honey

Honey Rolls

Yum! Who doesn’t love bread??!! I mean, if you don’t, we can’t be friends. Bread and cake. My two favorite foods. Of. All. Time. Homemade bread is quite difficult to make, especially if you do not have a stand mixer to knead the dough. I’m sure it gets easier with experience, but I never know how much flour to use! The dough gets so sticky. But these turned out great so I will let you know my tricks.

What you will need:

2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1 large egg
1/4 cup honey
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups all-purpose flour (plus more for kneading)

For the top:

1 tablespoon butter, melted
1 tablespoon honey

In the bowl of your mixer, sprinkle the yeast over the warm water and let rest for 5 minutes. Add in the egg, honey and salt and mix until combined. Add in the flour. If using a stand mixer with the dough hook attached, knead for 5-7 minutes. With my KitchenAid mixer, this was the 2 setting. If kneading by hand, knead for 8 minutes, trying not to use too much flour! The dough becomes more workable the longer you knead it.

Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl. Cover with a kitchen towel and let rise in a warm place for 2 hours. Tip: My house was chilly so I preheat my oven to 170 degrees fahrenheit and then turned the oven off and placed my dough inside to rise. The perfect place!

Preheat oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit. Lightly oil a round cake pan or cookie sheet. After the dough has doubled in size, punch it down and work it so it’s not too sticky. I had to add more flour because it stuck to my hands too much.  Shape the dough into 12 balls and place in pan.

In a bowl, mix together the melted butter and honey. Brush over the rolls. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the tops are lightly browned.

Serve warm with butter or more honey. Enjoy!

Gingerbread Muffins

Don’t worry! It’s not Christmas just yet. These muffins are PERFECT for fall! I found the recipe in a book I got from Crate & Barrel called 500 Cupcakes. I looked at the ingredients and was intrigued! AND I had everything on hand, no grocery shopping needed 🙂 Make these muffins for  a great afternoon treat, after school snack or just because!

What you will need:

7 cupcake liners

1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
Just under 1/2 cup milk

For the drizzle:

1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Note: This is half the recipe. Feel free to double it!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. Whisk together flour, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon and brown sugar. Add all the other ingredients and stir until combined. Pour batter into liners 2/3 of the way. Bake for 18-20 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack.

For the drizzle, stir together ingredients. Drizzle over muffins with a spoon. Enjoy!


Store at room temp in air tight container.

Sweet Molasses Bread Rolls

I found this recipe on Pinterest, from http://www.itsalwaysautumn.com. She said these rolls were like the ones you get at Outback Steakhouse, but I haven’t been there in years! So I didn’t want to call them that since I have no idea. I just saw that they were brown, made with molasses and honey and was sold! The dough is very easy to work with and is beautiful. I have a thing for raw dough, whether it be cookie dough or bread dough, I just love how it looks and feels. And cookie dough obviously tastes amazing, too 🙂 So, c’mon! Let’s go bake some bread…

Note: The dough needs to proof twice, so read all the instructions and make sure you have time before starting.

Oh yeah, and I apologize in advance for the different lighting/coloring of the pictures used in this post. I use my iphone 6 and took all the shots on different tables in my kitchen. I am no photographer so for now we just have to deal with it :p

What you will need:

4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1 egg
2 tablespoons softened butter
1/4 cup honey
3 tablespoons molasses
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups whole wheat flour

In a large bowl (or bowl of your electric mixer), combine yeast and warm water. Let yeast proof for about 10 minutes. Add all other ingredients except the whole wheat flour, and mix for about 1 minute until combined.

Note: I still do not have a stand mixer. I know! So sad 😦 But I was still able to use my hand mixer for this. If you do have a stand mixer, use the paddle attachment and then switch to a bread hook to knead.

Add 1 cup of the whole wheat flour and mix on low. Slowly add the last cup of whole wheat flour and mix for several minutes until a nice dough is formed and it pulls away from the bowl.

Turn dough out into a nice big bowl and form a ball (pictured below). Let rise in a warm place for an hour.

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Punch down dough and form 15 balls or rolls. Tip: Wet fingers to prevent dough from sticking. Place them in a greased 9×13 inch bake pan.

Let rise a second time, about an hour, until nice and puffed like so…

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit and bake for about 22 minutes. Serve with butter and enjoy!

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Hot Toddy Recipe

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If you’re like me, you dislike cold weather so much that as soon as it gets below 50 degrees, you literally start freaking out. Depression, blues, cold/flu, and dry skin are a few things that happen to me. So, here is a nice hot beverage to soothe some of those feelings and issues. There are many variations of this drink, but the recipe I’ve posted here is my favorite (mainly because I’m loving whiskey right now. Who knew?). Feeling a cold coming on? MAKE THIS! And drink every last drop. Guaranteed you will feel better. No more sore throat, and for me, lemon is a very relaxing scent. So here we go… how to make a Hot Toddy…

What you will need:

Coffee mug
Green Tea of your choice
1 cup of water
1 1/2 – 2 ounces of whiskey of your choice (the one pictured above is super delicious and I highly recommend)
Lemon wedge
1 tablespoon of honey

To make:

Place water in coffee mug and microwave until boiling. Then, put in all your ingredients; tea bag, whiskey, honey and squeeze in the lemon juice. Stir. Sip. And enjoy!

Funny side note: We did not have any lemons when I made this just now, so I used a couple drops of pure lemon extract. Still delicious!