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: Chocolate Éclairs
April 22, 2025 at 7:35 pm | Posted in BWD, general pastry, groups, other sweet, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 8 CommentsTags: baking, choux
Choux-based treats are some of my favorite to make and eat. I think pâte à choux is a really fun dough, and one of the few things worth breaking out a piping bag for, imo. These Chocolate Éclairs actually required me to use two piping bags (one for the dough and one for the filling)– something that I could see coming, and had me putting off this bake until this very morning.
Luckily, choux pastry is pretty easy-peasy to make, and a little cocoa powder is all that’s needed to give the dough its chocolate twist. I piped out the dough a bit thicker than Dorie says to because I like chubby éclairs (and as a result only got six instead of eight). I didn’t really feel like making pastry cream to fill them, and I’ve seen other group members do some nice whipped cream-filled versions, so I followed suit. The flavor, texture and stability of mascarpone whipped cream is something of an obsession of mine, so I whisked up some of that.
A couple of months ago, I impulse-bought a jar of Sicilian pistachio cream at Eataly; I decided to finally crack it open and flavor my whip mix with a big blob of it. Yum is all I have to say about that. When I brought these out, glazed and dressed up for dessert, my husband asked if I was inspired by Dubai chocolate– I think it’s hilarious he has even heard of that!
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!
Everyday Dorie: Sour Cherry (not Mixed Berry) Pie
July 28, 2023 at 3:52 pm | Posted in everyday dorie, general pastry, groups, pies & tarts, sweet things | 5 CommentsTags: everyday dorie
This one was supposed to be a Mixed Berry Pie, but truth is, I make like one pie a summer, and this summer it was gonna be sour cherry. I followed Dorie’s recipe for the crust and her technique of turning a portion of the filling into a jam to hold everything together. And then, of course, I used my new fave pie technique from Baking with Dorie–brushing glaze on the top crust once baked, because I wanted the vibe of those Hostess pies I was never allowed to have as a kid. I know that any pie that bubbles juices up like that is going to be good, and this one certainly was.
For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see all of our pies this week.
Everyday Dorie: White Wine-Poached Pears
February 25, 2023 at 10:32 pm | Posted in everyday dorie, general pastry, groups, other sweet, sweet things | 5 CommentsTags: cake, everyday dorie
Imagine pears bobbing around in a honey-sweetened white wine syrup flavored with ginger, vanilla, cinnamon and star anise. White Wine-Poached Pears are so fragrant! They make an elegant stand-alone dessert, but poached pears are also great alongside ice cream or a piece of “simple” cake. I have a jar of leftover syrup in the fridge…I might use it to make a champagne cocktail before the winter’s through.
For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see all of our cakes this week.
Everyday Dorie: Mostly Rhubarb Tart
June 24, 2022 at 2:05 pm | Posted in everyday dorie, general pastry, groups, pies & tarts, sweet things | 7 CommentsTags: everyday dorie
Mostly Rhubarb Tart is just what the name says…a tart that’s mostly rhubarb, but with a little extra stuff, too. Macerated rhubarb covers the bottom of a par-baked Sweet Tart Dough crust. An easy custard, quickly whisked together but delicately rose-scented, fills in all the gaps. Then some halved strawberries are arranged here-and-there on top. I was pleased to find hot pink stalks of rhubarb at my greenmarket, and by placing the strawberries on top of everything else, they get direct heat and concentrate into deep red jammy pops. Anyway, the whole thing was very pretty and tasted like a spring day.
For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see all of our tarts this week.
Everyday Dorie: Eton Mess
April 22, 2022 at 8:18 pm | Posted in everyday dorie, general pastry, groups, other sweet, pudding/mousse, sweet things | 3 CommentsTags: everyday dorie
Eton Mess is a traditional British dessert with whipped cream, strawberries and broken up meringue…it reminds me of a pavlova someone took a mallet to, but it’s beautiful it’s own messy way. Light and summery, Dorie’s version uses a strawberry-rhubarb compote and meringue with Biscoff spice cookie bits swirled through. And my version of Dorie’s version uses puréed mango, sweetened raspberries and meringue with crispy Lazzaroni amaretti cookie bits. The meringue is baked off in a sheet, which is then broken up into crumbles. I bake at home with golden sugar rather than white, so I am assuming that’s what gave my meringue it’s golden hue, as I didn’t neglect it in the oven. It was delicious with the almondy flavor from the cookies, and I was glad to have extra to nibble on. I assembled my Eton Mess parfait-style, which looked quite tidy for photos, but rest assured that as soon as the camera clicked off, I stirred it up and made a mess of it.
For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see all of our messes this week.
Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Two-Bite Cinnamon Puffs
February 22, 2022 at 9:47 am | Posted in BWD, general pastry, groups, other sweet, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 5 CommentsTags: baking, choux
I think choux pastries are some of the most fun, from the cooking of the dough itself to the excitement of seeing how it sprouts and poofs in the oven, they are a delight to make and eat. Dorie’s One-Bite Cinnamon Puffs are cinnamon-spiced chouquettes, French sweet snacks that are pearl-sugared cream puffs without the cream. The recipe makes 100 little popable babies– a bit too much for the two of us here, even though we are pretty hard-core snackers. I cut the recipe back to just 1/4 and made her Two-Bite Cinnamon Puffs variation. Since it was such a small amount of batter, I just mixed it by hand right in the pot I used to heat the liquid. I also started my oven at 400˚ and turned it down to 350˚ at the half-way point. I figured the larger sized puffs could take that extra-hot steam boost without getting torched (not sure about the tiny ones, though). This gave me eleven chouquettes that were a nice coffee nibble. And, if you want to experiment, the two-biters also had enough room inside to squirt a little canned whipped cream or to hold a small scoop of ice cream.
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 BCM: Crackle-Top Cream Puffs
May 28, 2019 at 7:41 am | Posted in BCM, general pastry, groups, other sweet, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 6 CommentsTags: baking, choux
I love making all things choux— It’s one of the most fun doughs to make, IMO, and yields some of the most tasty pastries! While I’ve made pâte à choux treats here many times, this was my first attempt at making Crackle-Topped Cream Puffs. A standard cream puff gets topped with a small, thin disk of cookie dough that fuses to the top and gets beautifully cracked as the choux beneath it rises and expands. Dorie said we could either use a “craquelin” made from a simple brown sugar cookie dough or we could use her Sweet Tart Dough made with nuts. I happened to have some STD (hahaha) made with almond meal in the freezer, so I just went with that. I will say that, while I did have a crispy-crackly top, I didn’t get the color contrast that I would have with the brown sugar dough version, so mine look less striking than I would have hoped. Next time I will try the other way.
You can fill these babies however you’d like– with pastry cream, whipped cream, mousse, curd, or with ice cream, like I did. I even had a hidden layer of cookie butter at the bottom, as I’m still trying to use up a jar I made for other things. The first local strawberries were at the market this past weekend, so I snagged some of those to along with, too. Kind of like strawberry shortcake cream puffs, they were delicious and perfect for Memorial Day dessert.
For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Palmiers
April 9, 2019 at 12:01 am | Posted in BCM, cookies & bars, general pastry, groups, other sweet, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 7 CommentsTags: baking, cookies
What to do with a little stack of frozen puff pastry scraps left over from Banana-Nutella Chaussons and a Potato Tourte? Make Palmiers! These are so easy. Just roll puff into a square, brush with melted butter, sprinkle with sugar and fold in towards the center. I used vanilla sugar for extra flavor, and because I found a jar of it in my cupboard and want to use it up. Some of my palmiers sort of unfurled into donut shapes the oven, but I don’t mind. Puff pastry does what it wants to sometimes…I like things made with it to be really caramelized and crispy, taken almost to the edge of dark. I’ve got no time for pale puff. These palmiers are just as good with ice cream as they are with coffee.
For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Banana-Nutella Chaussons
March 26, 2019 at 7:53 am | Posted in BCM, general pastry, groups, other sweet, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 8 CommentsTags: baking, chocolate, turnovers
These Banana-Nutella Chaussons are a take on traditional French puff pastry turnovers that are usually filled with apples. Dories says chaussons are most often breakfast or snack treats, but they are pretty amazing for dessert, too, especially when they are filled with a combo of gooey melted chocolate and bananas. Maybe even more so when you replace the straight-up chocolate in the filling with a generous amount of Nutella, like I did here. Things got a little wild in the oven, and my chaussons pretty much erupted, even though I egg washed and sealed them well. C’est la vie…the delicious filling and flaky layers just could not be contained! My evil genius dessert brain spotted an opportunity and decided a scoop of salted caramel ice cream would be perfect tucked into the opened sides.
For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
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