Tuesdays with Dorie: Corniest Corn Muffins
March 8, 2011 at 12:01 am | Posted in breakfast things, groups, muffins/quick breads, tuesdays with dorie | 8 Comments
Boy howdy, did I ever jump the gun on this recipe. I made these Corniest Corn Muffins all the way back in 2008. We were still living in Sydeny…sheesh. But I do remember them. Even remember that we ate them with turkey chili instead of for breakfast (I reduced the sugar to 4 tablespoons for that reason).
Corn muffins are really little cornbreads. I’m well aware of the North vs South cornbread rivalry that divides a large chunk of our nation. I, however, did not grow up in a home with fierce opinions about “proper” cornbread. My parents were raised in the Midwest, and I don’t think this debate ever even crossed their minds, so, as a result, I, too, am a bit of an agnostic when it comes to cornbread. I’ll tell you what I liked about these muffins, though. I liked the kernels of fresh corn that gave them extra texture and craggy, golden tops. I liked their crumbly, grainy crumb and their little bit of sweetness. I’ve inherited my Grandpa W’s old cornstick molds (like these only vintage!)…perhaps I should see if these muffins make good sticks, too?
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan (it’s also here on Diner’s Journal) or read My Next Life, as it was Jill’s pick this week. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Chocolate Pots de Crème
March 1, 2011 at 12:02 am | Posted in groups, pudding/mousse, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 13 Comments
Pots de Crème are baked custards…like pudding, but with the richness dialed up. Lots of cream and yolks means a little portion can go a long way (although I’m confident I could consume a couple of these babies if I really wanted to). First you make a tempered egg custard… Dorie didn’t mention straining it, but I did because the thought of those little white egg squigglies gives me shivers…and then you stir in ganache. After you portion the mix into your little “pots” you bake them in a covered water bath (Dorie says you can bake it covered with plastic wrap, but I used foil instead because I’m suspicious of hot plastics). Let them chill, and you have quite a luxurious treat. I don’t see why you couldn’t mess around by adding some flavors that play well with chocolate, like a dash vanilla extract, a sprinkle of espresso powder or a wee bit of booze.
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read Black Cat Cooking, as Christine picked it this week. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Toasted Almond Scones
February 22, 2011 at 12:01 am | Posted in biscuits/scones, breakfast things, groups, tuesdays with dorie | 22 Comments
A warm scone and a hot cup of coffee (and a giant bowl of fruit salad!) sounds great to me on a chilly morning. Good call on the Toasted Almond Scones, Mike! These scones, with their trifecta of almond flavor (ground, chopped and extract), sounded so appealing to me that instead of making my usual half-batch, I went nuts and did a whole thing. Freezer food is oh-so conveinent.
I haven’t had the best luck getting my scones and biscuits to rise mightily (in fact, some could be mistaken for pancakes), so I patted these out a little bigger and fatter than Dorie suggests. As a result, I didn’t get the full twelve the recipe yields, but I did get my most successful batch of scones to date! Flaky and tall. These are sooo much better than the coffee shop variety. They are barely sweet, and we ate ours with blueberry jam.
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read Living Out West. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Chocolate Oatmeal Drops
February 15, 2011 at 12:01 am | Posted in cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 24 Comments
I love chocolate. I love oatmeal. Naturally I’d been hoping that we’d get to make these Chocolate Oatmeal Drops sooner rather than later. Yet, when their turn rolled around, I wasn’t at first convinced. They seemed a little dry to me…like maybe the oats had robbed the cookies of some of their moisture. I almost never bake off a whole batch of cookies at once though, so into the freezer went a slew of scooped out raw dough drops.
I pulled a handful of scoops out a few days later and baked them off, shortcutting the recommended time by just a minute or so. They were not at all raw inside, but soft and really chocolatey, just the way I’d hoped they would be. So, now I am convinced: chocolate + oatmeal = tasty cookies.
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read Bake With Us, as Caroline and Claire picked it this week. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Bourbon Bread Pudding
February 8, 2011 at 12:01 am | Posted in groups, pudding/mousse, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 20 CommentsTags: baking, dessert, pudding
My husband has been out of town for the last few days at a work conference. This was the first time in many years that I have not had to endure the Super Bowl (although apparently I missed a good rendition of the anthem). I spent Sunday night with four hours of “Emma” on Masterpiece Theater instead (dorky, but so good!) and this big fat slice of Bourbon Bread Pudding. Hellooooo alone time!
Dorie has taught me how to make bread pudding at home. You need lots of the good stuff (cream and egg yolks) for it to come out lush and soft. Now, here’s where I admit to you that I did cut back on the cream by a third (and upped the milk by a third in its place)…but not to worry, there was still plenty of cream and yolks in there. And I used challah bread, which is pretty rich in itself. You can see that I added almonds and dried cherries to mine. You can’t see that I quadrupled the bourbon, but trust me on that. My custard base tasted like eggnog! This was a mighty fine bread pudding, not to mention a most amiable television companion.
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read Simply Southern, as it was Sharon’s pick this week. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Great Grains Muffins
February 1, 2011 at 12:01 am | Posted in breakfast things, groups, muffins/quick breads, tuesdays with dorie | 20 CommentsTags: breakfast, muffins
Usually, when I make muffins, I’m trying to sneak a little whole wheat flour into the mix and hoping my husband won’t care. Well, here’s a muffin that’s supposed to be full of grains…whole wheat, corn and oats. Good for you stuff, but with a little AP flour so it doesn’t feel like a brick. I did sneak something else in, though….a tablespoon of ground flaxseed (although wheat germ would be good, too). For dried fruit, I used blueberries and apricots. These aren’t big, high-doming muffins, but I’d be happy to wake up to them anytime. In the book, they’re pictured with a big hunk of cheese, but I think they’re pretty good with a little jam.
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read Happy Tummy, as it was Christine’s pick this week. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Nutty, Chocolaty, Swirly Sour Cream Bundt Cake
January 25, 2011 at 12:01 am | Posted in bundt cakes, cakes & tortes, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 21 Comments
It’s cold. So cold that I don’t want to go outside. So cold that I just want to stay at home and bake all day. And that’s just how I spent this past Saturday. First up was this Nutty, Chocolaty, Swirly Sour Cream Bundt Cake. It’s kind of a cross between a pound cake and a coffee cake…a pound cake-type base with a swirls of sugar, cinnamon and chopped nuts and chocolate running through. Dorie’s recipe also calls for raisins, but since I don’t normally go for fruit and chocolate combos, I left them out entirely. However, to totally contradict what I just said, I did add the orange zest (actually I used tangerine), and liked the gentle citrus flavor a lot.
A word of warning…making the cake was easy, making the swirl was easy, but combining them was not. I read about sticking, so I was careful not to let the first layer of the sugar-based swirl mix come in contact with the pan. That wasn’t too tricky, but then when I added the second and final layer of swirl, the cake batter was so stiff, I really couldn’t easily work it over the swirl to cover it. Not wanting to bake it with exposed swirlage (because it would fall out when I flipped the cake), I popped the cake in the oven for about three minutes, until the batter just started to soften. Then it was a breeze to get that swirl covered up with batter.
My husband asked for “big pieces” of this cake. We both liked how it had a nice outer crust with soft cake inside. And course cinnamon, nuts and chocolate, too!
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan (it’s also here on NPR) or read Cooking for Comfort, as it was Jennifer’s pick this week. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
January 18, 2011 at 12:01 am | Posted in breakfast things, groups, muffins/quick breads, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 20 Comments
I made these muffins– oh, wow– more than a year ago, and have been waiting patently for someone, like Betsy of A Cup of Sweetness, to choose them for TWD. Lemons and poppy seeds are one of the classic combos of the muffin world, and for good reason. Who wouldn’t want to wake up to a cup of coffee and a little lemon cake? In addition to super-cuteness, poppy seeds give a little crunch. Dorie’s recipe has a lemon glaze that is sweet and puckery at the same time…and I was generous with it. I have the world’s biggest jar of poppy seeds (seriously, it’s like PB jar sized!), so I’ll make these again, and when I do, I’m going to try the jam-filled variation.
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read A Cup of Sweetness. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Fluff-Filled Chocolate Madeleines
January 11, 2011 at 12:20 am | Posted in cakes & tortes, cookies & bars, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 26 Comments
Whenever I start a new food job, my new coworkers always seem to ask me where I’m from. I’m going through this phase at my job right now, and sometimes the question makes me scratch my head…like, what was the last place I worked for, or where did I grow up? I’ve come to realize that, more often than not, the person asking has recently moved to NYC from someplace else, and is wondering about my hometown. While I think a lot about the places and people I grew up with, the day I left for college in the early ’90s was the last time I was ever in my childhood home…my parents packed up and moved cross-country a few weeks later. And, apart from the two years I spent in Sydney, I’ve been in New York since 1996. Sometimes I think that I’m more Brooklyn than NoVA now, but I don’t, and wouldn’t ever want to, forget where I’m from.
If you asked a Fluff-Filled Chocolate Madeleine where it’s from, it would probably tell you, that while it was born in France, it has spent the last couple decades living in Texas. A plate of these guys would likely not make Proust remember anything, but one taste would probably shoot most American grown-ups right back to childhood! Apart from their scalloped shape and cakey texture, they are pretty far removed from their French origins, but with ganache and marshie Fluff, they are instantly recognizable to me. A couple of tips if you want to make these yummies at home: if you nuke your Fluff jar for 5-10 seconds, it will be much easier to get the sticky stuff out of the jar and into a piping bag; also, madeleines stale quickly, so if you like them soft, eat them soon after they’re put together.
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan (it’s also here on Serious Eats) or read Effort to Deliciousness, as it was Margot’s pick this week. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Midnight Crackles
January 4, 2011 at 12:18 am | Posted in cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 23 Comments
Is there a sweeter way to celebrate both the new year and the third anniversary of TWD than with chocolatey cookies? These little, soft, dark and spicy Midnight Crackles were Laurie and Julie’s pick for TWD’s anniversary recipe. Here I made the “Playing Around” Chocolate Gingerbread variation, which uses some ginger, allspice and coriander in addition to the cinnamon and cloves that already scent the “regular” dough.
Apart from arming yourself with a glass of milk when you eat these, my one piece of advice is to not chill the raw dough for too long before forming it into balls. The chocolate in dough makes it very firm, very fast. And the just-mixed dough is a lot like Play-Doh and is easy to work with. Bake them on the short end of the time recommendation and they are kind of brownie-like inside. I made just half a batch, but it yielded a heap of cookies, so I have a stash of unbaked dough balls in my freezer– ready for when the midnight munchies strike.
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read the TWD blog. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
P.S.: On Dorie’s blog, she has an idea for using this same dough to make roll-out cookies. Take a look!
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