[Mike Nolan]

We had sandwiches tonight.

[Mike Nolan]

Today was our 53rd wedding anniversary, we had steaks (filet for Diane, ribeye for me), some potato salad and I made a lychee panna cotta with a lychee/strawberry topping. I wasn't sure what lychee taste likes (online sources say pear, strawberry, roses, citrus and watermelon, which covers a lot of ground), but the lychee panna cotta was good and the lychee/strawberry topping was even better.

Panna cotta is one of those things I see on TV cooking competitions all the time, and they usually fail to get it to set in the 30 minutes they have for the dessert round. After having made it last night, I can see why. It took close to an hour to cool down to room temperature and was still very runny at the time, but by this morning it had set up just fine in the refrigerator. Trying to do that in 30 minutes, even with a blast chiller, is next to impossible.

I may have to try making a lower carb panna cotta using Splenda or allulose, but a caramel or Lyle's Golden Syrup flavored panna cotta sounds interesting, and maybe worth the carbs. 🙂

[Mike Nolan]

We had salads for supper.

[Mike Nolan]

The rolls didn't rise as much as I was expecting and they're not very soft. I think the ones with the lecithin in them may hold up a little better when wet, I'll try that tomorrow.

They're a bit too hard for Diane, so I probably need to try something else.

[Mike Nolan]

Yes, I use the HCB recipe in the whole grains book. The dough is on the stiff side and takes a long time to come together. Once I add the raisins it is more easily shaped.

[Mike Nolan]

We ordered takeout pizza and lasagna for supper tonight.

[Mike Nolan]

Anise can easily overwhelm other flavors in bread.

[Mike Nolan]

I had similar concerns about the longevity of netting. I doubt deer would eat it, I'm less sure about smaller creatures. It might be something you'd have to replace regularly or possibly take down over the winter, either of which would be a major issue.

The last few fences I've seen installed in our neighborhood used metal posts instead of wooden ones, in large part because of termites and carpenter ants.

I've seen deer jump a 6 foot fence handily.

I doubt you'll find a good way to keep the bucks from rubbing the velvet off their antlers.

[Mike Nolan]

We had burgers on the grill with a slice of tomato and some green pepper slices that I grilled.

[Mike Nolan]

I wound up doing some plumbing work and deeper cleaning than I had planned because we had some water back up onto the kitchen floor. Green Gobbler seems to have worked its magic on the drain line, but I'm going to put it down the kitchen drains again later tonight. (I really ought to do that every few months.) I'm still working on sanitizing that part of the kitchen floor.

So we both wound up having just salads for supper.

[Mike Nolan]

I made a pizza and we had that for supper.

[Mike Nolan]

We have decided that the icing is better today than it was yesterday. I think it just needs time for the flavors to meld together. (And I did make it on Wednesday so it had aged for a day.)

[Mike Nolan]

We had steak and mushrooms, and a cinnamon roll for dessert in lieu of birthday cake. (I turned 76 today.)

[Mike Nolan]

It took me several edits, but I got all 6 photos into this post.

Here's my first try at a Hani's Bakery Malted Cinnamon Roll copycat recipe

Here's the dough rolled out with the cinnamon schmear on top

Here's the dough rolled up and ready to go in the freezer

Here's one that has been cut after removing the dough from the freezer. (That technique works very well!)

Here are the rolls ready to rise

Here's one baked roll, ready for icing

Here's two rolls with some icing on them

The dough is great, the schmear is a bit too heavy and quite a bit of it sunk to the bottom of the baking cup. The icing is a bit of a disappointment, doesn't taste like a cream cheese icing.

Would I make it again? Possibly, but with some changes, especially to the icing. I really liked the idea of freezing the dough before slicing it, that technique I will almost certainly use again. I might use a combination of light brown sugar and granulated sugar in the schmear instead of mostly dark brown sugar.

I'm running tests to see how well they freeze, since a dozen cinnamon rolls is like a week's worth or more for us.

Attachments:

You must be logged in to view attached files.

[Mike Nolan]

I went with the brioche dough recipe in The Bread Baker's Apprentice for my cinnamon rolls, I used the 'middle class brioche' recipe with a little extra flour and butter. It's resting in the fridge and I'll shape it later this morning after I make the schmear and bake it later this afternoon.

I also made the icing on top so it's ready to go, too.

[Author]

Posts