If you recently saw a Recipe of the Week you were wishing to try, but came back too late to print it off, please peruse the recipes below.

Chef Z’s “Christmas Morning Sour Cream Twists"

Chef Z's traditional family recipe for Christmas morning brunch. These gems are simply “heavenly” when heated just before serving, accompanied by a fabulous cup of coffee.

Best made up to a week in advance and frozen. Bake, cool, freeze, then reheat (right out of the freezer) in a 350F degree oven for 8 minutes before serving warm on Christmas morning. When following the aforementioned protocol, these become a very fast and convenient meal while doing so many other things on Christmas morning.

Enjoy my family’s recipe!

Oven: 375F            Baking time: 15 - 18 minutes            Re-warming time: 8 minutes at 350F

Makes 3 dozen, 1”x 5” twists

Ingredients:

4 cups all purpose WHITE FLOUR

1 tsp. SALT (if using salted butter, reduce salt to ½ tsp.)

1 cup UNSALTED BUTTER (2 sticks) if using salted butter, reduce salt to ½ tsp.

1 large EGG plus 2 YOLKS

1 cup full fat SOUR CREAM

1 Tbsp. VANILLA

1 tsp. LEMON or ORANGE RIND or “zest” ( please do not substitute here. Purchase a lemon or orange, wash and dry, peel thin strips off the exterior with a veggie peeler and mince or cut into fine shreds)

¼ cup warm WATER (110F - 115F) for softening the yeast

2 tsp. DRY YEAST

1 cup RAISINS or DRY CRANBERRIES

1+ cups white SUGAR (for sprinkling onto pastry while rolling out- see step 7)

1/4 cup CINNAMON SUGAR = ¼ cup sugar and 1 Tbsp. cinnamon (see step 8)

Directions:

1.      in large bowl, mix: flour, salt;

2.      “cut in” butter until crumbly (using a food processor work bowl makes this step easy. Add flour and salt to workbowl, then add several cubes of butter at a time and pulse until incorporated into flour mixture. Dump mixture into the large bowl);

3.      in a glass measuring cup, beat egg and yolks and then mix in sour cream, vanilla, lemon rind and yeast mixture;

4.      stir egg mixture into flour mixture and mix well by hand, then add raisins and stir until all is completely mixed;

5.      cover pastry with saran wrap and allow to rise IN THE REFRIGERATOR for 2 hours;

6.      heat oven to 375F; remove pastry from refrigerator (pastry will appear to not have risen), and sprinkle a flat surface with sugar (about 3 Tablespoons) and roll pastry into an 8”x18”x ½” thick rectangle;

7.      sprinkle rectangle lightly with sugar, fold into 3, like an envelope, and repeat this step two more times, making sure you use enough sugar so it doesn’t stick to the board or the rolling pin;

8.      once the last rolling has taken place, use a pizza cutter to cut 1” strips, then cut the strips into 5” lengths. Sprinkle evenly with cinnamon sugar;

9.      twist each strip and press ends onto ungreased cookie sheet, bake for 15 – 18 minutes, or until very lightly browned on edges.

FREEZER METHOD:

Bake completely and cool, then freeze on a flat sheet until twists are hard. Place twists into a ziplock bag and freeze. Remove the number of twists you want to serve, defrost 1 hour and reheat for only 8 minutes in a preheated 350F oven. Serve warm.