Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Chunky Citrus Cornmeal Cake
January 9, 2024 at 10:42 pm | Posted in BWD, cakes & tortes, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 3 CommentsTags: baking, brekkie, cake
Dorie’s Chunky Lemon Cornmeal Cake is a sunny loaf, getting color and flavor from cornmeal, lemon zest, chopped up lemon segments and sumac. I happened to notice a few bags of cute, tiny, bright orange calamansi at my neighborhood grocer. I’ve only ever come across calamansi here as frozen juice at some of the Asian grocery stores, so I snapped up a bag. Even though I didn’t have any plans for them, I like to be sure to buy things that I don’t normally see on the shelves so my store knows people are interested.
I sat on the calamansi in the fridge for a few days and then thought I could use them in this cake. Prep was super easy, since you can eat the whole fruit…they have thin, sweet skins with almost no pith and puckery, tart insides. I simply quartered each calamansi, popped out any seeds or membrane I found and used them in the simple one-bowl cake batter just like that. I left out the sumac, but I had about a tablespoon and a half of spiced sugar left from some holiday cookies and I sprinkled that on top of the cake batter before I put it in the oven for a little crust.
This was so tasty with the little pops of calamansi and it stayed fresh for several days. I loved the color and the texture (just a bit gritty from the cornmeal) and was super pleased when I cut into the cake.
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: Free-Style Mushroom, Herb and Ricotta Tart
December 26, 2023 at 4:02 pm | Posted in BWD, groups, other savory, savory things, tuesdays with dorie | 2 CommentsTags: baking, savory, tarts
Having “free-style” in the name of this Free-Style Mushroom, Herb and Ricotta Tart, to me, implies a certain ease… something that can just be tossed together on a whim. Turns out “free-style” is more about the amorphous shape of the crust and the casual-looking fashion with which it is topped than it is about throwing together a tart from this or that in like five minutes. The base of this tart, which is called a Raggedy-Edged Almond-Herb Crust is actually a large format cracker that can be whatever shape it rolls out to be. Bake the crust and you can turn off the oven. After it cools, it’s topped with made in advance components: an herby ricotta spread, sautéed mushrooms with more herbs and a poof of seasoned micro greens. The crust has the delicate, buttery crumb of a shortbread, and, although it cut nicely for me with a sharp knife, I had to turn my “slice” into smaller pieces to eat as snacky finger food…it didn’t seem like a fork was right utensil for the job. All of these things were delicious and flavorful, so I enjoyed this, although I’d also be totally happy to free-style the ricotta and mushrooms on just a thick slice of toasted sourdough.
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: Iced, Spiced Hermits
December 12, 2023 at 10:57 pm | Posted in BWD, cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 4 CommentsTags: baking, cookies, holiday
What’s hiding inside the cookie tin? Hermits! These Iced, Spiced Hermits are old fashioned, chewy molasses-spice cookies with raisins (or another dried fruit), baked as a log and then sliced up. You can actually hide them away because they’re good keepers, but if people know they’re in the tin, they’ll disappear fast. I brought them to my college’s NYC alum holiday party, and there weren’t any left to bring back home. Very satisfying.
I made the hermits a couple of years ago as well (the below photo). Both times I soaked the raisins in a bit of rum for a few hours before making the dough and set aside the strained-off booze to use in the glaze drizzle. Both times I also added festive sprinkles…who knew a hermit could be so charming?
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: Mulled-Butter Apple Pie
November 27, 2023 at 5:04 pm | Posted in BWD, groups, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 3 CommentsTags: baking, pie
Swapping out stuffing for bread pudding wasn’t the only renegade move I made this Thanksgiving. I also traded our holiday staple pumpkin pie for Mulled-Butter Apple Pie. What is mulled-butter? It’s browned butter steeped with a cinnamon stick, a cardamom pod, black peppercorn, star anise, ginger and orange zest. This spiced butter coats the heap of apple slices (I used a combo of gold rush and cameo apples) that fill the double-crust pie. Dorie tells us to taste the filling for sweetness before we turn it into the crust, and when I did that, I thought what my apples really needed was not more sugar, but more spice. The mulling spice mix has some similarities with Chinese five-spice, which I have a jar of ground, so I added in a couple shakes of that to my filling.
I baked a half-sized pie in my little (about 6.5″) pie plate and while I was initially kind of sad about not having a slice of pumpkin pie, this came out so nicely, I couldn’t not be happy with it. The crust had great color and the filling held together just right. I decided that pumpkin pie can happen in December and I enjoyed every bite of this one.
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: Pecan-Cranberry Loaf
November 14, 2023 at 7:16 pm | Posted in breakfast things, BWD, cakes & tortes, groups, muffins/quick breads, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 7 CommentsTags: baking, cake, loaf
I made this Pecan-Cranberry Loaf two years ago, and really, I think I should have made it again so I could write a more comprehensive post. I remember liking it, that I swapped the coriander with five-spice and that I made a honey-cream cheese schmear to go with. But the whole group really raved about it (and called for more cranberries!), so I think that’s giving me some FOMO this week. Maybe after I buy my Thanksgiving crannies, I’ll have round two with this one.
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 Thumbprints
October 24, 2023 at 12:01 am | Posted in BWD, cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 6 CommentsTags: baking, cookies, holiday
Regardless of what Devil’s Thumbprints actually are, the name alone sounds like a pretty good potential Halloween recipe to me. Turns out they’re brownie-like chocolate thumbprint cookies, filled with jam, more chocolate, or whatever you like. The devil on my shoulder told me to chose more chocolate. I made the dough/batter the day before baking the cookies and they held shape pretty well. I have some dark chocolate buttons that are basically the same size as the cookies’ indentations so I just popped a button into the center of each cookie while they were still hot from the oven. The buttons melted right into the divots, and there was no fussing around with melting and spooning on chopped chocolate. Instead, I was able to fuss around with yellow googly eyes.
I made these thumbprints two years ago for Halloween as well. That time around, I gave them white chocolate-cream cheese bellies and cherry jam blood. I also rolled the unbaked cookies in granulated sugar instead of the turbinado I used this time, and I liked that finer sugar better, as the coarser turbinado made kind of a hard crust on the outside.
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: The Everything Cake
October 10, 2023 at 1:01 am | Posted in BWD, cakes & tortes, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 6 CommentsTags: baking, brekkie, cake
Dorie’s The Everything Cake is really a base recipe, made to be tinkered with according to what you want it to be. It’s a blank canvas for add-ins like citrus, berries and nuts. I decided to do my own thing and brown the melted butter, as well as add some malt powder to the mix. I planned to glaze the cake with some leftover chocolate ganache I had in the fridge and throw malt balls all over the top. All that sounded good, and then I took my “playing around” a bit too far…
About a month ago, I did the baking work for a cookbook photo shoot and wound up accidentally scaling out the dry ingredients for a scone recipe twice. Rather than discard a quart container of flour mixed with salt and baking powder, I brought it home at the end of the shoot to make things like pancakes and fritters with– stuff I would just eyeball measurements for anyway. As I was making this cake, I thought, “Why not use up some of that pre-mixed stuff in place of the flour, salt and BP in the recipe? What could really go wrong?” Well, I think my dry mix for scones contained more leavening than was ideal for a cake, because it rose nice and tall around the outside but sank big-time in the middle. Oopsies!
I did the only thing I could think of to do with a cake with a crater in the middle– I filled it with ice cream. The ganache and malt balls still got used, and I have to say it was excellent. Do you really learn a lesson when your screw-up results in an ice cream cake? I’m not so sure, but I would like to try this again sometime as a more level cake.
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: Szarlotka
September 25, 2023 at 8:27 pm | Posted in BWD, cakes & tortes, groups, pies & tarts, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 7 CommentsTags: baking, scones
What is a Szarlotka? It’s a traditional Polish apple dessert that’s kind of a cake and kind of a pie. Kind of, kind of. It actually reminds me more of jam bars I like to make that use the same dough for both the crust and the topping than either of those. Here, a sticky, sweet dough is rolled out and pressed into a cake pan, filled with a mix of sweetened apples and raisins and then sprinkled with more of that dough, grated this time for a crumbly topping.
I thought I got a bit of the “French bake” on the sides and bottom of my szarlotka, where the dough was in contact with the metal cake pan, and I was worried it was too dark. Thankfully, it didn’t taste over-toasted at all and was super good, with the consistency of a cakey cookie. Every September, I hold off on buying apples until there is pretty much no other trace of summer fruit left to be found, so this was my first apple dessert of autumn 2023, and I’d say it was a winner.
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: Banana Breakfast Squares
September 12, 2023 at 8:30 pm | Posted in breakfast things, BWD, cakes & tortes, groups, muffins/quick breads, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 7 CommentsTags: baking, scones
This Banana Breakfast Squares recipe is banana bread with all the healthy, hearty, sweet-but-not-too-sweet things you need for a morning boost. In addition to bananas, there’s whole wheat flour, oats, pecans, dates, flax seeds and the most essential thing for brekkie– espresso powder. I made just a third of the recipe in my six-inch square pan and still got nine soft and chubby squares out it. TBH, I’m never up early enough to actually make breakfast treats for breakfast. When I make muffins or scones, I usually just wind up having breakfast for dessert, which these squares are fine for, too, but they’re such good keepers that I actually have been able to enjoy them with my morning coffee for the last couple of days.
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: Double-Corn Tomato Crisp
August 22, 2023 at 7:45 pm | Posted in BWD, groups, other savory, savory things, tuesdays with dorie | 5 CommentsTags: baking, savory, tarts
Dorie’s Double-Corn Tomato Crisp may make you do a double-take if you see it on the counter. This sports a rubbly crisp topping made with cornmeal, but underneath you won’t find peaches or blueberries. Instead fresh corn kernels mingle with summer tomatoes and herbs. It proves that crisps aren’t just for dessert…they can be lovely savory side dishes, or even main courses, as we ate ours with a dollop of sour cream, a salad 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!
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