Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Marquise au Chocolat
February 10, 2015 at 12:01 am | Posted in BCM, groups, ice creams & frozen, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 18 CommentsTags: chocolate
Valentine’s Day calls for something super-chocolatey, right? Chocolate mousse, maybe? Or perhaps frozen chocolate mousse? Would it sound sexier if we said it in French? Mais bien sûr…Marquise au Chocolat it is.
This is a delicious and decadent dessert. Butter, dark chocolate, sugar, whipped cream– it’s all in there, baby. Oh, and raw egg yolks, too. This was a hot topic for our group, and if you’re concerned (I wasn’t really), some alternative ideas were floated around. I thought about making a whole recipe in a loaf pan because it can keep for a month in the freezer, but decided to just make a few servings worth and set them up in the little molds I use for coeur à la crème.
I think the deep chocolate flavor and the creamy texture are best enjoyed after the marquise has had several minutes to temper outside of the freezer. You’ll probably need to do that anyway to get your plastic wrap liner to easily release from the mold. If you make a larger loaf, Dorie says dental floss or a warm knife is the way to cut nice slices. This would be lovely with berries or crème anglaise or whipped cream. I had a can of coconut cream that I tried unsuccessfully to whip…it wouldn’t get anymore volume than a foamy sauce, so I just went with it.
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: Salsa Quitza
February 3, 2015 at 12:01 am | Posted in BWJ, groups, savory things, tuesdays with dorie, yeast breads | 7 CommentsTags: baking, bread
I’ve been intrigued by Lora Body’s Salsa Quitza recipe for a long while…I’ve nominated it at least five or six times, but seems I was the only one so interested! With refried beans in the crust and layers of cream cheese and salsa in the filling, I’ve never heard of this bizarre Southwestern quiche-pizza hybrid thing. Must be a Lora Brody original. I made it for Sunday’s game (which did not at all end the way I hoped it would, by the way), and my husband asked what to expect…I told him the only thing I was sure of was that it would be weird.
The quitza crust is a bread dough that can apparently also be made into a loaf, if you don’t want to go full-quitza on it. The dough instructions call for a bread machine, but I don’t have one so I made it in my stand mixer and let it rise on the counter. I combined the ingredients in the “regular” way, with yeast and liquids first (including the not-so-regular addition of refried beans…I used canned pinto), followed by the dry stuff. The dough was soft, but not sticky, and made a nice ball after about eight minutes of knead-time. I let it rise twice, about 45 minutes to an hour each time, before shaping it in the pan.
I made half a recipe and baked it in an 8″ regular cake pan. For the filling, I followed Cher’s suggestion to decrease the salsa by about half (proportionally, of course, for my half recipe), and I also chose to reduce the cream cheese layer by a couple of tablespoons and add on a smear of refried beans, since I had extra from the dough. I topped it with a mix of cheddar and mozzarella.
OK, yeah, it was kind of weird, but good-weird. The dough was soft and rose high, like a deep dish. The filling was really creamy from the cream cheese (and I’m glad I reduced the cream cheese and salsa or it would have been sloppy and too much). And it went well with beer. If I make it again, I think I’ll sprinkle some olives on top.
For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan (there’s also a video here of the episode). Finally, don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Brown-Butter-and-Vanilla-Bean Weekend Cake
January 27, 2015 at 12:01 am | Posted in BCM, cakes & tortes, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 37 CommentsTags: baking, cake
A weekend cake- I love it! A good cake does make the weekend even better, if you ask me. (Hopefully it will make the nor’easter we’re about to get socked with better, too!) This one’s a simple loaf cake, but it’s flavored with brown butter, vanilla bean and rum. Simple but special.
I have a French blue steel loaf pan, and I thought it naturally appropriate to use for a French cake. I like that the pan has perfectly straight, not flared, sides. It’s longer and slimmer than the standard 9×5, so I was sure to check it in the oven plenty early.
The ingredients are lovely and fragrant, and the cake smells so good out of the oven, that it’s hard to wrap it up and let it sit overnight like Dorie suggests. It’s less buttery and heavy than a pound cake but has a similar delicious crust. This cake is good on it’s own or with a sauce. (I’m going to try it in early summer as a strawberry shortcake base.) If you can’t eat it all up over the weekend, don’t worry because it freezes nicely. Dorie also says stale slices are good toasted, although I don’t plan on testing that out this time.
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: Eastern European Rye
January 20, 2015 at 3:31 pm | Posted in BWJ, groups, savory things, tuesdays with dorie, yeast breads | 12 CommentsTags: baking, bread
Before making Lauren Groveman’s Eastern European Rye, I began to daydream about a turkey reuben on homemade bread. Liz Lemon is not the only one with very specific food fantasies. I was out of rye flour, though, so I bought a bag of local (okay, not NYC, but NY state) farmer-ground organic rye flour from the Greenmarket and got to mixing. I saw a tip to mix the dough in a stand mixer for 3 minutes, turn it off and let the dough rest for 10 minutes, then back on again for about 12 more minutes of kneading. I did this mixing method, and the dough rose nicely, and apart from my three slash marks, it didn’t split open in the oven. The final dough shaping and rising instructions are a little wacky when you read them in the book, but in this video, Groveman demonstrates those same steps on her pumpernickel loaf recipe. They are still wacky, but are at least understandable after seeing them on video.
The bread that I wound up with was not the Levy’s-like sandwich loaf I was expecting, but a rustic loaf with more of a true whole grain bread feel and a craggily crust. I couldn’t really get nice sandwich-sized slices from it, so no homemade turkey reuben for me this time (since I have a one-track mind, I did go to Mile End yesterday and get one!), but the bread does have great rye and caraway flavor and it’s nice with salty butter or a bit of good cheddar. I think it’ll make a good tomato soup dunker, too.
I assumed that the whole grain rye I used was the culprit for the denser loaf that I got…after reading Alisa’s post this morning, if I make this again I’ll either just reduce the amount of rye I use or sub a bit of it with some extra white flour and see what I get .
For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan. Finally, don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Granola Energy Bars
January 13, 2015 at 12:01 am | Posted in BCM, breakfast things, cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 20 CommentsTags: baking, cookies
Granola and yogurt is my standard weekday morning brekkie. It’s fast, it’s easy and I like it. Sometimes I add a banana to jazz it up but, all in all, I keep it all pretty plain, so it’s fairly healthy. A lot of store-bought granola is anything but, with loads of sugar and add-ins. Store-bought granola bars are usually the same way…more like candy bars than healthy snacks. I eat enough sugar for dessert, so I try to avoid those “extra” sweets during the day. If you wanna control what goes in it, I guess you gotta make it yourself!
These Granola Energy Bars are loaded with nuts, seeds, dried fruit (I used raisins, cherries and apricots) and oats, of course, bound together with brown rice syrup. I think the brown rice syrup helps keep the bars chewy, too, but corn syrup or golden syrup would be likely substitutes if you can’t find it easily. These were a cinch to make, and I feel good about what went into them. And they’re filling, too, if you just need a little something to hold you over.
I bought the brown rice syrup at the health food store just for this recipe, so I’m not sure what I’ll do with the rest of the jar…apart from making more granola bars. Perhaps I’ll tweak the recipe to make my own homemade, fresh version of the candy bar kind with mini chocolate chips and peanuts, for dessert, of course.
For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi 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 BWJ: Inside-Out, Upside-Down Tirami Sù
January 6, 2015 at 12:01 am | Posted in BWJ, general pastry, groups, ice creams & frozen, other sweet, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 15 CommentsTags: fancy
Gale Gand’s Inside-Out, Upside-Down Tirami Sù is pretty different from the tiramisu I usually make. The flavors are all here, but this reinterprets the dessert into a mix of textures and temperatures. Instead of ladyfinger biscuits soaked and layered into something so soft you can glide a spoon through, here you get shatteringly crisp phyllo disks sandwiching a luxurious mascarpone sabayon and an icy-cold espresso granita.
I baked off my scrunched up phyllo disks in 4-inch ring molds, which worked really well. I left the ginger out of the sugar sprinkled on top of them, because I didn’t want that flavor here. I did, however, want a nice splash of Kahlúa in my sabayon, so I added that.
This is kind of a posh plated dessert, but you can get the three easy steps (phyllo disks, granita and sabayon) done earlier in the day and just assemble it all right before serving. You really can’t wait to eat it once you’ve put the granita on, because it starts to melt immediately! By the way, I have plenty of granita left in the freezer…I’m thinking of turning it into an espresso-frappe-milkshake-type concoction. Bonus.
For the recipe, see Baking with Julia 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 BCM: Gingerbread Bûche de Noël
December 23, 2014 at 12:01 am | Posted in BCM, cakes & tortes, groups, layer cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 23 CommentsTags: baking, cake, dessert, holiday
It’s almost Christmas, and that means it’s time to get fancy in the kitchen! Something like a Gingerbread bûche de Noël sounds like the right way to celebrate. Way back in the early days of this space, I made another bûche. That one was all done up with stumps, meringue mushrooms and faux wood grain…this one’s easier in that it’s just a roulade but it’s still a showstopper and, of course, it still has several steps. In addition to a gently-spiced geniose-style gingerbread sponge cake, there’s a cream cheese filling, a marshmallow meringue frosting and, for crunch and sparkle, a pecan praline.
If you’re the organized type, you can actually break up the steps and knock out the praline and filling a day in advance, but I did it all start to finish in one afternoon, so I can tell you that it’s procrastinator-friendly, too. I did kind of goof up the cake a bit, and you can see it in the center of the spiral. I deflated the cake batter while mixing in the butter at the end. I was pretty annoyed with myself, and worried it would be like eating a rubber mat, but there’s a lot going on with this cake and we also had it with a scoop of eggnog ice cream, so it really wasn’t that noticeable. Next time, I’ll do better with that. Although the marshmallow makes a stunning, glossy, snow-white frosting, I had a lot left over…next time, I’ll also try cutting that amount in half. I’ll reduce the cream of tartar in the frosting a bit as well because I think it gave the marshmallow a slightly acidic taste. If you’re on the fence about gingerbread (I know not everyone is crazy about it), the flavoring here is very subtle…no molasses or cloves or other dark and mysterious flavors.
For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan (it’s also here and here, along with a video). Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll. Happy holidays!! xoxo
Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Chocolate-Mint Nightcaps
December 16, 2014 at 12:01 am | Posted in BWJ, cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 9 CommentsTags: baking, chocolate, cookies, dessert, holiday
Every Christmas, I have visions and hopes of a cookie baking extravaganza. And every Christmas, other things (work, visitors, forgetting to buy sugar, general laziness) seem to get in the way…not only is there no baking extravaganza going on in my kitchen, there is not a single cookie to be found. I try my best not to poop out on TWD each week, and lucky for me these Chocolate-Mint Nightcaps from Marcel Desaulniers are, ya know, seasonally flavored. I think I’ve finally make a Christmas cookie– yay!
These are little cocoa sandwich cookies, filled and (night)capped off with a squiggle of dark chocolate and mint ganache (the recipe calls for steeping fresh mint, but a drop or two of peppermint extract is what I used in its place). Before I had even read the recipe, I made the assumption that the cookies would have a fauxreo thing going on…I was a little surprised that I wound up with a cakey batter when I mixed the dough. I made these late in the day and sandwiched a few as soon as they’d cooled. They were so soft and crumbly…even though it was clear that they weren’t going to be crispy wafers, I was not expecting them to fall apart like they did. Kind of of discouraging, but I decided to let the rest of my batch of cookies hang out unfilled overnight. Actually, I decided to let them sleep in the freezer, thinking that would really help them set (whether or not that was necessary, I don’t know). When I put them together with the ganache the next day, they’d firmed up and were like fudgy, minty brownie cookies. Seriously good….I only made a quarter-batch, or I’d definitely leave a couple out for Santa.
For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: The Rugelach That Won Over France
December 9, 2014 at 9:53 pm | Posted in BCM, cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 11 CommentsTags: baking, cookies, dessert
The Rugelach That Won Over France is a spiral of cinnamon sugar, coconut, pecans, chocolate and dried cherries. I’ve made other Dorie rugelach once, no twice, before…in fact, hers is the only rugelach I’ve ever made. She uses essentially the same cream cheese pastry dough in each, and it’s great. It’s easy to make in the food processor, pretty easy to roll out and bakes up nice and flaky. But, while this version may have won over France, it wasn’t my favorite flavor combination. I thought it was a little dry compared to the other two, and I realize the difference is likely because they had some sort of jam in the filling and this one didn’t. I’d certainly give this a shot again, but would swap out the chocolate for some fruit jam.
I followed the recipe here, but instead of freezing my rolled up rugelach logs before slicing, I just chilled them in the fridge for a couple of hours. Then I cut them an inch thick, rather than 1/2-inch thick, for chunkier cookies.
For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi 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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