tuesdays with dorie

berry surprise cake

01/21/2009 By bridget

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I’ve been a member of Tuesdays with Dorie for ten months, and I haven’t missed even one week. I’ve posted through holidays, vacations, and…I’m trying to come up with a third thing to round out this sentence, but honestly, I have no life. Hence it’s been easy to stay on track with TWD. But this week really tested me – my dishwasher is broken. That’s been rough.

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It’s a good thing I persisted though, because I forgot to take into account Dave’s love of fruit + cream desserts. He goes nuts for them. I made a fourth of this recipe, and we ate the whole thing on Saturday night. Dave was talking about it all day Sunday, and it wasn’t until the end of the day that he realized there was none left. He wasn’t happy.

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I guess I’ll have to make it again sometime then! Which is no problem, because there were things I really liked about this as well as things I’d like to experiment with.

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Like most of the group this week, my cake fell in the middle. I’d read through the reviews of people who made it before me and knew this was a possibility, so I was so careful when mixing up the batter. I certainly didn’t overmix, because there were still clumps of hard, dry flour in the baked cake. On the other hand, I could see the structure of the beaten eggs breaking down as I tried to fold in the flour, so I knew I had to stop.

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It was no matter though, since we were hollowing out the cake anyway. Dorie’s instructions are to slice off the top of the cake, make a nest in the middle, fill the nest with berries and cream, then put the top of the cake back on. Because the sides of my cake were nice and high, I was able to do all of that except I didn’t have a “lid” to cover the filling with. I just spread the whipped cream topping right over the filling.

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The other issue people had with the recipe was the filling, which is a combination of cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and cream. So basically cheesecake batter, which I absolutely love. Dorie then whips up more heavy cream and mixes that with the cream cheese ingredients, but a lot of people were saying that the filling ended up bland, so I skipped the extra whipped cream.

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There were things I loved about this recipe – the cream cheese filling, raspberries of course (I lucked out and found good ones for a reasonable price), the whipped cream topping…so basically everything except the sunken cake. To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve ever had a genoise I loved. When I make this again, which will be soon if Dave has any say in the matter, I’ll just use a different vanilla cake recipe.

Mary Ann has posted the recipe.

One year ago: Maple Walnut Cupcakes

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Filed Under: cake, dessert, fruit, spring, summer, tuesdays with dorie

caramel-topped flan

01/16/2009 By bridget

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Like a lot of Tuesdays with Dorie members who joined the group late, I plan on eventually making all of the recipes that I missed. Why not? I make those thirteen recipes (down to nine, now), and I will eventually have baked through the entire book. How cool is that?

There were just two recipes that I had no interest in. I already have tried and true recipes for both pound cake and crème caramel, plus Dorie’s versions didn’t get rave reviews across the board. But, Dave requested flan, and he was insistent that it be flan and not crème caramel, never mind that they’re the same thing, and since Dave rarely gets so specific, I indulged him.

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This flan wasn’t drastically different than my other recipe. There wasn’t as much caramel, but it seemed like enough. The custard ingredients and methods are very similar, so I’m not clear on why the tops of these flans turned golden, while the crème caramel that I made last year isn’t browned at all.

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The two recipes are so similar that I’d be hard-pressed to pick a favorite. They’re both smooth and creamy with a good balance of sweet caramel. It was definitely worth making it to get it marked off the list. I think I might try making the pound cake recipe now. It never hurts to try a new recipe.

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One year ago: Marcella Hazan’s Lasagne Bolognese – not my favorite lasagna recipe, but I learned a lot from making it

Caramel-Topped Flan (from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours)

Makes one 8-inch flan, or six 6 servings in 6-ounce ramekins, or 8 servings in 4-ounce ramekins

For the caramel:
⅓ cup sugar
3 tablespoons water
squirt of fresh lemon juice

For the flan:
1½ cups heavy cream
1¼ cups whole milk
3 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Getting ready:
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350F. Line a roasting pan or 9-by-13 inch baking pan with a double thickness of paper towels. Fill a teakettle with water and put it on to boil; when the water boils, turn off heat.

Put a metal 8-inch round cake pan – not a nonstick one – in the oven to heat while you prepare the caramel. (If you are using individual molds or ramekins, then skip this step.)

To Make the Caramel:
Stir the sugar, water and lemon juice together in a small heavy-bottomed saucepan. Put the pan over medium-high heat and cook until the sugar becomes an amber-colored caramel, about 5 minutes-remove the pan from the heat at the first whiff of smoke.

Remove the cake pan from the oven and, working with oven mitts, pour the caramel into the pan and immediately tilt the pan to spread the caramel evenly over the bottom; set the pan aside.

To Make the Flan:
Bring the milk and heavy cream just to a boil.

Meanwhile, in a 2-quart glass measuring cup or in a bowl, whisk together the eggs, yolks and sugar. Whisk vigorously for a minute or two, and then stir in the vanilla. Still whisking, drizzle in about one quarter of the hot liquid-this will temper, or warm, the eggs so they won’t curdle. Whisking all the while, slowly pour in the remainder of the hot cream and milk. Using a large spoon, skim off the bubbles and foam that you worked up.

Put the caramel-lined cake pan in the roasting pan. Pour the custard into the cake pan and slide the setup into the oven. Very carefully pour enough hot water from the kettle into the roasting pan to come halfway up the sides of the cake pan. (Don’t worry if this sets the cake pan afloat.) Bake the flan for about 35 minutes, or until the top puffs a bit and is golden here and there. A knife inserted into the center of the flan should come out clean. (Small, individual molds will take less time- start checking for doneness around the 25-minute mark).

Remove the roasting pan from the oven, transfer the cake pan to a cooking rack and run a knife between the flan and the sides of the pan to loosen it. Let the flan cool to room temperature on the rack, then loosely cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

When ready to serve, once more, run a knife between the flan and the pan. Choose a rimmed serving platter, place the platter over the cake pan, quickly flip the platter and pan over and remove the cake pan-the flan will shimmy out and the caramel sauce will coat the custard.

Storing: Covered with plastic wrap in its baking pan, the flan will keep in the refrigerator for up to 2 days. However, once unmolded, its best to enjoy it the same day.

Serving: Bring the flan to the table and cut into wedges. Spoon some of the syrup onto each plate.

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

savory corn and pepper muffins

01/13/2009 By bridget

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Obviously I like baking desserts along with the Tuesdays with Dorie group every week, but you know what else I like? Every once in a while, it’s fun to choose my own dessert. Revolutionary, I know. I always get excited when I see a savory recipe chosen for TWD, because that leaves one extra dessert recipe that I get to pick out for myself.

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These corn muffins have three types of pepper in them – red pepper, jalapeno, and black pepper. Other than that, it’s a fairly typical cornbread recipe where the liquid and dry ingredients are mixed separately before being folded together. I made the muffins mini, because my mini muffin pan is new and fun.

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I thought the muffins were really good. There were a couple members of the group who didn’t like how sweet they were. I understand there’s a battle between sweet and not-sweet cornbread lovers, but I’m a solid member of the sweet crowd, so I thought the flavor of these was great.

Rebecca will post the recipe.

One year ago: Banana Cream Pie

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Filed Under: bread, quick bread, tuesdays with dorie, vegetables

french pear tart

01/06/2009 By bridget

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This tart had everything going against it. For one thing, I wasn’t in the mood to make a three-part dessert. For another, Dorie says that it’s supposed to be eaten the day it’s assembled, and I had my doubts that Dave and I would be eating the whole thing in one day. But that worked out – I made a third of the recipe, which I divided between two mini-tart pans. I prepared the ingredients, but didn’t layer them or bake each tart until the day I planned to eat it.

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I was too tired to take photos of the finished tart the first night we ate it. But the second night was even worse – Dave had very attentively refilled my wineglass throughout the evening, and I was hard-pressed to find the motivation to take photos of food. Plus the second tart (the drunk one) wasn’t as pretty as the first tart (the tired one). Imagine that.

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But all’s well that ends well, because the tart was delicious. The crust was crisp but not tough, and the almond cream complimented the pears nicely. The dessert was pretty sweet and I could have used some more salt somewhere, but I say that every week. I had never eaten anything like this, so I’m really glad I tried it.

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Dorie actually chose the recipe for us this week, and the recipe is posted on her blog. Dorie has been fantastically supportive of Tuesdays with Dorie from the beginning of the group. She regularly answers questions, she’s posted about the group multiple times on her own blog, and this week she took the time to answer a number of interview-type questions that TWD members have wondered about for the past few months. I love baking along with a group and I enjoy the recipes from the book, and having Dorie interact with TWD so closely is the icing on the cake.

One year ago: Oatmeal. We just had this last weekend – I love it during the winter.

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

butterscotch pudding

12/23/2008 By bridget

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A few years ago, a group of my friends got together and did a whiskey tasting. We compared a few different whiskeys of varying quality. At the time, they all tasted really strong to me, but I think that was the turning point of when I started to actually like whiskey. And butterscotch, which, by the way, is traditionally brown sugar and butter and has nothing to do with whiskey, tends to taste a little too sweet for me, so I was thinking that adding some whiskey would be perfect to cut that.

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Of course I was glad that this week’s recipe was so simple, since, like everyone else I think, I’m swamped by Christmas right now. It’s a pretty standard pudding recipe – heat the dairy, add it to the egg yolks, heat everything together until it thickens. Dorie likes to use a food processor for pudding to get the smoothest texture, but I was way too lazy for that, so I did my best with a whisk.

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The pudding was very good. It was definitely smooth enough without the food processor. If my fine-mesh strainer hadn’t been dirty, I would have strained the pudding through that, but it worked out nicely even without that step. It was indeed very sweet. The alcohol flavor was pretty strong on the first bite, but it seemed to blend with the other flavors as I kept eating. Overall, this was very good pudding, and I definitely prefer butterscotch when it’s accompanied by whiskey.

The recipe is available on Donna’s site. I think I’ll cut the amount of scotch in half next time, just to bypass the initial spoonful of overwhelming alcohol flavor.

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

buttery jam cookies

12/16/2008 By bridget

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I’m a member of Tuesdays with Dorie because it encourages me to bake often and to keep trying new recipes. But I also like how it challenges me to be creative about presentation. When I’m writing a blog entry about the same recipe as hundreds of other people, I want to think of some sort of display that will look impressive or original. This is the real challenge for me.

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Not that square cookies is the most unique presentation ever. I’d heard that the cookies hold their shape in the oven really well, so I thought this might be a good cookie to use a cookie stamp on. But I don’t have one. My almost-3-year-old nephew is just starting to learn shapes, so this idea came from him. For the circles, I used spoonfuls of dough like the recipe calls for, and for everything else, I rolled the dough into about a ½-inch thickness and then used a knife to cut the shapes.

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The recipe was very easy. Just like a standard cookie recipe, the butter and sugar are creamed together, the egg and vanilla are added, and then jam is added before the pre-mixed dry ingredients are mixed in just until blended. The dough tasted pretty good, which is always a good sign.

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The cookies were decent. As soon as I saw that the recipe only called for ¼ teaspoon of salt for 2 cups of flour, I was concerned. I’m finding that I like my baked foods on the salty side. I added more, about ⅛ teaspoon, but I still would have liked the cookies to be saltier. They seemed a little bland. It didn’t help that I couldn’t taste the ginger at all. My powdered ginger is very old, so I’m sure that’s why. I suppose I should break down and replace it with fresher stuff.

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So they didn’t knock my socks off, but I’m glad I tried them. Dorie has a lot of fun ideas for cookies that I wouldn’t think of on my own. Heather has the recipe posted.

One year ago: Braised White Beans with Tomatoes, Zucchini and Garlic. This is still one of my favorite meals.

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Filed Under: cookies, dessert, tuesdays with dorie

grandma’s all-occasion sugar cookies

12/09/2008 By bridget

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Believe it or not, I had all of November’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipes baked by November 1st. (And somehow my freezer was still full of desserts by the end the month.) December has been a different story. I did make these cookies last week, but I only finished them one day before leaving to spend a week with my parents. The rest of the month is characteristically busy for December, so I’m sure this trend will continue.

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Fortunately, none of the recipes this month seem to be long involved projects. These sugar cookies are a pretty basic cookie dough recipe with a bit of chilling, then the standard rolling and cutting. And baking and decorating. So I suppose there’s a fair bit of work, but I kept it as simple as possible.

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Keeping in mind that I prefer my sugar cookies super tender, I baked these for a little less time than the recipe indicates. Not wanting to struggle with my annoying clingy cookie cutters again, I was left with only one other option (two if you include Halloween cookie cutters, which I don’t in this case) – round biscuit cutters. Dorie suggested a simple cinnamon sugar coating for these cookies, which sounded a little plain. I didn’t have time for elaborate decorations, so I compromised with an easy powdered sugar glaze.

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The cookies were pretty good. I added a bit of lemon zest, although a lot less than the lemon variation recommended. I wasn’t looking for a lemon cookie, just a little flavor besides sweetness. I liked the lemon, although next time I’ll add even less. I do prefer the sugar cookie recipe I made last month to this one. Dorie says in the recipe’s introduction that these are crispy, and even with the shorter baking time, they weren’t as soft as I like. But they were very tasty.

Ulrike has the recipe posted.

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Filed Under: cookies, dessert, tuesdays with dorie, winter/holidays

linzer sablés

12/02/2008 By bridget

I think Tuesday snuck up on a lot of the Tuesdays with Dorie members this week. I know it did for me. I’ve been holding onto last week as much as possible, with the long weekend and the holiday largely dedicated to food (oh yeah, and being thankful) and the turkey and the pie and mostly the long weekend. But going back to work yesterday made it hit me that I better get crackin’ on making this week’s recipe.

I’m glad Dennis picked a fairly simple recipe this week, so I could get the whole thing done Monday after work. Fortunately, I happened to have three bags of walnuts in the pantry that each had just a little bit left, and together made just enough ground nuts for me to make this recipe.

Some people who made the recipe before me suggested rolling out the dough thinner than Dorie’s recommended ¼-inch, so I took that advice. I’m glad I did, because I can see how that would have made some pretty thick cookies. The only other issue I had was a result of my super cheap cookie cutters, which were determined to hold onto the cut cookie dough instead of releasing it onto the baking sheet. I will be adding cookie cutters to my Christmas list.

I really enjoyed the cookies. The spice was a really nice addition, and the texture was this great tender-crisp combination. I don’t know that crisp is the right word, but they’re definitely not soft and chewy. Sablé, meaning sand, is really the right name for these cookies. I didn’t add enough jam to mine, but that wasn’t a big deal. Dave and I agreed that they’re a very nice cookie for Christmas.

You can find the recipe on Dennis’ blog.

One year ago: Crockpot Rice and Beans – I really love this meal. We’re actually having it for dinner tonight.

Filed Under: cookies, dessert, french, tuesdays with dorie

thanksgiving twofer pie

11/25/2008 By bridget

Laurie, the administrator for TWD, gave us the option of blogging about the Thanksgiving Twofer Pie, a combination of pecan and pumpkin pie, on Thursday instead of Tuesday, under the assumption that some of us would be making it for Thanksgiving. I tried to imagine my family’s reaction if I offered something so untraditional after the turkey. My mom would raise her eyebrows, loudly, if such a thing is possible, and eat maybe half a piece. My dad would eat his portion and proclaim it good but not as good as Libby’s pumpkin pie. My brothers and sister are more easygoing, and they might actually enjoy it for what it is – something different, god forbid.

I admit to being a little apprehensive about the pie myself, not being a big fan of pecan pie, or even pecans, for that matter. But I’m generally game for something new, so I followed the recipe almost exactly. I did toast the pecans before adding them to the pie, and I ran out of corn syrup and substituted maple syrup for almost half of the corn syrup. I also used a different pie crust recipe.

The recipe came together smoothly for me, although I will admit to a twinge of regret when I added the pecans to the wonderfully pure pumpkin pie filling. The only problem I had was that my crust became incredibly difficult to cut through after baking. I am not exaggerating when I say that I ate my pie with a steak knife. I don’t know what happened – my only guess is that the sugary pecan pie filling made its way down to the crust and crystallized. I haven’t seen anyone else mention this problem, but there was nothing unusual about the pie crust I made. Maybe the maple syrup caused the problem?

I was surprised by how much I really enjoyed this pie. I’m so glad that I added some maple syrup, because that flavor was really noticeable, and it was fantastic. I did think the pie was sort of, um, ugly, once sliced. I wish the layers had stayed separate. That’s okay though, it was still tasty.

Vibi, who’s actually from France and therefore has no interest in Thanksgiving, was kind enough to choose this dessert for all of us American TWD members. The recipe is posted on her blog (in both English and French – just scroll down for the English version).

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

kugelhopf

11/11/2008 By bridget

This is the second Tuesdays with Dorie recipe in a row that I didn’t even know what it was before I made it. I had to wikipedia it to find out if I was supposed to serve it as dessert or what. I ended up serving it with some healthy omelets for breakfast.

This was not the most popular recipe we’ve made in the group. It seems like a lot of people had problems with the consistency of the dough and its rising times, and I’m wondering if some of those problems can be attributed to unfamiliarity working with yeast. A few people were surprised by how much time the recipe required, but almost all of that is spent waiting for the dough to rise. I didn’t think this was any more effort than any other yeast bread recipe.

I didn’t have any problems putting the recipe together. I can’t say I followed the directions exactly – I kept forgetting about it after I put it in the refrigerator, even though I was supposed to punch it down every once in a while. But I find that yeast breads are pretty forgiving.

I liked the texture of the bread quite a bit. It was very tender and light. The raisins were a nice addition. I wonder if it would be tasty to soak the raisins in rum instead of hot water to plump them? Or is a rum soak inappropriate for something that’s generally served for breakfast? (And do I care if it is? Probably not.)

The only problem I had with the kugelhopf is that it tasted totally flat. I was actually wondering if I had forgotten to add the salt, but now I see that quite a few people thought the bread was bland. Looking at the recipe, I can why – ¼ teaspoon of salt is a not a lot for a loaf this size. I would expect to use about three times that amount. I really need to be more careful with the salt amounts in Dorie’s recipes – I find that she tends to use less than I prefer. It’s just hard not to trust the professional in these matters.

Overall though, I enjoyed the little kugelhopf rolls, and I’m a better baker for knowing what the heck kugelhopf is. You can find the recipe on Yolanda’s blog.

Filed Under: bread, breakfast, cake, tuesdays with dorie, yeast bread