Apple Coconut Dessert Pizza

My original plan this afternoon was to make the Apple Cookie Rolls (Elmali Kurabiye) from Binnur's Turkish Cookbook blog. I've had good luck with her recipes, such as the ramadan pide I made a few years ago. But then I discovered I was low on butter and out of lemon. Plan #2 was to make something with my Hodgson Mill whole wheat flour. The flour bag had recipes for whole wheat pumpkin muffins and whole wheat pizza crust. I decided to combine the pizza crust recipe and Binnur's apple filling to bake a dessert pizza.

These are the changes I made to Binnur's apple filling, which I used for the pizza topping:
- Used two Granny Smith apples and one red apple
- After following Binur's directions for cooking the apple filling, I removed it from the stove and temporarily set it aside in a glass bowl.
- Toasted 1 cup sweetened coconut flakes in a pan on the stove with 2 Tbsp of butter. After toasting, I poured the apple filling back into the pan and mixed it with the coconut.
- Put a handful of Ocean Spray Reduced Sugar Craisins into a cup of water and allowed them to plump.
- Broke up a couple pecan halves
- Removed the coconut-apple mix from stove. I combined that with the pecan halves and Craisins. Then I spread the apple coconut topping on the baked crust with a rubber spatula.

This is the Hodgson Mill crust recipe and the changes I made:

- Added in 1 1/2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice and 1/3 cup Nice! 100% Pure Honey for more of a dessert flavor
- Used canola oil instead of olive oil.
- Let the dough rise two times. The first rising was for one hour instead of the suggested 15 minutes. The second time, I rolled out the dough on a floured surface, placed it into a large greased and floured skillet and let the dough rise for two hours (cold weather has been messing with my baking times this week).

- Baked the dough in the skillet for 15-20 minutes at 365 degrees. 

- Removed the skillet from oven with a towel (super hot pan handle!) and flipped crust onto baking sheet. Decorated crust with Binnur's apple filling and cut into slices

I'm very pleased with how the recipe turned out. The pizza crust wasn't tough or overly thick. The apples and pumpkin pie spice gave the dessert pizza a fragrant autumn scent. I want to make this again for Thanksgiving.

Soft 100% Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls

Raise your hand if you've ever tried making wheat rolls and the recipe came out tough, bland or heavy. Yeah, that's a lot of us. But there is hope, my fellow bakers. Head over to An Oregon Cottage for her Soft 100% Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls recipe. I tried this recipe last night. Trust me, it's worth the effort. Soft wheat rolls fresh from the oven +  a bit of butter and apricot jam = perfection.

Tutti Frutti at Leopold's: Savannah, GA

Leopold's Ice Cream

212 East Broughton Street

Savannah, Georgia 31401

Phone: (912) 234-4442

For the past couple months, I had been dying to try tutti frutti ice cream. This was due to watching an Ozzie and Harriet rerun about tutti frutti. I checked my cookbooks and all over the internet for either a recipe to try or a store that carries it. I came across many people in a similar pickle, such as Trevis Rothwell; his piece about tutti frutti rang true for me. Plus that helped me narrow down what ingredients tutti frutti is really supposed to contain.

Most of the ice cream shops suggested on other sites were in the North East, which wasn't very helpful to me. Eventually Google lead me to Leopold's Ice Cream in Savannah, Georgia (You'd think I'd notice the commenter on Trevis' page suggesting Leopold's, but I didn't see that until today. Go figure). Leopold's Ice Cream is only 2 minutes from Paula Deen's Lady and Sons restaurant on West Congress Street; so don't worry if you get a little lost.

Leopold's is set up like an old fashioned ice cream parlor. You order ice cream at the front of the store and then go down to this end to pay. All the employees were helpful, friendly and knowledgeable about the menu. Even with the heavy post-Christmas traffic, the employees managed to keep the line running smoothly and quickly.

This ice cream parlour also serve sandwiches, sundaes, limeades and cupcakes. The limeade was delicious. It was sparkling water and hand squeezed limes. The employee making my limeade offered a choice of flat or sparkling water. Next time I plan to order a chicken salad sandwich and a huckleberry sundae. You can find more menu items on Leopold's full menu and their ice cream flavor list 

My picture of tutti frutti didn't come out clear enough. So here's a pic of tutti frutti and some other flavors from the Leopold's website. Leopold's tutti frutti has dried candied fruit (pineapple, red and green cherries), nuts and rum. I don't know if there was banana in the ice cream or if the flavor of the nuts made me imagine that. The ice cream is pink from strawberry coloring, although the ice cream isn't exactly strawberry flavored. It's much better than that. You'll have to taste tutti frutti to see what I mean.  If tutti frutti doesn't appeal to you, the coconut ice cream mixed with coconut flakes is your best bet. 

Side note: There is a small yellow line across the street from Leopold's, right on the corner. Don't park there. You will find a ticket on your car (even though you were only inside Leopold's a few minutes), because that is not part of the two hour parking. Oops.    

Foxy's Gourmet: Butterscotch Appetizer

Create Your Own: Butterscotch Appetizers.Appetizer Mix

Creez Vos. Caramel Ecossais Mises En Bouche. Melange A Mises En Bouche

This month's butterscotch cravings prompted me to buy package of Foxy's Gourmet Butterscotch Appetizers on Amazon. It consists of one pouch of butterscotch powder and a recipe. When I purchased the mix, I mistakenly thought mini croissants were included.

The directions said to mix the powder with 1 1/2 blocks of cream cheese (12 ounces), pipe the mix into mini croissant rolls and dip the edges with cress. I'm not planning a party this week, so wasting two packages of cream cheese on myself was out of the question. I substituted the cream cheese with one 6 ounce cup of Liberte Mediterranee Coconut Yogurt (creamy coconut yogurt with coconut puree on the bottom of the cup). The result was what I'd dub "the dough for carrot cake cookies." I topped my new treat with  Honey Maid Grahamfuls (with the filling scraped off). So good! 

I don't know how the original recipe would've turned out. But hurray for stumbling onto new recipes!

Honey Maid Grahamfuls: Banana Vanilla Creme

Last night I bought a box of Banana Vanilla Creme Honey Maid Grahamfuls at Target (Yes, that is a mouthful, isn't it ?). There are eight .88 oz cracker sleeves per box. Each Grahamful is a sandwich of two long grahams and banana vanilla creme.

The graham crackers have a crunchy, nutty, honey flavor. I noticed a  texture similar to coconut shreds for some reason (not coconut taste). There is plenty of banana creme. However, the creme is pasty, slightly grainy and feels like knockoff Oreo cream filling. It tastes and smells of banana pudding powder + powdered milk (Banana powder and milk are listed ingredients). The amount of banana flavor isn't the problem; it's this particular aroma of banana that I dislike.

I would not buy Banana Vanilla Creme Honey Maid Grahamfuls again.  I should have bought the peanut butter or the chocolate Grahamfuls instead. Although I will note the Grahamfuls did get one vote in the AMW family for "These are yummy. I don't see why you dislike them. These would make a great pie crust. Or put them in banana pudding!"

Random Craving: Chicken And Apples

The other day, I packed a Luck's Chicken and Dumplings Microwave Bowl and an Emerald Breakfast On The Go: Breakfast Blend pouch into my lunch bag for work.  The granola pouch has yogurt covered raisins, granola clusters, honey roasted peanuts, dried cranberries, apple cinnamon glazed walnuts and dried apple chips. As it got closer to lunch time, I randomly started thinking "Oh gosh, what if I mixed the granola in with the chicken and dumplings ? That sounds amazing right now." And it turned out I was right. Yum! If you're thinking "eww, granola and dumplings ?", trust me, this concoction tastes better than it sounds.