tuesdays with dorie

brown sugar apple cheesecake

11/06/2008 By bridget

I’ve been avoiding buying apples so far this fall. I like them, quite a bit in fact, but I have to pace myself. I eat a lot of fruit, and apples are pretty much the only fruit in season for a good portion of the year. I try to maximize my opportunities to eat the fruit with shorter seasons. But it’s getting to be time to move on to apples, and what better way to kick off apple season than with cheesecake? I should start using every fruit in cheesecake to kick off its season.

Tuesdays with Dorie made this cheesecake long before I joined, and it definitely contributed to my eventual purchase of the book. I don’t know why apple cheesecake never occurred to me before, but what a fantastic idea. Dorie has tweaked traditional cheesecake to include brown sugar, cinnamon and apple cider, and I’m sure you can imagine how well that compliments the apples.

The recipe went off without a hitch, despite making just 1/6 of it in a tiny but cute springform pan. With three components, it isn’t the quickest recipe to put together, but it’s worth it even before the cheesecake – because you also get to eat the batter. My favorite is when it’s just cream cheese and sugar, but I make sure I test every stage.

The cheesecake is delicious, although I think I’ll slice the apples a lot thinner next time because I’m picky about texture. Dorie describes the texture as middle-of-the-road as far as cheesecakes go, and I think she’s right on; it’s not exceptionally dense. The mini-cheesecake was a mistake, because I definitely did not get enough.

PS – The apples decoration on top was shamelessly copied from foodie bride.

Brown Sugar-Apple Cheesecake (from Dorie Greenspans’s Baking: From My Home to Yours)

For the Crust
30 gingersnaps (or a scant 2 cups graham cracker crumbs)
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
½ teaspoons ground cinnamon (optional)
½ stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted

For the Apples
½ stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter
3 large Golden Delicious or Fuji apples, peeled, cored and cut into eighths
2 tablespoons (packed) light brown sugar

For the Filling
1½ pounds (three 8-ounce packages) cream cheese, at room temperature
¾ cup (packed) light brown sugar
6 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons apple cider
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 large eggs
¾ cup sour cream
⅓ cup heavy cream

Apple jelly, for glazing, or confectioner’s sugar, for dusting (optional)

To Make the Crust:
Butter the bottom and sides of a 10-inch springform pan.

Put the gingersnaps in a food processor and whir until you have crumbs; you should have a scant 2 cups. (If you are using graham cracker crumbs, just put them in the food processor.) Pulse in the sugar and cinnamon, if you’re using it, then pour over the melted butter and pulse until the crumbs are moistened. Turn the crumbs into the springform pan and, using your fingertips, firmly press them evenly over the bottom and up the sides of the pan as far as they’ll go. Put the pan in the freezer while you preheat the oven. (The crust can be covered and frozen for up to 2 months.)

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Remove the pan from the freezer and wrap the bottom tightly in aluminum foil, going up the sides. Place the pan on a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes, or until the crust is set and lightly browned. Transfer to a rack to cool while you make the apples and the filling. Leave the oven at 350 degrees F.

To Make the Apples:
Melt 2 tablespoons of the butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. When the foam subsides, toss in half of the apple slices and cook, turning once, until they are golden brown, about 3 minutes. Sprinkle the apples with 1 tablespoon of the sugar and cook them, turning, just until coated, another minute or so. Scrape the apples onto a plate, wipe out the skillet and repeat with the remaining apples. Let the apples cool while you make the filling.

Getting Ready to Bake:
Have a roasting pan large enough to hold the springform pan at hand. Put a kettle of water on to boil.

To Make the Filling:
Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the cream cheese on medium speed, scraping down the bowl often, for about 4 minutes, or until it is velvety smooth. Add the sugars and beat for another 2 minutes. Beat in the cider, vanilla, and cinnamon. Reduce the speed to low and beat in the eggs one by one, beating for 1 minute after each egg goes in. Finally, beat in the sour cream and heavy cream, beating just until the batter is smooth.
Pour about one third of the batter into the baked crust. Drain the apples by lifting them off the plate with a slotted spoon or spatula, and spoon them into the pan. Cover with the remaining batter and, if needed, jiggle the pan to even the top. Place the springform pan in the roasting pan and pour in enough boiling water to come halfway up the sides of the springform pan.

Bake the cheesecake for 1 hour and 30 to 45 minutes, covering the cake loosely with a foil tent at the 45-minute mark. The cake will rise evenly and crack around the edges, and it should be fully set except, possibly, in the very center-if the center shimmies, that’s just fine. Gently transfer the cake, still in the pan, to a cooling rack and let it cool to room temperature, then refrigerate it for at least 6 hours; overnight would be better.

Run a blunt knife around the edges of the pan to loosen the crust, open the pan’s latch and release and remove the sides.

Filed Under: cake, custard, dessert, fall, fruit, tuesdays with dorie

rugelach

11/04/2008 By bridget

The closest I’ve ever come to making, or even eating, rugelach is spreading jam on scraps of pie dough, rolling them up, sprinkling them with sugar, and baking them. So pretty close actually. Except that it never occurred to me to add chocolate, so I’ve been missing out.

Dave loves jam+scraps of dough, so I was confident that he’d enjoy these. I was right, and he was not pleased when I sent the first batch to a soldier in Iraq. That gave me a great reason to make them again, with a few changes I had in mind.

Dorie practically insists that we play with the filling recipe, so I took it upon myself to do so. For the first batch I followed the recipe exactly, and it was no bad thing. However, they were, if such a thing is possible, too chocolately. Not that they weren’t still delicious, but I happened to know that I added all sorts of other tasty things in the filling, and I wanted to taste all of it!

For the second batch, I cut the chocolate in half and reduced the jam a little, since so much of it oozed out from the first batch. And in a weird reversal, after months of replacing Dorie’s raisins with other dried fruit, I ran out of currants and substituted raisins. Still good. So many flavors playing along nicely together.

The recipe, chosen for TWD, can be found on Grace’s site. Changes I made include cutting the amount of chocolate in half, reducing the jam to ½ cup, and increasing the cinnamon to ¾ teaspoon. I also found that it was best to cut the dough into triangles before adding the chunks of chocolate, which blocked my pizza cutter when I added it before cutting.

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

dorie’s chocolate cupcakes

10/28/2008 By bridget

I was excited all day about baking the chocolate cupcakes that Clara chose for TWD. I almost always look forward to baking, but I was downright giddy this time. With the variety of desserts I make lately, I guess I forgot that classic chocolate cake is my favorite!

Clara also suggested that we decorate these for Halloween. Ack…even simple cake decorating inevitably ends up as a huge mess for me, and I’m incapable of making things easy on myself. My six little cupcakes required four colors of frosting, one of which I didn’t actually have food coloring for (orange – I had to mix yellow and red) and another that involved chocolate (black – to give it a head start toward being dark enough). And I am far from an expert cake decorator, so my design options were limited to the few piping tips that I know how to use properly.

The cake itself was a little disappointing. I was getting worried that I would start to sound like a Negative Nellie when it comes to Dorie’s recipes, but this time it seems that a lot of people ended up with dry cupcakes that were a little too tame in chocolate flavor. Not that they were inedible or anything, but Dave and I didn’t need a side-by-side comparison to recognize that we like my other recipe a lot more. One nice thing, since it took a few days for us to eat all of them, was that these seemed to get denser and fudgier with time instead of tasting stale.

Whether I think it’s the best chocolate cake ever or not, I’m always happy to eat cupcakes. I made my favorite Easy Vanilla Buttercream instead of Dorie’s ganache frosting since I needed something that would pipe well. To check out Dorie’s recipe, go to Clara’s blog.

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

pumpkin muffins

10/21/2008 By bridget

I’ve been on the lookout for a pumpkin quick bread recipe for a couple of years. I like quick breads to have some textural contrast with add-ins, but I couldn’t think of anything that seemed to fit with the flavors of the pumpkin. Of course Dorie could, as Kelly’s choice for this week’s TWD recipe made evident.

Dorie adds raisins and walnuts (or pecans) to her pumpkin muffins. Like I almost always do, I replaced the raisins with something else; in this case, dried cranberries. I wasn’t sure if the flavors would get along – they’re both common fall ingredients, but I don’t often see them together. I topped the muffins with pumpkin seeds instead of sunflower seeds. I’m not sure why Dorie calls for sunflower seeds; pumpkin seeds seem so perfect for these muffins.

The muffins were good. The walnuts and dried cranberries were fine as additions. However, shortly after I made them, one of my friends told me about a pumpkin muffin recipe she makes that has a lot of ginger in it, and then it occurred to me that the perfect add-in for pumpkin muffins is crystallized ginger. Now I’m looking forward to trying this combination.

Dorie’s recipe is posted on Kelly’s blog.

Filed Under: bread, breakfast, fall, fruit, quick bread, tuesdays with dorie

lenox almond biscotti

10/14/2008 By bridget

Dave loves biscotti, especially almond biscotti, so he was really happy about Gretchen’s pick for TWD this week. I do like biscotti, but I have trouble figuring out where it should fit into my routine. They’re too snack-like for dessert, but too unhealthy for a snack. Plus they’re kind of a hassle to make, with the slicing and the double-baking and all.

Ah, but almond extract, how I love it. The dough for this biscotti tasted really good.

There was some confusion among TWD members about what Dorie meant by “standing the biscotti slices up like a marching band” for the second baking, but looking at it now, I’m thinking she means that they should bake on the flat non-cut side of each slice. I laid them on a cut side instead, oops. I didn’t bother to flip them, but both sides seemed evenly browned regardless.

There is a reason why I do a lot of side-by-side comparisons of recipes. Not only is it the best way to spot small differences, but Dave, who is actually pretty good at picking out subtle differences in recipes, has a very bad memory for food. Whenever I ask him how one recipe compares to another, he says he’d need to taste them side-by-side.

Not so this biscotti. He knew immediately that he preferred the last biscotti recipe I made, even though I hadn’t made it in over 6 months. He likes that the other recipe is crunchier. Dorie’s biscotti were more tender than most that I’ve tried, which I don’t necessarily mind, but I’m not the main biscotti-eater around here. The reason for the difference is easy to see from a quick comparison of the recipes – Dorie’s uses almost twice as much butter.

So it looks like I’ll be sticking with my old biscotti recipe for now. If you’d like to check out Dorie’s recipe, Gretchen has it on her blog.

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

caramel peanut-topped brownie cake

10/07/2008 By bridget

I have a hard time believing that anyone who owns Dorie’s Baking book has flipped past the photo of this cake without their mouth watering at least a little. When most recipes for TWD are announced, I have to look them up to get an idea of what we’ll be making. But when Tammy chose this cake, I could picture exactly what it was. Dark chocolate cake with peanuts and dripping caramel is hard to ignore.

Although I think my 4-inch diameter springform is ridiculously cute, I wish the sides were a little higher. A 4-inch diameter circle has exactly one quarter the area of an 8-inch diameter circle, but my pan can’t fit one quarter of the batter because the sides are about an inch shorter. Plus I actually made a third of the recipe, not a quarter. The batter didn’t seem like it filled the pan very much, but it rose higher than I was expecting.

It did rise higher than the sides of the pan, but fortunately it didn’t spill over. I managed to overcook the cake part somehow, which is a bummer because a brownie-type cake had the potential to be amazing. It was still good, but definitely too dry.

The caramel portion of this recipe went smoothly for me, which was a relief because I hadn’t worked with caramel since the debacle with the filbert cake. Plus, Dorie specifically says that it’s difficult to work with less sugar than the recipe calls for, but I only made a third of the recipe anyway.

Before adding the peanut caramel topping, I carved off the top somewhat burned part of the cake. I didn’t put the cake back into the springform ring before adding the caramel – since my cake was higher than the sides anyway, I don’t think it would have made a difference. However, I can see why she recommends doing so – it gives the caramel a chance to set a little, so it doesn’t all drip down the sides and pool on the plate.

Even with overcooked cake and drippy caramel, this was a fun dessert. The ratio of caramel to peanut to cake was spot on. The cake was nice and chocolately, and the high rise made it attractively tall. For the recipe, go to Tammy’s blog.

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

creme brulee (twd)

09/30/2008 By bridget

I love Dorie’s creative recipes, but I tend to turn to Cooks Illustrated for classics. So when I saw that Mari had chosen crème brulee for TWD, my first thought was to compare the two. But I’ve already compared Dorie and CI’s recipes a couple times, so instead, I decided I would play with some of the different flavors Dorie recommends.

I made vanilla, Earl Grey, and ginger variations. I thought I could combine some of the steps for the variations, but that didn’t work out, so it was really like making the recipe three separate times. I didn’t have enough of the right sized ramekins, so I put the custard mixes in mini-tart pans instead. I was worried that the custard would leak because the tart pans have removable bottoms, but it worked out okay. Until I dropped the baking pan with the six full tartelette pans on it and everything spilled. Being clumsy is a pain in the ass.

Frustrated with that, I went back to my original plan to compare Dorie’s recipe to CI’s. (My freezer is full of egg whites now.) I was curious about this comparison anyway, because the recipes were significantly different. Dorie uses almost half the number of egg yolks compared to the amount of dairy, and she also uses a combination of heavy cream and milk instead of just heavy cream. That makes CI’s recipe much richer.

Whoa. Dorie’s also makes tiny servings. I wouldn’t expect that from her.

I assumed we’d like the richer crème brulee better, but Dave and I both preferred Dorie’s softer custard. However, Dave liked the flavor of CI’s better, which may be the pinch of salt added, or the lower amount of sugar used in CI’s, which could bring out the flavor of the other ingredients more. I used vanilla beans instead of vanilla extract in both recipes.

This is my most successful brulee job. (That goes for Dave too – this is the only kitchen task he’s excited about helping with.) I used a mixture of brown sugar and granulated, and in the past I used pure granulated. Apparently the mixture is more forgiving, because I used to end up with a combination of charcoaly burned areas and raw areas.

It’s crème brulee, so you really can’t go wrong. Unless you spill it all over the oven. Check Mari’s blog for Dorie’s recipe.

Classic Creme Brulee (from Cooks Illustrated)

Serves 8

CI note: Separate the eggs and whisk the yolks after the cream has finished steeping; if left to sit, the surface of the yolks will dry and form a film. A vanilla bean gives custard the deepest flavor, but 2 teaspoons of extract, whisked into the yolks in step 4, can be used instead. The best way to judge doneness is with a digital instant-read thermometer. The custards, especially if baked in shallow fluted dishes, will not be deep enough to provide an accurate reading with a dial-face thermometer. For the caramelized sugar crust, we recommend turbinado or Demerara sugar. Regular granulated sugar will work, too, but use only 1 scant teaspoon on each ramekin or 1 teaspoon on each shallow fluted dish.

4 cups heavy cream, chilled
⅔ cup granulated sugar
pinch table salt
1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise
12 large egg yolks
8 – 12 teaspoons turbinado sugar or Demerara sugar

1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 300 degrees.

2. Combine 2 cups cream, sugar, and salt in medium saucepan; with paring knife, scrape seeds from vanilla bean into pan, submerge pod in cream, and bring mixture to boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally to ensure that sugar dissolves. Take pan off heat and let steep 15 minutes to infuse flavors.

3. Meanwhile, place kitchen towel in bottom of large baking dish or roasting pan and arrange eight 4- to 5-ounce ramekins (or shallow fluted dishes) on towel. Bring kettle or large saucepan of water to boil over high heat.

4. After cream has steeped, stir in remaining 2 cups cream to cool down mixture. Whisk yolks in large bowl until broken up and combined. Whisk about 1 cup cream mixture into yolks until loosened and combined; repeat with another 1 cup cream. Add remaining cream and whisk until evenly colored and thoroughly combined. Strain through fine-mesh strainer into 2-quart measuring cup or pitcher (or clean medium bowl); discard solids in strainer. Pour or ladle mixture into ramekins, dividing it evenly among them.

5. Carefully place baking dish with ramekins on oven rack; pour boiling water into dish, taking care not to splash water into ramekins, until water reaches two-thirds height of ramekins. Bake until centers of custards are just barely set and are no longer sloshy and digital instant-read thermometer inserted in centers registers 170 to 175 degrees, 30 to 35 minutes (25 to 30 minutes for shallow fluted dishes). Begin checking temperature about 5 minutes before recommended time.

6. Transfer ramekins to wire rack; cool to room temperature, about 2 hours. Set ramekins on rimmed baking sheet, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until cold, at least 4 hours or up to 4 days.

7. Uncover ramekins; if condensation has collected on custards, place paper towel on surface to soak up moisture. Sprinkle each with about 1 teaspoon turbinado sugar (1½ teaspoons for shallow fluted dishes); tilt and tap ramekin for even coverage. Ignite torch and caramelize sugar. Refrigerate ramekins, uncovered, to re-chill, 30 to 45 minutes (but no longer); serve.

Filed Under: custard, french, gluten free, recipe comparisons, tuesdays with dorie

dimply plum cake (twd)

09/23/2008 By bridget

Deb from Smitten Kitchen recently recommended the cake that Michelle chose for TWD this week, and since I’m a Smitten Kitchen junkie, I’d been wanting to make it since then. I didn’t even realize it was Dorie Greenspan’s recipe at first, so I was excited when I saw that it was the assigned recipe. Plus, I just happened to have all of the ingredients the day it was chosen for TWD, including a bunch of plums. That never happens.

I baked the recipe in a muffin pan because muffins are more convenient to store in the freezer and grab before going to work. And I overfilled the muffin cups because I have an annoying lazy tendency. I put what seemed like an appropriate amount of batter in each cup, but I could tell after I pushed the first plum into the batter that the cups were overfilled. How hard would it have been, really, to re-portion the dough into extra muffin cups, especially considering that I only used 10 sections of the 12-cup muffin pan, and I had extra plums. And then I would have avoided making a mess of some of the muffins/cupcakes.

Not that I minded those broken bits. They gave me a great excuse to snack on cake while I finished making breakfast. I thought the cake was really good. I used lemon zest and cinnamon, but I think orange zest would be a lot better. I’m still fighting fall, but this was a good compromise between late summer and fall flavors.

Michelle has posted the recipe.

Filed Under: breakfast, cake, dessert, fruit, tuesdays with dorie

chocolate chunkers

09/16/2008 By bridget

Just about every week, I’m reminded of why I enjoy being a member of TWD so much. The Chocolate Chunkers Claudia chose this week are no exception. I am always impressed by Dorie’s creativity.

That being said, Dorie and I do often differ on taste preferences. For example, what is with all the raisins? She puts them in everything. I do not approve. Also, peanuts. I like them, but I rarely want them in dessert. Also, this phrase: “You’ll have more crunchies than dough.” But…I love dough. Even more than crunchies.

This recipe is far more involved than my normal cookie recipes. It has quite the substantial ingredient list, and a good number of those ingredients need to be prepped in some way. At least I was able to use up my little-bits-of-leftover-chocolate stash.

She doesn’t call these “chunkers” for nothing. More crunchies than dough indeed. There’s just enough of the brownie-like batter to hold the mix-ins together. But – it works. Yes, I’d rather have a plain, rich, moist, perfect brownie, but for something super-fun and different, I like these cookies.

Claudia has the recipe posted. I substituted dried cherries (which I chopped up a bit) for the raisins and walnuts (not toasted, but they should have been) for the peanuts.

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

chocolate whopper malted drops (twd)

09/09/2008 By bridget

The Whopper cookies that Rachel chose for TWD are such a fun idea, and I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a recipe like this from any other source. With cocoa and malted milk powder in the dough and chopped Whoppers and chocolate chips as mix-ins, this recipe is pure Dorie.

It became clear to me right off the bat that chopping something as small and perfectly spherical as Whoppers would drive me to distraction. So instead, I dumped them in the food processor. It was risky, because food processors are far better at pulverizing than chopping, but it seemed worth it.

I was a little worried by the texture of the cookies right after they came out of the oven, because they seemed gummy. Had my partially powdered Whoppers ruined an entire batch of cookies? Fortunately, they improved greatly once they cooled, becoming pleasantly chewy and rich.

I compared batches baked right after the dough was made and baked the next day. Dave and I agreed that the batch chilled overnight was oh-so-slightly chewier with a more even texture, but that the difference was so subtle that the wait wasn’t worth it.

I thought it was a fun cookie – definitely a different idea, and a good one. Dave said they were nice, but not thrilling. Damned by faint praise.

Rachel has the recipe in her blog.

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