Food Blogger to Day Care Provider to Cottage Food Business AND Volunteer!

It's been quite a while since I last published a post! Life has been busy my friends!

Since I retired in 2018, I started watching my two youngest grandsons for my daughter Ashley. About 50 hours a week is dedicated to being at her house watching the boys. This arrangement is working very well for both of us. 

Before I retired

Food blogging metamorphosed into a cottage food business called SalleeB's Kitchen. Remember, happiness is homemade and I'm the happiest baking and decorating sweet treats for special occasions of all kinds.

My daughter doesn't mind me baking and decorating in her kitchen. 

Therefore, I have two totes of cake decorating equipment that stays packed up in the hatch of my Nissan Versa most of the time. I have gotten quite fast at packing additional equipment into the car on baking days! 

Last year I baked 17 dozen cupcakes, 13 dozen cookies, and 45 cakes. 

Some of you might not think this sounds like a lot, BUT that is all of the treats I care to bake and decorate! My goal has never been to run a full-time business. It has always been to supplement my income AND keep it somewhere between a hobby and a part-time pursuit. 

Remember, I am spending about 50 hours a week watching the two grands. 

The oldest started Kindergarten in August 2018 and I am using my 20 years of educational paraprofessional experience helping him complete homework, practice math facts, and read 20 to 40 minutes a day. During school breaks, I also make packets of daily review and practice work. Don't worry though, I have a lot of online learning scheduled in there too. 

As if this wasn't enough, I also help with a church program called Bible Buddies. The Bible Buddies program is once a week for students in K-4th grade and it runs from September to April. There are usually about 28-33 children enrolled in the program. My role is shadowing my older grandson and assisting his group through the three class rotations; music, bible lesson, and crafts/games. 

Are any of you other Grammys keeping up with a schedule like this? 

Be proud of yourself! For me, retirement hasn't been the end of working. It is the end of working for an employer. Now I have a monthly income, supplemental income and every federal holiday and weekend off to go and play! Yes, I am blessed. Well, friends, that catches you up on what I have been doing. I am going to post some baking pictures for you to drool over. I wish you could taste them too!

 

 

 

 

 

SalleeB's Kitchen - Amish Ham Casserole

I love any dish that contains potatoes, ham, eggs, and cheese.
When I found this make and bake casserole recipe, I was thrilled to try a new recipe using four ingredients that I LOVE. Of course, I had to give it my own twist - cream cheese. 

Who doesn't like cream cheese? 
The addition of cream cheese makes this an indulgent and hearty version of a crust less breakfast pie that is not low calorie, but is low in carbs. It is perfectly suitable for breakfast or supper. 

I want to repeat what I already said though - This is not a low calorie dish.
However, I am tracking carbs AND staying below 2000 calories a day. I save calories to enable a calorie splurge that satisfies my craving for ham and potatoes surrounded by luscious, cheesy eggs without having them fried in oil, or butter. Baked is better, don't you agree?

An 8"x1" round cake pan yields four wedges of  hammy, cheesy goodness with 10.5 carbs and 387 calories a wedge.

Remember, I said it was low carb and the entire pan only has 42 grams of carbs! 

Two Tips to Use With This Recipe 

1. Have a left over baked potato? Remove the skin, dice the potato, and store it in the refrigerator for a day or two.  Add the diced potato to a soup or casserole.
2. Mix the casserole ingredients up to 24 hours ahead of time. After spooning the ingredients into the pan,  wrap it with plastic wrap and store it in the refrigerator. When you want to bake the casserole, remove the plastic wrap, and pop the cold casserole into the cold oven and let it preheat with the oven. Set your timer for 25 minutes once the oven temperature reaches 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

SalleeB's Kitchen - Amish Ham Casserole  Recipe                              Yield: 2-4 servings

Ingredients

• 8 ounces of cooked ham, diced
• 1/4 cup onion, diced
• 2 large eggs and 1 egg white, beaten
• 1 baked or microwaved potato, peeled and diced about 1 cup
• 1/3 cup shredded Colby Jack cheese
• 1/3 cup shredded Mozzarella cheese
• 1/2 cup small curd cottage cheese
• 1/4 cup cream cheese, cut into small pieces
• 1/4 tsp. paprika
• 1/8 tsp. garlic powder
• 1/8 tsp. chili powder
• black pepper to taste

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Grease an 8"x1" round pan and set aside.
• Put diced ham, onion, potato, shredded cheeses, and cottage cheese into a medium bowl.
• Stir gently until the mixture is blended well.
• Combine the beaten eggs and egg white with the cream cheese pieces and stir until the cream cheese pieces are well coated with the beaten eggs
• Pour the eggs and cream cheese over the ham mixture
• Add seasonings and stir gently until blended well
• Spoon the mixture into greased 8' round pan and put the pan into the preheated oven
• Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes, or until the mixture is firm and bubbly.
• Change the oven setting from bake to broil.
• Broil the top of the casserole for 2-3 minutes, or until the top looks like the picture. 
• Take the casserole out of the oven and let it cool in the pan for 10 minutes before slicing into 4 wedges. 

Enjoy a slice of homemade happiness on a plate!

Pineapple Mug Cake

Enjoy pineapple mug cake in or out of the mug! 

The texture of this mug cake isn't nearly as dense as most of the made-from-scratch mug cake recipes that I have tried. I feel like this is a great way to make small servings of cake.
Yield: about 2 - 12 ounce servings, or about 4 - 6 ounce servings

1. Two 12 oz. mugs
2. Crack a large egg into a small bowl and beat with a fork until the yolk and egg white are blended fairly well. 

   

                                               One large egg makes about 3 Tbsp. of beaten egg.

Measure the following ingredients into each mug:

• 6 Tbsp pineapple cake mix
• 3 Tbsp water
• 3 Tbsp melted butter, or melted shortening. Canola oil may be used too. 
• about 1 1/2 Tbsp. beaten egg
• 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract

  

  Ready to stir.

Directions

• Stir ingredients in each mug together for about a minute, or until smooth and well blended.

  

  Smooth and well blended. Ready to microwave.
• Place mugs into microwave  and cook for 3 minutes. Cooking time is for a 900 - 1000 watt microwave. 
• The cake will rise to the top of the mug.

  

  Immediately after microwaving 3 minutes.
• Remove the mugs from the microwave and allow to cool 2-3 minutes.

  

  After cooling 2-3 minutes, the mug cake can be turned out of the mug. 
• At this point, you can turn the cake out onto a plate, or you can leave the cake in the mug.

  

  The mug cake slips out of the stoneware mug easily. The mug wasn't oiled or greased.
  Top with a topping of your choice and enjoy!

SalleeB's Pizza Casserole

Looks like pizza, but it has a pasta crust!

Bill is not a fan of casseroles. 
However, this casserole won him over because the bottom layer is a tender, angel hair pasta "crust" topped with pizza toppings. A perfect bite contains an even amount of the pizza toppings and the angel hair pasta.
Wow, what a way to make your mouth happy!
Customize this recipe to make your favorite pizza in a casserole! 



Simply substitute a pound of your favorite meat, or a combination of meats. The possibilities are endless.

Ingredients   
This recipe can be downsized from a 13" x 9" pan to a 9" round or square pan.  Simply use half of each listed ingredient.

• 8 oz. angel hair pasta, broken into thirds and cooked
• 1 pound ground chuck or sirloin
• 3-4 oz. pepperoni slices
• 1/3 cup diced onion
• 1 -  24 oz. can spaghetti/pasta sauce
• 6.5 oz. can mushrooms, drained or  6 oz. of fresh, sliced mushrooms
• 1/2 tsp. dried Italian seasoning
• 1/4 tsp. garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
• 8 oz. of shredded mozzarella cheese
• 2 oz. Parmesan cheese, about 1/2 cup

Directions

• Grease your casserole pan. Set aside.
• Break 8 oz. of angel hair pasta into thirds. Place in salted, boiling water. Turn heat down to simmer and cook pasta for five minutes. 
• Pour half of the pasta sauce into the greased casserole pan.
  
• Drain the pasta and place it in the casserole pan.
• Spread the pasta into a layer.
• Layer the remaining sauce over the pasta.
  

• Place the ground chuck and onion in a skillet. If using fresh sliced mushrooms, add them now.
• Begin to brown over medium heat, stirring occasionally.
• When the beef is about half way done, sprinkle the Italian seasoning, garlic powder, and black pepper over the meat and onions. Using a spatula, work the seasoning into the meat and onions.
• When the beef is almost done, add the drained mushroom slices to the skillet. 
• Stir briefly with the spatula until the mixture is well blended. 
• Drain excess grease from the skillet.
• Layer the meat mixture over the sauce in the casserole dish.

  

  Pepperoni can be mixed into the meat mixture, or placed on top of the cheese layer.
  I prefer having in on top of  the cheese layer as shown in the first picture.

• Put cheeses on top of meat mixture
  
• Top the cheese with pepperoni slices as shown in the first picture. 
• Cover with foil.
• Large Batch: Bake at 350 degrees F for 35 minutes; Small Batch: Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes
• Remove foil and bake another 10 minutes. 
• Remove from oven and let sit for 10 minutes.

Your pizza casserole is ready to serve!

Cake Pictures for Family

My grandson's 1st birthday smash cake, a rubber ducky cake in all buttercream.

My parents 59th anniversary cake. Sugar-free yellow cake with a super thin base coat of buttercream and tons of buttercream flowers.

Watch for the blog posts about these two cakes.

Homemade happiness on a plate! 

Spring Fever and Piping Practice

Unseasonably warm temperatures have me thinking about spring flowers. 
Yes, spring fever has struck and I succombed to it by making floral cupcakes for the Ladies Tea and Luncheon at church. Spring fever isn't the only reason I made these cupcakes. 

I have been wanting to practice piping buttercream flowers with my new petal tips. 
I did find that piping the flowers individually on a flower nail was time consuming. However, I believe that the end results were worth the amount of time spent piping each purple bloom onto a square of parchment paper on top of a flower nail. What do you think? 
I also piped the daisy/aster blooms indiviually. 

Purple flowers - 104 tip and a 3 tip for the yellow centers
White flowers - 102 tip and a 5 tip for the centers
Green ruffles on the cupcakes - 104 tip
Yellow drop flowers - 224 tip

The Cupcakes
Lemon and strawberry are the two flavors I chose to use in these cupcakes. I purchased a box of each flavor at the local grocery store. After mixing the cake batters, I put about 2 Tbsp. of yellow lemon cake batter in each cupcake liner. Next, I topped the lemon cake batter with pink, strawberry cake batter. A swirled "S" with a butter knife created marbled cupcakes that are pink and yellow. 

I made 2 dozen cupcakes and used the left over batter to make 1-9 inch layer cake. After cooling the layer cake, I wrapped it in plastic wrap and it is in the refrigerator freezer compartment waiting for me to torte it, or slice it crosswise, and to fill/frost with buttercream frosting.

Cocoa Drop Cookies

Holiday cocoa drop cookies dipped into vanilla almond bark and sprinkled with .....Christmas sprinkles!

Bill ate one of these cookies and he LOVED the vanilla bark side!

He's my official taste tester and fellow lover of sweets. In fact, he would be happy if I dipped the WHOLE cookie in almond bark. 

However, I love the contrast between the dark chocolate of the cookie and the white of the almond bark side.

Personally, I like using almond bark in place of chocolate because it is so easy to use. 

Just pop two or three squares of almond bark and 1 tsp solid vegetable shortening into a small deep bowl and microwave in 30 second bursts and stir until the bark is melted and smooth. 

You are ready to dip cookies!

Yield: about 4 dozen cookies
Time: 1 hour chill time          8-10 minute bake time for each cookie sheet of cookies.

Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar 
• 2/3 cup salted butter, softened
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1/3 cup water
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt

Directions

• Place sugar, butter, egg, water, and vanilla into a medium size bowl and mix until blended.
• Stir in flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir until mixed well.
• Cover bowl tightly and chill in the refrigerator for about an hour.
• Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. 
• Drop dough by rounded teaspoonfuls about 2 inches apart on to an ungreased, or parchment paper lined cookie sheet. 
• Bake until almost no indentation remains when touched, with is about 8-10 minutes. 
• Immediately remove from the cookie sheet and cool.

Dipping the Baked Cookies

• Once the cookies are cool, melt 3-4 squares of vanilla almond and 1- 2 tsp. of solid vegetable shortening in a small, deep bowl, following the package directions. I wing it and put the ingredients in the bowl and microwave in 30 second bursts and stir in between the bursts until the almond bark and shortening are melted. 
• Dip each cookie into the bark, shake off excess bark, and add sprinkles. My method consists of pouring the sprinkles into a soup bowl and holding the dipped cookie over the bowl as I sprinkle the decorations on each cookie. This is a great job for the kids! 
• Set dipped cookies onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. 
• When the cookie sheet is full of dipped cookies, put the cookie sheet into the freezer for 5 minutes to set the vanilla bark.
•  Remove cookie sheet from the freezer and cookies are ready to start packaging.

Enjoy eating some homemade happiness on a plate! 

Applesauce Drop Cookies with Easy Caramel-Coffee Frosting

Christmas Applesauce Drop Cookies dressed up with a vanilla almond bark swirl and gold food spray.

My annual Christmas baking began on December 21 this year.

I just had a little trouble getting into the baking mood after making and decorating a half sheet cake for our CMA Christmas party. How about you? There always seems to be so much to do between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. 

Additionally, I made 4 dozen cutout snowmen cookies for the Christmas cookie exchange at work. I love baking, but sometimes I just need to make the baking easy on myself by making drop cookies to accompany the decorated, holiday sugar cookies. 

Yield: about 3-4 dozen cookies 

• Heaping teaspoonful of dough makes 3 dozen
• Slightly rounded teaspoonful of dough makes 4 dozen

Time: 1 hour chill time       8-10 minutes bake time

Cookie Ingredients

• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 egg
• 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt

Caramel-Coffee Frosting  See the recipe and ingredients below

Directions

• Put brown sugar, shortening, applesauce, and egg into a medium sized bowl and mix well with a whisk, or a hand mixer.
• Add flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir by hand until blended well.

Cover and refrigerate the dough for at least 1 hour. I make the cookie dough the evening before I want to bake.

• Heat oven to 400 degrees F. 
• Measure dough out with a teaspoon and scoop out a rounded teaspoonful. Use a second spoon to aid in dropping the dough onto your cookie sheet.
• Drop rounded teaspoonfuls of dough about 2 inches onto an ungreased, or parchment lined cookie sheet.
• Bake for about 8-10 minutes, or until almost no indentation remains when you touch the cookie top. Also, cookies will harden somewhat as they cool.
• Immediately remove from the cookie sheet and cool. 

Cookie Baking Tip

Lining a cookie sheet with parchment paper makes transferring hot cookies VERY easy. 

You just slide the entire sheet of cookies out of the pan and onto the cooling rack. 

No trying to slide a spatula under hot cookies! Yeah!

Caramel-Coffee Frosting

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup salted butter 
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tsp. caramel flavoring
• 2 Tablespoons cold coffee

Directions

• Heat butter in a 1.5 quart sauce pan over low heat. 
• Remove pan from the heat when the butter is melted.
• Stir in powdered sugar and caramel flavoring
• Stir in coffee until frosting is smooth and spreadable
• Cover tightly until ready to use the frosting

This frosting dries quite quickly, so keep a damp paper towel over the frosting and cover tightly if you need to stop frosting your cooled cookies. 

Perfect Drop Cookies Every Time Tips

1. Keep the cookie dough refrigerated in between batches
2. Put cold cookie dough onto a cool cookie sheet each time. Baking times are figured from the time you put a batch of cold dough onto a cool cookie sheet. 

SalleeB's Thanksgiving Pies

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend! 
I hope your 2016 Thanksgiving dinner was, or will be, wonderful. What a marvelous Thanksgiving day Bill and I enjoyed with the girls and their families! 

On Wednesday evening,
I joined Ashley in her kitchen and visited with her while making bread stuffing. 

Ashley has recently started baking from scratch and Momma Sallee gave her a couple of pointers for her apple pie and crust. As a mom and a cook, I am going to tell you that Ashley's apple pie, pumpkin pie, and turkey were perfect. Her boyfriend Scott also cooks and he made the mashed potatoes.

My contribution to the family meal included a cherry pie, cranberry-orange sauce, and traditional, out-of-the-can jellied cranberry sauce. However, as you can see in the picture above, I made a pumpkin pie that stayed at home for Bill and I to eat over the weekend. 

Thanksgiving Day 2016 was wonderful. The afternoon of joking, laughter, eating, and family time is stored in my memory for the rest of my life. I am thankful for such a precious memory.

Recipes

Chill and Thrill Pie Crust - A Never Fail Pie Crust 
                        
I published my go-to pie crust recipe in a post called, "Chill and Thrill Pie Crust." The link to the recipe is below.

Click Here for the recipe. 

Quick and Tasty Cherry Pie

Ingredients

• 2 cans of cherry pie filling
• 1/2 tsp. almond extract
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. allspice
• pie crust for a 9 inch double crust pie

Directions

• Open the two cans of cherry pie filling. Using a spatula, remove the filling from the cans and put into a 1 quart bowl. 
• Add the almond extract, cinnamon, and allspice to the bowl.
• Using a spatula, gently fold the spices and extract into the filling. You want to keep the cherries from breaking apart as much as possible. 
• Put the filling into a pie crust lined, 9 inch pie pan. 
• Gently level the cherry pie filling
• Place the top crust onto the pie and crimp the edges together. 
• Cut a few small slits into the top crust
• Put the pie into a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven. Bake for 30-40 minutes.
• Remove from the oven and allow to cool at room temperature.

Cut and serve up a slice of  homemade happiness on a plate!

SalleeB's Pumpkin Pie

• 1-14 oz. can of sweetened condensed milk
• 1-15 oz. can of pumpkin puree
• 1 large egg and 3 egg yolks
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon 

Note: 1 and 1/2 tsp. of pumpkin pie spice can be used in place of the cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg.

• 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
• one 9 inch pie crust. 

Directions

• Mix pumpkin and eggs in a one quart bowl until smooth
• Add all of the ingredients to the pumpkin/egg mixture
• Mix until blended well
• Pour into a pie crust lined, 9 inch pie pan
• Put into a preheated, 425 degrees Fahrenheit oven for 15 minutes before lowering the temperature to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and baking for an additional 30 - 40 minutes. 

To test for doneness
 Insert the blade of a knife into the pie about midway between the center and edge of the pie. Lift the knife and look at the knife blade. If it doesn't have pumpkin on it, the pie is done. 

You may notice that in the picture above there isn't a slit, or hole in the pumpkin pie. I carefully and gently touched the center of the pie with a fingertip. The pie felt firm, the center had expanded upward and was rounded. I judged the pie to be done based on this. My hands are not super sensitive to heat, but I don't recommend that you try my method. 

Baby Floral Celebration Cupcakes

A coworker is having her second baby. 

After her family reveal party on a Friday night,  I made two dozen celebration cupcakes to take to work on Monday morning. As you can see, Baby Number 2 is a girl!

Start with two dozen of your favorite cupcakes and a batch of your favorite butter cream frosting. 

Divide the frosting into small bowls and tint the desired colors. I used Wilton and Americolor gel food coloring in the following combinations:

1. pink with a touch of burgundy - blossoms
2. lemon yellow with a touch of copper - flower centers and blossoms
3. lemon yellow with a touch of red - orange blossoms
4. leaf green with a tiny touch of brown - greenery

Note: I used two colors in my pastry bag for the blooms and kept reloading the same bag with frosting.

Decorating Tips Used

1. Wilton 2D tip for the butter cream flowers

2. #5 piping tip for the yellow flower centers

3. #68 leaf tip for the greenery

4. #3 piping tip for writing the "Baby" topper

Steps for Frosting the Cupcakes with Butter Cream Frosting

1. Using the #68 leaf tip and green frosting, pipe a band of greenery around the outside edge of each cupcake. Note: It is not necessary to frost the cupcakes with a base coat of frosting. I piped the blooms directly onto the bare cupcake tops that were edged with the band of greenery. 
2. Using the 2D tip and two colors of frosting, cover the top of each cupcake with flowers. To create height, slightly overlap some of the blooms, and in the center of the cupcakes, pipe a bloom or two over the first layer of blooms. 
3. Fill in gaps between the flowers with the leaf tip and green frosting. 
4. Using the #5 piping tip, place a small dot of yellow frosting into the center of each flower. 
5. Carefully place the "Baby" cupcake topper onto each cupcake

How to Make the Baby Cupcake Topper

Ingredients

• 3 - 4 blocks, or squares vanilla almond bark
• 1 tsp. solid, vegetable shortening
• tiny drop of red, gel food coloring

Directions

• Melt almond bark in a microwave following the package directions.
• Add a tsp of solid, vegetable shortening and stir into the melted almond bark until it is melted.
• Add a tiny bit of red gel food coloring to tint the almond bark pink. 
• Place a sheet of parchment paper onto two baking sheets.
• Spoon the warm, tinted almond bark into a piping bag that has been fitted with a #3 piping tip.
• Pipe the word Baby about 26-28 times onto the parchment paper covered baking sheets.Try to hold the tip slightly above the parchment paper as you pipe the word. 
• Place the baking sheets into the freezer for about 10-15 minutes, or until you are ready to put them on top of the cupcakes. 
• When completely cooled and solid, gently lift each word from the parchment paper and place carefully onto the frosted cupcakes. 

Spiced Monkey Bread for Two

Sugar and spice and everything that's nice maybe what little girls are made of,

BUT I am a big girl and I want my sugar and spice in my monkey bread! Specifically, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves mixed with brown sugar and baked with butter into a spiced, caramelly syrup that surrounds the crisp sugar coating with each bite of buttermilk monkey bread. I've got to stop describing it or I am going to be making more monkey bread!

I thought everyone knew about monkey bread.

I was wrong. Bill didn't know what monkey bread was.

Can you believe that? He grew up in California and Kansas. Don't you have monkey bread there? Somehow he missed out on this treat until I made spiced monkey bread for us. NOW that he knows what it is............he wants more, much more!

I used two  - 6 ounce souffle cups, but any 6-8 ounce ramekin, or baking dish will work.

Ingredients

• 1- 7.5 oz tube of generic buttermilk biscuits
• 2 Tbsp. butter - for buttering your baking dishes
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/8 tsp. ground cloves

Topping Ingredients

• 2 tablespoon butter, melted
• 2 tablespoon brown sugar
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/8 tsp. ground cloves

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
2. Butter your two baking dishes generously and set aside

   

   Generously buttered souffle dishes.

Preparing the Biscuits

1. Cut each biscuit into quarters and roll each quarter into a ball. 

   

   I cut the biscuit into quarters with a pizza cutter. 

2. Set the dough balls aside.
   
3. Put the sugars and spices into a one quart zip top bag.
   
4. Zip the top and mix the sugar and spices in the bag.
   
5. Dip a ball of dough into the melted butter and drop it into the bag of spiced sugar.
   
6. Repeat until you have four butter coated dough balls in the bag of spiced sugar
7. Close and shake the bag until the balls of dough are completely coated.
8. Divide the dough balls between the two buttered baking dishes.
9. Repeat steps 4-7 until all of the dough balls are coated and divided between the two baking dishes. 

   

   Ready to bake!

Preparing the Topping

1. In a small bowl, blend the melted butter, brown sugar, and spices for the topping.
   
2. Using a tablespoon, spoon the topping equally over the top of the dough in each baking dish.
   

Time to Bake

• Set the baking dishes on a small cookie sheet or shallow baking pan and put it into the preheated oven.
• Bake in the oven for about 25 minutes, or until the dough is beginning to brown.
• Remove from oven and let sit for 2 or 3 minutes. 
• Carefully turn each baking dish upside down onto a plate and let it sit for a minute.
• Gently remove the monkey bread from the baking dish. 

  

  This is what happens when you don't let the baking dish sit on the plate for a minute.

  

  A perfect individual serving.
  You are ready to eat some homemade happiness on a plate!