There is nothing like a warm and gooey cinnamon roll on a lazy weekend morning. But turn them into orange sweet rolls and it's like eating sunshine. That bright citrus flavor cuts through the sweetness, giving you just enough bite. It's perfect for a summer morning.


And during a pandemic, what is better than having cinnamon or orange sweet rolls during the middle of the week? It's like comfort food, right?

I used a recipe I found on Pinterest from Money Saving Mom for easy bread machine cinnamon rolls. I've tried out the basic recipe in the past and it was heavenly. But I wanted to try making them into my favorite orange sweet rolls instead. We had some clementines we needed to eat and they are the perfect size to get a little zest from! And now that the weather is getting a little warmer, I'm craving fruity flavors.


Since this recipe whips up two round cake pans full, I wanted to share with my sister, Caitlin. We've been doing door drops to share baked goods with them, waving at them from a safe distance with masks on when they come to the door to get their gift. It's been nice to see their faces.

Because my sister is still breastfeeding her daughter who is currently sensitive to the cow protein in dairy (and she loves to eat the same food as mom and dad), everything we do for Caitlin and Alira has to be dairy/milk free. And that meant replacing the milk in the dough and icing with a substitute.


I also wanted an intense orange flavor, so I chose to replace the 1 cup of milk with a half cup plus 2 tablespoons of almond milk and a half cup of orange juice. I also added in zest from 1 clementine into the dough. For the icing, I replaced the milk with almond milk, the vanilla extract with orange extract and added the zest from 1 clementine.

Throwing all the ingredients into your bread machine makes these rolls a snap to make. You can even make the dough and leave the prepared unbaked rolls in the fridge overnight so all you have to do is pop them in the oven the next morning.


And let me tell you, these orange sweet rolls were a big hit! My niece got a little chunk of one to eat and my sister said she loved it so much she gobbled it right up. There weren't much in the way of leftovers, but if you have any, cut apart the individual rolls and wrap them in foil to freeze them.

Irresistible Bread Machine Orange Sweet Rolls

Dough:
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons warm milk (or your choice of milk substitute, I used unsweetened almond milk)
1/2 cup orange juice
3 tablespoons oil
1 egg, lightly beaten, plus 2 egg whites
zest of 1 clementine (about 1/2 tablespoon)
1/2 cup sugar
4 cups flour (add in an additional tablespoon at a time if dough seems to wet after the first few minutes of mixing)
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons yeast

Filling
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 1/3 cups brown sugar
2 tablespoons cinnamon

Icing
1 tablespoon milk (or your choice of dairy free substitute, again I used unsweetened almond milk)
1 1/2 cups confectioners sugar
4 tablespoons (or less) butter, softened
1 teaspoon orange extract
zest of 1 clementine (about 1/2 tablespoon)


Directions
First, take out your butter for the icing so it has time to soften as you do the rest of your work.

Then begin by putting your ingredients into your bread machine bowl in the order listed and run the dough cycle. Check on it after the first few minutes of mixing to see if you need to add any extra flour. (I ended up having to add 4 extra tablespoons of flour to get the right consistency. The dough should form a nice ball when mixing and kneading in the machine.)

As your dough is mixing and rising in your bread machine, create your filling. Mix the brown sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl and set it aside. Also, grease two round cake pans and set them aside.

When the dough cycle is done, flour your counter and roll the dough into a large rectangle. The thickness is up to you, but you don't want it thicker than a quarter inch. I personally prefer going a little thinner so I have plenty of layers to my rolls. (You can now also begin to preheat your oven to 325 degrees if you plan on baking these off right away. If you live at altitude like I do, heat your oven to 350 degrees.)

Next, brush the melted butter over the surface of your dough. Then sprinkle on your brown sugar and cinnamon filling. Roll up your dough into a log and cut it into 10 to 15 rolls and place them into your greased cake pans. I like to cut the whole log in half and then each half in half and so on so I get nice even rolls.

At this point, you can bake them off or cover the unbaked rolls in plastic wrap and leave them in the fridge overnight along with the icing.

Bake your orange sweet rolls at 325 degrees (350 degrees for high altitude) for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

As the rolls bake, I like to whip up the icing. The original recipe only called for 1 teaspoon of milk but every time I've made this recipe, I've ended up using 3 teaspoons (equals 1 tablespoon) of milk. Mix your icing ingredients together until smooth and incorporated.

Spread the icing on the rolls as soon as they come out of the oven then serve and enjoy warm.


Thanks to Money Saving Mom for sharing this recipe that one of her readers shared with her. It is definitely a keeper and even delicious when using a milk substitute!

Times sure are strange right now. Here in Colorado, our governor has a stay-at-home order in place during the Coronavirus pandemic. Everyone in our household is in a high-risk category, so we've been doing lots of online shopping and having things delivered or going for curbside pickup.


To make things more fun and delicious during our time at home, we decided to buy a bread machine from Amazon. We figured it would be easier to buy some flour and yeast than to constantly try to buy bread. And here in the high altitude, it's hard to get bread dough to rise properly. Having a machine do it for you takes out so many of the high-altitude and high plains desert variables. And really, who wouldn't want a bread machine even if you can make your own bread? It's like a slow cooker--you set it and forget it. We are talking convenience here, people!


And you know us ladies, we are constantly on Pinterest. On our blog, we share either our own recipes or the most pinter-worthy recipes we come across. And we found a delicious and easy bread recipe on Pinterest! You can find the original recipe on Happy Hooligan's blog, but we'll list it below too just to make it easy on you.


This recipe is for a honey-oat bread. We used a medium setting on our bread machine and got a nice and crisp crust but the inside was oh so fluffy and chewy. Yum! We made two minor changes to the recipe when making this bread. My sister is currently on a dairy-free diet because of breast feeding so we are constantly figuring out how to make things dairy-free. So for this recipe, we used a plant-based butter instead of regular butter or margarine. The other change was just because our bread flour hasn't been delivered yet, so we tried with all-purpose flour. We were in need of bread so we thought we'd just try it out and see what happened. Hopefully we have our bread flour for next time!


The recipe also calls for 7 to 9 ounces of water. Because we live in super dry Colorado, I opted for starting with 8 ounces. I only ended up adding about an additional teaspoon in later to make the dough the right consistency. I also pulsed our old fashioned oats with my immersion blender to get it more to the size of quick oats.


My mom ate her warm slice with some European butter slathered on. I opted for butter and a little honey. We bought a giant bottle of honey on Amazon, so why not, right?  It was delicious and turned out great even without the bread flour! Now what are you waiting for? Go pull out the ingredients and your bread machine!

1.5 Pound Honey-Oat Bread

Ingredients

• 7-9 ounces of warm water
• 1 ½  tablespoon honey
• 1 tablespoon softened butter, margarine or plant-based butter
• ½ cup quick cook oats
• 2 ½ cups bread flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 ¾  teaspoons active dry yeast or bread machine yeast

Directions

1. Place your ingredients into your bread machine bowl in the order listed above.
2. Ensure that your salt and yeast do not touch when placing your ingredients into the bread machine bowl. 
3. Set your bread machine to make a 1.5 pound loaf plus any other settings you need depending on your machine and then hit start.
4. Once your bread is done, take it out of your bread machine and turn the loaf onto a cooling rack. Let it cool for 20 minutes before cutting into it to allow it to set up. 

Okay, maybe if you are scared of spiders you won't like this cake! But if you want to scare the pants off your guests, friends, co-workers or whomever, this dessert is the perfect Halloween treat!


This cake is really pretty simple. We came across the idea on Pinterest (it's originally from Pizzazzerie) and decided it would make a great entry into an office Halloween treat contest. On the outside, this cake looks unassuming, but cut into it and <insert high-pitched scream here>.  Once you cut and remove the first slice of cake, a cluster of spiders will spill out!

Image from Pizzazzerie

We chose to do a white sponge cake with adjustments for high altitude already built into the recipe, but you can choose whatever white cake recipe you want. The reason you want a white cake is so the black spiders really stand out in contrast to the cake. In all, this cake recipe made 4 layers! And we decided to include all 4 layers into this cake since they didn't bake up too high.

There are two important things to help you to get the siders to tumble out of the cake when you cut and remove the first slice. One is to cut a hole into the center of all the layers except for the top layer. (Yes, you will be cutting a hole in the bottom layer.) The second is to not frost the inside of the holes with a crumb coat. You don't want a bunch of your spiders sticking to the inside of your cake.

We cut 2.5" circles into our three bottom layers. (We saved our circle cut-offs from the cake and made something with it which you'll see at the end of the post!) Stack and ice with a basic buttercream frosting then, add plastic spiders. We cut the ring off some spider rings and added them along with some black round sprinkles and some white bone sprinkles. Add on the top layer then crumb coated the cake and chill it for at least 10 minutes.

Next, add a ton of frosting onto your cake and using a bench scraper, remove the excess frosting for a smooth look. Because our cake was so high and we had so many layers, this part used up an entire recipe of buttercream. So we made a half batch to add rosettes to the top of the cake.


We used a Wilton 1M tip and white frosting, adding on some large rosettes, leaving space in between for the black rosettes. After we were done with the white, we added cocoa powered and black food coloring to the remaining frosting, using hot water to soften it up a bit after adding all that cocoa powder. Remember that your black frosting will darken as it sits. We ended up having a really dark charcoal grey frosting when we were done mixing and it deepened to a really nice black after about an hour.


Since we had placed our white frosting into some plastic wrap before inserting it into the piping bag, we were able to reuse the same piping bag without washing it. Then we added black rosettes and inserted some plastic spiders (rings still attached) into the white rosettes and a few on the sides of the cake. And that's it! Super easy and super fun!


And what did we do with those three 2.5" circle cuts from the cake, you ask? We made a cute little monster with googley eyes! Just stack your cuts together and insert a bamboo skewer to help you hold the little pieces together while crumb coating it. We piped on little stars for fur and added candy eyes. So cute and he's got some character to him!


Enjoy your Halloween!

We are continuing with our Christmas in July theme here at This Bittersweet Life!

Decorating sugar cookies with your kids during the holidays is a fun family activity that results in a fun mess.  Think of atomic bomb of royal icing going off in your kitchen.  But sometimes you need that "wow factor."


Some of my fondest memories are making sugar cookies with my daughters when they were young.  You know, when Rudolph got a green nose instead of a red one or when the snowmen had three eyes. We have a collection of some really great vintage cookie cutters too, such as a scottie dog, a chicken, an entire set of card suits (my mom bought these and I don't know where she got them).  But I would pull out every cutter even if it wasn't a traditional Christmas shape.

I used a butter cookie recipe and while the taste was pretty good, getting the cookies to not spread was a tedious affair.  We had lots of misshapen Christmas cookies, so Rudolph's green nose and the snowman's three eyes didn't really matter in the end.      

As our family grew older, we enjoyed decorating Christmas cookies just as much but wanted ones that kept their shape and to make them pretty.  We wanted the pretty "grownup" sugar cookies without sacrificing taste.


Thanks to our addiction to Pinterest, and my addiction to all things cooking and baking (I have boxes and boxes of cookbooks yet to unpack) I found a sugar cookie recipe that claimed they wouldn't spread during baking.  During my searching, I also came across another post about how you should use European butter to keep your cutout cookies from spreading.  European butter has less water content than American butter and the water is part of what causes the cookies to spread.  So we of course used European butter when making our cookies.  (You can find European butters like KeriGold or Plugra in your local grocery store.)

I was already living with my mom and taking care of her.  It was her second to last Christmas when we decided to try this recipe.  In order to have a more controlled explosion in the kitchen, we opted to only cut out two shapes and we only made two two colors of icing--blue and white, so really we only colored one set of frosting.


I even got myself a fancy rolling pin that has different depth gauges so your dough is rolled out even and is never too thick or thin.  I was ready to make these cookies!

Unfortunately we were dealing with my mother's oven.  It was an electric from the mid to late 70s.  This oven was was nearly 40 years old but boy was it a trooper.  Just before that Thanksgiving one of the coils broke.  We really did not want to have to replace my mother's oven at the end of her life.  Plus it was built into a brick wall.  I was totally freaked out.  But our repair man did some digging to find a coil that would fit as the manufacturer no longer made that coil.  And bless his heart, he did!  After that, the oven became psychotic.

The psychosis of our oven related to temperature and while I had an oven thermometer to gauge what it really was, it would often change as much as 50 degrees whilst something was baking.  While cookies are more forgiving than cake, trying to make cookies that don't spread can be deadly in a 50 degree temperature change.  Needless to say, we watched closely while baking, adjusting the "temperature" or even propping the oven door open with a wooden spoon.  We had to be right there the whole time.


But in the end it was worth it!  We got perfectly shaped cookies ready to decorate.  In the end, my mother proclaimed that these sugar cookies were way to pretty to eat (though they did taste delicious). But I'll note that she said that about Rudolph with the green nose and the snowman with the three eyes.  That is was Omas are supposed to say.  But about these, she really meant it.

The following Christmas season we made only snowflakes as taking care of my mother became more time consuming.  But my brother came from Texas this Christmas so I still wanted something pretty.  This year we did light grey and white royal icing.  I have to say that the daughter far exceeded the mother in the skill set.  She decorated the cookies this year (the ones in all the photos for this post).  Perhaps I was patient enough and a good enough teacher.  My heart swells with pride!

We obviously didn't make any the holiday season we were "homeless."  My younger daughter's tiny galley kitchen in her apartment just wasn't suited for the atomic explosion of any of our holiday baking, much to the chagrin of my sister-in-law.  That year I got store-bought goodies.  Though I did bake something for my office.  My oldest daughter exclaimed how highly unfair that was and I just said, "Suck it up, Adrienne!"


The first holiday season in our new house we hosted 20 family members from my ex's side of the family for their annual family Christmas party--including my ex and his lovely wife. So of course we had to have a dessert smorgasbord, because what good was our new giant kitchen island if we didn't use it for our atomic holiday baking explosion?  We had everything from my daughter's easy chocolate truffles, to our family recipes of Austrian and German cookies, the family German cheesecake, fudge, chocolate dipped pumpkin cookies and of course the sugar cookies.  We even had a hot chocolate bar and made flavored chocolate stir spoons.

But after a year of not making the cookies, I forgot a step.  I was so mad that my brand new gas oven was making my cookies spread!  The spreading wasn't too bad, but I remember the very first ones we made in my mother's psychotic oven didn't spread at all.  No.  I was really mad because we finally perfected our macarons in that new oven and it should have worked like a charm on these sugar cookies!  Then my daughter kindly reminded me that rather than just putting the cut out cookies in the fridge to chill, we actually put them in the freezer.  They weren't frozen rock solid, but they had a good chill.  After that, cookie perfection returned to our kitchen!


In the end, our family really loved the beautiful sugar cookies.  My daughter's amazing icing skills of course put the cherry on top of the cake...I mean cookie!  The young ones really loved how special they looked and loved the taste.  I think we sent them all home with a few.  The adults all thought we should start our own bakery they were so professional looking.  But my daughter and I are not morning people.  So our own bakery is completely out of the question.

I'm really looking forward to making those cookies again this coming Christmas.  But this time, I won't forget to freeze my snowflakes.


Here is Sweetopia's sugar cookie recipe that we use to make our sugar cookies so you can make perfect cutout cookies too!  And be sure to check out her blog post on her Top 8 Tips on Preventing Cookies from Spreading.

Sylvia

Colorado is the state known for having the most days of sunshine per year.  As such, we Coloradans aren't quite sure why Florida is known as the sunshine state, but we'll let them have it since we have landscape views that can't be beat!  That snow covered peak in the background is America's Mountain, Pikes Peak! This his what the residents of Colorado Springs and surrounding areas see each day.

Pikes Peak even looks beautiful on "the back side."  This is how we Coloradans refer to the side of Pikes Peak you can see from the Canyon City side of the Continental Divide.  That's right, we routinely traverse the Continental Divide! What is that joke about California and Texas both being downhill...?  Never mind!  That joke isn't nearly as funny as watching people find out what Rocky Mountain Oysters are for the first time!

What is that deliciousness I spy in the fridge!  O. M. G!  Look at that cake!

Pretty cake on the outside...

...and a little heavy on the frosting on the inside.  But still super delicious!

Okay, so I just had to throw in this shot of my vintage coffee grinder.  It was my grandmother's and is definitely over 100-years-old!

We decided to go with less frosting on the top since there was soooo much in the middle. We topped these little dollops off each with a cute as a button coffee bean!

It has been a roller coaster ride of weather here in Colorado.  One morning I was wearing yoga pants and a tank top outside then the next day I needed a wool peacoat on!  It has finally stayed mostly cold here--at least enough to keep all the snow from melting in our yards for nearly a week.  During those colder stretches, it's nice to have something to remind you of those warmer summer days...

At my mom's office, a couple people each month are in charge of decorating the cubicle or office for those who have birthdays and there is one day a month where everyone celebrates with cake or ice cream.  December is my mother's month and she likes to make a homemade treat for everyone to enjoy because, well, that's just how we operate in this family.  This month was Giovanny's birthday and one of her favorite flavors is coconut.

Don't those layers of coconut cake drenched in tres leches, coconut pastry cream, whipped cream and shredded coconut just look delightful?  Like a little piece of heaven (even with the "welcome to the 70s" background of my Oma's old house)!

Perfect!  Such a wonderful excuse to enjoy something a bit more tropical!  So my mom baked up the cakes ahead of time and stuck them in the garage fridge.  She also made the coconut pastry cream and tres leches mixture ahead of time and stored them in the fridge as well.  The next day I assembled the trifle (with a few changes) so that it would have time to sit in the fridge and let the flavors mingle before my mom took it in to work the next morning.

I love trifles.  They are so easy and there are so many flavor possibilities.  Plus, the layers are pretty!  And have I mentioned how much I love my Pampered Chef trifle bowl? No?  Well I love it!  The pedestal is removable for easy storage and it comes with a nifty little lid for fridge storage and transportation.

Photo courtesy of Mel's Kitchen Cafe.  I wanted to show you the photo from the original maker of this recipe!

Score!  This trifle was a huge hit at my mom's office!  (Thank goodness because this was the first time we tried this recipe!)  You can find the original recipe at Mel's Kitchen Cafe.  Below is the recipe with a few changes of my own--because I'm all about the distinct layers in trifles!


Yum

I love a good dessert.  I especially love it when the dessert is simple to make yet stunning.  You know that kind of dessert, right?  The one that you can throw together for a fancy dinner party in 30 minutes or so but looks like you toiled over it for hours on end.  Yeah.  Those desserts.



We've all seen the Apple Rose Tarts photos and videos circulating around on Pinterest and Facebook.  When I saw them, what intrigued me most was how much it reminded me of Apfelstrudel--that famous Austrian dessert I've loved eating since I was a little child.  Making it was a family affair.  My Oma (grandmother) would make the dough while my mom would peel apples and I would slice them.  The dough would get stretched out over the kitchen table until it was onion skin thin then we'd brush it with melted butter, sprinkle on toasted bread crumbs and cover it all with apples, sugar, cinnamon and raisins.  The whole thing would get rolled up into a giant log, sealed and brushed with butter and stuck in the oven on a cookie sheet to bake until the dough turned golden brown and the inside was bubbling hot.  What came out of the oven was better than any apple pie I have ever tasted.  To this day, Apfel Strudel is still my favorite dessert; even my semi-homemade version with dried cranberries instead of raisins is pretty darn delicious!



But I digress.  The Apple Rose Tarts can be made with a muffin tin and a few simple ingredients:  puff pastry, apples, apricot preserves, cinnamon, lemon juice and water.



I've seen several recipes for Apple Rose Tarts, many calling for Red Delicious apples.  I've never understood why Red Delicious were called delicious.  They don't have any taste at all to me.  And making any kind of apple dessert calls for using tart apples, not sweeter ones.  My experience with making Apfel Strudel has always led me to using a mixture of Grannies and a tart red apple.  For the Apple Rose Tarts, you want that pretty red color of the skin but a tart apple to offset the sweeter instance of the apricot preserves.  I suggest using Pink Lady, Gala or Braeburn.



I also suggest using the Smucker's Low Sugar Apricot Preserves. (Update:  Smucker's stopped making their Low Sugar Apricot Preserves.  I suggest using a similar low sugar or organic apricot preserves.)  All other apricot preserves I've tasted are way too sweet and don't melt very well, and for this recipe, you need one that melts well.  If you can't find this particular brand, try to find one that does melt well and has a sweet-tart taste to it.  A dessert with way too much sweetness becomes unbalanced and heavy to the pallet.  And punch it up by adding lots of cinnamon.  I love using Saigon Cinnamon--it really kicks the cinnamon flavor up a notch!



Once you've made this dessert, you will want to make it again and again.  I know it has become one of my go-to desserts for parties.  Sometimes I just like to make them for no other reason than to eat them, no party required.  The combination of flaky puff pastry dough and the sweet-tartness of the apples and apricot preserves is delightful.  They are best warm out of the oven and you can even sprinkle them with powdered sugar or serve it a'la mode if you like. I've even placed a few cranberries in the center of the rose for added tartness and to give the appearance of "flower center."



For those that need a visual, here is a great video tutorial of making Apple Rose Tarts on YouTube.