This is a dough recipe and I know many people tend to avoid making dough. I really don’t understand why. Dough is nothing to fear. It is easy.
1. Follow the directions.
2. Make sure your water temperature is correct.
3.Grease the bowl lightly. When you put the dough in the bowl, I always use glass, swirl it around and then flip it and swirl again. I cover my bowl with a towel and place in a warm oven. The dough always rises and I get a nice, doubled-in-size amount.
Just don’t give up on making dough. Fresh bread and sweet breads are a real treat. I make all sorts of bread and dough for pizza and Stromboli. We definitely love our homemade breads!
I found the recipe on a website, National Festival of Breads. This site has a quite a few recipes, all winners in various categories, so check it out.
Lemon Coconut Twists
1/2 cup warm water (100°-110°F)
4 teaspoons Fleischmann’s® Active Dry Yeast
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1/2 cup sour cream
1/3 cup nonfat dry milk powder
2 large eggs
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached White Whole Wheat Flour
2 – 2 1/4 cups King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 (3.4 - ounce) package instant lemon pudding and pie mix
1 cup flaked sweetened coconut
Frosting
1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
¼ teaspoon lemon extract
¼ teaspoon almond extract
2-3 tablespoons cream
In electric mixer bowl, combine water, yeast, and sugar. Let stand 5 minutes. Stir in sour cream, dry milk, eggs, butter, sugar, salt, white whole wheat flour and bread flour.
With dough hook, knead on low speed 5 minutes. Put dough into a greased bowl:
Cover, let rise till double.
Punch down dough.
Roll dough into rectangle, 18 x 10 inches; cut into eighteen 1-inch strips. I had 15 strips!
In a 9-inch glass pie plate melt butter. In a second pie plate, combine pudding and pie mix and coconut.
Dip each strip in melted butter, then into coconut mixture. Twist and hold one end of strip down on greased baking sheet for the center of the roll and curl the strip around center, tucking end under. Place remaining butter or coconut mixture on top of twists. Cover twists, let rise in warm place until double.
Bake in preheated 350°F oven 10 to 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove rolls to a wire rack.
**I found this time was too long. I think my first batch baked for 8 minutes and I removed them so watch these carefully.**
For frosting, combine confectioners’ sugar, lemon extract, almond extract and cream until frosting is smooth and of spreadable consistency. Frost rolls while still warm. Yield: 18 rolls.
**I also thought 10-inches was too long so I cut the strips in half and was happy I did so. You can see the size difference in the long strip versus a half-strip.** However, ran out of coconut/lemon pie mix so I used cinnamon/sugar on what dough was left over.
I think next time I make these I will roll the dough into little balls, indent the center, coat in butter then coat with the mixture. This will be a little easier and take less time. If I should have a helper though, we'll use the strip method.
These do have a great flavor and are best when eaten the same day. These would be perfect for an Easter brunch!
One bit of advice (for myself and as a reminder for any bakers): Always, ALWAYS, read the whole recipe before you begin. You’ll understand as you read. You want to make sure you have all the ingredients, an approximate time frame (some cookie doughs have to be refrigerated for an hour or overnight), and proper tools.
M was Maple Shortbread Cookies. I figured in our home, if I made something with maple, it would be a hit. I had ripped the recipe out of an old King Arthur Flour catalog.
I started mixing up the ingredients and then I read pure maple sugar. Wait – sugar NOT syrup. What? Sugar. Yes maple sugar. Printed in black type: ½ cup pure maple sugar. I have no maple sugar. So I improvised. I used white sugar and 2 tablespoons of pure maple syrup. Guess I was hell-bent on using syrup. The dough came together nicely so I wasn’t worried and it tasted good. Yes, I tried the dough. I’m not a dough eater unless it is my sugar cookie dough. But this, I had to try and I liked it. Maple-y! Yum.
Maple shortbread cookies
1 cup unsalted butter, at cool room temperature
1/2 c pure maple sugar
1/4 c. granulated sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon maple flavor, optional
2 1/2 c. King Arthur unbleached all-purpose flour
Topping:
2 Tbsp. pure maple sugar
Beat the butter with the sugars, salt, vanilla, and maple flavor until well blended. Beat in the flour to form a smooth dough. The dough will be crumbly at first, but will come together as it's mixed. Divide the dough in half, pat each half into a disk, wrap well, and chill for an hour.
This dough was a little crumbly but I managed to get it all rolled out, cut and baked. What little hassle I had was worth the effort. If you like maple as well as shortbread, this cookie is for you. (Shortbread is one of my favorites – all that butter!)
Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) two baking sheets. Sprinkle dough and work surface lightly with flour. Roll the dough till it's a scant 1/4" thick. Cut cookies and place cookies on baking sheets, and sprinkle with maple sugar.
**No maple sugar = no sprinkling the cookies before they go into the oven.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until they are very lightly browned. Let sit on the baking sheet for several minutes before moving to a rack to cool completely. Yield: 2 - 21/2 dozen (depends on size of cookie cutter).
I was two cookies short of 4 dozen. Aren't these lovely? I think I need to shop for leaf cookie cutters.
I was a little worried that the family would not like these because of the shortbread texture but apparently the maple flavoring hid that. These could be decorated with a little maple-flavored icing for the dessert table at Thanksgiving!
The good news is I will be ordering pure maple sugar soon. I recently placed an order with King Arthur for some items on February 29 because they had a 29¢ shipping deal. And yesterday I took a survey so I now have a $10.00 coupon to be used on any order over $40.00. I’ll be ordering a donut pan (baked doughnuts sound good and they are healthier for you) and of course, pure maple sugar. My want list from KAF is always long. I’m chipping away at it slowly. Kind of like my ABC baking project!
Now on to N and O and P and…
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