Fever Dream Cinnamon Rolls & Cauliflower Cheese
I spent a good portion of Sunday afternoon amusing my inner 5-year old with the grown-up version of a Play Doh Funny Pumper. The toy in question is a hand-cranked version of a noodle press that I bought a couple years ago. I got this idea for creating a revamped cinnamon roll — making the cinnamon filling spicy hot like an Atomic Fireball candy and topping it with a pitted Bing cherry. I also wanted to change the structure from the typical spiral to something a bit more vertical, like a popover. Hence, I broke out the Funny Pumper and made a batch of the dough for cinnamon buns.
Can you picture it? A golden, tall pastry that rises high in the oven with a crusty peak burst open, with a scarlet cherry perched in the fissure. You tear off a piece of the crown, revealing the tender white bun and a gooey, spicy vortex. If you really sharpen the focus on your mind’s Magnavox, you might even be able to smell it. If you imagined this straight out of the oven, there might even be a ghostly finger of steam emanating from the roll, carrying with it a peppery blast of cinnamon and cayenne blended with gentler notes of toasty bread and maybe just a flute toot of cherry and almond. If you could only muster a picture of this sublime creation behind the glass in a pastry case at a bakery, please rewind and try again.
And the taste? Do you really need to ask? If you’ve ever eaten a cinnamon roll, you’re already halfway there. But imagine that the cinnamon has a spicy component that goes beyond simply spicy into the Scoville units of actual spice heat. Not crazy heat, but just enough cayenne to make that high note of the cinnamon sizzle. And then, the cherry. For me, the cherry is a bonus, but it’s also a visual clue that this pastry idea has roots in the Atomic Fireball. If Fireballs weren’t literally a jawbreaker, I’d top this little devil with ’em!
The only hazy part of this theoretical culinary equation and conceptual art piece is the glaze. I’ll fess up: I’m not a fan of the cream cheese sloppy-jalopy mess that suffocates most cinnamon rolls. It gives me the same queasy feeling as when I watch videos of people schmearing Nutella on baked goods or when I see millenials dipping perfectly good slices of pizza in ranch dressing. It’s lazy and childish. At some point in the journey from childhood to adulthood, you stop drowning everything in ketchup. Fight me.
But there might be just enough room in this dream dessert for a drizzle of white chocolate.
Noodle Extroodle?
The dough didn’t behave quite like I imagined in the first test batch. When I loaded the barrel of the extruder with the dough, I used the fattest die for thick Asian noodles and squeezed about 90g of the dough into the cups of a cupcake pan and pushed the cinnamon filling into the top along with a thawed cherry. Unfortunately, the vertical strands of the dough stuck together, and it didn’t allow the filling to penetrate even halfway to the bottom. The taste was great and the textures were close to what I’d been dreaming about. However, it didn’t have the heat I wanted. More cayenne next time.
The most interesting parts of this initial experiment was the bottom of the bun looked like it was tiled (see photos) and the tops where I cut the noodles from the gun were all tapered. When baked, it literally looked like a pastry chrysanthemum. The tops looked so freaking cool, it instantly gave me an idea for amazing looking dinner rolls for Thanksgiving.
As for the fever dream cinnamon roll, I’m going to retire the Funny Pumper and get out the tortilla press and popover pan tomorrow. I WILL make this a reality if my name isn’t Uncle Biscuit, dadgummit.
If it cheeses, it pleases
After messing around with the cinnamon rolls for a couple hours, I realized that I’d better get some dinner started. I poked around in the fridge to see which of my ingredients was in need of attention in the hospice drawer. The heads of cauliflower were looking particularly ignored. When and why did I buy two heads of cauliflower? I swear I’m shopping on autopilot sometimes. Better use ’em or lose ’em. Digging toward the back of a shelf, I saw the last cup of crumbled feta in a container. I jumped into my recipe database and, sure enough, found a recipe that incorporated both of these ingredients, called Cauliflower Cheese. It’s really a gratin, but anything with Cheese in the title will get a lot more love. Maybe if you make it this week, you’ll get a little more love yourself.
Cauliflower Cheese
2 (1½-pound) heads cauliflower
3 Tbsp butter, plus more for buttering the pan
3 Tbsp all purpose flour
2 cups whole milk or half-and-half
pinch of grated nutmeg
pinch of ground cayenne or smoked paprika (I used both)
1 cup grated sharp Cheddar (3oz)
1 cup grated provolone or Asiago cheese (3 oz)
1 cup crumbled feta (4 oz)
½ tsp cumin, caraway or fennel seed (optional — I skipped these)
Salt and black pepper
Cut cauliflower into large florets, cook in boiling water for 3 minutes. Remove them to a baking sheet and spread them out to cool.
Melt 3 tablespoons butter in a saucepan over medium-high. Add flour and let mixture cook for a minute without browning.
Whisk in milk ½ cup at a time, simmering between additions, until all milk is used. Whisk well, simmer over low heat for about 5 minutes. Season with salt, pepper, a little nutmeg and a speck of cayenne/smoked paprika. Keep warm.
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Butter a 9 x 13-inch baking dish and place steamed cauliflower side by side. Stir Cheddar into sauce and spoon sauce evenly over cauliflower. Sprinkle with grated provolone and feta. (Alternatively, if using florets, arrange in a single layer in the baking dish.) Sprinkle with cumin seeds, if using.
Bake uncovered for about 40 minutes, until browned. Serve directly from the baking dish.
Rich Swanson is a local cook who has had numerous wins in nationally sponsored recipe contests. He is also the layout specialist here at The Day.
Comments? Questions? Suggestions? Rich Swanson can be reached at TheSurlyTable@gmail.com.
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