Who Taught Me to Cook, part III

Well, since it's been too hot to cook plus husband is out of town and kids don't actually like regular mom-cooked dinners all that much, I haven't cooked much exciting in the last week. Made some zucchini fries and battered carrots--that was kind of new--in an effort to elicit more enthusiasm for vegetables from the offspring, but no luck. Overdid the dessert making last week, so that's on hiatus. And, quite frankly, I don't have an abundant repertoire of hot weather dishes which don't require turning on the oven or standing over the stove or grill. So voilà, here I am, postless.

Time to continue the saga of how I learned to cook. See May posts if you haven't read the first two. If you've read the first two, you know that while I don't come from a long line of fancy cooks, I did grow up in an environment where I was exposed to people and cuisine from many different parts of the world. This helped turn me into a somewhat more adventurous eater than what I ate at home would suggest, and helped to somewhat mitigate my picky tendencies (and I do have them!). I still really didn't care for vegetables, though, and my range of fruits was still pretty narrow.

When I was a young adult (senior year in high school through my undergraduate degree), I was to meet someone who greatly improved my understanding of how to cook. I was hired, at first, as a dishwasher in a medical research lab at the University of Michigan Medical School. In the lab was a research associate named Dr. Oksana Lockridge. She took me under her wing, and began to teach me how to do actual lab work. Eventually she hired me as a lab assistant and finally promoted me to research assistant. She was an incredible mentor to me, and even though I didn't go on in the sciences after my undergraduate degree, her intelligence, kindness and work ethic continue to influence me to this day. The salary I earned also put me through college and enabled me to be declared an independent student in the eyes of the financial aid office.

Aside from all she taught me in the lab, she also helped teach me to cook. She was (and I imagine still is) a fantastic cook. She told me that anyone who was good in the lab could also cook--the two processes were largely the same. If I could successfully follow the guidelines for carrying out an experiment, I could read a recipe and follow it. Since she had taught me how to be a reasonably decent lab assistant, I believed her that I could probably cook.

Oksana sometimes tried new recipes herself, but she also had an innate sense of how to cook without a recipe. Occasionally I was invited over for Sunday brunch (as well as other meals), and was always astonished that she made crepes by simply tossing eggs, milk, flour, butter and a little salt and sugar together, without measurements, adjusting until the mixture was the right consistency. Then she churned out the beautiful crepes, which she served with sour cream and jam. She taught me how to make them.

Everything she made was delicious. I credit her with teaching me how to cook vegetables so that I would find them edible. She would often stir-fry them until they were hot but still a little crunchy. And they tasted good! And I could duplicate them myself! She showed me how to read a recipe all the way through before I started cooking, so that I would be prepared for all the steps. She showed me how to use my knife more effectively, and to prepare ingredients in the proper way for the recipe I had chosen.

She couldn't, of course, teach me all she knew about cooking, but she taught me some good techniques. She taught me what a confident cook looks like, and she gave me confidence that I could read and follow a recipe, as well as begin to get a sense for how to cook without one. I am still grateful to her for all she taught me, and I still make those crepes at least once a month for my own family.

Strawberry Shortcake

The last couple of days, I've been reading a book called Hometown Appetites: The Store of Clementine Paddleford, the Forgotten Food Writer Who Chronicled How America Ate, by Kelly Alexander and Cynthia Harris (2008, Gotham Books). Paddleford's career spanned from the 20s through the 60s, and she wrote about food for many newspapers and magazines, most notably the New York Herald Tribune. The book is, happily, supplemented with some recipes from her long career as a journalist. One of the first was a recipe for "Jennie Paddleford's Strawberry Shortcake," her mother's recipe that she ate growing up. It is probably from the late 1800s and can be found on page 17.

For July 4, what better dessert to make than strawberry shortcake? I was curious about the recipe, although I adapted it to what I had available. It is a recipe for a large single strawberry shortcake. The shortcake itself is more like a sweet biscuit than anything else. It's not a sponge cake--its much more dense and slightly dry.

Strawberry Shortcake, adapted from "Jennie Paddleford's Strawberry Shortcake"

3 cups all-purpose flour
5 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar
11 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup whole milk

at least 1 quart strawberries, more if you have them
about 3 tablespoons sugar/quart of strawberries, more or less to taste

1 cup heavy whipping cream
2 heaping teaspoons confectioners sugar--more or less to taste

Mix together flour, baking powder, freshly ground nutmeg, salt, and sugar. Cut the butter into the flour mixture with a pastry cutter or two knives, as you would for making a pie crus. Mix the milk and egg, then make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and mix together with a fork. The mixture will not come together completely--turn it out onto a floured counter and knead briefly until the dough comes together. Don't overwork the dough. Cut dough in half, roll out into a 9" circle for two circles. Place the dough into two 9 inch cake pans then refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. While they are chilling, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Bake about 15-17 minutes until the shortcakes begin to brown and have cooked through. Turn out onto cooling racks and let cool to room temperature.

To prepare strawberries, hull them and cut into halves or fourths. Sprinkle with sugar, then let them macerate for 15 to 30 minutes in the refrigerator.

Meanwhile, make the whipped cream. In a mixing bowl, mix the cream and confectioners sugar. Using a hand mixer, whip until the cream is firm and begins to look a little dry. Don't over mix or you'll end up with butter!

Assemble the shortcake by putting whipped cream and about half the strawberries on one shortcake. Top with the second shortcake and add the rest of the whipped cream and strawberries. If not eating right away, store in the refrigerator.

So, here's the play by play:

Fresh ground nutmeg! Buying whole nutmeg and grating it gives you incredibly fresh and fragrant spice! I use a microplane grater, but you could use a box grater or even the little graters that are sometimes sold with whole nutmeg. Tough to measure out exactly 1/8 teaspoon unless you grate onto some parchment paper and then measure, but I usually just eyeball it.

Cutting in butter is easier if you start with relatively small pieces. You want to mix it in so that you get something that looks kind of like clumpy cornmeal. Small individual pieces of butter visible is fine, but large chunks are not. You could also do this part in the food processor, but I like to do it by hand for no other reason than I like to do it by hand.

So, once you've got it mixed up the way you want it, it's time to add the milk and beaten egg.

And here we are after I've mixed it, then turned it out onto the counter and kneaded it a bit until it all came together.

I cut it in half and rolled out my first 9" circle. Actually, I probably rolled out an 11" circle then had to fold parts over to pat into the cake pan. Oops. Did better with the second one!

Into the cake pans...

...then into the oven to bake. Here they are, all done and cooling off. Yes, I also made chocolate cookies for the kids.

Now, on to assembly. First layer...

...then whipped cream and the second layer and more whipped cream. Ta da!

Overall, I like the recipe, although if I had it to do over I would use more strawberries. The shortcakes are not sweet and spongy, like one would get at the grocery store, but they do have their own special charm. The original recipe calls for buttering the shortcakes when they come out of the oven, and serving them warm with strawberries, with a pitch of cream on the side to pour over individual portions, should you want to try it the original way.

Cooking my Bookshelves: Key Lime Pie, without the Keys

Ok, I figured after being home for a week and a half, it was time to haul out a cookbook and make something new. I actually completed my first pulled pork (a two day and many hour project) but failed to take any pictures or actually record the recipe, which was an amalgam  of helpful suggestions of friends on Facebook and recipes I found online. Next time, I'll track it and pass it along.

Today I went for a dessert. Husband loves Key Lime Pie, and I've never made it. So I decided to give it a shot. I had been perusing one of my cookbooks that I haven't actually made anything out of over the weekend-- Saveur The New Comfort Food: Home Cooking from Around the World, edited by James Oseland. Strangely, I can't find a date on the thing, but it is fairly recent, and published by Chronicle Books.

Here's the recipe, as written (p. 211):

Key Lime Pie
1 cup plus 2 1/2 tbsp. graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup sugar
5 tbsp unsalted butter
1 1/2 tbsp. lime zest (from two limes)
3 egg yolks
1 14-oz. can sweetened condensed milk
2/3 cup fresh lime juice, preferably from Key limes
1 cup heavy cream, chilled
1 tbsp. confectioners sugar

Serves 8

1. Heat oven to 350 F. Pulse cracker crumbs, sugar, and butter in a food processor to combine. Press evenly into bottom and sides of a 9-inche pie pan. Bake until lightly browned, about 10 minutes.
2. In a medium bowl, beat lime zest and egg yolks with a hand mixer until pale and thick, about 5 minutes. Add milk and beat until thickened, 3-4 minutes more. Add lime juice; mix until smooth. Pour filling into pie crust; bake until filling is just set in the middle, 8-10 minutes. Let the pie cool.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk cream and confectioners' sugar to stiff peaks. Spread whipped cream over the top of the pie and chill 2-3 hours before serving.

I more or less followed the recipe, with a few minor changes. First, I didn't have any key limes. If they appear in the grocery store at all in Oklahoma, it's for about two weeks in the late winter or early spring. I didn't want to use bottled juice, because it's not as bright. So, I used regular Persian limes. First, I zested them.

Then, since I only had four, I hoped like hell that I would have enough for 2/3 cup of juice. I squeezed away using a citrus reamer until...

Hot dog! Just about exactly 2/3 cup. Whew! Now that I knew that I had enough lime juice, I proceeded with the crust. Luckily we usually have graham crackers. I guessed at how much I would need (most of one packet) and buzzed it up in a blender. Why a blender rather than doing the who thing in a food processor, as instructed? Because disassembling the food processor and cleaning it is a pain in the butt. The blender is easer. I measured out the crumbs and it came out exactly right. Score! I then mixed in the sugar and melted butter by hand until everything was well mixed. The fun part is pressing it into a pie plate.

I baked it for the suggested 10 minutes and set it aside to cool.

Next, I worked on the filling. I mixed three egg yolks with the lime zest then beat with a hand mixture until it was thickened and pale yellow, about 5 minutes.

I then beat in the sweetened condensed milk for a few minutes, and finally stirred in the lime juice. Filling done, I poured it into the pie shell.

I baked it for about 10 minutes, until the middle was just set. I let the pie cool to room temperature. Now, at this point what I did NOT do was  make the whipped cream and put it on the pie before chilling. Why? While I prefer fresh whipped cream, my kids like the stuff that you squirt out of the can, which we happened to have. So, I tossed the cooled pie in the refrigerator for about an hour and a half. Here's the result!

The result? It's not quite as tart or lime-y as it would have been using key limes, but it was still quite good. Slightly sweet for my tastes, but husband really liked it, which was the intention in the first place. The kids? "Yuck, we don't like limes." Turns out I could have made fresh whipped cream after all.

Pizza in Italy

As you might expect, one of the foods I experienced in Italy was pizza. I had eaten pizza in Italy many years ago--on the Ligurian coast in the northwest coast of Italy. It came on a plate, one largish pizza per person, intended to be eaten with a knife and fork. This was strange stuff for an American kid, used to ordering Dominos pizza. The pizza was quite good, with a thin crust, and I have remembered it for the last 24 years.

Italian pizza as we know it probably originated in the region of Naples. It is a simple food, originally eaten by workers as an inexpensive lunch. It was popular in the south of Italy long before it was in the north. In fact, it became popular in the United States long before it became popular in the northern part of Italy. Immigrants from southern Italy were instrumental in introducing pizza to the United States, where it became widely popular. It was not until after WWII that pizza began to spread in popularity to northern Italy.

The pizza closest to what is eaten in North America is probably the iconic pizza Margherita, pictured above. Legend has it that it was invented in Naples in 1889 at Pizzeria Brandi, and made in honor of Queen Margherita of Savoy on the occasion of her visit to the city (although some dispute the date and the place of origin). It is made with a lean yeast dough, tomato sauce (ideally made with San Marzano tomatoes grown on the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius), fresh mozzarella (ideally mozzarella di bufala, or water buffalo milk mozzarella), basil and olive oil. The crust is crispy on the edges but soft in the middle, really necessitating the use of a knife and fork. The picture above is my first pizza Margherita eaten in a restaurant in Naples, right on the Mediterranean.

Pizzeria Brandi, site of the possible invention
of pizza Margherita

One of the places we went is supposedly the best pizzeria in Naples right now, La Notizia. A smallish place, La Notizia has won awards for its artisinal pizza and is particularly known for its crust, which is begun with a small amount of yeast and allowed to rise over a much longer period than usual, giving it a subtle but complex taste. Aside from the obligatory pizza Margherita which we had there, we had other, more unusual combinations.

This was a calzone-like object stuffed with cheese and
vegetables--no tomato sauce.

This was a pizza with no sauce, but with green peppers, fresh
mozzarella di bufala, and fish. The fish was a mild white
fish and tasted a lot like cod.

The pièce de resistance, pizza baked with Nutella inside.
Oh. My. God.

All of the pizzas at La Notizia were baked in a wood fire oven.

I must say that this was amazing stuff!

Up in Rome, the pizza was rather different. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures. It is baked in a long strip on thicker crust than in Naples. It is sold by weight--you indicate how much of the strip you would like, and they cut it, weigh it, then stick it in the oven to warm it up. It comes as a rectangle which is then cut in half, folded so that the topping sides face each other, then wrapped in paper. It makes for a very neat slice of take-away pizza which can be eaten without making a big mess. I tried two types while in Rome--mozzarella and prosciutto (no tomato sauce), and cheese and potato (!). It was pretty good, but I think I enjoyed the Neapolitan pizza the best--even the basic pizza Margherita from the restaurant along the Mediterranean.

Some things Italians believe about cooking

Riso di Grumulo della Abbadesse con gamberi e zucchine, eaten in Alba, Piemonte, Italy

During my trip to Italy, I will admit to being taken aback by some of the things I was told repeatedly about Italian cooking. My perspective on European cooking has been colored by the time I have spent in France. In France, I have been told that the French culinary tradition is at the center of the history of fine gastronomy in Europe. France reigns supreme in the history of restaurants, of a coherent and delicious cuisine, and of food in general. The best truffles are black and come from the Périgourd (or if you are in Provençe, the best truffles are still black but come from Provençe). All chefs worth their salt are classically trained using French methods. I have always harbored some skepticism about some of the more inflated claims about cuisine from French people I have either talked to or whose writings I have read. The French, God love them, are incredibly chauvinistic about all things French. One of my favorite things to do when in France or with a French person who knows how to cook well is to ask a question about French food and sit back and receive a history lesson. All this is to say that my perceptions of fine cuisine have been developed in part through a French lens.

So, here's some of the things I was told repeatedly in Italy about Italian cooking.

1. There is no Italian cooking. All cuisine in Italy is regional. The French don't have much regional cooking--it is pretty much the same wherever you go.

2. The French history of aristocratic dining (and by extension the development of fine cuisine) is not really French. Catherine de Medici brought her chefs from Italy when she married Henry II, and her chefs taught the French chefs to cook. The French culinary tradition is really Italian.

3. Except when it isn't. The French use too damn many sauces and heavy elements in their cooking.

4. Everyone knows that Italian white truffles are the best in the world. Even the French know this, deep down.

5. As is Italian olive oil. Spanish olive oil is distant pretender. And do the French even really make olive oil?

6. Nothing wrong with a meatball, but it certainly doesn't go on spaghetti.

7. There is a complex set of rules about what kind of pasta can go with what kind of sauce and when, with regional variations which put a non-Italian such as myself at a permanent disadvantage in trying to correctly sauce pasta.

8. One does not drink cappuccino after about 10 or 11am.

9. Whatever region of Italy you are in at any given moment is the only region that really knows how to cook properly.

10. American cuisine consists of the hamburger.

I loved the food in Italy. I was spoiled because the seminar, focused on food, provided at least two and sometimes three multi-course meals a day, with restaurants usually chosen for their high quality or mastery of regional specialties. I ate things which I rarely, if ever, encounter in my daily life in Oklahoma. The produce was wonderful. I loved much of the wine and developed a particular fondness for prosecco. But I am slightly dubious about some of the things I was told. As far as truffles and olive oil go, I have no particular opinion. I suspect it is simply a matter of one's taste. I don't drink coffee so I don't care about the no cappuccino after mid-morning rule. That people think their own regional or local cooking is best should surprise exactly no one. The rules about pasta (and, generally speaking, no big chunks of meat in pasta sauce) are too complicated for me to argue with, so I won't.

However, let's take a look at some of the other assertions, particularly the first and second. I think I can go along with the fact that Italian cuisine is highly regional. What we think of as "Italian food" here in the United States is really Italian-American food, and is a substantially modified version of the food of largely southern Italy developed by immigrants who could afford meat as more than just an occasional flavoring for the first time. But to say that France really doesn't have regional cooking I don't believe is correct. Yes, there's the matter of French "haute cuisine" which does have standard elements throughout France, but everyday cooking still has much regional variation. The everyday food I ate in Provençe is much heavier on the olive oil, tomatoes, olives and peppers that the everyday food in Paris or Lyon. Italy may lack the overarching tie of a historical national fine cuisine, but that doesn't mean that France has no significant regional variations. Plus, the farther one is from another country's cuisine, the more it seems to look the same. The Chinese would absolutely balk at the idea that there was one "Chinese" food, even though different regions share some of the same philosophy of how tastes should combine. It is highly regional, and only from an outsider unfamiliar with the regional variations does it look more alike than different. I suspect this is also the case with Italy looking a French cuisine.

And what about that whole Catherine de Medici thing? Most of the books of culinary history I have read indicate that Catherine's influence on French cooking is difficult to prove, and likely marginal at best. The only authors who differ with that opinion are, you guessed it, Italian. Certainly a national cuisine can change fairly radically over time and is influenced by the availability of spices and foodstuffs. Europe didn't have tomatoes, potatoes, chocolate or other New World crops until well into the 16th century, and some did not become popular until the 1800s. Yet the availability of these crops changed cuisine radically. Spices, as they became a prestige item in the Middle Ages, were thrown in great abundance into everything, in combinations which now seem strange to us, at least in aristocratic cuisine. We have different ideas about spices now. But it is unlikely that a 14 year old's chefs completely revamped French elite cuisine.

Finally, American cuisine does consist of more than hamburgers. And we do have a fair amount of regional variety, although the dominance of national chain restaurants has dampened those regional differences.

What is the main thing I learned about Italian beliefs about food? The Italians as just as chauvinistic as the French, but they both have really good food.

Italy!

Just got back from spending two weeks in Italy. I was there for a 10 day CIEE International Faculty Development Seminar on "Food from a "Glocal" Perspective: Italy, the Mediterranean, and the World."  There were many interesting lectures and field trips (more about those another day), but one of the highlights was the food. Most days, aside from a good breakfast, we were served one or two multi-course meals with restaurants chosen to specifically highlight regional specialities. After 10 days of this, I spend the next four days in Rome eating mostly bread, cheese, and fruit just to recover! I thought I'd start the Italy report by narrowing down my food experiences to four favorites. I am not listing them in the order of preference, but simply in chronological order.

The first half of the seminar was held in the small town of Pollenzo-- about 90 minutes southeast of Turin in the Piemonte region. Pollenzo is the site of the international college of gastronomy established by the founder of the Slow Food movement, Carlo Petrini. It's a lovely little town set among the rolling hills, where there is a lot of agriculture. I saw farms and vineyards, orchards and livestock. Pollenzo is part of the larger town of Bra. The first night we were taken to dinner at the official Slow Food restaurant, Osteria del Boccondivita,  in nearby Bra. The first course is pictured above, vitello e tonnato. In English, veal with tuna sauce. The veal had been baked and was quite tender and mild. What was surprising was the tuna sauce--it would never have occurred to me to put veal and tuna together, but the tuna sauce provided a slightly sharp and salty complement to the mild veal. It was surprising and delicious, and a great introduction to Italian food!

The next dish was eaten in a restaurant in Alba, a medium sized town in Piemonte (where there's also a Nutella factory!). After a meal of asparagus in lemon sauce, a pasta dish with butter and vegetables, and a rabbit dish, we were served panna cotta with fresh strawberries for dessert.

I had heard about panna cotta, and I have eaten panna cotta before. But this was something else altogether. It has a slight hint of vanilla and was creamy beyond belief. It had clearly not been made with gelatin, as I have tasted. I was told by one of our seminar leaders that it was made with glassine, a type of solidifier made from fish bladders. The strawberries were fresh and truly ripe, picked locally. The dish was simple yet delicious. Most of us had to fight the urge to start licking the plates clean when we were done!

The second half of the seminar was held in Naples, in the Campania region. Naples is in the south of of Italy, and is right on the Mediterranean. There, seafood was king. The first night in Naples we were taken to a nice restaurant in the centro storico, or historic old part of the city, called Palazzo Petrucci. The entire meal was fabulous, but this was the best dish of all:

This was billed (in English) as "Millefeuilles of Compania's Mozzarella Cheese with Raw Prawn and Sauce of Peas." This is no ordinary mozzarella, the rubbery stuff we eat in the States. This was fresh mozzarella made from water buffalo milk. It is a different substance entirely--chewy, slightly salty, creamy and delicious. The shrimp had been marinated and were a perfect complement to the cheese, and the pea sauce added a mild touch which tied it all together.

Finally, we had a dinner in Naples down in a yacht club. We were giving a cooking demo of many wonderful dishes, but my favorite was the stuffed pumpkin flowers, battered and fried. I don't have a close-up of the final dish, but here was part of the demo:

I had eaten fried zucchini flowers before, but these were even tastier! They were stuffed with a ricotta concoction, and the batter was made with yeast and was light and airy when fried.

I must say that the only bad food experiences I had in Italy were in the airports! I learned so much about the food of at least these two regions which I didn't know. I will definitely be trying some of these ideas in my own cooking. More later!

Cooking my Bookshelf: Caramel Sticky Buns

Husband out of town for the last few days, and son had a friend stay over last night. For breakfast this morning: Caramel Sticky Buns! The recipe comes from The Best of Southern Living, Oxmoor House, 2007. There's no author listed, but as a compilation of recipes from the magazine Southern Living, I presume they just have their test kitchen put this together. I don't actually subscribe to Southern Living, although I have read it a couple of times. The recipes are an interesting mix of made-from-scratch with the occasional use of convenience products. The authors also have a thing for bacon and cream cheese--although not always in the same recipe. If you've ever seen Paula Dean cook on TV, think Paula Dean only slightly more upscale and slightly (but only slightly) less obsessed with butter. The authors also seem to enjoy putting coconut in their desserts, which I'm not overly fond of.

Today's recipe is for Caramel Sticky Buns. Sticky buns are usually yeast buns rolled with butter and cinnamon sugar baked in brown sugar and butter with pecans. These are very similar, only you make a caramel sauce to bake them in, rather than just butter and brown sugar. The photos are taken on my new iPhone 4S, because my husband left with the camera.

Here's the recipe as written:

Caramel Sticky Buns
Makes 1 dozen

Caramel Sauce
1 (16-ounce) package hot roll mix
1 cup chopped pecans, toasted
3 tablespoons butter, softened
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1. Prepare Caramel Sauce; set aside
2. Prepare roll mix according to package directions. Let stand 5 minutes
3. Pour Caramel Sauce into a lightly greased 13- x 9-inch pan; sprinkle with pecans. Roll dough into a 15- x 10-inch rectangle. Spread with butter, and sprinkle with sugar cinnamon. Roll up, jelly-roll fashion, starting at the long edge. Cut into 12 slices. Arrange, cut sides down, over Caramel Sauce.
4. Cover and let rise in a warm place (85 F), free from drafts, 30 minutes or until doubled in bulk.
5. Bake at 375 F for 20 minutes. Let bunds sand on a wire rack 10 minutes. Invert onto a serving platter. Serve buns warm.

Caramel Sauce
Makes 2 1/2 cups

2 cups whipping cream
1/4 cup butter
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
2 teaspoons lemon juice

1. Combine first 3 ingredients in a medium saucepan over medium heat until butter melts, stirring occasionally; remove from heat.
2. Bring sugar, water, and lemon juice to a boil in a Dutch oven over high heat, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to medium-high, and boil, stirring occasionally, 8 minutes or until mixture begins to brown. Reduce heat to medium; cook 5 or until caramel-colored, stirring occasionally.
3. Gradually whisk cream mixture into sugar mixture, whisking constantly. Remove from heat; let stand 1 minute. Whisk until smooth. Cook over medium-low heat until a candy thermometer reaches 230 F (thread stage); cool.

So, the caramel sauce takes a little longer than you might think, unless you've made caramel or candy before. It took me about 40 minutes total. A few notes: go by color (rather than time) in the first part of the recipe--you want a nice brown, but don't burn it. I found it took a few minutes more than what was stated. If you've never made caramel before, you may be wondering why the heck you need to use a big old Dutch oven to boil about an inch of liquid. You see that part in the instructions when it tells you to add the cream mixture to the boiling sugar mixture gradually? Take that part seriously--when you start to add the cream, the whole thing will bubble up incredibly high. Trust me when I tell you that you don't want to have to clean hot caramel off your stove, so add gradually and whisk constantly. It will eventually calm down, and you can proceed with cooking it to 230 F. It took about 25 minutes for me.

Here it is at about 225 F. Resist the urge to try some
at this point, unless you didn't actually need your tastebuds.
See how it looks like molten lava?
That comparison is more accurate than you think.

Now, for the bun part of the recipe, I really don't know what "hot roll mix" is. I just make rolls from scratch. I did have a box of bread machine sourdough bread mix languishing in the cupboard. I'm not sure why I bought it, since I no longer use a bread machine and making your own dough really isn't hard. But, here it is:

Since rolls usually have some added sugar, I put in about 2 tablespoons of sugar, then mixed according to the directions. Instead of letting it rest 5 minutes, I let it rest about 25 to let it start to rise. The mix was 14 ounces rather than 16 ounces, as called for in the recipe. I am unclear as to why the recipe calls for a mix--putting together fresh sweet yeast dough is no more difficult than kneading this stuff. The caramel sauce was a much bigger pain in the neck than making dough from scratch would have been.

After 25 minutes, I rolled out the dough.

I didn't actually measure it--I just eyeballed it. Probably not as rectangular as it should be, but oh well. Then I spread the softened butter. You could make sure the butter is very soft then us a knife or a spatula to spread it, but I just used my hands. I mixed the sugar and cinnamon together and sprinkled it over the buttered dough.

I rolled up the dough the long way, then pinched it shut.

Since to dough was originally 14 ounces rather than 16, I used a large (10") cake pan rather than a 13"x9? pan. I also cut the dough into 10 pieces rather than 12. First I poured in about half of the caramel sauce, then sprinkled on chopped pecans.

Then I arranged the dough disks.

I covered them with plastic wrap, then let them rise for 30 minutes.

Ready for the oven!

I baked for 22 minutes, adding a couple of minutes due to the shape of the pan. After tasting them, they probably could have used another three minutes in the oven, as the center ones were a little undercooked on the bottom.

A word about baking--make sure you put some aluminum foil under the pan while you're cooking, because the caramel may bubble over. Cleaning burned caramel of the bottom of the oven is not on my list of fun things to do.

You don't really want to clean that stuff off your
oven, do you?

After the 10 minute rest, I turned the buns out onto a plate. I had to bang the plate and pan on the counter a few times to get the buns to release, but it did work.

One more hint if you've never worked with hot caramel. Soak all the dishes and pans in hot water before trying to wash them--the hot water will dissolve the sugar, making cleanup a lot easier.

The verdict? I loved them. Daughter "didn't like the nuts." Son "didn't like the caramel." I am raising Philistines.