It may not be possible to make a bad cinnamon roll. Sweet dough, cinnamon, and a gooey glaze: what’s not to like?  I used the recipe from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice and the results were sublime, even if I only baked them because I lost a bet. This recipe calls for a bit of citrus in the dough. I used lemon zest and it gave a nice freshness that lightened the sometimes oppressive heaviness of such toothache inducing confections.

I believe the hubby was satisfied with his winnings. He certainly had no problem consuming his spoils. I confess to eating my share as well. Sweet defeat.

So once again, my husband called on my assistance with a Friday Food Fiesta challenge. This week’s theme was cookies and biscuits. I scoured my pantry, but alas, like Old Mother Hubbard, my cupboards were practically bare. The one interesting thing I did have was a bag of Hershey’s white chocolate chips. So, between my meager rations and a quick trip to our town’s tiny market for butter, I cobbled together the ingredients needed to make the chocolate, white chocolate chip cookies on the Hershey wrapper. The only alteration I made to the recipe was to substitute my favorite Ghiradelli cocoa powder for the Hershey’s that they suggested.

However, at MaisonBisson we are not satisfied with mere cookies. When I called Casey to let him know I made the cookies he responded with those three little words: “ice cream sandwiches!” Sometimes that man can be an absolute genius! I e-mailed a list of ingredients for him to pick up on his way home and let my cookies cool.

When Casey came home he brought with him a gallon of Bryer’s Vanilla Bean ice cream, chocolate sprinkles, and mini chocolate chips. We stirred up the ice cream to soften it, placed a nice scoopful on a cookie, pressed another cookie on top, and rolled the edges in the sprinkles or the chips. We wrapped each sandwich in a square of aluminum foil and let them rest in the freezer. We ended up with about twenty sandwiches. Friends stopped by and helped us polish off some of them but the others remain in my freezer taunting me. They are really very delicious and very easy to make.

My wonderful neighbor, Wendy, went berry picking and dropped me off a large container with luscious, fresh blueberries and raspberries. I decided to try a bit of an experiment and use the batter for one my favorite cakes with the berries. The result was this heavenly sour cream berry bread.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease and flour an 8-cup loaf pan.
Melt 5 tablespoons of salted butter, pour into a large bowl, let cool.

Add and stir together until smooth:

• 2/3 cup of sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup of sour cream
• 1 large eggs

Add in pinches to break up any lumps and whisk in:

• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder

Stir until just combined:

• 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

Fold in:

• 1 cup of berries (I used a 50-50 mix of blueberries and raspberries.

Pour into the bread pan and bake for one hour to one hour and 15 min.

The bread is delicious warm, cool, or toasted and buttered.