a whisk and a spoon

Tuesdays with Dorie: Real Butterscotch Pudding

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: Arborio Rice Pudding

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: Wattleseed Crème Brûlée

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: Chocolate Pudding

This week, Melissa from It’s Melissa’s Kitchen put the TWD spotlight on Dorie’s Chocolate Pudding.  It may be from the book Baking: From My Home to Yours, but no baking is required for this one, just a little stovetop work.

I love pudding (I was especially nuts for JELL-O’s pistachio flavored mix growing up), but I have an awkward relationship with it.  I can eat pudding that I make, but I cannot eat other people’s pudding.  No, no…I am not down with OPP.  I can pinpoint the exact reason for this, too, which goes back to a childhood visit to my mum’s Aunt R.  Aunt R served me something that was more skin than pudding, and it was all I could do not to gag at the table. I need to know that my pudding will have no trace of skin on it…therefore, I must make it myself. 

When I first read the instructions for this recipe, I noticed that a lot of ins and outs of the food processor were required. I thought that sounded like a bit of a pain in the butt, but it was really no big deal. And the using the food processor is the best way to get an uber-smooth pudding. You can bet I pressed plastic on the surface straight away before refrigerating it!

I made mine with low-fat (not skim) milk, instead of whole, and I thought it worked great. The chocolate I used was from a dark chocolate bar infused with mint that I had in the pantry. Sorry George Costanza, no pudding skin singles here…just super-smooth, super-chocolatey, sightly minty, totally delicious pudding!

Look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or here on Dorie’s blog to find the recipe.  Don’t forget to check out Melissa’s post and the TWD Blogroll!

Tuesdays with Dorie: Caramel-Topped Flan

I may be out of town right now, but I wasn’t about to miss out on my chance to choose the recipe for this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie meet-up– at the rate the group is growing, I probably won’t get another pick!  I decided to venture into the “spoon desserts” section near the back of the book, and go with Dorie’s Caramel-Topped Flan.

Flan is simple to prepare…it’s a no-fuss custard that gets baked in a waterbath.  What makes it really special is the gorgeous amber-glass layer of caramel that adheres to the custard when you turn it out of the pan.  I love the combination of the cold wiggly custard and the bittersweet caramel.

I scaled back the recipe and made a couple of individual flans in ramekins, rather than one large one.  I also did the “playing around” variation, using coconut milk instead of heavy cream.  I put a little twist on it by infusing the milks with lime zest and using rum instead of vanilla extract.

The recipe is, of course, in  Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, but I also include it below.  Don’t forget to check out Tuesdays with Dorie to visit all of this week’s posts.

Caramel-Topped Flan– makes one 8″x2″ flan
adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours

Note: You can make individual servings by using six 6-oz or seven or eight 4-oz ramekins or containers instead of the larger cake pan.

For the caramel:
1/3 cup sugar
3 tablespoons water
squirt of fresh lemon juice

For the flan:
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 1/4 cups whole milk
3 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Getting ready:
-Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350ºF. Line a roasting pan or 9″x13″ baking pan with a double thickness of paper towels. Fill a teakettle with water and put it on to boil; when the water boils, turn off heat.

-Put a metal 8″x2″ round cake pan– not a nonstick one– in the oven to heat while you prepare the caramel. (If you are using individual molds or ramekins, then skip this step.)

To Make the Caramel:
-Stir the sugar, water and lemon juice together in a small heavy-bottomed saucepan. Put the pan over medium-high heat and cook until the sugar becomes an amber-colored caramel, about 5 minutes-remove the pan from the heat at the first whiff of smoke.

-Remove the cake pan from the oven and, working with oven mitts, pour the caramel into the pan and immediately tilt the pan to spread the caramel evenly over the bottom; set the pan aside.

To Make the Flan:
-Bring the milk and heavy cream just to a boil.

-Meanwhile, in a 2-quart glass measuring cup or in a bowl, whisk together the eggs, yolks and sugar. Whisk vigorously for a minute or two, and then stir in the vanilla. Still whisking, drizzle in about one quarter of the hot liquid-this will temper, or warm, the eggs so they won’t curdle. Whisking all the while, slowly pour in the remainder of the hot cream and milk. Using a large spoon, skim off the bubbles and foam that you worked up.

-Put the caramel-lined cake pan in the roasting pan. Pour the custard into the cake pan and slide the setup into the oven. Very carefully pour enough hot water from the kettle into the roasting pan to come halfway up the sides of the cake pan. (Don’t worry if this sets the cake pan afloat.) Bake the flan for about 35 minutes, or until the top puffs a bit and is golden here and there. A knife inserted into the center of the flan should come out clean. (Small, individual molds will take less time– start checking for doneness around the 25-minute mark).

-Remove the roasting pan from the oven, transfer the cake pan to a cooking rack and run a knife between the flan and the sides of the pan to loosen it. Let the flan cool to room temperature on the rack, then loosely cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

-When ready to serve, once more, run a knife between the flan and the pan. Choose a rimmed serving platter, place the platter over the cake pan, quickly flip the platter and pan over and remove the cake pan–the flan will shimmy out and the caramel sauce will coat the custard.

Storing: Covered with plastic wrap in its baking pan, the flan will keep in the refrigerator for up to 2 days. However, once unmolded, its best to enjoy it the same day.

Serving: Bring the flan to the table and cut into wedges. Spoon some of the syrup onto each plate.

Playing Around– Caramel-topped coconut flan: For a more tropical flan with a somewhat lighter texture, replace the heavy cream with a 15-oz can of unsweetened coconut milk and reduce the amount of milk to 1 cup.