Tuesdays with Dorie: Lenox Almond Biscotti
October 14, 2008 at 4:28 am | Posted in cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 60 Comments
Is this picture ridiculous? Of course I did not store the Lenox Almond Biscotti I made for TWD in this jar. I couldn’t close the lid without destroying them. That would be dumb, possibly even self-defeating. I just need better props.
Anyway, we have Gretchen of Canela & Comino to thank for this week’s recipe choice. I knew before baking these biscotti that they would go over well. R, being the good half-Sicilian that he is, loves crunchy, almondy Italian bakery cookies.
You probably know that biscotti are sturdy, crunchy and “twice baked”…they first go into the oven as large log to set the dough, and then again when that dough is sliced into individual cookies. During the first bake, my biscotti log certainly spread, as I knew it should, but it didn’t poof. The finished product was much flatter than I expected or hoped. I decided to cut them a little wider to compensate for their sad, deflated look. I must have done something screwy, because I’ve seen others make this recipe with picture-perfect results. I was kind of pissed at myself, but they tasted *fantastic*, so I got over it soon enough.
I definitely had to increase the times for both the the first and second bakes…I can’t really tell you how much extra time I added, but for the first bake, I left the log in the oven until it no longer had visible raw spots. For the second bake, I made sure the slices were crisped through before taking them out of the oven.
I followed Dorie’s cue to add a couple extras to the dough…a big pinch of cinnamon (that was for Gretchen, although I chickened out on the cumin!) and a handful of white chocolate chunks (there is still a tiny bit left in the bag). The full amount of almond extract sounded quite overpowering, and too much can be a little artificial-tasting, I think, so I did choose to go skimpy on that. Also, I used slivered almonds instead of sliced, because that’s what’s I had.
The finished cookies were crunchy and craggy– perfect with coffee, or with ice cream! Quite sweet, too, but then again I did add white chocolate. The cornmeal in the recipe gives a golden boost to the color of the cookie dough, and a rustic, gritty crunch (which I like, but I know some aren’t crazy about).
For the recipe, look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan (she also has it here on NPR’s website) or read Gretchen’s post. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll to see what over 250 other people had to say!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Caramel-Peanut-Topped Brownie Cake
October 7, 2008 at 5:11 am | Posted in cakes & tortes, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 63 Comments
My blog buddy Tammy of Wee Treats by Tammy picked a winning recipe for this week’s TWD–Dorie’s Caramel-Peanut-Topped Brownie Cake. These are three good things that go well together, let me tell you!
Although it’s called a “brownie cake,” it’s not as dense and fudgy as a brownie. It definitely has a cake-like crumb, but is quite moist. (Mine dipped a little in the center as it cooled, but Dorie suggests that that’s normal.) I’m running a little low on vanilla extract, and trying to save my last few drops for something where it’s really needed. Here I replaced it with a sprinkle of instant espresso and a splash of Kahlua added to the warm melted chocolate and butter. I often put espresso powder in my brownies, so hey, why not here?
You can probably tell from the top picture that I made a half-recipe (a 6-incher). I made even less caramel…I figured 1/3 of the full amount was all I’d really need. Rather than pour the caramel-peanut sauce over the whole cake, I spooned it over the cut slices. That way I could easily (and cleanly) wrap and save the remaining cake overnight.
Sweet and salty, this has all the flavors of a yummy candy bar! For the recipe, look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read Tammy’s post. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll to see what over 250 other people had to say!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Wattleseed Crème Brûlée
September 30, 2008 at 9:15 am | Posted in groups, pudding/mousse, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 54 Comments
Who doesn’t like crème brûlée? At every restaurant I’ve worked in, if brûlée is on the dessert menu, it outsells all the rest. Although I’m not so keen to order it myself (other things always seem much more interesting), I do like it, too. With that crunchy caramelized top, and silky smooth custard, how could I not? It’s Mevrouw Cupcake Mari’s choice for TWD this week.
Dorie’s recipe is unusual, in that, instead of baking the custards in a water bath at about 300°F, they’re baked at a much lower 200°F, without water. I was a little skeptical, but they set up nicely in about 50 minutes. I don’t have proper crème brûlée dishes so I used little teacups instead.
I flavored my brûlées with ground wattleseed, which I steeped in the warm milk and cream (one teaspoon for the two servings I made). The wattleseed gave it a lovely color and taste, much like café au lait. And then of course, there is the sugary top…
For the recipe, look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read Mevrouw Cupcake. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll to see what over 250 other people had to say!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Dimply Peach Cake
September 23, 2008 at 5:49 am | Posted in breakfast things, cakes & tortes, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 49 Comments
Michelle of Bake-En selected Dorie’s Dimply Plum Cake for this week’s TWD. I’ve read about this little breakfast cake all over the place, so I was really looking forward to trying it. Unfortunately, stone fruits are not in season just yet here in Australia. I had to take what I could get on this one, and what I could get were a couple of rock-hard peaches. I stuck ’em in a paper bag and crossed my fingers that they’d ripen after a few days.
Well, they didn’t really ripen at all, and frankly I was surprised that I could even get the pits out, but I charged ahead with my out of season fruit anyway. I went with one of Dorie’s “playing around” suggestions and added a few shredded basil leaves instead of citrus zest to the cake batter. I kept in the cardamom, which is a spice I love, and added a pinch of cinnamon, too. To try and help the crunchy peaches along a bit, I sprinkled each exposed half with sugar just before putting the cake in the oven, and then a couple more times during the baking process as well.
Such a cute cake– I loved the fruity dimples, and the peach halves looked almost like hearts! What I’ve hidden from you in these photos, though, is a little patch of raw batter left under each peach half. Drat– I couldn’t get that part to cook through for the life of me! In a flash of genius while taking these photos, I thought that if I flipped the individual slices upside-down on a baking sheet and stuck them under the broiler for a minute, I cook get the raw bits to firm up. And it worked! (That technique might get a little messy with a whole large cake.) There was no time to take extra pics, however, as the coffee was good to go, and R was grumbling that breakfast was already taking too long.
I made half a recipe and baked it in a standard-sized loaf pan. Leftovers weren’t a problem, as R and I polished off the whole thing in one sitting! The peaches did sweeten and soften nicely in the oven (I do think the sugar sprinklings helped), and I loved the warm, spicy cardamom flavor. Although R was initially suspicious, the basil was a really nice touch, too…I should bake with herbs more often.
For the recipe, look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan (she also has it on Serious Eats) or read Bake-En. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll to see what over 250 other people had to say!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Chocolate Chunkers
September 16, 2008 at 4:15 am | Posted in cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 54 Comments
Just reading the recipe for this cookie is enough to make you grab a tube of Clearasil and apply a proactive smear all over your face. You may initially feel relief upon only seeing 3 tablespoons of butter, but look a little closer, and you’ll see 1+(6×3)=19…19 ounces of chocolate! This cookie is basically bits of chocolate held together with a smidge of brownie batter. Before you think I’m poo-pooing the Chocolate Chunkers (did someone say poo-poo? hmmm…I won’t go any further, but I think you know what I mean), let me make it clear that they are insanely good! Thanks to Claudia of Fool for Food for picking it for TWD this week! And a special shout-out to Mari…I did totally copycat you with the cooling rack thing (although yours is cuter!). What can I say? I am out of ideas for cookie photography at this point.
This recipe is easily divides in half, but I toughed out the math to cut it down to just a third. I didn’t want to blow my whole chocolate stash in one swoop. Dorie notes that good chocolate is a must here, and she ain’t kidding. For the label-curious, I used cocoa powder by Valrhona, bittersweet by Scharffen Berger, unsweetened (well, really 85%) by Lindt, milk by Green & Black’s and white by Belcolade. Semisweet was also in the recipe, but I don’t have any, so I used a bittersweet/milk combo instead. It’s not all chocolate in here, though…there are nuts and dried fruit going on, too. I decided to toss in coconut flakes rather than raisins, which I don’t like, and toasted almonds. The whole thing was deliciuosly Almond Joy-esq.
A couple of observations…if you chill this dough, it becomes rock-hard! For easier shaping, and the well-being of your cookie scoop, you may want to let it come to room temp before digging into it. Also, my cookies didn’t want to flatten at all in the oven, so at the half-way point I helped them out by giving them a gentle smoosh with a silicone spatula.
Look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read Claudia’s post to find the recipe. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll to see what over 250 other people had to say!
P.S.: This week I’m Port Douglas, Queensland. I know, I know…I’ve been travelling a lot lately. Back over the weekend!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops
September 9, 2008 at 5:20 am | Posted in cookies & bars, events, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 63 Comments
We had a great week in New Zealand…the South Island is so beautiful, with so many different landscapes, it almost doesn’t look real in some places. And the baby sheep (otherwise known as lambs, I guess)–heart-meltingly cute! Lots of good food and vino, too (so much that, even though we brought back several bottles of wine, I am on the wagon for the next couple weeks). Should you ever go to Christchurch, do yourself a favor and check out Restaurant Schwass. Same goes for Gibb’s Vineyard Restaurant in Blenheim in the Marlborough wine region.
Enough rambling–on to the cookies! Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops are the TWD choice of Rachel from Confessions of a Tangerine Tart. These cookies are really Maltesers drops, the brand of malt ball sold here. A lot of people say they are better than Whoppers, but I haven’t had a Whopper in a very long time, so I can neither confirm nor deny this. (If you live in Brooklyn, though, the dark chocolate espresso malt balls sold at Two For the Pot on Clinton Street are most definitely the best ever!) I was pleased to notice a dark version of Maltesers, and that’s what I used here.
I, of course, only made half a batch of cookies, and they were a bit of a test-kitchen experiment for me. I don’t have any malted milk powder, and I wasn’t about to buy a big canister of Milo or Ovaltine just to make cookies. I do, though, have barley malt syrup and powdered milk, so for my half-batch I used 1/2 cup of powdered milk and 2 teaspoons of malt syrup in place of the malt powder. Luckily, they were not a total mess! Malt syrup is strong stuff, and the flavor here is definitely noticeable. I did do something that some may consider a sin–I cut back the amount of chopped malt balls and chocolate chunks (for which I used white instead of dark) by about 25%. It was still plenty, trust me, but I guess that’s why I don’t see as many chunky bits on the surface of mine as in Dorie’s book picture.
The first night, we ate them straight up, and they were so soft and chewy that R commented that they would be the perfect ice cream sandwich cookie. Well, I can’t ignore a comment like that, so the next day I made a batch of vanilla malted ice cream. He was right–they were great, albeit a little drippy.
Look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read Confessions of a Tangerine Tart to find the recipe. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll to see what over 250 other people had to say!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Chunky Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Chocolate Chipsters
September 2, 2008 at 4:09 am | Posted in cookies & bars, events, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 43 Comments
This week for TWD, Stefany of Proceed with Caution chose these Chunky Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Chocolate Chipsters. They combine the best bits of all my favorite cookies, and even have a little spice in there, too!
Since more cookies are on the baking horizon, I made just a quarter recipe. I have a lot of half-used bits of chocolate floating around, so I put milk chocolate chunks instead of bittersweet in these, purely for the satisfaction of finishing off a bar.
They came out great, thankfully. Anytime I have to bake with my precious stash of Jif (which I bring back on trips the States), I sweat a little that the recipe will be a bomb. The PB is subtle in flavor, but the cookies really smell peanuty, and the little bit of cinnamon and nutmeg gives them a warm flavor. I baked mine on the low end of the recommended time, so they’d stay a little soft, which is how I prefer a chocolate chip cookie to be. Dorie notes that these are great cookies to make ice cream sandwiches with. I totally bet she’s right, but I didn’t have the stomach (or maybe too much of the stomach is really my problem) to try that out!
I’m actually in New Zealand for most of the week and may not be able to go through the TWD Blogroll myself, but you should definitely check it out! And look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read Proceed with Caution to find the recipe for these cookies.
Tuesdays with Dorie: Chocolate-Banded Ice Cream Torte
August 26, 2008 at 4:36 am | Posted in groups, ice creams & frozen, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 54 Comments
I’m just going to admit that I almost pooped out on TWD this week. I’ve been feeling a little weighed down lately, ya know, and I wasn’t so sure that something called a “Chocolate-Banded Ice Cream Torte” was really going to help. But then I felt guilty…I haven’t missed a week for no good reason yet, and thought it best not to go down that road. Besides, I didn’t want to let down Amy of Food, Family and Fun, who chose this week’s recipe. The deal I struck with myself was to make just two individual servings– one for R and one for me.
I knew that my solo portions wouldn’t need to be as tall as Dorie’s large torte, so I could get away with less of everything. I made just 1/8 of the ganache recipe (or enough for one Dorie-sized serving), and divvied it up between my two little molds, which were actually sturdy, straight sided muffin wrappers. (FYI: The truffle cream does use raw eggs, so if you are sensitive to that, then you may want to skip this recipe or seek out pasteurized eggs, or do whatever you would normally do in this case.) Dorie uses raspberry-flavored ice cream in her torte, but I can’t say that I’ve ever been a fan of fruit and chocolate combos. Instead, I bought two scoops of condensed milk ice cream from a Sydney shop called Passion Flower, which has lots of cool Asian-inspired flavors (I wasn’t sure how black sesame or taro would pair with chocolate, so I played it safe). Back at home, I ground up some hazelnut praline, leftover from this cake, and stirred that in to the ice cream.
The key to serving a frozen dessert like this is to it pull it out of the freezer and let it temper on the counter a few minutes beforehand. Obviously you don’t want it to start melting, but if the ice cream begins to soften just a tad, it’s much more pleasant to eat and will actually taste better, too.
I’m so glad I pulled my head out from you-know-where and got this one done! It was fantastic, and a bit more classy than the normal mid-week dessert around these parts. The chocolate ganache doesn’t freeze solid, but becomes almost chewy when cold. And I really loved it in combination with the hazelnut praline, which retained its sweet crunch in the ice cream.
Look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read Food, Family and Fun to find the recipe. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll to see what over 250 other people had to say!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Granola Grabbers
August 19, 2008 at 5:46 am | Posted in cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 46 Comments
Granola Grabbers– I feel so wholesome. Perhaps Michelle of Bad Girl Baking was going for that good, clean feeling when she chose these for TWD this week.
Whether you are trying to satisfy the after-school crowd, or are just trying to put aside those impure thoughts you’ve been having about Gael García Bernal ever since watching The Motorcycle Diaries a few days ago, these will do the trick. These chubby little cookies are loaded with granola (of course), wheat germ, nuts, coconut and raisins (or dried cranberries, in my case). I also added a pinch of cinnamon to mine. They are chewy, but the granola also makes them crunchy…a very pleasant combination of textures. I only made a third of a recipe, and I briefly thought about patting the dough into a loaf pan and making bars instead, but I have definitely not been getting my recommended daily dose of cookies lately.
Look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or on Bad Girl Baking to find the recipe for Granola Grabbers. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll to see what over 200 other people had to say!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Blueberry-Sour Cream Ice Cream
August 12, 2008 at 5:22 am | Posted in groups, ice creams & frozen, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 64 Comments
I’m back from Hawaii…a couple days in Oahu, a couple Kauai, but most of our time was spent on the Big Island, where my dad’s side of the family descended upon Kona for my uncle’s wedding. I’m sure the area is still recovering from the W family whirlwind. It was a lot of fun, and I have a face full of freckles and a mind full of good memories to show for it. One night, I even had a mai tai for each of you! Trust me when I say that I paid a stiff price for it the next day!
I’ve returned just in time to make blueberry sour-cream ice cream, this week’s TWD recipe, which comes to us courtesy of Dolores from Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity. I was pretty jazzed about this recipe, not only because I jump at any excuse to use my KA ice cream attachment, but also because one of my favorite homemade fruit ice cream recipes is a strawberry-sour cream ice cream I found in Sunset magazine many moons ago. I just love the tang that a whomp of sour cream gives!
This ice cream recipe was pretty simple…no eggs, no making custard, no straining. I used frozen blueberries to make the base. I thought the end product had pretty good flavor, but decided to amp it up a bit before serving with a simple sauce made from, you guessed it, frozen mixed berries.
Dorie notes that this this ice cream is firm in texture. On the day I made it, we ate some within a few hours, when it had that gorgeously soft, smooth feel to it. But on the second day, it was more rock hard than just firm, even after sitting out for awhile. I find that to be a bit unpleasant, and usually put a teeny pinch of xanthan gum, which I get at the health food store, into my homemade ice creams to keep it scoopable for a few days (just a pinch, so it’s never gummy like some store-bought stuff). I was a little PO’d with myself for forgetting it here. If I make this again, I’ll wait till fresh berries are in season and I’ll add a pinch of xanthan gum at the point where the berries are just cooked and still hot.
Look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity to find the recipe. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll to see what over 200 other people had to say!
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