle over the batter in each loaf pan.
Bake at 350 for 38-43 minutes. Let cool before removing from pan.

Fruit Salsa & Cinnamon Chips

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I was trying to sort thru some old photos on my computer today when I came across a few I didn’t even remember taking. Also, about 20,000 pictures of my kids. Wow. It’s a wonder they aren’t blind from all the flash bulbs going off in their faces. I apparently took pictures of food well before I decided to start a blog as there were a random recipe photos sprinkled throughout the birthday parties, first days of school and family holiday get-togethers. It’s no wonder. The food at events has always been almost as important to me as the people. Almost. I made this fruit salsa when I hosted a baby-shower for my sister-in-law. I remember it was awesome. And that in the midst of all the other deliciousness I made that day, the salsa and chips disappeared the fastest. Maybe because the day Anna chose for her party ended up being about 100°. Which might not be unreasonably hot in your neck-of-the-woods, but Seattleites are sure they’ve gone to Hades when it’s that warm outside. This salsa is bursting with cool-off fruity goodness. Paired with the sweet crunchy cinnamon chips, it is incredible.
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Pretzel Bites

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It’s that time of year again. No more family Christmas parties with your crazy Uncle Lou who makes inappropriate remarks after a few glasses of Granny’s homemade nog. The presents are opened & carols all sung. You’ve convinced yourself that the tree and lights can stay up while you do absolutely nothing for a few days. This is the magical time of year when pretty much the only thing on TV is football. College bowl games and NFL playoffs are kicking into high gear. It’s time for lazy afternoons parked on your caboose with friends who don’t care that you are wearing your ratty sweatpants. Friends who totally understand that you must wear elastic waistbands due to the obscene number of holiday treats you’ve been eating for the past month. No judging. Just  more eating. And football. A great time of year indeed. Continue reading →

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes & Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

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Oh how I love love love these cupcakes. The spices, the pumpkin, the cream cheese frosting. It all combines for an absolutely perfect taste explosion. All individually packaged up in a convenient wrapper. Does anyone else think unwrapped cupcake holders look like tutus? No? Just me? Anyway. These are my favorite fall cupcakes – and while it may be spring technically according to the calendar, you’d never know it to look outside at my house. A chilly 48° with misty rain and wind. You know what I mean by misty rain right? The kind of rain that doesn’t really look like it’s coming down. Like it’s really just sprinkling. Yet somehow you are DRENCHED after walking the 14 steps between the front door and your vehicle. Misty rain. It’s the most deceptive of all the rain types. Trust me. I’m from Seattle. I know my rain.  Today’s weather had fall written all over it, so I figured I’d make the most of it with my favorite cold weather cupcakes. It’ll probably be the last time I get to before it’s all sunshine-y and spring like outside. (sigh) I know. That’s totally wishful thinking. Oh well. Continue reading →