Cinnamon Twists

  First of all let me just state that Jeanette Gregory makes THEE BEST Cinnamon twists ever,  and I do mean EVER!!  I got to have one (or two) of those glorious concoctions a couple of weeks ago and haven't stopped drooling about them since!!  So this weekend I decided to attempt some myself--albeit without Jeanette's recipe--I'm telling you hers are so light, and fluffy, and cinnamonishy, truly THEE BEST!!!  So without her recipe, I started with my sister-in-law, Pam's, cinnamon roll dough recipe, a really great recipe in itself!!  The recipe is easy and I just threw everything in the bread machine and hit the dough cycle.  The recipe is as follows:

CINNAMON ROLL DOUGH

1 1/8 C. warm water

2 tsp. yeast

1 tsp. salt

1/3 C. sugar

3 C. flour

3 T. soft butter

I removed the dough from the bread machine and rolled it into a 9X13 rectangle on a floured surface, and then slathered it liberally with butter and cinnamon sugar.  Then I folded it in half and cut it into 1" strips.  I placed these strips onto a greased cookie sheet and twisted them so they end up looking kind of like a 2-stranded braid.  I let them raise for 1 hr. 15 minutes.  I baked them (this recipe made about a dozen twists) at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes then drizzled the twists with powdered sugar icing when they came out of the oven. 

POWDERED SUGAR ICING

2 T. butter

1/2 t. vanilla

2 T. milk

2 C. powdered sugar

Melt butter, milk and vanilla, add sugar and mix.

The results are shown below--see the "2-strand braid" effect?

They were enjoyed immensely by my hubby who put on bib overalls just so he'd have extra room for extra cinnamon twists.....

...well not really--he's recently started wearing bibs around the house.  Which kind of makes me wonder if he hasn't turned into his Uncle Bernard a decade or two too early?!?!?  At any rate, the Cinnamon Twists were yummy but not quite as yummy as Jeanette's.  I found her recipe in an old church cookbook so I'll let you know how they turn out when I have a chance to try them!!  

Finally I'm blogging!!

     Blogging!!!  I'm blogging--finally!!  Starting a blog was one of my New Year's Resolutions and finally, only a few weeks into the second month of 2011 here ya go!!!!  I thought I'd start with a little bit more about the Bridal Fair I participated in at the Oakwood Mall in Enid, OK.
    I brought lots of cake samples and cake truffles for the future brides to try and several display cakes for everyone to look at.  The cake samples included lemon poppyseed, lemon, carrot, german chocolate, cherry chip and red velvet flavors,  and were placed in containers with sealed lids so the future brides could not only taste the cake there but also take some home to the future grooms who had apparently come up with various fabulous excuses not to attend....hunting seemed to be the most popular excuse :)!   I also brought several samples of cake truffles, well I keep attempting to call them "cake truffles" to add a wee bit of elegance, but people keep asking for "cake balls" so, I brought a fair amount of delicious scrumptious cake ball truffles for everyone to try--They are simply cake centers dipped in chocolate--DELICIOUS!!!!

    
The sample cakes were displayed on a separate table and I loved answering this question--"What flavor are the cakes?"  I would respond with this clever retort, "Styrofoam".   They were all made of Styrofoam and have been displayed here and there during the last year.  A little more about the blue one in front.  It recently appeared in the current issue of Brides of Oklahoma  I was asked to design a cake that was inspired by turquoise sour belts.  Having never heard of that particular candy before, and having just a couple of days to come up with something, I frantically did a google search on the term and found it to be--oddly enough--belt-shaped turquoise candy!  As you may or may not know, I live in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma and turquoise sour belts are not readily available at the local Korner Store.  Luckily, the lovely editors of Brides of Oklahoma sent me some sample pictures of sour belts and the turquoise color they were interested in.  My daughter Jill helped with the design, there were a couple of shopping trips looking for some blingy stuff and the resulting cake is displayed below beside some other cakes I've done over the year and brought to the wedding show! 

 

The spread from the current Brides of Oklahoma magazine is shown below.

Oh--and those are what sour belts look like--wonder what they taste like?!?!?!?