Pennsylvania - The Keystone State, State flower: Mountain Laurel

1. Pennsylvania Dutch Pepper Slaw
2. Green Beans with Apples
3. Ginger Pickled Beets
4. Pennsylvania Dutch Applesauce Bread
5. Philadelphia Cinnamon Buns
6. Shoo-Fly Pie
7. Philadelphia Pepper Pot Soup
8. Flannel Cales with Chicken Hash

Philadelphia Cinnamon Buns - Makes about 3 dozen

The genuine Philadelphia cinnamon bun is a thin, light, delicious ribbon of yeast-raised dough spiraled around raisins, sugar and spices. It is brown on the bottom and oozing with luscious stickiness on top. It may be a tiny bite-sized morsel or it may be four-square and huge. But, it has to be sticky if it's to be the real thing. At its very best it is eaten hot from the oven.

¾ cup milk
3/4 cup water
1 yeast cake
5 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar
½ cup shortening
¾ cup sugar
2 eggs
Butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, raisins and syrup for pouring on the dough
Molasses or syrup

Put milk in a saucepan and let it heat to a scald (Until a thin skim forms on it but before it is hot enough to boil.). When milk has scalded, add water and cool to lukewarm. Crumble the yeast cake into a cup and slowly stir the lukewarm liquid into it, dissolving the yeast cake completely.

Measure 2 cups of flour into a mixing bowl, together with salt and one Tbsp sugar. Make a well in the center and slowly pour the yeast mixture into it, stirring as you pour. Stir from the inside of the well toward the outside, until the flour is all mixed in, then, grasping the bowl in one hand and the beating spoon in the other, beat the whole mixture until it is velvety smooth. A good beating is very important at this point in the procedure. Next, cover the bowl with a cloth and set it aside out of any draft.

Beat shortening as light as a feather. Gradually beat in the ¾ cup sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

At this point the first mixture should be light and bubbly. Add to it the shortening mixture, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating it in well. Be thorough about the beating here too. When it is all beaten in, start to add the remaining 3 cups flour. Don't beat while adding the flour, just stir it in smoothly, a small amount at a time. Cover the bowl again, set out of drafts and let the dough size until doubled in bulk.

Next, take a part at a time, roll it out on a floured board to a rectangular sheet ¼" thick. Spread generously with butter, sprinkle thickly with brown sugar and cinnamon, then with raisins. Trail the syrup over it, snail fashion. Roll up like a jelly roll. Cut in 1 or 1-½" slices. Lay them in cake pans that have been generously buttered and filled ¼" deep with molasses or syrup. Cover, let rise again until doubled in bulk. Place in a preheated oven, 350º, and bake until nicely browned.

As soon as the pans are taken from the oven, turn out the buns, sticky side up. Remember, generous buttering of the pans and a ¼" coating of syrup are the secrets of that much-to-be-desired sticky topping.

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