Ashleys banana bread

Ashleys banana bread

1/3 cup butter softened
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup mashed overripe banana (apx 2.5 bananas)
1/4 cup beaten egg (apx. 1 XL egg)
1 1/4 cup flour

Beat butter and sugar till creamy. Beat in soda, salt, vanilla, and egg. Gradually mix in flour and banana. Pour batter into buttered glass loaf pan. Bake at 350 for 45 min.

This recipe was developed through my years of making banana bread and trying and modifying many different recipes. Its absolutely perfect. It has a lot more banana content compared to most other banana bread recipes.

Parker House Rolls

Parker House Rolls
The Pioneer Woman 

As Ive mentioned before, I grew up in Cincinnati Ohio. We didn't have any relatives out East so we always spent holidays with our good friends from church "The Butlers." They lived just a few doors down the street from us and Kim Butler was my best friend so I was at their house almost every day. On thanksgiving, Helen Butler (the mother,) always made homemade rolls. I didn't care much for all the other thanksgiving food, but I was in love w/ Helens rolls; Either because she made them extremely well or because my mom NEVER made rolls. I would hide in a corner and eat one roll after another. I think one thanksgiving I ate like 9 of them ): So this year, I decided I would try making homemade rolls. I didnt want to use Helens recipe because it calls for eggs. I stopped eating breads that have egg in the dough. Thats a whole different story. ANyway, so I figured my best bet would be Pioneer Womans Parker House Rolls. Keep in mind, this was my 1t time EVER making homemade rolls, so no way could they have turned out perfect. They were definitely good though and much easier than I expected, except for the kneading part (we don't have a kitchen aid, so I had to do it by hand.) My moms going to buy a kitchen aid (or Bosch) within the next few days so as soon as she does, I'll for sure be trying this recipe again. What I loved most about the rolls was that they are Extremely Buttery. I knew that they would be based upon just having read the recipe ingredients, which is one of the main reasons I initially chose to use this recipe. They're also more of a sweet roll, so IMO they taste best plain or with butter and Jam (smucker's seedless strawberry.) Click HERE for full recipe and instructions

Vanilla Scones (again)

Last time I made scones caleb kept saying "these are the best cookies EVER." I kept telling him that they were "scones, not cookies" anyway, since then, he keeps asking me to make those "really good cookies again" and so today I decided to make some scones again. I thought about maybe using a different recipe from last time since I like to try new things but theres no way that theres a better recipe out there than the ones I made last so I decided NOT to try a new recipe. This is not the 1st scone recipe I've tried, so its not like I'm being ignorant, they just really truly are the best. Glad I went with the same recipe. This time it turned out ever better. Last time the scones spread a little, so this time I was way more precise on measuring my ingredients because I couldn't think of any other reason for the spreading. And last time I don't think I used quite enough flour because whenever I make cookies and they spread its always because there wasn't enough flour. So this time I used a little more flour (well the correct amount that the recipe initially calls for. Last time I skimped on the correct flour amount because I was wanting ultra buttery) and a little more flour to roll out the dough. When I say a little more flour, I'm talking like a Tablespoon more. Thats all. I also wanted the true scone layering effect. So I did the dough folding method. Its not necessary, I don't think, but its still cool. The last thing I changed from this time and last, is, I used powdered sugar instead of regular sugar and half-and-half instead of milk. With all these changes, these scones turned out better than last time. They turned out perfect. So Heres the OFFICIAL recipe I now use... (If you notice, there are several slight differences between my recipe and the bakingbites recipe. enough to basically call this recipe my own so Im not going to even bother posting the link. If you really want to see the bakingbites.com recipe, check out my last vanilla scones post. But if you make my recipe below, please be precise with the ingredient measurement. For instance, don't skimp on butter because you want a "lower fat" scone. It will kill the scone. If u want a lower fat scone, use someone else's recipe.)

VANILLA SCONES
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup half-and-half

Stir together 1st 4 ingredients. Cut in butter till mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in vanilla and half-and-half just till ingredients are barely combined. (don't over-mix.) Place/dump dough onto floured surface. Roll dough out 1" thick. Fold dough over and roll out again 1" thick. Repeat folding and rolling process 1 or 2 more times. Cut out dough using round cookie cutter. Place dough cut-outs onto baking sheet and bake 12 minutes at 350. Makes 3 scones!!! Serve plain or with butter and smackers jam.

Vanilla Scones

Ive been studying up on scone recipes for quite a while because I totally love scones but I think that they are very hit-or-miss so I wanted to make sure that my next batch were not a miss. Bloggers who make a lot of scones I notice will like a scone recipe they make and then make another recipe and Love it even more. They just think its a better recipe, but they don't know why its a better recipe. And because they don't know why it was a better recipe, they'll accidentally try another bad recipe because they didn't know what recipes to avoid. Heres what I noticed. All the absolute "best-scones-ever" recipes were the recipes that didn't have eggs in the dough or had a very small amount of egg in the dough. For instance Tyler Florence recipe is always a hit. It has no eggs. Pionner Woman vanilla scone recipe: Pretty big hit. Has Only 1 egg. Ina Garten's scone recipes: Lots of people hate it. People who don't know better like it or think it's just OK. For example: In this Post, smitten kitten blogs about the best scone recipe ever (americas test kitchen-no eggs) and also trashes Ina's recipe. She doesn't know why her new found recipe is so good, but hey Im glad she at least found it. Anyway, heres an awesome scone recipe I found on bakingbites.com. I made these with Caleb and the next door neighbor kids (who are over EVERY day.)  The dough tasted fabulous. I've never cared to eat scone dough before because it always just tasted OK but this was some good dough, so I knew right off the bat that taste wasn't going to be a problem. The kids, my bro, my mom, and I ate the scones within 20 minutes after they came out of the oven so I can't say how well these kept (it terms of staying fresh.) All I can say was they were delicious. The recipe calls for a vanilla glaze. Kids were too hungry to wait for any glaze plus they tasted so good without it. But next time I make them, I'll try and use the glaze just because it apparently help seal in the moisture so the scones stay fresh longer.

Crescent Cinnamon Rolls

I was craving cinnamon rolls but we didn't have pre-made cinnamon roll dough and we didn't have yeast. But we had Pillsbury Crescent roll dough. So I looked online for a cinnamon roll recipe that used crescent dough and found one that looked awesome. (Click HERE for recipe) What looked best about the recipe was the cinnamon butter. You'll have to read the recipe to understand. I also have always liked the recipe blog that I pulled it from. Anyway. I made them with Caleb. He was being a little difficult. Kept trying to play with my phone instead of helping me make the rolls. These turned out delicious. Caleb downed 2 and he usually doesn't like anything. 

Crescent Cinnamon Rolls
Click HERE for recipe.

Cinnamon Scones

My parents, Caleb, and I all went to San Francisco about 4 weeks ago. While there we stopped at a Starbucks and I bought a cinnamon scone. Ive never bought a scone before due to a bad scone experience that I'll talk about later in this paragraph. But these scones looked way to good to pass up. And they were. So This is where my new found scone fetish began. I bought 2 more (and a maple scone - which was super good too) and then couple days later we came across a Panera bakery and so I ordered a cinnamon scone there as well. Panera's was even "better" than the amazing Starbucks scone. We don't have a Panera in UT so I decided I had to replicate the recipe as close as close as whats possible. So I searched the Internet and the top rated cinnamon chip scone recipe came from taste of homes. A lot of bloggers copied the recipe and had huge success, so I figured that this is the one. I modified it slightly. Like this blogger, Cream instead of buttermilk. and slightly more sugar and slightly more butter. Only complaints on the Taste of Homes recipe was "not sweet enough." My scones came out perfect. I am going to use this recipe always from here on out. Couple years ago I made Barefoot Contessa scones and they were not good. That was the 1st time I'd ever had a scone and so I had always though that scones were just dry and gross. But Thank you to Starbucks and Panera for fixing my dislike of scones!

cinnamon chip scones

3 1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup plus 2 T sugar (divided)
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
14 T cup cold butter

1 cup cream
10 oz cinnamon chips
2 T butter, melted
Rainbow Chip Frosting (optional)

Combine flour, 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in cream just until moistened. Fold in Chips. Turn onto lightly floured surface and knead 10-12 times or until dough is no longer sticky. Roll out dough 1" thick, even, and flat. Cut with circle cookie cutters. Brush top of circles with melted butter and then sprinkle with the remaining 2 T sugar. Yields: 12 scones.Bake 375 10-12 min or until LIGHT golden. Serve with butter, jam, frosting, cream... (I like Mine topped w/ Rainbow Chip frosting)

Cinnamon Rolls

Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls are so good, and I know I'm not the only one who thinks that. I ran across a blog the other day that claims to have a recipe for cinnamon rolls that are better than Pillsbury so I'm gonna have to make them some time. Problem is, No one in my family has ever been good at bread baking so we always only buy store bought bread stuff, but I'm totally OK with it because I like Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls much better than any Homemade cinnamon roll Ive ever tried. And when it comes to homemade bread recipes, The only Homemade "Rolls" Ive ever absolutely died over are my moms friend Helen's rolls that she always made at thanksgiving. Ill share the recipe if I'm ever able to get ahold of it. But Until then, Pillsbury Great Harvest and Rhodes will have to work(:

Auntie Anne's Pretzels Copy Recipe

Its already February 12th & i havent posted anything till now. i'm so blog lame. i have a good excuse though.. our oven broke about 1 1/2 weeks ago so it was impossible to bake anything. it broke right after i made some homemade pretzels that turned out very well actually. my dough didnt raise very high but the pretzels stilll were dang good so i know its a good recipe and proven very forgiving.


Auntie Anne Copy Recipe
3/4 cup warm milk
3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 tablespoons brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups regular flour
1 cup Warm water
1 1/2 tablespoons baking soda
to taste coarse salt
4 tablespoons butter (melted)


Sprinkle yeast on lukewarm milk in mixing bowl; stir to dissolve. Add sugar, salt and stir to dissolve; add flour and knead dough until smooth and elastic. Let rise at least 45 minutes. While dough is rising, prepare a baking soda water bath with 1 cup warm water and 1 1/2 Tbsp baking soda. Be certain to stir often. After dough has risen, pinch off bits of dough and roll into a long rope* (about 1/2 inch or less thick) and shape. Dip pretzel in soda solution and place on greased baking sheet. Allow pretzels to rise again. Bake in 400 oven for about 8 minutes or until golden. Brush with melted butter and enjoy! Toppings: after you brush with butter try sprinkling with coarse salt. or for Auntie Anne's famous Cinnamon Sugar, try melting a stick of butter in a shallow bowl (big enough to fit the entire pretzel) and in another shallow bowl make a mixture of cinnamon and sugar. Dip the pretzel into the butter, coating both sides generously. Then dip again into the cinnamon mixture. Enjoy! * The longer and thinner you can make the dough rope, the more like Auntie Anne's they will be. I wasnt in the mood for a sweet pretzel so I made some mustard/mayo dip (Stir 1/4 cup mayo with 1/2 cup mustard... and Just like that youve got.. MAYO MUSTARD DIP)

Sweet Dinner Rolls

Sweet Dinner Rolls

1 cup warm milk
1 egg
1/3 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
1/4 cup butter, softened

Place milk, egg, 1/3 cup butter, sugar, salt, flour and yeast in the pan of the bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Select Dough/Knead and First Rise Cycle; press Start.
When cycle finishes, turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide dough in half. Roll each half into a 12 inch circle, spread 1/4 cup softened butter over entire round. Cut each circle into 6 wedges. Roll wedges starting at wide end; roll gently but tightly. Place point side down on ungreased cookie sheet. Cover with clean kitchen towel and put in a warm place, let rise 1 hour. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 375 degrees F
Bake in preheated oven for 8 to 12 minutes, until light golden.