a whisk and a spoon

Tuesdays with Dorie DC: Fruit and Four-Grain Biscotti

We’re on a TWD new year health kick this week with Fruit and Four-Grain Biscotti. The recipe specifies certain fruits and grains. Some of those I had and some I didn’t, but I found suitable subs in my pantry for what was missing. Dorie said she originally made these as “scavenger cookies” to use what she had, so that told me I really couldn’t go wrong here. I had the whole wheat flour and rolled oats, so no problems there. I had ground flax instead of whole seeds, oat bran instead of wheat germ and granulated almonds instead of kasha. I used a combo of dried apricots and calimyrna figs as my fruit. I snipped them into bits with scissors, I task find incredibly satisfying. A task I do not find satisfying is slicing biscotti. Dorie says you kind of have to let it go. It still frustrates me. You can see some of my crumbles in the photo…there were other crumbles you can’t see because I ate them!

I made half a recipe of biscotti, which gave me one log to slice up. I brought a few cookies to the trainers at the gym, who got into them right away. The rest we’ve been enjoying with coffee over the last several days. They aren’t not too sweet, have good texture and great flavor.

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: Kamish

I had never heard of Kamish before making this recipe. Turns out, it is mandelbrot, a twice-baked almond cookie, and is made just like biscotti. This recipe is full of almonds, and also some cinnamon and coconut. After the first bake, when the dough log is sliced, the individual cookies are even sprinkled with coconut-cinnamon sugar for extra pizzaz before going in for the second time. I let my kamish dry out further overnight in a turned off oven, a suggestion in the recipe’s intro for even crunchier cookies. Of course these are great dipped in coffee. Also, of course, I’ve already eaten up the end bits and all the crumbles.

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: Berry-Buttermilk Pie Bars

Well, I almost didn’t make these Berry-Buttermilk Pie Bars, but then I felt a little guilty this morning and since I was up early anyway, I decided to throw them together. However, things did not go exactly to plan, or rather, to recipe. I made the crust and baked it off…felt tight on time because I had a morning gym appointment (which takes priority over all else in my life…seriously) to go to, so I didn’t let it cool before pouring on the buttermilk custard filling. This didn’t seem to affect the bars at all, and I think it may have helped to quickly set the custard, which was a very loose mix, on the edges. The recipe called specifically for fresh blueberries, which I didn’t have. I did have frozen, so I used those. But then I didn’t have enough, so I also sprinkled in some frozen raspberries. I put the pan back into the oven and then at the half-way point realized I really needed to head for the gym. I decided to just turn the oven off and leave them in there until I got home. That’s what you would do, right? Maybe not. I had no idea what I would find when I returned an hour and a half later. Guess what? They were perfect-haha! I love it when I half-a$$ something and it works out– usually this is not the case! I’ve never had buttermilk pie before and I like these a lot. The crust has a nice crunchy sandiness from a bit of cornmeal, and the tangy buttermilk custard filling goes really well with the berries.

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: Chocolate-Cornflake Haystacks

Anytime I have a box of cereal open, it sits on the counter forever…case in point, a box of cornflakes I bought in January to help test a recipe for a friend. It’s still there on the counter now (and shockingly not stale!), even though I depleted the inner bag by a bit making Chocolate-Cornflake Haystacks. These are little crispy, chewy mounds of cereal, coconut, pecans and raisins (you could swap these add-ins for others, if you’d like) bound together by egg, agave and melted milk chocolate. They’re pretty sticky to scoop out raw, and I was concerned that they wouldn’t hold together, but they were just fine when baked. They’re good little snacky cookies and it’s not hard to eat a couple at a time.

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: Breakfast Biscotti

My month of baking with granola continues with these Breakfast Biscotti. These are chubby and crunchy and the perfect small treat for dunking in your coffee, tea or hot cocoa. The recipe contains pretty much all my daily breakfast usuals: granola, oatmeal, dried fruit and almonds. If it called for a couple of pancakes to be stirred into the mix, too, then I would really never need to eat anything else in the morning again. These weren’t hard to make, and I thought that they might crumble when I sliced them because of the granola chunks, but they held together quite well. I love how nicely biscotti keep, since a batch makes a lot of cookies. That said, they may keep, but they don’t last– I did half a batch over the weekend, and they’ll be totally gone by tomorrow.

For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan. It was also Dorie’s #cookiesandkindness selection for the month of October, so you can find the biscotti recipe on her site, too. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and please join us if you haven’t already!