THANKSGIVING!!! the day of reckoning...

Thanksgiving FINALLY came!!

Last night was spent in the kitchen...and I mean ALL last night...AND ALL yesterday morning...or as I so intelligently called it a few days ago "last morning." (Yeah. I got teased for that one! But the more I think about it...the less wrong it sounds lol. I may just go with it haha.)

As you may have guessed. . . . I didn't go to Magic Mountain. My responsible side won out. But I'm glad I chose to stay home. Not only did I finish the rolls, which turned out splendidly, I went to class, which was super good because even though the teacher said that not coming wouldn't penalize people. . . we ended up learning A LOT! I'm pretty sure that if I had missed, I would have come to class Monday and been completely and utterly lost. BUT I went and so I'll be great and good on Monday :) Also. I ended up making cookies!! Peanut butter for my Mom and sugar cookies for Thanksgiving night.

 ADORABLE right?!? haha follow the link to see where I originally got the idea! Only thing I changed is due to laziness! Instead of using icing for the beak and feet and M&Ms for the eyes. . .I just stuck a candy corn on for the beak and used some leftover candy from my gingerbread kit for the eyes. It doesn't look quite as good as the original, but I'm still pretty happy with them!
http://theherberfamily.blogspot.com/2009/10/thanksgiving-treats.html

 

Yeah check out my other post
 for the recipe and better pics!
nutty for my peanut butter

BUT I KNOW THAT YOU ARE WONDERING ABOUT. . . . . .  THE ROLLS!!!!

Well. Here they are :) My babies. . . . 

 There are sooooo many. I think I've made my quota of rolls for the next decade!! lol. But I did enjoy perfecting my own roll recipe!








Only a few of the batches...

They LOOK SO GOOOOOOOD!!!! And they taste even BETTER!!! Huurrraaaahhh for perserverance and hardwork! Go Me...and of course all those who helped me succeed!

We'll see how it goes!!
MollyMarie

PS: I wrote this BEFORE our Thanksgiving Feast...But IT WENT SPECTACULAR!! My next post will include comment on people's reactions and on just Thanksgiving stuff :D

Oh my GOODNESS!!

HEY!!! GUESS WHAT???????

I re-tried Danny's Dinner Rolls!. . . . . . . . . . . .AND. . . . . . . . . . . .the recipe WORKED! Haha. Apparently, someone wrote the recipe down wrong. Too much salt. So now, my lovely blog readers, I can make Danny's Dinner Rolls. I am not going to sugar coat the raisin too much, so I have to say, I actually like my new roll recipe better. . . but these are still so very very delicious.

Eh. The phone camera doesn't capture the full essence of the magnificence of these beautiful rolls. . . . . . .I think I'm going to invest in an actual camera! The food must look as good as it tastes!

So. Even though Danny's Dinner Rolls won a whopping three times. . . . I emerged VICTORIOUS!!! :D

Keep living, keep loving, keep baking!

~MollyMarie

Batter Bread Up!

FINE! Sue me, sue me! What can ya do me? I love...BREAD! (haha I hope you all caught the Guys and Dolls reference. Frank Sinatra holds my heart and I don't think many will ever be able to even hold a candle to him in my mind...so you see why I'm still single and will most likely continue to be so for a while lol) Pretty much all of my baking time has gone into attempting different bread recipes.

This particular recipe is a batter bread recipe which I got out of the Taste of Home Book of Baking called, Sally Lunn's Batter Bread. The link'll take you to the Taste of Home website so if you search under the recipe name, it will take you to it. I DEFINITELY say go make this bread!! Goodness. Gracious. Amazing!

Isn't it just soooo pretty!!! 

And my family LOVED it! This one's a keeper for my recipe book.

SALLY LUNN'S BATTER BREAD

Ingredients

• 1 package (1/4 ounce) active dry yeast
• 1/2 cup warm water (110° to 115°)
• 1 cup warm milk (110° to 115°)
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoon salt
• 3 eggs
• 5-1/2 to 6 cups all-purpose flour
• 
  HONEY BUTTER:
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup honey

Directions

• In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add the milk, butter, sugar, salt, eggs and 3 cups flour; beat until smooth. Stir in enough remaining flour to form a soft dough.
• Do not knead. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease the top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.
• Stir the dough down. Spoon into a greased and floured 10-in. tube pan. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.
• Bake at 400° for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pan to a wire rack to cool.
• Combine the honey butter ingredients until smooth. Serve with bread. Yield: 12-16 servings.

I didn't actually make the honey butter. Totally forgot and the bread was gone too fast for me to do anything about it once I did remember haha. BUT I'm sure it's delicious. I'll be sure to make it next time!

   it cut so nicely!

     and the inside was                 perrrrfect!

Advice from Molly Marie: GO MAKE THIS BREAD FOR YOURSELF!!!! You will not regret it!!

~Molly Marie

More Roll Attempts!!

Eh...they're getting there!!

This time, using the same recipe, I tried to make them smaller. Smaller rolls = more rolls per batch = less baking at crunch time (day before Thanksgiving). I think I let them rise too much the second time and they fell back into themsleves because the texture of the bottoms was a tad off...........but the taste was de-doubldee-licious!

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the AFTER the dough was baked haha. Once they were baked, they expanded A LOT! I wish I had gotten a picture!! But they went lickety split, so all I have is the pre-completed product.

A couple more goes at these rolls and I will be confidently bringing them to be judged by my extended family! I wonder what THEY will think of the roll replacement.......but I still have much more perfecting to do before I'm ready to put my work on that chopping block lol.

~Molly Marie

The Pathetic Attempts #3 ...and a new approach

Fail. Fail. fail fail FAIL.

Only word to describe my experience. 

See? They rose this time, at least. And the taste was good...they just...weren't Uncle Danny's. Or maybe my brain and tastebuds have glorified the memory of those rolls. Either way, these rolls just did NOT cut it. It could be due to the fact that the rolls are cursed...and only Danny can recreate them. More likely is that the recipe was produced by request and came from roll-making that was primarily by "feel". So since my Uncle is in Australia, I haven't been given the Roll Initiation. There hasn't been a "showing me how" rather a "look at the recipe and flail miserably in the land of fail" kind of attempts.

SO.

I have decided to perfect my own roll recipe. And I am well on my way....

Exhibit A:

DELICIOUS!!!!! And I don't even care if I sound conceited.

They aren't perfect yet...but they are pretty darn close. And they'll only get better. Thanksgiving is looking promising!

These babies were huge. And a big success with my family.

Next step is to try them out on other people until they become PERFECT!! Time to think of a name for these delightful delectables...suggestions??

~MollyMarie