Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Lick-the-Pot Chocolate Pudding Pie
March 14, 2023 at 12:01 am | Posted in BWD, groups, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 4 CommentsTags: baking, pie
When I made my Lick-the-Pot Chocolate Pudding Pie, I didn’t realize that our TWD posting date would coincide with Pi Day– what a treat! I haven’t made a pudding pie like this in ages, and it was so simple to do. A crumb crust, pudding and whipped cream…no making pastry, prepping fruit, baking for two hours and then furiously scrubbing goopy bubble-over off your favorite sheet tray or the bottom of your oven.
Crumb crusts are the easiest and tastiest, IMO. I didn’t actually have the spice cookies called for, but I had some Teddy Grahams and a jar of pumpkin spice, so I made do. Watching a bowl full of teddy bears get zipped up in the food processor was highly entertaining. Making a luxe chocolaty tempered egg yolk pudding on the stovetop is the hardest part of this pie, but it really isn’t hard. The pudding is called “lick-the-pot” so sneaking a chef’s treat spoonful before filling the pre-baked crust and chilling the pie in the fridge is a must.
A mascarpone-whipped cream topping finishes the pie off, diner-style. Dorie says to serve the pie as soon as possible after the topping goes on, but I find that mascarpone is great way (and also the tastiest way) to stabilize whipped cream, and that it holds up for a couple of days without issue. I sprinkled some cookie crumbs and chocolate speckles all over the top for some extra pizzaz.
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: Peanut-Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies, Paris Style
February 28, 2023 at 10:06 pm | Posted in BWD, cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 4 CommentsTags: baking, cookies, holiday
Peanut-Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies, Paris Style are like PB cookies at fashion week. (BTW, what’s with hyphenating peanut butter in the title…shouldn’t that hyphen go elsewhere? Maybe “Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Cookies, Paris-Style” would be better.) All the stuff that would normally be within a dough is on full display on the outside of these cookies. The cookie itself is made from a more or less blank slate chewy PB dough, but the dough balls get rolled in chopped nuts before baking, and after baking, they are smeared and sprinkled with all kinds of good things. There’s homemade peanut praline spread gluing down more chopped peanuts and chocolate bits. Peanut praline dust and fleur de sel are sprinkled all over the the place. Even though making peanut praline sounds like a pain, it’s easier to do than true brittle, and makes these very special. Dorie turns hers into large cookies, but I made mine a bit more petite, at about 2.5 tablespoons each. Everyone I shared these with liked them, and I did, too, although they were a little messier to eat than a cookie that wasn’t turned inside-out.
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: Swedish Fika Cake
February 14, 2023 at 10:31 pm | Posted in BWD, cakes & tortes, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 3 CommentsTags: baking, brekkie, cake
I do a solo coffee break most afternoons, but wouldn’t it be fun to fika with friends, with a big pot of coffee and slices of Swedish Fika Cake? We’ve already done a related recipe for Swedish Visiting Cake Bars, but this one is a full-on butter-ball of a cake, crowned with a crisp, sugared almond topping. In the recipe, the cake part is just flavored with vanilla, but I added a splash of almond extract along with that to make it a bit more marzipany. I also tossed an extra handful of sliced almonds into the topping to take in more of the buttery sugar syrup that forms a baked-on shell on top of the cake. This was a good one, and I enjoyed more than one sliver of this moist cake in the weekday quiet of my kitchen.
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: Iced Honey-Apple Scones with Spelt
January 24, 2023 at 10:37 pm | Posted in biscuits/scones, breakfast things, BWD, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 4 CommentsTags: baking, scones
If I don’t need to blog about scones, then I really don’t make scones (or muffins, for that matter) because I’m never able to get a baked good cranked out by breakfast time. And no way I’m waking up early on a weekend to try, so these Iced Honey-Apple Scones were consumed as dessert. Actually, I froze two of them to be a future microwave-defrosted breakfast treat. These scones contain pretty much what their name says, plus some tangerine zest. I don’t have any spelt flour right now, but do have a box of farro flour, so I made that swap in the the dry ingredients. I cut my apples into quite a small dice, and I had nice little bits running throughout the dough. The dough was sticky, but I liked portioning the scones with a quarter-cup scoop and think the mounded look is quire appealing.
Just a bit of honey sweetened these scones, so the icing was definitely welcome. I have a bottle of boiled cider, and used that as the liquid to make the powdered sugar icing. Instead of bee pollen (come on Dorie, who has that?) as garnish, I just grated on some more flecks tangerine zest since I wanted a bit more of that flavor anyway. For breakfast or dessert, these are good, and not too much in terms of size, sweetness or richness.
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: Potato-Parm Tart
January 10, 2023 at 6:22 pm | Posted in BWD, groups, other savory, pies & tarts, savory things, tuesdays with dorie | 6 CommentsTags: baking, savory, tarts
I made and froze a disk of Savory Galette Dough the other day for this Potato-Parm Tart and then promptly forgot about it. New year, same me. Luckily, if you either have the dough RTG or have a sheet of shop-bough puff pastry kicking around, you can finish the tart off pretty quickly for an on-the-fly lunch. A par-baked round of your chosen crust (this isn’t made in a tart pan, but instead is baked off as a flat disk) gets a schmear of cream cheese, Parmesan and a scattering of something in the allium family. I used leftover sautéed leeks. Then overlapping circles of potatoes sliced on the mandolin, or thin as you can cut them, are spiraled on top and seasoned. Pop it into the oven and then pull it back out 25 minutes later with frilly, bronzed potatoes and a salty, crispy crust. I really wanted to have my slice with a glass of white wine, but stuck to just an arugula salad, since I had to go to the dentist later in the afternoon and felt weird about drinking before a doctor’s appointment. Maybe with a re-toasted leftover sliver to celebrate no new cavities…
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: Chocolate Babka
December 27, 2022 at 10:38 pm | Posted in breakfast things, BWD, groups, muffins/quick breads, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 8 CommentsTags: baking, brekkie, cake
I don’t really have a baking bucket list, but if I did, I’d now be able tick babka off it. Any good New Yorker knows that Chocolate Babka is the superior babka, so I was pretty excited (but a little intimidated) to make this. Turns out, it’s not too hard; it just requires some time spread out over a couple of days. Dorie’s buttery brioche dough is the base for this sweet yeasted loaf, and we’ve made that dough a number of times now. Like making cinnamon buns, you roll out your well-chilled dough, smear it with a sweet cocoa paste and then spiral it into a log. Unlike cinnamon buns, you cut the log in half lengthwise to expose long ribbons of the chocolate filling, and then twist the two halves into a ropey thing and squeeze it into a loaf pan to proof. Before going into the oven, Dorie tops her babka with a crust of crisp, rubbly streusel, which not all babkas have and is kind of gilding the lily, but I’m here for it.
My loaf rose and baked tall, and I was so excited to cut into it and see what kind of pattern the chocolate took on. Some slices had stripes and others had swirls. All tasted equally delicious…buttery soft bread with chocolate pockets and crunchy topping. Elaine is right that it is dinner party-worthy.
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: Coffee-Anise Stars
December 13, 2022 at 11:15 pm | Posted in BWD, cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 7 CommentsTags: baking, cookies, holiday
Are we all in full holiday baking mode yet? I have so many new things I want to try: babka (of course!), a chocolate-rosemary roulade, two different sticky toffee puddings, a mint-chocolate cake, a gingerbread layer cake, a rum raisin bundt, some baked apple thing and approximately ten thousand cookies. I don’t know how many I’ll actually wind up getting to, but I can tick one of those cookies off the list with these Coffee-Anise Stars.
These crisp roll-out cookies are gingerbread-adjacent, flavored with molasses, cinnamon, espresso powder and ground star anise. The anise is the “star” of the show here, but if you aren’t a fan of that licorice thing, you can certainly swap it out for any other warm spice that’s nice, or go full-gingerbread with a blend. I bet you can even cut them out into trees or snowmen or little dudes, and they will still work. Haha. I wanted to give my stars a coffee glaze, so instead of Dorie’s egg white-based one, I mixed a tiny bit of soft butter, powdered sugar and coffee till I had a coat-able consistency. These are a nice spicy bite with coffee, natch.
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: Cranberry Spice Squares
November 20, 2022 at 11:36 pm | Posted in breakfast things, BWD, cakes & tortes, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 3 CommentsTags: baking, cake, holiday
Here we are, a couple of days out from Thanksgiving, and I still don’t really know what I’ll be making for dessert (although I have a few ideas). If I hadn’t already baked, frosted and polished off these Cranberry Spice Squares, they’d be contender. Think spiced molasses gingerbread with pops of fresh cranberries and swoops of cream cheese frosting. Good, right? This is a great snacking cake for the holiday season, and if you have leftover crannies after the big dinner, think about putting them towards this. Toasted or candied nuts make a good sprinkle.
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: Pear-Comté Tart
November 8, 2022 at 5:18 pm | Posted in BWD, groups, other savory, pies & tarts, savory things, tuesdays with dorie | 6 CommentsTags: baking, savory, tarts
My last two posts were separately about pears and cheese, and now here I am combo’ing the two with this Pear-Comté Tart. It has basically all the good stuff from a cheese plate (cheese, fruit, nuts, cracker, mustard) held together with custard. I really liked the salty, nutty Comté together with pears and walnuts, and I felt very sophisticated enjoying this for a weekend lunch in my sweatpants with some lightly dressed radicchio leaves and a glass of wine.
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: Blue Cheese Bites
October 24, 2022 at 9:55 pm | Posted in BWD, groups, other savory, savory things, tuesdays with dorie | 3 CommentsTags: baking, muffins, savory
I made these Blue Cheese Bites last holiday season as part of a little snack plate to have with wine. Since that was almost a year ago now, I thought about remaking them (even bought the cheese) but, of course, I let it slide. So I will have to dig deep in the vault for this post. What I remember most about the savory mini muffin bites was thinking the base batter was very similar to that of a madeleine, made with olive oil instead of melted butter, and with a long rest period. I’m a blue cheese fan, so I used it in these, along with some dried cherries and figs. These were good bites with a glass of red, so maybe I will repeat them soon after all.
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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