Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Mulled-Butter Apple Pie
November 27, 2023 at 5:04 pm | Posted in BWD, groups, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 3 CommentsTags: baking, pie
Swapping out stuffing for bread pudding wasn’t the only renegade move I made this Thanksgiving. I also traded our holiday staple pumpkin pie for Mulled-Butter Apple Pie. What is mulled-butter? It’s browned butter steeped with a cinnamon stick, a cardamom pod, black peppercorn, star anise, ginger and orange zest. This spiced butter coats the heap of apple slices (I used a combo of gold rush and cameo apples) that fill the double-crust pie. Dorie tells us to taste the filling for sweetness before we turn it into the crust, and when I did that, I thought what my apples really needed was not more sugar, but more spice. The mulling spice mix has some similarities with Chinese five-spice, which I have a jar of ground, so I added in a couple shakes of that to my filling.
I baked a half-sized pie in my little (about 6.5″) pie plate and while I was initially kind of sad about not having a slice of pumpkin pie, this came out so nicely, I couldn’t not be happy with it. The crust had great color and the filling held together just right. I decided that pumpkin pie can happen in December and I enjoyed every bite of this one.
If you don’t have the book Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan yet, get it and join us as we bake through it every second and fourth Tuesdays! Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and all the other participation deets over on Tuesdays with Dorie!
Everyday Dorie: Savory Bread Pudding
November 26, 2023 at 6:16 pm | Posted in cook the book fridays, everyday dorie, groups, other savory, savory things | 5 CommentsTags: chicken, everyday dorie, savory
‘Tis the season for delicious smushy carbs, so to keep myself from going on an all-out November bread bender, I decided to use this Savory Bread Pudding with loads of caramelized onions and Emmental cheese as a replacement for our normal Thanksgiving stuffing. That was kind of a bold call on my part, as I’ve been told many times that the only good stuffing is Stove Top! In case of a revolt, I scaled the recipe down to make just a loaf pan’s worth (I still got eight portions!), which cut into nice slices when the pudding firmed up. Since this was going with our turkey dinner, I made a couple of seasonal flavor mods…my own “playing around” version, if you will. I used all of Simon & Garfunkel’s favorite herbs and I also added a fat scoop of pumpkin puree in place of some of the dairy in the custard. I had to toss in a little bit more bread, too, as it didn’t look like it would be able to soak up all the liquid.
And the verdict was: yum! It for sure took longer to make than Stove Top, with the caramelized onions and the soaking of the bread, and it required a water bath, but it was totally great with gravy, and I got no complaints.
For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked this one.
Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Pecan-Cranberry Loaf
November 14, 2023 at 7:16 pm | Posted in breakfast things, BWD, cakes & tortes, groups, muffins/quick breads, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 7 CommentsTags: baking, cake, loaf
I made this Pecan-Cranberry Loaf two years ago, and really, I think I should have made it again so I could write a more comprehensive post. I remember liking it, that I swapped the coriander with five-spice and that I made a honey-cream cheese schmear to go with. But the whole group really raved about it (and called for more cranberries!), so I think that’s giving me some FOMO this week. Maybe after I buy my Thanksgiving crannies, I’ll have round two with this one.
If you don’t have the book Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan, get it and join us as we bake through it every second and fourth Tuesdays. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and all the other participation deets over on Tuesdays with Dorie!
Everyday Dorie: Herb-Butter Chicken
November 10, 2023 at 11:31 pm | Posted in cook the book fridays, everyday dorie, groups, other savory, savory things | 10 CommentsTags: chicken, everyday dorie, savory
Herb-Butter Chicken is just what is sounds like– chicken with an herby compound butter that’s smeared underneath the skin to flavor and baste the meat as it roasts in a Dutch oven. I used chopped parsley and tarragon in my butter blend, chives instead of scallions and added some mined garlic along with the lemon zest and s&p. I swapped the bread that Dorie uses as a base under the chicken with some halved baby potatoes, but I kept the sliced onions.
We are a household of just two, so my “big” Dutch oven is only 3.5 quarts. I brought home a small chicken (under 4 lbs) that fit nicely in it, and checked it a bit early. The herbs sort of stayed in pockets under the chicken skin (because I didn’t do a great job of really getting it spread around), but having all that butter melt into the meat made it really moist. And the drippings at the bottom of the pan were delish and flavored the creamy potatoes and silky onions so nicely. This is an easy way to roast a chicken– getting that butter under the skin is kind of an icky task, but after that you really don’t have to do much else to it– and you can customize the butter, flavoring it however you like.
For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan (it’s also here), and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked this one.
Everyday Dorie: Chocolate-Covered Chai-Tea Bars
October 27, 2023 at 12:01 am | Posted in cookies & bars, everyday dorie, groups, sweet things | 5 CommentsTags: everyday dorie
I’ve always liked Dorie’s sweet recipes the best, and here we are with our final Cook the Book Fridays sweet treat from Everyday Dorie! Does that mean it’s actually bittersweet? These Chocolate-Covered Chai-Tea Bars have a chai-flavored financier base and a simple melted milk chocolate topping. While I didn’t have any chai in teabags on hand, I do have a chai spice blend and a box of nice Earl Grey, so I made those work to flavor my bars. These are a slim treats, but a little goes a long way, as they are moist and dense with lots of butter and almond flour. I’m sure they’d be just perfect with a cup of chai, but they’re also pretty great with coffee.
For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see all of our bakes this week.
Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Devil’s Thumbprints
October 24, 2023 at 12:01 am | Posted in BWD, cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 6 CommentsTags: baking, cookies, holiday
Regardless of what Devil’s Thumbprints actually are, the name alone sounds like a pretty good potential Halloween recipe to me. Turns out they’re brownie-like chocolate thumbprint cookies, filled with jam, more chocolate, or whatever you like. The devil on my shoulder told me to chose more chocolate. I made the dough/batter the day before baking the cookies and they held shape pretty well. I have some dark chocolate buttons that are basically the same size as the cookies’ indentations so I just popped a button into the center of each cookie while they were still hot from the oven. The buttons melted right into the divots, and there was no fussing around with melting and spooning on chopped chocolate. Instead, I was able to fuss around with yellow googly eyes.
I made these thumbprints two years ago for Halloween as well. That time around, I gave them white chocolate-cream cheese bellies and cherry jam blood. I also rolled the unbaked cookies in granulated sugar instead of the turbinado I used this time, and I liked that finer sugar better, as the coarser turbinado made kind of a hard crust on the outside.
If you don’t have the book Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan, get it and join us as we bake through it every second and fourth Tuesdays. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
Everyday Dorie: Sole Meunière with Onion-Walnut Relish and Giverny Tomatoes
October 13, 2023 at 9:03 pm | Posted in cook the book fridays, everyday dorie, groups, other savory, savory things | 3 CommentsTags: chicken, everyday dorie, savory
In the book, this is a Flounder Meunière with Onion-Walnut Relish, but it’s easier for me to find local sole, which Dorie says is traditional anyway, so I just used that. Fish is something I mostly save for eating out, since I usually mangle it, but this meunière preparation couldn’t be easier to cook. Just lightly dredge your fish fillets in four and quickly pan fry them in butter. Dorie goes a step further than the basic lemon and parsley finish by adding a flavorful relish of anchovies, onions, walnuts and toasted bread cubes. This made a pretty nice Sunday dinner, and it’s one I’ll make again.
There are a handful of recipes in the book I’ve skipped– mostly red meat ones that I just won’t eat, and also some that I do want to try but was too lazy to make when posting time came around. Now that we only have a few months of cooking left to go, I’ve been wondering how I can squeeze in some of these. I had two nice tomatoes from the greenmarket on the counter and while I’d passed on the slow-roasted Giverny Tomatoes last month, I figured they’d make a good side dish for the fish, with some modifications. Rather than flavoring them with lime, I used lemon to match the fish (and I left out the extract, just using lemon juice and zest). I also used much less sugar (maybe about 1/2 tsp total) than the recipe called for and added some dried thyme. Finally, I skipped blanching and peeling the tomatoes….they cooked for so long, their skins just slipped right off in the end. They were delicious, as was the olive oily tomato juice in the dish.
For the recipes, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked the fish.
Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: The Everything Cake
October 10, 2023 at 1:01 am | Posted in BWD, cakes & tortes, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 6 CommentsTags: baking, brekkie, cake
Dorie’s The Everything Cake is really a base recipe, made to be tinkered with according to what you want it to be. It’s a blank canvas for add-ins like citrus, berries and nuts. I decided to do my own thing and brown the melted butter, as well as add some malt powder to the mix. I planned to glaze the cake with some leftover chocolate ganache I had in the fridge and throw malt balls all over the top. All that sounded good, and then I took my “playing around” a bit too far…
About a month ago, I did the baking work for a cookbook photo shoot and wound up accidentally scaling out the dry ingredients for a scone recipe twice. Rather than discard a quart container of flour mixed with salt and baking powder, I brought it home at the end of the shoot to make things like pancakes and fritters with– stuff I would just eyeball measurements for anyway. As I was making this cake, I thought, “Why not use up some of that pre-mixed stuff in place of the flour, salt and BP in the recipe? What could really go wrong?” Well, I think my dry mix for scones contained more leavening than was ideal for a cake, because it rose nice and tall around the outside but sank big-time in the middle. Oopsies!
I did the only thing I could think of to do with a cake with a crater in the middle– I filled it with ice cream. The ganache and malt balls still got used, and I have to say it was excellent. Do you really learn a lesson when your screw-up results in an ice cream cake? I’m not so sure, but I would like to try this again sometime as a more level cake.
If you don’t have the book Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan yet, get it and join us as we bake through it every second and fourth Tuesdays! Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and all the other participation deets over on Tuesdays with Dorie!
Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Szarlotka
September 25, 2023 at 8:27 pm | Posted in BWD, cakes & tortes, groups, pies & tarts, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 7 CommentsTags: baking, scones
What is a Szarlotka? It’s a traditional Polish apple dessert that’s kind of a cake and kind of a pie. Kind of, kind of. It actually reminds me more of jam bars I like to make that use the same dough for both the crust and the topping than either of those. Here, a sticky, sweet dough is rolled out and pressed into a cake pan, filled with a mix of sweetened apples and raisins and then sprinkled with more of that dough, grated this time for a crumbly topping.
I thought I got a bit of the “French bake” on the sides and bottom of my szarlotka, where the dough was in contact with the metal cake pan, and I was worried it was too dark. Thankfully, it didn’t taste over-toasted at all and was super good, with the consistency of a cakey cookie. Every September, I hold off on buying apples until there is pretty much no other trace of summer fruit left to be found, so this was my first apple dessert of autumn 2023, and I’d say it was a winner.
If you don’t have the book Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan, get it and join us as we bake through it every second and fourth Tuesdays. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and all the other participation deets over on Tuesdays with Dorie!
Everyday Dorie: Brown Sugar-Spice Cake
September 22, 2023 at 9:42 pm | Posted in cakes & tortes, everyday dorie, groups, simple cakes, sweet things | 8 CommentsTags: everyday dorie
I found it kinda funny that the title of this recipe, Brown Sugar-Spice Cake, makes no mention of the plums that are its key component. For the past few years, I just flipped by it, thinking it was a “plain” spice cake, until I really took a look at the ingredients list before nominating it for the month. Fortunately, Italian prune plums, which I don’t really like eating out of hand, but are great for baking, are at the greenmarket now.
The batter has a bit of cornmeal, and of course brown sugar and spice. A friend recently brought me a little tin of something called “maple dessert spice” that I asked her to get me from an amazing spice shop in Montreal…the blend has stuff like vanilla, mace and tonka and is like the best thing I’ve ever smelled. I replaced the spices in the recipe with some of that mix, and it was fabulous with the plums. I made a third of the recipe in my six-inch pan, and was only able to squeeze in two plums cut in fourths. I love the way the batter waved and buckled up and around the plums, which basically turned into jammy bloops in the baked cake. So cute! A honey glaze finishes this off and gives it some extra sweetness and moisture.
For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see all of our cakes this week.
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