burnt sugar ice cream

05/03/2010 By

I used to be so good with caramel. For years, I made caramel with no problems, and then when I made this hazelnut cake, everything changed. I can’t remember how many batches of caramel I made for that cake, each one forming crystals instead of turning amber; I do remember that even the final batch crystallized, but I had given up. Since then, it’s been hit or miss – probably half of my caramel attempts crystallize. I’ve lost my caramel mojo.

I know a lot of my problem is that I’m working with smaller batches than the recipe recommends. Working with caramel is notoriously difficult in small batches, but my freezer is already stocked with vanilla cake, three types of cookies, and cheesecake. A half batch of burnt sugar ice cream would be plenty for us.

Fortunately, there’s an ace in the hole when it comes to caramel – corn syrup. A seemingly insignificant squirt of the sticky stuff can make all the difference in whether you get to move on to the next step in the recipe or you dump out yet another batch of sugar and start over.

So with that taken care of, I was finally able to make some ice cream. And lo! it was good. Smooth and chunk-free, which is my preference, plus that deep caramelly hint of bitterness makes for a really fun ice cream flavor.

Becky chose this for Tuesdays with Dorie, and she has the recipe posted. For the first time in weeks, I didn’t add any salt to Dorie’s recipe!  But I did add a squeeze of corn syrup to the sugar/water mixture.

One year ago: Tiramisu Cake
Two years ago: Peanut Butter Torte

Filed Under: custard, dessert, gluten free, tuesdays with dorie

chockablock cookies

04/26/2010 By

Hey, didn’t Tuesdays with Dorie already make these, a chocolate version, a long time ago? And didn’t I already lodge a complaint against cookies that are more add-in than dough? Seriously, sometimes the chocolate chips in chocolate chip cookies get in my way.

And wait, didn’t I already decide that, hey, add-ins maybe aren’t such a bad thing because these are some darn good cookies.

And you know what else about these cookies? There’s only eight tablespoons of butter/shortening in the whole batch! That’s about half as much as most cookies. Which makes it all the harder not to justify having just one more.

Mary chose these and she has the recipe posted. I quadrupled, yes, that’s right, quadrupled the salt. Seemed perfect to me.

One year ago: Chocolate Cream Tart
Two years ago: Fluted Polenta and Ricotta Cake

Filed Under: chocolate, cookies, dessert, fruit, nuts, tuesdays with dorie

sweet cream biscuits

04/20/2010 By

I was all set to make the tiniest portion of this recipe and serve little bitty biscuits with salad for dinner. And then Dorie mentioned ham sandwiches in the headnote and I started thinking about adding eggs and cheese to that and suddenly I was making extra dough to freeze. Breakfast sandwiches are on my Favorite Foods Ever List. (Let us not discuss how long that list is.)

There are all sorts of biscuits – flaky from cutting in butter, layered from multiple pastry turns, tender from stirring in cream – and I love them all. And they all make one mean breakfast sandwich.

Melissa, who chose these biscuits for Tuesdays with Dorie, has the recipe posted on her site. You might be able to tell from the photos that my tiny biscuits rose higher than my bigger biscuits. I mixed, cut, and rolled the dough at the same time; the only difference is that the larger ones were baked straight from the freezer instead of right after the dough was made like the smaller ones. Also, I brushed the larger biscuits with an egg wash because I happened to have eggs available. It makes for a pretty biscuit, but they’re great either way.

One year ago: Chocolate Bread Pudding
Two years ago: Carrot Cake

Filed Under: bread, breakfast, freezer friendly, quick bread, tuesdays with dorie

swedish visiting cake

04/13/2010 By

This cake fit so seamlessly into my weekend that I hardly know what to say about it. I mixed it up and baked it early Friday evening, and I grabbed a bite here and another there throughout the weekend until there was nothing left.

With the ingredients stirred by hand, and the light lemony almond flavor, it was easy to bake and just as easy to eat.

Nancy chose this for Tuesdays with Dorie, and she has the recipe posted. I doubled the salt (of course).

One year ago: Chocolate Ameretti Torte
Two years ago: Marshmallows

Filed Under: cake, citrus, dessert, nuts, tuesdays with dorie

mocha walnut marbled bundt cake

04/06/2010 By

Somehow with all of my random kitchen junk, I didn’t have a full-size bundt pan for the longest time, but I finally got one recently. This was its first use, and I was so excited about my perfectly browned, beautifully scalloped, marbled bundt cake. Too bad I didn’t take any pictures of it before this:

Fortunately, enough of the cake was intact to cut some slices, not that I have any problems eating cake bits. And the cake bits, they were good – rich and dense with contrasting vanilla and chocolate bites.

However, one thing I’ve learned is that if dessert isn’t divided into neat portions, it’s all too easy to grab a bite here and another there until I’ve eaten far more than just one serving.

So I took that ziploc bag full of broken cake, crushed it up with the other two cakes I’d dropped at the same time, added some cream cheese frosting, and dipped everything in chocolate. Yes, I added frosting and chocolate in order to eat less dessert. So far it hasn’t worked.

Erin chose this cake for Tuesdays with Dorie, and she has the recipe posted.

One year ago: Banana Cream Pie
Two years ago: Lemon Cream Tart

Filed Under: cake, chocolate, dessert, nuts, tuesdays with dorie

coconut tea cake

03/30/2010 By

I was half-tempted to copy and paste from my coconut cream tart entry – the part about how I used to not like coconut but now see the error of my ways – but I didn’t want to give everyone a case of déjà vu. Suffice to say: I am so glad I am no longer anti-coconut. Heck, forget “no longer anti”; I am officially pro coconut.

I am definitely pro this cake. It gets an initial hit of coconut flavor from coconut milk, more from shredded coconut, and in my case, another layer of coconut from the bottle of coconut extract I’ve had in my pantry for at least five years. Then I decided that an unadorned bundt cake is just sad, so I mixed up a quick glaze of powdered sugar, more coconut milk, and more coconut extract.

Oh. Yes. A few people who made this before me reported that their cakes had been dry, but mine wasn’t the least bit. The texture was soft and fluffy. Best of all, the cake was infused with and covered by coconut flavor.

Carmen chose this cake for Tuesdays with Dorie, and she will post the recipe. I used about ¾ teaspoon salt instead of the mere pinch the Dorie recommends. And I dumped in who-knows-how-much rum instead of the two teaspoons called for.

One year ago: Coconut Butter Thins (Apparently March is coconut month for TWD!)
Two years ago: Gooey Chocolate Cakes

Filed Under: cake, dessert, tuesdays with dorie

dulce de leche duos

03/23/2010 By

There’s a suspicious connection between the recipes I’ve made for Tuesdays with Dorie that stand out as my favorites and how good of a mood I was in when I ate them. The brioche tart – the morning of 4th of July, one of my favorite holidays. Pecan pie – Christmas with my family, during a game of Apples to Apples. I made the thumbprint cookies on a particularly nice Saturday afternoon. The pattern is broken with these cookies, because as weather.com informed me, “THE POLLEN FORECAST FOR [MY] AREA IS VERY HIGH”, and I had the sinus headache to prove it.

But these cookies are sort of perfect. They’re really just chocolate chip cookies with dulce de leche substituting for a portion of the sugar.  Also, of course, without the chocolate, and sans chips is exactly how I prefer my dough. (Yes, the dough is a priority.) The milk caramel gives these a butterscotch flavor that usually takes days of refrigerating the dough to achieve, and the soft dough baked into perfectly chewy tender cookies.

The cookies were so good that they didn’t even need to be topped with more dulce de leche, which is good because I ran out after I made just a few scantily-filled sandwiches. Although I have to admit that the extra decadence of the sandwich cookies was…extra decadent.

Jodie chose these cookies for TWD and has the recipe posted. I strongly recommend using 1 teaspoon salt (which is on par with most chocolate chip cookie recipes) instead of the ¼ teaspoon in the original recipe. The sweet caramely cookies really benefit from the salty balance.

One year ago: French Yogurt Cake

Filed Under: cookies, dessert, tuesdays with dorie

soft chocolate and berry tart

03/16/2010 By

Chocolate and raspberry was my favorite flavor combination for a long time. It’s still up there for sure, but I’ve tried so many desserts recently that I’ve found all kinds of other great pairs – orange and vanilla, peaches and amaretto, cream cheese and anything. There’s no need to play favorites, but I was excited about making a chocolate and raspberry tart.

Then I used strawberries instead. Sometimes baking for Tuesdays with Dorie happens to be one item on a long (but manageable!) To Do list, and those times, I make do – and I had strawberries in the freezer. Even though Dorie specifically recommends against using strawberries because they’re too juicy, I went ahead with what I had. I defrosted a few, diced them small, sprinkled them with sugar, and set them aside to give off some liquid, which I drained before using the berries in the recipe. (I had a brief thought of “what should I do with the liquid?” Then – wait a minute! That’s sugary strawberry juice! And I drank it.)

I’d call it a success! My tart was a bit sloppy when I cut into it, but it was still crisp tart crust, rich chocolate, and sweet berries. No one complained about combining chocolate and strawberries around here, that’s for sure.  Rachelle has the original recipe posted on her site.

One year ago: Lemon Cup Custards

Filed Under: chocolate, custard, dessert, nuts, pie, summer, tuesdays with dorie

thumbprints for us big guys

03/09/2010 By

I don’t how I managed to go this long without complaining about the grocery store situation in my new little town. There are three grocery stores here – a Walmart, a food thrift store, and a regular store. I know some Walmarts have a good selection, but this one certainly does not. I had high hopes for the regular grocery store at first, but it seems that the longer I shop there, the more frustrated I get.

Today was the last straw. Brisket – I have to buy the whole brisket. What am I going to do with 15 pounds of brisket?! (I know, I’m going to freeze most of it. Still.)

My days of rack of lamb are over. Wheat berries? Fresh fish? Currants? Loose-leaf tea? Please. I couldn’t even find hazelnuts.

Fortunately, these cookies are just as delicious with walnuts instead of hazelnuts. And I guess that’s what it all comes down to – adapting to my new situation and making the best of it. And being grateful for all of the great salsa and green chile that’s available to me now.

Mike from Ugly Food Dude chose these cookies for Tuesdays with Dorie. I added 1 teaspoon of salt to the dough, and with that small change, I’d say that these are one of my favorite recipes from Dorie’s book. They were so soft and tender with wonderful contrasting nut and tart jam flavors.  I loved them.

One year ago: Chocolate Whiskey Cake (another TWD favorite!)

Filed Under: cookies, dessert, favorites, nuts, tuesdays with dorie

toasted-coconut custard tart

03/01/2010 By

I used to not like coconut. That was dumb. I used to not like a lot of ingredients that are actually very good – ingredients that I’m not sure I’d actually tried. That was also dumb.

Although I think I would have liked this tart even back in my coconut-adverse days. There’s toasted coconut both in the pastry cream itself and sprinkled over the top of the tart, but it seemed to affect the texture of the tart more than the flavor.

It was good either way, but I wish I’d added a drop of coconut extract to the filling. Or maybe used coconut milk instead of regular milk in the pastry cream? Does that work? It sounds delicious.

However you make it, you can’t go wrong with crisp tart crust, smooth pastry cream, and light whipped cream topped with crunchy toasted coconut. Beryl chose this tart for Tuesdays with Dorie, and she has the recipe posted.

One year ago: Caramel Crunch Bars

Filed Under: custard, dessert, pie, tuesdays with dorie
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