Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Cocoa-Cranberry Linzer Tart
December 23, 2025 at 7:56 pm | Posted in BWD, groups, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 2 CommentsTags: baking, holiday, pie
I’m glad that Diane pointed out that this Cocoa-Cranberry Linzer Tart is a lot like the yummy Thanksgiving Bars we made years ago. A cranberry-raspberry filling inside a chocolate-nut crust sounded familiar to me, but if left to my own brain-dredging I never would have remembered exactly why. Chocolate and fruit combos can be iffy for me, so I was also happy for the spoiler alert that I’d like it.
This tart has a cookie-like crust that’s made with almonds, cocoa and chopped chocolate bits. The fruit filling is an easy cranberry sauce mixed with store-bought raspberry jam. I opted to add the fresh raspberries in as well, but I kind of tore them up so they’d lie in a flat layer under the top crust. Dorie intends for this tart to baked in a cake pan like a jam sandwich, with the fruity filling peeking out between two flat layers of Linzer crust. Sounded a bit messy, and I worried about leaky, caramelized jam fusing the tart to the cake pan, so I decided to make this one as a traditional (enclosed) tart in a fluted tart pan instead.
This is such a good winter holiday dessert. A cool twist on a classic, it’s not too sweet, great with coffee (probably also with dessert wine), and lasts nicely for a few days in the fridge. This recipe is in Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll over on Tuesdays with Dorie!
Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Pistachio-Matcha Financiers
December 9, 2025 at 8:48 pm | Posted in BWD, cakes & tortes, cookies & bars, general pastry, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 3 CommentsTags: baking, cookies
To me, financiers represent a “quiet luxury” of the pastry world. Classic, timeless, but understated, you have to be in the know to recognize just how rich and indulgent they are. These Pistachio-Matcha Financiers are spendy treats to be sure, made with lots of butter and pistachios, but compared to so many of the pastries going viral today, they are not in-your-face flashy.
Dorie parks this recipe in the cookie chapter, but financiers, like madeleines, are soft and cake-like. While they are traditionally made in rectangular bar molds, these are baked in a mini muffin tin. I have a mini muffin pan that makes 24 baby cakes. This recipe yields 28, which would require me to cool, wash, dry and re-butter and flour my tin to get the few extra. Guess what I’m not doing. That…I’m not doing that. I’m doing math instead. I went with 2/3 the recipe, which just used a full stick of butter and made 18 or so. (To be fair, I could have made the full recipe and easily baked off the extra blob of batter in one of my little individual pie tins to make a tiny cake, but the smaller amount of financiers was plenty.)
I always associate financiers with browned butter, although Dorie only states to bring it to a boil here. I did decide to take my butter to a light, early-stage browning. Dressed up in white chocolate glaze and freeze dried raspberry crumbles, the finished financiers are perfect festive treats to serve to a discerning crowd.
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!
Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: My Favorite Pumpkin Pie
November 29, 2025 at 7:15 pm | Posted in BWD, groups, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 4 CommentsTags: baking, holiday, pie
Thanksgiving was a couple of days ago now, and I just finished off the last remaining slice of My Favorite Pumpkin Pie…eaten directly from the pie plate, of course. This is a rich pie, with lots of cream and sour cream in the pumpkin custard. Dorie’s favorite does away with the traditional cinnamon-based pumpkin pie spice blend (although you can certain substitute it), and replaces it with ginger and star anise. I do like the flavor of star anise but I swapped it for cloves, my favorite, non-negotiable spice in a pumpkin pie. I had an extra round of Sour Cream Pie Dough in the freezer after making the Double-Pear Picnic Pie, and used that for the crust.
I did use the corrected version of this recipe (see below for link), but my pie cracked a little anyway. No matter– the filling was very smooth and the crack miraculously disappeared with a big bloop of whipped cream on top. I pretended like it never happened and totally got away with it.
This recipe is in Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan, but it contains an error and the corrected version can be found here. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll over on Tuesdays with Dorie!
Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Custardy Apple and Kale Cake
November 11, 2025 at 12:01 am | Posted in BWD, groups, other savory, savory things, tuesdays with dorie, veggies | 6 CommentsTags: baking, cake, savory, vegetables
I eat a lot of kale salad in the cooler months, and I always like for it to include a sharp cheese and some type of sweet component, like apple, pear or dried fruit. This Custardy Apple and Kale Cake pretty much takes my typical winter lunch, and turns it out of a bowl and into a cake pan. This isn’t really a quick bread and it isn’t really a frittata…it’s some in-between thing…kind of a thick, loaded up pancake.
The veggies– shallots and kale– get a quick precook in a sauté pan. Once again, Dorie calls for the perplexing step of rinsing raw onions/shallot before sautéing, and also straining the cooked veggies of excess liquid. I did neither of these (well, I would have strained the cooked veg, but I didn’t have any visible liquid left in the pan). I used sharp cheddar and a Jonagold apple, which I didn’t peel because it had beautiful red skin. All this gets mixed into a simple batter and baked in a springform. This is rustic, sweet and savory and delicious any time of the day. And you don’t even need a salad on the side, which my husband would say is the best part of all.
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: Double-Pear Picnic Pie
October 28, 2025 at 7:08 pm | Posted in BWD, groups, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 5 CommentsTags: baking, pie
Even if it’s gotten too chilly for me to bring this Double-Pear Picnic Pie to the park for a long, lazy lunch spread out on a blanket, I do love the idea of a picnic pie. It’s really a slab pie– double-crusted, baked in a sheet tray– and only the second one I think I’ve baked (here’s the first). This has two layers of Sour Cream Pie Dough with a layer of “double-pear” (fresh and dried) filling in between. This filling is a bit trickier than an apple pie filling, in that a) fresh pears can take forever and a day to ripen, and b) dried pears are a bit of a niche item. During the six days my Bartlett pears sat in a paper bag on the counter, I had plenty of time to scour Brooklyn for dried pears. Finally, I found them at one of those bulk nut shops and brought home just a small quantity.
Assembly went fine, and I made a half-recipe in a little eighth size sheet tray. A couple of minutes after I put the pie in the oven, I had a bit of a freakout that I’d forgotten to put thickener in the pear filling. I checked over the recipe and there was no mention of any overlooked flour or cornstarch, so I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe the marmalade in the filling helps thicken it? Maybe the slab format (thin layer of fruit, spread over a large surface area) allows for more moisture evaporation? I’m not sure, but the finished pie was anything but a hot mess. Just a few juicy burbles escaped the slits in the crust. By the following day, the crust had gotten a bit soft, but eaten with vanilla ice cream, I don’t think anyone cared.
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: The Daily Bread: White Bread Edition
October 14, 2025 at 12:01 am | Posted in biscuits/scones, breakfast things, BWD, groups, tuesdays with dorie | 7 CommentsTags: baking, bread
Next time you’re at the store, don’t be tempted by that squishy white bread in the bag with colored polka dots. That stuff is all fluff and no flavor! Leave it on the shelf and make The Daily Bread: White Bread Edition instead.
This homemade sandwich loaf is enriched with a bit of butter, egg and milk (liquid and powdered), so you get softness and flavor. The dough goes through three rises to make the prefect bread for your tuna sandwich, your PB&J and your toast. I have one of those 9″x4″ pullman pans, and I baked my loaf in that. I like the height and the straight sides. These days I’m usually making sourdough loaves (mostly to torture myself, I think), but there’s really something comforting about a soft yeasted bread.
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!
Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Devil’s Food Party Cake
September 23, 2025 at 4:18 pm | Posted in BWD, cakes & tortes, groups, layer cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 4 CommentsTags: baking, cake
Sure, this Devil’s Food Party Cake would be great for a birthday, but if it’s just a regular Tuesday, the cake is the party. I love a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting…on my dessert top five, for sure. Both the cake and the frosting here are made with cocoa powder instead of melted chocolate, which Dorie says makes everything profoundly chocolatey. That’s all I need to know to start snipping up a stack of parchment rounds.
I cut the 8-inch cake recipe in half to make a 6-incher, my regular move when I’m just slicing for the two of us. I divided the batter between three pans instead of two, for slightly thinner layers without having to split them in half (which stresses me out, tbh). Because even a small cake lasts several days for us, I brushed the layers with coffee liqueur as I stacked them with the tasty American-style cocoa buttercream. This bit of brushed on liquid helps keep cake from drying out as it sits.
Some TWDers said their cakes came out dense and fudgy. I wouldn’t say that about mine, as it was soft, but it did have what I’d call a tight texture that made barely any crumbs when cut. Maybe slicing the layers in half wouldn’t’t have been too painful after all. I decorated my cake with some giant malt balls I had in the cupboard. This was a just the thing to make the week feel like a celebration!
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: Tenderest Shortbread Four Ways (the rye-chocolate way)
September 9, 2025 at 12:47 pm | Posted in BWD, cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 5 CommentsTags: baking, cookies
Dorie says to bake the Tenderest Shortbread you need to make the dough with powdered sugar, egg yolks, and of course lots of butter. She gives four different flavor options for these sablé-like cookies, and I made the Rye-Chocolate Shortbread version, not only because I will rarely pass up chocolate if it’s an option, but also because I really do like the flavor from a bit of whole grain flour in baking. I can’t help myself from adding flakey salt to just about every cookie I make, even though they probably could have handled a sprinkling of coarse sugar instead, as they aren’t very sweet. They are melt-in-your-mouth, as Dorie says, but they are also good keepers– perfect for cookie tin coffee treats!
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!
Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Ricotta-Tomato Tart
August 26, 2025 at 3:12 pm | Posted in BWD, groups, other savory, savory things, tuesdays with dorie | 7 CommentsTags: baking, savory, tarts
Our second savory tart in August, this Ricotta-Tomato Tart features big chunks of peak-season tomatoes and seasoned ricotta in a “proper” tart shell. I used a mix of red, orange and green tomatoes from the farmers’ market. They kept their juiciness but didn’t sog the tart crust out or bleed much into the cheese filling. The ricotta was seasoned with lemon, parsley and oregano. Another great savory bake for lunch or dinner from this book!
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 twice a month. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Vegetable Ribbon Tart
August 12, 2025 at 12:01 am | Posted in BWD, groups, other savory, savory things, tuesdays with dorie | 10 CommentsTags: baking, savory, tarts
This Vegetable Ribbon Tart is basically salad sitting on puff pastry. I like both those things, so I was game to make this for lunch. Not sure that leftovers would hold so well, I decided to make a smaller tart. I didn’t measure anything, but started by baking a rectangle of puff that looked just big enough for two. The base is topped with a thick smear of hummus and lots of thin-sliced and shaved veggies. I used carrots, cukes, red pepper, fennel, tomatoes and roasted beets tossed in a vinaigrette made with za’atar and a splash of sesame oil (this really makes the dressing, imo). It’s light and fresh and a jammy egg or two help make it more filling. If I make this again, I’ll try salt massaging the ribbons of carrot and cucumber to extract a bit of water before I dress them. I think it would make them more pliable and easier to curlicue around the tart.
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 twice a month. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
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