Tuesdays with Dorie (on Friday!): Low and Lush Chocolate Cheesecake
January 1, 2010 at 3:24 pm | Posted in cakes & tortes, cheesecakes, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 22 Comments
Happy New Year, my friends! Here’s to a 2010 full of sweetness and happiness!
So, how did you ring in the new year? There was a time when I’d stay out all night, but I can’t toss ’em back quite like I used to, so these days I like to keep it low-key…make a nice dinner and drink champagne cocktails at home. Part of last night’s celebration involved Dorie’s Low and Lush Chocolate Chessecake. I added my own chocolate and sour cream topping, mainly so I’d have a nice shiny surface on which to place the edible gold stars I found not long ago. Pretty cute, but I did have to go through the tiresome task of applying each one individually with tweezers.
This cheesecake was made my favorite way (which is also the easiest way to lump-free batter, if you ask me)– in the food processor. It baked up creamy and smooth and pretty, but I have to say that I prefer the bright freshness of fruit, rather than chocolate, with my cheesecake. For that reason, I probably wouldn’t make this one again just for us, but if I had a guest coming over that simply adored chocolate cheesecake, I certainly wouldn’t hesitate.
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read Tea and Scones, as it was the Tea Lady’s choice for TWD this week. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie (on Saturday!): Dorie’s Favorite Pecan Pie
December 26, 2009 at 6:33 pm | Posted in groups, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 12 Comments
Pecan pie is certainly one of my favorites, so I thought I’d give Dorie’s version a go for Christmas dinner. Dorie’s Favorite Pecan Pie has a couple of unusual twists– chocolate, cinnamon and espresso powder. (My one twist was to use golden syrup in place of the corn syrup.) This was a big hit, especially with a little bit (or a lot, as the case may be) of whipped cream. Not too sweet, and not too gloppy either, if you know what I mean. Next time I think I’ll experiment with leaving out the chocolate, keeping the cinnamon and espresso, and see what I think about that.
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read Someone’s in the Kitchen with Brina, as it was Beth’s choice for TWD this week. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Café Volcano Cookies
December 15, 2009 at 1:01 am | Posted in cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 26 Comments
Would you like to come over for coffee? We can chat…we can gossip…I’d really love to meet you. And, yes, of course there will be cookies. It’s no problem at all…these little Café Volcano Cookies that MacDuff of the always entertaining The Lonely Sidecar picked for TWD are ridiculously easy to whip up.
Just a few ingredients (egg whites, sugar, espresso powder, walnuts and almonds) stirred together by hand produce these sweet and crispy little treats. Not quite the same as a traditional meringue, they’re like coffee air held together by nuts.
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan (it’s also here on The Splendid Table), or read The Lonely Sidecar. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Parmesan and Thyme Sablés
December 8, 2009 at 1:11 am | Posted in BCM, groups, other savory, savory things, tuesdays with dorie | 46 Comments
I was thrilled to see that Bungalow Barbara chose a recipe for TWD that can swing sweet or savory– Sablés. Between all the junk I munch on at the bakery, and all the desserts I make at home, these days I need a salt fix more often than a sugar fix. I went with a parmesan cheese sablé, and since I had heaps of fresh herbs left from Thanksgiving, I threw some thyme in there, too. Cheesy, buttery and salty…with that perfect crumbly texture– exactly what I wanted with a glass of white wine.
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan (it’s also here), or read Bungalow Barbara. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Rosy Poached Pear and Pistachio Tart
December 1, 2009 at 1:26 pm | Posted in groups, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 37 Comments
I feel like I’ll be dealing with leftover turkey forever, but the holiday bundt is all gone now. Time to move on to the Rosy Poached Pear and Pistachio Tart that Lauren of I’ll Eat You picked for TWD. I will be honest and admit that making it was a bit more work than I felt like doing after just having prepared Thanksgiving dinner a couple of days before. You have to make tart dough, pastry cream, poached pears, caramelized nuts and sauce. That’s a lot of stuff, but the payoff is most definitely worth the effort. This is a stunningly delicious tart!
Pastry cream-based tarts don’t hold up so well overnight, so I made individual tartlette shells that I could fill with the pistachio pastry cream as needed. I haven’t had JELL-O pistachio pudding in years, so I’m not sure if I’d love it today as much as I did when I was little, but this pastry cream is spot-on for my tastes now…little flecks of nuts and the color is a far more “natural” green. I used bosc pears for poaching, and they sucked up all that gorgeous color from the red wine. BTW, the chilled poaching liquid tastes an awful lot like sweet sangria to me…hmmm…keep me away from the leftovers or I may wind up with a lampshade on my head!
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, or read I’ll Eat You. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie (on Thursday!): All-in-One Holiday Bundt Cake
November 26, 2009 at 2:50 pm | Posted in bundt cakes, cakes & tortes, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 6 Comments
I’m up to my elbows in stuffing and cranberry sauce right now, but just wanted to quickly wish everyone a safe and happy Thanksgiving! This is the Holiday Bundt that I’m serving up for dessert tonight. It really is all-in-one: pumpkin cake with spices, pecans, apples and cranberries. I sneaked a tiny taste, and I can tell you that it’s moist and fully of yummy chunks. Can’t wait to try a proper slice later with the maple glaze!
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan (it’s also here on Serious Eats). Read The Nitty Britty, as it was Britin’s choice for TWD this week, and don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Chocolate Caramel Chestnut Cake
November 17, 2009 at 1:00 am | Posted in cakes & tortes, groups, layer cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 45 Comments
Last week was kind of crappy. First, we suffered the latest disappointment in the mulit-year saga known as “R and Stephanie vs. the NYC real estate market.” I often wonder if owning a little place here just isn’t in the cards for us. Then, two of my favorite coworkers gave notice and will be leaving the bakery before the end of the month. This will certainly put a damper on my workplace socializing (the only reason I really even go to work, ‘cuz I barley get paid–ha!)…not to mention that thinking about going into the busy holiday season understaffed is giving me major agita. Losing myself in my kitchen for a bit to make this Chocolate Caramel Chestnut Cake for TWD was a nice distraction, and probably kept my head from exploding.
The first thing I noticed when I looked at the recipe is that this cake has several steps and requires a few unusual ingredients. I’m pretty lucky that I can easily find chestnuts and sweetened chestnut spread without a embarking on a major hunting excursion or having to pay for online shipping. In fact, at Sahadi’s I found cans of the fancypants Clement Faugier spread for about $5–not too shabby, and I should get more before they realize it’s a steal and jack up the price. I’m not super wild about chestnuts, but that spread is so yummy…I have quite a bit leftover, so I’m looking forward to using it in something else soon. Any suggestions?
I split up the work (and the dishes– did I tell you that I have the world’s tiniest sink?) over two days. On night one, I made both the caramel ganache and the glaze. On day two, I baked the cake and assembled the whole shebang. I made half a recipe of cake and glaze, and deciding to go easy on things (yeah, right), just a third of the ganache. To bake the cake, I spread the batter in a quarter-sheet pan (about 9″ x 13″), rather than baking it in a taller square pan. Not only does it cook in less than 20 minutes (instead of almost an hour), but there’s no sawing the cake into layers (I always seem to do a hack-job on that)…just cut the sheet into three strips of equal width and stack with the filling. Easy-peasy.
I looove sparkly things, and actually have a huge collection of luster dusts. After I dusted the whole chestnuts in gold, I couldn’t help but blow the stuff all over the top of the cake, too. Super shimmery. And super tasty. My favorite parts were the end pieces, because they had extra glaze! This is a luxurious (not to mention expensive) cake…seems kind of a shame to not to have made it for a special occasion, but it sure made a crappy week better.
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan(it’s also here on Epicurious). Read Second Dinner, where Katya posted it earlier this month, and don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Cran-Apple Crisps
November 10, 2009 at 11:32 am | Posted in cobbler/crisp/shorties, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 24 Comments
Crisps are the perfect mid-week dessert for lazybones like myself…you don’t really “make” them, you just toss them together. Low effort but high reward– if only everything could be so easy and smell so good! This particular Cran-Apple Crisp topping has coconut in it, which sounds a tad unusual for something that screams autumn, but I thought it worked really well. I try not to buy sweetened coconut if I don’t really need to (it’s just too sweet for me), so I used unsweetened desiccated stuff here. I also swapped a little whole wheat flour for the AP, which I thought complimented the dessert’s rustic nature.
I liked these crisps so much, and they were so quick to throw together, that I did a rare second go-around. This last time, I added an extra handful of cranberries to the mix. I just love the tart little bursts of ruby red– tasty and beautiful!
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, or read The Repressed Pastry Chef, as it was Em’s choice this week. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies
November 3, 2009 at 1:37 am | Posted in cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 41 Comments
You may notice that the TWDers are not all posting the same recipe this week. We’re able to tackle the month’s chosen recipes in any order we like, and I’ve decided to start off with Dorie’s Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies, picked by Pamela of Cookies with Boys. I think I’m easing into November…it’s probably the least complicated of the month’s four recipes to make. But don’t think it’s simple in flavor…molasses adds a complexity you don’t get with white sugar, and the spices here really shine through. It’s a perfect cookie for this time of year. (I am having wicked thoughts of stirring some bittersweet chocolate chips into the dough the next time I make them, though.)
Dorie intends these to be crisp cookies, but mine were soft and chewy. What can I say…I forgot to flatten my balls of dough before putting them in the oven. As a result, they also didn’t spread quite as much. No matter though…crispy or chewy, I like them equally, so I am pretending that they were meant to be that way.
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read Cookies with Boys. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll and see what everyone else made!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Cherry-Fudge Brownie Torte
October 27, 2009 at 1:00 am | Posted in cakes & tortes, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 23 Comments
Let me begin this post with a PSA: Texting while baking can lead to accidents in the kitchen. For instance, if, while you are baking Dorie’s Cherry-Fudge Brownie Torte for TWD, you are also texting one friend about meeting for lunch and another friend about meeting for drinks, it may not register that the recipe calls for cherry preserves and extra chopped chocolate to be stirred into the brownie base . Trust me, I know! Lucky for me it happened with a forgiving cake.
This is definitely a dense and super-rich dessert. The base is essentially a double-height brownie. It was a little too full-on for me, actually. But the mascarpone mousse topping…that is was really nice and light as a feather. While I probably won’t be making this complete dessert again, I think the mousse would make a fantastic cake filling and I’ll keep it in mind.
For the recipe, see Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, or read Short + Rose, as it was April’s choice this week. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
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