Southern Living Recipe + London = Creative Cooking

This weekend, we decided to have our friends over for a Saturday brunch.  We decided on 11am–not too early because everyone had to take the Tube to reach us.  Because of the upcoming Olympics, the DLR had been shut down for “repair” so our guests had to figure out other ways to reach our flat.  That was a comedy in itself.

Yay Brunch!

I was keen on making a Praline Pull-Apart Recipe I had made at Christmas for my family back home in Kentucky.  Never mind that I caught the oven on fire (it was a small fire) I wanted to try it here in the UK.  So, I got the recipe and proceeded to go to the grocery store to get all of the ingredients.  Follow the link to the Praline Pull-Apart recipe to see what I needed.

You’ll realize this isn’t a very difficult recipe, nor are the ingredients hard to find in the US (at least in KY).  John and I went to ASDA (Wal-Mart’s European store) and found everything except arguably the most important ingredient:  frozen dinner rolls.  I had all the delicious seasoning and sauce in the world, but no rolls to put them on.  I scoured the frozen food aisle to find a suitable replacement.  The only frozen bread they had was garlic bread.  No go.

Posing with my Yorkshire Puddings. Before I knew if it would work...

Finally I came across the frozen Yorkshire puddings.  The first time I had Yorkshire pudding was with a traditional Sunday roast (made by one of my best friends in Singapore, Kerry, who made them from scratch).  They are little cups made of batter and typically served with roast meat and gravy.  By the time you eat them with your Sunday roast, they are swimming in gravy.  They are delicious, but in a savory way– not exactly the first thing you would think of to use in a cinnamon roll type concoction.

I told John I was going to do a Southern US-British fusion experiment and grabbed the puddings.   He’s used to me by now, so he was not surprised…haha.

In the oven.

The next morning I started to create the first dish of my new fusion cuisine.  I know it says to start the night before, but based on the consistency of the puddings, I wasn’t sure how that would go, so I made the executive decision to wing it in the morning.  It’s also worth stating I couldn’t find a bundt pan for a reasonable price, so I ended up using a loaf pan instead.  Not a huge deal, but the puddings weren’t my first  concession with the recipe.

Finished Product!

So, I made the dish and popped it out and the loaf shape slowly disintegrated on the platter.  Despite it’s inability to hold a shape, it turned out quite delicious.  The taste and texture were definitely different than what I made at Christmas, but it turned out ok.  Oh, and there was no oven fire this time.  That’s one ingredient I was happy to omit.  It didn’t turn out as pretty as the pull-apart did at home, or as it looked in Southern Living (does it ever?), but it was edible and some people even went back for seconds :).

I guess I’ve created a whole new type of cuisine.  Stay tuned for more culinary adventures–you never know what we’ll end up eating next!

Best part of the morning: the men cooking!