Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Crunchy Summer Fruit Galette
August 9, 2012 at 5:07 pm | Posted in BWJ, groups, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 11 CommentsTags: baking, fruit, pie
This week it’s Thursday with Dorie. Oops, someone didn’t pay attention…my bad. Anyway, here is Flo Braker’s Crunchy Berry Galette, made instead with peaches and red currants from my CSA. A galette is a freeform pie. I make little individual ones everyday at the shop where I work, but we call them crostatas, cuz we’re Italian like that.
This galette has an unusal dough…it’s not a flaky pie pastry. It gets it’s crunch from cornmeal and softness from sour cream. The dough is seriously sticky, but I rolled and formed it directly on the parchment I used for baking, so I didn’t really have issues with it. I added a tiny spoon of cornstarch to the filling just to tighten it up a bit. I still had a little leaky juice, but no major explosion. This was small, perfect for two with ice cream.
For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan or read Lisa’s Tomato Thymes in the Kitchen and Garden and Andrea’s The Kitchen Lioness. It’s also here. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Blueberry-Nectarine Pie
July 31, 2012 at 12:01 am | Posted in BWJ, groups, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 17 CommentsTags: baking, fruit, pie
Yeah, I know that just a couple of weeks ago I declared crisp to be the new pie. And now here I am with an old school pie. A big pie, too…not my normal half-sizer, but a full nine-inch pie. A pie that I can eat while I watch the Olympics– ha! Leslie Mackie’s Blueberry-Nectarine Pie is actually a favorite recipe. I’ve made this pie several times in summers past and it’s always great. I really love nectarines, even more than peaches, I think.
There are a couple of wacky instructions in the recipe that I don’t go by. First, it says to assemble the pie in a one-inch tall nine-inch cake pan. That’s weird…why not use a pie pan? I do. Then it says to cool the pie for 30 minutes before cutting. Trust me, it needs to cool much longer than that if you don’t want your filling to pour out when you slice it. I always try to bake my pies in the morning, so that by dinner time, they are well-set.
By the way, I spent last week on the West Coast, mainly visiting my family in Seattle. I had my mother take me to Mackie’s Macrina Bakery in SODO one afternoon. I didn’t see this pie there, but the breads are amazing.
For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan or read Hilary’s Manchego’s Kitchen and Liz’s That Skinny Chick Can Bake. It’s also here. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Semolina Bread
July 17, 2012 at 12:01 am | Posted in BWJ, groups, savory things, tuesdays with dorie, yeast breads | 17 CommentsTags: baking, bread, savory
I thought I was in for a whole day project when I set out to make Nick Malgieri’s Semolina Bread. The recipe calls for three two-hour proof periods, but with the East Coast heat and humidity, my kitchen is its own proof box. I had that loaf ready for the oven in under five!
I made the dough in the food processor. So easy. I cut the salt by a quarter teaspoon, and added it to the dough after the rest period in the processor. Besides that and my shorter proof times, I followed the recipe as-is.
I wanted my loaf to be like bread from the Italian bakeries over in Carroll Gardens, so I spritzed it with a little water and sprinkled on some sesame seeds before I put it in the oven. Then they all more of less fell off when I cut into it, but whatever. I had a crusty, golden loaf of bread, and it was delicious. My favorite part of a crusty loaf like this is the end bit. Actually my favorite parts, since there are two end bits! Slathered with a little salty butter, they are my ideal baker’s treat.
For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan or read Renee’s The Way to my Family’s Heart and Anna’s Keep it Luce. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
Sour Cherry and Pistachio Crisp
July 11, 2012 at 1:54 pm | Posted in cobbler/crisp/shorties, sweet things | 9 CommentsTags: baking, crisps, dessert, fruit
Cherry season is preciously short, and, where I live, it’s right now. It’s probably nearing the end of the road for them, actually, as all things fruity seem to appearing and disappearing early this summer (due to the 60° winter we had, no doubt). I’m going to the greenmarket tomorrow to find more tart red jewels before they go bye-bye till next year.
I’m deciding these days that I find crisps to be as satisfying as pie, but with a lot less effort. Perhaps that makes them slightly more satisfying? Sounds lazy, but prepping cherries is a labour of love as it is (and usually leads to a t-shirt covered in red speckles) so I’m happy not to also deal with the clean-up involved in making crust. Soft fruit with a crispy topping of oats and brown sugar is hard to beat anyway. I’m also digging this combination of sour cherries and pistachios, but some roughly chopped almonds would be a fine stand-in if you don’t have the pistachios on hand.
Sour Cherry and Pistachio Crisp- serves 8
adapted from marthastewart.com
Steph’s Notes: I made a half recipe in a smaller baking dish. It took less time to bake than the full recipe did, about 35 minutes in total, and I turned the oven down to 325°F for the last 10 minutes to keep my topping from getting too brown.
1 3/4 pounds pitted fresh or frozen sour cherries
1/2 cup chopped unsalted pistachios
1/2 cup, plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/3 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/4 tsp baking powder
salt
6 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
3 tbsp packed light-brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp cornstarch (increase to 2 1/2 tsp if you like your filling a little more tight)
pinch of ground cinnamon
-Preheat oven to 375°F. If using frozen cherries, spread them in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet. Let stand at room temperature until cherries have thawed almost completely but still hold their shape, about 30 minutes. Drain off any accumulated liquid. If you are using fresh cherries, just stem and pit them and you are good to go.
-Whisk together the pistachios, flour, oats, baking powder, and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a medium bowl; set aside. Put butter, brown sugar, and 1/4 cup granulated sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; mix on medium speed until creamy…this is not hard to do by hand with a wooden spoon, if you choose. Stir pistachio mixture into butter mixture until just combined. Work mixture through your fingers until it forms coarse crumbs ranging in size from small peas to gum balls. Chill topping in the refrigerator for at least 15 minutes. You can even make the topping the day before and hold it in the fridge.
-Stir together cherries, remaining 1/2 cup granulated sugar, the cornstarch, cinnamon and a pinch of salt in a medium bowl. Transfer cherry mixture to an 8-inch square glass or ceramic baking dish. Sprinkle the chilled topping evenly over cherry mixture. Bake until topping turns golden and juices are bubbling, 50 minutes to 1 hour, turning at the half-way point. If you notice that your topping is browning too quickly, turn the heat down to 325°F for the remainder of the baking time. Let cool on a wire rack 1 hour before serving. A little ice cream on top is a fine idea.
Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Hazelnut Biscotti
July 3, 2012 at 3:13 pm | Posted in BWJ, cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 16 CommentsTags: baking, cookies
I’m not supposed to be home writing this post right now, but the last three days we’ve had power outages at work and closed up shop early. Hard to work in a food business when your refrigeration is down. I feel bad for the store owners because it’s truly a mess and they lose sales when this stuff happens, but it’s a little bonus time off for me. Time off means time for a cookie break with Alice Medrich’s Hazelnut Biscotti!
These super-crunchy biscotti are the perfect little something on the side of a plate. Good with coffee (naturally), ice cream or fruit. The recipe calls for skin-on hazelnuts and has kind of a kooky method for removing the skins (just watch this video…ick). I went a far more straight-forward route– I bought pre-blanched nuts! I just toasted them as directed before proceeding with the dough. A tip that worked well for many of us this week is to lightly wet your hands before shaping the dough into logs. This helps neatly deal with the stickiness. And I recommend slicing the cookies pretty thin after the first bake, because after the second, the cookies are so crisp that a fat cookie would be hard to bite down on. They have proven to be good keepers, even with the heat and humidity we’ve had here this past week.
For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan or read Jodi’s Homemade and Wholesome and Katrina’s Baking and Boys. There’s also a video of Alice and Julia making the biscotti together. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll! I kept mine pretty plain and simple, but I’m sure there are lots of fun substitutions and biscotti variations this week.
Boozy Berry-Topped Tres Leches Cake
July 1, 2012 at 12:37 pm | Posted in cakes & tortes, simple cakes, sweet things | 7 CommentsTags: baking, cake, fruit
It’s kind of hard to fire up the oven in the middle of a heat wave, especially when you don’t have A/C in the kitchen. But I’m willing to get started early in the day if I know that by the end of it I’ll have a piece of cool, chilled tres leches cake on my plate. It pairs so well with seasonal fruit, that this really is a great summer cake, if you have a place to keep it cold.
I did another tres leches cake here before with a baking group. I wasn’t crazy about that one…it was dense and heavy, for which I blamed the creamed butter mixing method. I like this separated egg method much better. It makes a cake that’s light and spongy and just sucks up all tres of the leches you pour on top. I’m amazed that a cake can absorb such a ridiculously huge amount of liquid, but it does.
I made this with strawberries, which have now come and gone from the Greenmarket, but the raspberries and blueberries that are around now would be just as tasty…and very Fourth of July appropriate, I think.
Boozy Berry-Topped Tres Leches Cake– makes a 9×13-inch cake
adapted from a recipe in Fine Cooking, Issue 117 by Fany Gerson
Steph’s Notes: If you don’t want the booze, just leave it out of the cake and topping for a “regular” tres leches. Of course, you can leave off the fruit as well. You can soak the cake in the milk mixture up to a day ahead and top it up to 2 hours ahead.
for the cake
unsalted butter, softened, for the pan
4 1/2 oz (1 cup) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp kosher salt
5 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup whole milk
3/4 tsp pure vanilla extractfor the soaking liquid
1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
1 12 oz can evaporated milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
Pinch kosher salt
1 tbs gin, tequila, rum or orange liqueurfor the topping
2 1/2 cups heavy cream
3 tbs gin, tequila, rum or orange liqueur
2 tbs confectioners’ sugar
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
4 cups summer berries (one type or a mix)
Bake the cake:
-Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat the oven to 350°F.
-Butter the bottom and sides of a 9×13-inch Pyrex baking dish or a nonreactive metal pan. Line the bottom of the baking dish or pan with parchment and lightly butter the parchment.
-Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.
-Separate the eggs, putting the whites in a medium bowl and the yolks in a large bowl. With an electric mixer, beat the yolks with 3/4 cup of the sugar on medium speed until the mixture is pale and creamy, about 2 minutes. Add the milk and vanilla and beat until combined, 1 minute more.
-Clean and dry the beaters and then beat the egg whites, gradually increasing the speed to high, until they reach soft peaks, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the remaining 1/4 cup sugar in a stream, continuing to beat on high, until you reach firm but not dry peaks, 1 to 2 minutes more. Whisk a third of the dry ingredients into the yolk mixture until thoroughly combined. Gently fold in a third of the egg whites with a rubber spatula. Fold in the remaining dry ingredients and egg whites, alternately, in two more batches each, until fully incorporated.
-Pour the batter into the prepared dish or pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Let the cake cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes, then invert the cake onto the rack, remove the parchment, and let cool completely.
-Return the cake to the baking dish or pan (the cake will soak up more of the liquid if returned to the pan it was baked in), or invert it onto a rimmed platter.
Soak the cake: In a 2-quart saucepan, stir together the condensed milk, evaporated milk, heavy cream, and salt until the condensed milk is well blended. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring to avoid scorching, until it begins to bubble around the edges, 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from the heat, add the booze and pour into a heatproof 4-cup measuring cup. With a toothpick, prick the cake to the bottom in 1/2-inch intervals. Pour the soaking liquid slowly over the cake, starting at the edges and pausing to let it soak in before adding more. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate until the cake is well chilled, at least 2 hours and up to 24 hours.
Top the cake: In a large bowl, beat the heavy cream with an electric mixer on medium speed. When it begins to thicken, slowly add the booze, sugar and vanilla and continue to beat just until it holds firm peaks, 3 to 4 minutes (be careful not to over-beat). Spread the whipped cream all over the top of the cake. Spoon the berries over the whipped cream and serve.
Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: French Strawberry Cake
June 19, 2012 at 12:01 am | Posted in BWJ, cakes & tortes, groups, layer cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 24 CommentsTags: baking, cake, fruit
Flo Braker‘s French Strawberry Cake is the perfect thing for right now, right here. Strawberries are all over the NYC greenmarkets (and my CSA), so a summer strawberry cake of some sort was bound to be in order even if we hadn’t picked this for TWD.
This is a lovely simple cake…no fancy buttercreams or anything. Just some lightly sweetened whipped cream and mashed strawberries filling a whole egg sponge cake. The cake is called a genoise in the book, but it’s the only genoise I’ve ever made that doesn’t heat the eggs in the process. The recipe calls for making one tall cake and splitting it into three layers. I made just a half recipe and I thought my little six-inch cake really only needed to be cut into two. This type of sponge cake can be a little dry on its own, but the whipped cream and macerated berries add the moisture that is needed. I think it became even tastier the second day. I can see this being great with raspberry smoosh, too, if you are feeling more English than French (Victoria sponge, anyone)?.
For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan or read Sophia’s, Sophia’s Sweets and Allison’s Sleep Love Think Dine. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie BWJ: Oasis Naan
June 5, 2012 at 12:01 am | Posted in BWJ, groups, savory things, tuesdays with dorie, yeast breads | 32 CommentsTags: baking, bread, savory
Phew…I cut it close on this one. I just made Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid’s Oasis Naan a couple of hours ago. Luckily it’s a pretty simple bread dough, as long as you have the time to proof it.
The recipe calls for making this flatbread dough by hand. I’m lazy…I used the food processor, same as I do for pizza dough. (I must say here, that I only made a half batch of dough, so everything fit just fine.) I started by adding the minimum amount of flour to my processor bowl, then with the machine running, I poured in my water/yeast combo. I added more flour to touch and turned off the machine for 10 minutes. Then I sprinkled the salt and a little bit more flour over the dough (because it still felt pretty sticky) and turned it back on for a few more seconds. I kneaded it on the counter for about a minute before putting into a bowl to proof.
The dough bakes up nice and puffy (be sure to dock it well!), and chewy, too. I topped mine with chopped spring garlic and za’atar spice, but I bet all kinds of things would be good on top. You could even make them like mini pizzas. It’s not quite as soft and charred as the naan I get from my local Indian takeaway, but I’d make this again for sure.
We ate our naan with a freekeh, beet, chickpea and feta salad I concocted. Very healty…I think my husband thought the naan was the best part!
For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan or read Maggie’s Always Add More Butter and Phyl of Of Cabbages & King Cakes. There’s also a video of Alford, Duguid and Julia making the bread together, and the authors wrote this article that gives more naan tips. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
The Cookie Dough Lover’s Cookbook GIVEAWAY!
June 1, 2012 at 5:40 pm | Posted in other stuff | 46 CommentsTags: giveaway
Every Thursday at the shop, I make ginormous batches of all our cookie doughs. And I totally eat ginormous amounts of cookie dough, too! I’d like to say that I do it in the name of quality control, but really it’s a lack of self control. Cookies-in-the-raw just may be better than baked ones. I clearly have no problem snacking on raw eggs (although now that I put it that way…), but if you so deprive yourself, then you’ll be happy to see The Cookie Dough Lover’s Cookbook by Lindsay Landis, who also writes the gorgeous food blog Love and Olive Oil. She has ingeniously concocted an eggless cookie dough that isn’t meant to be baked, but used raw, as an ingredient or an out-of-the-bowl snack. Now I normally take my dough straight up, but I’m amazed by the diversity of recipes in this book…candy made from cookie dough, cakes, pies, puddings, breakfast stuff (what?!). And, of course, there is ice cream…ice cream that is calling–no, screaming–my name. All of this is gorgeously photographed…proof that these things are real and not just in my dreams!
The very kind folks from Quirk Books gave me a copy of this cookbook, and now I want to give one of you a copy, too. Maybe we can make Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream together next weekend?? What do you say? Just leave me a comment (one per person, please) on this post before 5:00 pm EST on Thursday, June 7 and I’ll randomly choose a winner from the list. Be sure your e-mail address is correct so I can contact you!
***Giveaway Winner Update: I used random.org to generate a random comment number to find the winner. It selected comment 11, so congratulations to Tina. I’ll be sending your book soon!***
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!
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