Biscuits for One (Or Two!) + Monkey Bread

Google "monkey bread single serve from scratch" and all you get are pages and pages (and pages) of recipes with packaged, store-bought dough.

Huh?

How is that from scratch?

I was raised with a mom who just pulled stuff out of a hat. Or, her brain. She just knew what would go together, what tasted good, and how to make it.

The opposite of me.

So tonight the church had a 25th anniversary dinner and so she and Dad went with my two sisters went and I made apple crisp for people who stayed at home.

Well, one thing I don't like is apple crisp. It's "eh" for me.

So Mom said I could eat anything I wanted, so I decided to get a little crazy and go for something pretty ambitious (for me). Monkey bread.

We have never carried store-bought dough, ever, I don't think, because Mom doesn't like the taste (I've never had it, so I don't know what it tastes like).

But that meant I was sunk. Without store-bought stuff or bread, how could I make the recipe?

Simply put: make the dough. Google "biscuits for one" and there you go.

Here's what I did. It takes, like, twenty minutes. But it's supposed to take seventeen. Oh well, words can be deceiving.

For the biscuits:
followed the recipe. When she says it should resemble course sand, don't believe her. It resembles flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar with some butter chunks that aren't mixing in well. But keep at it until you can't tell what's butter. Or just play by ear. You'll be fine.

And then, if you're going to just make biscuits, do it now. And enjoy, because it goes really well with tea, which is why I added the "tea" label. Just because.

If you're not making biscuits, get a custard cup and put some dough in it (dough is a little too wet for monkey bread), and add two spoons of flour and mix until, when you rip open the dough, it isn't wet and sticky. It should be a little bit stickier than pizza dough.

Then melt 1 Tbsp butter and mix 2 Tbsp sugar and 1/2 tsp cinnamon. Then roll the pizza-dough-biscuit-dough (PDBD) in the melted butter, until it's covered, and then plop it in the cinnamon-sugar-mix until it's well-coated.

If you run out of PDBD, and you don't want to go through the whole dough-"thickening" process a-gain (it's a huge pain), just get some wet dough, roll in butter and cinnamon sugar and there you go. It will be more like a cinnamon-sugar-biscuit (with the deceiving appearance of a sugar cookie), and become flat because the extra flour will stabilize it and keep it upright and more monkey-bread-like. So. That's the monkey bread. Bake it with the biscuits, if you're doing both (like me), at the same temp (400 degrees F), for the same time (10-12m...I did 11m).

And that's it.

Caramel Milk Tea | gugutree

Admit it.

We've all, at one time or other, had too many teabags on our hands.

And for me, they're normally Lipton tea bags.

See, we make delicious sweet tea and we're not even Southern but it means we're always well-stocked with lots and lots of Lipton's black tea teabags.

Sometimes too well-stocked.

But in the winter, you know that the last thing you're going to want is iced, sweet tea. You know you don't want warm sweet tea, heavens no! You're going to want something warm, sweet, creamy, and delicious.

Good thing is, I've got just the thing!

Ingredients

• 1 Lipton tea bag, black tea
• 1 spoonful white sugar
• 1 spoonful light brown sugar
• about 1/4 cup milk
• about 1/8 cup cream
• 1-2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions

1. Steep tea bag 3 min
2. While tea is steeping, in a small pot on stove, mix in
   
   1. vanilla
   2. brown sugar
   3. white sugar
   4. milk
   5. cream
   in that order. Vanilla tends to evaporate very quickly, so you'll need to have the brown sugar ready when you've put in the vanilla. Two teaspoons won't evaporate as quickly as one, and besides, it's yummier that way than with just one. Just trust me.
3. Let mixture in pot simmer and get hot, while on low.
4. Once hot, pour in tea, sipping every couple pours to make sure you like it so far and that it's not too Lipton-tea-y. 
5. Once poured, stir vigorously, allowing tea to be distributed throughout the whole mixture.
6. Pour into mug, and, for a fancier addition, top with whipped cream and salted caramel sauce on the top of the whipped cream. 
7. Serve, and

P.S. to enjoy even more, turn on some soft music, get in some cozy pajamas, get in bed or in front of the fire with your favorite, exciting book. My suggestion is "The Scarlet Pimpernel" -- excitement guaranteed! Also terrific characters *wink wink*. Also be prepared to really like this tea. Enjoy!

P.P.S. hopefully I'll be able to change the blurry photo for something a little more "in focus" to what I had in mind...pun intended. ;)

Lipton Latte

Today I made tea.

Which isn't unusual, I make tea all the time.

But I wanted a different sort of tea and I found one!

I don't remember what I looked up on Google but I had told someone that I would make them tea that was different and had a "secret ingredient". It was vanilla. That was what I was planning on. What I wasn't planning on was making something like this!

Though let me just tell you right now so you won't be disappointed later on: this is like every normal tea except it has a different taste. But just barely. It's good though, try it, see how you like it.

Anyway, click here for the original. I made the "tea latte" but I'm calling it "Lipton Latte" because that sounds better. And I'm thinking of making the "milk tea the british way" because I'm curious to see how that turns out!

Here's the original recipe:

1. Add the teabag of your choice to a cup.

2. Boil water, then pour over the teabag.

3. Let the tea steep for at least 5 minutes to get the strongest flavor possible.

4. While your tea is brewing, heat a half cup of milk either by microwaving for 45 seconds (settings vary between machines) or by heating in a pan until it’s steaming.

5. Transfer the hot milk to a jug, and use a milk frother to get that extra-fluffy, foam effect. The desired amount should be about ½ inch thick on top of the milk.

6. Remove the infuser or teabag from your cup and pour in the milk.

7. Add an optional dash of honey or sugar for extra sweetness.

Here's my recipe:

Serves: 1-4

Time: 3-5 min

Ingredients

•  2 teabags (I use Lipton black tea)
• 4 spoons sugar, white
• 4-6 drops vanilla (extract, I believe...Kirkland brand)
• 1 pint water, hot (I use a little more...more like 3-4 cups)
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 dashes milk (dashes as in I poured a little bit in, two times)

Directions

1. pour hot water over tea bags, steep 3-5 min (I steeped it 3 min, because I didn't have the recipe, but someone had already thrown the tea bag away when I came back to add 2 minutes to it...too bad)
2. heat milk for 1 min in microwave, froth with milk frother, whisk, or hand mixer. Milk froth should be about 1/2 inch high. 
3. pour hot milk into tea, leaving behind froth (I didn't mean to...but I was using the thing for gravy, as seen two posts ago -- the-directions-the-way-I-did-them #6) for later.
4. put cream, sugar, and vanilla in tea. The tea should be a light tan now. If not, stir the milk in so that it is. Stir until cream and vanilla is distributed, and the sugar is dissolved.
5. spoon froth on top, sprinkling either white sugar or brown sugar on top for decoration, serve immediately and