The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

TWD - Parisian Apple Tartlet

When I first turned to the page in Baking:  From My Home to Yours to read this recipe, I saw the scrumptious photo and was very happy.  Then I read the recipe itself, and was even happier.  So easy to make!  And I was pretty sure everyone would love it!  Although Julia can be fickle about desserts!  But still - amid all the drywall dust and mess of toys and STUFF everywhere, this recipe, for the Parisian Apple Tartlet, which was chosen by Jessica of My Baking Heart, looked blessedly simple.  In a good way.  Cut some circles out of a sheet of puff pastry dough, cut up some apples, a bit of brown sugar, a dot of butter and vwalla, as the French say, she is done!

And then some damn voice in my fool head spoke up eagerly and said this to me:

"Hey!  Why don't you MAKE your own puff pastry dough?  That would be a cool tutorial to post in addition to the Tuesdays with Dorie entry!"

And the smart voice must have been asleep at that point, because the rest of me went ahead with the make-your-own-puff-pastry-dough plan.

And THEN, because it had the opportunity, that damn voice in my fool head ALSO said this:

"Why don't you make TWO batches of puff pastry dough?  You could do one the regular way, and use some whole wheat flour in the other one!  Wouldn't that be interesting?"

And, well, that's what I did.

But the Making Of The Puff Pastry Dough will be posted later, either tonight or tomorrow, because I just won't have time today.  I'm still picking up the pieces from yesterday. 

So we'll just skip all that for now.  Just trust that yes, I went ahead and did those damn fool things and ended up with a lump of regular puff pastry dough and a lump of 1/3 whole wheat puff pastry dough.  It occurs to me I should have gone ahead (because why not, at that point?) and made ANOTHER batch that was entirely whole wheat flour.  But I didn't.  And I might never ever to it, either.  I'm puffed out.

So.  On to the tartlet.

I used some of each dough in the making of these tartlets, by the way, and then completely forgot to do a taste comparison with the rest of the family.  But I've done one of my own, in the name of science and all that, and there's not a tremendous difference.  The partly whole wheat one looks a little prettier, to me, with faint brown speckles in it.  It has an ever-so-slight stronger wheat flavor, too, but it's nothing that screams "Non viva le difference pas!" or whatever "We don't like it made this way, you damn fool!" translates as.  I don't think I speak French all that well.

Here is some of the partly whole wheat flour dough rolled out and ready to be cut into circles:

See?  Pretty speckles.

Next, I peeled my apples and dropped them in a bowl of acidulated water to bide their time until I needed them for each tartlet.  I'd counted up my apples and then cut out circles of dough accordingly.

Except that I hadn't paid attention when reading the directions, and so I thought it was a WHOLE apple per tartlet, but it's not.  It's half an apple.  I'm a dolt.  I had eleven apples (this sounds like one of Alex's math problems) and so I cut out eleven circles.  (The number seems appropriate:  "This one goes to eleven!")  And then - well, I just gave up and figured I'd save the rest of the apples in their lemony bath for another day.  I was already running behind schedule - I didn't have time to cut out more circles.

Isn't that pretty?  I had to stop, mid frantic pace, to take several pictures of it.

And then I tried cutting the apple so it would look like the one in Dorie's book.  But my pieces of apple just didn't look as good as hers (which is not surprising.  She also probably counted right the first time.), so I cut them a bit smaller...and I still didn't like that, so I tried other shapes, other configurations, other designs, until finally I took all the last bits of one apple and chopped them up into smaller bits and dropped them onto my final circle of dough.  So THERE!

Only it turns out I didn't take a picture of that batch of tartlets at this stage.  Oops.

Then I sprinkled brown sugar and dotted with butter...

 

My Tartlet of Frustrated Chopping is the one on the bottom right, by the way.

And into the oven they went.

I only took a picture of the first batch when they came out.  I think I was careening into dinner preparations when the second batch finished up.

After dinner, the kids each had one.

Alex asked that I drizzle Hershey's syrup on his.  I hesitated, and suggested that it might not really go togther, and he said "Oh, come on, Mom!  Let me try it!  It'll be an experiment!"  So I drizzled (artistically) some chocolate syrup over his tartlet.  Julia had hers with whipped cream.  And then she ate the whipped cream and asked for "just a little bit more whipped cream?  please?  last time, I promise!"

Not surprisingly, Julia ate all her whipped cream, some of the apple, and a bite of the pastry.  Then she was full. 

Alex licked his plate clean. 

This morning I took the finished pictures for this post, and in looking at them, I think a picture of Alex licking a plate would have done a better job of expressing how yummy these little pastries truly are.

 

Thank you to Jessica for picking this treat!  You can find the recipe on her blog or in Dorie Greenspan's Baking:  From My Home to Yours.  And you can check out all the other pretty photos and commentary on all the other Tuesdays with Dorie blogs by clicking here!

Oh, and By the Way

I really WILL be posting with this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe - but it'll have to be later today, seeing as how I still haven't actually made the dessert.  But I haven't forgotten.  Nor am I slacking.  For a change!

TWD: Cinnamon Squares, and an Open Letter to Dorie

 

Dear Dorie,

Hi, it's me.  I know, I haven't posted in several weeks.  I'm sorry.  I actually made the Lemon Tart from a few weeks ag0 - the pictures are still here on my computer - just haven't gotten around to putting that post together.

But really, I've got a good excuse.  Not sure if you've been checking in here lately (that's okay if you haven't - I'm sure you've got plenty of other things going on in your life), but we've been kind of immersed in converting the master bedroom into two smaller bedrooms for the kids.  Most of the stuff from the master bedroom (except for 2 bureaus and a bookcase) are crammed into the kids' current (shared) bedroom, with the exception of a mattress.  That's on the floor in the basement - my husbands' and my temporary bedroom.

We've been (under the invaluable tutelage of our nephew, Joe) re-wiring the electricity, tearing down walls and putting up new ones, and - most recently - applying, sanding, and reapplying  (endlessly, it seems) joint compound to the cracks and crevices in the newly built sheetrock walls.  I didn't have anything to do with the electricity or the building of walls, but I'm definitely involved in the smearing and sanding of the joint compound.

The application of it is kind of like applying frosting to a cake.  Except that usually I don't need to sand down my cakes after the frosting dries and add another layer to cover the corner tape a little better.  I am proud, however, to say that I'm pretty good at creating nice, sharp edges where needed.

Anyway, with all this going on, I haven't done a whole lot of anything newsworthy in the kitchen.  Or, if I have, I haven't been taking pictures. 

But I yesterday, fearing expulsion from the club, I made it a priority to bake this week's recipe. 

Fortunately, Tracey, ofTracey's Culinary Adventures, picked a quick, easy-to-put-together goodie.  Cinnamon Squares sounded great to me - I love cinnamon.  And I had everything the recipe called for except the espresso powder, but I figured I'd get that at the grocery store.  It was on my list - and guess what.  I forgot to get it anyway.  I substituted in a little strong coffee for some of the milk and figured even if the coffee flavor didn't come through, that was okay.  I was in it for the cinnamon anyway.

Anyway, as you know, Dorie, the ingredients come together quickly.  It's just a matter of mixing dry ingredients together, mixing most of the wet ingredients together, combining the two, and then gently folding in the melted butter.  Pun intended - this was a piece of cake.

So, like I was saying...first you've got your dry ingredients...

(oops - spilled some!)

And then your wet ingredients...

And you just combine them and fold in the butter.

 

Mmmm!  You can almost smell the cinnamon, can't you?

Then you just pour it in the pan, add the cinnamon-sugar layer and the chocolate chips, then the rest of the batter, pop it in the oven, and in about 40 minutes, you have this:

Oops.  That's not a great shot.  Here's a better one:

I made this last night, and had promised Alex and Julia they could have some if they cleaned up their toys quickly.  They have never worked so fast, Dorie!

Alex liked his with the chocolate frosting...

But Julia and I actually prefer ours plain.  (I haven't had my husband's opinion yet - he had to work late last night and won't have a sample until he opens his lunch today.)

Anyway, Dorie, I hope you understand why I've missed a few weeks of participation.  I'll try to do a better job of keeping up now - the bulk of the work (the disruptive, dusty work) is done, so that should free me up.

Thanks for creating this yummy recipe, and thanks again to Tracey for making it this week's pick.  I know she's posted the directions on her site, and people can also find the how-to in your book, Baking:  From My Home to Yours.  I'm sure all the other members of the Tuesdays with Dorie gang have their posts up, too.  They're not the slackers I am.

I guess that's it!  Thanks for understanding, Dorie!

Humbly,

Jayne

TWD - Tiramisu Petit Fours

 

We were going to a cookout on Saturday for Joe's birthday and I figured I'd make the Tiramisu cake for that.  But who wants to deal with a cake at a cookout?  A knife to cut it, forks, plates...and how many people does this cake serve?  That's all?  Well that wouldn't be enough for everyone to have some...and I wasn't about to double it or anything.

So I decided to make petit fours.

I'm out of practice - who makes petit fours just for lunchbox snacks? - but I figured I could wing it.

So instead of baking the cake in two round 9" pans, I baked it in two 13 x 9" rectangular pans and ended up with nice, thin layers of cake.  They baked in about 15-20 minutes. 

I mixed up the rest of the components - the hot espresso (I just used strong coffee), the syrup, and the mascarpano filling.

I put one layer of cake down and leveled it off with a big serrated knife, and then I painted it with some of the coffee and Kahlua syrup.  Then on went a layer of the mascarpone filling, and then the mini chocolate chips.  I painted the other piece of cake with more syrup, flipped that over onto the layer of mascarpone and chips, and painted the top with the last of the syrup.  Then added the rest of the coffee to the mascarpone mixture and spread a nice layer of that over the top of the cake.

Like so:

 

Next, with my serrated knive and a keen eye and a steady hand (hahahahahahaha) I sliced off the edges of the cake so that all the edges were clean and squared off.

 

Looks pretty yummy so far...

Next up - because when you're making petit fours they're supposed to all be the same size - I held a ruler along the edges of the cake and marked each inch in the frosting with the tip of a paring knife.

 

And then, a couple sections at a time, I sliced first across the cake, and then across each strip, to make little 1" square bites.  I wasn't as good at it as I used to be. 

 

But not too terrible.  As I cut apart the little stacks of cake, I set them on a large tray to bring to the cookout.

 

It really looks yummy, I think.

 

I topped each piece with a mini chocolate chip, and that was it.  And they were great.  The kids liked them, Bill liked them, I did, and it looked like plenty of people at the cookout did, too.  Yay!

I think if I were to make this again - and it's a distinct possibility - I would either use shaved chocolate instead of the chips, or a thin layer of ganache, or maybe just leave the chocolate out of the middle altogether.  Other than that, I wouldn't change a thing.

Much thanks to Megan, of My Baking Adventures, for selecting this week's recipe!!  You can find the recipe posted here on her site or in Dorie Greenspan's book Baking:  From My Home to Yours.

If you'd like to see what all the rest of the rest of the TWD bakers did with the Tiramisu Cake recipe, go here and check out the blogroll.

  

TWD - Four-Star Chocolate Bread Pudding

 

Sorry - not a great picture.  Sometimes I plan well, other times, I don't.  This was a don't.

But anyway!

This week's recipe was chosen by Lauren, of Upper East Side Chronicle.  You can find the recipe instructions either on Lauren's site or on pages 410-411 of Dorie Greenspan's Baking:  From My Home to Yours. 

The Four-Star Chocolate Bread Pudding is, in my humble opinion, super simple to put together, although I made it more involved than necessary because instead of just getting a loaf of bread at the store and letting it go stale, I made bread JUST for this purpose.  Well, I made some loaves for the family to eat, too, but the main purpose of that round of baking was so I could have this - what you see below - 12 ounces of bread...stale.

 

To further the staling (is that a word?) process, I cubed the bread and just let it sit out while I took my time gathering everything else I'd need to make the pudding.

 

Like the milk and heavy cream.

 

And the whole eggs, egg yolks, and sugar.

 

Oh - and the chocolate!  I'd read in the P & Q section of the TWD site that some people didn't think the 60% chocolate had enough chocolatey oomph, flavor-wise, so I made a little note to myself to get something with a higher percentage when I was at the store.

Bill actually ended up doing the shopping, and he got me 4 oz of 60% bittersweet and a bar of 100%, which is just unsweetened chocolate.  I used all of the unsweetened, and half of the bittersweet.   VERY chocolatey - and not too sweet.  It was a rather grown-up tasting dessert.  And there's not a thing wrong with that!

 

But back to the process.  I brought the milk and cream to a boil, tempered the egg mixture, and then poured that over the chocolate.

 

I stirred the mixture together until all the chocolate had melted and combined with the custard mixture...

 

And then poured it all over the bread cubes in my pyrex baking dish.

 

 

The bread cubes were like little sponges.

 

Per Dorie's instructions, I let the bread and custard mixture sit for half an hour.

 

After the 30 minutes were up, the bread was well and truly soggy with the chocolate custard mixture, and it was time to bake.

 

Into the 350 oven it all went, in a makeshift water bath (I don't have a metal roasting pan big enough for the pyrex to sit in...well, I do, but it's ENORMOUS and high-sided, and I only take it out of the back end of my cupboard for things like turkeys and legs of lamb and roast beef.  I used a sheet pan with inch-high sides, and that seemed to work just fine.

Boy, did it smell good!

I baked the pudding for 40 minutes, and then let it sit and cool for the rest of the afternoon. 

This was Saturday, by the way.  Our nephew, Ray, and his girlfriend, The Girl, were up staying with us, and Ray was going to be running the Boston Marathon on Monday.  Bill cooked a ton of ribs - including boneless Fiery Meat of Death creations that left most of us teary-eyed and burning-mouthed.  I made cole slaw and a warm pasta salad (and bread) to round out the meal. 

And I served the bread pudding for dessert.  There were 8 of us in total, including the kids.  Neither child liked the bread pudding.  I'm thinking it wasn't as sweet as they'd have liked, though Alex does like dark chocolate.  Or it could have been a texture thing...or maybe they just ate too many ribs and didn't have any room left in their overly ambitious little tummies.

I dished it up for the 6 adults, and everyone seemed to like it.  A lot.

Except...me.  And it's not the recipe at all - it's just that, try as I might, I don't really like bread pudding.  Not that my quality of life will be diminished if I don't like it - I may even save myself a pound or so of weight gain every year because of it.  But I really thought I would like it because of the chocolate.  It smelled great.  But it just wasn't for me.  Like I said, though, the rest of the adults liked it, and it was gone before Monday.  So that should tell you something!

 The rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie gang have probably already posted their opinions and adventures and pictures, (I'm late) so go on and check them out!

 

TWD - 15 Minute Magic: Chocolate Amaretti Torte

I have noticed that I keep miniaturizing the pies and cakes I"ve been baking lately.  That, and I tend to also double or triple the recipes.  I am guessing my reasoning (if I have any) is that if I make them small, they're easy to give away (and I won't eat them all), and as long as I double or triple the recipe, I'll have ENOUGH small cakes and things to make sure some of the neighbors, family, and so on all get a sample.

Eventually I'll be running up and down the streets of the neighborhood, handing out miniature things to all the houses...kind of like a paper route, only tastier.

But I digress.

This week's recipe, the Chocolate Amaretti Torte, WANTS to be doubled.  Or tripled.  Or quintupled.  Or octupled.  It's really, really, REALLY good.  I doubled the recipe and made four 4" cakelets and three dozen mini tortes out of all that.  And I think tripling would have been even better, because then there'd be more left for me.  I mean my FAMILY.  Yeah, that's what I meant.

The Chocolate Amaretti Torte was selected by Holly of Phe/MOM/enon, and usually I wait til the end of the post to say this, but if you want the recipe, AND BELIVE ME, YOU DO, then you must head on over to Holly's site (which is a worthwhile journey in and of itself) to read her post and take a look at the recipe and scribble it down on the back of an envelope or a legal pad or your arm and then head out to the store to get what you need to make it, and come home and MAKE IT RIGHT THEN AND THERE.  Or - and this is a good idea, too - buy Dorie Greenspan's book and flip to page 276 where the recipe begins and get going on it.

That said, here's my Chocolate Amaretti Torte story.

First of all, it's a good thing that I decided to read through the P & Q (Problems and Questions) on the TWD site for this recipe.  I was planning to bake the tortes a day or two before Easter so I could bring some to Easter brunch at my cousin's house.  I hadn't looked at the recipe yet, other than the picture, which, I know, is quite pathetic of me, but there it is...and so I didn't realize that Dorie recommended a specific brand of Amaretti cookie for this recipe.  In reading the P&Q comments, I discovered that these cookies weren't always easy to find, and that there was a pretty good chance that none of the grocery stores I shop at would have them.  Hm!  Good to know.  Fortunately several people had made the cookies themselves, and a couple had also posted recipes or links to recipes, so I figured if I couldn't get the Amaretti at the one store I planned to go, I'd make them.  And, as fate would have it, the store didn't have the cookies, so I ended up making them.  You can read about that here.

Once I had the Amaretti baked and cooled, I could finally make the tortes.  The recipe is wonderfully quick and simple (yes, really - 15 minutes from food processor to oven), with just a few ingredients.

The recipe calls for almonds, but I was (I thought) saving some of my almonds for another dessert, so I used MOSTLY almonds and some macademia nuts and walnuts to make up the correct quantity for Dorie's recipe. 

 

Other than that, I followed the rest of the recipe exactly. 

Or pretty much exactly - mine were tortelets and mini tortes rather than one full-blown torte. 

  

(The batter looked kind of curdled when the sugar, butter and eggs were combined...but it was nothing to worry about in the long run.)

 

 

 

 

Yum.  Chocolate.

 

 

The only other change I made in the recipe was with the glaze.  It called for heavy cream, and I'd purchased a pint while I was out shopping for Amaretti and other things, but when I opened the container to make the glaze, something was off.  It smelled funky.  I tasted it, just to be sure (because  sometimes milk or cream around the opening will get an off smell even though the contents of the container are perfectly fine), and it kind of tasted okay, but kind of tasted like...watered-down turpentine.  And since turpentine and chocolate don't really go together all that well, I poured the pint down the drain (oh, and I checked the expiration date - it should have been fine, so maybe the cows at that farm actually LIKE turpentine and that's why the cream picked up the flavor) and just used the third of a cup or so of heavy cream I had in the fridge and added about 5 ounces of unsalted butter.  Why?  Because I had it.  And I knew nothing bad would come of it, unless you count weight gain and hardening of the arteries as bad, but the heavy cream will do that, too, so the substitution was acceptable.

 

 

(Doesn't look pretty at the moment, but just keep stirring and everything will be just fine.)

 

My four tortelets.  (I don't know why I didn't take pictures of the tiny mini tortes after I'd glazed them...probably because I was trying to hide them from the rest of the family.)

 

(Sorry.  Blurry.)

The tiny little mini tortes were a huge hit with my tiny little offspring and my not-so-tiny husband.  Bite size, melt-in-your-mouth perfection.  I had to keep shooing the family away from the food.  Despite my best efforts, the number of mini tortes dwindled from 3 dozen to 2 1_/2...to 2...to just 18 little tortes.  Annoying, but understandable.

I gave some of the tortelets away and kept one (okay, two) for us.

  

You know, so I could take pictures.

 

For the blog, of course.

 

And for the good of all mankind.

For other Chocolate Amaretti Torte stories, check out all the other Tuesdays with Dorie blogs!

TWD - Banana Cream Pie

    

Mmmmmm...pie! 

Thank you, Amy - of Sing for Your Supper - for choosing this week's recipe - it was a HUGE hit in our house!

The brown sugar and the cinnamon in the pastry cream added such a marvelous depth of flavor, too.

 

Wonderful in combination with the bananas and the crisp, flaky crust. 

 

I didn't make the topping in the book - unfortunately I would have ended up eating most of it myself, and while that would have been a delicious undertaking, I chose just to whip some cream as needed.

I wasn't sure if Alex would like it at all (even if I left off the whipped cream) - he's funny about textures, and I thought maybe he wouldn't like the pastry cream.  But I was wrong - he ate all of the first piece and nearly all of the second!  Julia ate most of one piece - she's got a smaller stomach, after all, and that was plenty for her.  Bill LOVED it.  VERY MUCH.  VERY, VERY MUCH. 

And me?  Well, see that picture up there?  That's from the second batch of "slice of pie" pictures I've done for the pie.  Where do you think those slices went when I was done shooting?  Banana cream pie is especially lovely right after breakfast.  With that final cup of coffee.  Yum.

If you'd like the recipe for this pie, you can march your fingers right on over to Amy's site, or you can turn to pages 342-343 of Dorie's Baking:  From My Home to Yours.  And don't forget to meander through all the other TWD blogs for a wide variety of other pie-making adventures!

 

TWD - Coconut Butter Thins

  

Hi.  I'm Julia.  I'm four and a half. 

This week Mommy said I could be in charge of talking about the cookies she made. 

They're called "Coconut Butter Thins," and Mommy said she got to pick out the recipe. 

I don't know what that means. 

She always gets to pick the recipes out at our house.

She made these cookies a few whiles ago but she couldn't talk about them until now because I think it was a secret or something.

I helped make these cookies.  I help a lot.  I'm a good helper.

First I have to wash my hands.  With soap. 

Then Mommy has to put my hair in a pony tail.  So I don't get butter in my hair.

I'm wearing an apron, just like Mommy does, so I don't get food on my clothes.  And I have to stand on a chair, 'cuz I'm not a really big girl yet.  But Mommy lets me crack the eggs.  Only there weren't any eggs in these cookies.  So I didn't get to.

But there was the skin from a lime.  I didn't shred it.  I can shred cheese on pasta.  But Mommy shredded the skin from the lime.

 

And there were other things, too.  There was flour, and sugar, and coconut, and corn... corn... cornstarch, Mommy said.  And salt.  And............coriander.  And lime.  Oh, yeah, I already said that.

 

Oh, and nuts.  I like nuts.  Do you like nuts?  Alex has a - Alex is my brother, he's six and a half.  Alex says "Do you like nuts?" and if you say yes, he laughs and laughs.  I don't know why.  He's silly.

Mommy says these are macademia nuts.  And there's also vanilla.  And butter.  I like butter. 

 

Now you mush up the lime things with the sugar.  It smells really good.  Kind of like lemonade candy.

 

Now you put the butter and the sugar and the lime stuff in a mixer bowl and mix it all up really fast. 

Mommy has to do this part. 

I have to keep my hands away from the mixer machine or I can't help.

If you touch the mixer thing when it's on, you could get VERY, VERY BAD BOO-BOOS!

And Mommy won't let you help.

 

Mommy let me have a taste.  It was yummy. 

Oh, and then we put in the flour and the corn...cornstuff...and the sugar and the salt and....that other stuff.  The teeny tiny brown stuff.  The coriander.

 

And then you put in those nuts and the coconut. 

 

And Mommy mixed it all together.

 

And she let me have one more taste.  JUST ONE.  It was yummy. 

Then she put it in a bag and rolled it out with a rolling pin!  In a BAG!  And then she put it in the fridgerator for a few whiles.

 

When Mommy took it out of the fridgerator, it was all flat and hard!  Look!  It didn't even bend!

 

Mommy cut off the plastic bag and I got to peel it off the dough while Mommy took a picture. 

 

Then she wanted to take a picture of it again.  I put my hand there when she wasn't looking.  Hee hee hee....

 

Then she told me to take my hand away and don't do that again, Julia.

 

Then she took a RULER and made lines on the dough!  With a knife.  Knifes are VERY sharp.  VERY SHARP.  Mommy wouldn't let me use the knife. 

 

But she did let me use a fork!  We put all the little squares on the cookie sheet and then I got to poke holes in them with a fork.  TWO times.  I had to poke the fork in each cookie TWO TIMES.

 

Mommy took a bunch more pictures after we poked all the holes in the cookies and then she put the pans in the oven and took MORE pictures AGAIN after she took the pans out.

    

 

 They look very yummy, don't they? 

But wait! 

   

We have to wait until the cookies cool before Mommy will let us have one.  

Alex kept asking if they were ready yet.  Mommy kept saying no. 

 

She kept taking pictures and saying "Not yet.  Not yet."  It was taking a long time.  

 

    

But finally she said we could have one.

That's Alex.  My brother.  He's being silly.

Me and Alex and Daddy all liked them. 

 And we got to have more cookies. 

Not just one. 

I think Mommy liked them, too.

She had a bunch.

And she took more pictures. 

She said lots of other people were going to make these cookies, too. 

I wanted to go over their houses and help, but Mommy said they already had helpers.

She said if you wanted to see all the cookies they made with their helpers, you could look on your computers here and find all the people on the list.

They're called Tuesdays with Dorie.

I think that's a funny name.  Tuesday's not a NAME!

Oh, yeah, and Mommy put the recipe down there, after the other cookie picture. 

You should make these.  You and your helper.  They're yummy.

 

"Coconut Butter Thins"

Dorie Greenspan

Baking:  From My Home to Yours, pg 145 

"There was a moment when I thought I shouldn't include these because they are so fragile--but they're too good not to share.  They are like shortbread cookies in their preparation and melt-in-your-mouth butteriness, but once they're slid into the oven, they become more wafery and lacy.  Because they also contain coconut and chopped macademia nuts, they've got a bit of bump and crunch."

1 _^1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon salt

Pinch of ground coriander

2/3 cup sugar

Grated zest of 1 lime

2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 _^1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2/3 cup sweetened shredded coconut

1/2 cup finely chopped macademia nuts (don't be afraid to use salted nuts)

Whisk together the flour, cornstarch, salt and coriander.

If you want to get a little more flavor out of the lime zest, put the sugar and zest in the mixer bowl and, using your fingertips, work the zest into the sugar until the sugar is moist and the mixture fragrant.

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter, sugar and zest on medium speed for about 3 minutes, or until smooth.  Beat in the vanilla extract.  Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour mixture, mixing only until the dry ingredients disappear.  Add the coconut and nuts and pulse to incorporate them.  There will probably be some dry ingredients in the bottom of the bowl--don't work them in with the mixer, just reach into the bowl and knead them in.

Transfer the soft, sticky dough to a gallon-size zipper-lock bag.  Put the bag on a flat surface, leaving the top open, and roll the dough into a 9-x-10 _^1/2-inch rectangle that's 1/4 inch thick.  As you roll, turn the bag occasionally and lift the plastic from the dough so it doesn't cause creases.  When you get the right size and thickness, seal the bag, pressing out as much air as possible, and refrigerate the dough for at least 2 hours or for up to 2 days.

GETTING READY TO BAKE:  Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.  Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

Put the plastic bag on a cutting board and slit it open.  Turn the dough out onto the board (discard the bag), and, using a ruler as a guide and a sharp knife, cut it into 32 squares, each roughly 1 _^1/2 inches on a side.  Transfer the squares to the baking sheets, leaving about 2 inches between them, and carefully prick each one twice with a fork, gently pushing the tines through the cookies to the sheet.

Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, rotating the sheets from top to bottom and fromt to back at the midway point.  The shortbreads will be very pale--they shouldn't take on much color.  Transfer the cookies to a rack and cool to room temperature.

Makes 32 Cookies

Serving:  Save these for an after-dessert dessert, so they'll be the last taste you have with your last sip of coffee or tea.

Storing:  Wrapped well, these will keep for about 3 days at room temperature or for up to 2 months in the freezer.

~~~

Well, Mommy said I have to go to bed now.  I have school tomorrow.

See ya later, crocodile!

TWD - Blueberry Crumb Cake

 

I knew Alex, especially, would love this one.  My son loves anything with blueberries.  So this one was definitely a winner before I even read the rest of the ingredients.

Sihan of Befuddlement selected this week's recipe, and what a lovely choice.  Thanks, Sihan!

I actually made this over the course of two days.  I made the topping and combined the dry ingredients Saturday night and put the whole thing together early (like, five-thirtyish) the next morning.  I am pretty sure I'll make this one again, especially late this summer when the blueberries are ripe.

First up, the topping, which, for me, is often the best part.

 

I assembled all my ingredients - flour, butter, brown sugar, chopped walnuts, white sugar, and salt - and then combined everything but the nuts in the food processor.

 

 

And then I added the nuts, after dumping this mixture into another bowl.  Yum.

 

I covered that and stuck it the fridge.  Then I whisked together the dry ingredients...

Actually, no, Julia whisked them.

 

Then I covered the bowl with plastic wrap and that was it til the next morning.

Like I said, I finished this up EARLY on Sunday morning.  Bill took the kids skiing - in North Conway - for the day, so they left a little before five that morning.  (Julia even has her own (second-hand) skiis and the most adorable little ski boots.  And the boots are adjustable!  She'll be able to get about three years' use out of them!  Pretty cool, huh?  We're hoping to do the same thing with Alex in the fall.  We'd have done it this year, but the place we're buying from didn't have any more skiis in Alex's size (at least none in time for this trip), so we just rented Sunday and we'll get him outfitted in October.) 

Woah, that was a bit of a tangent.

Anyway, my parents were going to come up for coffee and a visit later that morning, so I figured I'd whip this cake up in time for them.

Also, I didn't want to just make one 8" square cake.  Instead, I broke out my mini springform pans and made 6 adorable little round cakes instead.

The process photos didn't come out that great - pre-dawn lighting isn't all that great - but here are a few of them, just because.

 

 

 

 

 

 

They baked for about 40 minutes, and smelled wonderful in the process.

Here they are fresh from the oven...

 

Want a closer look?

 

After they cooled a bit, I loosened the rings and let them cool some more.  Then I removed the rings and the bases of the pans and let them finish cooling before plating them up.

 

I ran one over to our friends across the street right away, and kept the rest handy for picture-taking and eating.

 

 

My parents and I shared one little cake, and I gave them another to take home.  At the moment, we have one left.  Alex has eaten most of the other two. 

Big raves all around - from my friend across the street, my parents, Bill and the kids, and - oh, yeah - me.  Soft, moist, easy to make and delicious.  Like I said, I'll be making this again, especially during blueberry season.  I was also thinking this would work well as a batch of muffins.

Many thanks so Sihan for choosing the Blueberry Crumb Cake for this week - you can find the recipe on her site or in the pages of Dorie Greenspan's Baking:  From My Home to Yours.  (Pages 192-193 to be exact.)  You can also go read what the rest of the TWD crew had to say about this one.  The blogroll is LOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG, so pace yourself!

TWD - French Yogurt Cake with Marmalade Glaze

   

Oh, yum.

I knew I'd like this before I grated a smidge of lemon zest.  The recipe just read as yummy.  And since I knew I'd like it, I tripled the recipe.  I was going to quadruple it, but figured I should save some eggs for the rest of the family.

Liliana of My Cookbook Addiction selected the French Yogurt Cake for this week and it sounded so good I made it well in advance of the posting date (something I haven't done in some time.)  So thank you, Liliana, for picking this fabulous recipe!  And of course, thank you, Dorie, for sharing it with us!

First up, the measuring of the ingredients.   Flour, baking powder, salt, and ground almonds.  Please keep in mind this is a triple batch, so if that looks like a lot of salt in the third picture below, well, that's why.

 

 

 

   

These dry ingredients are whisked together...

 

And then, to continue...sugar and lemon zest.  I was nearly out of white sugar, so I used turbinado sugar for the rest.

 

Oh, AND, I used Meyer lemons.  I'd seen them when I walked into my local Dave's Marketplace, and I just started grabbing them like a crazy person.  I forced myself to stop at eight.

 

Since they're smaller than the lemons I usually get, I zested four instead of three (for the tripled recipe).  That worked out nicely.

 

I added the zest to the sugar and rubbed them together.  My kitchen smelled like spring.

 

Onto the wet ingredients...the yogurt, vanilla, eggs, and oil.

 

 

 

 

And into the mixer we go.  First the sugar and eggs and yogurt and vanilla.

 

Oh, it smells heavenly!

 

And then the flour mixture.

 

 

And finally the oil.

 

 

Once I'd folded the oil in it was time to divide the batter into all my pans.  That's right, ALL my pans.  Part of the reason I tripled the recipe was so I could give some of the cake away.  I figured mini loaves of different sizes would be cute and would allow me to share the wealth with more people.  So I buttered four mini loaf pans, three smallish loaf pans, and one little square pan.  I ended up not using the square one.  The other seven worked perfectly for my purposes.

 

 

And then it was into the oven for all of them.  I checked them at 30 minutes, and continued baking for another fifteen, which was just right.  And oh, did the house smell good while that was going on!

 

Mmmmmm, lemony.

After ten minutes, I removed the loaves from the pans and set them out to finish cooling.

   

And I made the glaze - lemon marmalade and a bit of water.  Dorie's recipe says to strain the marmalade and then warm it up in a pan with the water.  I admit it.  I'm a rebel.  I heated the marmalade with the water first and then strained it.  It seemed like the easier route, since the marmalade was thinner and dripped through the strainer more easily.

 

So pretty.  Like jewels....

And that was it.  I wrapped them up and handed some out to a few of my neighbors, and eventually found homes for most of the rest of them. 

 

Not ALL of them, of course. 

There would have been a mutiny or an insurrection or an uprising or something here, because, hard as it is to believe, EVERYONE in the household really liked this cake.  Yay! 

 

And who could blame them?

If you'd like to make one or three or seventy batches for yourself, you can find the recipe on Liliana's site or in Dorie Greenspan's book Baking:  From My Home to Yours on pages 224-225.

And you can also check out the other TWD members' blogs and see what they thought of this lovely cake.

Playing Catch Up - TWD - Chocolate Armagnac Cake

Only I didn't use Armagnac.  Apparenlty we'd just run out of it.  Just kidding.  I went down to the bar area and took a look through all the bottles and chose to snitch some of the Basil Hayden's bourbon that Bill received as a Christmas gift (I think) from his friend, John.  I hesitated, just because I understand that in bourbon circles, it's pretty fancy schmancy stuff.  I don't particularly like anything in the great, big whiskey family, and it all tends to smell the same to me (I know, HERESY to some of you!), but I figured if this was good stuff, then it darn well deserved to be in my cake.

There's logic for you.

Anyway, it certainly flamed up nicely when I was preparing my prunes.  I did those one day and let them sit, then made the cake the following day.

 

 

Mmmmm, chocolate.

Though Alex hadn't even bothered to try the Lemon Cup Custard I'd made for this week's TWD post, I knew he would love this cake. 

He and I are the two chocolate lovers in this house.  Bill appreciates good chocolate, but when it comes to sugary stuff, or candy, he's more of a fruit-oriented (or artificially fruit flavored) kind of guy.  Julia also leans more in that direction.  Funny how tastes are.

Anyway, the cake itself was pretty easy to put together.  I decided to use four of my little mini springform pans rather than a full-sized pan, because I wanted to give some AWAY (and not devour it myself) and presenting a mini cake is (to me) a bit more fun than just hacking off a wedge and handing it over.

 

They baked up in about 30 minutes, I cooled them a bit in the pans, then released and removed the sides of the pans and the bottoms and the waxed paper and let them finish cooling while I made the glaze.

 

 

The kids wanted to decorate the cakes, so I gave each child some walnuts and some bittersweet chocolate chips and let them have fun.

Here are the results:

 

This one is Julia's...it's hard to tell from this angle, but some of her walnut pieces are standing on end, giving the cake a nice bit of vertical appeal that I completely ignored when I was taking these pictures.

Next up, Alex's...

 

He stuck a few bits and pieces on top and that was the end of it.  I added the walnuts around the edge of the cake.  I think he just wanted us to be DONE with this silly playing around part and get out the knives and forks and DIG IN.

I gave this one to our friends across the street -

  

 

And I left the last one "blank." 

It had the nicest swirls in the glaze and needed no further embellishment.

 

Once dinner was over and the dishes cleared, I gave each child a quarter of a cake.  Just a little bit, just in case someone didn't like it.  I didn't want to waste any.  We cut into Julia's first, by unanimous decision.  Alex's plate is the one with the tropical flowers and fish on it.  As you can see, all that remain are a few crumbs on the plate and a smear or two on the tines of the fork.  The pink plate (of course) was Julia's.  She picked off all the nuts and chips she'd carefully placed there when she was decorating, didn't eat them at all, and had a tiny taste of the cake.  "I don't like it," she said.  Can this be classified as a true genetic defect?  Just curious.

 

And Bill?  Well, remember this post?  And then this one?  It was finally his turn.  He wasn't interested in cake or anything else.  The next day he bravely had a nibble and said it was very good. 

Oh, and Alex had more the next night.  Now,  it would be tempting to blame the following pictures on the effects of chocolate, but it would also be inaccurate.  He's just like this.

TWD - Lemon Cup Custard

 

Finally!  It feels like it's been ages since my last Tuesdays with Dorie post.  It probably has been, actually.  Last week I was so close to making the Chocolate Armagnac Cake - but I didn't, what with all the horrible bouts of illness that plagued my house.

Fortunately that seems to be over (knock wood, fingers crossed, and all those other gestures), and yesterday I spent most of the day IN THE KITCHEN, which made me pretty happy.  Not only did I make the Lemon Cup Custards for this week's TWD post, but I also made four loaves of Potato bread - much to everyone's delight.  Especially my husband's.

I was also hoping to make that Chocolate Armagnac Cake yesterday, too, because it sounds really good, and besides, I bought prunes for it and everything - but I ran out of time.  I'm hoping to work it in today.  I'll let you know.

Anyway - the Lemon Cup Custards.  The recipe was selected by Bridget, of The Way the Cookie Crumbles, and she has the recipe posted on her site, so if you'd like to make this simple little treat, head on over there to see how to do it.  You could also check on page 387 of Dorie Greenspan's Baking:  From My Home to Yours.

The recipe - milk, lemon zest, eggs and sugar - is wonderfully simple.  I meant to add a bit of lemon extract, but I got distracted (it happens so easily) that I forgot until I'd poured the custard into the ramekins, and then the idea of dividing 1/8 of a teaspoon of extract into 6 equal portions and then stirring them into each ramekin...um...never mind.  I was just glad I'd finally put something together that I didn't want to stop (to pour all the custard back in the bowl and add in the extract) because what if I got distracted AGAIN???  I'd never finish.  So into the oven (in their water bath) they went. 

Now, Bridget mentioned that hers cooked faster than Dorie's instructions.  Mine took about twenty minutes longer.  Ah well.  When they emerged from the oven, the custards were bright yellow on top and just jiggley in the center.  I let them cool and then popped them in the fridge.  They'd have a couple of hours to chill, and then I planned to try them out on my unsuspecting family members after dinner.

I figured I should taste on first, just to make sure there wasn't some horrible error made that I didn't remember, like using salt instead of sugar, for instance.  I had a little taste, and - no salt, fortunately - it tasted mildly lemony...very eggy, definitely custardy, as opposed, I guess, to puddingy.  Or curdy.  Or gelatiny.  I wasn't sure how I felt about it at that point.  It was...nice.

Time to make use of the children.  First up - Alex.

"Hey Alex, come here for a minute.  I need your help!"  (At this age, they still like to help.)

He came into the room, smiling with all his assorted-size teeth plus the one new gap.  "What do you need me to help with?"

"I want you to taste this dessert I made."  I opened the fridge and scooped out a little bit from one of the ramekins and started to cross the room toward him.

You'd think I was a chronically horrible cook by the way he reacted.  He sort of hunched his shoulders together and started to back away, the sweet expression on his face replaced by a polite cringe.

"What is it?"

"It's called 'Lemon Cup Custard!' " I said brightly, a big, probably scary 1950's housewife propaganda smile scotch taped to my face.  "Try it!"  I urged, advancing on the cowering child, spoon held out, like Snow White's stepmother with the poisoned apple.

"What's custard?" he asked, looking fearfully at the pale yellow eggy quenelle on my spoon.

I knew I was doomed to failure, but I kept that smile on and that chipper voice as I said, "It's like pudding!"

He clamped his mouth shut and shook his head from side to side, effectively telling me no and preventing me from trying to shove the offensive spoonful down his throat by force.  Like I'd do such a thing.  He still tried to smile with his eyes.  He's a kind boy.

I let him go and summoned his sister.  Actually, Alex sent her up from the basement, saying "Mom needs your help with something important!"  He was probably hoping she'd try it, just to see what might happen to her as a result.  I'm surprised he didn't sneak back to watch.

Anyway, I tried again with Julia. 

"What is it Mama?"  she asked, coming into the room.

"I want you to try a dessert I made!"  (My face just morphs into that scary smile all by itself.  I swear I don't do it on purpose.)

She looked at the new spoonful of custard.  I told her what it was called, and before she could ask what "custard" was, I had a flash of inspiration. 

"It's like YOGURT!" I said, with desperate enthusiasm.  She looooooves yogurt. 

"You eat it," she told me. 

Why do they think the worst of me???

So I ate what I had, smiled with delight, and got her some.

Reluctantly, she opened her mouth a bit and allowed me to spoon some in.

A second later she wrinkled her nose and said she didn't like it.

 

(This is Julia reenacting her dislike, but she kept laughing while I took pictures, so I was unable to capture her initial feeling with any accuracy.)

Okay, well, I figured Alex wouldn't like it because it's just a texture thing with him, plain and simple.  I'd thought Julia would like it, but I guess it wasn't really like yogurt after all.  Only one victim family member left.  I re-spooned and headed downstairs.

"Honey, I know you're still full from dinner, but could you just have a taste of this and let me know what you think?  The kids have already had some."

He sat up in his chair and Julia, who had followed me down, said "Go on, try it, Daddy.  It's good!"  (Huh?  Who IS this child?)  Bill didn't put up the same barricade of questions and suspicion that the kids did - maybe Julia was convincing in her BALD FACED LIE just then.  Anyway, he ate the custard, thought a moment, and then shrugged. 

"It's not terrible, but it's not exciting," he said.  "It could be more lemony."

Well okay.  Kind of a tepid response all around, at best.  Maybe I should have mixed in the lemon extract after all.  I thought of mixing up another batch right then and there, but did I really want to?  What if I got the same responses? 

Okay, never mind another batch, then.  I still would need to take some pictures and post something about it.  I'd made a yellow custard in white ramekins.  Not all that exciting to look at.  I needed to do something to gussy it up. 

Now, if I was in a truly fanatical baking frame of mind, I'd probably have made come candied lemon peel in really thin julienne strips, or maybe curls.  Yes, curls would be better.  And I could sprinkle a couple of fresh raspberries on top.  (Except that raspberries aren't in season locally and I'm not going to pay eighteen dollars for half a dozen berries and find that three are moldy underneath the label.  So nix that one.

And then I thought - what is one of my favorite desserts AND is a custard?  Of course.  Creme brulee.  Well then, I wonder how the Lemon Cup Custard would be with a nice thin layer of cooked, crackley sugar on top? 

Because the thing with me...well, it's also a texture thing, kind of like Alex, except I DO like the texture - I just prefer it with some kind of contrasting texture.  Maybe to emphasize the soft eggyness.  Like a pie shell, for instance.  "Crunch crunch...oooh, my, how soft and soothing this custard is by comparison!"  Something like that.  So hey - since I couldn't bake a pie around the already-made filling, I could add some crunch on top.

 

Last night was too late (for pictures), so this morning, after I brought the kids to school, I set up my platters and got out my little kitchen torch and played with fire for a bit.  And then I had to come up with another variation, because, well, I'm using this long, skinny white plattery thing with three sections, and I needed something for the third section.  I really do create many more complications than there ought to be.  This whole post could have been done half an hour ago if my brain would just STOP! 

Anyway - back to that fresh rasperry idea I'd had.  Because raspberry and lemon are lovely in combination.  Well..................I had some seedless raspberry all-fruit preserves in the fridge...I could warm that a bit and make a little sauce.  That would be nice, right?  At the very least, it would be pretty! 

And so that's the great long saga of what I did.

 

And by the way, when I tasted the plain, unadulterated custard this morning, I liked it better.  Maybe it just needed to be super-chilled.  Maybe my taste buds were still sluggish after several days of eating only a banana and then things just not tasting right for the next day or so after.  Who knows.  But for whatever reason, the texture was custardyer (Yes, I'm having a grand old time making up words as I go.) and the lemon flavor was a bit more lemony.  It was nice.  But my favorite version is still the one with the contrasty textures.  I ate ALL of that one.

 

To read what all the other TWD members thought of this recipe, check out the blogroll on the official Tuesdays with Dorie website!  It's a long list - you might want to get a little dish of something to sustain you while you read....

TWD - Caramel Crunch Bars

 

This week's recipe was selected by Whitney of What's Left on the Table?

You know, I thought I was in good shape.  My kids each had a friend coming over for the afternoon and dinner (and one was sleeping over) on Saturday, so I thought:  Perfect!  I'll make the Caramel Crunch Bars and make ice cream sandwiches out of some of them!  The kids will be thrilled!  Plus I'll have my TWD stuff done WAAAAAAAAAAY ahead of time!  I won't be posting it all on a Wednesday!

Bwahahahahahaha!

Well, I did, in fact, make these on Saturday.  Very easy to put together.  My only changes were to leave out the espresso powder/finely ground instant coffee because I thought I had some but I didn't and I didn't want to go back to the store for just one item.  Annnnnnd...the store I went to didn't have toffee chips, so I bought a bag of mini Heath bars and chopped them up instead.  And darn, we have some left over.  What to do...what to do.....

 

Anyway, I baked them off without a hitch, and once they were completely cooled, I made little ice cream sandwiches out of them.  (My son's friend, when Alex told him I was making ice cream sandwiches, said "You can always buy them."  Um...not in this house, sonny.)  I made half of them with chocolate ice cream, half with vanilla.  Set them in the freezer to chill. 

 

Okay, now, I don't know why there are green reflections on top of these ice cream sandwiches.  NO IDEA.  I didn't see anything green when I shot the pictures.  I don't have anything green hanging there in my kitchen.  I don't get it.

 

They weren't out long enough for moss to grow.  Or mold.  So really, I don't know.

 

But I do know that my son and his friend had NO problem devouring a couple of these little chocolate sandwiches. 

And as for the cookies on their own - yummy.  A combination cookie and candy.  Crispy, crunchy, chocolatey and tofee-ey. 

I think next time I'll search harder for toffee chips, though.  The only thing that seemed off to me was the mix of the bittersweet chocolate layer and the milk chocolate on the Heath bars. 

To see what the other Tuesdays With Dorie members thought of them, go to the TWD site and check out the miles-long blogroll.  That should keep you busy for a year or so!  Oh, and if you want the recipe and don't have the book, Whitney has posted the recipe on her site.

Enjoy!

TWD (Slacker Style) - World Peace Cookies

 

That's what's left.  Or, rather, that's what was left this morning when I took the pictures.

 

I think there are about 8 or 9 of them left in this picture.  There are fewer now.  I sent three off with Alex for a snack at school.  He also had one after breakfast.  I'm weak.  And I had two a little while ago.  Or three.

 

Intensely chocolatey, kind of shortbread-like in texture, and with little bits and pieces of chopped chocolate throughout...these cookies deserve a far better post than my puny offering today.

But it's all I've got this time around.  Yesterday got away from me and I completely forgot to write the post.  Not just didn't do it - I forgot. 

I baked them, but no pictures, and then no post.

As I said, these cookies, Dorie's World Peace Cookies, chosen by Jessica of cookbookhabit, deserve far more than just my few words and my pathetic pictures. 

So go check out all the other TWD members and their posts.  And then go to Jessica's site and get the recipe (or buy the book and get the recipe that way!) - and bake these cookies.

World Peace,  indeed.

I know I'm feeling pretty loving toward the rest of the world right about now.

TWD - Fresh Ginger and Chocolate Gingerbread

 

Heather, of Sherry Trifle, chose this week's recipe, and I'm so glad she picked this one.  I love gingerbread, and I love chocolate with ginger.  I didn't make the frosting, however, because I just like my gingerbread all by itself - no frosting.

Anyway, the recipe was easy to follow and easy to put together. 

Julia helped out with the mixing, as she often does.

I made a couple other small changes - I didn't have the ginger in syrup called for in the recipe, so I substituted candied ginger, and I baked the whole thing in a 10" square pan.  I don't have a 9" - just a couple of 8 inches and a ten.  I figured with the ten I'd end up with more gingerbread, sort of.  (Yeah, okay Jayne.  Interesting logic you've got there.)

The gingerbread smelled heavenly while it baked and looked gorgeous when it came out of the oven.

I should have let it cool longer, or lined the pan with parchment (lazy = sticking issues) because some of the chocolate chips and bits of ginger stuck to the bottom of the pan, but oh well - the taste was not affected in the least.

 

I loved this.  In fact, I may go get a piece to have with my coffee in a moment.  Alex ate most of a large square while he did homework that day (Monday).  Julia didn't like it.  She wasn't nuts about all the varieties of ginger.  And when Alex got home from school yesterday, he regretfully informed me that he didn't really like the gingerbread any more.  Too gingery.  Ah well.  I think it's an acquired taste, and maybe things will change as they get older.  Bill liked it, and I, as I said, loved it.  Chocolate and ginger - such a wonderful combination.

Thanks again to Heather for picking this recipe.  If you'd like to give it a try yourself, she's got the recipe posted on her site, or you can buy Dorie's book, Baking:  From My Home to Yours and look on pages 212-213.

To see what all the other TWD bakers thought of this one, check out the miles-long blogroll on the TWD site!

TWD (okay, WWD) - Savory Corn and Pepper Muffins

 

I love this recipe.

As you can see by the photo above, I didn't make muffins.  I am just not that nuts about muffins.  And since this is really at heart a cornbread recipe (to me, anyway), I figured I'd bake it in a cast iron skillet, as cornbread should be baked.

But first things first.

I whisked my dry ingredients.

 

And, while my ground beef was becoming taco filling (with my own seasonings, not a pre-packaged blend, thankyouverymuch) on the stove, I assembled the wet ingredients and the corn and peppers and cilantro.

 

OH - and the shredded cheddar.  No - don't feel obligated to re-check your notes.  That's MY version of "Playing Around" with this recipe.  The cheese belongs with the rest of the ingredients, and it also adds some additional moisture.  (And of course it's that additional moisture that's the REAL reason for my adding it in...it couldn't possibly be my belief that nearly everything should be topped with a layer of melted cheddar...or filled with oozing brie.  No, couldn't be that at all.)

Anyway, I combined...

 

And I spread the mixture in my cast iron skillet...and sprinkled on some more cheese.  For cosmetic purposes only.

   

And then I slid the pan in the oven to bake while I cooked some Goya rice (with green chiles and tomatoes) and assembled the other ingredients for our taco dinner.

Twenty-five minutes later the rice and the cornbread were done.

Here's the cornbread:

 

Last night's pictures don't do it justice, so I took a few more this morning (better lighting).

Predictably, I loved it, Bill loved it, Julia liked it well enough last night but REALLY liked it earlier this morning as part of an early lunch, and Alex didn't like it at all.  He apologized for not liking it, "but I just don't like all the stuff in it."

Ah well.  It's still a good average.

 

I think this cornbread (as cornbread, not as a muffin) would be BEST along a long-simmered bowl of chili.  But since I didn't have the ingredients or the time for the long-simmering yesterday, I figured some fast tacos would work out okay.

And they did.

In fact, I didn't have tacos at all - I just split open a piece of the cornbread and topped it with the taco fillings.

I did almost the same thing a little while ago, both for me and (once she saw what I had and wanted me to share it with her) for Julia.

 

Julia ate two helpings (they were smaller than the one pictured above) and I had one.  The one in the picture.  Okay, one and a half.

Good thing I sent some in to work with Bill today, because I don't think the remaining quarter of cornbread will last the day.  It's really, really good.

Thanks to Rebecca of Ezra Pound Cake (one of my favorite blog names out there - I love cleverness) for choosing this week's recipe - you can find the recipe on her site or on page 6 in Dorie Greenspan's Baking:  From My Home to Yours. 

And if you want to salivate some more, go to the TWD home page and work your way through the blogroll of other bakers. 

And then, of course, go make a batch of Savory Corn and Pepper Muffins (or cornbread) for yourself.

Extremely Late TWD Post - French Pear Tart

 

Alex loved this tart so much he begged for a slice for breakfast.  Can't sing the praises of a pear tart much better than that, can you?

Didn't think so.

I apologize for how late I am in posting this.  The thing is, I couldn't post it til I'd actually MADE the tart, and since I kept NOT making it, despite pretty good intentions, well...that's why this post is finally showing up today.  At least it's before THIS week's TWD post.  Right?  No, really, that's good, isn't it?

Anyway.  I finally finally finally baked this tart on Saturday and OH did it smell good while it was in the oven.

But I'm leaping ahead.

Before the baking, first I made the crust - I used the recipe for Dorie's Sweet Tart Dough With Nuts - in my case, walnuts.  Pre-baked it and set it aside.

Then I poached and cooled the pears...

 

I blanched and peeled my almonds and made the almond cream.

 

And then I assembled the tart.

 

 

The almond cream is really tasty.  In case you were wondering.

 

 

I cored, stemmed, and horizontally sliced my pears.

 

Ooooh, fancy.

 

And then into the oven it went.  Mine baked for 55 minutes.

 

Isn't it pretty?  And not at all difficult, really.  I don't know what took me so long to get around to it.

 

I let the tart cool a bit and then glazed it with some melted peach preserves.

 

Even prettier.

 

Now, the thing was, when this lovely tart came out of the oven, we had just finished lunch and no one was hungry.  Well, no one but me, but I'm trying to curb that bottomless pit problem, so I tried to busy myself with other tasks.

Eventually, however, I had to cut a slice.  The light was fading.  You know.  The natural light.  I didn't want to have to use a flash.  So I HAD to cut a slice of the tart.

 

Just had to.

 

You understand, don't you?

 

Of course you do.

 

And so do all the other TWD members who participated in this recipe - most of them ON TIME, not like me.  And if you've been tempted by these photos and want to make this fabulous tart yourself, then I direct you to none other than Dorie herself (well, her website) for the recipe.  You could also buy her book.  But you already know that. 

Re: TWD

Hi - my Tuesdays with Dorie post will be up either tonight or tomorrow.  Sorry for the delay!

TWD - A Poem With the Cookies

It is right before Christmas

And all through my home

There are dozens of cookies.

And I made up this poem....

I’d been baking and baking

And baking and baking

(I know I’m repeating)

My feet - they were aching.

It was time to bake cookies

For Tuesdays with Dorie

(And right now we’re at

The main part of my story.)

I’d measured out flour

And sugar and - yes - butter

And tho’ I was weary

I continued to putter.

I spooned out some ginger

And lovely peach jam

Then thought - "Gonna take

A quick nap - that I am!"

I flopped on the couch

And drew up a blanket

And Scratchy, so playful,

Proceeded to yank it.

 

I drifted off quickly

For how long, I knew not,

When awakened I was

By the clang of a pot.

No - ‘twas more like a mixing bowl

Struck by a whisk.

But how? I’m in here -

Don’t be silly! Tsk, tsk!

Then I heard it again

There was something awry

So I got to my feet

Quite determined to spy.

 

I peered in the kitchen

And what did I see?

Not a cat, as I’d thought,

But a baking fairy!

She paid me no mind

If she’d heard me at all

From her perch on a chair

(For she wasn’t so tall.)

She combined my ingredients

In the bowl of the mixer

Then turned on the oven -

That cute little trickster.

 

She spooned out the dough

Onto parchment-lined pans.

So baking them, too,

Was a part of her plans!

Now into the oven

The sheet pans were slid

And you know, cookie baking

Was not all she did.

She washed all the dishes

And put them away,

And cleaned my house - spotless! -

In less than a day.

When the cookies were finished

So was the sprite

She’d done so much for me

In my pre-Christmas plight.

 

She turned once to view me

And gave a quick wink

And then she was gone -

In a flutter of pink.

And I heard her advise

Like she thought me a rookie -

"Happy Tuesdays with Dorie!

Now, go have a cookie!"

~~~

Thanks to Heather of Randomosity and the Girl for choosing this week's recipe.  You can find the recipe on her site or in Dorie Greenspan's Baking:  From My Home to Yours.  To see how all the other TWD poets-of-the-kitchen did this week, go here.

TWD - Grandma's All-Occasion Sugar Cookies

 

Lately, visions of sugar plums don't dance in my head (not that they did before) - it's cookies dancing instead.  All kinds of cookies.  Spicy ones, chocolatey ones, pretty ones, difficult ones, easy ones...all whirring together in a dance before being drowned in a glass of milk.

Sorry for the violent imagery.  I'm a little tired this morning.

Yesterday I cranked out several similar doughs one after the other.  First, there was the dough for Bill's Mom's German Butter Cookies.  Then the TWD sugar cookie dough, and then the dough for Farmer Hats.  I'll be baking the Butter cookies and the Farmer Hats at some point today, but I baked off this week's Dorie selection yesterday because A) it was quick and easy to do and B) I was already late with the post and wanted to catch up.

Grandma's All-Occasion Sugar Cookies, chosen by Ulrike from Küchenlatein, is a simple, tasty, homey cookie that lends itself to all sorts of creative modifications and at the same time is perfectly lovely on its own.  You can find the recipe on Ulrike's site, or you can flip to pages 146-147 of Dorie Greenspan's Baking:  From My Home to Yours and read it there.

The ingredients are basic - butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, baking powder, and salt.  The dough is soft and definitely requires refrigeration for a couple of hours before rolling out and baking.

Another option, one that Dorie suggests as an alternative to rolled-out cookies, is the slice-and-bake form, in which you just roll the dough into a log, chill it well, and, when you're ready to bake cookies, just unwrap, slice, and bake.  You can also roll and wrap the dough and freeze it for some other time.  And you don't have to bake off the whole log - just slice off a few cookies and bake them.  So accommodating, these cookies!

Anyway, since I've already got so many roll-and-cut cookies in my schedule right now, I took the easy way and rolled this dough into two logs, wrapped them in parchment, and stuck them in the fridge for a while.

When the time came to bake them, I wanted to do something festive with them, so I rolled one in little red, white and green jimmies and rolled the other in white sparkling sugar.

 

 

Then it was just the matter of slicing them into rounds about a quarter of an inch thick, laying them on a cookie sheet, and baking.

 

(I sprinkled the remaining jimmies on top of the cookies.  One can never have too many jimmies.)

 

And there we are - lovely little sugar cookies, fragrant with vanilla, that smell and taste of home.

Perfect for gobbling up with milk or tea...and nice to share, as well....

 

Of course, we'll have to make more of them for Santa.  This current batch will never last another two weeks.

If you haven't already done so, go here to see what the other TWD bakers did with this recipe!

It's Tuesday, Isn't It

Oops.  I don't have my TWD post done.  In fact, I don't have my TWD cookies baked or anything.

But the day is young.  If I get a chance, in between the other cookies, I'll make this week's recipe, chosen by Ulrike of Küchenlatein, which is "Grandma's All-Occasion Sugar Cookies."  The recipe can be found on pages 146-147 of Baking:  From My Home to Yours, and will also be posted on Ulrike's site.

Go check out what all the other TWD bakers did with this recipe, and hopefully I'll be able to join them later today in all the fun!

TWD - Linzer Sables

 

Next time, I'll double the recipe.

This week's recipe, Linzer Sables, was chosen by noskos of Living the Life, and can be found on pages 134-136 of Dorie Greenspan's Baking:  From My Home to Yours.

Since I'm in my usual December cookie-baking frenzy, these were no trouble to slide into my schedule.  I had everything required, except for the raspberry jam.  I had boysenberry, though, and I figured that would do the job.

 

 

The dough went together quickly and easily, and then I rolled it out between pieces of plastic wrap, as instructed, and kept the two discs (or free-form shapes) cold and flat on a cookie sheet in the fridge.

 

A couple hours later - time to cut out my cookies.

 

 

I baked them, let them cool, cooked the jam and water, cooled that, and assembled my little sandwiches.

 

And then I dusted them - okay, blizzarded them - with confectioner's sugar.

 

And the general consensus here?  They were quite tasty.

 

To check out the other TWD members' linzer sables, head on over to the TWD site and start visiting all those links!

And me?  I've got more cookies to work on!  Fa-la-la-la-la!

TWD - Thanksgiving Twofer Pie

     

I went ahead and made this week's recipe earlier than necessary.  I was in a baking mood on Saturday (when I made the Potato Bread) and since I was not assigned pie-baking for my Thanksgiving contribution this year (sob...) I figured I might as well make it right away.  And actually, in case you're wondering what I've done to be forbidden from Thanksgiving Pie Baking, I've done nothing.  My niece, Natalie, was doing a fundraiser for school - selling pies - and my mother bought three.  (I bought one.  Boston Creme.  It's pretty tasty, too.)

Anyway, back to TWD.

This week's recipe, Dorie's Thanksgiving Twofer Pie, was chosen by Vibi of La casserole carrée, and can be found on page 321 of Baking:  From My Home to Yours.

Now, I love pumpkin pie.  And I love pecan pie.  And the thought of   I combining them sounded intriguing and appealing.  So the first thing I did was to calculate measurements so I could double the recipe.  I figured I'd make one normal-sized pie and a bunch of mini pies to distribute among friends and their families.

I made enough dough for 3 single crusts (using Dorie's recommended "Good for Almost Everything" pie crust),

figuring that I'd be using a bit more than just two crusts' worth, lining a bunch of individual mini pie pans in addition to my standard-sized pie pan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, and since I don't actually HAVE mini pie pans, I used 8  7-oz ramekins I bought recently.  They're deeper than pie pans, and I was looking forward to a surplus of filling.

 

 

   

(I fluted the edges on the little ones, too, but apparently I didn't take pictures.)

I put the pie plate and all the ramekins into the fridge to chill while I made the filling.

First I made the pumpkin portion in my food processor...

  

oooh...bubbles....

 

I let that sit in the food processor while I made the pecan pie portion.

 

Once that was whisked together, I brought out all the ramekins and the pie pan and set them out on two baking sheets.

 

And then I filled them, first with the pumpkin batter, then the pecan pieces, and then the pecan pie filling mixture.

 

 

 

Cute, huh?

   

And then it was into the oven with all of them.

I'd preheated my oven to 450 degrees, F, as instructed.  I brought both pans over to the stovetop so I could get them both in quickly.

And then I opened the oven door.

Ooops....

Here's what I pulled out:

 

I hear your horrified shrieks.  "Egad!  What is THAT???!!!"

Heh heh...it's the um butter that was supposed to go into the pecan pie filling mixture after I'd first melted and then cooled it.

I put it in the ramekin and into my preheating oven and set the timer for one minute.  I'm assuming that when the timer went off I ignored it, thinking it was just the oven announcing that it's internal temp had reached 450. 

This oily, blackened mess explains why the hallway smoke detector went off, I'm thinking.

Oh well, too late to do anything about it now. 

I put the pans into the oven and baked, first at 450 for ten minutes, and then at 300 for a while.  I took the normal-sized pie out at about the 50 minute mark, and left the ramekins in for about another fifteen minutes.

 

 

 

I left them to cool, shooing my family away as needed until after dinner.

I'd roasted a chicken, complete with stuffing, and onions, our late-season kohlrabi crop, and two of the butternut squashes we grew all cut up around the chicken.  Julia finished dinner first and showed no interest in dessert.  Bill ate too much at dinner and said he'd have a slice later.

Alex, however, was ready, willing, and able.

Fork in hand, he attacked.  (No whipped cream for him - he doesn't like the stuff.  I still adore him, though, despite this obvious flaw in his character.)

Here is the much-anticipated Alex-Eating-Pie segment of our show...

 

Oh, and that's paint on his face.  Actually, Julia and a little friend of hers were painting, so I'm not sure why Alex got paint on his face.  Or why I didn't see it earlier in the day and get rid of it.  I was probably too focused on pie-making.

 

I know that looks like such a mess on his plate...it was the first slice, and the pie was still a bit soft.  Anyway, there's the first bite.

 

 

He liked it, in case you weren't sure.

 

I think I'd just told him to keep his mouth CLOSED because no one, including me, wanted to see a big mess of chewed-up pie.

 

You can see he's really struggling to keep the lips shut.

 

And that's all that was left after he was done. 

He liked it, obviously.  I gave Julia a slice later - she had about three bites and said it was good, and she was done.  I ate the rest of hers.

I thought it was good...my only complaint was the rum - it was too strong.  If I was going to make this again, I'd either eliminate or drastically reduce the amount.  And there wasn't a ton in the recipe, either, but the flavor just overpowered everything else.

Bill had a slice later that night.  He liked it, too.

We talked about it, though, and agreed that we preferred our pumpkin and pecan pies as separate entities.  I guess we're pie purists.  At least where holiday pies are concerned.

I gave some of the mini pies to our friends across the street and was told the next day that they were great.  I also gave some to the parents of one of Alex's friends.  I haven't heard how they liked it.

And that left us with the big pie and one remaining mini pie. 

On Sunday, we had Alex's friend and his parents to dinner.  Alex had played at their house that afternoon.  Before dinner was ready, Alex was thirsty and yanked open the door to the fridge, in search of apple juice.

And the pie plate, previously perched precariously on a plate of baked potatoes, slid out and flipped over in midair, landing, pie-down, on the floor. 

So much for the rest of that.

And Alex at the remaining mini pie after dinner that night. 

Thus concludes the stories of the Thanksgiving Twofer Pie.

If you'd like to read more stories and opinions, please visit the Tuesdays With Dorie website and be awed and intimidated at the huge list of members.  Then go read their pie posts.  Keep in mind, though, that not all the entries will be up today - there may be many who post after Thanksgiving.  So keep going back to the blog list for more - because after all, reading is calorie-free!

 

TWD - Black and White Arborio Rice Puddings - or in my case, Puddles.

 

I was hopeful.  I really was.  I'm not a huge fan of rice pudding, but I had Arborio rice, and everything else in the recipe, so I figured, why not?  I even thought I'd make both the chocolate and the plain, just because the photo possibilities would be fun.

So I did.

But first - uncharacteristically for me - I checked out the P&Q for this recipe.  I rarely do that, mostly because I just don't think of it.  And so far, it hasn't been much of an issue anyway.  But when I was looking at the recipe, I just thought something was off.  To me, it seemed like the amount of rice was way too small for the amount of liquid called for.  So I read through the questions and observations of the TWD bakers who'd been working on the recipe ahead of me.  And yes, the amount of rice was one of the issues addressed.  A few people inceased the amount of rice to just about double what was called for.  The other issue was the simmer time.  According to the book, the parboiled rice was to simmer in milk for 30 minutes, then chill in the fridge for at least 6 hours or overnight.  People had written in to say that the mixture wasn't thickening, even after refrigeration.  Dorie - yes, THAT Dorie - wrote in to say that there was an error on the page - should have been 55 minutes, not 30.  Thanks, Dorie!  So, armed with all that information, and glad I'd taken the time to check, I went ahead and made a double batch of pudding.  (I thought, if I'm making it, I might as well make plenty.)

So I proceeded.  I doubled the amout of rice, and I increased the time spent simmering in the milk.

But still...something was wrong.  And this morning, after my puddings (one plain, one chocolate) spent the night in the fridge, both are still more like soup than pudding.

Drat.

I think some of the problem was the initial parboiling of the rice.  The directions say to put the rice in the pot of water and bring to a boil, then drop to low and cook for 10 minutes, uncovered.

Now, I doubled the amounts of water, milk and sugar because I was doubling the recipe, but I actually quadrupled the amount of rice, because it seemed to me (and a few others) that there wasn't enough.  Now I'm wondering, since the water was just used for parboiling and not for the final product, if maybe I should have quadrupled that as well instead of just doubling it. 

I'm thinking the proportion of water to rice had changed from Dorie's recipe, and therefore the rice cooked more (because it was in a lesser amount of water) then it would have if I'd kept the proportion the same.  So, since the original recipe said to parboil a quarter cup of rice in 2 cups of water (a ratio of 1 part rice to 8 parts water by volume), then, if I'd doubled the amount of rice AND doubled the recipe, I should have used 1 cup of rice and 8 cups of water for the parboiling, rather than 1 cup of rice and 4 cups of water. 

Because, bottom line, my rice seemed over cooked before it even went into the milk.

So it looks like the problem was mine here.  I cooked the rice in the milk for an hour and ten minutes and it was still soupy, but I wanted to go watch "House" by that point, so I decided it was as done as it was ever going to be, and I divided the batch into two bowls, added vanilla to one, chopped chocolate to the other, stirred, and let them cool a bit.

During a commercial I stirred them some more and had a taste.  The vanilla tasted good - though the texture was wrong.  The chocolate?  Hm.  It's strange to even say this, but it was too chocolatey.  Maybe semisweet instead of bittersweet would have been better.  And maybe I'd feel differently if the mixture became more puddinglike.  So into the fridge they went.

And this morning?

   

Soup.

 

Ah well.

The chocolate was a teeny tiny bit thicker, but still, it wasn't puddingy.  It was chocolatey rice in a bowl of chocolatey sweetened milk.  Better than a kick in the head, yes, but not what I was aiming for.

 

Like I said at the beginning, I'm not really that crazy about rice pudding to begin with.  have

But.  I still might have to make this one more time (a smaller batch), just to see if my whole proportion of rice to water theory was a factor.  If I do it, I'll let you know.

This week's recipe was chosen by Isabelle of Les gourmandises d'Isa, and you can find the recipe on her site or in Dorie Greenspan's Baking:  From My Home to Yours on page 412. 

And, you can see how all the other TWD members did by checking out the enormous blogroll here.

TWD - Kugelhopf

 

This week's recipe was chosen by Yolanda of The All-Purpose Girl.  You can find the recipe on her site or in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours.

Kugelhopf.

Another something that I've never made before.  Thanks, Dorie, for rounding out my baking education!

I made the dough Sunday night - no pictures, sorry.  At first, I thought I was doing something wrong.  The dough didn't seem to want to come together for the longest time - it had little masses of thicker sections that didn't want to mix in with the looser sections - I kept looking at the recipe to see if I'd missed something all those twenty times I read and reread the instructions.  But no, I was doing everything Dorie said to do. 

So I kept on.  Once all the butter was incorporated and I ran the mixer for another ten minutes at a higher speed, things started looking up.  And mixing up.  By the time the ten minutes were up, I had a lovely soft sticky dough.  It smelled yummy.  I mixed the raisins in and let it rise til doubled, then slapped it down (as Dorie recommends - by lifting the edges of the dough and letting them slap back down against the bowl), covered it and put it in the fridge.  I checked on it a few times and slapped the dough down and finally said goodnight to it.

This morning I looked at my pans and decided to use this bundt pan for my kugelhopf.  I had a taller, thinner pan - I think it's an old gelatin mold tin, actually - but it was too small to use.  So I went with this fancy bundt pan.  If I remember right, my parents gave this to me years ago for either Christmas or my birthday.  I use it every now and then, but I've found that if it's not greased properly (even thought it's a non-stick), sections of whatever cake I'm making will stick to the pan and I'll end up with an ugly mess on my cake plate.

Anyway.

I took my time and brushed a generous layer of butter throughout all the hills and valleys of my pan.  No way was I going to ruin my very first kugelhopf with a poor lube job. 

 

Then I got my dough out and scraped that into the pan.  I didn't think much about how to put it in, to be honest.  In retrospect, I guess I could have rolled it into a thick rope and twisted it around the center...but I didn't do that.  I just made a hole in the center of the dough and plopped it onto the pan.  I know.  Real professional-like.

 

I buttered one side of a piece of foil and set that over my pan and placed it on the oven.  The house was kind of cold, so I turned the oven on so that the little bit of heat fanned out at the back of the stovetop would heat things up just enough to encourage the dough to rise.

About...three hours later, here's what I had:

 

Lovely.  Not quite up to the top, but close enough for me.

Half an hour later, after baking according to Dorie's directions, I inverted the pan and took a look at the nearly finished product.

 

Hello, Gorgeous!

I was actually a bit awed when I saw this.  It's so pretty.  Granted, it's not tall and turban-like.  But still.  It's rather pretty.

I painted the surface with half a stick of melted butter.

 

And then I sprinkled it with some granulated sugar. 

 

Okay, I didn't just sprinkle.  I kind of hurled sugar by the handful at the sides, too.  Didn't want to miss a spot.

 

Ta-da!  Here it is, cooled to room temp and just about ready for the eating.

 

But before the eating, there is the picture-taking.

 

 

I couldn't bring myself to cut into it yet.  I needed to share the moment with someone.

So I brought Julia home from preschool.

 

She offered to help.  Kind of.  But not really.

 

 

At long last, I cut a slice - and Julia decided she wasn't hungry at the moment. 

So, (heavy sigh), I had to eat it myself.

 

Eventually.

 

Julia wasn't done yet.

 

HEY!  PUT THAT BACK!  I'M NOT DONE!

 

Thank you.

 

Such a light, moist, soft, beautiful crumb. 

 

Smelled pretty good too.  Not sweet, really.  Neither bready or cakey.  Not midway between them either.  It was...beyond them both.

 

Okay, just one more. 

 

Okay, now the rundown of likes and dislikes.  I'll start with the dislikes.

...

(hm hmmm hmmm hm hm...dum de dum de dum...)

...

Now for the likes.

Julia - "I like your new bread cake Mama!"

Alex - (after his usual careful consideration, he nods) "...Not bad..." (in between bites of kugelhopf, his fingers plucking out the raisins and popping them into his mouth quickly, so they don't escape.)

Bill - "MMMmmm!  That's good!  Mmm...moist...and buttery...and light...MMM!  I like it!"

And as for me?  I thought it was lovely.  Deceptively light - it doesn't scream "BUTTER!!!" at you.  And that can be a dangerous thing.

But more dangerous than that, to me, is that crispy, sugary crust.

If left to my own devices, I would pick the whole crust off, bit by bit, and eat it all by myself.

Good thing the schools are closed today and I won't be left unsupervised.

To see what all the other TWD bakers did - supervised or not - check out the incredibly huge blog list and find out. 

TWD - Rugelach

 

I still can't believe I haven't made rugelach until now.  Why not, Jayne?  What were you waiting for?

I don't know.  But I must say thank you to Grace of Piggy's Cooking Journal for selecting the recipe for this week's Tuesdays with Dorie event.  You can find the recipe on her site, should you decide to make these yourself.  And if you like tender, flaky bites of pastry with all sorts of crunchy and sweet goodness wrapped inside, then you HAVE to make these.

First I made the dough, which consists simply of cold, unsalted butter, cream cheese, flour, and salt.

 

   

Once it comes together, you divide, flatten, wrap and refrigerate it.  Dorie recommends at least two hours.  Mine was in there at least that long.  I had a couple of different baking projects underway today, so while this dough was chilling, I just worked on the other project. 

A bit later, I gathered together all my filling ingredients. 

 

I used orange marmalade, raisins, chopped pecans, bittersweet chocolate, sugar and cinnamon.  I'd intended to use dried cranberries instead of raisins, but then realized that I didn't HAVE dried cranberries on hand - I had frozen cranberries.  So raisins it was.  But I have to make them with cranberries some time soon.  It just seems right.

When the time came to roll out the dough, I was, first of all, impressed with how easy it was to work and how thin I could roll it without catastrophe. 

I know, it's not exactly a circle, but you don't really taste the circle in the final product.

 

I began to add the innards:

First the marmalade...

 

Then the mixture of cinnamon and sugar...

 

And then the chunky stuff - the raisins, nuts, and chopped chocolate.

 

Looks good enough to eat already.  But I demonstrated restraint.

I took out my pizza wheel (the bigger one) and quickly sliced the circle-like shape into quarters and eighths and finally, sixteenths.

I found that the thin sections wanted to stick together, especially near the center, so I used a large offset spatula to gently lift each sixteenth from its neighbors.

Rolling them up was easy but a bit tricky thanks to all the fillings. 

 

And eventually all 32 rugelach were formed.  After re-chilling for about 45 minutes, the rugelach were brushed with egg wash and sprinkled with sparkling sugar.

   

And into the oven they went.

Mine baked for 27 minutes.

 

The melty marmalade leaked out and puddled a bit - I think I should have pulled them at 25 minutes, but no one else in my vicinity seemed concerned.

See this plateful of rugelach?  There are about 30 of them there.  I'd eaten one - you know, to make sure they came out okay, and my husband tried one because, well, there they were.

 

We have, maybe, 6 left. 

Once I ate the first one, I realized how addictive they could become.  Immediately, I put half in a little container and ran them across the street to my neighbor.  She cursed me through a mouthful of rugelach as I ran back across the street, laughing evilly.

So far, my husband AND both my kids like them, so with luck I won't be able to stuff myself with the remaining rugelach.

Except that...well...it's late, and the kids have been in bed for a couple hours now...and Bill was tired so he just went upstairs...hmmm...maybe just one.

 

I'm sure there are plenty of TWD bakers with much more self control than I have.  Go check out their versions of rugelach. 

If they have any left.

Tuesdays Thursdays Halloween With Dorie - Chocolate Chocolate Eyeball Cupcakes

 

I had the best time making these cupcakes today.

This post should have appeared on Tuesday, but I hadn't planned to participate this week.  And then I was reminded that Clara of I*Heart*Food4Thought had suggested decorating the Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes for Halloween.  Well, HECK!  Now I HAVE to participate!  (And by the way, you can find the recipe on Clara's site or in Dorie Greenspan's book Baking:  From My Home to Yours.

So I sent my husband off to work and brought my kids to school and turned the kitchen into my own creepy "laBORat'ry."

First, I assembled the ingredients.  Here they are:

 

Then I made the batter.  Here it is:

 

After dividing the batter among my 12 muffin cups...

 

I, um, cleaned up the mess.

  

Then I baked my cupcakes for 24 minutes.

 

And set them in the dining room to cool.

 

And while they cooled, I made a filling.  I started with some marshmallow fluff...

 

and added strawberry jam...

 

and the last of my red food coloring.

 

Unfortunately, there really wasn't enough red to achieve the effect I was hoping for....

 

Oh well.  Julia would probably approve.

I filled each cupcake with pink "blood" filling.

 

And then I went to the other room in search of...parts....mwahahahahahahaha! (Sorry, Beth!)

 

I whipped up a batch of royal icing and started off with the whites of the eyes...

 

Cute, huh?

 

I seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee you!

Sorry.

Next, in order to make them as realistic as possible (hahahaha, yeah, right) I had to make the upper and lower lid.

In the interest of authenticity, I went into the bathroom and took a good long look at my own eyes.  Well, just one of them.  I only needed one.

 

They were definitely starting to develop individual personalities.  I began to feel mildly maternal.

I also started adding eyelashes.  The first one came out horrible, but I was rushing, and I shouldn't have been.  Oh well.  I did better on the others. 

 

She's got nice eyes.  She was crying a few moments ago.  She wouldn't say why.

 

He is rather easily startled.  Perhaps he should cut back on caffeine.

I also thought maybe there might be non-human eyes in the group.

Hmmm...feline?  Canine?  Or...something...else?

 

They all got along just fine.

Until...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, and by the way?  They're pretty yummy.

In Which I Remind You I Am A Moron

For example, when I posted this yesterday.  And told you I wouldn't be posting for Tuesdays with Dorie.  Tuesdays.  And yesterday?  Was a Wednesday.  Yeah.  I's real smart.

And then, to that post, I received the following comment from Chocolatechic:

"Drat.  I was looking forward to your creativity with the cupcakes."

And I thought "that's nice - I am missed..." but I also thought..."yeah, but it's only cupcakes..."

Because - Moron Evidence Exhibit #278,586 - I forgot all about the "decorate them for Halloween" part.

Oh, DRAT INDEED!

I didn't realize I'd forgotten that until I started checking out one or two other TWD members...and I thought...hey, that's funny, they both decorated them for Halloween!  Yes, Jayne.  Clever observation on your part!  Wonder if anyone else noticed???!!!!

Well.

I stopped looking at TWD posts and decided that, despite my tardiness and my moronness, I would make these cupcakes, dammit, and decorate them APPROPRIATELY!!!

So today, while I am also baking bagels and bread, I'm going to make those cupcakes and decorate them somehow. 

Because, while I am a moron, I am also mad at myself for forgetting about the Halloween decorating part, and I can't NOT do it.  So look for something from me later today or - maybe more appropriately - tomorrow.

Tomorrow IS Halloween, right?  Okay.  That's what I thought.

Sorry - no TWD today. But there ARE some Ghostly Steam pictures to see instead!

Here are a few photos I took one morning last week.  We'd had some frost, and I went outside to start up/warm up the truck.  The sun was rising higher over to the east there, and as the rays and warmth touched places on the truck, the frost would melt and ghostly steam would rise. 

I darkened the images and enhanced the color saturation level just a smidge, so the ghosty steam would be a bit easier to see.  Plus - there really were these colors in the steam - I'm guessing it's a prism effect from the water droplets. 

Anyway, I thought the steam was pretty, and so I share it with you.  FYI, the cab of the truck is the big dark shape in the left of all the vertical images.  And this first shot is looking at the side of the truck bed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TWD (for me) will resume next week.  But in the meantime, if you'd like, you can go check out the TWD blogroll to see what everyone else had done this week.

TWD - Pumpkin Muffins. Well, Actually, I Used Butternut Squash.

 

And I made loaves instead of muffins.

I don't know what it is, but for some reason I'm not crazy about muffins, although I may like the same concoction in loaf form.  I have no explanation for this peculiarity.

But anyway.  This week's recipe  was chosen by Kelly of Sounding My Barbaric Gulp!, and you can find the recipe on her site or in Dorie Greenspan's Baking:  From My Home to Yours on page 13.

Now, though I don't like muffins all that much, I do make an exception for pumpkin muffins.  I love pumkin.  Pumpkin pie.  Pumpkin muffins.  Pumpkin cheesecake.  A good pumpkin ale.  You get the pumpkin - err, the point. 

So I was looking forward to trying out Dorie's version today.

The only problem?  I didn't have any pumpkin in the house.  I have two on my front steps, but they're purely Halloween decor and they kind of belong to my kids.  So they're way off limits.

I did, however, have plenty of butternut squash.  We grew a lot of them this year, so we've got a nice little supply down in the basement, just waiting to be peeled and roasted and made into soup or topped with a bit of butter and salt and pepper, or made into ravioli...or - hey, maybe into muffins! 

I didn't think Dorie would mind.

We grew a mini version of the butternut, and I picked out two of the smallest ones to peel and roast.

 

I also decided that, instead of the sunflower seeds Dorie suggests (which I didn't have anyway), I'd use the squash seeds. 

So I set those aside while I chopped up and baked the squash and assembled the rest of the ingredients. 

After the squash was cooked through and had cooled a bit I ran it through the food processor and voila - faux pumkin puree. 

No one would ever know the difference.  Bwahahaha.

Ahem.

I also made a couple other little changes to Dorie's recipe, all due to what I had on hand and what I didn't.  I used dark sugar instead of light.  And I used (forgive me) a pumkin spice blend because I didn't have any nutmeg to use along with all the other individual spices.  I know.  It's no excuse.  Oh, yes, and I was out of golden raisins so I used the black ones.  And I used the pecans, not the walnuts.  OH, yes, and I was out of vanilla.  So I just left that out.  And I thought I had two eggs, but it turned out one of them had cracked in the package.  So I used one egg and a little vegetable oil to sub for the other egg.  I know.  I'm a rebel.  I bake on the wild side.

Apart from my wild subbing, the rest of the procedure went without incident.

   

I combined and mixed and blended and added and scraped....

       

   

And I greased pans and divided batter and sprinkled pumpkin - oops, butternut - seeds on top.

And then I baked.  Checked progress and rotated and baked a bit longer.

And then they were done. 

They cooled.  I removed them from their pans. They cooled some more.

And then, after dinner (which also included butternut squash, in case you were interested), it was time to slice and sample.

My opinion?  Yum!!

But my opinion pales in comparison to Alex's. 

      

     

He ate the first thick slice and came back for another one. 

      

I asked if he liked it, and he nodded vehemently and rhapturously crooned "...with the pumpkin seeds...and the raisins...in the brrrrrrrreadddddd!!!!"

I'll assume that meant yes.

Julia and Bill haven't tried any yet.  I can predict that Bill will like it and so will Julia but she'll only want a couple of bites.  She's like that.

Now, as always, if you want to see who else did what else with this week's recipe, start working your way through the massive blog list on the Tuesdays with Dorie site.  Should keep you busy for a few whiles, as my daughter would phrase it.  Happy reading!

There Will be a TWD Post...

At some point, hopefully today.

Just in case you were wondering.

In the meantime, here are some old pictures of Alex I came across...

   

He was about a year and a half old or so in these.

And now he's six, going on six-and-a-half. 

Excuse me while I go weep hysterically at the cruel swift passage of time.

When I'm done, maybe I'll make those pumpkin muffins for my TWD post.

TWD - Lenox Almond Biscotti

   

Sorry folks - no process photos for this recipe.  The lighting wasn't good and our kitchen was in chaos and oh I just didn't do them this time around.  Lately I have been the poster child for poor organization skills, and this blog is suffering because of it.

But enough of that.

This week's recipe, Lenox Almond Biscotti, was selected by Gretchen of Canela & Comino.  You can find the recipe on pages 141-143 of Dorie Greenspan's Baking:  From My Home to Yours, or here on Gretchen's blog. 

Now, I love biscotti.  If, for some reason, it was decreed that I could only have one kind of cookie ever again in my life, I would choose biscotti.  They are easy to make and will keep forever (well, in theory - mine are never around long enough for me to figure out just how long "forever" is) and the varieties are endless.

This recipe produces a light, very crisp, cookie with a very satisfying extra crunch from a half cup of cornmeal per batch. 

I baked these late yesterday afternoon, and after dinner my husband had a total of six.  (Plus four chocolate chip cookies and two little mini apple pies I'd made yesterday.) 

Alex had one, but preferred chocolate chip cookies (well, he's 6), and for some odd reason Julia didn't want any cookies at all.  

I could eat the entire batch myself, if no one was around and I allowed my self control to sleep late.  These biscotti are so light, it's like you're eating really yummy, crunchy air. 

Anyway, that's my humble, photo-slacker opinion.  To check out how all the other TWD members did with this recipe, check out the blogroll at the Tuesdays With Dorie site. 

Oh no, it's already Tuesday again?

And me without my TWD post.  That's right, I know, I've barely been keeping my membership alive lately, but anyway, I didn't make the TWD recipe this week.  Sorry!  I'll be back in the game next week.

TWD Rewind - Brown Sugar-Pecan Shortbread

That's right, I'm not making Creme Brulee, which was chosen byMari of Mevrouw Cupcake. 

Not because I lack a butane torch - I have one.  And I know how to use it.  

But since I've made Creme Brulee plenty of times in the past, I thought I'd try out one of the recipes I missed.

And since I haven't been with TWD since the very, very beginning, that's where I went.  Back to the very, very beginning.  That first recipe was the Brown Sugar-Pecan Shortbread, which, if you have the book, can be found on page 127 in Dorie's Baking:  From My Home to Yours.  If you don't have the book...well, you have my deepest sympathy.

And also, I realize I'm posting relatively late in the day.  Sorry.  I blamed Scratchy earlier, but he really didn't cause the lateness.  He's just a cute excuse.

So is this guy.

 

My sous chef - Alex.  He didn't have school today, so I told him he could either make cookies with me or he could clean the bathrooms and wash the floors and polish the silver.  He elected to make the cookie dough.

So here we go.  First thing we did was to grind the pecans.

Alex scooped pecans into my lovely pink KA food processor

(Sorry about his blurriness - he is in motion 97% of his waking hours, and I don't like to use the flash.  So if he's looking blurry, it's because he is nearly incapable of holding still.)

and I even let him press the "pulse" button. 

 

Ta-da!

 

Next task - to sift together the dry ingredients - the flour, the corn starch, the salt, and a pinch of ground cloves.

First the flour. 

 

I also like to incorporate practical math when I'm baking with Alex.  So I told him the recipe called for one and a half cups of flour.  I asked him how many halves in "one," and he answered "two," and so I asked how many halves in "one and a half" and he said "three."  Class dismissed.

 

Precision is very important in baking, right Alex?

Once we've got the other ingredients in there with the flour...

  

It's time to sift them together into a bowl.

He also helped measure out the brown sugar, but I didn't get any photos of that.  I was too busy slapping his hand away from it.

So once we had everything measured, it was time to put everything together.

First the softened butter...

 

And then the brown sugar...

 

The butter and sugar are beaten for about three minutes and Alex spends that time making faces.

 

Scary, huh?

Now it's time to add our sifted-together dry ingredients.

 

And the ground pecans.

 

We mix the wet and dry and nuts until just combined.

 

And then you

HEY!  Scratchy IS trying to sabotage our efforts today!

   

   

   

Yes, Scratchy kept playing with the dangling ties from Alex's apron.  Very disruptive.  But very entertaining.

Anyway, next thing we did was to put our dough into a gallon size zipper top bag...

 

pressed it into the corners, and

 

press the dough so it flattens and fills the bag (don't close the top yet) and try not to let the bag wrinkle while you're doing it.

 

Seal the top and put the bag - keep it flat - into the fridge.  Dorie says it can stay in the refrigerator for anywhere from 2 hours to 2 day.  I went with the two hours, just so I could get this posted while it was still Tuesday.

So.  Let's pretend a couple of hours have gone by.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Take the dough out of the fridge and unzip the top and carefully slit the sides so you can peel one side off the dough.

 

Flip the square of dough over onto your work surface, toss the bag, and mark off the edges of the dough in 1 _^1/2 inch increments. 

 

Connect the lines and then slice into squares.

 

Try not to let anyone touch the edge of the dough with their little fingers.  Kind of ruins the sharp edges.  I can't imagine who might have done that....

 

Carefully place the cookies on two parchment-lined baking sheets, and, per Dorie, mark each square by poking (my word, not hers) with the tines of a fork.  Twice.

 

Now.  The SMART thing to do at this point is to pop the baking sheets back in the fridge so the butter in the dough can firm up again.  I opted to do the NOT SMART thing and just put the pans right in my oven.  The pans with the softened, no-longer-cold shortbread dough.  Not.  Smart.  At.  All.  And I know better.  I really do.  But I ignored the voice of my inner smart person and listened, instead, to the hungry yowling of my children.  Into the oven went the lovely, crisp-edged, fork-tine-poked cookie dough squares...

 

and out came my melted-butter, slightly greasy, ever-so-faintly dotted cookie blobs.

 

Dang it.

I had more pecans.  I could have made them again.  I could have listened to my inner smart person.  But I didn't.  Because even though they weren't pretty, or the right texture (soft and crumbly) for a shortbread (mine are rather crispy), they were the cookies I baked today, and you know what?  Sometimes in life, you produce crisp cookies when they should have been crumbly.  And you just have to make the best of it.

So I let them cool for a bit while I cleared some space in my studio on the counter beside the sink, and I started to take some pictures.

 

Ho hum.

 

Yawn.

And then I remembered that Dorie said these would make a nice accompaniment to ice cream.  And hey - I just happened to have some.  And it's PUMPKIN ice cream!  That should liven things up a bit.

 

Yum.  That looks pretty good. 

But it could look yummier, I bet.

 

Pumpkin ice cream sandwiched between some Brown-Sugar Pecan Shortbread.

Not bad. 

 

Not bad at all.

~~~

Now that you've suffered through my long and winding story, you should definitely head over to the Tuesdays with Dorie site and check out what all the other gazillion members did this week.  Creme Brulee?  Or something else? 

Only one way to find out!

TWD - Dimply Plum Cake

Welcome once again to Tuesdays with Dorie.  This week's fun-filled recipe is sponsored by Michelle from Bake-en!  Okay.  Not really sponsored.  More like hosted.  Chosen.  Selected.  You get the idea.  You can find the recipe for Dorie's Dimply Plum Cake either on Michelle's site or in Dorie's book, Baking:  From My Home to Yours.

Dimply Plum Cake.  Just saying it (or typing it) makes me happy.  It sounds cute and plump and sweet and a teeny bit spicy.  Because of that, I decided right off the bat that I couldn't just make a plain ol' 8" square cake.  No, I had to bake it so that it would do the "cute" part justice.  At least for me.  No one else would notice or care, but that's okay.  I figured my 4" springform pans would do the trick.

And speaking of cute and plump and sweet and a tiny bit spicy, Julia helped me bake this one.  (I can say "plump" - I'm her mom.  And she's four - of course there's a bit of plumpness here and there.  Her plump, pinchable cheeks, for one.)  Anyway, she helped up to a point and then decided she had done enough, so downstairs she went to nurse her sick Daddy.  Or to torture him.  The line blurs from time to time.

Anyway, the cake.

Very simple to put together.  I already want to make it again using any one of Dorie's suggestions in the "playing around" section of her recipe.

First, you preheat the oven and grease and flour your pan(s). 

You slice your plums in half and remove the pits.

You whisk together your dry ingredients.  (But before you do that, you arrange them in their little mise en placed vessels so you can take their picture.)

You beat your butter, add your sugar...then the eggs, oil, vanilla and orange zest. 

 

 

 

 

 

Then you gently mix in your dry ingredients.

 

Pour the batter into your pan(s).  Smooth the batter.  Arrange the halved plums, cut side up, on top of the batter.

 

(Symmetrical arrangement of the plums is optional.)

Pop them in the oven.

Cool on a rack.

And then benevolently summon your family members once you've taken all the photos you think you need.

 

"Is it ready yet?"

 

"Can I have a big piece?"

 

"I'm sooooooooo hungry!"

 

"Mo-ommmmmmm!"

 

"What's taking so long?"

 

They may whine, but this cake is worth the wait.

That's just my opinion, of course.  If you want to know what all the other nineteenthousandbazillion Tuesdays with Dorie bakers did with this recipe, and read about what they thought of it, and see the photos they took, then you should probably start here. 

And if you want to form your own opinion, go bake yourself a Dimply Plum Cake.  The words are delicious.  The cake itself is even better.

TWD Slacker

Sorry, folks, I won't be baking for Tuesdays with Dorie this week - I'll be back in the game next week.

But go ahead to the Tuesdays with Dorie site and take a look at what all the non-slacking TWD members did this week!

TWD - Chunky Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Chocolate Run-On Sentences. I mean Chipsters.

You may recognize my daughter, Julia.  She helped me bake this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe - Chunky Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Chocolate Chipsters.  I know - that's quite a mouthful.  And so is the cookie.  We have Stefany of Proceed With Caution to thank for this selection, so before I forget - Stefany?  Thank you! 

The cookies went together quickly and easily.  In fact, Bill took Alex to the park to go bike riding and while they were gone, Julia and I mixed everything and baked four dozen cookies.  I finished the rest on my own - Julia wanted to play whiffle ball with Daddy instead.

But I digress.

I measured everything out first, and then Julia joined me for the mixing.  In case you're checking up on me, I didn't have light brown sugar, so I used dark brown.  And I added a bunch of raisins because Dorie mentioned it and it sounded like a good idea to me. 

While I combined fats and sugars, Julia whisked together the dry ingredients.

We paused a moment so Julia could make silly faces and I could take pictures of them.

Okay, now that we've gotten that out of our systems, we can continue.

After adding eggs and vanilla to the fats and sugars, it was time to stir in the dry ingredients.

Simple enough, and then it was time to mix in the chocolate chips and raisins - what was left after Julia ran her quality control tests.

A quick spin and that was that.  Time to bake.

Well okay, first things first.

And then into the oven.

While the first batch was baking, Julia wanted to take the pictures while I scooped up cookie dough.  Fair's fair, so I handed over my camera and prayed she would be kind. 

As you can see, I've got the speed of a cookie-baking Ninja.

Okay, this is better.  Look at that technique.  Why Bobby Flay hasn't challenged me to a throwdown by now is a mystery, isn't it.

Okay.  Back on topic.

I baked my cookies for 13 minutes, let them cool a minute or so,

and then moved them to a rack to cool.

Once they'd cooled a bit, and another batch had gone into the oven to bake, it was time for pictures.  I picked out a little plate and matching mug for my planned milk-and-cookies photo, placed a few cookies on the plate, and set the plate on the counter while I went to get milk from the fridge.

I turned back to the counter just in time to see Julia's fingers curl around the topmost cookie on my plate.  Unfortunately I wasn't holding the camera at the time, so I wasn't able to capture that magical moment.  I hollered "STOP!" and she froze, cookie in hand.  I told her I needed that cookie for the pictures, and she could eat it when I was done.  She put the cookie back on top of the others and waited patiently while I played.

Hang on, Julia, I'm almost finished.

Okay, they're yours now, Julia.

 Thanks Dorie!  Great recipe!

If you'd like the recipe, you can find it over at Stefany's site, or you can find it on page 73 of Dorie Greenspan's Baking:  From My Home to Yours.

If you'd like to see a lot more versions of this cookie, you can find links to all the TWD bakers here.

If you'd Julia to share her cookies with you, dream on.

TWD - Chocolate-Banded Ice Cream Torte

 

I scream, you scream, we all scream - for chocolate-truffle-alternating-with-ice cream...

Amy of Food, Family, and Fun selected this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, what a fabulously simple-yet-elegant dessert it is!  The fun thing is, once you get the hang of it, you can create just about any kind of ice cream torte you can think up.  Right now I'm thinking of using an orange sherbet spiked with Grand Marnier for the ice cream layers - wouldn't that make a clever Halloween dessert?  And hey...my sister's birthday is on Halloween...and I'm the maker-of-the-cakes...hmmmmmmmmm.

Sorry - back to the here and now.

I didn't want to make the full-sized torte - we've just got too much sweet stuff in this house right now and it's just...well...it's going to waste.  Sure, it's ice cream, it can be frozen.  But if it's ice cream, and it's yummy, I'll eat it.  So better to go small and not have leftovers.  At least not too many.

So I used a 6" springform pan instead of the 8" or 8 ^1/2" one.

The chocolate truffle part was easy to put together.  I reduced the quantities to fit the smaller pan - I used 3/4 of the amounts called for in Dorie's recipe, and that worked just fine.

I melted my chocolate and butter, added my sugar,

and whisked in the eggs, one by one by one by one by one by one.

I poured a third of the mixture into the bottom of my springform and popped it in the freezer to set.

For the filling, I started out with simple ol' Edy's Raspberry Chip Royale.  I had picked that up as part of a buy one, get one free (my other flavor was Mint Chocolate Chip - my personal favorite, no matter who is manufacturing it) deal at the grocery store the other day and thought it would work perfectly. 

I mashed this around with a rubber spatula until it was relatively smooth but not melted...

and then I got out my springform.  I had left it in there for at least 30 minutes, but it still wasn't set.  Of course, I didn't actually CHECK that first - I just dumped the ice cream in and started to smear it out toward the edges of the pan with my sturdy spatula and noticed that the ice cream was actually sort of sinking into the chocolate rather than just spreading nicely across it. 

Ah well.  Who was going to notice?  No one, that's who.  It'll just be our little secret.

Dorie mentioned in the introduction to this recipe that "the active work time is minimal, but the waiting around time is considerable."  Yep.  'Struth.  Fortunately for me, I was also working on a batch of bread at the same time, so I'd pour some chocolate...knead some dough...smear some ice cream...form a round loaf.  Never a dull moment in my kitchen!

I let the torte set overnight.  Dorie recommends at least 6 hours - mine was in there closer to 18, I think. 

Here's how it looked today when I removed it from the freezer and started messing with it.

I can see a bunch of frozen solid air bubbles lurking below the surface, but otherwise it looks pretty okay.

Rather than run ALLLLLLL the way upstairs (a whopping 13 steps up the stairs) to get my rarely-used hair dryer, I went for option two - I soaked a dish towel in hot water and wrapped it around the sides of the pan.

Dorie recommended 10 minutes.  I'm too impatient for that - I went with five.  About.

And then - the unveiling.

Not perfect, but it certainly looks yummy, huh?

OH!  and what's with the two shades of ice cream, you ask?  Oh, that's right, I forgot to tell that part.  I didn't have enough of the Raspberry ice cream for a decent layer, and I didn't have enough Mint Chocolate Chip, either, and I wasn't about to mix them together and end up with some weird, grayish, fruity/minty layer, either.  So I mixed about half a cup of strawberry-blueberry freezer jam I'd made earlier this summer into the remaining Raspberry Chip ice cream - the jam stretched the ice cream just enough, and it was such a pretty color, too. 

Into the freezer it went, to firm the sides back up.

And then out again after dinner for a photo op and an introduction to my omnivorous children.

First - the thawing pictures.

 

And yeah, I took out the little macro lens attachment, too.  I can't help it.  I think icy stuff is beautiful.

  

(Psst - if you look up at the top right edge of the torte, you can see where I bumped it against the icemaker when I was sliding it onto the top shelf of my freezer.  Oops.)

I let the torte sit out while I did some dishes and made a quick and simple little sauce out of the rest of that freezer jam, mashed through a strainer.

I knew slicing the torte might be problematic, because frozen things thaw from the outside in, and I didn't want the sides to start melting by the time the middle was soft enough to cut through.  So I bullied my way through with a long, thin knife, hot water, patience (I know - yes, I'm a patient bully) and a little white and beige wash cloth that I used to hold the torte still while I nearly sliced my thumb off sawing through frozen sugar-based goodness. 

First, I made one slice from 12:00 to 6:00.

 

I repeated this careful slicing, rinsing the knife blade in hot water in between slices. 

Once I hit bottom, I slipped a larg offset spatula under one half and slid it off the parchment paper underneath.  I wrapped this half in plastic and put it back in the freezer.  Then I sliced the other half in two.

I wrapped one of THOSE halves in plastic and then cut the last quarter section into two small, tidy portions.

I plated the better-looking one and dotted the plate with some of that mashed/strained freezer jam.

And then it was on to the judging.

Here we have Judge Alex -

You can see he is evaluating the dish based on appearance, taste, and whether or not I gave him enough jammy sauce.

Then there's Judge Julia -

 

She will evaluate the dish based on pinkness, use of pink, and how much pink there is.

Actually, both kids REEEEALLY liked this one, although I have to tell you that Alex said his favorite part was the "fruit water" I'd dotted the plate with.  Ah well.  That didn't stop him from eating all the ice cream and chocolate on his plate.

Later on, Bill had his portion, and he said - more than once - that he liked it a lot. 

And as for me?  I knew I'd like it before I melted the chocolate and butter.  What's not to like?  Ice cream and chocolate truffle, layered together?  Yes, please!

Now, if you haven't already, go on and check out the Tuesdays with Dorie blogroll to what everyone else in the group (the really, really BIG group) thought about this torte.  And then go get a copy of Dorie's book, Baking:  From My Home to Yours, and make your own!

TWD - Granola Grabbers

Hmmmm...not sure if the kids really liked these or not...

This week's Tuesdays With Dorie recipe, Granola Grabbers, was chosen by Michelle of Bad Girl Baking.  Before I looked up the recipe, I thought maybe they were some kind of granola bar, which would have been fine.  But cookies?  Chunky, bumpy, no-two-exactly-taste-the-same cookies?  Count me in!

In fact, this is how I like to make oatmeal cookies - with lots of stuff in them.  Nuts, raisins, coconut - pretty much anything.  Chocolate chips, too, in my oatmeal cookies.  Yum.  The more stuff, the better.  AND - since they're oatmeal cookies, they're GOOD FOR YOU.  Aren't they? 

The same holds true with the Granola Grabbers.  I mean, come on - GRANOLA! 

I had to get a few of the ingredients at the store - which reminded me that I (gulp) need to start thinking about all my holiday cookie baking and plan out what I'll need for all of that...and start the baking in, oh, mid-November this year.  Yikes.  But for now - Granola Grabbers.  The recipe can be found on page 82 of Dorie Greenspan's Baking:  From My Home to Yours. 

These were super easy to put together.

First you combine all the chunky ingredients - the granola, the raisins, nuts, coconut, and wheat germ.  (Okay, wheat germ isn't exactly chunky, but it's chunkier than flour, so it counts as chunky in my book.) 

Dorie's recipe calls for slivered almonds - my granola already had sliced almonds, and my husband has been hinting for macadamia nuts in some kind of cookies lately, so I substituted macadamias for the almonds. 

 

Then you cream the butter and sugars, add in the egg and salt, then the flour, and then the chunky mixture.  Ta-da!  So quick and easy.

Then you just scoop out the dough onto your (parchment-lined) cookie sheets and bake it off.

Note to self - next time, I'll put the dough in the fridge for half an hour or more before scooping it out.  It was kind of warm yesterday afternoon when I was baking these, and I think my butter was too soft.  The cookies, some of them, seemed to spread out too much and get a little too dark around the edges.  Just a cosmetic issue, really; they tasted just fine.

 

In fact, EVERYONE in the house really likes these. 

 

So it's safe to say these will become a part of the repertoire here. 

Thanks Dorie - from my kids to you! 

And, of course, if you want to see how the other eighty bazillion Tuesdays With Dorie members did with this recipe, go check out the list of links here!

TWD - Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream

This week's recipe was selected by Dolores of Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity, and the timing (for me, anyway) couldn't have been better.  I made it a couple of weeks ago.  We'd been picking buckets and buckets of blueberries recently, and my sister and her kids were coming to visit (actually to see the new kittens - who are we kidding?) and so I made this ice cream for dessert.

You can see the recipe on Dolores' website or you can find it on page 434 of Dorie Greenspan's Baking:  From My Home to Yours.

I've never made ice cream with sour cream as part of the base before, and would I do so again?  Heck yes!  The texture and flavor of the finished ice cream were like cheesecake - not such a bad thing in my book!  My sister and her kids AND my kids and husband all liked it, too.

So how about the process?

Super, super easy. 

First thing you do is combine the blueberries, sugar, salt, zest and juice in a pot and cook them for about 3 minutes, til the mixture boils and the berries are soft.

 

Next up - put the mixture in a blender

and combine until the mixture is pretty smooth, but there are still bits of blueberry skin visible.

 

Add the remaining ingredients (sour cream and half 'n' half, in my case)

and run the mixer until everything is just combined.

Refrigerate this mixture at least an hour,

until it's all completely chilled.

(notice that even just chilled in the fridge, the sour cream in the mixture starts to firm the whole thing up a bit)

Then you pour the mixture into your ice cream maker and proceed as usual, and pretty soon...

Ice cream!!  Scrape the soft ice cream out into a container and freeze at least a couple of hours.

And then -

 

 - on a cone or in a cup - dish some up and enjoy!

TWD - Black-and-White Banana Loaf

This week's recipe was chosen by Ashlee of A Year in the Kitchen and can be found on page 232 of Dorie Greenspan's lovely Baking:  From My Home to Yours. 

It's funny - I wasn't even sure I was going to participate this week.  It's been so all about blueberries here that baking a loaf of banana bread (no matter how pretty or chocolatey) just didn't seem to fit.  But then there were these 3 bananas on the counter, past their prime, that the kids were no longer interested in...and so I took it as a sign and decided - last night - to definitely make this loaf. 

So I started measuring out sugar and flour and so forth, and then, just out of curiosity, I took a peek at how long this would need to bake.  Ah.  An hour and twenty to an hour and thirty minutes.  Okay.  Change in plans.  I'd get everything ready to go and then put it all together and bake it first thing in the morning, so we could have some with our coffee.

And yes, I admit it, the other reason I waited to bake was so I'd have better (natural) lighting for my pictures.

Anyway, I didn't get up as early as I'd planned.  I blame the MLB schedule for part of it (Sox played the Royals IN Kansas City, so the game started an hour later than an East Coast game, and I had to watch the whole thing, frustrating as it was.  Or at least listen to it while I typed and read email and edited photos from yesterday.  And then there was Blur, who woke me up around 3:30 or so, meowing and meowing and meowing and licking my feet (ick) or my arm or whatever.  I finally figured she was hungry so I got her some of her food.  She doesn't like the kittens' food, but the kittens DO like her food and if they eat it, well, let's just say their little digestive systems can't quite handle it yet.  So I don't leave the adult food out.  Anyway, after some nice grown-up kibble, Blur settled down and let me do the same.  (My husband sleeps - or "sleeps" - through all this excitement.)

Excuses over - here's what was waiting for me when I entered the kitchen this morning:

Okay, except for the half cup of milk.  I poured that this morning.  It didn't sit out overnight.  And the blender has nothing to do with this recipe.  It was just...there.  Doing the equivalent of waving wildly from the seats behind home plate and talking excitedly to friends on its' cell phone because it knows it's on camera. 

But anyway - it was so nice to start the morning like that.  I turned the oven on, greased and floured my loaf pan, and I was ready to go.

While my butter and sugars were whirring around in the mixing bowl, I melted my chocolate and stirred in the butter.

I added my eggs and vanilla into the butter/sugars mixture and yep, just like Dorie promised, the mixture looked curdled.  I added half the flour mixture, then the milk, and finally the rest of the flour mixture.

And then the banana/citrus/rum mixture.  And then I divided the batter into two nearly equal portions, and mixed the melted chocolate into the smaller portion.

Now, in the "Playing Around" section for this recipe, Dorie suggests adding some toasted pecans to either portion of batter.  Sounded good to me, only I didn't have any pecans in the house, so I toasted some sliced almonds instead.  And I portioned out come shredded coconut, too.

Why?  For balance.  Symmetry.  If one portion of batter was going to have added texture, the other side had to as well.  Because I'm just like that.  And - I thought all these flavors would play nicely together.

So I stirred the almonds into the chocolate...

and the coconut into the plain portion...

and then I poured small alternating amounts of the batters into my loaf pan...

until the bowls were scraped clean.

I swirled a knife through the batter just once -

and then put it in the oven to bake. 

On top of an insulated baking sheet.

Which, I should know by now, is something I should NOT do, even though Dorie's got it in the directions.  Because whenever I do, my bread or other baked item doesn't cook through as well as it should.  And I KNOW this, and yet...and yet...I put my loaf pan on the insulated baking sheet anyway.

Ah well.

I baked the loaf for an hour and a half, and it smelled wonderful.  An hour and a half was a long wait.

But finally the knife came out clean and the pan came out of the oven.

Gorgeous.  A little while after this picture was taken, the loaf had a permanent dent in the center from my nose as I inhaled and inhaled repeatedly while it cooled.  Okay, not really.  But it smelled SO good.

After fifteen minutes, I ran a knife along the sides of the pan and inverted the bread onto a cooling rack.

And this is what it looked like at that point:

Yeah.  Not so pretty any more, huh?

Perhaps I should have baked it longer, but it didn't seem necessary at the time.  Or maybe I could have cooled it longer.  Or - I could (and should) have left my insulated baking sheet in the drawer where it belonged.

Oh well.  It still looked good from the top, so I flipped it back over to cool some more while Bill made coffee.

Much better.

Dorie's instructions say to let the loaf cool to room temperature before slicing, but when the coffee was ready, I got my big serrated knife and started slicing. 

The bread was still hot inside and very moist, but it all held together well and looked nicely marbled (to me, anyway).  I sliced a couple of pieces and put them on a plate so I could take my finished product photos and then allow Bill to eat.

And of course, I had to sample the goods as well.

 

Yum.  All the flavors, as I'd hoped, worked well together, and I liked the little bits of crunch from the almonds and the slight chewiness of the coconut.  Now, when I make banana bread, I like to mix in chocolate chips, so I knew I'd like the blend of banana and chocolate.  And I did - the chocolate portion was deep and dark and more "grown up" than chocolate chips.  Coffee was a perfect accompaniment.

So thank you to Ashlee for choosing this recipe - it's definitely a keeper.  And to see more fine examples of this delicious Black and White Banana Loaf, head over to the Tuesdays With Dorie website and start clicking - there are over oh, eighty bazillion members now, so maybe you should first MAKE a loaf of this bread, brew a big pot of coffee, and settle back in your seat.  It's going to take some time to check out so many sites.  But, like waiting for this cake to bake, it'll be well worth it.

TWD (Tuesdays With Dorie)...WWJ (Wednesdays With Jayne)...Summer Fruit Galette

You know, this recipe, found on pages 366 and 367 of Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours, calls for fruits like apricots, peaches, nectarines, plums...that sort of thing.  And I would have loved to use any one of them.  But.  I'm drowning in blueberries.  I really am.  We've been picking blueberries over at my nephew's place, pounds of berries at a time, really.  And there are tons more that are still white-green.  So I'll be picking berries for a while longer. 

And so that's why my galette is full of blueberries. 

There are a few raspberries in there, too. 

I had a half pint left from my last trip to the farmers' market, and I thought this would be a nice use for them.  But mostly, it's all about the blueberries lately.  Which you may have noticed if you visit this site on any kind of regular basis.

Anyway - this week's Tuesdays With Dorie recipe was the Summer Fruit Galette, chosen by Michelle of Michelle in Colorado Springs, and it's scrumptios.  Especially for breakfast.  Which is how we ate ours.

The crust is Dorie's fabulous "Good for Almost Everything Pie Dough" - it's the blend of butter and shortening that gives this crust the tenderness AND flakiness we all (in TWD, at least) know and love by this point.  The filling is simply a smear of jam, a sprinkle of graham cracker grumbs, and fruit.  And the little extra something is the drizzle of custard on fruit called for about fifteen minutes before the galette is finished.

My son was drooling so much before I served this (and yes, we really did have this for breakfast this morning) that we had to lay bath towels on the floor.  He loves blueberries.  He loves pie.  When he saw this before it went into the oven, he wanted to eat it then and there.  I made him wait.

But I'm getting ahead of things.  The dough, as usual, was very cooperative when I rolled it out and marked a 9" diameter circle in the center and trimmed the rough edges.

And then smeared some blueberry jam (farmers's market) and sprinkled some graham crackers crumbs...

And then piled on the raspberries and as many blueberries as I could.

And then folded up the edges...

And finally brushed the dough with water and sprinkled on some sparkling sugar before I put the whole thing into the oven.

While the galette baked, I made the custard.  Very simple - just sugar, eggs, vanilla, and melted butter.

All whisked together...

...and drizzled in and around the fruit inside the galette about half an hour into the baking.

Fifteen more minutes...

During this time you can amuse yourself taking pictures of the melted bits of sugar on the parchment paper...

and taking macro shots of the berries.

Finally the galette emerges...golden brown on the edges, bubbly and sweet in the middle.  And scalding hot, so you'll need to let it cool a bit before serving.

Try to be patient.

Like I said, we had this for breakfast. 

Dorie's recipe serves 6, and my son at not only his, (and no, it wasn't his birthday or anything.  I have no explanation for the paper crown) but his sister's leftovers as well. 

She wasn't all that hungry, apparently.

You've probably already done this, but if you haven't, go check out the variations concocted by all the other eight and a half million (or so) TWD members posted (on time, on Tuesday.  Like we're supposed to do.).  And then go buy the book and make your own galette.  For breakfast!  Why not?  It's fruit!

TWD: Cherry Rhubarb Cobbler

 

This week's Tuesdays With Dorie selection, "Cherry Rhubarb Cobbler," was chosen by Amanda of Like Sprinkles on a Cupcake.  The recipe can be found on page 415 of Dorie Greenspan's Baking:  From My Home to Yours or over on Amanda's site.

Before I made this, I skimmed through the instructions and the "Serving" and "Playing Around" sections  on the right side of the page.  For serving, Dorie wrote "It goes without saying that the cobbler is great with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.  Cherry vanilla would be even better."

Well.  Cherry vanilla.  I could make that!  I had more than enough cherries for the cobbler, so why not make the ice cream, too?  Actually, I made that first, after I went through and pitted all the cherries, because the ice cream base was going to need time to chill and then the ice cream itself would need time to firm up later.

If you want to read all about the ice cream making part, you can head over here.

But for now, it's cobbler time.

I don't have one of those cherry pitting gizmos.  I've found it's easy enough to just put some cherries on a cutting board and press down on them with the flat side of a large knife. 

Once the blade makes contact with the pit, the cherry will start to split.  All I have to do is pull the cherry apart, toss the pieces in one bowl, and put the pit in my trash bowl.  Ta-da!  I will admit it gets a bit messy - by the end the board and my apron look like evidence of a cherry massacre.  And I guess that's what happened.

 

Next up - the rhubarb.  I bought rhubarb this time, although we do have a rhubarb plant in the garden.  But for some reason, our rhubarb hasn't been as big and mighty as it has been in the past, and I'd already used a bunch of it for a strawberry rhubarb pie or something, and I didn't want to wipe out the entire plant.  So I bought a rather large bunch, and I think I'll have to chop and freeze the rest of it because I only needed the two biggest stalks for this cobbler.  Look - exactly 12 ounces!

I trimmed the ends off and then I peeled the stringy bits from the stalk.  And, being me, I thought the little stringy bits looked kind of interesting...so I took a few pictures.

And then, after play time was done, I got around to chopping up the rhubarb.

Then I got the rest of the filling ingredients measured out and ready to go - sugar, ground ginger, and cornstarch.

I whisked the dry ingredients together first, and then stirred it all together in a big bowl.

It looked kind of grainy initially, but by the time the topping was ready, and I had stirred this mixture around a few times, all the dry ingredients had soaked in the juices and everything looked lovely and juicy and ready for baking.

The topping came together just as quickly and easily.  I didn't use a food processor - I just did it in a bowl, by hand, and it was just fine.  First the dry ingredients, and then the bits of cold butter...

and then the milk (please excuse the blur).

And then the rather sticky dough was turned out onto a floured board and cut into pieces...

And all the pieces were very gently shaped into balls.

Now, in her book, Dorie recommends using an 8 x 8 inch pyrex baking dish.  I had one - I don't know where it went.  So I used a deep, 8" diameter souffle dish instead, and that worked just fine.

And into the oven it went!

Oh - it smelled REALLY good while it was baking.  REALLY good.  Mine baked for 45 minutes.  I'd checked it at 35, and it looked cooked, but the berries weren't bubbling, so I put it back in for another ten minutes.  Bingo.  Dark red juice bubbled up in between the balls of the cobbler crust.  Yum.

I let the cobbler sit by the window for the rest of the day, and we had it for dessert later that night.  I took some photos of it when I served it up, but because the the (lack of natural) lighting, the pictures didn't come out to my liking. 

And so, for the sake of Culinary Artistic Aesthetics, I just HAD to dig out some cobbler this morning, and some ice cream, and do the pictures again.  And, yes, eat the cobbler and ice cream for breakfast.  To my way of thinking, it's not ALL that different from cereal with fruit and milk.  And that's HEALTHY, right?

   

Right!

Now go take a good long peek at how all the other Tuesdays With Dorie members (over 200 and something now!) did with their Cherry Rhubarb Cobblers.  And then go make one for yourself!  And don't forget to make some Cherry Vanilla ice cream to go along with it!

TWD: Chocolate Pudding

The funny thing is, Julia's been on a chocolate pudding kick lately.  So when I saw that Melissa of It's Melissa's Kitchen had chosen Chocolate Pudding (page 383 of Baking:  From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan), I was rather pleased.

The pudding went together very quickly, and the process was totally different from any way I've ever made pudding.  For one thing - no box!  (Just kidding.)  The biggest unexpected part of this recipe was utilizing the food processor to actually make the pudding.  Very different, but fun and effective.

I had all the ingredients the recipe called for without making any special trips anywhere - the only substitutions I made were 2% milk instead of whole, and 1 oz of semi-sweet chocolate because I only had 4 oz of bittersweet on hand.

I put most of the milk and half the sugar in a pot on the stove to boil...

Combined the cornstarch, cocoa powder and salt in one bowl...

And the rest of the sugar, the egg and two yolks in another bowl...

While my bowls of melted chocolate, softened butter and vanilla waited in the wings.

As directed, I ran the cornstarch/cocoa powder/salt mixture through the food processor and then poured that out onto a piece of parchment.

Next to go into the processor were the eggs and sugar, and after they were spun around for a minute, I poured in the remaining milk...

And then the cocoa powder mixture...

Now, ordinarily when making something like this, I would figure that the next step would be to temper the egg mixture with some of the hot milk in the pot and then pour the gently-heated egg mixture into the rest of the milk and cook until it thickened.

But not this time.  Instead, Dorie has you slowly pour the hot milk into the spinning food processor (okay, the contents of the bowl are spinning, not the appliance).  In this way, it is apparently incorporated slowly enough so the eggs don't cook/curdle, and this eliminates the whole tempering step.  Pretty cool, actually, as long as you can pour your hot milk with a steady hand.

It makes it harder when you're trying to pour left-handed and take a picture with the camera with your right hand.  But it can be done!

(okay, it's a bit fuzzy, but still - ACTION SHOT!)

Okay, once the milk is blended into the egg mixture (mine was very frothy)

You pour it back into the pot and whisk constantly until it begins to thicken and, to quote Dorie, "a couple of bubbles burble up to the surface and pop (about 2 minutes)."  Then it's back into the food processor for one more spin - this time you add in the vanilla and butter and melted chocolate, who have been sitting over there on the counter, watching all the fun.

Wheeee!  Everybody into the pool!

(I'm sorry - I was up late last night watching the Home Run Derby and then Julia had me up very very early this morning - I tend to get a bit silly when sleep-deprived.)

Okay, so now you spin it all around again to combine

Now comes the hard part.  You have to put the pudding into ramekins or cups or whatever and - put them in the fridge to chill for "at least 4 hours."  Yeah.  Four.  Hours.  That's what Dorie says.  Clearly she is off her rocker on that point.  But I'll cut her some slack, since mostly everything else she writes makes sense.

Anyway, I chose these coffee cups instead of ramekins, and I divided the pudding into 6 cups and let them all wait on the counter while I scraped the very last bits of pudding from the inside of the processor bowl and the blade and the spatula and made sure they all ended up in my mouth.  It was not a very pretty display, I'm sure, but no one was in the kitchen to witness it.  (So maybe it didn't really happen at all...)

I started putting them in the fridge, really I did, but then Miss Julia, the chocolate pudding princess, came in and saw me wiping chocolate evidence from the corner of my mouth.

"Mommy, what do you got?"  She asked in her best Law & Order interrogation room tone.

"Um...chocolate pudding," I confessed...weak-willed soul that I am.

"I want some chocolate pudding!"  She shouted - a four-year-old girl once more - jumping up and down.

"Well...okay."  So I gave her a cup and warned her that it wasn't exactly like the chocolate pudding she usually ate (she's a milk chocolate kind of gal at this point), but she grabbed a spoon and dug in anyway.

You've probably guessed that she didn't like it.  Oh darn.  I guess I'll have to finish what's in the cup.  I thought it was delicious - dark and lush and smooth.

A bit later, (still not 4 hours later, though.  Sorry, Dorie.) my husband was a little hungry and I asked if he wanted some chocolate pudding.  Oh he sure did.  With whipped cream?  Yes, please!  I poured some heavy cream in a bowl, got a whisk, and beat it by hand til it reached the soft peak stage. 

And then I made Bill wait while I took some pictures...

And then I finally allowed Bill to snatch the cup and spoon away and sample the pudding.

1 minute and 36 seconds later...

 

He liked it. A lot.

If you would like to see more glorious photos of chocolate pudding, go check out the enormous list of Tuesdays With Dorie members.  And if you want the recipe, go check in Melissa's Kitchen or better yet, go buy the book!

TWD: Double-Crusted Blueberry Pie

They don't get much fresher than this.  On Saturday my kids spent the day over at Joe and Em's new house (nephew and girlfriend - and she is SO much more to us than simply "Joe's girlfriend" but that's the quickest description), and in the back yard they have about 12-16 enormous sprawling blueberry bushes.  They've been allowed to just go wild before Joe and Emily bought the place a couple of months ago, so these bushes are more like trees.  And best of all, there are a TON of blueberries out there ripening.  And - lucky for me - there were plenty of ripe berries for the kids and Emily to pick for this pie.  Over the next couple of weeks, there will probably be enough berries in total to supply all the TWD members with enough to make a pie or a crumble each.  Really.  TONS of them.

So anyway, the kids and Emily picked those berries on Saturday and I made the pie on Sunday.  I cut a  piece so I could take pictures, and Alex had a piece (half last night, half for breakfast this morning), and later today Bill will bring the rest of the pie over to Joe and Emily.  But I am sure there will be more blueberries in production at my house before the branches are bare.  Pies, tarts, jams, syrup...and frozen berries to have on hand for some distant "later."

Anyway - yay - I lucked out - fresher than fresh blueberries.  I added less than a quarter cup of frozen blueberries, and they really weren't even necessary, but my pie pan is rather deep and I wanted PLENTY.

And speaking of the pie - this week's recipe "Double-Crusted Blueberry Pie" was chosen by Amy of South in Your Mouth, and you can find the recipe on her site or in Dorie Greenspan's book Baking From My Home to Yours on pages 361-363.  The recipe for the "Good For Almost Everything Pie Dough" is on pages 442-443.

I absolutely love blueberry pie, so when I saw this selection I was VERY happy.  I bought several bags of Wyman's frozen blueberries, but didn't really need them in the end. 

I will admit I kind of raced through the recipe and the edges of my crust didn't look as pretty as they could have.  But I was trying to get the pie done quickly so I could bring Alex to a birthday party later in the afternoon.  We're also in the middle of cleaning and reorganizing the house because we've got a few sets of relatives coming to stay with us beginning later this week and running through the rest of the month. 

Anyway, first up, I made the dough for the crust.  I didn't use my food processor (it was in the dishwasher), I just used a pastry blender and my hands, and the dough came out fine. 

I could have chilled my shortening longer, but it didn't really seem to matter - the dough is lovely - flaky and tender.

I chilled the dough for maybe half an hour while I rinsed off the blueberries and picked off the few bits of stems that remained.  Then I combined the blueberries with the rest of the filling ingredients - the flour and sugar and pinch of salt, and the zest and juice of a lemon - only I didn't have a lemon, so I used a small orange, and actually, I really liked the flavor of orange in combination with the blueberries.

  

There seemed to be a little too much of the mixture of flour and sugar, and even though I combined it all pretty well with the blueberries, there were still some floury areas in the finished pie.  They didn't taste off or different, but they didn't look right. 

Anyway, as Dorie instructs, I sprinkled a layer of plain bread crumbes on the crust to absorb juices and prevent the bottom crust from getting soggy,

and then I poured in the blueberry mixture.

Then I draped the top crust over the whole thing, "glued" the two crusts together with water, pressed to seal them, and this time around, instead of crimping the edges, I used the tines of the fork to decorate the edges.  I cut slits in the top crust, and cut a small hole in the center.  Then I put the whole thing in the fridge for half an hour to chill.  Right before I put the pie in the oven, I brushed the top with egg wash and sprinkled sparkling sugar over it all.  Then the pie went onto a baking sheet and into the middle of my oven.

About an hour later I took the pie out and set it on a rack to cool.  It looked and smelled wonderful.

I started wishing we didn't have to share with anyone.  (Sorry Joe and Em!)

About half an hour later, I cut one slice of pie, you know, so I could take my pictures.  That's the only reason, of course.  And I had to eat some, too, again, for my pictures.  It was all done in the name of art, and science, and baking and all that.

 

Overall, this was a yummy pie.  And I was very happy to HAVE to make it for TWD this week.  It wasn't necessarily any better than any other blueberry pie I've made, and certainly no worse.  It was simply a really yummy pie.  My only dissatisfaction - and it was pretty minor - was that there seemed to be more of that sugar/flour mixture than the berries required.  I should have trusted my own instincts and just not used all of it.  But oh well, I'll do that next time.  And like I said, the pie tasted just fine.

I'll probably make it again, since there are SO MANY blueberries available to me, and next time, I'll use my own judgement about the flour/sugar addition.  I'll keep you posted.

And in the meantime, you might want to go check out what all the other - well over 200 now - members of Tuesdays With Dorie have done with this recipe. 

TWD (make that WWD in this case) Apple Cheddar Scones

Yes, here I am, late to the party.  But at least I got here before NEXT Tuesday.

Apple Cheddar Scones.  The recipe is from Dorie Greenspan's book "Baking From My Home to Yours", and can be found on page 32, or you can visit Karina's blog, The Floured Apron, if you don't have the book right there in front of you.  (Of course, if you DON'T have it in front of you, that just must mean it's way in the other room, or at home - if you're at work.  It couldn't POSSIBLY mean you don't own a copy, because by all accounts, no home should be without one.)

Anyway.

I made the scones this morning at a bit of a rush, because a) I should have either done them yesterday or I should have done them BEFORE yesterday, and b) because I had a dentist appointment at 9:30 and I wanted to get them done and photographed before I had to leave.  And I was up at 5:30, went for a walk, back by 6:30, so you'd think I could even have managed to post before the dentist appt, but if you thought that even for a fraction of a second, well, you'd be wrong. 

So shut up, Jayne, and get to the scones.

Or "stones" as Alex was calling them.

First of all - yum - the apple/cheddar combination sounded great to me from the start.  I bought dried apple slices yesterday and put my block of cheddar in the freezer so it would be easier to grate.  Of course (note to self) I didn't need to put it in the freezer yesterday, because this morning when I was trying to grate it, it was like grating a stone with a piece of chamois.  I got it done, but the cheese came away from the grater in little wispy bits that pretty much disappeared into the mix.  So no lovely melty cheese shots.  Next time I'll know better.

My favorite part of the recipe was the quarter cup of cornmeal in the dough, which gave a nice bit of crunch to each bite.  And even though I couldn't see the cheese, the flavor was there, along with the bits of apple.  Both my kids liked them - Alex had two for breakfast, topped with strawberry jam.  Bill and I liked them as well, so I'll make these again.  Probably during the next several weeks, as we'll have various family members staying with us.

Julia helped with the mixing, as she often does.  She wanted me to take a picture of her as she stood on her chair, ready to whisk dry ingredients together. 

Like so:

She also cracked the egg and mixed all the liquids together for me, while I took forty days to grate the 3/4 cup of cheddar.

No pictures of those steps - sorry.  I'm off my game today, apparently.  Probably was dental terror.

Anyway.

Once I had the cheddar grated and the apples chopped up, I cut the butter into small cubes and added that to the bowl...

and used my fingers to mash up and combine the butter with the flour mixture.  Big bits and little bits and all kinds of in-between bits resulted.

Julia poured in the liquids and the apples and cheese, and I stirred quickly and gently to combine everything into a very sticky dough.

I turned the dough out onto my floured counter and Julia and I each took a turn kneading the dough.

Then, departing from Dorie's instructions just a tad, I cut the dough into three roughly equal pieces and patted each piece into a circle half an inch thick, cut each circle into quarters, and placed all the pieces on my parchment-lined sheet pan.

Then I baked them for 23 minutes, let them cool for another ten, and then we ate.

While they were baking, my kids came into the kitchen sniffing the air, and asking what I was cooking.  (Julie didn't really know what she was helping me with - she just likes to crack eggs and mix stuff.)  I told them "apple cheddar scones" and Alex asked what "stones" were and I explained, and he said he thought he would probably like them.

And, of course, before anyone was allowed to EAT a scone, I had to take some pictures.  So I set up a few different shots...

and kicked myself for not having some fresh berries handy to add a bit of color to these shots...

and what was I thinking, using an off-white plate for these pictures, anyway?

Hey, Jayne, sure you've got enough butter on there?  It's not overflowing from the plate yet...

And then I thought - oh, yeah, I need some JAM in this picture.  So I got out the strawberry jam and added a welcome splash of color to the neutral shades...

 

And THEN - we ate!

TWD - Later Today

This week's recipe - Apple Cheddar Scones - was chosen by Karina of The Floured Apron.  I'll be posting my photos and feedback later today, but in the meantime, go see what all the more punctual Tuesdays With Dorie members have done and said!  You're sure to be impressed, as they are a fabulous and entertaining bunch of bakers!

TWD: Mixed Berry Crumble

This week's Tuesdays With Dorie recipe, the Mixed Berry Cobbler, was chosen by Beth of Our Sweet Life, and if you'd like to see the recipe, you can head on over there or - better yet - go buy Dorie Greenspan's Baking:  From My Home to Yours.

Anyway.  I was really, really happy to see that this is the one Beth picked - perfectly summery and easy as anything to throw together.  And yeah, I mean throw.  It was probably the fastest dessert I've ever assembled, and the overall response in my home was "YUMMY!"  (Except for Julia, of course, who only had ice cream because "I don't like pie any more.")  My husband and son LOVED it, in fact I think my little boy ate more than I did.  When he is enamored of something, you can't hold him back.

Like I said - the Mixed Berry Cobbler is perfectly summery, what with so many berries either in season now or on the horizon.  We actually have a sour cherry tree in our yard (the cherries are sour; the tree seems pretty friendly) and my kids picked a lot of the ripe fruit on Monday

the birds have been picking plenty as well), and so I used those cherries - 3 cups - and rounded things out with two cups of frozen blueberries. 

I had strawberries on hand as well, but Dorie's notes say those are a little too water for a crumble and to "go light" on them, so I just didn't use them at all. 

I combined the berries with the sugar, cornstarch and lemon zest as directed...

and poured the mixture into the buttered pie plate.

I got my already-made topping out of the fridge and covered the berries with it...

and popped it in the oven.

An hour later, the crumble was golden brown on top, bubbling away, and smelled mouth-watering.  In fact, it had smelled crazy good from about the half hour point on, and were it not for the surprise HAIL STORM we had, it would have been hard to do anything other than stand around in the kitchen inhaling the aroma of dessert as it baked.

We were eating dinner when I took the crumble out of the oven, which is good - the kids were distracted by other food and my lovely crumble could rest, undisturbed, for all of 27 minutes.  Dorie recommends 30 minutes, but she hasn't encountered my son.

Anyway, I dished it up (quickly, as the natives were getting restless, and topped it with some strawberry ice cream. 

Dorie recommends vanilla, but we had strawberry, and I figured the additional berry flavor would be acceptable.  It certainly didn't overshadow the dark, tangy flavor of my sour cherry/blueberry combo. 

The consensus?

 

I may have some for breakfast.

Anyway, if you haven't already, go see what all the other Tuesdays With Dorie folk served up!

TWD - Sorry - Not this week.

Hi - I'm not participating in this week's Tuesdays With Dorie challenge - I've got a lot of other things I need to catch up on right now.  But go check out all the other Tuesdays With Dorie bakers to see their gorgeous renditions of Dorie's Peppermint Cream Puff Ring! 

TWD: La Palette's Strawberry Tart

 

This week's TWD recipe was chosen by Marie of A Year in Oak Cottage and can be found on page 374 of Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan.  We're not posting the actual recipes any more - all the members HAVE the book, and if you'd like to become a member, you'll need to GET the book, and even if you don't want to become a member, you really SHOULD just go out and get the book because it's big and beautiful and if you just look at the pictures, you don't gain ANY weight at all!  So there you go.

Anyway, this week's recipe was PERFECTLY timed.  Not only are strawberries coming into season (here in RI) but also this weekend marked the start of a hideous heat wave (still going unbearably strong) and baking the tart shell Saturday morning was about all I was interested in doing, oven-wise.

I don't really have a lot to write about this tart - it is so incredibly simple to put together that I figure if I keep some pre-made tart shells in the freezer through the summer, I can turn out a fabulously impressive summer dessert any ol' night of the week. 

I made the sweet tart dough with the addition of ground almonds - partly because I have a LOT of almonds in my freezer which I just noticed recently and want to use them - and partly because I thought the flavor of the nuts would be nice with the simple tart/sweet flavor of the strawberries.

After dinner, while everyone was outside, I just spread my strawberry jam on the tart, sliced it into 6 pieces, set each slice on a plate and topped it with a generous amount of strawberries and a dollop of fresh whipped cream. 

My sister's kids were here for the night, and so they got to partake of this glorious yet humble offering.

There wasn't a smidgen left.  I think I could have made two tarts, and there still wouldn't have been any left.

In fact, the above picture is the only photo I have - no process pictures because I did so much of this on the fly that day - but also - there's not a lot of process to photograph!

I used unsweetened whipped cream to top it, and the strawberries came from Ledge Ends Produce, one of the sellers at the Farmers' Market I go to on Fridays.

Aren't they lovely?

Anyway, for other glimpses of this lovely tart (and probably actual process photos), go check out all the other fabulous bakers on the Tuesdays With Dorie list - there are over 200 now!  So get going!