Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Coconut-Milk-Chocolate Marble Cake
August 25, 2026 at 7:50 pm | Posted in BWD, cakes & tortes, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 4 CommentsTags: baking, cake
There are I few “easy” pastry skills that I have yet to master. Marbling is one of them. I’m not mad at the way my Coconut-Milk-Chocolate Marble Cake looks, but you can see on the inside that it is more chunked than marbled. I guess that just means I get nice big pops of each flavor.
This loaf has one yellow cake batter taken two different ways: a chocolate way and a coconut way. I did a little tinkering with each to boost the flavors. I replaced a couple of tablespoons of butter in the cake batter with coconut oil. I mixed dark chocolate instead of milk into the chocolate half. I dripped some coconut extract into the other half and toasted the shredded coconut. I scooped alternating bloops of each flavor into my loaf pan and marbled (but not really, apparently) the whole thing. This is a nice moist cake with a favorite flavor combo.
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: Cocoa-Cornmeal Biscotti
August 11, 2026 at 9:21 pm | Posted in BWD, cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 6 CommentsTags: baking, cookies
Biscotti are a favorite to have in my cookie tin. A recipe makes lots, but they keep forever and are perfect with the last few sips of morning coffee. If I didn’t know about the cornmeal in these Cocoa-Cornmeal Biscotti, I probably would never have guessed it’s in the mix. They taste chocolatey, not corny. But since I do know about the cornmeal, I’ll say it gives the biscotti a little extra crunch and craggle. I added a splash of almond extract to go along with the sliced almonds that stud the cookies.
Any other time of year, I would take Dorie up on her suggestion to dip or drizzle these in chocolate. It’s way too hot in my kitchen in the summer for that– even tempered chocolate would wind up a melty mess. I sprinkled my biscotti log with turbinado before baking as a consolation prize.
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. We are almost done with the book, but don’t let that stop you. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Candied Almond Tart
July 28, 2026 at 10:26 am | Posted in BWD, groups, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 3 CommentsTags: baking, holiday, pie
The final tart from BWD!! Sometimes the last one to be picked turns out to be a surprise superstar, like me on the elementary school kickball team, or like this Candied Almond Tart. This was pretty easy to make– a sweet, cinnamon-scented crust with a simple filling of sliced almonds coated in a quick caramel sauce. Once baked, the crust gets crisp and the filling gets pleasantly chewy. It made me think of a PAYDAY candy bar, with almonds instead of peanuts. I sprinkled a little flaky salt on top. The tart slices super nicely, and we found it’s best to just pick up your slice and eat it by hand…not the best manners, but cleaner and easier than using a fork. Last but not least, this was really good and it kept well for a few days.
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: Mary Dodd’s Maple-Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies
July 14, 2026 at 12:01 am | Posted in tuesdays with dorie, groups, sweet things, cookies & bars, BWD | 2 CommentsTags: baking, brownies, cookies
Mary Dodd, Dorie’s recipe tester and right-hand lady, has brilliantly taken a plate of chocolate chip pancakes with a side of bacon and a river of maple syrup and turned it into a cookie. Her Maple-Bacon Chocolate Chip cookies remind me of being in high school and grabbing a booth at IHOP with my friends.
I don’t eat pork, so I used (gasp) turkey bacon for the bacon bits. I had to replace the bacon fat in the dough with extra butter, since turkey bacon doesn’t really render much of anything, and I used smoked flaky salt to finish my baked cookies to bump up the smoky flavor that may have been missing with my swaps. I scooped the cookies a bit smaller than the recipe says (maybe 3 tablespoons instead of 1/4 cup), but they still baked up thin, wrinkly and bendy, just as Dorie describes, and they were still pretty big.
If you like sweet and salty, then these are for you. A cup of coffee is a natural go-with here.
We’re baking from the book Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan every second and fourth Tuesday of the month. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
TWD BWD Rewind: Little Marvels
June 30, 2026 at 7:29 pm | Posted in BWD, general pastry, groups, other sweet, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 3 CommentsTags: baking, cookies
When we made our Meringue Snackers a couple of months ago, I piped some of the meringue into disks so I could assemble a couple of Little Marvels, a recipe I’d skipped when it came around last June. Little Marvels, aka Merveilleux, are light and delicate meringue and whipped cream sandwich cakes. There’s a famous French shop called Aux Merveilleux de Fred specializing in these treats with locations here in NYC, so I have had them a few times.
I know from my visits to Fred that, while chocolate shavings are the traditional Marveilleux coating, you can get pretty creative with the flavorings. I spread each meringue disk with a smear of dulce de leche, flavored my cream with some coconut extract and coated the Marvels in coconut chips. I had to be quite gentle when assembling these, but I didn’t find them too hard to make. They are indeed quite marvellous and a bit fancy.
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: Chocolate-Tipped Cream-Puff Pocky Sticks
June 23, 2026 at 7:12 pm | Posted in BWD, general pastry, groups, other sweet, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 4 CommentsTags: baking, choux
These Chocolate-Tipped Cream-Puff Pocky Sticks are a fun homemade take on the favorite Japanese sweet snack. Thin lengths of piped choux pastry make the sticks, which are baked and then coated in chocolate glaze. While I did actually measure my piping tip, I clearly piped my Pocky a bit on the thick side. In fact, some wise guy asked me if they were breadsticks. I tipped them with the matcha white chocolate coating and sprinkled on some tiny sugar pears. While my chubby Pocky didn’t fully dry out in the oven, the exterior was crisp. They retained a bit of that cream puff softness in the middle, but they were really good anyway.
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: Tea and Honey Madeleines
June 9, 2026 at 8:24 pm | Posted in BWD, cakes & tortes, cookies & bars, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 3 CommentsTags: baking, cookies
Dorie has lots of good ideas up her sleeves for madeleines, and these Tea and Honey Madeleines are another creative twist on the classic shell-shaped cookie-cakes. Of course we think of dipping our madeleines into tea, but these have the tea built right in. The melted butter in the batter is both browned and infused with Earl Grey tea leaves. A bit of zest further amps up the citrusy notes, and I happened to have some bergamot zest in the freezer (once in a while my little local fancy grocery gets a box of them in), so I used a pinch of that.
When I pulled my mads out of the oven, I was pleased to see the signature humps popping out of the pan, but then my smugness immediately tuned to worry that they were too dark on the shell side. The ups and downs of baking, am I right? In fact, they are perfectly soft, rich and cakey inside, so maybe it was just all that browned tea-butter making them so golden. They are very fragrant and flecked with bits of tea leaf…there’s only one left, so I probably should have made a full batch.
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: Olive-Oil Brownies
May 12, 2026 at 2:31 pm | Posted in BWD, cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 5 CommentsTags: baking, brownies, cookies
Doesn’t matter how many batches of brownies we’ve made before, they are always a fun bake. It helps that there seems to be an infinite number of twists on the classic. These Olive-Oil Brownies (what’s with that hyphen?) swap out the melted butter for EVOO and add in black pepper and some dried fruit.
You can tell these are a bit different. For starters, they taste less sweet than typical brownies, maybe even slightly savory, likely due to a peppery oil plus actual pepper. Along with the dried fruit bits (I used cherries), this makes for a brownie that I think could hold up to a wine pairing, instead of just a glass of milk. They seemed a little dry on the top, but the inside kept a bit of fudginess. These were nice to try, although I’ll probably go back to a more standard recipe next time.
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: Meringue Snackers
April 28, 2026 at 9:09 pm | Posted in BWD, cookies & bars, general pastry, groups, other sweet, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 3 CommentsTags: baking, cookies
Meringue “Snackers” is a funny name. I mean, I do like meringues, but it would never cross my mind to have one as a snack. Kind of like eating air. These big, swirly puffs are pretty to look at though. And you can do lots of things with them…even though I didn’t shape them into pavlovas, I’ll still probably take them from snacks to full-fledged dessert with some berries and cream.
I have some bright pink “raspberry juice powder” that I impulse bought not long ago, and thought I could fold some through the meringue to create a kind of rippled look. Well, that effect was totally lost, so I hit them with some extra powder when they came out of the oven. The powder is tart, so it plays off the meringue’s sugariness well. While I had these in the oven, I was also baking off some of the meringue as small disks to make the Little Marvels I skipped last summer. The two shapes bake and dry at different rates so I was doing a bit of oven juggle and who knows how long these were actually in there for. I took my snackers out when they felt firm, were a bit cracked and peeled off the parchment with no problem. They never got completely dry inside, so they have some chew in the middle, but do I think that’s nicer than a hard meringue.
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: Apricot and Pistachio-Olive Oil Cake
April 14, 2026 at 7:17 pm | Posted in BWD, cakes & tortes, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 5 CommentsTags: baking, cake
This Apricot and Pistachio-Olive Oil Cake is loaded with fragrant flavors of the Mediterranean. I added Dorie’s suggested pinch of saffron to the batter, which, combined with orange zest and olive oil, gave it a sunny yellow color. The baked cake gets sliced in half to make two layers, and the cross section was truly fantastic. That yellow cake studded with orange apricot bits and bright green Sicilian pistachios– I should have photo’ed it. Some apricot jam is spread between the layers and on top of the cake, along with an extra tumble of chopped pistachios. This one’s great with tea or coffee and it stays moist thanks to EVOO, butter and Greek yogurt in the batter (not to mention it’s sort of sealed with jam).
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!
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