Tuesdays with Dorie DAC: Baked-in-a-Skillet Gingerbread
December 16, 2025 at 4:16 pm | Posted in cakes & tortes, DAC, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 5 CommentsTags: baking, cake
Gingerbread is one of my most favorite holiday treats. It can come in many forms, not just cookie versus cake, and I’m here for all of them. On the cake side, I’m used to gingerbread being dark and moody, heavy on the molasses, and sometimes even boosted with coffee. This Baked-in-a-Skillet Gingerbread is less molasses-forward and more spice-forward, zippy with bits of candied ginger.
The batter contains a surprise ingredient that threw me for a loop, especially since I didn’t bother to read the recipe until I was just about to make it! Apple butter isn’t a pantry staple for me, and I didn’t really want to go and get it just for this, nor did I feel like making it. I was contemplating substituting it with banana-data puree, but then as I was rummaging through my cabinet looking for last year’s jar of molasses, I found something else I bought last year– a seasonal pumpkin spice spread from Bonne Maman that I had big plans to use, and then, of course, never did. Problem sorted– I used that. (Now I have 3/4 of an open jar left to contend with, however.)
Sometimes I think the “skillet-baked” sweets thing is mostly a gimmick, but here I think baking it this way gives a nice crust to the gingerbread. This is a dense cake, not dry, but certainly not damp, and it lasts for days. It reminds me of some Scandinavian-style gingerbreads I’ve had, and it’s only as I type this that I wonder if that’s why Dorie suggests topping it with Swedish pearl sugar…
If you don’t have the book Dorie’s Anytime Cakes by Dorie Greenspan, get it and join us as we bake through it every third Tuesday of the month. 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: Pistachio-Matcha Financiers
December 9, 2025 at 8:48 pm | Posted in BWD, cakes & tortes, cookies & bars, general pastry, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 3 CommentsTags: baking, cookies
To me, financiers represent a “quiet luxury” of the pastry world. Classic, timeless, but understated, you have to be in the know to recognize just how rich and indulgent they are. These Pistachio-Matcha Financiers are spendy treats to be sure, made with lots of butter and pistachios, but compared to so many of the pastries going viral today, they are not in-your-face flashy.
Dorie parks this recipe in the cookie chapter, but financiers, like madeleines, are soft and cake-like. While they are traditionally made in rectangular bar molds, these are baked in a mini muffin tin. I have a mini muffin pan that makes 24 baby cakes. This recipe yields 28, which would require me to cool, wash, dry and re-butter and flour my tin to get the few extra. Guess what I’m not doing. That…I’m not doing that. I’m doing math instead. I went with 2/3 the recipe, which just used a full stick of butter and made 18 or so. (To be fair, I could have made the full recipe and easily baked off the extra blob of batter in one of my little individual pie tins to make a tiny cake, but the smaller amount of financiers was plenty.)
I always associate financiers with browned butter, although Dorie only states to bring it to a boil here. I did decide to take my butter to a light, early-stage browning. Dressed up in white chocolate glaze and freeze dried raspberry crumbles, the finished financiers are perfect festive treats to serve to a discerning crowd.
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: My Favorite Pumpkin Pie
November 29, 2025 at 7:15 pm | Posted in BWD, groups, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 4 CommentsTags: baking, holiday, pie
Thanksgiving was a couple of days ago now, and I just finished off the last remaining slice of My Favorite Pumpkin Pie…eaten directly from the pie plate, of course. This is a rich pie, with lots of cream and sour cream in the pumpkin custard. Dorie’s favorite does away with the traditional cinnamon-based pumpkin pie spice blend (although you can certain substitute it), and replaces it with ginger and star anise. I do like the flavor of star anise but I swapped it for cloves, my favorite, non-negotiable spice in a pumpkin pie. I had an extra round of Sour Cream Pie Dough in the freezer after making the Double-Pear Picnic Pie, and used that for the crust.
I did use the corrected version of this recipe (see below for link), but my pie cracked a little anyway. No matter– the filling was very smooth and the crack miraculously disappeared with a big bloop of whipped cream on top. I pretended like it never happened and totally got away with it.
This recipe is in Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan, but it contains an error and the corrected version can be found here. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll over on Tuesdays with Dorie!
Tuesdays with Dorie DAC: Fall Harvest Cake
November 18, 2025 at 9:55 am | Posted in cakes & tortes, DAC, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 8 CommentsTags: baking, cake
The most fun thing about making this Fall Harvest Cake is that you get to choose what you “harvest” to put in it. Pick some fresh fruit, pick some dried fruit, pick a nut, pick a glaze– it’s like the ultimate “playing around” cake, and I think you’d have to try hard to choose a combo that didn’t work well.
The base for this bounty of fruit and nuts is a sturdy but moist olive oil cake. It’s easily whisked together by hand, and I made it even easier by making it a one bowl affair. A couple of days before I baked this cake, I happened to have devoted a few hours to poaching several quince. Rather than apple or pear, I used slices of sweet, deeply rosy quince that I cut into chunks. For my other add-ins I used seedless red grapes, candied orange peel, dried cranberries and the last dregs from bag of sliced almonds. Quince has a lot of natural pectin, and its poaching liquid basically gels into a glaze when it cools, so I just used that to add some shine and extra fall fruitiness to the top of my baked cake.
Wow, was this good. I don’t do too much baking with grapes, but Dorie’s right that they are a surprise treat here. This cake stayed soft and delicious for four days on my counter (my kitchen has basically zero climate control and is as cold as a root cellar in the fall and winter, else I may have chosen to refrigerate it if keeping it that long).
If you don’t have the book Dorie’s Anytime Cakes by Dorie Greenspan, get it and join us as we bake through it every third Tuesday of the month. 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-Pear Picnic Pie
October 28, 2025 at 7:08 pm | Posted in BWD, groups, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 5 CommentsTags: baking, pie
Even if it’s gotten too chilly for me to bring this Double-Pear Picnic Pie to the park for a long, lazy lunch spread out on a blanket, I do love the idea of a picnic pie. It’s really a slab pie– double-crusted, baked in a sheet tray– and only the second one I think I’ve baked (here’s the first). This has two layers of Sour Cream Pie Dough with a layer of “double-pear” (fresh and dried) filling in between. This filling is a bit trickier than an apple pie filling, in that a) fresh pears can take forever and a day to ripen, and b) dried pears are a bit of a niche item. During the six days my Bartlett pears sat in a paper bag on the counter, I had plenty of time to scour Brooklyn for dried pears. Finally, I found them at one of those bulk nut shops and brought home just a small quantity.
Assembly went fine, and I made a half-recipe in a little eighth size sheet tray. A couple of minutes after I put the pie in the oven, I had a bit of a freakout that I’d forgotten to put thickener in the pear filling. I checked over the recipe and there was no mention of any overlooked flour or cornstarch, so I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe the marmalade in the filling helps thicken it? Maybe the slab format (thin layer of fruit, spread over a large surface area) allows for more moisture evaporation? I’m not sure, but the finished pie was anything but a hot mess. Just a few juicy burbles escaped the slits in the crust. By the following day, the crust had gotten a bit soft, but eaten with vanilla ice cream, I don’t think anyone cared.
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 DAC: Cocoa-Swirled Pumpkin Bundt
October 21, 2025 at 12:01 am | Posted in bundt cakes, cakes & tortes, DAC, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 6 CommentsTags: baking, cake
Dorie must have sensed that we’ve almost polished off the cake section of BWD, because she’s come out with a whole new book of simple cakes with interesting flavors to keep us TWDers busy for another few years. Dorie’s Anytime Cakes is out today, and we are celebrating with a festive bundt! This Cocoa-Swirled Pumpkin Bundt is our first recipe from the new book, and also the first real fall vibes recipe I’ve made this year.
This bundt is a moist, spiced pumpkin cake with a sweet cocoa swirl running through the middle like a little smile. I made the Glossy Chocolate Glaze to drizzle over the top, but then accidentally let it rest in the bowl until it cooled more to a spreadable consistency than a pouring one. Still tasty, no worries. It’s a perfect cake to keep on the counter for a few days, helping yourself to a slice here and there. Dorie intends all the recipes in the book to be “kitchen cakes”…easy to make, good to eat, comforting to have around…just like this one. Maybe I need to get a cake dome?
If you don’t have the book Dorie’s Anytime Cakes by Dorie Greenspan, get it and join us as we bake through it every third Tuesday of the month. 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 Food Party Cake
September 23, 2025 at 4:18 pm | Posted in BWD, cakes & tortes, groups, layer cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 4 CommentsTags: baking, cake
Sure, this Devil’s Food Party Cake would be great for a birthday, but if it’s just a regular Tuesday, the cake is the party. I love a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting…on my dessert top five, for sure. Both the cake and the frosting here are made with cocoa powder instead of melted chocolate, which Dorie says makes everything profoundly chocolatey. That’s all I need to know to start snipping up a stack of parchment rounds.
I cut the 8-inch cake recipe in half to make a 6-incher, my regular move when I’m just slicing for the two of us. I divided the batter between three pans instead of two, for slightly thinner layers without having to split them in half (which stresses me out, tbh). Because even a small cake lasts several days for us, I brushed the layers with coffee liqueur as I stacked them with the tasty American-style cocoa buttercream. This bit of brushed on liquid helps keep cake from drying out as it sits.
Some TWDers said their cakes came out dense and fudgy. I wouldn’t say that about mine, as it was soft, but it did have what I’d call a tight texture that made barely any crumbs when cut. Maybe slicing the layers in half wouldn’t’t have been too painful after all. I decorated my cake with some giant malt balls I had in the cupboard. This was a just the thing to make the week feel like a celebration!
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: Tenderest Shortbread Four Ways (the rye-chocolate way)
September 9, 2025 at 12:47 pm | Posted in BWD, cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 5 CommentsTags: baking, cookies
Dorie says to bake the Tenderest Shortbread you need to make the dough with powdered sugar, egg yolks, and of course lots of butter. She gives four different flavor options for these sablé-like cookies, and I made the Rye-Chocolate Shortbread version, not only because I will rarely pass up chocolate if it’s an option, but also because I really do like the flavor from a bit of whole grain flour in baking. I can’t help myself from adding flakey salt to just about every cookie I make, even though they probably could have handled a sprinkling of coarse sugar instead, as they aren’t very sweet. They are melt-in-your-mouth, as Dorie says, but they are also good keepers– perfect for cookie tin coffee treats!
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: Park Avenue Brownies
July 9, 2025 at 7:09 pm | Posted in BWD, cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 5 CommentsTags: baking, cookies
Dorie says these Park Avenue Brownies are named after the “rich and slim” Upper East Side crowd. I think they were made to be packed up in a picnic basket, shuttled uptown and enjoyed in Central Park. Chocolaty and fudgy, everyone who likes brownies will like these.
I made a half recipe in a loaf pan. I go for nuts in my brownies, and here, I added walnuts and flaky salt to the top. I made these a couple of years ago, too, and topped them then with sea salt and pecans. I like to take my brownie slab and, as soon as it’s cool enough to lift out of the pan (but still warm), pop it in the fridge on a cutting board for a couple of hours. Someone I used to work for taught me that…it does seem to make the brownie texture set up really nicely, and of course, brownies cut so sharply when chilled.
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: Double-Chocolate Rhubarb Tart
June 10, 2025 at 7:18 am | Posted in BWD, groups, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 8 CommentsTags: baking, pie
I’m not the biggest fan of fruit and chocolate combos, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised from time to time so I try to keep an open mind when these recipes pop up. The Double-Chocolate Rhubarb Tart, though, presented a mix my brain would not have thought up. Sounded odd- I was not sure how this one would go.
A chocolate tart shell houses a layer of jam and a layer of chocolate frangipane, with pieces of fresh rhubarb tucked on top. Right now, orange marmalade is the only jam I have in the fridge, and that seemed to be moving too far in the weird direction for me. Instead, I used fresh raspberries that I ripped in half to cover the bottom of the tart shell. They basically turn into their own jam while the tart is in the oven.
Room temp or chilled, this one goes into the “pleasantly surprised” category! The tart shell is like a crisp chocolate cookie, the frangipane is like a fudgy brownie and the sweet-tart thing with the fruit works nicely. My rhubarb stalks were so thin, I probably could have squeezed on a few more pieces (Dorie actually does say to be generous, should have listened instead of being skeptical).
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!
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