Tuesdays with Dorie: Real Butterscotch Pudding
December 23, 2008 at 1:47 am | Posted in groups, pudding/mousse, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 29 Comments
Donna of Spatulas, Corkscrews & Suitcases chose Real Butterscotch Pudding for TWD. Delightful, Donna– how did you know butterscotch is one of my favorite flavors (for candy, ice cream sauce, pudding, whatever)?!? I love the brown sugar sweetness and the boozy kick (I used good ol’ JD here) of this old-fashioned treat.
Usually I just make half-batches of the TWD recipes, but butterscotch is worthy of full-batch treatment, I think! I’ve made butterscotch tarts for you before, so this time I just went with my little old-school Pyrex cups. I did go the extra mile, with whipping up cream and toasting some pecans in butter, brown sugar and a sprinkle of salt. The sweet and salty crunch was perfect with the smooth pudding. The only thing I’ll tweak with Dorie’s recipe next time will be to go half and half on light and dark brown sugar, just to boost the color a bit.
For the recipe, look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. You can find it on Spatulas, Corkscrews & Suitcases, too. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Happy holidays, everyone!!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Buttery Jam Cookies
December 16, 2008 at 1:33 am | Posted in cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 33 Comments
TWD’s holiday cookie extravaganza continues, with Heather of Randomosity and the Girl choosing Buttery Jam Cookies as this week’s recipe. These are pleasantly chewy, sturdy little cookies, with a surprisingly delicate flavor. Lightly sweet and jam-kissed (I used peach-apricot jam from Sarabeth’s), they keep their shape in the oven, so what you scoop is what you get. I’ll certainly make them again– they were perfect with chamomile tea.
For the recipe, look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. You can find it on Randomosity and the Girl, too. Check out the TWD Blogroll to see lots of jammy cookies!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Grandma’s All-Occasion Sugar Cookies
December 9, 2008 at 1:05 am | Posted in cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 45 Comments
For TWD this week, one of my favorite bloggers, Ulrike of Küchenlatein, chose Grandma’s All-Occasion Sugar Cookies. These may technically be “all-occasion,” but I bet that Ulrike knows they’re exactly what Santa hopes to find waiting for him on Christmas Eve.
These are sweet and buttery…great with tea, hot chocolate, eggnog…Thank you, Dorie’s grandma!! You can cut them out in fancy shapes and decorate them a zillion ways, but I took the easy route and just did slice-and-bake. I made a little glaze from powdered sugar and bourbon (naughty but in the nicest way, right?), and shook on some sprinkles.
For the recipe, look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan (she also has it here on The Splendid Table site). You can find it on Küchenlatein, too. Check out the TWD Blogroll to see lots of well-decorated sugar cookies!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Linzer Sablés
December 2, 2008 at 12:34 am | Posted in cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 47 Comments
Seems the next few weeks of TWD will be dedicated to cookies. Very holiday-appropriate, no? Despite my best intentions, I never make a multitude of Christmas cookies…when the time comes, this little elf just doesn’t really feel up to the task, so I guess this will give me a bit of a shove. First up, we have Linzer Sablés, chosen for us by noskos of Living the Life. If you’ve ever had a linzer cookie or torte, you will know that they usually have a pastry made with cinnamon and ground nuts, and some type of jammy filling (often raspberry). I love this combo…I even made linzer cupcakes once.
I think linzer dough is most tasty and flavorful when made with hazelnuts. Alas, I still do not have my food processor, and pre-ground hazelnut meal is hard to find here. Almond meal’s pretty easy to source (I got a nice speckled one, made with skin-on almonds, from TJ’s), so I went with that this go-round.
I made half a batch of dough, but guess I forgot what I was doing when it came time to add the cinnamon. Luckily I caught myself before the full 1 1/2 teaspoons went in, but my dough was dark with the extra spice. It actually had great flavor! I used mixed berry preserves from Sarabeth’s as my filling. I was careful to roll my dough to a thickness 1/4-inch, as Dorie states. After sandwiching the cookies, I wished I’d rolled them thinner. Too much cookie and not enough jam. Next time, I’ll go about 1/8-inch instead.
For the recipe, look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. You can also find it on Living the Life. Check out the TWD Blogroll to find plenty of other baking tips for these cookies!
Tuesdays with Dorie (on Thursday!): Thanksgiving Twofer Pie
November 27, 2008 at 10:42 am | Posted in groups, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 18 Comments
Pumpkin or pecan? Pecan or pumpkin? What to do? Which to eat? If you’re as bad at making these major life decisions as I am, then maybe Dorie’s Thanksgiving Twofer pie (chosen for us by the lovely Vibi of La casserole carrée) is for you. It starts with a pumpkin pie custard, and then gets topped with a pecan pie goo– no need to choose!
Okay, so it is not the most beautiful pie I have ever made (even though I tried to gussy it up with a little powdered sugar for its photo session). No matter– it’s what’s inside that counts, right? And what’s inside is really tasty. To tell the truth, it was not exactly what I was expecting. I thought the two layers would stay separate and distinct. The nuts themselves remained suspended on top, but the pecan goo intermingled with the pumpkin custard…it was really quite delicious, though. I spiked mine with bourbon instead of rum (cause that’s what I like with pecan pie), and piled the whipped cream high!
I made half a recipe and used my new cute little red dish. Tracy from Cake Batter and Crumbs sent it to me, and I just love it!! My only beef with Dorie’s recipe is that it took much longer to bake than she indicated, even with the small size. I kept upping the oven timer…five more minutes, five more minutes. I feel like I did it a zillion times, but I probably tacked on an extra 15 to 20 minutes in all. I was a little worried it was overkill and that I’d wind up with a curdled mess, but I can give thanks that my Thanksgiving pie came out just right.
I wish all of my American friends a safe and happy Thanksgiving! Even though everything feels a bit more challenging this year than last, everyday (and with every news broadcast) I’m reminded of just how much I have to be thankful for. For the pie recipe, look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. You can also find it in Vibi’s post. Check out the TWD Blogroll to find plenty of other baking tips for this pie!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Arborio Rice Pudding
November 18, 2008 at 1:42 am | Posted in groups, pudding/mousse, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 41 Comments
Isabelle of Les gourmandises d’Isa chose Dorie’s Arborio Rice Pudding for this week’s TWD. Cool and creamy, I’m a huge fan of rice pudding…but I don’t make it often, so I was really looking forward to Isa’s pick!
Dorie’s recipe calls for parboiling arborio rice, the type often used in risotto, before cooking it down in sweetened milk. By the way, if you have her book, you will see the cooking time listed as 30 minutes…after some reading some tales of rice soup on the TWD comment board, Dorie herself told our group that this is an error. Cooking time is more like 55 minutes. She only uses 1/4 cup of rice for four servings (and 3 1/4 cups milk). I like my rice pudding, well, ricey, so I doubled the amount of arborio, keeping the milk the same. Doing this cut my cooking time dramatically, as the extra rice absorbed the liquid pretty quickly. The trick to a creamy (instead of stiff) rice pudding is to cut off the heat when you can begin to see the grains of rice peeking through the liquid. The rice won’t have absorbed all the milk…the mixture will still look relatively loose, but as it chills in the fridge, the starch should thicken it up nicely.
My mum puts rum into her rice pudding (ahh…fond childhood memories!). I love it that way, but I haven’t rebuilt my liquor stash just yet. Instead, I steeped two cardamom pods in the milk, and stirred in a healthy dose of vanilla extract and some dried cherries at the end. This was a tasty treat. The arborio held its shape and texture without turning to mush, and the milk thickened into a cardamom-perfumed cream.
The recipe, of course, is in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. You can also find it in Isabelle’s post. Check out the TWD Blogroll to see what the rest of the group had to say!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Kugelhopf (or Kugel-loaf??)
November 11, 2008 at 2:59 am | Posted in groups, sweet things, sweet yeast breads, tuesdays with dorie | 47 Comments
Yolanda, The All-Purpose Girl, chose Kugelhopf for TWD this week. Kugelhopf is made from a yeast dough, and I don’t have my KitchenAid– ack! In the absence of a dough hook, I knew I’d have to make a wooden spoon do the trick…something I was not looking forward to, trust me. Turns out, it was pretty easily do-able by hand, especially since I made half a recipe. Barely even broke a sweat. The kitchen in this place is pretty warm, so the dough rose nicley without me having to stress too much about what was (or wasn’t) going on inside the bowl.
Kugelhopf is traditionally baked in a special turban-shaped tube pan. I actually looked in several shops for a kugelhopf pan that would hold a half recipe, but I couldn’t find the right size…everything was too big. I decided that the half-sized loaf pan I already own would make a fine substitute.
Dorie says that kugelhopf is “part bread, part cake.” That may be true, but I definitely think that bread is the dominant gene here. Soft, sweet bread, with a beautiful golden sugary crust. I used dried cherries instead of raisins in mine. A little pat of butter, a sprinkle of powdered sugar, and yum-yum.
The recipe, of course, is in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. You can also find it here and in Yolanda’s post. Check out the TWD Blogroll to see what the rest of the group had to say!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Rugelach
November 4, 2008 at 1:10 am | Posted in cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 55 Comments
We have made it back to New York, safe and sound. Thanks so much for all the well-wishes in the past few posts! Hopefully I’ll be able to get back to a more regular blog-checking schedule now. We’re staying in a temporary furnished apartment all the way downtown in the Financial District. Strange place to live, but hopefully we’ll find a “real” apartment of our own soon. At least this place has a big oven, so I was able to crank out the Rugelach that Grace of Piggy’s Cooking Journal chose for TWD this week.
I don’t have any fond childhood memories or stories of rugelach. In fact, I’d never had them before I moved to New York, and I’d never made them myself till the other day. If you’re not too familiar with rugelach either, it’s basically a cream cheese pastry that’s rolled out, schmeared with a sweet filling, and rolled up. They kinda look like mini croissants, no?
Dorie suggests using the food processor to bring the dough together. I won’t see my Cuisinart anytime soon (it’s been living in a storage facility, along with all my plug-in kitchen appliances, in New Jersey for the past couple of years), so I made it by hand…just a half recipe. It was super-easy, too. Rather than using cold butter and cream cheese, I brought them to cool room temperature, then just used my right hand to squish them together with the dry ingredients. No utensils needed, and very little chance of overworking the dough.
You can be really flexible with rugelach filling. I used apricot jam, cinnamon sugar, walnuts and dried cherries. You can use whatever jam you like (or no jam at all), different nuts, different dried fruits…Dorie even adds chocolate. I left that out of mine because I don’t like fruit and chocolate combos. I made a bit too much cinnamon sugar, so I sprinkled a little extra on top before baking. It’s important to chop up the chunky ingredients, like nuts and fruit, pretty well, because big bits can make the cookies hard to roll up neatly.
I think they came out quite cute, if I do say so myself. After rolling the cookies into crescents, I stuck them in the fridge for a couple hours. That way, they were nice and firm, and held together well in the oven. There was a little jam leakage out the sides, but nothing major, and I was able to pick it off when I lifted them off the sheet tray. These cookies are just lighty sweet from the filling (the dough has no sugar at all), and really good with the warm beverage of your choice. I think I’m gonna put a few of these in a baggie and munch on them while I wait in line to VOTE today!!
The recipe, of course, is in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, but she also has it here on NPR’s site. And for some extra rugelach tips and flavor suggestions, read this post on Dorie’s site. Don’t forget to read Grace’s write-up and check out the TWD Blogroll to see what a zillion-trillion other people had to say!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Chocolate-Chocolate Cupcakes
October 28, 2008 at 4:56 am | Posted in cupcakes, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 38 Comments
Growing up, Halloween was totally my favorite holiday (or sort-of holiday, really). I was like Linus, waiting all year for the Great Pumpkin to appear. I went trick-or-treating long after I really should have stopped…until I was 16! Every year, when I would get home with my loot, I’d go immediately to my bedroom, tip the contents of my plastic pumpkin onto the floor and form a sort of crude candy hierarchy out of it. Things like raisins, Raisinets, Chunky Bars and Good ‘N Plenty went immediately to my parents. Then the chocolate bars were divided into order of preference– Kit Kats, Twix, Charleston Chew and Reese’s were at the top of the heap. From the “other” category, I was a special fan of rootbeer Dum Dums and Now and Laters. I wouldn’t gorge on the candy, but it eat it slowly and methodically over the month of November…the whole process seems quite demented now that I think about it.
When Clara of I Heart Food4Thought asked us to put a costume on the Chocolate-Chocolate Cupcakes she’d chosen for TWD, I was happy to get in the spirit of things, so to speak. I was chin-deep in packing materials when I made these, however, so I didn’t have too much time for creativity– thank goodness for colored sprinkles!
If you have Dorie’s book, you may notice that my cupcakes don’t look quite the same as hers, and it’s not just that mine are crawling with spiders! I finally polished off a bag of white chocolate pistoles, that had been my life’s mission to use up before I left Sydney, by making white chocolate frosting instead of dark. (That accomplished, I’ll now have to find a new, and hopefully less frivolous, life’s mission.) I didn’t actually measure the powdered sugar in the frosting recipe…just kept adding until it was spreadable.
These were good…nothing life-altering, buy hey, they’re just simple chocolate cupcakes after all. I’d make them again, though, for sure. Do test them early, as there were several reports of dry cupcakes in the TWD group…I pulled mine from the oven about two minutes before the recommended time, and they were just fine. For the recipe, look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, or read CB’s post. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll to see what over 250 other people had to say! Happy Halloween!!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Pumpkin Muffins
October 21, 2008 at 5:14 am | Posted in breakfast things, groups, muffins/quick breads, tuesdays with dorie | 52 Comments
It’s spring-time warm here, and pumpkin would be the last thing on my mind if it weren’t for the fact that Kelly of Sounding My Barbaric Gulp chose these muffins for TWD. I’d actually better get used to the idea of cool weather foods, and quick, because come Friday, I’ll be back in the States! That’s right–this is my last TWD from Oz…I’ve already done next week’s recipe, but I won’t be able to post “early” anymore. Boo.
I’ve never noticed canned (or tinned) pumpkin in Australian grocery stores. Maybe I’ve been looking in the wrong aisle, I don’t know, but I assume it’s just not popular here. I would have had to roast and mash my own if I hadn’t had a can of Libby’s that I brought back from home. As an aside, which my American friends may or may not find interesting, all the hard-skinned gourds are referred to as “pumpkin” here (not just the orange ones that I think of in the US). For instance, I’ve gotten used to calling butternut a pumpkin, not a squash.
So, armed with my Libby’s, I was ready to tackle Dorie’s muffin recipe. I started by dividing it half (to make just six) and replacing the raisins with dried cranberries. Then I decided to skimp on the butter a bit, leaving out one tablespoon and replacing it with an additional tablespoon of buttermilk. The baked muffins were moist and soft, so I never even noticed that bit of butter was missing. What was missing, though, were the nuts! I had the exact amount of walnuts needed for this…they were right there on the counter…and that’s where they stayed. Oops! Early morning baking is apparently not my forte. Oh well–they found a new home in a spinach salad instead.
I can’t say that I ever crave pumpkin muffins, but I liked these a lot. I’ll make them again if I have an open can that needs to be used up. Next time, I’ll be sure to remember the nuts!
For the recipe, look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read Kelly’s post. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll to see what close to 300 other people had to say!
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