Notes: 100% Whole Wheat Pancakes

6 September 2015

Prep

• The pancake recipe is from the July/August 2015 Cook's Illustrated.
• The pancakes were created quickly: whisk together the dry ingredients, whisk together the wet ingredients, add the wet to the dry and whisk some more. Unlike pancakes made with white flour, you cannot over mix these.
• The pancakes were cooked on a griddle with the stove set to medium (5).
• The scrambled eggs were made with 4 large eggs, 2 tablespoons milk, a pinch of salt, and a pinch of pepper. These were beaten lightly with a fork then cooked over medium-low heat (setting 4 on our stove) with some butter in a nonstick pan.
• Jimmy Dean frozen pre-cooked sausages were reheated in the microwave to cut down on the number of dirty pans. Breakfast for dinner always makes for a lot of dirty pans. 
• A mimosa is equal parts orange juice and champagne.
   

Eat

• Menu: pancakes, sausage, scrambled eggs, mimosa 
• The pancakes were very good. They were light and full of flavor which went very well with maple syrup (my topping); Diane topped hers with raspberry jam.
• Some of the pancakes were under cooked so there was some uncooked flour flavor.

Eat leftovers

• The leftover pancakes were frozen in individual zip-loc bags and reheated in the microwave. They were OK, but were heavier than when fresh having lost some of their fluffiness. Just add extra syrup and they're fine.

Notes: Easy Sandwich Bread

3 September 2015

Prep

• I have posted twice about making sandwich bread (a white loaf using a King Arthur recipe and a whole wheat loaf with a recipe from America's Test Kitchen) but not with this recipe which was published last year in Cook's Illustrated as "Easy Sandwich Bread".
• The recipe boasted a preparation time of "less than 2 hours". It took me right around two hours, excluding cooling, most of this time is hands off as the dough rises and bakes. That's pretty quick for homemade bread.
• What makes it "easy"? No kneading or shaping by hand and fast rising so it is done more quickly than most homemade breads.
• The recipe refers to "pouring" the dough into the loaf pan. My dough was not quite so pourable, though it was certainly too wet to shape and it was easy to "pour" from the mixing bowl into the loaf pan.
• Lacking the preservatives of commercial bread, and having been brushed with butter, I am storing the loaf in the refrigerator. It will be more convenient to use and I hope will not develop mold as quickly as it might at room temperature.

Eat

• First test: the same day as baking we made brisket sandwiches with this bread. The slices were about ¾″ thick, made with our fiddle bow bread knife. Even with tomato, lettuce, and condiments, the fresh bread held up very well. The crumb is uniform and soft but with enough structure to hold up to these sandwiches. The crust for the fresh bread was nice and crisp. The bread has a good flavor provided by the small amount of whole wheat flour and honey in the recipe.
• Second test: For lunch the next day I made grilled PB&J. (My mom would make these for me when she served grilled cheese, which I did not like, and I still enjoy them.) The outside toasted up nicely, the thick slices held up well to the melted peanut butter and jelly, and the toasting brought out the bread's flavor.
• Third test: Toast with butter and jam for breakfast. The bread took a little longer to toast than supermarket bread, less time than English muffins. But it toasted up nicely, crispy with good flavor.

All mixing/kneading is done with the paddle. The dough rises for 20 minutes in the mixing bowl before some salt is added.

Ready for the second rise, also about 20 minutes, in the loaf pan.

Notes: T-bone steak

30 August 2015

Prep

• Serious Eats (an on-line cooking resource) published an article on The Four High End Steaks You Should Know: rib eye, strip, tenderloin, and t-bone.
• Doing some reading, t-bone is harder to cook than the others because of the bone, odd shape, and having two different muscles, which have different characteristics, in the steak. Pan searing is discouraged and grilling or broiling are recommended.
• Our steak is even more challenging as it is a thin supermarket cut, easily overcooked before a good crust can develop. Furthermore, it was frozen in its original package then thawed at room temperature.
• Out steak weighed 0.84 pounds and was ¾″ thick at its thickest.
• After thawing on the kitchen counter, the steak was patted dry with paper towels then seasoned with kosher salt and black pepper.  The grill was preheated, then two of the three burners were turned to low. The steak was placed so the thinner side was closets to the cooler burners.
• I guessed 3 minutes a side based on recommendations in several recipes I reviewed. After cooking for this long the temperature was 100°; another 2 minutes brought the temperature up to 130°, medium-rare, for the thickest part.

Eat

• Menu: Steak, fresh sweet corn, boiled red potatoes, Vella Merlot.
• The meat was good if a tad over seasoned (sigh). It was not overcooked, as I had feared it would be as it is a thin steak. It was reasonably tender though perhaps a little mushy, probably from having been frozen.
• As suspected, the steak did not develop a good crust. By the time the middle was done the outside was only lightly browned.

Notes: Barbecued Beef Brisket and Sourdough No-knead Bread

23 August 2015

Prep

• I have made and written about barbecued brisket and sourdough no-knead bread each several times before.
• Bread
• With an eye towards modifying this recipe by adding more starter, here are the ingredients I used
• 15 ounces bread flour
• ¼ teaspoon instant yeast
• 1½ teaspoons table salt
• 5 fluid ounces room room temperature water
• 2 fluid ounces sourdough starter
• 3 fluid ounces lager
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar
• I didn't mean to do an experiment with the recipe today but I did by mistake by leaving out the salt.  :-(  Salt is important to bread.
• The dough was wetter than usual, I had to add a lot of flour while kneading it so that I could handle it, suggesting that leaving out the salt was not my only mistake.
•  Brisket
• I bought a relatively small brisket, 3 pounds, the recipe is for a 5 to 6 pound brisket. It had a nice fat cap.
• Rather than use the smoking directions from the brisket recipe, I followed those in the ATK pulled pork recipe. I used 4 cups of wood chips, 2 dry and 2 soaked, a mixture of apple and hickory. (Not for any culinary reasons but because the bag of apple chips is about gone so I bought a new bag of hickory chips.)
• A disposable aluminum pan with water was placed under the beef. Supposedly the dampness helps the meat absorb the smoke.
• I smoked the brisket for 2 hours (the recipe called for 3) with the primary burner on high and the other two burners off. This maintained a grill temperature of about 220°. The recipe did not specify a temperature.
• The temperature of the roast was around 135° when it came from the grill. It took about 3 hours in the oven to reach the final temperature of 190°. It seemed to get stuck on 176° for a long time before finally continuing its rise in temperature. 

Eat

• Menu: barbecued beef brisket, sourdough bread, crudité (carrots and celery), Quick Boston beans, Vella Merlot
• What a difference a little salt makes! The bread was bad. The stickiness of the dough suggests I made at least one other mistake, but forgetting the salt was a biggie. The sourness from the starter came through but otherwise the bread was bland. The texture was off, too, it didn't rise well after being formed into a loaf so the crumb was dense. 
• The beef was good, nice and tender, though over seasoned (Will I ever learn?) and the fat cap added a lot of flavor.  Diane thought the combination of salt-less bread with salty meat worked well. 
• The bread was tolerable given enough beef or bean juice or butter. 

Eat leftovers

• tbd

Notes and recipe: Shortcake

 26 July 2015

 Prep

• A video recipe from Chef John at Food Wishes.
• The video recipe does not include instructions, so I cobbled some together below.
• One of the appealing attributes of this recipe is how easy it is. I don't know if this is normal for shortcake, but the butter is melted and then just stirred into the dry ingredients.
• The video says the dough should be patted out to 1-inch thickness, but it didn't look that think. I patted it out to an 8x5 rectangle which was a little less than an inch thick. 
• I forgot to brush on the cream and sugar so it didn't brown as well, though it did rise quite a bit while baking.

 Eat

• The shortbread was tough and heavy ... perhaps overworked and/or overbaked. Maybe because it didn't have the cream and sugar on the top it browned more slowly than it would have otherwise.
• I'll need to make this again and try some other shortbread recipes. My mom served strawberries with biscuits and Diane's mom served them with angel food cake, so while this is more biscuit-like than cake-like, it is a departure from both of our family traditions.

Eat leftover

• I warmed the shortcake in the microwave the next evening. I enjoyed the shortcake better this way than room temperature as it was served the first evening.

Recipe
Makes 6 Large or 8 Normal Strawberry Shortcakes:

2 cups self rising flour (I used2 cups of all-purpose flour,  1 tablespoon baking powder, and 1 teaspoon table salt)
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup heavy cream
½ cup milk
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter

1. Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat and continue heating until golden brown. Set aside.
2. Heat oven to 425° with a rack in the middle position.
3. Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a small bowl.
4. Add milk, heavy cream, and melted butter and stir with a spoon until just combined.
5. Transfer the dough to a floured surface and press it into a 1-inch thick rectangle.
6. Cut it into 6 or 8 evenly sized pieces.
7. Transfer to a baking sheet that is lined with parchment paper or a silpat.
8. Brush the tops with heavy cream and sprinkle with granulated sugar
9. Bake until browned, 15-18 minutes

Notes: Broiled Pork Tenderloin with Sun-dried Tomato and Basil Salsa

 26 July 2015

Prep

•  Recipes from the September/October Cook's Illustrated magazine
• Broiled Pork Tenderloin for Two
• Sun-dried Tomato and Basil Salsa for Two
• This was a relatively quick Sunday dinner, it took about an hour to prepare everything.
• The recipe for the pork was very straightforward and easy. The "secret" was the method they developed to provide consistent results no matter how your broiler works. This included preheating the oven to 325°, to preheat the broiler elements, before turning on the broiler.
• I used the Hi setting for our broiler, which has two settings (Hi and Lo).
• After broiling for 5 min the tenderloin was turned over and broiled for 10 minutes (the recipe gives 8 to 14 minutes for this step) to get to an internal temperature of 125°-130°.
• I started the potatoes and asparagus around the same time as the pork.
• The salsa was easily made, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh basil, fresh parsley, extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper ... just chop and stir together.

Eat

• The pork tenderloin was served with sun-dried tomato and basil salsa, boiled red potatoes, grilled asparagus, Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc from Lone Goat Vineyard ... this is the vineyard in Caleb's back yard in New Zealand. It's good wine.
• Not only was this dinner easy to make, but the pork was tender and moist and the salsa was good and went well with the pork.
• I started the asparagus too soon, it took only about 10 minutes to grill.

Eat leftovers 

• We had the leftover pork with three other "p" foods: potatoes, peas, and Pinot Grigio. The meat was reheated in the microwave with a little water. It was OK, not too tough or too dry, though not as juicy as when fresh.

Notes: Smoky Pulled Pork

 12 July 2015

 

  Prep

• I made this last August and wrote about it in a blog post describing the smoking process in more detail.
• I started around 2 PM except for applying a dry rub to the meat the previous evening.
• I bought "Pork shoulder blade roast boneless", 4.44lbs, at the supermarket. The recipe is for a 5 lb roast, trimmed. I didn't trim it but I did note a lot of fat while applying the dry rub.
• The instructions call for 2 cups of wood chips that are soaked and 2 cups that are dry. In the recipe notes it recommends weighing the chips. Doing this, I found the volume is more like 4 cups rather than 2 to get 4.75 oz.
• Instead of two aluminum pie plates with 3 cups water each, I used one aluminum roasting pan, which fit perfectly on one side of our grill, with 4 cups water. I should have added more water as around 6 PM it dried out and I needed to refill it.
• To maintain a temperature of 300°: left burner on high, middle burner on high, right burner off ... with this setup the temperature was a steady 260° using a thermometer at the level of the meat (i.e. I ignored the built-in thermometer in the lid of the grill).
• In the last half hour of the initial smoking the propane ran out; fortunately we had a full tank standing by. The new tank generated more heat than the old one. It took some fiddling with the settings, but High - Low - Off led to a temperature around 300°, it fluctuated between 290° and 310°.
• I removed the meat from grill at 8 PM, the internal temperature was a little under the recommended 200°.
• I halved the recipe for the sauce and then halved again the amount of red pepper flakes.

Eat

• The pork was served on sesame seed dinner rolls with supermarket "summer slaw", white corn, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and Vella Cabernet Sauvignon.
• The sauce was not at all spicy, its primary flavor was the vinegar which was its main ingredient.
• Much of the meat was tender but some was a little dry and tough. Is this because it is a blade cut and includes some leaner muscles?
• All in all, though, it is good. The quantity is not overwhelming, especially since we plan to serve some to company one day this week. 
• I should have started earlier than 2 PM.
• I like this pulled pork with its North Carolina style vinegar sauce. However, I think I would like it better with a smoky, sweet Kansas City style tomato sauce.

Eat leftovers

• The time and effort and investment in this dish are not wasted as it keeps very well, both refrigerated or even longer in the freezer. To serve it just needs to be reheated in the microwave oven.

Notes: Mini Meatloaves

7 June 2015

Prep

• Anticipating a long day of hiking, I chose a quick meal for this Sunday dinner. We have had mini meatloaves before. The recipe is from the America's Test Kitchen Quick Family Cookbook.
• Diane thought the glaze (ketchup + brown sugar + vinegar) was too sweet last time (I know because I wrote that in my blog post ) so I halved the sugar.
• I used 100% ground beef, no pork or veal or meat loaf mix. I have looked at the supermarket for meat loaf mix but I've never seen it or ground veal. There is ground pork but only in 1-pound packages; I didn't want to have any left over and I didn't want my meat mixture to be 75% pork.
• Dinner was ready about 70 minutes after I started preparations.

Eat

• The meatloaf was served with peas & baby onions, mashed potatoes (how classic), Vella Merlot, and water.
• Diane grew up eating meat loaf with no glaze (my mom often glazed meat loaf with ketchup) but she said this glaze was OK, not too sweet and not too sour from the vinegar and ketchup.   
• The meat loaf was good, juicy, tender and flavored nicely.
• These little meat loaves are a perfect size for us, one mini loaf per meal is just right, and they store well in the refrigerator and the freezer. 

Notes: Rhode Island Dynamites

1 June 2015

Prep

• I have never heard of this sandwich but came across it at cookscountry.com. It's like sloppy joe but with different seasonings.
• The original recipe called for 2 pounds of ground beef and made 10 servings when served on torpedo rolls. I halved the recipe which would provide plenty of meals for the two of us, particularly when served on slider buns.
• Because I halved the recipe I used a 4-quart sauce pan instead of a Dutch oven.
• I made this on Saturday so we could eat it on Sunday after a day at the ball park.
• I was afraid of the spiciness of the recipe so modified it, as suggested in the recipe notes. I used jarred sweet cherry peppers instead of jarred hot cherry peppers and I reduced the red pepper flakes, reduced them all the way to zero. So my version is probably not very explosive.

Eat

• I wasn't hungry after getting back from the ball park on Sunday (where I had a fried chicken sandwich and a lot of peanuts) so we didn't eat this until Monday.
• Served with white corn, potato chips, Bubbies bread and butter pickles, and lemonade or Vella Delicious Red so a very quick meal to put together, as desired. The only "cooking" was reheating the filling in the microwave and toasting some buns.
• Without the hot pepper flakes and hot cherry peppers the sandwich was a little bland. 
• As expected, given the ingredients (which included Italian seasoning, garlic, onion, tomato sauce, and tomato paste), the sandwich had an Italian flavor.
• It took some searching at the supermarket to find the jarred sweet cherry peppers; I never did see jarred hot cherry peppers.
• The filling was nice and tender; cooked ground beef can sometimes be rubbery. The raw ground beef was mixed with a solution of 1½ tablespoons water with ½ teaspoon baking soda for 15 minutes which contributed to the pleasant texture. I might try this trick when next I make Peg's Sloppy Joe.

Notes: Tender and Juicy Slow Cooker Meatballs

25 May 2015

Prep

• Recipe from Serious Eats; preparation time about 80 minutes.
• Several changes were made to the recipe:
• I used milk instead of buttermilk for the panade, so I wouldn't have a lot of leftover buttermilk.
• By coincidence I used buttermilk sandwich bread, though I doubt that makes any difference.
• The recipe calls for 1 pound ground beef (25% fat) and 1¼ pound ground pork (25% fat). Because of what was available at the supermarket I used 1¼ pound ground beef (20% fat) and 1 pound ground pork (5 % fat)
• I used vegetable oil in place of olive oil.
• The tomatoes were whole peeled plum tomatoes. The recipe said these should be crushed by hand. I imagined using my hands to squeeze the tomatoes one by one but instead I added them to the Dutch oven and crushed them with a potato masher.
• The recipe did not specify what to do with the juice from the tomatoes. I was leaning towards discarding it. Finding a comment on the recipe web page saying the sauce was thin clinched it for me and I drained the tomatoes before using them.
• The ingredient list included a sprig of basil. Not only do I not know how much is in a "sprig" but the instructions didn't say what to do with the basil. I skipped the basil.
• I used a #24 disher (almost 3 tablespoons) to make 20 meatballs. There was still meat left over which I cooked in some oil and added to the sauce in the crock pot.
• I made a sourdough version of almost no-knead bread. I replaced ¼-cup of water with ¼-cup of sourdough starter. I made no other changes to the recipe, including the yeast, beer, and vinegar.
• Served with salad (made with Earthbound Farms Spring Mix, tomato, peanuts, and dressing) and Chianti.

Eat

• The bread was very good: good texture, good crust, good flavor. 
• The sauce was runny and didn't adhere to the pasta. Since the juice that I drained was thick, perhaps it should have been included?
• I would omit the red pepper flakes, not because they made the sauce too spicy but because the flavor is so strong it obscures the other flavors.
• The meat balls were tender and flavorful. I am glad I took the time to brown them under the broiler as I am not sure they would have cooked through with 30 minutes in the sauce.
• We had two meatballs each so the recipe should make 10 servings. We'll see how the sauce holds up.

Eat leftovers

• I liked this much more as leftovers. The heat from the red pepper flakes had dissipated so the other flavors shone through. The sauce, however, still does not coat the pasta even after further cooking to thicken it up.
• We have had this food for dinner three times and there are two more meals stored in the freezer.

Notes: Hawaiian French Toast

17 May 2015

Prep

• A simple dinner after a long hike.
• This recipe popped up on Facebook recently so I thought I would try it.
• I am still looking for the best recipe/method for making french toast. I don't expect this is it, but I may learn some things. 
  
• The recipe uses King's Hawaiian bread. While the recipe calls for a round loaf we used a sandwich loaf. The slices were ¾-inches thick instead of 1-inch as in the recipe, but more uniform than I could cut them by hand.
• Rather than leave the bread out to get dry as in the recipe, I dried it out in the oven. I wasn't sure how many slices of toast the recipe would make, so I filled a rimmed baking sheet which was 8 slices. They were baked at 225° for 30 minutes, turning them over half way.
• Many years ago we used to eat King's Hawaiian Bread and we liked it, but we haven't had it for some time. I don't know exactly what it is but it would seem to be an enriched, sweetened bread. Since brioche is good for french toast, this should do well.
• I omitted the nutmeg (Diane doesn't like it).
• The bacon was cooked in water, initially, which keeps it tender and meatier.
• To go with the french toast we had bacon, fresh fruit salad (strawberry, pineapple, banana, blueberry, raspberry, orange), and mimosas.

Eat

• The french toast was good, not great. It was pretty sweet with ¼-cup sugar in the the batter plus maple syrup or jam topping.
• It had an odd texture in the center, kind of chewy rather than custardy. The bread is a little thin for french toast and it would be interesting to taste a slightly thicker version.
• There was only a little batter left over, maybe enough for one more slice, but 8 is a good number: 4 for dinner and 4 for leftovers.

Eat leftover

• The leftover slices of french toast were cooled then placed in individual sandwich bags and frozen.
• For breakfast: one slice is removed from the freezer and heated in the toaster on "frozen" mode and a setting of 6.  It makes for a good, quick breakfast with some juice and tea.

Notes: Cowboy Pie

May 10, 2015: Mother's Day

Prep

• Mom didn't select this meal, but after a special Mother's Day breakfast out, I wanted something simple and quick to make but flavorful
• The recipe is from The America's Test Kitchen Quick Family Cookbook, p. 109
• Total time to prepare was about an hour
• You might think of this as a big beef pot pie
• The recipe uses many prepared ingredients: deli roast beef, canned black beans, frozen corn, refrigerator pie dough, bottled barbecue sauce
• The fresh vegetables (onion, red bell pepper, garlic) are cooked in the microwave before being added to the other ingredients for baking
• I used Dinosaur Bar-B-Que Sauce which is less sweet than my usual Red Bull
• I had the roast beef sliced to a medium thickness and I bought a little extra to have in sandwiches
• The cookbook has a cow girl pie variation that is made with chicken instead of beef

Eat

• The Cowboy Pie was just OK, nothing great
• The sauce was a little runny, maybe the Dinosaur sauce is thinner than other bottled barbecue sauces?
• It was a little spicy from the chili powder
• The pie was served with a fresh fruit salad including pineapple, black berries, apple, grapes, strawberries; we drank Pinot Noir with this dinner
   

Eat as leftovers

• TBD

 

Notes: Honey Fried Chicken and Northern Corn Bread

3 May 2015

Prep

• I have made the Honey Fried Chicken before and have fond memories of it.
• My Cook's Illustrated Baking Book has three recipes for corn bread: southern style, northern style, and all-purpose. I meant to make the all-purpose but didn't look at the right recipe when making the shopping list, so northern style it is.
• Diane prefers sweet, northern-style corn bread while I am partial to the southern savory style, thus the desire to try the all-purpose recipe.
• The recipe calls for a 9-inch baking dish, the closest we have is an 8-inch Corning ware; it will have to do.
• I used buttermilk baking mix instead of buying buttermilk.
• For corn meal I used Bob's Red Mill Stone Ground Corn Meal, medium grind.
• I made the corn bread first then proceeded with the chicken and the first step, cutting up the whole chicken. Since the chicken has to brine for 30 minutes, I should have started with the chicken instead of the corn bread. 
• I bought a whole 5-pound chicken (the smallest I found at the supermarket) and broke it down into 8 pieces: 2 drum sticks, 2 thighs, 4 half split breasts, all bone-in and skin-on.
• I bought a Kale Waldorf salad at the supermarket.
• The glaze is made from honey and Sriracha.
• The oil seemed to stay at the right temperature, 350°, with a burner setting around 6. When I put in the chicken I turned it up to 10 which did a good job keeping the temperature of the oil above 325°. 
• I did not take the temperature of the chicken to determine when it was done. That would have been difficult with my only instant-read thermometer measuring the temperature of the oil. Instead I relied on the times given in the recipe.
• I was in the kitchen for a little over two hours making dinner.
• I filled up the dishwasher with bowls, it seemed, when all was done, and used a lot of corn starch.

Eat

• The chicken came out very nice, though it didn't have the rich golden color of, say, KFC. It was done all the way to the bone, crispy, tender, and moist.
• The glaze was good, not at all spicy or overly sweet. It might have been even better if it were a little spicier.
• The salad was nothing special, perhaps more interesting than cole slaw but not much.
• The corn bread was disappointing. It was cold by the time it was served and not done in the middle. I should probably invest in a new 9-inch baking dish.
• I thought the texture was good using the medium grind corn meal.
• Served with Pinot Grigio. 

Eat as leftovers 

• I will be eating the corn bread for breakfast. When having it again I thought the texture a bit coarse.
• Some of the middle pieces of the corn bread I discarded, just not cooked enough.
• The chicken was simply warmed in the microwave. The skin was no longer crispy but the chicken was still good. We saved some of the honey/Sriracha glaze and added that, too, which was good.

Homemade Cinnamon Rolls

January 1, 2015

Recipe

Overnight Cinnamon Rolls from Good Eats

---

Our family tradition for Christmas breakfast is cinnamon rolls. We have been using the store-bought rolls that come in a tube: you twist it open on Christmas morning, bake the rolls, add the icing, and you get fresh, warm rolls with a minimum of fuss. However, I've always wanted to make rolls from scratch but I didn't know how to prepare good cinnamon rolls, in a short time, until now.

A week or so before Christmas, Alton Brown published a link to his recipe for Overnight Cinnamon Rolls Facebook. Most of the work is done the previous evening: dough is made, it rises, it is rolled out, filled, rolled up, and cut into rolls. These are kept in the refrigerator overnight. The following morning the rolls rise for half an hour, bake for half an hour, are iced, and eaten fresh and warm from the oven. It takes a little more time than the convenient place-and-bake rolls, but not too long and the wait is worthwhile for good, homemade rolls.

I made these rolls for Christmas 2014 and found that we liked them. Cinnamon rolls are not health food, not everyday fare, but often they are too sweet or too rich or too big or too bland. These rolls suffer none of these drawbacks. They have a great texture and flavor, especially when fresh, without being too sweet or too rich. As a bonus, they are good leftover, too, just needing to be warmed in the microwave oven. To verify that we really do like them we had them New Year's morning, too, and they were even better.