Tuesdays with Dorie: Tall and Creamy Cheesecake
December 30, 2008 at 1:52 am | Posted in cakes & tortes, cheesecakes, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 45 Comments
When I saw that Anne of AnneStrawberry had chosen Dorie’s Tall and Creamy Cheesecake for TWD, my first reaction was something like “errrgh.” Now, I love me some cheesecake (one of my favorites can be seen here), but I didn’t know how I’d make it fit into my holiday eating plans. Then I realized that my holiday eating plans basically boiled down to eating as much as possible, so cheesecake would actually fit in quite nicely.
I did jazz up the basic recipe to make it a bit more festive. Rather than a graham cracker crust, I made a gingersnap one. Then, I topped each piece with homemade cranberry sauce (because I love it, and must have it more often than just at Thanksgiving).
This cheesecake is fantastically good! Thanks, Anne and, it probably goes without saying, Dorie! I used 1/3 less fat cream cheese (you know, that “Neufchâtel” stuff) to make mine. Combined with full fat sour cream, it was just perfect. One more note: I like to use the food processor, rather than a mixer, to make cheesecake batter. It still requires a scrape or two, but as long as your cream cheese and eggs are room temperature, you will never get a lump. Oh, yeah, I also wanted to say that a half recipe works nicely in a high-sided six-inch springform.
Did anyone find the instruction to let the cheesecake “luxuriate in its water bath” amusing? I was jealous– I would like to luxuriate in a water bath!
For the recipe, look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan (she also has it here on Serious Eats). You can find it on AnneStrawberry, too. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll.
Happy New Year!!
Daring Bakers in December: French Yule Log
December 29, 2008 at 5:29 pm | Posted in cakes & tortes, daring bakers, groups, other sweet, sweet things | 41 Comments
This month’s challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux. They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand. Now, now…before you go thinking that we did that last December, let me assure you that this is a very different dessert altogether.
This yule log is a truly impressive, multi-layered affair. Almond dacquoise, chocolate-caramel ganache, praline feuilletine, and vanilla crème brulée…all nestled between layers of dark chocolate mousse, and capped off with a super-shiny glaze. Sounds lush, right? It certainly is. (The ganache layer, by the way– amazing!! Also the crispy feuilletine…I could have eaten the whole layer by itself, before it even made it into the log.)
This is kind of an investment in time and ingredients, but taken separately, each component is actually quite easy and quick to prepare. I spread my work over three days. On day one, I made the ganache, feuilletine and brulée layers. (I can see the feuilletine layer being a bit of a pain, but I had it easy, because I was able to purchase gavottes and praline paste through work.) On day two, I made the dacquoise and mousse and assembled the layers, leaving it to freeze overnight. On the last day, all that was left was to unmold and prepare the glaze. I used a standard loaf pan (lined with plastic wrap) to mold my log. The finished dessert is quite large…it’s probably about ten servings. And we will enjoy each and every one.
Sorry that I don’t have more (or better) pictures to share, but my apartment is like a cave with the low winter sun, or lack thereof! I have to take what I can get. Let me assure you that this dessert is as decadent as it sounds, so if you’re up for a challenge, visit Hilda’s post for the recipe.
Tuesdays with Dorie: Real Butterscotch Pudding
December 23, 2008 at 1:47 am | Posted in groups, pudding/mousse, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 29 Comments
Donna of Spatulas, Corkscrews & Suitcases chose Real Butterscotch Pudding for TWD. Delightful, Donna– how did you know butterscotch is one of my favorite flavors (for candy, ice cream sauce, pudding, whatever)?!? I love the brown sugar sweetness and the boozy kick (I used good ol’ JD here) of this old-fashioned treat.
Usually I just make half-batches of the TWD recipes, but butterscotch is worthy of full-batch treatment, I think! I’ve made butterscotch tarts for you before, so this time I just went with my little old-school Pyrex cups. I did go the extra mile, with whipping up cream and toasting some pecans in butter, brown sugar and a sprinkle of salt. The sweet and salty crunch was perfect with the smooth pudding. The only thing I’ll tweak with Dorie’s recipe next time will be to go half and half on light and dark brown sugar, just to boost the color a bit.
For the recipe, look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. You can find it on Spatulas, Corkscrews & Suitcases, too. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Happy holidays, everyone!!
The Cake Slice: Chocolate Hazelnut Nutcracker Cake
December 20, 2008 at 1:31 am | Posted in cakes & tortes, groups, layer cakes, sweet things, the cake slice | 26 Comments
Gosh–hasn’t December gone by so fast?!? It’s already time for the third installment of The Cake Slice! This go-round, the group cooked up a very festive Chocolate Hazelnut Nutcracker Cake from the book Sky High: Irresistible Triple Layer Cakes by Alicia Huntsman and Peter Wynne.
You’ll need to fish out your nutcracker to make this one– the batter has plenty of hazelnuts, ground fine. It also contains an unusual ingredient…graham cracker crumbs. I’m wondering if these are there for subtle flavor, or if they really just act as an extender for the nut meal. The cake is filled and frosted with vanilla whipped cream (a.k.a crème chantilly, if you want to get all fancy-like).
While this cake was certainly good, R and I both though it was missing something. The flavor was predominately hazelnut, and I think, for a cake with the word “chocolate” in its name, it needed to taste of chocolate, too (just a very small piece is grated into the batter). If I get around to making it again, I think I’ll fill the layers with a dark chocolate ganache, and just leave the chantilly for the outside. The rum soaking syrup, though, is a must! Visit Gigi and Katie for the recipe (or get your hands on a copy of Sky High: Irresistible Triple Layer Cakes), and cruise through the list of The Cake Slice Bakers to check out all of our nutcracker cakes!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Buttery Jam Cookies
December 16, 2008 at 1:33 am | Posted in cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 33 Comments
TWD’s holiday cookie extravaganza continues, with Heather of Randomosity and the Girl choosing Buttery Jam Cookies as this week’s recipe. These are pleasantly chewy, sturdy little cookies, with a surprisingly delicate flavor. Lightly sweet and jam-kissed (I used peach-apricot jam from Sarabeth’s), they keep their shape in the oven, so what you scoop is what you get. I’ll certainly make them again– they were perfect with chamomile tea.
For the recipe, look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. You can find it on Randomosity and the Girl, too. Check out the TWD Blogroll to see lots of jammy cookies!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Grandma’s All-Occasion Sugar Cookies
December 9, 2008 at 1:05 am | Posted in cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 45 Comments
For TWD this week, one of my favorite bloggers, Ulrike of Küchenlatein, chose Grandma’s All-Occasion Sugar Cookies. These may technically be “all-occasion,” but I bet that Ulrike knows they’re exactly what Santa hopes to find waiting for him on Christmas Eve.
These are sweet and buttery…great with tea, hot chocolate, eggnog…Thank you, Dorie’s grandma!! You can cut them out in fancy shapes and decorate them a zillion ways, but I took the easy route and just did slice-and-bake. I made a little glaze from powdered sugar and bourbon (naughty but in the nicest way, right?), and shook on some sprinkles.
For the recipe, look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan (she also has it here on The Splendid Table site). You can find it on Küchenlatein, too. Check out the TWD Blogroll to see lots of well-decorated sugar cookies!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Linzer Sablés
December 2, 2008 at 12:34 am | Posted in cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 47 Comments
Seems the next few weeks of TWD will be dedicated to cookies. Very holiday-appropriate, no? Despite my best intentions, I never make a multitude of Christmas cookies…when the time comes, this little elf just doesn’t really feel up to the task, so I guess this will give me a bit of a shove. First up, we have Linzer Sablés, chosen for us by noskos of Living the Life. If you’ve ever had a linzer cookie or torte, you will know that they usually have a pastry made with cinnamon and ground nuts, and some type of jammy filling (often raspberry). I love this combo…I even made linzer cupcakes once.
I think linzer dough is most tasty and flavorful when made with hazelnuts. Alas, I still do not have my food processor, and pre-ground hazelnut meal is hard to find here. Almond meal’s pretty easy to source (I got a nice speckled one, made with skin-on almonds, from TJ’s), so I went with that this go-round.
I made half a batch of dough, but guess I forgot what I was doing when it came time to add the cinnamon. Luckily I caught myself before the full 1 1/2 teaspoons went in, but my dough was dark with the extra spice. It actually had great flavor! I used mixed berry preserves from Sarabeth’s as my filling. I was careful to roll my dough to a thickness 1/4-inch, as Dorie states. After sandwiching the cookies, I wished I’d rolled them thinner. Too much cookie and not enough jam. Next time, I’ll go about 1/8-inch instead.
For the recipe, look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. You can also find it on Living the Life. Check out the TWD Blogroll to find plenty of other baking tips for these cookies!
Cookie Carnival: The Ultimate Chewy and Soft Chocolate Chunk Cookies
November 29, 2008 at 8:52 pm | Posted in cookies & bars, events, sweet things | 16 Comments
I can’t believe it’s been so long since I’ve participated in Kate’s Cookie Carnival! Things (like free time, for instance) really seem have gotten away from me since we’ve moved back to New York. I realize that I haven’t to you what I’ve been up to. A few days after getting back, I started a job at a little bakery in Brooklyn (some of you may even have their cookbook…hmmm). I find the work to be a bit more repetitive than what I’m used to in restaurants, but so far, so good. We’ve also been putting a lot of legwork into the apartment hunt. There’s not much out there right now in the neighborhood we really want to live in, so we’ve taken on a short-term lease in the Financial District until after the holidays. After a full day of standing at work and then running around looking at apartments, I just want to chillax with a plate of chocolate chip cookies and reruns of Seinfeld— and that’s where this month’s Cookie Carnival comes in!
Probably just like you, I’ve made a zillion chocolate chip cookie recipes in my time, but this particular one is from a favorite baking book of mine (and Kate’s, too, I’m happy to see), Regan Daley’s In the Sweet Kitchen. It’s really a fantastic cookbook, and I’ve featured other recipes from it here before. Daley calls these “the ultimate,” but I can’t say that I’m too finicky about chocolate chip cookies. Is that bad?? I mean, I’ve read the article, and I know how obsessive people can be about them. As long as they’re freshly baked, preferably a little warm, and have heaps of good chocolate, I’ll take ’em thin and crisp or fat and cakey…heck, even a little raw in the middle is a-okay.
These are of the fat and cakey (and uber-chocolatey) variety, and that’s just fine by me. I like to keep my cookie dough wrapped in plastic in the fridge, and then just scoop out and bake off a few each night. Fifteen minutes to warm cookies, and total relaxation!
The Ultimate Chewy and Soft Chocolate Chunk Cookies
adapted from Regan Daley’s In the Sweet Kitchen
1 c unsalted butter, room temp
1 c light brown sugar, tightly packed
1/2 c granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 t pure vanilla extract
3 c plus 2 T all-purpose flour
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
16 oz bitter or semi-sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
-Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper, or lightly butter them, and set aside.
-In the bowl of an electric mixer, or stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, or a large bowl if mixing by hand, cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well and scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition. Beat in the vanilla.
-Sift the flour, baking soda and salt together in a small bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the butter-sugar mixture, and mix until just combined. Fold in the chocolate chunks.
-Using your hands (or an ice cream scoop), shape knobs of dough about the size of a large walnut and place them two inches apart on the baking sheets. Stagger the rows of cookies to ensure even baking. Bake 12-15 minutes for smaller cookies, 14-17 minutes for larger ones or until the tops are a light golden brown. If the cookies are neither firm nor dark when they are removed from the oven, they will cool chewy and soft.
-Cool the cookies on the sheets for five minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool further. They may be stored airtight at room temperature for up to one week.
Tuesdays with Dorie (on Thursday!): Thanksgiving Twofer Pie
November 27, 2008 at 10:42 am | Posted in groups, pies & tarts, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 18 Comments
Pumpkin or pecan? Pecan or pumpkin? What to do? Which to eat? If you’re as bad at making these major life decisions as I am, then maybe Dorie’s Thanksgiving Twofer pie (chosen for us by the lovely Vibi of La casserole carrée) is for you. It starts with a pumpkin pie custard, and then gets topped with a pecan pie goo– no need to choose!
Okay, so it is not the most beautiful pie I have ever made (even though I tried to gussy it up with a little powdered sugar for its photo session). No matter– it’s what’s inside that counts, right? And what’s inside is really tasty. To tell the truth, it was not exactly what I was expecting. I thought the two layers would stay separate and distinct. The nuts themselves remained suspended on top, but the pecan goo intermingled with the pumpkin custard…it was really quite delicious, though. I spiked mine with bourbon instead of rum (cause that’s what I like with pecan pie), and piled the whipped cream high!
I made half a recipe and used my new cute little red dish. Tracy from Cake Batter and Crumbs sent it to me, and I just love it!! My only beef with Dorie’s recipe is that it took much longer to bake than she indicated, even with the small size. I kept upping the oven timer…five more minutes, five more minutes. I feel like I did it a zillion times, but I probably tacked on an extra 15 to 20 minutes in all. I was a little worried it was overkill and that I’d wind up with a curdled mess, but I can give thanks that my Thanksgiving pie came out just right.
I wish all of my American friends a safe and happy Thanksgiving! Even though everything feels a bit more challenging this year than last, everyday (and with every news broadcast) I’m reminded of just how much I have to be thankful for. For the pie recipe, look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. You can also find it in Vibi’s post. Check out the TWD Blogroll to find plenty of other baking tips for this pie!
The Cake Slice: Sweet Potato Cake
November 20, 2008 at 4:41 pm | Posted in cakes & tortes, groups, layer cakes, sweet things, the cake slice | 30 Comments
I just realized that today’s the posting day for the second installment of The Cake Slice! This month (or yesterday, in my case) we baked up a Sweet Potato Cake from the delicious book Sky High: Irresistible Triple Layer Cakes by Alicia Huntsman and Peter Wynne.
If you are thinking that this cake sounds a little weird, the sweet potato puree makes the cake really moist (and orange-hued), but I think the flavor actually isn’t so noticeable. The cake batter has all of the nice, warm fall spices…cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves…and they are what really shine here.
The spice cake is great with the frosting…a chocolate cream cheese frosting, that is! According to the recipe, the chocolate cream cheese mix is just used to frost the outside. The cake “should” be filled with an orange cream cheese filling. I’ve said this a trillion times, but I don’t like fruit and chocolate, so I went chocolate all the way! I am missing a few kitchen essentials right now, like a scale and a sieve. I had to wing the frosting, adding powdered sugar and chocolate to taste (which for me means less sweet and more chocolate). Since I wasn’t able to sift the sugar, I had a few lumpies in there, but that’s not gonna end my world.
This is a cake I’m really glad I made– it’s moist, spicy tall and tasty! Visit Katie for the recipe (or get your hands on a copy of Sky High: Irresistible Triple Layer Cakes), and cruise through the list of The Cake Slice Bakers to check out all of our sweet potato cakes!
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