Tasty Recipe Review: Cinnamon Spiral Crisps

Who doesn't love cookies? They're fun, easy to make (most of the time) and delicious!!! I really really wanted to try and make Palmiers today. You know those big elephant ear cookies that are crispy and sugary and just truly irresistible. Unfortunately I could not find any puff pastry and I sure wasn't going to try and make some!

I sat down with my book from Elinor Klivans 125 Cookies to Bake, Nibble and Savor to see what inspired me. I reviewed one of her recipes before remember. Parisian Toffee Crisps. The word crisp just gets me going you know, it just sounds like something you want to taste. Crisp. This is how I came across this recipe here Cinnamon Spiral Crisps, they sounded fascinanting! 

Let me tell you, these are quite addictive, be careful!

The first thing I noticed about this recipe is that the dough is quite the same as making pie crust. So I thought what on earth are these going to taste like? Cinnamon pie? I don't know what a cinnamon pie would taste like, but probably it would be these cookies and let me say they are delicious! I could not stop eating them.

The recipe is extremely simple. Unfortunately it does not specify the temperature and cooking time. Big slip on her part! Since most things are baked at 350 degrees F, that's what I used to be on the safe side. As for the time, it was a bit more complicated. I started with 16 minutes and then checked every 2 minutes or so. I ended up baking these for 20 minutes. But I recommend start checking them at 16, you don't want to overbake these.

Be sure to remove these from the pans while they are still hot, otherwise they are prone to break. My first batch was all but completely destroyed before I heated them up again so they would loosen.

I found this recipe wonderful and very versatile, you can practically fill this dough with almost anything and they would come out tasting great. I am definitely trying these with a salty filling soon. Yes I said salty!! So many things come to mind I don't know where to start Yum!! I'm sure this dough would make some pretty good Palmiers...

Cinnamon Spiral Crisps
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup flour
8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold butter, cut into 8 pieces

Put the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl and stir to blend.

Put the flour and salt in the large bowl of an electric mixer. On low speed add the butter pieces. Mix just until they are the size of small lima beans. Slowly add 3 tablespoons of ice water, a tablespoon at a time. Stop beating as the mixture begins to hold together and come away from the sides of the bowl.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured rolling surface and form into a square disk about 1 inch thick. Refrigerate fro 15 minutes, until the dough is cold an firm.

On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough into a 12X9 rectangle about 1/8 inch thick. Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture evenly over the dough. Roll the dough into a tight roll. Pinch the edges to seal them. Press the seam. Freeze the roll unbaked, or refrigerate for about 1 hour until it is cold and firm, then slice an bake the cookies.

This is what my roll looked like

And this is what the unbaked cookies look like

Kinda like a cinnamon roll right?

Till next time, I hope you enjoyed this review and remember, if you have a Tasty Recipe that you would like to share, or if there's a recipe that you have been wanting to try and just haven't been able to, let me know about it. I'll give you a Tasty Review!

Tasty Recipe Review

I apologize for the lateness of this post, I've been having technical difficulties with my home computer and also my camera is somewhat dysfunctional at the moment so I don't have any pictures! I had to steal borrow this picture from an amazing blog called Stick To Your Hips it's fantastic!! Clarification: THE RECIPE BELOW IS NOT THE ONE IN STICK TO YOUR HIPS. Although I am DYING to try her recipe.

My current obsession is bread. I am completely and totally delirious with the idea of making my own bread. I have made things like focaccia and cinnamon rolls which are some forms of bread making but I have never truly made my own loaf of bread. Yes I know how it's done, yes I know how to knead but to truly sit down and have a piece of toast, or make yourself a sandwich from slices of bread that you have prepared at home has to be an incredibly gratifying experience that at this moment is all I can think about!

There are so many kinds of bread that you can make, the possibilities are endless. It is said that if you get really into bread making, you can delve deeply into the art and science of the perfect loaf and that there is no limit to the level of obsession passionate bread makers can have.

This recipe was so easy, I couldn't believe it. I wasn't really that intimidated about making bread, I know some people are, but this recipe was fantastic. In 15 minutes, literally in 15 minutes the dough was done. What you need to have is some patience for when the dough needs to rise, because it does need to rise, if it doesn't rise, your bread making days are over! Besides these couple of excruciating hours , because you're so anxious in seeing the final product, this recipe is one of the simplest things I've made in my life.

The verdict: very good! I made my loaf whole wheat and it was very tasty and great as toast! The recipe is so easy and not intimidating at all. I loved making this bread!

RECIPE TAKEN FROM THESIMPLEDOLLAR.COM

1/4 cup milk
5 teaspoons sugar (or 1 1/2 tablespoons)
1 teaspoons salt
5 teaspoons butter (or 1 1/2 tablespoons)
1 package active dry yeast (there are 2 1/4 teaspoons in a package)
2 1/2 to 3 1/2 cups flour
Oil or nonstick cooking spray (just to prevent the bread from sticking to the bowl or pan)

Directions:

Dissolve yeast in 1 cup of warm water until there are no lumps. Add melted butter, sugar, salt and milk to mixture and combine. Add 2 cups of flower and mix. Keep adding flour 1/4 cup at a time until you get a uniform dough that is slightly sticky but does not stick to your hands.

Now comes the kneading. I like to knead the bread, I find it therapeutic in some ways. I'm not sure how good I will be at explaining how to knead the bread, because I'm not sure how good I am at doing so, so I thought I would just redirect you to a VIDEO instead.  It's not complicated, just be sure not to over knead the dough. This video is great I'm sure you will have no problems!

Coat the inside of a bowl with oil or cooking spray. Form the dough into a ball and put in the bowl. Cover with a towel and let rise! Just leave it be, preferably in a warm place, many people WARM up their oven a bit and then turn it OFF and put the dough in there.

Leave the dough to rise for approximately one hour, it should be roughly double the size it was before. Punch the dough down then lay the dough out on a lightly floured area and spread it out in a rectangle shape, with one side being roughly the length of the bread pan and the other side being about a bread pan and a half long.

Roll the dough and tuck the ends underneath. Then spray the bread pan down with nonstick cooking spray or grease with oil and put the loaf inside of the pan.

Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit (200 degrees Celsius) for thirty minutes. When it’s done, pull it out and immediately remove it from the pan to cool.

I have decided to make my own bread at home from now on so I hope to be posting more recipes hopefully with my pictures!

Till next time, I hope you enjoyed this review and remember, if you have a Tasty Recipe that you would like to share, or if there's a recipe that you have been wanting to try and just haven't been able to, let me know about it. I'll give you a Tasty Review!