Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Brown Sugar Tart
November 28, 2017 at 12:01 am | Posted in BCM, groups, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 5 CommentsTags: baking, tarts
Thanksgiving was a bit of a whirlwind, in between getting ready for a very busy dinner service at my restaurant job and pulling off my own dinner at home. I knew I had to find a place on my menu for this week’s TWD recipe if I wanted to get that done, too. Luckily, a Brown Sugar Tart sounded like a pretty appropriate Thanksgiving dessert. My father, who finds pumpkin pie to be the only acceptable sweet on turkey day, would disagree, but he wasn’t visiting this year. Time to break with tradition!
I did pay attention to the reviews from the folks who made this tart on the first posting of the month. “Too sweet” was pretty much unanimous, so I tried to find little ways to adjust that a bit. The tart filling is just simple custard of heavy cream, eggs, sea salt and light brown sugar, with some optional espresso powder and bits of smokey bacon. I used a combo of light and dark brown sugar for extra flavor and added a little more salt and espresso powder than the recipe called for, until I thought it tasted just right. The bacon was skipped altogether. I thought this would probably be best served in small portions, and made little individual tartlets instead of a larger one.
Once upon a time, we made an espresso-caramel syrup called couleur for a Baking with Julia cake. This is something that I like to keep a bottle or jar of on hand now because it’s really bitter-sweet intense and tasty, and it lasts forever. I thought it might be just the thing to temper the sweetness of the tart filling a bit, especially since Dorie recommends adding instant espresso to the filling anyway (and also serving the finished tart with coffee ice cream). I used that couleur syrup to glaze my finished tartlets and served them with some unsweetened cream and maple toasted pecans and sunflower seeds. I have to say, and I know that I have a huge sweet tooth, I really liked this recipe. I followed some good advice from Diane and served it well-chilled. I even broke out the fancy silver!
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: Pumpkin Whoopie Pies with Dulce de Leche Filling
November 21, 2017 at 12:01 am | Posted in cookies & bars, DC, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 4 CommentsTags: baking, cookies, whoopie
It’s Thanksgiving week here, so I guess it’s about time I make some pumpkin treats. Pumpkin Whoopie Pies with Dulce de Leche Filling sound like a good place to start. Whoopee pies are actually little cakes sandwiched with frosting…that explains why I like them so dang much. These pumpkin cakelettes are very moist, appropriately spiced and studded with cranberries. The recipe calls for fresh cranberries, but I’d already used up my bag making sauce for Thursday’s dinner. I plumped up some dried ones instead, and they worked just fine. Dorie says you can bake the whoops off in a muffin tin for uniform shape, but I chose to go freeform because I didn’t want them looking too much like muffins. I used a cookie scoop to get clean, round potions, and they baked up evenly enough for me to match them up well. The filling for these whoopie pies is supposed to be marshmallow fluff mixed with dulce de leche. Cream cheese frosting is also a natural match. I had this little bit of buttercream in the freezer, and since I’m on a tear to use up the odds and ends in my fridge, I mixed that with DDL and went with it. Delicious.
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!
Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Desert Roses
November 14, 2017 at 12:04 am | Posted in BCM, candy, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 6 CommentsTags: candy, chocoate
“Desert Roses” is an exotic sounding name for the easiest candy you will ever make, using the most plain and simple thing you can think of– cornflakes cereal. That’s right, I present you with cornflakes, bound together into tasty, crunchy little globs with butter and chocolate. Stirring in some shredded coconut, dried fruit and almonds makes them a bit more interesting, and is encouraged.
If these look familiar, it’s because they’re sister sweets to the Chocolate-Cornflake Haystacks we made from Dorie’s Cookies back in May. The Haystacks had similar add-ins (coconut, dried fruit and nuts), but they also had egg and were baked, making them a little chewy. These Roses never see the oven (non-bakers, take note!), though, and are all crunch once they harden up. Now that I’ve sampled both, I prefer the Desert Roses. In fact, I can’t think of a better use for a box of cornflakes.
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: Kerrin’s Multigrain Chocolate Chip Cookies
November 7, 2017 at 12:01 am | Posted in cookies & bars, DC, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 6 CommentsTags: baking, cookies
Just when you think you’ve probably made every chocolate chipper out there, along comes another version to try. Kerrin’s Multigrain Chocolate Chip Cookies have a nice amount of whole wheat and buckwheat (in addition to chocolate!) to give them great flavor and chew. The buckwheat here is in the form of both flour and kasha. I love buckwheat pancakes, so I usually have the flour on hand in the fridge, but I don’t have the kasha. I do have a box of something called “cream of buckwheat cereal” and I used that instead. Worked just fine. These cookies get finished with a sprinkle of sea salt (or my favorite Murray River salt from Australia), always a nice touch. They’re winners in my book, and pretty, too, with rich color from the buckwheat flour and crackly tops.
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 and please join us if you haven’t already!
Tuesdays with Dorie DC: Crumb-Topped Apple Bars
October 31, 2017 at 8:56 pm | Posted in cookies & bars, DC, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 6 CommentsTags: baking, cookies
Well, it’s Halloween night and I’ve just finished handing out eight bags of candy, so I can now concentrate on my delinquent TWD posts. These Crumb-Topped Apple Bars…I made them a few weeks ago, but getting a post up seems more work than baking sometimes…I let it slide. These were delicious, though. Just like apple crumble pie (my favorite variety of apple pie), but easier. The crust and crumb topping are made from the same brown sugar cookie dough. I added rains and walnuts to my apple filling. I made a half batch of the bars, but probably could have done with a full, since I found that they did freeze really well. Ice cream and caramel sauce seemed natural partners for these, but they were also great straight-up.
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!
Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Moka Dupont
October 10, 2017 at 8:42 pm | Posted in BCM, cakes & tortes, groups, layer cakes, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 8 CommentsTags: cake, iceboxcake
I have a one-track mind when it comes to sweets and I had been pushing to make this Moka Dupont for months. Finally, the time is now! It’s an icebox cake– creamy chocolate frosting and store-bought cookies dunked in espresso– that melds together after a long rest in the fridge. Apparently it’s very popular in France, where it’s made with Thé Brun cookies (which I happily got to use myself because I asked a friend to bring me a packet back from a trip– my souvenir from Cannes!). Over here, Petit Beurre cookies make a good stand-in. The chocolate buttercream frosting is made with butter, sugar, egg and plenty of melted dark chocolate. This is not a light dessert, but I am not one to complain about something being too rich, so I enjoyed every bite.
You can assemble a big square or rectangular cake, or plate up individual ones like I did. I had some extra cookies and frosting, so I made each babycake four cookies high instead of three. After a night in the refrigerator, I had a lot of fun decorating these with chocolate curls (I used a vegetable peeler) and some wacky decor called “bronze crunch” that I picked up at Waitrose on my last trip to London. Yes, my cabinets are filled with food souvenirs from foreign lands…I know yours are,too.
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: French Snacklettes
October 3, 2017 at 12:02 am | Posted in cookies & bars, DC, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 3 CommentsTags: baking, cookies
Snacklettes– isn’t that the best name for a cookie? These French Snacklettes are little buttery chocolate and almond blobs that are super easily made in a food processor. You can just pinch the dough together into haphazard nugget shapes if you want. I tried to get fancy and made mine into pyramids, like the picture in the book, but they slumped in the oven so they wound up more nugget-like after all. I needn’t have bothered, but no matter. After they cooled, I tasted just a crumb off the sheet tray before packing them up for later, and worried that they weren’t very sweet. But after coming home really late (and more than slightly tipsy) that night, I had a whole one and it was sweet and salty and chocolatey and a little crumbly. So then I ate two more! I had very little willpower at that point in the night, but I have to say, they were even better with coffee the next morning.
For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan. It’s also here, as it was Dorie’s Cookies and Kindness recipe last November. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and please join us if you haven’t already!
Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Simplest Plum Tart
September 26, 2017 at 12:01 am | Posted in BCM, groups, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 6 CommentsTags: baking, fruit, tarts
The Simplest Plum Tart was a recipe that I wanted to try but was skeptical of at the same time. It’s really just a sweet tart shell and plums. Ok, there are also some cake or cookie crumbs to soak up juice and some cinnamon sugar to add sweetness and bring out a bit of said juice. But there’s no real binder here and the plums are no more than halved and pitted (well, washed, too, of course). I thought it might be a little blah, but if you love plums, there is something quite satisfying about biting into a fat, juicy baked plum half. Dorie suggests serving this with crème anglaise, and maybe after throwing together the simplest tart ever, I should put in at least a little effort to make some custard, but I thought store-bought vanilla ice cream was just as good. Let’s not start to complicate things.
I think this would look so pretty baked in a long rectangular tart pan…I do have one, but like most of my good ideas, I didn’t think of it until after the fact. If I make it again, I’ll use that. I’ll also smear the crust with some almond frangipane. I almost always have some in the freezer, so really it’s just as simple as cake or cookie crumbs.
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: Graham Cracker Cookies
September 19, 2017 at 12:01 am | Posted in cookies & bars, DC, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 6 CommentsTags: baking, cookies
What’s better than a store-bought Graham Cracker Cookie? A homemade one! The dough for these comes together in the food processor, so it’s a snap to make. It’s a little sticky, but if you work with it chilled, it’s no biggie. Cut, docked and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, the baked cracker-cookies are too good to turn into crumbs. I say schmear them with peanut butter or munch on them with tea. You can see that I didn’t get perfectly squared off corners here, but I ate them first, so you and I are the only ones who know.
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!
Tuesdays with Dorie DC: Two-Bite One-Chip Cookies
September 5, 2017 at 3:51 pm | Posted in cookies & bars, DC, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 3 CommentsTags: baking, cookies
Two-Bite One-Chip Cookies…it’s a pretty self-explanatory name, but here’s the deal anyway…take chocolate chip cookies and miniaturize them into two-bite domes of cookie dough, each with a single chocolate chip (or maybe two, if you push the envelope) hidden inside. I’m pretty sure that these little cuties are very kid-friendly, but I know that they are adult-friendly. If you’re the type who has a lot of willpower, then you’ll have one or two of these and the fact that you had a few chocolatey bites will make you satisfied. If you’re the type who doesn’t, then you’ll be popping them into your mouth one after another. I think you can guess which type I am.
For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan. It’s also here, as it was Dorie’s Cookies and Kindness recipe last September. 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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