Pie, Y'all!

Fittingly for the season, our recipe this week was the Nectarine and Blueberry Pie. I like how versatile this recipe seems. Nectarines and blueberries are great for summer but it could be adapted easily to fall or winter fruits.

I had a few issues making the pie dough. A: I didn't have ice for the water, which I know is weird, but true. B. The shortening was mushy even though I put it in the freezer for about an hour before I used it. And C: I don't think the dough needed a whole cup of water. It was so sticky that I added probably close to another 1/2 C of flour and put the whole bowl into the freezer for a couple minutes before I even shaped the dough into disks to rest.

Aside from making the dough, constructing the pie was nice and easy. As I mentioned last week, I think my oven cooks on the cool side. This baking confirmed that 100%. After the recommended 40ish minutes I still had uncooked eggwash on the top of my very blond pie. The total cooking time was nearly 1:30 but it finally bubbled and got good color. Fortunately, I had to go to work this morning while it was cooling so there wasn't temptation to cut into the pie before time. This crust is delicious and flaky, but I do feel like it's a little heavy. Maybe I should just roll the top crust a little thinner if I'm making it again. I did make the full dough recipe so I'll have at least another pie's worth to play around with.

Check out the hosts for this week's recipe: Hilary and Liz.

For the rest of the TWD bakers check out the blogroll.

Semolina Loaf - TWD/BWJ

Ironic that I made this loaf a week early and it took me so long to get the post written up! Oh well. My initial impression of this bread was not great. If I bake, it's usually on my days off...and that means I have more things to do than schedule my day around bread dough rising. That being said, I tried to stick to the schedule, but every rise went over the recommended time. By the evening, though I had shaped the loaf, it was time to go to a birthday party and I just ended up putting the bread in the fridge overnight. In the light of day, my bread looked...sad and flat.

I carried on and baked the bread for the recommended time. I'm beginning to suspect my oven is a little on the cool side, as it had NO color. So I turned the broiler on for a couple minutes. Mucho better. 

While my loaf wasn't good for sandwiches or anything (was it even supposed to be?), it made great crostini! I made some fresh bruschetta and rubbed the slices with garlic and put it in the oven to crisp up. I think the subtle texture difference from the semolina was a nice change.

For the recipe, check out this week's hosts: Anna of Keep it Luce and Renee of The Way to My Family's Heart.

TWD: BWJ Oasis Naan

I enjoyed the simplicity of this naan recipe after some of the other more complicated ones lately. Some of mine ended up stretching out like the recipe said for the Persian naan, but it wasn't a big deal.
I just did simple garlic and kosher salt since I didn't have scallions on hand. My only problem seemed to be that they didn't get much color on top, even though I left them for longer than 8 minutes.
Verdict: tasty, but I might want to play around with the toppings more next time.

TWD: BWJ Lemon Loaves

One thing I can say first off about this week's selection is that it comes together very quickly. As in I went to get lemons at 8:20 this morning and was enjoying the results by 9:45. I made two mini loaves out of a half-recipe and it worked perfectly. Baking time was right around 33 minutes for that. The texture is great - kind of
like a lighter pound cake but still with a nice tight crumb. If I made it again, I'd definitely go for some sort of glaze per the top.

TWD: BWJ - Irish Soda Bread

Super simple recipe. Thank god. This really reminded me of just making a big biscuit or a scone, which if you are comparing ingredients, really all that's missing is butter or shortening. I may not have kneaded mine quite long enough but it never really got to the point where I could make a "disk" so into the pan it went.  

I chose to put raisins in mine, which I now regret, haha. I think it just kind of mars the nice taste and texture of the soda bread by itself. Fresh out of the oven, without even any butter, it was really quite good. I heard my mom mention something about soda bread french toast the other day; that might be how the rest of this loaf gets used up.

On a happy note, I made it to the bottom of my flour container! Wooo! Re-upped with some White Lily this time. For the recipes you can check out Cathy or Carla's sites and the main TWD site for the rest of the posters. Until next time!

Megan

Update: 

Forgot to mention this earlier but I actually used fat free buttermilk (store only had a big jug of regular or the right size of fat free, so I went with that). From the taste/texture, it really wasn't affected by the lack of fat.

TWD: BWJ Rugelach

For those who baked through BFMHTY, this sounded like it would be a pretty similar recipe. To my recollection, this one was a bit more fussy. I halved the recipe; living alone and having just received my order of Girl Scout cookies, this was necessary. The dough came together very easily and rolled out without any problems. I admit, when it came to the filling and rolling, I was a bit more loose with the directions. One half of my dough got apricot preserves, cranberries and almonds, while the second half got black cherry preserves, almonds and bittersweet chocolate chunks. Surprisingly, the non-chocolate rugelach ended up my favorite. I do have to say, if I was going to make rugelach again, I'd stick with Dorie's recipe from BFMHTY.

  Thanks to Jessica of My Baking Heart and Margaret of The Urban Hiker for picking a great recipe for the week!

TWD is BACK! White Loaves

I'm so happy to be baking along with all you ladies and gents again!

For the first recipe of the new book, the white loaves were a great choice. Personally, I needed a good rebound from those flipping marshmallows. The dough came together so easily, wasn't too sticky, and even after the butter was incorporated it was nice and pliable. I chose to knead partially by hand because I'm paranoid about overheating my KitchenAid. What would I do without it?! 

I probably could have left the bread in the oven for a little longer to get more of a golden color but honestly it smelled so good, I just wanted to get the bread out so I could have some. When rolling it out I added a layer of Parmesan cheese, which made a nice (small) swirl through the bread. It's been fantastic for sandwiches and grilled cheese. The crumb is nice and fine but it's not too dense either. Bottom line: I'm very happy with this and will be making it again soon!

For the recipe, visit either Jules or Laurie's blogs at Slush or Someone's In the Kitchen

As for the Marshmallows...

These turned out to be a hot mess. I can see how they could be delicious, but I would definitely need to practice juggling the several components before making these again. I had to take my sugar syrup off the burner a time or two because the egg whites weren't where they needed to be. In the end I had a little layer of gelatin that separated out of the bottom of the 'mallows. After smelling the liquid gelatin and re-reading all the Ps&Qs it was just not appetizing. I ate some of the meringue off the tops but that's only because I went through the trouble to make a caramel swirl for them.

Le sigh...I might make these again when my kitchen is big enough to handle the mess.

Fluffy Goodness

In light of the fact that I'm still waiting on Rafael Nadal to show up in his match against RFed tonight, I've been plotting a return to some Dorie recipes before the new TWD begins in February. First up I think I'll do the marshmallows. I missed them the first go-round and what hot chocolate or mocha isn't improved by a homemade marshmallow? Results should be up soon. On one of her NPR appearances, Dorie shared the basic recipe here.


Photo credit Alan Richardson

Good To See You Again

Here we go! I'm reactivating the old blog, brushing the dust and cobwebs off in advance of the new Tuesdays With Dorie Baking With Julia adventure. I have been reading blogs the whole time, obviously, but it's going to take some getting used to with all the changes that have happened along the way. My last post was May 26, 2009. This shit's complicated now, yo!

No TWD this week

I'm all baked-out from Memorial Day festivities. I'll be back next week.

TWD - Fresh Mango Bread

This week Kelly of Baking with the Boys chose Dorie's Fresh Mango bread for us to make. For once I actually had the special ingredient (aka mangoes) ahead of time - like last Thursday. This is a big step for me. Not like I made the loaf early or anything, I definitely only made it today. Howeeeever, this was a snap to put together. I like how Dorie branched out to include recipes in BFMHTY that don't require a food processor or stand mixer...it's nice to go lo-tech every now and then ;).

As far as fiddling with the recipe, I left out raisins altogether, upped the amount of zest to that of a whole lime, subbed applesauce for half of the oil, and used maybe 3/4 tsp of fresh grated ginger rather than ground ginger. I don't think the end result had an overpoweringly gingery taste, but I like ginger anyway so it might not have really been a problem. I didn't end up using a foil tent so the top got nice and brown; it has a great crunch which I think might be partially due to the brown sugar. The loaf turned out nice and moist; it'll be great for breakfast...and second breakfast...and elevensies too.

Stop by Kelly's blog for the recipe and the blogroll for everybody's results!

TWD - Tartest Lemon Tart

These are some tasty tasty tarts. Barb, you picked a great recipe to break up all the chocolate madness.

Because I sometimes get overly ambitious (which results in the tarts coming out of the oven after midnight), I decided to do two things with these tarts. First, I made four mini tarts; second, I made two with a Meyer lemon and two with a regular lemon. You could really only tell the difference pre-baking in the color but the tarts with Meyer lemon are definitely not as tart as the others. The texture of the tarts reminds me of lemon bars but the crust is way better. Mine stayed nice and crumbly and fortunately didn't overbake in the oven.

The point of the "mini" tarts was so that hopefully I would eat less at a time but I'm not sure how that's going to work out. Oh well. Time to lace up the tennis shoes.

Check out Babette Feasts for the recipe and the blogroll for everyone elses tarts!

TWD - Tiramisu Cake

This week's choice was great and when I ate some this evening after getting off work, it definitely lived up to its name as a pick me up. Good call Megan (I'm Megan too!) on your choice.

I finally broke down this week and got some 6" cake pans so that I can make mini cakes and not feel so guilty about having a huge (full size) cake sitting around. The recipe was easy to halve and I just ended up using 2 eggs for it, as well as just using cream cheese for the mascarpone. I probably let my cakes stay in the oven for the recommended baking time because although they tested done a few minutes earlier they were still very pale looking instead of golden.

In general the cake was very easy to put together. Yes there were several steps to assemble all the components, but nothing was that difficult. What I did have an issue with was trying to whip "light cream" to stiff peaks. That was a no go and I had to dash out to the store to get more cream before I had to run to the airport. That being said, it all came together well and I put it in the fridge before heading to work.

On tasting the cake, I wish I had added more of the espresso syrup to the cake layers. You can taste the flavor well, but I just wish there was more! This cake definitely gets the seal of approval from my family.

The recipe can be found on Megan's blog at My Baking Adventures.

TWD - Four Star Chocolate Bread Pudding

Well, it would have been four stars if I hadn't put the raisins in it. WHY did I do that? I sort of questioned it beforehand but went ahead and added them. Raisins and chocolate do not go together like this. Other than that, this is a super tasty dessert. I made a half recipe today in an 8x8 pan and it's almost half gone already. Aside from having to toast the bread before mixing everything together, it was a very simple and straightforward recipe, but then again most bread puddings are. I do think this would benefit from a creme anglaise as Dorie suggests...I'll have to work on that for next time.

Pictures to come!

TWD and a Celebration 2.0

I originally didn't think I was going to have time to make the Banana Cream Pie for this week, chosen by Amy at Sing for Your Supper, because I was in Chapel Hill all weekend and this happened:

Followed by this:

Needless to say it was freaking awesome watching my boys win the national championship for the second time in five years, but it was also awesome that I did have time to make the pie!

I chose to make a vanilla wafer crust instead of a regular dough crust after seeing the suggestion made in the P's and Q's...this is essentially a banana pudding anyway. I think the banana cream pies I've had in the past are the cafeteria style ones that don't actually contain any banana, so at first I looked askance at the inclusion of real pieces of banana! Everything came together pretty easily, though my pudding tasted kind of like pumpkin pie because of the spices. This recipe did leave quite a trail of destruction through my kitchen from the cornstarch that went poof to the 34 pots and bowls it took to mix everything together.

But - this is tasty and I'm thinking it will get better in a day or so when the banana flavor spreads all through the pudding...if it lasts that long.

This post brought to you by Gwen Stefani.

Alas...

Due to work constraints I wasn't able to make the coconut butter thins, but hopefully I'll get to enjoy their tastiness later.

In the meantime, please watch the best commerical EVAR! (especially since Duke lost)



(for those who don't rabidly follow college basketball, from L to R that's UNC coach Roy Williams (yay!), Louisville coach Rick Pitino, former coach Bobby Knight and Duke coach Krazywisky, aka Rat-face)

TWD - Blueberry Crumb Cake

Chosen by Sihan of Befuddlement, this week's Blueberry Crumb Cake was a hit, especially in the category of the not too-sweet sweet. I'm glad that I got to use some of my frozen blueberries - I keep forgetting they're in the freezer. With the flour to help bind them in the batter, the amount of berries in the cake is just right. The crumb topping I might play around with more if I choose to make this again; I got a big pool of butter and I noticed others had the same result as well. It also ended up in giant chunks that would break off and then leave the rest of the piece without crumb topping :(.

I also need to find a pan that's actually 8x8 or 9x9...this one is definitely just a little small:


The recipe can be found on Sihan's blog and check the blogroll for everyone else's results.

TWD - French Yogurt Cake w/ Marmelade Glaze

For this week, Liliana of My Cookbook Addiction chose Dorie's French Yogurt Cake with Marmelade Glaze. I've been looking forward to making this recipe for a while and it did not disappoint. This is definitely one of the ones you can decide to make semi-spur of the moment and you will likely have all the ingredients on hand for it - I didn't even have to make a run to the grocery store for this cake. I also got a chance to use some of the farm fresh eggs that a friend of a friend gave us; they're so much prettier than regular white eggs!


The batter for the cake was a breeze to put together, except I wasn't paying attention and added the oil with the other wet ingredients rather than waiting til after I added the dry ones. Fortunately it seems like everything worked out OK. In my oven, which I think usually runs a little warm, this took the whole 55 minutes to get done on the inside. The outside, however, was a bit more colored and the sides were slightly more crispy than I would like but it doesn't really affect the taste. I might try this in some of my smaller loaf pans when I next bake it (because I really want to try the Riviera version) and hopefully that will help with the brownness.

I used orange marmelade with a little lemon juice added (saw someone did that in the Ps and Qs), but I'm actually not that crazy about it. I've got some lemon curd too and that is just scrumdidliumptious on the cake. I should not keep jars of lemon curd in my house.


Anyway, thanks to Liliana for a great recipe. Stop by the TWD website to see what everyone else ended up with.

PS - I have had a new food blog addiction for this past week: Alinea at Home, by a lady in DC. She had previously cooked through the French Laundry at Home and is now taking on Grant Achatz's Alinea cookbook. It's great reading to see a normal person tackle molecular gastronomy.

No TWD for me this week....

With all the sledding and playing in the snow I had to do yesterday and the fact that I'm working a double today, I chose not to take on the Chocolate Armagnac cake chosen as this week's recipe by Lyb of And then I do the dishes. (no offense!)

I'll be back in action next week for the Lemon Cup custards, so be sure to stop by.

Bruno says hi!