Monkey Bread

Another easy lovely recipe from Saveur magazine - this one is a lovely recipe for you to do with the kids. Not much can go wrong and the kids will have a lovely time. This is one of those recipes where you know if you put in all this delicious decadent stuff, nothing can go wrong, and if something does, it tastes great anyway!

Cinnamon Monkey Bread

(original recipe here)

3-3 1/4 cups All-Purpose Flour
1 cup Butter, softened plus more for greasing
1 1/4 cup Sugar
1 cup Milk
1 tbsp Active Dry Yeast
2 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
2 tsp Salt

Heat 2 tbsp of butter with milk and 1/3 cup water on medium heat until warm. Transfer to a bowl of a stand mixer with a hook attachment. Add 1/4 cup sugar, and the yeast and stir to combine. Allow to activate the yeast and foam, about 10 minutes.

Turn the mixer onto a medium speed and add the flour and salt. Beat until all combined and the dough is smooth and elastic. Transfer to a lightly greased bowl, cover and allow to rise until double in size.

Preheat oven to 180 deg C. Grease and flour a 10" bundt pan.

Combine remaining sugar and cinnamon in a large bowl and set aside. Melt the remaining butter in a pan, add and combine the brown sugar and set aside.

Pinch small rounds from the risen dough (about the size of small cherry tomatoes). Toss the small balls of dough in the cinnamon sugar mixture (the kids will enjoy this part!) and fit snugly into the prepared bundt pan. Pour the butter-brown sugar mixture slowly and evenly all over the dough, allowing it time to get into the nooks and crannies.

Bake until golden brown, about 35 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Serve warm. (with vanilla ice cream or a caramel ice cream). :)

Pasta with Brown Butter Sauce

Have you made brown butter? Don't think about the calories for once and go make this sauce. It's one of the best things you would've done. And you can always just smell, taste and then feed your hungry family, friends and neighbors. And let me tell you, they'll come asking when they smell that sauce.

Brown butter is exactly what it sounds like. You cook the butter down until it turns brown and caramel-ly and nutty and sweet and well...It's taking butter to a whole new level.

Well, try this recipe and you won't be sorry. It's a No Regret Move, as the consultants say.

Pasta with Brown Butter Sauce
(Recipe from Saveur)

8 oz Pasta, any kind will do. I used bucatini.
1 cup Butter (I know. It's not for the faint of heart, but trust me)
3/4 cup Pine nuts
4 Eggs
1/2 cup Parmesan Cheese
Salt and Freshly ground Pepper, to taste

Cook the pasta until al dente and keep aside, reserving about half a cup of the pasta water as well.

Melt the butter on low-medium heat in a large pan. Add the pine nuts and stir until they turn golden brown. Remove the nuts with a slotted spoon. Now crack the eggs 1 or 2 at a time into the pan. Keep scooping the butter over the eggs until cooked. The recipe calls for fried eggs with a runny yolk, but I'm super scared of the infections that uncooked eggs can bring in India, so I turned it over and cooked it through. (Though I can just imagine that the runny yolk mixing in with the brown butter and coating the pasta must be just amazing).

Carefully remove the eggs with a slotted spoon and keep covered, and warm.

Now add the pasta, half the pine nuts and all the reserved pasta water. Toss to combine and heat pasta. Ladle the pasta into serving bowls, top with a fried egg, a sprinkle of the remaining pine nuts and some Parmesan. Garnish with freshly ground black pepper.

Butter Cookies

I've given myself the name of Habitual Bookmarker. I bookmark so many recipes from other blogs and sites, that its getting a little out of control. If I made all the stuff I bookmarked, I'd be a happy camper, but they've accumulated and are threatening to hijack my computer if I don't start paying them some attention.

So here goes, the first of the many many that I've bookmarked in the Cookies category. These butter cookies are delicious and would be amazing with a cup of hot tea on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Elsye of Dari Dapur Saya is one of my favorite bloggers - she has lovely photographs with simple recipes that are always spot-on.


Butter Cookies
(recipe from Dari Dapur Saya)

1 cup Butter
1/2 cup Sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
2 1/2 cups All-Purpose Flour

Preheat the oven to 180 deg C.
Cream the butter. Add the sugar and continue to whip until fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and continue to beat.
Fold in the flour. Cover and chill the dough for an hour and a half.
Take the dough out and roll it out. Cut into desired shapes. Bake for 10-12 minutes and cool completely on a wire rack.


Other cookies on this blog: Potato Chip Cookies, Snickerdoodles, Peanut Butter Cookies, Double Chocolate Chip Cookies.

This is off to Trupti for MBP: Kids Food, an event originally started by Coffee.