BCM | a whisk and a spoon

Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Betty’s Chocoholic (ice cream!) Cake

May 24, 2016 at 11:04 am | Posted in BCM, cakes & tortes, groups, ice creams & frozen, layer cakes, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 12 Comments
Tags: cake, chocolate, ice cream

Hi. My name is Stephanie and I’m a chocoholic. I need to be kept away from that lady Betty…she’s such an enabler with her Chocoholic Cake! I don’t stand a chance against three layers of brownie cake sandwiched and frosted with ganache. That’s why I had to alter her original cake and make it an ice cream cake. Actually, that makes no sense whatsoever– don’t stand a chance against ice cream cake either.

We are only two, so I made a scaled back version of the cake…a third of the recipe got me two six-inch layers. It is Dorie who mentions in her recipe intro that the brownie layers would be a good base for an ice cream cake. I followed her fine suggestion and filled my two layers with some coffee ice cream and popped the whole thing in the freezer for a few hours. I made the ganache recipe, but rather than cool it and use it as frosting, I used it warm as a sauce. And then I put peanut butter cereal on top. I’ve lost my chocolate-addicted mind, clearly, but it’s really delicious. The frozen cake should temper a bit before saucing and serving though, because it’s pretty hard to get a fork through it otherwise. Also, when it’s tempered, you get the really good fudgy texture and chocolatey taste of the cake layers.

Next time, I may try this the way Betty had intended. Or else I’ll make a mint chip or raspberry ice cream cake out of it! For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll.

Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Jammer Galette

April 26, 2016 at 10:00 am | Posted in BCM, groups, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 13 Comments
Tags: baking, tarts

Sometimes there just isn’t any good fruit around to make a pie. Where I live right now, I can get some really old apples or some really green rhubarb at the farmers’ market. We’re in the in-between season. That’s when jam tarts come in handy, like the Jammer Galette. This is a full-size version of Dorie’s Jammer cookies–a short and sandy sablé crust, topped with jam and covered in a sweet streusel. I’m often taking a large version of something and scaling it down to a smaller size, but the little Jammer really does scale up well.

We’ve used Dorie’s sweet tart and galette doughs in the past, and I have a piece of each in the freezer. I was tempted to cheat and swap one of them here, but I stayed true and made the sablé. I had some homemade rhubarb jam from last summer in the fridge and I used it up here to make room for this year’s coming preserves stash. This galette is pretty easy to make…the crust and and streusel can be taken care of in advance, and of course you can buy a nice jam for this. It’s slim and bakes up crisp and delicate, and, naturally, it’s fabulous with vanilla ice cream.

For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll.

Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Matcha Financiers and Tiger Cakes

March 22, 2016 at 8:28 pm | Posted in BCM, cakes & tortes, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 3 Comments
Tags: baking, cake

Green cakes! Icky or intriguing? They may be the color of Frankenstein, but don’t worry. It’s nothing weird…Japanese matcha tea powder gives these financiers a greenish tinge. I’m used to the slightly grassy taste of matcha tea and I’ve made cake and frostings with it before. I think it’s a nice flavor addition to a traditional almond financier. Thinking back to those Tiger Cakes I liked so much a few months ago, I followed Dorie’s Bonne Idee suggestion and turned about half of my batter into matcha tigers with a generous sprinkling of some Dutch dark chocolate vermicelli. These are really good just warm, I think, and I like the way the edge bits get a little crispy.

For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Odile’s Fresh Orange Cake

March 8, 2016 at 8:46 am | Posted in BCM, cakes & tortes, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 13 Comments
Tags: baking, cake

Odile’s Fresh Orange Cake is the second bright and easy citrus cake we’ve made recently…the Fluted Carrot-Tangerine Cake was a hit in my house back in January. This cake is a super-cinch to make and the batter is flavored with orange zest and juice. I made half a recipe in a 6-inch pan. After it’s baked, it’s doused in a simple syrup of OJ and sugar. You can use as much of the syrup as you want….go for broke if you like a wetter texture.

You can take that one step further and poach cross-cut orange slices in the syrup. Then you can decorate the top of the cake with a mosaic of beautiful orange pinwheels. I would have done that, but knew I’d be putting half the cake into the freezer, so I just tossed some segments in the syrup and decorated each slice with a few of them instead. The slices I froze were later spooned over with some candied kumquat slices–so tasty!!

For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Soft-Centered Chocolate Teacup Cakes

February 9, 2016 at 12:01 am | Posted in BCM, cakes & tortes, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 16 Comments
Tags: baking, cake, chocolate

These Soft-Centered Chocolate Teacup Cakes are rich, delicious and easy to make. Kind of a dangerous combination! They are a take on molten chocolate cake…an almost flourless and uber-chocolatey cake with more gooey, melting chocolate bits hiding in the middle.

They’re hardly more difficult to make than brownies, although you have to whip eggs and sugar until ribbony, so using a stand mixer is a good idea. The batter is divided among teacups or ramekins, which are half-filled, sprinkled with chopped chocolate and then topped off. I have quite a collection of teacups for some reason (reason actually being that they are cute!). I can see these making an adorable dinner party dessert served in mismatched cups. I didn’t get a photo of the insides for you, but you can see here that they’re schlumping a bit in the middle…that’s how you can tell they have soft centers. That dip also makes a perfect landing spot for a bit of whipped cream or ice cream.

For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Fluted Carrot-Tangerine Cake

January 12, 2016 at 5:02 pm | Posted in BCM, cakes & tortes, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 21 Comments
Tags: baking, cake

If I think of carrot cake, of course what comes to mind is a layer cake with swirls of cream cheese frosting. Plenty of cream cheese frosting…you know, something like Dorie’s amazeballs Bill’s Big Carrot Cake. Seems that’s not the only carrot cake game in town, though. This Fluted Carrot-Tangerine Cake is another, more subtle take on the most delicious way to get your beta-carotene. Instead of being spicy and earthy and tall, this one is bright and zippy and slim. Ginger, carrot and tangerine (or tangelo in my case) make it the color of sunshine. Okay, so there isn’t any cream cheese frosting, but a quick powdered sugar and juice glaze gives it a nice sweet crust on top. The flavor of the glazed cake reminds me of Fruity Pebbles, but I mean that in a good way!!

This cake does not need to be fluted…I made it in my quiche pan (the removable bottom was no problem), but it can certainly be baked in a regular cake pan. The cute ruffles do give it a bit of pizazz, though, since it’s only a single layer.

For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Chocolate-Chestnut Tart with Chestnut-Vanilla Syrup

December 22, 2015 at 10:12 pm | Posted in BCM, groups, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 14 Comments
Tags: baking, chocolate, tarts

I’ve unfortunately (or maybe not, since I was on vacation) missed the last two TWD postings but I’m hoping to come back strong with this Chocolate-Chestnut Tart. Don’t let my terrible photo (boo to winter afternoon lighting!) fool you, this tart is darn delicious. If I were in charge of cooking Christmas dinner, I’d be making it a second time this week.

We’ve used Dorie’s Sweet Tart Dough many times by now, and here it’s filled with candied chestnuts and a rich, truffle-like baked chocolate filling. The chestnuts are candied during a long, slow poach in vanilla simple syrup. I was able to easily find vacuum packed chestnuts in a neighborhood gourmet store (I think I’ve even seen them at Trader Joe’s recently). I candied my entire package, which was more than the recipe called for. In addition to the sliced chestnuts hiding under the chocolate filling, I decorated the top of the tart with some of the extras, brushed with gold dust for a little holiday bling. Served with a scoop of ice cream and a drizzle of the awesome reduced chestnut poaching syrup, this was a fine way to end a meal.

For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan (it’s also here). Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll. And happy holidays!!

Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Pear-Cranberry Roll-Up Tart

November 24, 2015 at 12:01 am | Posted in BCM, groups, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 10 Comments
Tags: baking, fruit, holiday, tart

I’ve had my Thanksgiving dessert plotted out for weeks now (predictably, it will be a pumpkin pie), but if I didn’t, I think that this Pear-Cranberry Roll-Up Tart would be making another appearance on Thursday. Yes, a “roll-up tart”…intriguing, right? I’ve never made a roll-up tart before. I imagined forming it would be like making a strudel with pie dough, but actually it was more like rolling up a burrito.

The filling here is made from seasonally appropriate pears– I used Bosc– and cranberries. I think baked pear desserts are pretty awesome, and the orange and ginger flavorings in this filling really compliment the pears (and the cranberries, too).

The fruit is rolled inside the very same galette dough we used for our Apple Pielettes last month. I’m big on this dough. It couldn’t be easier to handle and it bakes up really flaky (the sanding sugar on top here is a nice sparkly, crispy touch). Also, it slices cleanly, so you get a good presentation instead of a crumbly mess. I’ll certainly be trying it out on a regular pie at some point.

For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll. Happy Thanksgiving!

Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Chocolate-Covered Toffee Breakups

November 10, 2015 at 12:01 am | Posted in BCM, candy, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 15 Comments
Tags: candy

Halloween may have come and gone, but that day’s just the kick-off to candy season, if you ask me. Now we’re done with the store-bought candy bars and lollies and can move on to some homemade treats, like these Chocolate-Covered Toffee Breakups. I’ve made caramels and brittles before, but this is the first time I’ve made my own toffee. It was super simple, but I do think you need a good thermometer for candy making. I didn’t bother with the buttered parchment setup and flipping the toffee back and forth on cutting boards. I just lined my baking sheet with a Silpat and I was easily able to lift and flip the cooled toffee. In fact, I did all the work just on that one sheet. I also didn’t bother with stirring my nuts into the toffee base before spreading it out. That was totally a brain fart…I just forgot. The plus side to that was that my toffee was extremely easy to spread nice and thin. Thinking of my upcoming trip to Sydney (which I will actually be in the middle of by the time this posts), I used macadamia nuts and a flaky Aussie finishing salt to top the chocolate-coated toffee. I coated the bottom with dark chocolate as well, but let off the salt and nuts so it would sit flat. It broke easily by hand into nice, clean shards.

There’s something very pleasing about the crunch of toffee. I like it more than brittle. These make a great little after dinner nibble, ice cream sundae topping or homemade gift. For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Apple Pielettes

October 27, 2015 at 7:00 am | Posted in BCM, groups, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 21 Comments
Tags: baking, fruit, pie

Sometimes I just don’t want to share a dessert. When I want my very own cake, I have a cupcake. When I want a pie all to myself–let’s not talk about the time I ate an entire Mrs. Smith’s for dinner– these Apple Pielettes, made in a muffin tin, will fit the bill nicely.

This recipe uses Dorie’s galette dough. I don’t think we’ve made it before, but it was easy to do in the food processor and easy to work with. Remembering the kuchen from a few weeks ago, I was mentally prepared to be annoyed fitting the dough into cavities of the muffin tin, but this was actually no problem at all (although you’ll probably find that you need to cut your dough circles slightly larger than the recipe states if you really want to fill the tins). The dough baked flaky and crisp…I’d use it for big-girl pies, too.

The filling is nice, with apple, of course, (which I didn’t bother to peel) and flavors from dried apricots, raisins and a bit of orange marmalade. If you are an all-American apple pie purist, I’m sure you could fiddle with the insides to get just what you want. After all, it’s your very own pie.