Category Archives: Breakfast

Whole Wheat Caramel Sticky Buns

Whole Wheat Caramel Sticky Buns | @HipVegetarian

Whole Wheat Caramel Sticky Buns

Whenever I visited my sister-in-law in Alabama, she would always serve us the best sticky buns that her mother-in-law Sharon would make from scratch and send over for us to enjoy.

Sharon is a queen when it comes to baking — especially around Christmas time. I love how all of her kids and grandchildren look forward to her creations works of art.

Then I realized that that I wanted to do something that my children look forward to, and will always ask, “My, Mom you make ‘that?’ Its’ my favorite.”

So I pulled a chapter out of Sharon’s book and decided to conquer the STICKY BUNS.

I am not successful when it comes to making bread. I don’t know what happened — I used to be when I was in seventh grade and whipped out whole wheat bread for my baking honor badge.

So I cobbled together some recipes I thought would work — my father-in-law’s whole wheat buns recipe, and two recipes out of the Better Homes and Garden’s cookbook for the “sticky” caramel and sugar concoctions.

To simplify the process, I mix the bread mixture in a bread machine and let it rise a couple of cycles before taking it out to assemble.

Whole Wheat Sticky Buns

PART ONE:
1 cup Water
1 Egg
1/4 cup Margarine or Butter
1/4 cup Sugar
1 teaspoon Salt
2 cups All Purpose White Flour
1 1/2 cups Whole Wheat Flour
1 package Yeast or about 2 teaspoons

PART TWO:
2/3 cup packed Brown Sugar
1/4 cup Margarine or Butter
2 tablespoons Light Corn Syrup

PART THREE:
1/2 cup Sugar
2 teaspoons ground Cinnamon

Dump all the ingredients from Part One into the bread machine with the flour and yeast on top. Then let it mix and rise once in the machine.

Punch down dough. Divide in half. Let rest 10 minutes.

While dough is resting. Lightly spray 9″ x 13″ baking pan.

In a small saucepan, place Part Two ingredients over medium heat until sugar, butter and syrup have melted into each other, creating a caramel mixture. Pour mixture into baking pan and sprinkle with pecans.

Mix butter, brown sugar & syrup

Caramel mixture & pecans

Going back to the dough, roll each portion out to 9″x13″.

Rolling out dough. Mine is never perfect.

Sprinkle with one-half of the sugar mixture from Part Three.

Rolling the dough after sprinkling the sugar mixture. I’ve added pecan meal to this batch.

Roll up — like a jelly roll starting from the long-seam side.

Roll up like a jelly roll.

Slice each roll into 12 pieces.

Place sections into pan, cover with a cloth, and let rise for 20-30 minutes.

Bake at 375 degrees for 15-18 minutes, depending on the size of the rolls. Immediately invert baked rolls from the pan.

Gorgonzola Spinach Mini-Quiches

Posted by thehipvegetarian in Breakfast, Eggs, Quiche and tagged with , , , ,

Gorgonzola Spinach Mini Quiche

I enjoy company.

I enjoy a good quiche.

However my taste in quiche doesn’t always match up with what another’s tastbuds enjoy.

The beauty of the mini-quiche is that you can make each quiche specific to what your guests’ prefer. When I had company in town for Spring Break, my girlfriend was all about trying a gorgonzola and spinach quiche. Her husband — not so much.

So out came the muffin pan, and we quickly whipped together the egg mixture, and carefully selected ingredients to suite each person individually.

Hubby had cheddar cheese, salt and pepper.

Girlfriend and I had gorgonzola cheese, spinach and red bell pepper. They were delish!

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Gorgonzola Spinach Mini-Quiches

4 Eggs, slightly beaten
1 1/2 cups Milk
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon Pepper
1 tablespoon Gorgonzola Cheese
1/2 Bell Pepper, finely chopped
1/2 cup Spinach

1. Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees

2. Spray muffin pan with non-stick spray

3. Beat together 4 eggs, add milk, salt, and pepper. Set aside.

4. Choose individual ingredients: cheeses, bell peppers, spinach, etc. and place the desired amount in the bottom of each muffin cup.

5. Ladle mixture evenly between muffin cups.

6. Bake for 15 minutes and check the center with a knife to see if it comes out clean. If necessary, bake for anther 5 minutes and recheck.

Blueberry Buttermilk Breakfast Cake

Posted by thehipvegetarian in Breakfast and tagged with , , , ,

Blueberry Buttermilk Breakfast Cake

Here is the perfect Sunday brunch cake for any weekend. I stumbled across this recipe on Pinterest, and as I promise to my readers and friends, I try out recipes to see if they are easy to make and tasty for the vegetarian household.

I had company in town this past week, so I pulled out this recipe to try for a second time. I loved it so much the first time that I was looking for a good excuse to make it again — and my husband has prohibited me from making it for him since he’s on a diet.

The original recipe calls for  2 teaspoons of lemon zest; however I love how lemon makes everything feel so fresh so I used 4-5 teaspoons instead.  Also the original recipe calls for 7/8 cup + 1 tablespoon sugar.  That’s just an odd equation, so I’ve rounded it up to 1 cup of sugar. Seriously, I don’t want to have to think that hard while I’m baking.

The buttermilk makes this breakfast cake moist and help intensify the lemon and blueberry flavors.

My guests loved this recipe. Mark, my picky friend like it so much that he went back for seconds; making the recipe a winner in my book.

Special thanks to Alexandra’s Kitchen for the recipe. You can find the original recipe here.

Blueberry Buttermilk Breakfast Cake

Serves 6-8

½ cup unsalted butter
4 tsp. lemon zest or more — zest from 1 large lemon
1 cup of sugar
1 egg, room temperature
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. kosher salt
2 cups fresh blueberries
½ cup buttermilk

1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Grease a 9-inch square baking pan with non-stick spray and set aside.

2. Cream butter with lemon zest and one cup of the sugar.

3. Add egg and vanilla

4. Toss the blueberries with ¼ cup of flour

5. Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.

6. Add the flour mixture to the batter in small quantities, alternate with the buttermilk. Fold in the blueberries.

7. Spread batter into pan. Sprinkle batter with 1 tablespoon of sugar. Bake for 40 minutes. Check with a toothpick for doneness. If it isn’t cooked through, you might need to bake an additional 5 minutes.

Cool at least 15 minutes before serving.

You’re more than welcome to follow me via Pinterest and Twitter.

Whole Wheat Banana Bread

Posted by thehipvegetarian in Breakfast and tagged with , , , ,

Whole Wheat Banana Bread

Recently my husband and I have been trying to change our diet and become more healthy through our eating choices.  Of course our main motivation is to lose weight, but ideally we would like to eventually be eating a whole foods diet.

One recipe that I will add to our new life-style repertoire is this Whole Wheat Banana Bread recipe made with applesauce and honey versus sugar and oil.  I tried this with trepidation because I used applesauce to replace oil a couple of months ago and I wasn’t too pleased with the outcome.  However I think using whole wheat flour vs. white adds a new depth to banana bread, and the honey provides a sweetness without over doing it.  Everything balances out nicely.

Credit for this recipe should be given to the blog 8 Weeks to a Better You Recipes, which I found via Pinterest.

Oh, and one last note: The saying goes that bread tastes best right out of the oven; however I don’t think that old adage applies here.

Whole Wheat Banana Bread

  • 2 cups whole wheat flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup sugar free applesauce
  • 3/4 cup honey
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 3 mashed overripe bananas

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan.
  2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, mix together applesauce and honey. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
  3. Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

Muffins Made with Ice Cream? Say It Ain’t So!

Posted by thehipvegetarian in Breakfast, Muffins and tagged with , , , ,

Photo taken by thehipvegetarian

This is a recipe that I picked out of the local paper the San Antonio Express-News. I don’t happen to have a favorite muffin recipe, but this does the trick for when my family is craving muffin goodness.

Blueberry Muffins

1 cup Vanilla Ice Cream, softened
1 cup self-rising Flour
1 cup Blueberries
1 T salted Butter, melted
2 T Sugar

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Grease an 8-cup muffin tin.

In medium bowl, mix ice cream and flour well. Gently fold blueberries into mixture. Divide batter among muffin cups. Bake 20-25 minutes, until a wooden toothpick inserted into center of muffin comes out clean. Remove from oven and, while hot, brush muffin tops with butter; sprinkle with sugar. Remove form pan immediately. Serve warm.