Tuesdays with Dorie: Gingered Carrot Cookies
August 3, 2010 at 12:01 am | Posted in cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 30 Comments
Natalia of gatti fili e farina chose Gingered Carrot Cookies for TWD— an overlooked recipe whose time I’m glad has come. These cookies are full of tasty bits and are just sweet enough. At first glance, the recipe looks like it might make carrot cake in cookie form. Shredded carrots and coconut, raisins, ginger and pecans…I was certainly surprised to see mine bake up as little hearty, lumpy-bumpy mounds instead. Dorie says these are scone-like, and she’s right (of course she is– it’s her recipe afterall). If I’d thought to scoop out a couple of triple-size ones, I bet they would have made a great breakfast!
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, or read gatti fili e farina. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Chewy, Chunky Blondies
July 27, 2010 at 12:09 am | Posted in cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 22 Comments
I never make blondies (except for this batch, obviously). I don’t know why…they are like chocolate chip cookies on steroids, and who wouldn’t like that? Nicole of Cookies on Friday picked Chewy, Chunky Blondies for TWD, and they are certainly juiced up with chocolate chips, toffee (or butterscotch) chips, walnuts and coconut.
I love butterscotch, but I hate those fake-tasting chips…I still have toffee bits left in the freezer from the Caramel Crunch Bars (yeah, apparently they last forever), and I was happy to use those instead. With all that’s going on in these blondies, I wanted to tame the sweetness a little, so I cut back just a bit on the sugar and used unsweetend coconut flakes.
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, or read Cookies on Friday. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Lots-of-Ways Banana Cake
July 20, 2010 at 1:01 am | Posted in cakes & tortes, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 29 Comments
I think about the two years we spent in Australia everyday, sometimes for bizarre reasons. For example, when I looked at the recipe for this week’s TWD pick, the first thing that popped into my mind was that when we first moved to Sydney, the country was just beginning to recover from a banana shortage. I let my little trip down memory lane steer me in a particular direction while making this cake…it is called “Lots of Ways Banana Cake” afterall, so I didn’t really feel like I was overstepping any bounds by adding macadamias, wattleseed and chocolate to the bananas and coconut already in the mix.
While I could have chosen to go the layered and frosted route with this cake, that wasn’t what I was in the mood for. I just wanted an unfussy snack cake, so I baked half a recipe in an 8″ square pan and left it at that. (It only took 25 minutes to bake, instead of the 45 I was expecting.) It was delicious– soft, and full of things that taste great together!
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, or read Kimberly’s post on Only Creative Opportunities. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Tarte Noire
July 6, 2010 at 1:01 am | Posted in groups, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 30 Comments
A Tarte Norie is pure and simple, and all about the chocolate, so break out the good stuff! I had a déjà vu moment while making this, and then I realized that it’s the very same thing as the Chocolate-Crunched Caramel Tart we made awhile back, minus the caramel and nuts. Dark ganache inside a crisp, sweet pastry shell…I was perfectly happy to experience that again!
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, or read bliss: towards a delicious life. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Rum-Drenched Vanilla Cake
June 29, 2010 at 1:30 am | Posted in cakes & tortes, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 28 Comments
I only have a few words to say about this cake. It has a perfect crust, a perfect crumb and it’s saturated with vanilla and rum. It is simply the best poundy-type cake I’ve baked up. I would be totally happy to devour it plain, but as luck would have it, there were poached cherries in my fridge. Big, no, huge thanks to Wendy for choosing this for TWD!
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, or read Pink Stripes. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Dressy Chocolate Loaf Cake
June 22, 2010 at 1:01 am | Posted in cakes & tortes, groups, layer cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 27 Comments
Amy of Amy Ruth Bakes showed us that a loaf cake can be fancy, too, with her choice of Dressy Chocolate Loaf Cake for TWD. I baked this the week before I went to London…glad I did, because I packed on a couple extra (now totally unwanted) pounds on that trip, and I may have had a hard time justifying making this afterward!
Both the cake and the frosting contain a good amount of sour cream. Chocolate-sour cream frosting is on my list of “world’s tastiest stuff.” The heaviness of the cake is cut by two layers of jam sandwiched in-between. I don’t usually go nuts for fruit and chocolate combos, but I must say that this was tasty!
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, or read Amy Ruth Bakes. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
The Cake Slice: Shenandoah Valley Blueberry Cake
June 20, 2010 at 1:23 am | Posted in breakfast things, cakes & tortes, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, the cake slice | 13 Comments
Hey– Happy Father’s Day! Why not do something nice for pops and make him a Shenandoah Valley Blueberry Cake today?? It’s super easy, I promise. You can even make it by hand without breaking a sweat. I’d make it for my dad, but he lives clear across the county.
This cake is nothing fancy…plain, but soft and good. It reminds me of a blueberry muffin, which made it perfect for breakfast with a cup of coffee.
Here’s a printable link to the recipe. Or get your hands on a copy of Southern Cakes by Nancie McDermott. I made a couple of tiny tweaks…a little spelt flour in place of some of the AP, and a bit of lemon zest for extra flavor. Cruise through the list of The Cake Slice Bakers to check out all of our blueberry cakes this month!
Tuesdays with Dorie: White Chocolate Brownies
June 1, 2010 at 12:27 pm | Posted in cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 24 Comments
Ooph…getting this one up late today! Here, I present to you the tenth brownie recipe for this blog. I would say that I’ve exhausted this topic, but you can tell by looking at them that these are definitely not your run-of-the-mill brownie. Marthe of Culinary Delights chose these White Chocolate Brownies with raspberries for TWD this week.
The full recipe makes a BIG batch, and one that a lot of folks had some difficulty getting to cook through. Fearing enough brownies for a lifetime, I scaled it down to a quarter recipe and baked it in a loaf pan. The original version also calls for a baked meringue topping, which I skipped in lieu of a sprinkling of sliced almonds. My meringue-less little batch cooked nicely in about 30 minutes.
These were good…sweet, though. I found the texture to be less like a fudgy brownie and more like a tea cake with a little chew. For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, or read Culinary Delights. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Banana-Coconut Ice Cream Pie
May 25, 2010 at 1:10 am | Posted in groups, ice creams & frozen, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 21 Comments
I know I’ve told you before that I’ve been turning my nose up at raw bananas since I was a kid. But I try to keep an open mind, and I want to bake along with everyone, so I always give banana recipes a go anyway. Well, guess what. I think I’m starting to accept them…maybe even like them a little. I didn’t at all poo-poo Spike’s choice of Banana-Coconut Ice Cream Pie for TWD this week. In fact, I enjoyed it! What’s happening to me?? 🙂
An ice cream pie is what it sounds like– a crust (cookie-coconut in this case) topped with ice cream. I made mine in a springform rather than a pie plate, but that’s a nitpicky detail. Dorie uses chocolate ice cream as the base in her recipe…I assembled this pie at the same time I made that burnt sugar ice cream, so I used it instead. I didn’t want to miss out entirely on the chocolate, though, and made a cocoa fudge sauce to go on top.
Raw bananas make three different appearances here. There’s a layer of them between the crust and the ice cream, there’s a rum-banana smoosh stirred into the ice cream, and there are a few decorative slices for the top. Further proof that I am beginning to appreciate bananas: I thought the burnt sugar ice cream with rum and bananas stirred in was just killer!
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, or read Spike Bakes. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
The Cake Slice: Lemon-Poppy Seed Cake with Almond-Cream Cheese Frosting
May 20, 2010 at 5:12 am | Posted in cakes & tortes, groups, layer cakes, sweet things, the cake slice | 13 Comments
I almost forgot to bake this cake. That’s not quite true…I didn’t forget about the cake, I just didn’t realize the 20th is already here! For the month of May, we Cake Slice Bakers have mixed it up a bit and are throwing back to last year’s book, with a recipe for Lemon-Poppy Seed Cake with Almond-Cream Cheese Frosting from Sky High: Irresistible Triple Layer Cakes.
It’s pretty, isn’t it? Something about this cake seems so sweetly charming and old-fashioned…like something my grandmas might bake (except for my grandmas have never been much into baking). Underneath the almond-cream cheese frosting is a light white cake, flecked with lemon zest and poppy seeds. I added a few drops of lemon oil to the batter, just to enhance the lemon flavor.
The lemon oil was my only tweak to the recipe (also not quite true…I cut back on the almond extract in the frosting just a tad), although I did a wackadoo two-fifths of the original amount of batter and frosting (I only wanted to use two egg whites). I baked the cake in a quarter sheet pan, then cut it into three strips for frosting and stacking. I like the change from the usual round layer cakes, although I do find squares and rectangles to be a bit trickier to frost.
Poppy seeds are so freakin’ cute! Their amazing ability to get absolutely everywhere, though, really isn’t.
Here’s a printable link to the recipe…it’s really a keeper. Better yet, get your hands on a copy of Sky High: Irresistible Triple Layer Cakes by Alicia Huntsman and Peter Wynne. Cruise through the list of The Cake Slice Bakers to check out all of our mile-high cakes this month.
Baked Fresh Weekly
Blog at WordPress.com.
Entries and comments feeds.
a whisk and a spoon 