TWD: Black Raspberry Blancmanger

The assignment for this week's "Tuesdays with Dorie" was Raspberry Blancmanger, chosen by Susan of Sticky, Gooey, Creamy, Chewy. Thanks, Susan! I've read the phrase "quaking like a blancmanger" but never actually made or eaten one. It's very light and delicious! Check out Susan's blog if you want the recipe.


This was half the recipe, made in a 6-inch springform pan. I used purchased almond flour, which gave it a very smooth texture. For the bottom, I tried a variation of Dorie's Chocolate Pastry Crust, with more sugar and less cocoa. But it was a bit tough, I think I overbaked it. Still pretty good. I think a thin layer of sponge cake would be the very best bottom layer for this. The light texture would go better with the light, fluffy blancmanger. Or, crisp almond or chocolate cookies on the side...mmm.

The black raspberries are almost done for this year. We have a whole lot in the freezer and a few left for eating fresh.

See you all next week!

TWD postscript -- dacquoise becomes sundae

In my last post I reported that the dacquoise was pretty good, but not our favorite. News flash -- it is great when you turn the components into a sundae!


Haagen-Daz vanilla ice cream, pineapple chunks, white chocolate ganache, caramel sauce, broken-up dacquoise, toasted coconut.

I rather like the dacquoise as little crunchy bits. And the white chocolate is kind of nice as long as it is a subtle whisper in the background...

I guess my heart belongs to down-home desserts. Fancy bowls are optional but fun.

TWD: Coconut - Roasted Pineapple Dacquoise

This week's recipe for "Tuesdays with Dorie" was a Coconut - Roasted Pineapple Dacquoise, chosen by Andrea of Andrea in the Kitchen.

Whenever I'm flipping through Dorie's book, I have to stop a moment by the picture of this dessert. It looks fabulous! Layers of crunchy meringue with ground-up coconut and almonds (that's the "dacquoise part. Where do the French come up with these names?). Creamy filling. Luscious roasted pineapple slices. Crunchy toasted coconut. Ooh-la-la!


Unfortunately, as the time came to make it, I began to worry. The weather was hot and humid and showed every sign of staying that way. (And it has.) Everyone says that meringues don't do well in humid weather. Was it worth turning on the whole-house air conditioner to make these? What was I going to do for "Plan B?" Fortunately, my husband was all for the idea of turning on the air conditioner, so we could stay with "Plan A."

Plan A did involve making only half the recipe. It took about 2/3 of one of those smaller (but delicious!) "Honey Sweet" pineapples to produce 36 slices. (Yes, I like math. 3 layers of pineapple arranged 3 x 8 = 72 pieces for the whole recipe.) This was the first time I'd ever used the broiler in our stove/oven. I'm pleased to report it works well, but it seems to brown a little faster in the middle. Or maybe my slices were uneven. Or both. I sprinkled them with a little rum after broiling.


I'd defrosted some of the frozen egg whites left over from previous baking (another reason I wanted to make the dacquoise). They whipped up beautifully and I was able to fold in the ground-up coconut/almond mixture with no problems. Whew! (The last time I tried to make a meringue-based dessert, the folding-in step was a complete disaster. I ended up with something resembling marshmallow soup. Not a good thing.)

More calculations here -- Dorie's recipe calls for making 3 rectangles of 12 x 9 inches for a total of 216 square inches. For my half-recipe, I made 6 rectangles of 6 x 3 inches. The next part was easy -- bake for 3 hours. A good time to make the other components of the recipe, clean out the fridge a little, read food blogs...interrupted occasionally by my husband saying "Isn't it done yet?"


I'm not a big fan of white chocolate. I was considering leaving it out altogether, but eventually decided to make just a quarter recipe of the ganache, and then add in some drained yogurt. We were low on yogurt, though, so I also mixed in some sour cream. (D**n those fat calories, full speed ahead!)

And a half-recipe of Dorie's Caramel Sauce (page 466) with rum and sea salt added -- just because! Oh, and the toasted coconut for on top -- almost forgot that!


I cut my dacquoise squares in half and arranged them in two layers. Lovely!

Unfortunately, we both thought this was only "pretty good." Here are the details:

Roasted pineapple: fabulous, especially with a little rum!
Dacquoise: very nice texture, crispy/crunchy yet tender. But too sweet and not much taste of coconut/almond.
Ganache: before adding the yogurt/sour cream, it was too sweet and tasted strongly of white chocolate. Adding the sour ingredients helped the flavor considerably, but made it a bit runny. After trying several brands (all "good" ones) and several recipes, I've come to the conclusion that I just don't like white chocolate. Cocoa butter should be eaten combined with cocoa solids the way Mother Nature designed it!
Salted Rum Caramel sauce: nomm nomm nomm! Next time, make a whole recipe--I'm sure we'll find uses for it. On second thought, maybe it would be better for our waistlines if I didn't...

What I learned:

1) Roasted pineapple is fabulous. Caramel sauce is fabulous (wait, I knew that already). A touch of rum is fabulous (oh, I knew that already, too).
2) I can make dacquoise! Meringue success! But alas, I really don't like things that are mostly meringue. Too sweet, don't taste like much of anything else. Well, there are plenty of other egg-white recipes to try -- like next week's cake. In future I'll be looking for recipes that combine egg whites & sugar with lots of other flavorful ingredients.
3) Sorry, I just don't like the taste of white chocolate. This expensive ingredient is wasted on me.
4) I love the combination of flavors / textures in this dessert, but next time I'd use different components to create it. For the "pastry" part -- how about coconut sweet tart pastry, or puff pastry, or even a trifle with rum-soaked cake? and for the creamy part, ice cream, or some combination of yogurt, sour cream, cream cheese, whipped cream?

Andrea, thanks for choosing this recipe! I had fun making the components and assembling them. Unfortunately, we weren't completely thrilled with the result. But, I joined this group to challenge myself and learn more about baking, and in that respect, this recipe was a complete success!

Baking With Rose: The Charlotte Challenge - Lemon Charlotte

Some folks over on the forums of Real Baking With Rose decided to issue a Charlotte Challenge. The challenge was to bake one of the charlotte recipes from Rose Levy Beranbaum's "The Cake Bible." (If you'd like to see the other results, please visit this link. Sorry, no recipes are posted -- you'll have to consult the book.)

I was thinking of making the Ethereal Pear Charlotte, but then -- it turned out organic lemons were on sale at our local food co-op. So, I decided to make an Ethereal Lemon Charlotte instead. Although it turned out more of a "moderately fluffy" half-sized lemon charlotte, it was still good!


The components are: Almond Biscuit Roulade (p. 142-144) and Pierre Hermé's Lemon Cream (from Dorie Greenspan) for the shell, Lemon Cream Illusion (p. 266) for the filling (with Super-Stabilized Whipped Cream, p. 256, added because I messed up the meringue component), Lemon Curd (p. 340-342) for the top, with whipped cream for decoration.

The original Ethereal Pear Charlotte recipe (p. 175-177) calls for a shell made from Biscuit Roulade (a French sponge cake), stuck together with raspberry jam. I went with Almond Biscuit Roulade (p. 142-144), and since this was going in a 6-inch round pan rather than a 9-inch round pan, I just baked one sheet. That was enough with a little left over.

I'm quite pleased with how the roulade turned out -- I've only made it once before. That time it was Chocolate Roulade, and I overbaked it so it was kind of dry and rubbery. Also, I might not have beaten the egg/egg yolk/sugar mixture enough that first time. (This is amazing to watch. I kept beating it with my hand-held power mixer, switching the mixer from hand to hand as I got tired. It just kept getting lighter and lighter, fluffier and fluffier... Eventually it reached a stage where the beater marks were persisting and it formed a very thick, slow ribbon when I raised the beaters. "Patience, Grasshopper," is the key to this process.)


This time, the Biscuit was just right -- moist, fluffy, and springy. I still thought it was rubbery compared to, say, butter cake -- but I suspect that's how it is supposed to be. After all, it is mostly beaten eggs. Sort of a souffle-cake. I found myself gobbling up the trimmings -- always a good sign!

I was thinking of lemon curd for the "glue," but didn't feel like making an extra batch of lemon curd. What's more, there was some luscious lemon cream stashed in the freezer. (Fabulous stuff! Invented by French chef Pierre Hermé. Do try it some time. Here's a link to the recipe, and here are some hints.) So, the lemon cream became the "glue."

Making the charlotte shell is a bit of crafts project -- cutting out 2.5 inch wide strips of Biscuit, layering with the lemon cream, wrapping and freezing...then, next day, cutting the layered strips and fitting them into the spring-form pan. Then, trim and insert the bottom layer, coat it all with a bit more lemon cream (just because!) and refrigerate. Phew!


Now for the filling: I was hesitating between lemon curd lightened with whipped cream, or lemon curd lightened with Italian meringue. The idea of being able to use up the egg whites left over from the curd won out. OK, the plan was: make one recipe of Rose's Lemon Curd (p. 340-342) using only 1/4 cup sugar. Divide it in half and add more sugar (2 Tablespoons) to one batch. Use the less-sweet batch to make a half-recipe of Rose's Lemon Cream Illusion (p. 266), use that for the filling, and then spread the sweeter curd in a thin, smooth layer over the top.

Making the curd went well. I took the time to zest and juice all 10 of my on-sale lemons. The extra juice is now frozen into cubes and stored in the freezer. I mixed the zest with an equal weight of sugar and twice the weight of vodka, and put it into a jar in the fridge. In a few weeks, I will strain out the zest, store it in the freezer (it can still be used for flavoring, just use more), plus I'll have some home-made limoncello!

A couple of changes I made: I whizzed the lemon zest in my mini-food-processor with a little of the sugar so it was really finely ground, and stirred it in after the curd was cooked and strained. I also stirred in about 1 teaspoon of home-made limoncello (my last batch). My last few attempts at lemon curd have been good, but a little runny. This time I just kept cooking and stirring, cooking and stirring, until it got very thick indeed. It still wasn't up to Rose's recommended temperature of 196 degrees -- I've never had the nerve to take it that far. I think it was up to about 185 degrees. Divide, add more sugar to one batch, chill overnight. Phew!

OK, now for the half-recipe of Light Italian Meringue (p. 298-299). I was very diligent about measuring and weighing, getting everything ready, and letting the egg whites come to room temperature. Warm sugar syrup, beat egg whites, boil syrup to 248-250 degrees, immediately plunge my small syrup-pan into some water to stop the cooking -- all good. Slowly beat hot syrup into egg whites -- not so good. You see, I have a hand-held mixer and a round-bottomed copper bowl. The bowl spins around and moves on the counter top. I slowly poured the syrup onto the egg whites at the edges of the bowl, but wasn't able to move the whisk beater to the edge to incorporate it quickly enough. As soon as I realized this, I stopped the mixer, put down the syrup and held the bowl so I could incorporate the syrup. (This is one of those moments when you wish you were once of those multi-armed Hindu goddesses.) But some of the syrup ended up stuck to the sides of the bowl. Not to mention that the syrup remaining in my syrup-pan thickened and had to be reheated. What a pain. Well, the meringue did look very white and smooth, and I continued whipping it until cool -- it looked a bit like marshmallow fluff. But as soon as I started beating in the lemon curd, the meringue deflated drastically. Drat!

I tried letting the mixture cool enough that the gelatin started to set, and whipping again, but it didn't want to whip up. It tasted wonderful, but there wasn't enough volume to fill my Charlotte shell, not by a long shot. So, I whipped up 1/2 cup of heavy cream (stabilized with about 1/4 teaspoon of gelatin, see Rose's Super-Stabilized Whipped Cream, p. 256) and folded that in. Problem solved.

One of these days I am going to master Italian meringue, darn it all! Next time, I will rig up some sort of arrangement to hold the round copper bowl steady as I pour in the syrup (I'm thinking of a flatter bowl, lined with a terry towel).

After chilling the filling for about 2 hours, I pulled out the refrigerated lemon curd reserved for the topping. It was too thick to spread, but some careful microwaving and stirring thinned it down a bit. (You want it thick but pourable.) Then, back into the fridge for the final chill. The charlotte looked a bit naked, and the filling didn't come all the way up to the top -- so on went some whipped cream. I didn't bother trying to do a really neat piping job, but even a sloppy job makes it look much nicer!


Yum! As you can see, we got impatient to eat dessert and didn't let it chill long enough to set the lemon curd. I kind of like the lemon waterfall effect...


This is a lovely and tasty dessert, but it's very time-consuming, what with preparing and assembling all the different components. I'm not likely to do it again for "everyday" but I definitely would consider a full-size version for a special occasion! And this time was a great learning experience.

TWD: Chocolate Bread Pudding

Welcome to another chocolate-y week with "Tuesdays with Dorie!" This weeks recipe is "Four-Star Chocolate Bread Pudding" chosen by Lauren of Upper East Side Chronicle. Thank you, Lauren! Bread pudding is a new experience for me.


I wasn't sure if we'd like this dessert, so I made just a quarter of the recipe and baked it in a small casserole dish. How do you measure 3/4 of an egg? I used my scale. 1 large egg (out of the shell) should weight 50 grams, so 3/4 of that is 37.5 grams. I weighed the single egg yolk, too, because I've been hearing that egg yolks are getting smaller. No kidding! Granted, it came from a medium rather than large egg, but my wimpy yolk measured just 13 grams instead of the 18.6 grams that Rose Levy Beranbaum specifies for a large egg yolk. I decided to make up the difference with some of the extra whole egg. It seemed to work OK.

I couldn't get all of the chocolate to melt into the custard. There were tiny specks of chocolate in my custard even after I put it back over the heat and whisked like crazy. I have no idea why that happened. Eventually I just gave up and poured it over the bread. If I try this again, I'm going to melt the chocolate before mixing it into the custard mixture.

Speaking of the bread, I made my own! There isn't much of a selection of white bread at our food co-op, and Jim would give me all sorts of trouble if I brought home a loaf of supermarket white bread (gasp! the horror!) After browsing through some recipes, I decided against a brioche or challah. They sounded like a lot of work and contained a whole lot of eggs. I settled on a sandwich loaf recipe that had milk, one egg, 2 tablespoons of butter, and two tablespoons of sugar in one loaf. And to make it a bit healthier, one-third of the flour was white whole wheat flour. Jim still said it was "way too white-bread," and I thought it was a bit too sweet, but it worked just great for the pudding!

At first I thought I was going to have too much custard, and planned to baked the extra in a small custard cup. But the bread puffed up like crazy after soaking and I ended up needing all of the custard just to cover it. Oh yes, I put in some dried cherries, and sprinkled some Amaretti crumbs over the top just before baking.


Here it is afer baking and cooling. It took about 35-40 minutes to bake, even though I was only making a quarter of the recipe.


Here's what the inside looks like. The chocolate didn't soak all the way into the bread. And the cherries all sank to the bottom even though I had quite deliberately put them in the middle of the two layers of bread cubes. Not really the most elegant of desserts -- but then, it's not supposed to be.

The verdict? It tasted fine, but I doubt I'll make it again. To quote Jim again, "I can think of lots of better ways to use chocolate." (Like last week's cake, for example.) Still, it was fun to try -- I've never made bread pudding before. I might do another one someday, but probably not with chocolate. In fact, I'm thinking maybe a savory one would be good -- with some shaved ham, onions, cheese, and some sort of vegetable -- sort of a quiche without the crust.

TWD Late Report: Orange-Star Anise Cup Custard

Hi folks, this is a late post about the "Tuesdays with Dorie" choice of the week for March 10, 2009 -- the Lemon Cup Custards, chosen by Bridget of The Way the Cookie Crumbles. Bridget, I want to thank you for choosing this recipe, especially since it got a number of negative comments on the P&Q section. While it isn't going to end up on my list of all-time Dorie favorites, it was tasty, and I was very glad to have the chance to try this recipe and find out more about making custard!


I went for the Orange-Star Anise flavoring variation. (Actually, it was a tangelo, not an orange. Close enough.) I replaced 2 tablespoons of the milk with the same amount of heavy cream, for extra richness. (We love our butterfat!) I cut the recipe in half but left the zest, star anise, and orange extract amounts the same, based on some of the reports in the P&Q section.

I strained out the tangelo zest as per instructions, but it looked so pretty and flavorful that I changed my mind and stirred it back in again! The zest ended up all sinking down to the bottom of the custards. This would have been kind of a nice effect for a flan, or a custard that was going to be unmolded and served upside down, but I didn't like it as well for a plain cup custard. Tasted fine, though. Live and learn!

I had 4 smaller custard cups to bake for my half-recipe, and they ended up taking only about 25-30 minutes until they were just a bit jiggly. At this point I made a mistake -- I took them out of the oven, but left them in the water bath to cool for about 15 more minutes. By the time I took them out, they were firm. The final texture was OK, but a bit more firm than I would have liked.

The flavoring was pretty subtle despite having increased the amount of flavorings. And yes, it was a bit eggy, but hey, this is custard! The texture was good and would have been perfect if I hadn't left them in the water bath. Adding a flavorful topping made them really, really good. I used home-canned mandarin orange segments in syrup and brandy. Yummy, yummy, yummy!

I'm sure the custards would have been even better if I hadn't overcooked them. However, I don't think this is going to become my go-to baked custard recipe. Actually, I don't have a go-to baked custard recipe. Any suggestions? I think we want something more rich, creamy, decadent and flavorful. Still, I'm grateful for the experience and the chance to find out more about baked custards.

A very late TWD: Arborio Rice Pudding

Our "Tuesday with Dorie" assignment for the week of November 18, 2008, was the Arborio Rice Pudding from "Baking: From My Home to Yours," by Dorie Greenspan. Thanks to Isabelle of Les gourmandises d’Isa for choosing this recipe!



I actually made the recipe on time -- but it's taken me this long to post about it. (Sorry about that!)

I loved this recipe, but my husband tried a little and then left the rest to me. I guess I will have to figure out some other dessert to make along with this in the future, so we can both be happy!

Rice pudding was not one of those things I grew up with, unlike some of you. I only started eating it when I began to visit Indian restaurants and discovered how much I loved Indian-style "milk sweets." That includes the Indian rice pudding called "kheer" or "khir," often flavored with rosewater, cardamom, and pistachio. So that's what I made! I guess this is an "Indian-Italian" or "fusion" recipe since it uses Italian-style Arborio rice.

You know, I think the real "star" of rice pudding is the milk, not the rice or flavorings. So I used the very best milk I could find -- lovely fresh, lightly pasteurized, un-homogenized whole milk from a local "micro-dairy," Blue Marble Family Farm. The flavor is wonderful to start with, and it just got more rich and creamy as I cooked it down.

I started from Dorie's recipe and used natural cane sugar (Demerera sugar) instead of white sugar, to give it a taste a bit like the Indian sugar "jaggery." I added two cardamom pods to the pudding while it cooked, then fished them out at the end. (It took more than an hour to cook the pudding down until it seemed thick enough. Next time I'll simmer it a bit more vigorously to start with.) After I took the pudding off the heat, I stirred in a tablespoon of rose flower water (next time I might use just two teaspoons) and some ground cardamom.



After an overnight rest in the refrigerator, I sprinkled on some chopped pistachios. Ah, lovely! Delicious, delicate, creamy...well, that's what I thought. Jim just said it was "bland." Oh well, I still love him even if he doesn't like rice pudding...

Thoughts for next time -- I'd like to try not rinsing or parboiling the rice, to see how the extra starch affects the texture of the pudding. And how about some orange blossom water instead of rosewater?

Click here for the recipe as posted on Isa's site, but note: the cooking time should be changed -- Dorie herself posted to the "Problems and Questions" for this recipe that there was a mistake in the book, and the proper cooking time was 55 minutes.

Postcript: I found a couple of authentic recipes for Indian-style rice pudding in books I currently have out from the library.

The "Chawal Kee Kheer" in Suvir Saran's "Indian Home Cooking" seems remarkably luxurious for home cooking -- it includes a gallon of half-and-half and 2 cups of heavy cream. The total cooking time is 4 1/2 hours minimum, maybe more. Partway through, basmati rice, golden raisins, and almonds are browned in ghee (clarified butter) with cardamom, then added. The sugar goes in at the end, just before cooling. It's served with a drizzle of saffron-infused cream. Wow! Fit for kings and queens!

On the other hand, the recipe for "Phirni" or Light Rice Pudding in Madhur Jaffrey's "Climbing the Mango Trees" is very simple indeed. She says that for the dish of her childhood, Basmati rice was washed, drained, and spread out to dry in the sun, then ground coarsely -- but you can use rice flour instead. Milk, sugar, and crushed cardamom are brought to a boil, mixed with a paste of ground rice and milk, and simmered for about 15 minutes. After cooking, it's sprinkled with chopped pistachios. Ms. Jaffrey says her mother always cooled the pudding in "shallow individual bowls, shakoras, made of rough terra-cotta. We could taste the earth in the pudding."

I suspect rice pudding is a very ancient dish. Rice has been a domestic crop for many thousands of years, and it was gathered wild before that. Imagine ancient rice-growing people living in a region where they also milk domestic animals (cows, goats, sheep, water buffalo) -- the notion of cooking rice, milk, and flavorings together seems pretty obvious. Isn't it fun to become part of history by cooking a dish with ancient roots?

TWD: Thanksgiving Twofer Pie

This week's assignment for "Tuesdays with Dorie" was the Thanksgiving Twofer Pie. Many thanks to Vibi of La Casserole Carrée for choosing it, and to our founder Laurie for extending the usual posting deadline so we could make it for Thanksgiving!


Thanksgiving is an important holiday in our household, even though it's just the two of us. I'm generally able to get off work that day (by agreeing to work Christmas Eve and New Year's Day). It's a day to cook, eat, and enjoy life before returning to work. Since I work for a large mail-order company (in the Internet division), work at this time of year means all the craziness of Cyber Monday and pre-holiday shopping. It's good to celebrate beforehand!


The thing is, we always have some sort of fruit pie for Thanksgiving. Neither of us likes pumpkin pie (it's just so...pumpkin-ey). Pecan pie is not bad, but generally much too sweet. I was pleased to discover that I like Dorie's pie better than either one. The creamy, spicy pumpkin filling on the bottom helps to balance out the sweet, gooey, nutty, crunchy pecan pie topping. Jim, however, was not as impressed. He's still complaining that he didn't get a fruit pie this Thanksgiving. (I'll bake him one for Christmas instead.)

I made some changes to Dorie's recipe. First, I used a Sweet Pastry Tart Dough crust rather than a Flaky Pie Dough crust. (It wasn't Dorie's recipe.) There were two reasons for this: 1) the pastry crust had been in the deep-freeze for almost a year, and it was time to use it up and 2) pastry crusts tend to get soggy more slowly than flaky crusts, and since there would be only two of us eating the pie, it would have to be stored for several days.

The other changes were: I reduced the light brown sugar in the pumpkin filling to 6 Tablespoons, used half heavy cream and half milk, and used half a whole egg in place of an egg yolk. (I used the other half egg in place of the egg yolk in the pecan portion.) I increased the spices in the pumpkin filling slightly and cooked the pumpkin puree, sugar, salt, and spices together (a hint from Rose Levy Beranbaum's pumpkin pie recipe from The Pie and Pastry Bible.) I had to make an unplanned substitution as well -- I had scooped the pumpkin, sugar, etc into a pan when I suddenly suspected I'd been scooping from the salt container, not the sugar container. A quick taste confirmed it -- yuck! So that batch had to be tossed. I didn't have quite enough pumpkin puree left in the can, so I had to improvise. I pulled out some unsweetened, unflavored home-made apple butter from the fridge and used that to "top off" the pumpkin puree. It worked out just fine. In fact, I am considering making this pie just with apple butter next time! (I'd have to reduce the sugar, I suppose.)

For the pecan pie topping, I used Lyle's Golden Syrup instead of corn syrup (another idea from Rose), and reduced syrup to 6 Tablespoons and sugar to 3 Tablespoons. I managed to forget to add the melted butter, but remembered after I'd poured the filling on the pie -- so I quickly melted some butter in the microwave, poured it over the top, and did my best to mix it into just the pecan part of the pie. It seemed to work out in the end.

I prebaked the pie crust as Dorie directed, keeping the edges covered with foil the whole time. A number of folks had mentioned in the "Problems and Questions" area that they were having trouble with burning crusts and slow baking times for the filling, so I decided to adjust Dorie's baking instructions a bit. I started the filled pie off at 400 degrees for 10 minutes, then turned the oven down to 325. I kept the edges covered with a pie shield the whole time. It took about 50 minutes, total, for the pie to bake that way.

Oh, one other thing I always do with pies -- I set a rack to one of the lower positions in the oven and put a round pizza stone on it before I preheat the oven. I set the pie right on the stone to bake (covering the stone with a sheet of aluminum foil if the pie is likely to bubble over). This helps to set the bottom crust and prevent soggy crust. Yet another Rose suggestion!

I really liked this pie! But since Jim wasn't a big fan, I'm not sure it will be returning to our household all that often. I may try a version with apple butter instead of pumpkin puree and see if he likes that any better. Meantime, see what the other TWD bakers did!

Tuesdays with Dorie: "Turtle" Cake

This week's adventure for Tuesdays with Dorie was the Caramel-Peanut-Topped Brownie Cake, chosen by Tammy of Wee Treats by Tammy. What a delicious choice!


First, I have to say that I don't share Dorie's fondness for chocolate and peanuts together. Separately, great! Together, not so much. I used pecans instead. Chocolate, caramel, pecans -- it's a Turtle cake!

For those who've never seen one, a Turtle candy is made of a disk of caramel coated with chocolate, with pecan halves sticking out at the edges. They really do look like a turtle. I loved Turtle candies in my youth and later fell head-over-heels for Turtle sundaes at Michael's Frozen Custard. No doubt they have contributed to my "well-padded" figure.

I made half the recipe for the brownie cake and baked it in a 6-inch round springform pan. Unfortunately, I didn't check on it soon enough. After 35 minutes in the oven, it was well-done in the center and ended up rather dry.


The edges of the cake rose enthusiastically, but the center hardly rose at all. I ended up with a "crater cake." If it had just been a little bit of a crater, I might have gone ahead with it, but with this deep crater I decided to cut off the top of the cake. (The top got crumbled into bits and mixed with extra caramel and pecans. It's now waiting to get mixed into some vanilla ice cream. No wasting of chocolate in this house!)


I toasted the pecans on a pan in the oven and sprinkled on some salt. Drat! The salt didn't stick, so I tossed the warm pecans with just a little bit of softened butter. Hey, that worked! The melted butter coated the pecans and the salt stuck just fine! I made a full 1 cup of pecans because, hey, we can always find a use for some extra pecans around here! Good thing I did, because I ended up putting 3/4 of a cup of them onto my half-sized cake. Let's hear it for more pecans!

On to the scary part -- making caramel. I've never made caramel before. I've made a sugar syrup for an Italian meringue and it didn't turn out so well -- all grainy and crystallized. I decided to make the whole caramel recipe, since Dorie said it was easier that way. I had everything ready in advance -- including a bowl of cold water and an ice pack from the freezer in case of burns. (Very handy things, those flexible ice packs. I always keep a few standing by in the freezer, just in case...and the little plastic "ice cube" thingies are great for very small burns. I don't ever put them in my drinks, though -- something about having little plastic thingies in my iced drink just freaks me out.)


My caramel took a while to turn color. I didn't time it, but it must have been at least 15 minutes, maybe 20. Next time I think I will turn the heat up more at the beginning, then reduce it when the caramel is starting to turn color. The "white plate" test was very helpful -- without it, I would have pulled the caramel off the heat long before it was really done. I think I let it go just a bit too long -- it was pretty dark. I followed Dorie's advice to wash down the sides of the pan with a pastry brush dipped in water and then to NOT STIR. It worked! No crystallized, grainy sugar this time!


Oh, what a lovely cake it turned out to be! Small pieces were more than enough. Rich, chocolatey, gooey, sweet, crunchy -- wow.


Conclusion: the topping was heavenly. Gooey-but-not-too-gooey caramel, toasted pecans, salt (it really does go well with caramel). The cake could have been better. Part of that was my fault for overbaking it. Even allowing for that, we both agreed we wanted a denser, fudgier, more brownie-like cake. Not completely fudgy -- that would be too much -- but more. Oh, and we wanted more chocolate. OK, we're chocolate fiends. We admit it.

I can see myself making this cake again, but with a different recipe for the bottom layer. (In fact, maybe I'd better. I need to use up the extra caramel.) I'm so happy about my first caramel-making!


If you want the recipe for this cake, hop on over to Tammy's blog, or better yet, go out and buy the book! And if you want to join in on our weekly baking adventures, better hurry! Membership in TWD is closing at the end of October.

TWD: Double Rewind for Creme Brulee week

I've been baking this week! First I made the Russian Grandmothers' Apple Pie-Cake for the Apple Treat day at work, and then I tried adapting last week's Dimply Plum Cake recipe to see if I could solve the "dryness" problem.

But first, thanks to Mari from Mevrouw Cupcake for choosing Crême Brulée for this week's recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie. Great choice, Mari, and after reading some of the reviews, I see I'm going to have to try it! And thanks to our leader Laurie for allowing us to opt for a rewind instead. I don't have a torch (kitchen or shop type), didn't want to buy one just now, and was nervous about the broiler method.


First, the Russian Grandmothers' Apple Pie-Cake, first chosen by Natalie of Burned Bits for the week of March 11, 2008. I made this recipe pretty much as written. I used 11 apples of varying sizes and 1 bruised pear that had to be used up, and cut them into chunks. This gave me about 9 cups of apple/pear pieces. You definitely don't want much more than that, because they wouldn't fit into the pan! I did add the zest of one small lemon to the "crust," but I couldn't taste it. Next time I'd leave it out or add it to the apples instead. I added a bit of salt to the apple filling -- I think it brings out the flavor of the fruit. And the top of the crust got a nice sprinkle of Demerara sugar.

This isn't exactly like a pie or a cake. In fact I think it's most like a double-crust cobbler. Whatever it is, it's good! I made it late in the evening, and we both had some for breakfast. Jim said it wasn't bad, but he thought he'd prefer a pie. I wrapped the rest up and took into work for our Apple Treat Day. When I came back with nothing left but crumbs, he complained that I hadn't saved any more for him. My reply, "I thought you didn't like it that much!" Ah, the difficulties of spousal communication...


I wish I had taken my camera to work -- we had a lovely array of apple treats spread out along the window ledge. Most of them were very good, but too sweet for my taste, which runs decidedly to the "less sweet" side. I did enjoy a version of "Teddie's Apple Cake" from the New York Times (recipe here). Here are some comments from my co-worker Livija, who made it: "The thing that originally attracted me to Teddie's Cake is that there is no butter…only oil. Usually those recipes are very forgiving. I used 1c flour, 1 1/2 c whole wheat flour and 1/2c flaxseed meal for the 3c flour part. Also, used 1c white and 1c brown sugar for the 2c sugar part. Made it again this weekend and substituted apple sauce for part of the oil, also, and it was still delicious!"

Apple Treat day was on Wednesday, so by Sunday I was "aching to bake" again. After reading lots of posts about the Dimply Plum Cake, and thinking about what I didn't like about mine, it was time to fiddle with the recipe a bit. Here's what I did:


For the cake, my major change was to add some sour cream for moisture and tenderness. I had just about 6 tablespoons left in an open container, so that's what I used. I cut the sugar down to 10 tablespoons and increased the cardamom to a rounded 1/4 teaspoon because we both like it! I mixed the batter exactly the same, up to the point where you add the dry ingredients. At that point I added half the dry ingredients, mixed briefly, added the sour cream, mixed briefly, and then finished with the remaining dry ingredients. (Standard procedure for a butter cake.) This time I went for a 7 by 11 inch Pyrex pan, to spread the batter out a little more.

The batter was not quite so thick in consistency, but the fruit didn't sink deep into it, so that was good. As the plums were mostly gone, I dove into the refrigerator and came up with some seedless red grapes (not enough for the whole cake) and a couple of large Ginger Gold apples. OK, the grapes go on one half of the cake. The apples were sliced (without peeling, as I thought the peels were rather pretty), and briefly cooked with a little butter and a spoonful of apple juice. Unfortunately, they turned out to be the kind of apples that begin to fall apart when cooked. Yikes, pull 'em off the heat! They were layered nicely on top of the other half of the cake. The extra apple bits got put on here and there, covering up some of the grapes. I finished with a good sprinkle of Demerara sugar, and into the oven it went.

To start with I had the oven temperature between 350 and 325. After 20 minutes I rotated the cake. Gosh, lots of juice coming out of the apples! I got nervous and turned the oven back up to 350. The edges were getting brown by 40 minutes in, but center was clearly not done. After 50 minutes, the center looked better and the edges were getting mighty brown. Time to stop. I let it cook completely in the pan, not unmolding it at all.

Verdict:
an hour after baking -- moist and delicious! The crumb is wonderful. This is much better!
Next morning: the cake near the fruit is beginning to get soggy. Still good, but I see why Dorie went for a rather "dry" cake recipe to start with. I guess I overcompensated for the "dry cake" part.


This recipe is beginning to look like a keeper. What I'd do differently next time:
1) use an even bigger pan, probably a 9x9 square one. I think this cake is best with a thinner layer of cake and lots of fruit.
2) use sour cream, Greek yogurt, or drained yogurt, but reduce it just a bit to 4 tablespoons. Or perhaps use 1/3 cup of sour cream and leave out the oil altogether?
3) use lots of fruit, but let a little bit of cake show in between pieces.
4) possibly reduce the sugar a bit more, to about 8 tablespoons.
5) be brave and bake at 325 the whole time.

TWD: Chocolate Chunkers

For this week with Tuesdays with Dorie, we made Chocolate Chunkers, from pages 70-72 of "the book." A million thanks to Claudia of Fool for Food for choosing this recipe!

"What? Another cookie? Enough, already!" was my husband's reaction when he heard this week's pick. Boy, did he change his tune once he got a taste! I suspected as much -- Dorie says these are based on Maida Heatter's Mulattoes. I've never made those, but I've made Maida's Miami Vice cookies, which are Mulattoes with a different shaping method. So I knew these would consist of lots and lots of chocolate, nuts and dried fruit, barely held together by a scant amount of batter resembling a rich, fudgey, gooey brownie. Great for dark chocolate fiends like us!

The only remaining questions were -- what sorts of chocolate, nuts and dried fruit to use? Milk and white chocolate would provide a nice color contrast, but the problem is, neither of us likes them. OK, dark chocolate all the way! We're going for broke here (expecially considering the cost of good chocolate)!

For the chunks, I used a Chocolove 55% bar with orange peel, another Chocolove 55% with cherries and almonds, a Dagoba 74%, some Callebaut semisweet, 71% Valrhona Amer Noir, and 70% Scharffenberger. I ran out around 11 ounces, so I made up the difference with an ounce of slivered almonds. The dough got Bakers' unsweetened, Callebaut semisweet, and the "fine crumbs" from making the chunks. Pecans for the nuts (I didn't bother toasting them) and sweetened dried sour cherries for the fruit (Door County Cherry De-lite, yum yum). I cut down the sugar to 6 Tablespoons (on purpose) and accidentally left out the vanilla. Oops!

By this time it was late at night and the dough went into the fridge until the next day. It was hard as a rock and impossible to form, so I had to chop it up and let it soften for a while. Then it was very sticky. I oiled my hands and formed it into little balls, ending up with 44 dough balls (and chocolatey hands, too, but not as bad as it would have been without the oil). Once again, it was late. The little balls were crowded onto oiled waxed paper, covered with plastic wrap, and into the freezer they went. Next day, time to bake -- I baked off 20 of them and the other two dozen are still frozen for later use. Best not to have too many of these around at once!

I let the dough thaw a bit before baking, but it was still cold and it did not spread AT ALL. I had to mash down the first batch with the back of a spatula partway through baking. The second batch was flattened by hand before baking. Definitely the way to go. Because they were cold, they took the full 13 minutes even though they were smaller than Dorie's.

It was really hard to wait for these to cool enough to eat without burning my mouth -- but I did. First one -- wow! Maybe I should try another...wait a minute, how did four of them disappear? Better stop now!

Notes for next time: 6 Tablespoons of sugar is OK if using semisweet in the dough, but use more for bittersweet. Try not to forget the vanilla (although they were still good without it). Next time, use 1 1/2 cups chocolate chunks (9 ounces), 1 1/2 cups mixed chopped pecans and almonds, and 1 1/2 cups dried cherries (they were great). Try soaking cherries in cherry or orange brandy. Maybe a bit of finely chopped candied orange peel? Yowza!

These cookies didn't seem quite as good the next day, once they had cooled down. But a quick 10 seconds in the microwave took care of that problem.

These are not going in to work. They are ALL FOR US! (O.K., I'd be willing to share them with my family, but they all live too far away. Maybe at Christmas...)

TWD: Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops

Yet another "Tuesday" in the Bungalow Barbara Time Warp! Which is my way of saying I'm sorry this post is late... This week's project for Tuesdays with Dorie was to make the Chocolate Malted Whopper Drop cookies, chosen by Rachel of Confessions of a Tangerine Tart.


Would you believe I didn't even know what a Whopper candy was? Somehow I missed that particular part of Americana. And as far as malted milk, I only vaguely remember that my Dad liked chocolate malts, and after trying one once I decided I didn't like malt. That was, oh, something like 45 years ago (gulp!) and the only form of malt I've ingested since then has been in beer.

So this was a new experience all around. With malted milk powder and chocolate malted-milk ball candies on my shopping list, we went into town. I was convinced I'd find the malt powder at the natural foods co-op -- wrong, they only had malt syrup. But they did have malt ball candies in bulk. Off to the supermarket where I tracked down some Carnation malted milk powder. Interesting, it lists wheat as one of the main ingredients next to malt.

I was thinking of chopping up the malt balls in my food processor, but after reading some of the P & Q, I decided to cut them by hand into quarters. I tried a few of the crumbly bits. Hmm. Not going to be one of my favorite candies. Too sweet, not chocolatey enough. Nice crunch, though.

I reduced the sugar in the dough down to 1/2 cup since we don't like things too sweet. Other than that I followed the recipe. Some left-over candies got cut in half and put on top.

Did anyone else have trouble with how sticky this dough was? I chilled it for an hour or so, but even so, there was dough all over the portion scooper, my hands, the spatula -- everything! Eventually I figured out that using my little pump oil sprayer and constantly spraying the scoop (and my hand) worked pretty well.

After shaping them, I put the cookies into the freezer for about 20 minutes, then baked. It was hard to tell when to take them out. Mine were set and dry on the outside, but still soft and a little underbaked on the inside, which was perfect! They were even better the day after.

These aren't my favorite chocolate cookie, but they were still pretty good and we enjoyed them! I shared a few with our town librarian, but mostly they were just for us! My notes for next time say: use more Whoppers (maybe 8 ounces) and cut them just in half. Try coffee-flavored Whoppers (who knew there were so many flavors?). Maybe add a few chopped almonds.


Random thought: those half-Whoppers in the center of the cookies look a bit like nipples... But jeez, these "ladies" have some issues -- nipple-slippage, cracks, lumps, oh, let's just not go there...

TWD: Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Cookies

Our project for this week's Tuesdays with Dorie was the Chunky Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Chocolate Chipsters, on page 73 of "the book." Thank you to Stefany of Proceed with Caution for choosing this recipe!


I made a few changes to the recipe, reducing the white sugar by 1/2 cup, increasing the salt to 1/2 teaspoon, reducing nutmeg to 1/8 teaspoon, and substituting some raisins and chopped peanuts for some of the chocolate chips. As I only had smooth, natural peanut butter on hand, I ended up "mixing my own" from a combination of 2/3 cup smooth natural peanut butter, about 2/3 cup chopped peanuts, and 1 tablespoon of vegetable shortening. It all worked just fine!


The verdict? We liked them but were not crazy about them. We both agreed we'd rather have either a plain peanut butter cookie or an oatmeal-raisin-spice cookie. Tomorrow the rest of them go into work and I'm sure they will be gone fast!

TWD: Chocolate-Banded Ice Cream Torte

Once again, in my world TWD turns out to be a Thursday with Dorie. I did actually have it finished on Tuesday, but we didn't get around to eating it until today. And it was good!


Thank you, Amy of Food, Family and Fun, for choosing this elegant and decadent confection! For the recipe, check out her blog or better yet, buy The Book and look on pages 288-289.

First of all, this gave me an excuse to buy two darling mini heart-shaped flan rings I'd been coveting. Now, what sort of ice cream to use? I settled on Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia, one of our all-time favorites. For extra kick I mixed in some of the cherry-brandy syrup from our home-made maraschino cherries.

This was the first year our dwarf sour cherry tree gave us a decent crop of cherries. Most of them went into a pie, but a few ended up as maraschino cherries. I love the look and idea of these preserved cherries, but the commercial versions fill me with horror. They taste mostly of sugar and chemicals. Yuck! So I soaked a handful of sour cherries in brine for a day, drained, and poured over a syrup of cherry juice concentrate, sugar, brandy and a touch of almond extract. Up above you see two of the results. They are smaller and paler than the commercial kind, but they taste of real cherries. And brandy. And sugar -- but not enough. Note to self -- next year, use a heavier, sweeter syrup. They need it.

On to the chocolate "ganache." This certainly isn't a traditional ganache. It has chocolate, of course (I went with Valrhona 71% Amer Noir), but no cream at all. Lots of butter and eggs, and some sugar. As a number of other folks have pointed out, it's really more like a fudge or a French Silk pie filling. And it has raw eggs.

Well, I'm not too much alarmed by using raw eggs as long I as am the one in charge of the process. I am careful when using them. But this sounded like a fun challenge. Could I find a way to heat the eggs enough to be "officially" safe without ruining the recipe?

I went over to the Egg Board's site and found some useful information at these links: http://www.incredibleegg.org/egg_facts_handling4.html and http://www.incredibleegg.org/egg_facts_handling9.html.
So the options are bringing the eggs to 140 degrees F for at least 3 1/2 minutes, or bringing them to 160 which is supposed to work "instantly." Trouble is, whole eggs cook and set up somewhere between 144-158 degrees. The second link above tells you how much sugar and/or liquid you have to add to the eggs in order to be able to bring them up to 160 without setting. But Dorie's recipe doesn't have that much sugar. Does butter "count" as a liquid for keeping the eggs from setting? What about chocolate? Wait, chocolate really doesn't like to be heated too hot, at least when it is all by itself. And I don't want to waste good chocolate...let's just experiment with the butter, sugar and eggs.

My first experiment was to use just 1/4 of the ganache recipe. I mixed eggs and sugar together, melted the butter without the chocolate, stirred it into the eggs, and set the mixture in a metal bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. I whisked with one hand and measured the temperature with the other. The mixture started to set up around 150 degrees. No way was it going to make it to 160.

Next try, I brought the mixture up to about 145 and turned the heat under the water way, way down. Then I started a timer going and kept stirring. My goal was to keep the temperature above 140 (or maybe a little more, just in case my thermometer was a little off or some parts of the mixture were a little cooler) for at least 4 minutes. (Again, I added that extra half-minute just for a safety margin.) I actually had to turn the burner up just a tad but that worked fine.

I stirred the finely chopped chocolate into the hot mixture and set it in a pan of cold water to cool it down. It also got a dose of the cherry-brandy-syrup.

The rest was just a matter of layering, freezing, waiting...assembling this dessert is kind of tedious. After taking all the trouble to heat the eggs, no way was I going to leave the ganache out on the counter during the whole procedure, so I tucked it into the fridge. Good thing, because I ran out of time that evening. The second layer didn't go on until the next morning. I set the small bowl of ganache in a pan of warm water, stirred occasionally until spreadable, and finished off my heart tortes.

Then we got so busy that we didn't have time to properly appreciate it until today. It was GOOD. And a very appropriate way to celebrate our twenty-first "unniversary." (That's the anniversary of when we first became a couple. We lived together but were not married for most those years, so we always called it our "unniversary." Now that we're married we have an "anniversary" too, but that's in October.)

One heart was enough for both of us (romantic, isn't it?) and so the other one has gone into the freezer for later.



(We just got one of these handy devices -- a Reynolds Handi-Vac. It's an inexpensive way to do vacuum sealing and we love it!)

Tuesdays with Dorie: Cherry-Raspberry Cobbler

This week's choice for Tuesdays with Dorie was Cherry-Rhubarb Cobbler, chosen by Amanda of Like Sprinkles on a Cupcake... (Hop on over to her blog for the recipe.)


I was hoping to actually use rhubarb in this cobbler. The notion of contrasting the sweet cherries with the tart rhubarb sounded intriguing. But alas, rhubarb season is over here. And can you find frozen rhubarb in any of the stores? No way. Maybe it's because every farmhouse and quite a few town and city houses have rhubarb in their gardens. People don't buy rhubarb in southern Wisconsin, apparently -- they grow it themselves or get it from their neighbors.

We don't grow rhubarb. But our neighbor Ardie does. I went over to see if she might have any in her freezer. "Not this year," she said. "My rhubarb did really badly this spring," pointing at a few small, spindly stalks. I called my friend Edie who lives about 6 blocks away. No rhubarb. She said it's never grown well for her since she moved off the farm and into town.

Jim said "Great! I don't like rhubarb." I said, "How do you know? I've known you for twenty-one years and never even seen you taste it." He said, "Yeah -- that's because I don't like rhubarb."

Fate was against me. But then Fate nudged me in a new direction -- our neighbors Deb and Lin stopped by to say, "Can you take care of our cats for a week? Oh, and please feel free to pick and eat our red raspberries while we're gone."

O.K. Fate was telling me to make a cherry and red-raspberry cobbler. I already had 20 ounces of frozen sweet black cherries. I thawed them and added in 12 ounces of fresh ripe raspberries. I added about 1 tablespoon of lemon juice to give it at least some tartness, kept the sugar the same, and used 1/2 teaspoon fresh grated ginger and 1/4 teaspoon ground dried ginger. I increased the thickener to 2 1/2 tablespoons of potato starch since the fruit mixture had a lot of liquid.

Once again, I decided to pre-bake the fruit before putting on the topping, as suggested by a recipe from Cook's Illustrated. I pre-baked it for 25 minutes, made up the biscuit dough while it was baking (for once, I followed the recipe exactly!) and then divided it into 16 pieces. Dropped them on top of the hot fruit mixture (they sank in a bit, it was still very liquid), sprinkled with ginger sugar, and baked for another 25 minutes.

What is ginger sugar? It's the sugar left over at the bottom of a bag of candied ginger. I love it! Every time I open a new bag (wonderful Australian candied ginger, from Penzeys) I dump in some extra sugar, just to make sure I have enough.


We let the cobbler cool for 20 minutes and dug in! Perfect! The topping was done, the filling was just runny enough, and the ginger added a wonderful, subtle kick. This will become my "go-to" cobbler recipe!

And I think I will plant some rhubarb.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Chocolate Pudding

Another late post for Tuesdays with Dorie. Sigh.

This week's recipe was Chocolate Pudding, chosen by Melissa of It's Melissa's Kitchen. You can find the recipe on her blog, on page 383 of "Baking: From My Home to Yours," by Dorie Greenspan, or on Dorie's blog.


I was planning to make this on Tuesday night (last minute, I know), but we had such a wonderful dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, "La Mestiza" in Madison, Wisconsin, that I was too full to even want to think about cooking!

So, Wednesday night I set out to make pudding. The food processor was already dirty from making hummus for dinner, so I used our hand blender and a stainless-steel Ikea container (both wonderful second-hand store purchases from my sweet husband). I made half the recipe, using Green and Black cocoa powder and Valrhona Guanaja 70% chocolate. Yeah, I admit it, we're chocolate lovers.


I had a moment of panic when my custard thickened up very quickly and got a bit lumpy. I hadn't turned the heat down enough. Duh. But a good beating with the hand blender took care of those little lumps! Yay! (I did get a lot of bubbles, but they mostly popped after a brief rest and a bit of a stir-down.)

While I was rummaging in the china cabinet for our ramekins, I spotted the antique hand-painted German hot chocolate set we inherited from Jim's Great-Aunt Vi. Hey, what great containers for chocolate pudding! Half a recipe was enough for 4 containers and a little bit left over.

After chilling for 2 hours (yes, the book says 4, but we couldn't wait any longer), we had them with whipped cream and black raspberries. Wonderful! Although my husband did say, "It could be more chocolate-y." What can I say, he's a chocolate "extremist!"


A great way to celebrate the release of "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" by Joss Whedon. What? You haven't heard of it? Guess you're not a fan of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Angel," and "Firefly." But if you are, head on over and take a look. Or read what the LA Times has to say.