Sweet Potato Cinnamon Buns

Who doesn’t love a hot, sticky, sweet cinnamon roll fresh out of the oven?  Crazy people, that’s who!  All joking aside, a hot batch of cinnamon rolls just makes you feel good.  Unfortunately, these little delicious pastries are not quite what you could call healthy.  But what if you could get a healthy dose of vitamin A in each little cinnamon-y bite?

Enter Vegetarian Times, November 2011 recipe for Sweet Potato and Pecan Cinnamon Buns with Maple Glaze (http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipes/11745).   Ok, I’m not going to say these are healthy per se, but compared to those cinnamon rolls you get in the Food Court at the Mall, it’s definitely a step in the right direction.  The dough makes 12 good size rolls, but you could make 24 mini rolls and not feel like your skimping on anything.  Each regular size bun is 331 calories and 11g of fat  when you make the recipe as printed, keep in mind there are nuts, which is a contributor to the higher fat content. 

Everyone has had a Hamburger Potato Roll, a nice light texture that is more of a condiment soaker-upper than a flavor component.  Using sweet potatoes definitely kicks that flavor up a notch.   This dough, texture-wise, is just lovely.  The dough was very easy to work with and I look forward to experimenting with it a little more in some other applications.

This is actually a vegan recipe, but I used non-vegan ingredients.  I also omitted the pecans and made an orange cream cheese glaze instead of the maple (subbed a tsp of orange zest for the maple flavor and added a drop of vanilla extract).  I used 1 decent sized potato for the 2/3 c and there was just a little left over.  This is a pretty easy recipe but you do need to factor in the 1 hour and 45 minutes of proofing time (hour for the dough, 45 min after rolls are cut).  That being said, it is quite a quick recipe other than that.  Give it a try this weekend!

*If you don’t need 12 cinnamon rolls (remember portion control!) you can follow the recipe up until the final 45 min proof.  At that point proof the rolls you want to back that day and put the others in the freezer on a sheet pan and freeze them until solid.  Then put them in a Ziploc and label them.  When you want to bake them off let them sit in the fridge over night and bake them off in the morning. 

Pudding-Palooza!

I’m not sure why, but for the past couple of weeks I’ve been on this Butterscotch Pudding kick.  I don’t know why or where it came from but it came in with a vengeance and is still kicking around with no sign of leaving.  Fortunately, I have some very easy-going taste testers to help me out.

What is it about pudding?  It’s such a kids’ dessert, but it’s just so good!  It can be fancy, or plain.  You can fold it into whipped cream for a quick mousse or use it to make a beautiful trifle.   You could even toss it into a popsicle mold and freeze it!  Oh the possibilities!

First I decided to just do a plain old butterscotch pudding recipe and top it with some crushed Heath bar.  Absolutely delicious!  Then I decided to try a more grown-up, Italian twist on pudding, the Caramel Budino with Salted Caramel Sauce from Bon Appétit Sept 2011.  The budino starts off with a chocolate cookie crumb crust, then a layer caramel pudding, and topped with a salted caramel sauce.  I tasted each layer separately as I was making them, as any good chef should do, and each layer was OK, nothing special.  I put the puddings in the fridge to chill and set, figuring at least it would be something different for dessert. 

Sometimes the sum of the parts is greater than the whole, and sometimes it goes the other way.  In this case it went the other way!  The layers all together were soooooo good.  The chocolate-y crust, sweet smooth pudding, and salty sweet sauce hit just about every taste bud I had.  I’m not going to lie, using an extra wafer cookie instead of a spoon, while not mandatory, is highly recommended!