Everyday Dorie: Mushroom-Bacon Galette
June 14, 2019 at 5:31 pm | Posted in cook the book fridays, everyday dorie, groups, other savory, savory things, veggies | 4 CommentsTags: everyday dorie, galette, savory
It’s fun to do a little savory baking now and again. And it’s rewarding, too…as a result of my baking efforts today, I’ll be spending my Friday night with a glass of rosé and a nice slice of Mushroom-Bacon Galette. That’s my idea of a good time.
People always say that galette is pie for beginners. I guess that’s true because it’s so easy to make and it’s supposed to look rustically imperfect, but it’s every bit as good as pie. Maybe this will be my “summer of the galette”…sweet and savory all season! You can use store-bought pie dough, but Dorie’s galette dough recipe is quickly made in the food processor, and it’s pretty foolproof. For the filling, bacon is crisped, walnuts are chopped and mushrooms are cooked down with some aromatics. This thing smells amazing in the oven! Out of the oven, it’s salty and earthy– umami in a pastry crust. It will be a perfect summer dinner with a salad and a glass of chilled vino.
For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan (it’s also here), and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked this one.
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 DC: Blondies
June 4, 2019 at 6:32 am | Posted in Uncategorized | 5 CommentsTags: baking, cookies
School’s out, summer’s here, and I could use a snack. Blondies are often thought of as brownies’ sister sweets, or brownies for people who don’t like chocolate (aka people I don’t trust). I’ve had blondies that I are all goo inside, with no chocolate to be found (maybe butterscotch chips or something like that instead) and with a crackly crust similar to brownies, but I think these ones are more along the lines of traditional chocolate chip cookies. You can, in fact, be pretty experimental with your blondie mix-ins…mine had a combo of dark and white chocolates, toasted pecans and unsweetened coconut. Dorie gives several options for baking these off, including using a baking pan for the standard bars, but suggests baking them in a mini muffin tin in the main recipe for crisp edges. I wanted something a little bigger, because I knew if I baked them in a mini muffin tin, I’d just eat five anyway. I went for the ring mold option and baked them up in my smaller sized bottomless tart rings. I also scooped out a few dough balls to bake off freeform as “blondie drop” cookies later. They wait for me in the freezer. I did like the way the ringed blondies had a nice circle of caramelization around the outside from contact with the metal. I put a scoop of ice cream on top.
For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
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 DC: Old Bay Pretzel-and-Cheese Cookies
May 21, 2019 at 12:01 am | Posted in cookies & bars, groups, savory things, snacks, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 4 CommentsTags: baking, cookies, savory
I grew up in Northern Virginia and when I was a kid, my dad and a friend from Maryland co-owned a boat together on the Chesapeake Bay. My mother would wrinkle her nose at this, but Old Bay is a flavor of my childhood, I guess, and one I still like lot today. Now I mostly sprinkle it on corn or oven fries, but here it’s used in savory Old Bay Pretzel-and-Cheese Cookies. With chunks of pretzel rods and bits of cheddar cheese, too, they’re just the thing to have with a beer or a Bloody Mary, or even a bowl of tomato soup.
The dough is like a shortbread and is made in the food processor. I actually had a hard time getting mine to come together, even before adding the pretzel bits, and wound up adding a blob of sour cream for a bit of extra moisture to make it less crumbly. It’s slice-and-bake, so I managed to finagle the dough into a rough log, but then it crumbled again when i sliced it. I wound up having to hand-form my cookie crumbles into little nuggets on the sheet tray. When baked, I’m happy to report that they finally held together! They’re salty and savory and crunchy, and if I find myself going boating again anytime soon, they’ll find their way into my snack bag.
For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan (it’s also here). Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Cookies-and-Cream Tartlets
May 14, 2019 at 12:01 am | Posted in BCM, groups, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 7 CommentsTags: baking, chocolate, tarts
We are on a cookie butter roll here in TWD-land. First two cookies, now Cookies-and-Cream Tartlets. These tartlets are an assemblage of components, which I like, because they can be done over time if I just don’t have the time. We’ve made Dorie’s Sweet Tart Dough for so many things now, and here it’s baked in mini tart pans. There’s a layer of cookie butter on the bottom of each fully-baked shell and then a luxurious salted dark chocolate ganache covering that. The recipe has chunks of broken-up speculoos cookies mixed into the ganache, but I chose to hide them underneath in the cookie butter because I wanted a smooth and shiny top layer. I did dust some crumbs over the top for a hint at what’s inside. What’s inside is pretty fabulous.
For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
Everyday Dorie: Green-as-Spring Soup
May 10, 2019 at 4:24 pm | Posted in cook the book fridays, everyday dorie, groups, savory things, soups | 8 CommentsTags: everyday dorie, savory, soup
This Green-as-Spring Soup was pretty easily put together after a walk through my neighborhood farmers’ market. After a long winter of turnips, the stalls are overflowing with green stuff right now! Armed with some leeks, garlic and shallots, a bunch of asparagus (which I trimmed, but did not bother to peel) and a zucchini, I got to work. After a quick sweat down of the alliums, it was everything else in the pot with some broth to simmer till soft. I had some nice spinach from my favorite farmer and I threw in just a handful of that, along with my herbs, for extra pop. Happily for those of us lacking amazing knife skills, it doesn’t matter how neatly things are cut up…it all gets puréed smooth in the blender. I fished out a few of the asparagus tips before blending the soup, which I used as garnish, along with a quick herb cream I made from pesto and greek yogurt. I added a drizzle of good olive oil, too, because, well, more green!
This soup was delicious and velvety even though it contains no dairy (apart from the garnish). It’s fresh and satisfying, and was even better reheated the next day.
For the recipe, see Everyday Dorie by Dorie Greenspan, and head over to Cook the Book Fridays to see how the group liked this one.
Tuesdays with Dorie DC: Chocolate-Oatmeal Biscoff Cookies
May 7, 2019 at 12:01 am | Posted in cookies & bars, DC, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 5 CommentsTags: baking, cookies
I have a soft spot for oatmeal cookies of any kind. I don’t know where this fondness comes from in my own life, but if I had children, I’d bake them oatmeal cookies to encourage it in theirs. These Chocolate-Oatmeal Biscoff Cookies would be in my after-school snack rotation for sure. With oatmeal, cocoa, chocolate chips and cookie butter (what?!?) these tick all the boxes for a great treat. You can use nut butter instead of Biscoff if you want, and I’m pretty sure that would be just as awesome.
I recently made my own cookie butter for the Good, Better, Best Cookies, and while Dorie specifically states to use store-bought Biscoff here instead of a homemade version, there was no way I wasn’t going to use it. Yes, I blatantly disregarded her instruction, but I did try to compensate for it. I added in an extra couple tablespoons of flour to my dough because my homemade cookie butter seems softer than the commercial product. I don’t really think that they suffered for it in any way. My cookies baked up soft, chewy and pliable, and really full of chocolate flavor, with a slightly spicy something-something in the background.
For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Cardamom and Mocha Marble Cake
April 23, 2019 at 2:29 pm | Posted in BCM, cakes & tortes, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 8 CommentsTags: baking, cake
I love cutting into a marble cake. Will there be swirls? Will there be layers? Will there be blobs? It’s like a surprise inside! This Cardamom and Mocha Marble cake is one of Dorie’s Bonne Idée suggestions for the Double Chocolate Marble Cake in the book. Chocolate with coffee and cardamom is a combo that really speaks to me, so I went for it.
This cake is pretty much like a pound cake, with dark chocolate (and espresso powder) mixed into half of the batter and white chocolate (and ground cardamom) mixed into the the other half. I didn’t need a whole 9″x5″ loaf, so I scaled down the recipe to 2/3 the original (fun times with kitchen math!) to make it my 8.5″x4.5″ pan instead. I was sure to watch it in the oven and it took around an hour to bake through. I did tent it with foil at the 40-minute mark so that it wouldn’t get too dark and crusty. This is a dense cake with a fine crumb. Even though it’s a simple loaf, the flavors make it seem more sophisticated. And the marbling is, of course, very exciting to behold.
For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll to see other rewinds!
Tuesdays with Dorie DC: Good, Better, Best Cookies
April 16, 2019 at 3:59 pm | Posted in cookies & bars, DC, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 3 CommentsTags: baking, cookies
These Good, Better, Best Cookies are a straight-line progression of deliciousness. It’s really very logical…a good cookie, crisp with almonds and cinnamon, can be made better if it’s sandwiched with cookie butter, and that sandwich cookie can be the best it can be if it’s dipped in ganache. Of course, I wanted the best version.
I made and rolled the cookie dough a few days before I needed it, so I stashed the dough sheet in the freezer. I was really happy with how perfectly the cut cookies held their round shape and how flat they stayed in the oven. Dorie has a recipe for homemade Spiced Cookie Filling and Spread in the back of the book, and since I had taken home some reject speculoos from work, I made myself a little pot of it for sandwiching my cookies. I admit that I didn’t bother to turn it into a buttercream as per the the “better” instructions. I just used it as-is. I eyeballed my dark chocolate ganache for dipping after reading that the “best” recipe makes a rather thin one, and a lot of it. I think everyone I shared these with appreciated that I took them all the way– they were the best!
For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and please join us if you haven’t already!
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