Need help with childhood memory recipe

[Floogeldy]

When I was a kid, my dad used to make a real simple, quick, light dough. Then, I guess he would cut the dough in pieces and roll them out, put butter, cocoa and sugar in them, roll them up, and then bake them in the oven on a cookie sheet. They were melt-in-your-mouth to die for.

He has been gone for years, now. I wonder if anyone knows of a recipe like this? He was from Ft. Worth, Texas. I wonder if it was a regional thing? I don't know how to make the dough.

Any help would be appreciated.

Floog

[eleny]

1. What is the consistency?

I'm wondering if maybe you could use a substitute. Perhaps get some different kinds of biscuits at the supermarket that need baking. Something like a crescent roll, sprinkle with your ingredients, roll or fold over and bake. Or split a regular biscuit, roll it a bit and do the same. I'm guessing that it's some sort of soft, sweet roll type of dough that would be easy to find in the raw biscuit products at the market. Now I want to try this myself! I have a can of Pillsbury crescent roll dough in the fridge.

[politicat]

2. That sounds like a basic biscuit dough.

I'd try a few biscuit, scone and cream cake recipes (they're all similar) until you find one to your taste.

My scone recipe is very light and simple (And a legacy of usenet; this recipe has seen6 computers and 5 operating systems...) :
Sense and Sensibility Scones

2 c Flour
1 ts Baking powder
1/4 ts Salt
4 tb Butter - frozen
1/2 c Currants - plump in 1/2 c. warm-hot water and drain (you'd skip these)
5 tb Milk; about

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease a baking sheet. Sift flour with baking powder and salt. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal (I use frozen butter and pulse everything in the food processor. You can also cut in the butter.). Stir in currants and add enough milk to make a soft dough.

Roll out dough on a floured surface to a 1/2-inch thickness. Cut out 2-inch circles with a biscuit cutter or glass, and place on a baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes, or until well-risen and lightly browned.

Serve hot, sliced crosswise, with butter and jam.

As for biscuits, I haven't a recipe. I am married to a Southerner for whom no biscuit can match his Aunt Charlotte's (and from tales I've heard, I don't want to be in that competition) so if he wants biscuits, he can forage for them himself. (And the strange lad likes the ones in the can...)

[housewolf]

3. My mom used to do something similiar

but she made it with pie dough and didn't use the cocoa, just butter, cinnamon and sugar. Pie dough gives a nice flakey, buttery kind of crust.

Let us know if you need a pie dough recipe, or you could use a refrigerated pie dough found at the supermarket, usually along with the pillsbury refrigerated biscuits, crescent rolls, cookie dough, etc.

[Warpy]

4. It sounds like pate sucree

which is a sweetened piecrust recipe. Most good general cookbooks have recipes for pie crusts, and that's where you might start. Just add a little sugar to the dry ingredients before you cut in the butter.

The problem with supermarket pie crusts is trans fats. Not only are they very bad for you, they don't have a very nice flavor. While you won't notice that with a strong flavored pie filling, you will notice it in the simple pastries you describe. If you're going to make something as decadent as pate sucree with butter, sugar and cocoa, make the pastry youself with real butter!

The key to any of the crust recipes is handling them as little as possible so that you don't develop any gluten in the flour. You can cut in the butter in a food processor, but the liquid really does need to be added and mixed in by hand.

[housewolf]

6. Re supermarket pie crusts

What you say is quite true, they do not have the flavor of a homemade crust made with butter.

If one isn't used to working with pie dough though, using refrigerator dough can be a good learning experience in getting to know what the dough should look like and how it should feel.

I don't have a food processor but many who do highly recommend them for making pie dough, they do an excellent job of cutting the butter into the flour without over-working the dough.

Also, the water should be ice-cold in order to inhibit the gluten formation, as Warpy mentioned above.

[demnan]

5. My grandmother

used to take the leftovers from pie crusts and put butter, sugar and Cinnamon on them and bake them in the oven that way.

A nice flakey pie crust made it great.

[wryter2000]

7. Mine, too

What did she call those things? I can't remember the name. Was it periwinkles?

[Lugnut]

9. My mother did that too but

I don't ever remember a name for it. She used to roll out the leftover dough, sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar and bake it right on the oven rack so it was "corrugated".

[mandyky]

8. My mom used to do it with leftover pie dough

My Mom used to bake rolls and bread and pies for the friends and neighbors every holiday. She'd always have leftover pie dough and make a cinnamon sugar treat similar to what you described.

[Floogeldy]

10. Thank you all for the wonderful input

B-)

[Frogtutor]

11. I'm from Fort Worth, too, but I don't recognize it as a regional thing;

However, I've bought something very similar from Sam's club in the past. For the life of me, I can't remember the name right now (and it's driving me crazy) but if I do later, I'll post again. It was Italian sounding...They were so sinfully yummy...

:9

[Frogtutor]

12. Rugala (Maybe?)

Not Italian as I had thought, but maybe Swiss or Jewish...Seems they can be made with a wide variety of fillings. They used to sell them at Sam's club, but I don't know if they do anymore.

My mom used to do something similar with leftover pie dough, but I don't think it had a name. At least, none that I know of...

Good luck!