Pin 173

Where are all those "unfinished projects" I promised? Well I guess I got hungry and snuck in a bunch of food posting while I finished them.

There are reasons they are unfinished.

Number One was blatantly obvious this week--MONEY!! I spent my extra cash during the holidays and don't have a whole lot to spend supplies.

Number Two: Weather. It has been raining cats and dogs the last few days and I just can't bear to get out of the house more often than that. Besides, it is ridiculously cold and I just can't stand the cold. Anything lower than, say, 45 degrees and I'm bundled up in my fleece and uggs sitting by the fire moaning about the cold. Sorry. I am a life-long Texan. Give me days and days of 110 degree weather but keep your snow.

Number Three: Work. I mentioned a job change a few weeks ago. I am in the process of tying up all my loose ends at my current job and training my replacement so I've put in a little extra time and energy towards that lately.

Number Four: Holiday hangover. Not of the alcoholic type, unfortunately. Just the general exhaustion paired with the extra chores that need to be done. Packing up all the decorations, sorting through all the holiday rubble of paper, toy packaging, and sorting. Clearing out old toys and clothes to make room for the new ones. Catching up the household chores of cleaning and laundry. Getting everyone back in the rhythm of school and chores.

Blah, blah, blah. On with the food.

Original pin:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/golden-crescent-rolls/

I have been a bread making fool lately. You readers may already know just how much I love making bread. I have an extra fondness for yeast breads. I think the week of Christmas I made some sort of yeast bread nearly everyday.

This pin worked a little backwards. I had in my head that I wanted to make some pigs-in-a-blanket (aka, PIBs) but I wanted a different option for the bread other than the canned crescent dough. After a little online research I found this recipe that looked delish and pinned it right on to my cooking board. I started the dough that night. I followed the directions mostly. They were simple and the dough was very easy to handle. I rolled it and cut it into triangles as directed, but as I was rolling them with the little piggies inside I decided that next time it would be better to make rectangles for my pigs. As crescent rolls alone, triangles would be fine. Also, I halved the triangles since I was using cocktail sized pigs.

Not included in the original directions--I lined my pan with wax paper sprayed with cooking spray. I will not have my bread ruined by sticky dough ever, ever again.

I got a little lazy with the next step, which turns out later to be not a super-duper idea. As I was rolling them up and putting them in a dish, I found that all but maybe six or seven would fit comfortably. Well it was well past midnight at this point and I wasn't feeling like preparing a second dish for six measly PIBs. I also wasn't going to waste this (what I hoped was) fabulous dough either. So I worked very hard to squeeze these last ones in. I ended up with two left over that I just wrapped in tin foil. The original recipe called for an hour rise, but I just covered the dish with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge overnight. In the morning I pulled them out about an hour before I was going to bake them. Just before popping them in the oven they were perfectly risen, however the rising made them even closer together.

eek. look how tightly crammed the are.

A short, short 10 minutes later they were all done and golden.

Guess I should have rotated these halfway through. My oven baked them a little unevenly.

Well, mostly at least. They were all golden on top and the crust felt set. I was a teensy weensy bit worried about the middles since the cooking time was so short. I had baked the two loners just on the tinfoil along side so I sampled those. They were perfect. Deliciously buttery. The dough was light in texture and proportioned perfectly with the little piggie. These tasted exactly like the ones I get from my favorite donut shop and pay $1.50 each for (but only mine were smaller. Maybe half sized of theirs.)  As we dug into them my fears about the middle were confirmed. The rolls towards the middle were not fully baked on the sides where they touched. While it was far from raw, it wasn't quite done so it made it a little doughy. I ate them anyway. Lesson learned--don't pack them in so tightly. I didn't take a picture of them before they had risen, but before rising they were placed in the pan just close enough to not be touching. Next time I will place them maybe 1/2-1 inch apart. They did a lot of rising before and during baking.

Total cost: I only had to buy the cocktail weenies for around $3.29

Total time: About 25 minutes to make the dough, 20 minutes to roll the PIBs plus baking and rising time.

Final verdict: This was a really good dough! With or without the piggies it would still be delicious. They even taste better than the canned rolls. I can't wait to try this again--and do it a little better. But I am also imagining the possibilities with them. This could be substituted for all the million recipes out there that call for crescent rolls. The recipe says it makes 20-30 rolls so that would be the equivalent of almost three-four cans of the premade stuff. How much do you pay for a can of those? A couple bucks for 8? Is that right? My total unofficial, uncalculated, and unconfirmed mathematics says that you could probably make this whole batch for at least what you pay for one can--probably less. While I can't say that they are technically "better" for you health-wise than the canned stuff you do at least have the control over what you put in them. Now if I could just stop making bread maybe I could lose some of these holiday pounds. . .