More Deep Dish Baker

Since the caring-for-your-stoneware instructions always suggest that a good way to start seasoning new stoneware is to bake refrigerated crescent rolls on it, our next adventure with the Deep Dish Baker was the mini-cinnamon rolls in this picture. Here is the recipe (also due to Pampered Chef--and this one we actually followed--except I think I added a bit of vanilla to the glaze), in case anyone's interested (in case anyone still reads this blog...):

Mini-Cinnamon Rolls
2 packages (8 ounces each) refrigerated crescent rolls
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup raisins, optional (We opted for no raisins.)

Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons apple juice or milk (Having no apple juice, we went with milk.)

Preheat oven to 350. Separate rolls into rectangles, press perforations. Spread with butter. Combine sugar, cinnamon, and raisins in Small Batter Bowl (clearly, one cannot make this recipe without having a Small Batter Bowl!). Sprinkle mixture over rectangles. Roll up each rectangle from short end. Cut each roll into 5 slices. Place slices cut side down (this was my favorite part of the directions since 3 of the 5 slices obviously have two cut sides) in ungreased Deep Dish Baker. Bake 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Mix glaze. Drizzle on top of warm rolls.

Yield: 40 mini-rolls.

New Stoneware

Ryan got a new stoneware round baker thing for Christmas. He has been wanting one for awhile, so he was very happy to finally be the proud owner. Stoneware, as many of you probably know, spends the first few months of its life with a cook being seasoned--absorbing all kinds of fats and oils so that it can make its own non-stick coating. You're supposed to bake some high fat items on it at the beginning to get it on its way to a happy, non-stick life. The first item we baked on it was biscuits (ok, I say "we" but it was really just Ryan--I had no part in it other than saying that I wanted biscuits for breakfast). They were very tasty, but not exceptionally helpful for the stoneware in its quest to be seasoned. So we decided to try something else. Since this new stoneware was from Pampered Chef, it came with a variety of recipes in which it (along with many other specially-named Pampered Chef products such as the "3-qt. Batter Bowl," etc.) could be used (all Pampered Chef products come with recipes in which they can be used--even things like strawberry corers--which, of course, have some sort of fancy name that appears somewhere in bold in the recipe--like to make a strawberry banana smoothie, "core all the strawberries with the Strawberry Coring Device." Anyway, back to the story). We took Blueberry Pizza Dessert to the January potluck at our church. Granted, what we actually took was "Mixed and Mashed Berry Pizza Dessert," but it was based on the Pampered Chef Blueberry Pizza Dessert recipe. It was very good, and since it has a real recipe, I'm going to include it here. The special name for the new stoneware is "Deep Dish Baker," which seems a bit odd to me since the depth of the baker is about 1.5 inches....

Blueberry Pizza Dessert
1 package (18-19 ounces) yellow cake mix
1 1/4 cups quick cooking oats (We used regular oats.)
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 egg
1/2 cup chopped nuts (Ryan chopped the non-chopped almonds that we bought because they were a lot cheaper than pre-chopped nuts.)
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 can (21 ounces) blueberry pie filling (We used semi-defrosted/semi-mashed frozen mixed berries--a whole bag--with a bit of sugar.)

Preheat oven to 350. In a Classic Batter Bowl, combine cake mix, 1 cup oats, and 6 tablespoons butter until crumbly (Pampered Chef must not make a pastry cutter or it would be mentioned here since that's the easiest way to do this). Reserve 1 cup crumbs for topping. Blend egg into remaining crumbs. Press into Deep Dish Baker forming a short rim. Bake for 12 minutes. Meanwhile, to reserved crumbs add remaining 1/4 cup oats, 2 tablespoons butter, nuts, sugar, and cinnamon. Mix well. Remove base from oven and spread with pie filling. Return to oven and bake 15-20 minutes or until crumbs are light golden brown. Cool completely. Cut into wedges. Serve with a dollop of whipped cream (oh, yeah, we skipped the whipped cream).