caramel apple butter pecan “star bread”

Were I to live a thousand years I’d never be able to try out all my Pinterest pins!  But this month with our Improv Cooking Challenge ingredients being Nuts & Caramel, I was able to knock out three of them!

The recipe for the slow cooker caramel apple butter I slightly adapted from here. The sweet roll dough recipe I’ve had for years, but you can find a good one here. And finally, the inspiration for the “star bread” was from this pin. OHMYGOODNESS! This stuff tastes soooooooooooooo good!

I love this dough – it’s so easy to work with…

Unfortunately, I had to leave unexpectedly & the bread ended up raising for almost two hours! It overpowered my baking stone. Fortunately the parchment bore the brunt of the mess.

 

We also made pecan waffles to use up some leftover caramel…

You should probably check out the other sites linked here:

An InLinkz Link-up

GF Mexican Chocolate Churros

Well, have you entered the Rafflecopter giveaway for #Choctoberfest2016 yet? You should probably do that here right now! The sponsors have some great prizes they would love to send you…
This is the third day of our chocolate celebration, so I wanted to try something to put a little “pep” into the middle of your week. The subtle cayenne addition will wake your mouth up! (But you can soothe it with our luscious dairy-free caramel sauce, if you’d like…)

Gluten-Free Mexican Chocolate Churros

Whisk together in mixing bowl:

• 1 c. gf flour
• 1/2 c. arrowroot starch
• 2 T. baking cocoa powder
• 2 t. cinnamon
• 1/4 t. cayenne
• 1/2 t. espresso powder

Heat to rolling boil in microwave-safe cup:

• 1 c. water
• 1/2 c. butter
• 2 T. brown sugar
• 1/4 t. kosher salt

Pour boiling liquid ingredients onto dry ingredients, add 1/2 t. almond extract and beat until smooth. Add 4 eggs, one at a time, beating until the dough is shiny after each addition. Spoon into pastry bag fitted with large star tip. Pipe 6-inch length of dough into 350° oil, and fry both sides. Drain excess oil and dredge in 1/2 c. Demerara sugar mixed with 1 t. cinnamon. Serve immediately.Our gluten-free churro batter was a little too thin to pipe with the star tip, so we had to improvise with a ribbon shape using this wonderful little Wilton candy-melt tool:

Dairy-free Caramel Sauce  (adapted from a Silk® recipe)

Stir together in saucepan:

• 1 c. sugar
• 1/4 c. water
• 1/4 t. lime juice (to inhibit crystallization)

Heat on medium for about 15 minutes without stirring, or until the mixture turns amber. Remove from heat and stir in:

• 1/2 c. Silk® Coconutmilk (watch out! it will bubble up – just keep stirring until smooth.)

Add:

• 2 T. coconut oil
• 1 t. vanilla
• 1/4 t. kosher salt

Stir to combine, then serve immediately.

The churros taste so wonderful on their own – but when you dip them in that caramel sauce… ohhhhhhhhhh!
Thank you for joining us today! Make sure you check out some more #Choctoberfest recipes by following the links below:

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Fresh Peach Caramels

July’s ingredients for the Improv Cooking Challenge are PEACHES & CREAM. Initially, I was quite excited for this challenge because I have a lovely white peach tree in my garden. Sadly, however, the fruit never set on after it blossomed early Spring, & now it looks like this:
Never fear… a #10 of Del Monte canned diced peaches is available at Costco any time of year… So that’s what I used for the Peach Caramel Rum Sauce.Darn heat/humidity! The “caramels” refused to set up overnight… But it did make a lovely sauce to spoon over vanilla bean ice cream!

Determined to fix caramels with fresh peaches, I bought a few pounds at Sprouts. After peeling/pitting four of them, the halves were tossed into the blender to make the purée. The (nearly 2 1/2 cups) purée was slowly cooked down to 1/2 cup (took almost 2 hours over medium-low heat on a humid day…)This is the recipe I used, and the following pics will illustrate the steps:
Stir the sugar & corn syrup into the peach reduction. Cook over medium-low heat until thermometer reaches 234°.Without breaking the boil, stir in 1/2 cup of cream. Return to 234°.Again, stir in the last 1/2 cup of cream, but this time let the thermometer reach 244°. Pour into buttered 8x8 pan.Allow to cool & slice into caramels.
As you can see, these caramels remained a little soft in our desert heat, but they tasted soooooooo good!
…and now, here are some more PEACHES & CREAM recipes from my fellow bloggers:

An InLinkz Link-up

Churros with #AngryOrchard Caramel Dip

What says “FALL” better than apples? Apple cider! And what food says “Cinnamon” better than churros? uhhhhhhh… nothing!?!
At the Improv Challenge hosted by Lesa, this month it was all about apples & cinnamon. I made the decision to create gluten free churros and an apple caramel dip. Initially I planned to juice 3 varieties of apples and make caramel from that.As “fun” as that process was, the resultant caramel came out a little lumpy & too sweet, for my taste.I’d been seeing caramel recipes made from hard cider, so decided to give that a try.

WINNER!

The flavor was fabulous and I knew this caramel would be perfect with some hot churros!
I began by making the cinnamon sugar finishing “bath”.Next I prepared my eggs so they’d be ready to add to the hot pâte à choux without any stray shells problems. I’d never prepared this with a mixer before -- I’ve always beat the eggs into the cooked flour mixture in the pan by hand. (That’s the way I learned in 7^th grade Home Ec years ago…)Next, the batter was spooned into the pastry bag so it could be piped into the oil heated in the cast iron skillet.ummmmm  -- Pretty sure I need more practice; because it was quite difficult to juggle the heavy pastry bag in my right hand and the scissors to stop the flow of batter in my left. I could not pipe a straight 6-inch line to save my life!I was quite surprised at the lovely texture of the fried dough! You would never know they were gluten free except for maybe a slight discernable flavor difference. Happily the hubs, who is by no means a donut or cruller fan, proclaimed them very tasty & even had a few with his coffee the next morning.
for the caramel:

• 1 bottle (12 oz.) Angry Orchard® hard cider
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 4 Tablespoons butter
• 2 Tablespoons half & half (you could use cream )
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Boil the cider to reduce to about half. Stir in the remaining ingredients and cook until thickened. Control yourself while consuming!
for the churros:

• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 Tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 cup gluten-free flour blend (I used Pamela’s®)
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Bring the water, butter, salt & brown sugar to a rolling boil. Remove from heat. Dump in the flour all at once and beat with spoon until well-combined & smooth. Transfer to mixer and add eggs one at a time, beating until shiny after each addition. Spoon into pastry bag fitted with large star tip. Pour about one inch deep oil in skillet, and heat to 350°. Pipe a 6-inch length of dough and fry both sides until brown. Drain excess oil and shake into cinnamon/sugar mixture. Try to let it cool before you bite into it!
So, I loved the incredible apple-flavored caramel sauce and I loved the cinnamon churros ~ however, together they were much too sweet for my taste… But, try the recipes for yourself before you make that call! You should also check out the other apple & cinnamon creations from my friends via the following links.

If you don’t mind, I would like to leave you with one last picture & ask you to pray for a sweet boy from our church. Nick is battling a nasty, terrible, ugly monster named Osteosarcoma. You can attribute this churro to my poor piping skills, but as I was emptying the last of the dough from the tip, this came out. I was touched in my heart, because I had spent the morning praying for Nick & his family.

An InLinkz Link-up

Here’s your birthday cheesecake, H!

For his birthday last year, Harrison requested this. A couple weeks ago when I asked if he wanted  me to bake or buy a cake to celebrate, he asked for chocolate cheesecake with caramel sauce.  I said oh, like last year’s? He said no, totally different -- I want a graham crust, chocolate cheesecake, and caramel sauce to pour over. 
That’s the “back-story” -- here are the recipes:
for the crust:

• 10 oz. vanilla wafer crumbs
• 1 stick butter

Melt butter & stir in crumbs. Press into bottom of springform pan. Bake @350° for 10 minutes.
for the filling:

• 24 oz. cream cheese
• 1/2 cup Greek yogurt
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup dark cocoa
• 12 oz. melted semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 4 eggs

Beat the softened cream cheese until smooth. Add the yogurt and beat some more. Blend in the brown sugar and beat until creamy. Sprinkle in the cocoa and beat until uniform in color. While the mixer is still running, drizzle in the melted chocolate.  Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each one. (Ensure springform will be waterproof for baking in water bath.) Scrape filling mixture onto crust. Bake @325° for around 90 minutes, until cake starts to firm in center. Turn off oven & let cool for an hour; then remove to rack to finish cooling. Free from sides of pan and refrigerate until serving time.
for the caramel sauce:

• 1 cup cream
• 1/4 cup butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla

Heat all ingredients but vanilla for about 10 minutes, stirring gently, until mixture boils & thickens. Add extract and stir over heat for another minute or two.

Someday...

... I'll be able to drizzle caramel...