Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Pistachio and Raspberry Financiers
June 11, 2019 at 3:56 pm | Posted in BCM, cakes & tortes, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 4 CommentsTags: baking, cake
These Pistachio and Raspberry Financiers will make you feel rich even if your savings account balance states otherwise. Nutty and brown buttery, they are decadent and just a little bit will do (although I could probably be quite greedy with them). Dorie makes financiers in mini muffin tins, but I happen to have a silicone bar mold, so to mimic the traditional shape, I used it here. I had the space so I popped three raspberries on top instead of just one– oh, the luxury! I like the way the zing from the berries contrasts with the richness of the cakes.
By the way, did you know I spent six years working as an investment banker before I quit and went to culinary school? It’s why I moved to New York after college. Unfortunately, we were more likely to be found eating cookies from the trading floor vending machine than these beauties.
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: Bettelman
October 9, 2018 at 12:01 am | Posted in BCM, groups, pudding/mousse, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 9 CommentsTags: baking, bread pudding
As much as I don’t want to acknowledge it, the summer fruits are out and the apples are in. I might as well get used to it and least bake some interesting apple treats. I’d never heard of a Bettleman before, but it’s an Alsatian bread pudding made to use up stale brioche. The bread gets soaked in warm milk and egg yolks and then the mix gets a hit of spice and rum, along with apples and raisins. The egg whites are whipped separately and added at the end, so the pudding soufflés a bit in the oven. It’s lighter than the bread pudding I’m used to, and I liked it very much.
I happened to have a couple of brioche rolls in the freezer, and they were just enough to make two individual ramekins. I served my bettleman with some ice cream and a drizzle of apple caramel sauce.
For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
TWD BCM Rewind: Tarte Tropézienne
May 30, 2017 at 4:52 pm | Posted in BCM, cakes & tortes, groups, layer cakes, pudding/mousse, sweet things, sweet yeast breads, tuesdays with dorie | 4 CommentsTags: baking, bread, cake
A year ago, the group made Dorie’s Tarte Tropézienne, a pastry cream-filled, sugar-sprinkled brioche cake. I did not. That’s why rewind week comes in handy. I’d never had a Trop before…now I know what I’ve been missing. I really like pastry cream. And brioche.
Trops come in various sizes. I chose to make individual ones rather than slice up a large one. Mine came out looking a little more like burger buns than like the flatter cakes they should be…I clearly didn’t press the dough out enough. No matter, they were still delicious. I served them with chopped strawberries alongside, but next time I may put the berries inside instead.
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 BWJ: Babas
January 19, 2016 at 7:43 pm | Posted in BWJ, groups, sweet things, sweet yeast breads, tuesdays with dorie | 5 CommentsTags: baking, bread, cake
I’ve never made rum babas before. I’ve eaten my fair share, though, mostly at Italian bakeries. David Blom’s Babas recipe brought these pastries into my own kitchen.
Babas are little sweet yeast bread pastries, kind of like brioche and often with currants, that are soaked in rum syrup until they are practically oozing it, and then filled with something creamy. In my opinion, what’s not to like? The group made Blom’s Savarin recipe, which is similar but in made in a large cake form, a couple of years ago. For some reason, I skipped it so I am glad to have done this one.
I don’t have baba molds but I still wanted them to have the nice tall shape of the ones in the shops so I used my popover tin. I got half as many babas as the recipe said so I guess that means my tin is bigger than the molds I should have used. Whatevs– R and I split them in half. Once they were cool I gave them a good dunking in simple syrup, adding rum directly to the syrup. And then I brushed more rum all over the outside! Didn’t make the pastry cream filling the recipe called for…too lazy. Instead I whipped some cream and mascarpone together with which to stuff my babas and added a homemade candied cherry on top.
For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan (it’s also here). Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
Pear and Butterscotch Cobbler and a BOOK GIVEAWAY!
November 11, 2015 at 12:01 am | Posted in biscuits/scones, breakfast things, sweet things | 9 CommentsTags: biscuits, cobbler
I’ve found that a lot of people shy away from making one type of dough or another. Some people claim, “Oh, I don’t do pie dough,” while others say, “I stay away from yeast.” When my friends at Quirk Books asked me if I wanted to help celebrate the release of their new book, Making Dough: Recipes and Ratios for Perfect Pastries by Russell van Kraayenburg, of course I jumped at the chance. Russell writes the gorgeous blog Chasing Delicious, and that guy can bake. His new book is full of tips and information to make a rainbow of doughs including: scone, biscuit, pie, shortcrust, sweetcrust, choux, brioche, puff, croissant, Danish and phyllo. Whatever your personal dough demon is, you can work through it with this book. Russell gives a master dough recipe for each type (which he explains by using easy ratios) and then several recipes using the various doughs.
For me, biscuits were my dough nemesis until a few years ago, when I worked at a bakery and had to crank out trays of breakfast pastries every morning at 6 am. After all that practice, now I own those suckers! I was super pleased to give Russell’s biscuit dough a try as part of Quirk’s Biscuit Week Challenge. I spied a plum cobbler recipe in his book and couldn’t get the thought out of my head– sweet, soft fruit under a tender, cakey, slightly savory biscuit crust. When I remembered a few Bartlett pears and a bit of homemade butterscotch sauce in the fridge, a light blub went on in my head and I was inspired to make a Pear and Butterscotch Cobbler using up my odds and ends and Russell’s biscuit dough. He’s even put together a video to show step-by-step how to make perfect biscuits. Because the dough is dropped on the fruit here, instead of rolled and cut, a tender cobbler topping is almost guaranteed, even if you think you’re dough-challenged.
The kind folks at Quirk Books sent me a copy of Making Dough, and now I want to send a copy to one of you! Just leave me a comment (one per person, please) on this post before 5:00 pm EST on Tuesday, November 17 and I’ll randomly choose a winner from the list. Be sure your e-mail address is correct so I can contact you if you’re chosen.
Pear and Butterscotch Cobbler– serves 4 to 6
inspired by (and using) a recipe in Making Dough: Recipes and Ratios for Perfect Pastries by Russell van Kraayenburg
Notes: If you don’t already have butterscotch sauce on hand, you can approximate the flavors here with 1/4 cup dark brown sugar, a pinch of salt and 1 tbsp of butter cut into little bits. Toss with the pears and other filling ingredients.
1 1/2 pounds firm-ripe Bartlett or Bosc pears
1 tbsp plus 1 tsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp cinnamon, divided
1 tbsp rum (optional)
1/4 c plus 2 tbsp homemade butterscotch sauce (I used this one)
1/2 recipe of Russell’s prepared biscuit dough
1 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1 tbsp brown sugar
– Position a rack in the middle of your oven and preheat oven to 400°F.
– Peel and core the pears and cut each into large chunks. In a medium bowl, gently toss the pear chunks with cornstarch and 1/4 tsp of cinnamon. Add the rum, if using, and butterscotch sauce and toss just to coat. (Your butterscotch sauce will work best here if it’s room temperature or barley warm.)
– Turn the fruit mixture into a 1-quart baking dish and bake for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and keep oven on.
– Pinch off small handful-size clumps (about 2″ in diameter) of the prepared biscuit dough and scatter them on top of the filling so that the clumps touch. Be careful as your baking dish will be hot!
– Lightly brush the biscuit clumps with melted butter (I dabbed with a pastry brush) and sprinkle with the 1 tbsp brown sugar and remaining 1/4 tsp cinnamon.
– Bake for another 20 minutes, until the biscuits are golden and the filling is bubbly. Cool to warm or room temperature before serving.
Please note that the publisher, Quirk Books, sent me a copy of this book.
***Giveaway Winner Update: I used random.org to generate a random comment number to find the winner. Congratulations to Anne! I’ll be in touch soon.***
Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Apricot-Raspberry Tart
July 14, 2015 at 12:22 pm | Posted in BCM, groups, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 30 CommentsTags: baking, fruit, tarts
A full-on fruit tart is never one of my go-to desserts. I don’t know why, since I’m big on the combo of fruit and crust…I can certainly get behind a good slice of pie or a big scoop of crisp. But I just don’t really think of fruit tarts. It takes the peer pressure of organized group baking to get me to make one, like this Apricot-Raspberry Tart, and remember how spectacular they can be.
This tart is really all about the apricots. Luckily, they’re in season now where I live, and at the farmers’ market I found baskets of the tiniest blushing apricots. Even though I made a small tart using a half batch of sweet dough, I was able to stuff it full of the little guys. At the bottom of the tart shell. a layer of cake or brioche crumbs (or even ladyfingers) acts as a sponge to absorb any juices from the baked fruit. At the restaurant where I work, cakes for specials orders are usually baked off as sheets that are then punched out and assembled in ring molds. That means there’s always some cake off-cut or trim in the walk-in that’s up for grabs. I took home an square of hazelnut cake last week with this this tart in mind. My apricots and raspberries held shape pretty well and didn’t release too much juice, but I liked the added flavor that the hazelnut cake crumbs gave. Having used it, I garnished my tart with some candied hazelnuts instead of the pistachios Dorie suggests.
Really, this tart was so pretty I hesitated to cut it! It’s a fine treat to celebrate Bastille Day today. Even though it may be best eaten up the day of baking, we had a couple of slices left over and I don’t think they suffered too much from a night in the fridge. For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
TWD BWJ Rewind: Cranberry-Walnut Pumpkin Loaf
December 30, 2014 at 12:42 am | Posted in breakfast things, BWJ, groups, sweet things, sweet yeast breads, tuesdays with dorie | 5 CommentsTags: baking, bread
Happy New Year! This time last year, I resolved to do a better job of using up odds and ends in the kitchen. I’ve done a pretty good job with that in 2014, and, in fact, this Cranberry-Walnut Pumpkin Loaf from Steve Sullivan used up some leftover pumpkin puree and cranberries I had hiding in the freezer. Of course, now I have half a loaf of bread in freezer instead, so maybe it’s actually a wash for the time being.
The group made this bread back in the fall of 2012, and two years later I don’t remember why I skipped out on it at the time. When I hear “pumpkin bread,” I usually think of a quick bread, but this is actually a yeasted loaf. It’s a bit like a lean brioche with a bit of pumpkin puree (I used canned) mixed in, along with fresh cranberries, walnuts and raisins. I imagine you could play around with those add-ins a bit.
I changed two things when I made this bread. First, the recipe calls for an overnight rest in the refrigerator, followed by a lengthy stay on the counter the next day to come back up to room temp. I, of course, did not properly familiarize myself with the recipe before I jumped in, so I was totally unprepared for that. Instead of the fridge rest, I gave it a second countertop rise (a little over an hour) in the bowl before shaping it and giving it it’s final proof. Second, the recipe divides the dough into three mini loaf pans. I don’t have those pans, so I cut the recipe in half and made a medium-sized loaf (8″x4″) instead. I got a nice, tall loaf so thankfully my changes didn’t do anything bad to the dough.
I like this bread! It doesn’t taste much of pumpkin, but the puree gives it a pretty golden-orange color. And the pops of cranberries, raisins and walnuts are nice. It makes good cinnamon toast, like we had it here, for breakfast.
For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll to see if anyone else did a rewind this week, and see the links page from the Cranberry-Walnut Pumpkin Loaf week a couple of years ago!
Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Pecan Sticky Buns
May 15, 2012 at 12:01 am | Posted in breakfast things, BWJ, groups, sweet things, sweet yeast breads, tuesdays with dorie | 31 CommentsTags: baking, bread, breakfast
I’ve been getting a lot of practice making breakfast pastries lately. A couple of months ago, the owners of the shop I work for decided that we should open three hours earlier and have a menu of morning baked stuff. I now have to wake up basically in the middle of the night to walk to work and make this happen. I’m thinking about quitting soon….but you didn’t hear me say that, and you certainly didn’t come here for banal griping. You came for Nancy Silverton’s Pecan Sticky Buns!
It’s pretty much a given that sticky buns have a lot of butter in them, but this recipe uses a sh*t-ton of butter. There’s brioche dough..no, make that laminated brioche dough (unlike the other sticky buns we did about–yikes– four years ago)…and then there’s the sticky top part. The only component without butter is the pecan-cinnamon swirl inside. When everything’s tallied up, it comes to five sticks for a whole recipe!! My mind immediately went to work wondering where I could shave off a few tablespoons. First off, a whole recipe makes two 9-inch pans, or 14 buns, and I certainly didn’t need that many for the two of us. A quarter of a recipe would be fine…I knew I could squeeze four slightly smaller buns out of that and bake them in a 6-inch pan. I ultimately decided on making a half recipe of brioche dough, and only taking half of that to make buns with (I’m saving the other half for another project). I kept the full amount of butter in the dough itself. Best not to mess around with that. I used about two-thirds the butter called for in the laminating step and half for the topping. I don’t think I missed out too much…my buns were sweet and soft and flaky. I plan to experiment more with this laminated brioche thing later on…it’s a cool technique.
By the way brioche is a lovely dough to work with…if you can keep it cool enough while you shape it, that is. It’s so soft and nice to touch. And it rises beautifully.
It took me like an hour to figure out how to put two pics side-by-side in Photoshop, btw…wow.
I made my base dough on day one, parked it in the fridge overnight after its first rise, and finished off the laminating and rolling the next day. I did my dough in my stand mixer. Since I just made a half a batch, my KA had no problem cranking it out. It was really such a small about of dough, though, that I think even the whole recipe would have been just fine. Despite my earlier talk about breakfast pastries, my husband and I actually ate two of these sticky buns for dessert. After getting up so early for work now everyday, I can’t manage to get up early enough on the weekends to have buns proofed, baked and cooled before brekkie. The other two baked buns were wrapped up tight and stuck the freezer, to be defrosted and enjoyed properly one weekend morning with a cup of coffee.
For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan or read Lynn’s Eat Drink Man Woman Dogs Cat and Nicole’s Cookies on Friday. There’s also a video of Nancy and Julia making the buns together. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
French Fridays with Dorie: Nutella Tartine
February 10, 2012 at 6:53 pm | Posted in breakfast things, french fridays w dorie, groups, other sweet, sweet things | 14 CommentsTags: breakfast, snacks
It was hard for me not to make this week’s FFWD recipe. It’s toast– heck, I can make time for that! Toast with yummy stuff on top, that is. This tartine is a thick slice of brioche with butter, marmalade, Nutella, nuts and salt. You could buy everything and simply assemble it, but I happened to have a couple of the components in homemade form (but already on hand). I still had some homemade brioche in the freezer, and over the holidays, my BFF and I made a big pot of mixed-citrus marmalade to give to family. A bit of sweet, a bit of sour and a bit of salt…this is toast at its finest. Dorie says this is a typical after-school snack for French children, but I ate mine for breakfast. Then I went to the dentist and he found no cavities. Breakfast of champions.
For the recipe, see Around my French Table by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out my fellow francophiles’ posts.
Cheese-and-Jam French Toast Sandwiches
January 13, 2012 at 5:16 pm | Posted in breakfast things, sweet things | 9 CommentsTags: breakfast
By the time Wednesday rolls around, I’m usually thinking seriously about my weekend breakfast options. Geez, that sounds pretty lame, but I eat granola and yogurt every morning during the workweek, so I’m more than ready for a switch-up by the time Saturday arrives. Usually I’ll go with pancakes over French toast, but last weekend I couldn’t resist the photo of “French toast sandwiches” in a great breakfast cookbook I have. This is a lot like stuffed French toast, except here you just sandwich together two slices of bread (I used homemade brioche that I had in the freezer) rather than making surgical-style incisions and injections into one fat slice. The filling is just a schmear of soft cream cheese and your favorite jam. I think a marmalade or a tart jam works best…I used my homemade plum jam here…especially if you plan to slosh it with maple syrup.
Cheese-and-Jam French Toast Sandwiches— makes four servings
adapted from Williams-Sonoma Breakfast Comforts by Rick Rodgers
4 eggs
1 cup milk
finely grated zest of 1 orange
2 tablespoons fresh orange juice or orange-flavored liqueur
1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
8 slices challah, brioche or other egg bread
4 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
6 tablespoons jam or orange marmalade
canola oil or butter for cooking
unsalted butter, at room temperature, for serving
maple syrup for serving
-Preheat the oven to 350°F.
-In a large shallow bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, orange zest, orange juice and vanilla. Lay one bread slice on a work surface and spread with one-fourth each of the cream cheese and jam. Top with another bread slice. Repeat with the remaining bread, cream cheese and jam.
-Preheat a griddle over medium-high heat until hot. Lightly oil the griddle.
-One at a time, dip the sandwiches into the egg mixture and turn gently to coat evenly, keeping the sandwiches intact. Let stand until the bread has soaked up some of the egg mixture, about 30 seconds.
-Remove the sandwiches from the egg mixture, letting the excess drip back into the bowl, and place on the hot griddle. Cook until golden brown underneath, about 2 minutes. Turn the sandwiches over and cook until browned on the other sides, about 2 minutes more. Transfer to a rimmed baking sheet.
-When all four sandwiches are on the sheet, place the sheet in the oven and bake until the cream cheese melts, about 10 minutes.
-Serve the French toast sandwiches immediately with butter and maple syrup.
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