I bought cardamom! What should I do with it??

Oh cardamom. You are weird and unique and not used often enough. And I have such fond memories of you. One of my college roommates used my coffee grinder to grind his cardamom pods - my coffee tasted like it for a while after. To be fair, he did ask me if it was OK. :) But I remember he made cardamom rolls - like cinnamon rolls, just replacing the cinnamon with cardamom. It was a very unique flavor. So when I was in Port Townsend at the beginning of September, I stopped by a spice shop there and saw they were selling cardamom! So I got some. Now, of course, I had to figure out what the heck I was going to make. Looking to rekindle some memories of my undergraduate career, I went looking for some cardamom roll recipes. And I was successful!

What recipe: Cardamom buns
What I changed: If you look at the link above, it looks like these buns have sesame seeds sprinkled on top. But it's pearl sugar! I don't have pearl sugar, so I just didn't include it. Turbinado sugar could be substituted too, though, if you have that.

*Let's talk about cardamom really fast. If you can find it pre-ground in the store, go for it! Otherwise, you'll want to find cardamom seeds (which are black and the size of a peppercorn). If you don't mind using your coffee grinder, put the seeds in there and grind the suckers up! If this isn't fine enough for you (and it wasn't for me), you can use a mortar and pestle to grind the seeds even finer. Here's a video of how to properly use a mortar and pestle.

I have a marble mortar and pestle, but there's many kinds out there. I've learned that you want a mortar that is deep enough for you to grind properly without seeds and whatnot flying everywhere, but also one that has texture on the inside of the bowl, which helps the grinding process. Here's an article if you want to read more on best materials for mortar and pestles.

Ingredients:
Dough:
- 2 tsp instant yeast
- 1/4 cup granulated white sugar
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 150 ml scalded and cooled low-fat milk (this is roughly 3/5 of a cup)
- 1 egg, whisked and divided in half (one half is for the dough, the other half is for a simple egg wash glaze).
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp ground nutmeg
- 2 1/3 cups all purpose flour (11.5 oz)

Filling:
- 1/4 cup butter, softened
- 1/4 cup granulated white sugar
- 2 tsp ground cardamom

STEP 1:
wtf is scalded milk? Well, it's milk you heat up to JUST below its boiling point. Here are three ways to scald milk - I did it on my stove. After you've scalded it, let it cool down to room temp (unless you're making the dough by hand, then you'll want the milk a bit on the warmer side, see below).

I am lucky and have a bread maker. So I just shove all this stuff in my bread maker and hit the dough cycle, which is incredibly convenient.

If you don't have one, which I know many don't, here's the skinny:

• combine the flour and butter into a bowl until the butter is incorporated into the flour. This is best done by rubbing the flour and butter mixture with your fingers. 
• Fold in the salt, sugar, and nutmeg.
• Ideally with your scalded milk mixture still on the warm side, add the yeast and let it sit for 5 minutes. This helps wake up the yeast.
• Add the milk and yeast mixture, plus HALF of the egg to the dry ingredients above.
• Stir until the dough starts to come together. Then knead the dough until it is smooth and stretchy, about 5-7 minutes.

Let your dough rise for at least 1 hour, until it has doubled in size. If your house is a bit cold, heat your oven on 150 degrees F (or as low as your oven will go) for JUST a couple minutes. Pop your covered bowl of dough in there, it'll act as a proofing cabinet (which is a warm area bakeries have to help their dough rise quickly). 

While your dough is rising, cut a total of 12 squares (4" by 4") of parchment paper - these will act as liners for the buns, and it's gives these a really really pretty effect! 

STEP 2: 

Once the dough has doubled in size, turn it out onto a surface greased with canola or vegetable oil. Either use a rolling pin or flatten it out with your hands until it is in the shape of a large rectangle until the dough is about 1/4" thick. 

STEP 3:

Mix together your filling - you'll want the butter more on the softened side, almost melted (ALMOST).

Spread this on your rectangle of dough, leaving a 1/2" border around the edges.

Roll your dough up (I would suggest rolling it along it's longer end, because this will make 12 buns).

STEP 4:
Cut this roll up into 12 pieces. I usually cut it in half, then cut a half in half, then cut each of those quarters into three pieces. If that made any sense.

Get our your muffin tray! And grab those pieces of parchment paper you cut earlier (remember those?). I squished the parchment paper into the muffin depression first, then put the cut piece of rolled dough into the depression.

Pretty tulips! Most delicious tulips I've ever seen.

After these have risen, they will fill out all that extra space we see nicely.

STEP 5: 
Cover this tray with a towel and let it rise for another hour (until the rolls are doubled in size).

Even though my house isn't particularly cold yet, I still let my yeast doughs rise in my slightly heated oven.

STEP 6: 
10 minutes before this rise is done, preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Remember that half of whisked egg we didn't use? Add 1 Tablespoon of water and use this egg wash mixture to coat the tops of all the rolls. This make the tops of the buns shiny and brown nicely.

Once the oven is properly preheated, pop the muffin tray of cardamom buns into the oven for 10-12 minutes.

After the second rise and a nice egg wash

Time to pop these in the oven!

STEP 7: 
Take this delicious suckers out of the oven, and cover them with a towel while they cool so they remain soft.

Don't worry, I ate this one after I took this photo.

Oh hey girl...

NOW EAT THESE. SHOVE THEM IN YOUR FRIEND'S AND FAMILY'S FACES.

The flavor of these are subtle, but totally delicious. Enjoy!

IT'S FALL Part 2

IT'S FALL, EVERYONE! Not today, because it's going to get up to 87 degrees F, but this weekend it was storming and almost chilly, so I had to feverishly make two pumpkin cookie recipes that had been haunting my dreams.

Pumpkin Cookie Weekend Part 2:

What recipe: Pumpkin Snickerdoodles
What I changed: Nothing, however the blogger I got this recipe from added 1/4 cup of pumpkin to the original recipe. Don't do this! It makes the dough a bit too wet, and it doesn't increase the pumpkin taste factor, unfortunately. I also only put a LITTLE ground ginger in the sugar coating - ground ginger can be overpowering, which terrifies me.
     Future things to try: BFF and I were wondering if we added in some pumpkin syrup (i.e. the stuff they put in your pumpkin spice lattes) would work to make these cookies more pumpkin-y. Also, I'm wondering since we're adding pumpkin if we need quite so much butter... but that's for the next evolution of these cookies. Feel free to experiment, and let me know what you find out!

Ingredients:
Cookies:
- 3.75 cups all-purpose flour
- 1.5 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup granulated white sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
- 1 cup pumpkin puree (canned or homemade)
- 1 large egg
- 2 tsp vanilla extract

Sugary coating (what makes snickerdoodles snickerdoodles):
- 1/2 cup granulated white sugar
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
Dash of ground ginger
Dash of all spice

STEP 1: 
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Whisk together all the dry cookie ingredients and set them aside.

I measure my flour - all-purpose flour is 4.75 oz per cup.

STEP 2: 
In a large bowl cream together the butter and sugars until they look marvelously creamy and fluffy. Add in the pumpkin puree. Once that's mixed in, add in the egg and vanilla.

STEP 3:
Add in the dry ingredients to your butter/pumpkin mixture. I would highly recommend using a hand mixer for this, as the batter can get pretty thick. Again, as in our other cookie recipes, add in the dry ingredients 1/3 at a time until completely mixed in.

STEP 4:
Cover the dough with plastic wrap, foil, whatever and refrigerate the dough for at least 1 hour. UGHHHH. Waiting. I know. But you gotta do this otherwise the snickerdoodles won't be as snickerdoodle-y (this means dense, haha).

STEP 5: 
10 minutes before your hour of refrigerating the dough is done, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Line your baking sheet(s) with parchment paper.

In a small bowl mix your sugar coating ingredients together.

STEP 6:
Here's the fun part! Especially if you have someone you can do this with: best friend, significant other, bratty child, irritating parent, etc. One of you rolls the snickerdoodles into 1-2 Tablespoon sized balls, then you pass them to your partner in crime and then coat them with the sugary mixture. After your PIC does that, they will flatten the balls with the underside of a glass (which has been dipped in sugar).

Covering the snickerdoodle dough balls in sugar mixture.

Flattening the snickerdoodle dough with the bottom of a sugar covered glass (get the sugar to stick by dipping the bottom of the glass in water)

Once flattened, sprinkle more of the sugar mixture on top.

STEP 7:
After you and your PIC have rocketed through Step 6, sprinkle the tops of all your snickerdoodles with a bit more of the sugar mixture, and pop them in the oven for 12-15 minutes!

Great! Snickerdoodles done! However, they aren't very pumpkin-y, as I said above. Kind of disappointing, but still good in their own right. 

Bake on!

IT'S FALL Part 1

IT'S FALL, EVERYONE! Not today, because it's going to get up to 87 degrees F, but last weekend it was storming and almost chilly, so I had to feverishly make two pumpkin cookie recipes that had been haunting my dreams.

Pumpkin Cookie Weekend Part 1:

This recipe: Soft Frosted Pumpkin Spice Cookies by The Baker Chic
What I changed: I substituted 1/2 cup of the granulated sugar with brown sugar. Why? Because yum - brown sugar gives a deeper more maple-y flavor in my opinion. I also halved the frosting and BFF put it on in swirls. I halved the frosting recipe because I didn't want the delicious frosting disguising the delicious pumpkin and spices in the cookie.

Ingredients:
Cookie:
- 2.5 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp ground cloves
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup granulated white sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
- 1 cup pumpkin puree (canned or homemade)
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract

Frosting:
- 1/4 cup butter, softened
- 1/4 cup softened cream cheese
- 1-2 cups powdered sugar
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

STEP 1:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Whisk together all the dry cookie ingredients in a medium sized bowl.

That is a lot of spices. But don't worry, it's totally delicious and worth it.

 STEP 2:
In a large bowl, combine the butter and sugars (both white and brown). After they are combined and looking creamy and fluffy and delicious, add the pumpkin, egg, and vanilla to this mixture. Mix in 1/3 of the dry ingredients in steps until the dry ingredients are completely mixed in. Don't overmix! These cookies are cake-like and will stay that way as long as you don't mix too much beyond the point where everything is just mixed together.

STEP 3:
Drop the cookies onto a sheet covered with parchment paper (this works better than straight on the sheet or on foil, I tested it for you guys!). You'll want to flatten them slightly, as the cookies won't spread out much during the baking.

Bake for 15-20 minutes.

STEP 4:
Time for the frosting! This stuff is amazing. AMAAAAZING.

Cream the butter and cream cheese together until combined - I used my hand mixer. Slowly add the powdered sugar until the mixture becomes thick and creamy. This is, of course, subjective and totally up to you, which is nice. :)

STEP 5:
Add the vanilla and cinnamon to the frosting mixture. Try not to eat all of the frosting before you can put it on the cooled cookies.

STEP 6: 
Once the cookies have cooled (and pleeeease wait, otherwise the frosting will melt off), put the frosting on however you would like. BFF put it on in spirals because with halving the frosting recipe there wouldn't have been enough to spread on thickly.

As a special note, I brought these to a potluck at someone's house where I only knew the person I came with. The hostess' daughter cornered me and asked me for the recipe, and friended me on Facebook to make sure she would get it. THAT'S HOW GOOD THESE ARE. And the pumpkin flavor is wonderful!