Another sneaky day...

Hee hee... maybe I should feel a little guilty about the food I made today, but I don't! We had a little fun fooling Jeff into eating another ingredient he swears he does not like - cottage cheese!

The cottage cheese was used twice today and while it killed me to keep quiet, I waited until after he was done eating his dessert to let him in on the secret. When he finished the last bite of these Coconut-Vanilla Cinnamon Rolls, I looked at him with my half-cocked eye brow and slightly evil grin to let him know something was a little different. His first reaction way "Ugh, don't even tell me you put mushrooms in here like you did before!!". No, not quite I said, but as soon as I mentioned cottage cheese, in his best whimpering tone, the only words that came out of his mouth were "but but but, I don't like cottage cheese!". Oh how I wish I had a video camera to capture that moment to show you.

These are not your typical cinnamon rolls - there are no long periods of waiting for dough to rise or lots of kneading to do as these have no yeast in them. I would say the finished rolls are more biscuit-like - they may not be not quite as fluffy or tender as you would get when working with a yeast dough, but they are just as delicious. The dough comes together in a flash as most of the work is done in a food processor. Once made and rolled out, the surface is brushed with melted butter and covered with an aromatic combination of dark brown sugar and cinnamon. To give these a little boost, the layer of sugar is then topped with a scattering of sweetened shredded coconut.

The dough is rolled up just like a cinnamon roll would be and then cut into rounds. I liked using unflavored dental floss to cut the rounds as the dough is a little more delicate and tended to squish down when I first tried to cut it with a knife. They may look a little puny when you put them in the pan, but trust me, they expand up and out when baking just like the regular rolls do to fill in the spaces between them. To thin out the familiar drizzle of icing topping the rolls, we used buttermilk for a little tangy bonus. And much to Jeff's dismay, we found out there was no way you could tell there was cottage cheese hidden away in here - score!

We had a breakfast for dinner night this evening and the cottage cheese came into play again with these Cottage Cheese Pancakes. Thankfully Jeff was nowhere near the kitchen or he would have totally discovered the little white curds and blown the whole plan!

With the amount of cottage cheese in the recipe, these pancakes are not exactly your light and fluffy variety. They are a bit more heavy; however, this also allowed them to be hearty and pretty filling. There is only a touch of sugar in the batter, so they are not too sweet either - this makes them an excellent candidate for a good pour of warm pure maple syrup right before eating. You may want to spray your griddle with a cooking spray as the cheese makes them want to stick a little more than normal pancakes. Jeff asked to have the leftovers for breakfast... but that was before the secret was let out - I wonder if he will forget what's in them before tomorrow morning?

Recipes
Coconut-Vanilla Cinnamon Rolls
Cottage Cheese Pancakes