Cinnamon Rolls

I decided to give baking with yeast another chance after I avoided it for a long time due to a failed attempt caused by my lack of patience. Once I started looking into recipes, I quickly found out that contrary to popular belief, cinnamon rolls are actually pretty easy to bake and require few ingredients. This recipe yields 12-15 cinnamon rolls.

Ingredients: 

Dough:

•  3 cups flour
• 3 tbsps sugar
• 1 pack yeast
• a pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 3 tbsps butter
• 1 egg

Filling:

• 3 tbsps cinnamon
• 3 tbsps butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar

Icing:

• 3 tbsps butter
• 1 tsp vanilla sugar or vanilla aroma
• 1 cup confectioner's sugar
• 2 tbsps milk

Dissolve the yeast in warm water (not too hot!) and let it sit for a bit. Mix the dry ingredients. Add the butter, milk, egg and yeast to the mix and knead the dough until it has an even texture. Let it sit for 1 to 1.5 hours to rise. Preheat the oven to 160°C (fan oven). Roll the dough into a roughly rectangular shape.

Mix the ingredients for the filling and spread it on the dough. 

Start rolling the dough from the longer edge inwards so that the filling is on the inside. Then cut it into evenly sized pieces. Place the rolls into a greased oven form (I used a lasagna form).

Bake for approximately 25 minutes.

Seperate the individual rolls and let them cool.

For the icing, sift the confectioner's sugar and mix it with vanilla sugar, butter and milk. Spread it over your cooled off cinnamon rolls.

Key Lime Pie

 

I feel like this pie is not particularly well-known outside of the US, but my roommate asked for this for her birthday so I happily obliged. :) As the name suggests, the most important ingredient are limes and I took the liberty to switch the recipe up a little by using Leibniz cookies instead of the traditionally used Graham crackers (mostly because they are much easier to come by in Germany).

Ingredients:

Crust:

• 1 1/2 cup Leibniz cookies (or any alternative available in your country)
• 2 tbsps sugar
• 5 tbsps butter

Cream:

• 1 tin condensed milk
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 lime
• 3/4 cups lime juice
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• vanilla sugar or 1 tsp of vanilla aroma

Decoration:

•  4 limes
• 1 cup whipped cream
• 1 tbsp confectioner's sugar

Preheat the oven to 160 °C (fan oven). Break the cookies into crumbs and mix with sugar and butter. Line a tarte form with butter and evenly spread the dough throughout the form.

Bake for 15 minutes to 20 minutes.

Let the pie crust cool off before proceeding. Squeeze out the lime and mix all ingredients for the cream (I like to use at least one real lime for the cream for authenticity's sake). Pour the cream into the pie crust.

Bake for approximately 15 minutes.

Either keep the pie refrigerated for several hours or freeze it so that the cream hardens. Whip the cream and add some confectioner's sugar. Grate the limes for lime zest. Pipe the cream onto the pie and garnish with lime zest.