Not a TWD: Quick Classic Berry Tart

This week is my skip week. Last week I appreciated the teachers with lots of baked goods (more details coming), and I appreciated my mom with a cake on Sunday. I was a little baked out.

Go look at Cristine's blog (Cooking with Cristine) for a gorgeous shot of the aforementioned tart and the recipe. I'll be back next week!

TWD: Burnt Sugar Ice Cream

Oh my goodness. This is certainly a keeper recipe.

I wish I had process photos, there were some interesting stages to this ice cream. This was actually only my second or third try at caramel. It's very intimidating to me. In this case, I undercooked the caramel a bit. I was just afraid of it really burning. When I added the milk and cream to the sugar, it all stuck to the whisk. But because I had been stirring the whole time, it looked like a galaxy wrapped around the whisk. See, process pictures. It smoothed out, and I had a glorious custard. I made one small change in the recipe. I used vanilla beans instead of extract.

I always refrigerate my custard overnight when I am making ice cream. That way it gets a chance to ripen a bit. It's impressive that any of the custard made it into the ice cream maker. I kept sneaking tastes.

This is delicious ice cream. It could be that I didn't cook the caramel enough or that I used extra vanilla, but the husband and I both decided that it tastes a bit like cotton candy. The girl loved it as well. It was not a favorite for the boy. Ah well. I'm definitely going to try this one again and cook the sugar longer.

This is a much lighter caramel color. A little longer cooking time for sure when I make it again.

Mmmmmm, vanilla bean.

Thank you Becky of Project Domestication for this fabulous recipe pick.

TWD: Chockablock Cookies

As the name would lead you to believe, these cookies are chockablock full of stuff - nuts, dried fruit, coconut, oatmeal, and chocolate chips. This is a complex cookie.

Dorie has one or two similar recipes to this one. The Chockablocks, however, had an ingredient that the others don't have; and it was a highly discussed ingredient. Molasses. Some bakers substituted honey, corn syrup, or Lyle's Golden Syrup. I stuck with molasses. I wanted to try this one as written. The other highly contested ingredient was shortening. I used butter flavored Crisco sticks. Honey roasted peanuts were my nuts of choice. And I stuck with raisins for the dried fruit. They were in the front of the cabinet. They won.

It was an easy cookie to put together. It's a simple drop cookie. In hindsight, I think it could have used some refrigeration. My cookies spread quite a bit. I made my cookies much smaller than the recipe suggests. Dorie's yield is 30 cookies. I got 64.

It was a mixed verdict. The smell of the cookie reminds me of Mary Jane peanut butter candies. The taste was a bit less Mary Jane like. I think there were just too many competing flavors in this one. The molasses also added a little more moisture than I would like. Don't get me wrong; I enjoy a chewy cookie. But this one had no crunch to it, and I missed it. The boy and girl enjoyed it, but even they aren't rushing to the jar for more.***

Not the prettiest cookie out there. It does beg for milk.

I don't think this one won a spot in our cookie rotation. Ah well. Thank you Mary of Popsicles and Sandy Feet for choosing this one. Go check out her blog for the recipe.

***Speaking of cookie jars - check this one out! My girlfriend painted it for me. Isn't it fabulous! (pardon the lousy photo) It was an experiment that succeeded with flying colors. Go check out her website to see her other hand painted glass art.

TWD: Sweet Cream Biscuits

Or not. Sorry, Melissa of Love at First Bite. These didn't fit into my baking (or eating) plan this week. It's kid birthday season around here, so I'm baking lots of cakes. (Yellow cake with cream cheese frosting, strawberries and chocolate writing for the girl's party cake. Cardamom coconut tea cake for the birthday breakfast) A DQ cake next weekend, and then cakes for the boy.

Whew!

TWD: Swedish Visiting Cake

Welcome to the fabulous cake with the slightly odd name. This one is a definite keeper.

It is perfect for when you have a cake emergency. You know, all of a sudden the book group is at your house tonight. Or it's your morning to bring the treat for the meeting. Or you just need something delicious and easy. This is the cake.

It came together in a snap. Butter is melted, so there's no pesky softening time needed. It all came together for me in about three minutes. The recipe calls for a 9" cast iron skillet. I have an 8" and a 10 1/2" skillet. I know I could have looked around for the conversions, but I skipped authenticity and went with a cake pan. The only substitution I made was to use orange zest instead of lemon. I really like orange and almond together. Also, I didn't have a lemon. I did add the optional vanilla and almond extract.

Here it is just waiting to be taken out of the pan. Sadly, no skillet.

It baked up in about 30 minutes. It smelled divine, and the rustic look is very charming. This tasted wonderful. I think it could even almost be a little less sweet and still be very good. The texture was so moist on the inside. The crunch of the almonds was a terrific counterpoint. I think that this cake could be adapted very easily to other flavors. This one will absolutely be in rotation from here on out.

The edges had a wonderful chewy texture that worked so well with the moist inside. Now that I think about it, this sort of reminds me of an almond macaroon. This cake got a big thumb's up from everyone in the house. The girl thinks I should make a coconut version.

Thank you Nancy of The Dogs Eat the Crumbs for picking this recipe. I am sure to revisit this one. A lot.

TWD: Mocha Almond Marbled Bundt Cake

Whew! Got this one in under the wire. Passover ended last night, so this cake was first thing on my agenda this morning.

Pretty low on the fuss factor. It requires one batter, half of which is combined with a coffee/chocolate mixture. The original recipe calls for walnuts. I happened to have almond meal, so I made that substitution. I'm not so fabulous on the swirling, but I trusted in Dorie.

Not bad!

While I was baking, I thought about another post for Tricks for Treats. I was spraying my pan with Baker's Joy and started formulating what I would say. I love the stuff. It always works.

See! Isn't that gorgeous. Nice and golden and so smooth.

Fooled ya! Here's the other side. Oops! I think that's the side we'll just eat first. And perhaps I need to do a more thorough job with my Baker's Joy.

I'm saving this one for after dinner, but I did have a little taste. There were some pieces readily available.... YUM! I loved the slight almond taste blended with the mocha. This one is a keeper.

Go check out Erin's blog -- When in Doubt....Leave it at 350 for a much prettier cake and the recipe.

TWD: Coconut Tea Cake

This one will be short and sweet. We just had a seder for 11 people, I've been cooking for the past two days, and I'm a bit tired. (Chicken soup with matzo balls, charoset, hard boiled eggs, grilled asparagus, grilled salmon, matzo farfel kugel, peanut butter cookies, matzo toffee, and strawberry coconut bars) Yeah, pity me. I made the cake a couple of weeks ago because Passover started Monday evening, and there will be no leavened foods in my house for a bit.

This was very easy to put together. I halved the recipe and used a loaf pan. I found coconut milk with no problem. I made the cardamom variation. The girl loved it. Loved it. The husband thought that you couldn't taste the coconut, but he really enjoyed the cardamom aspect. The boy thought it was ok. I didn't taste it. You know me and coconut... I still stand by my "ripening idea" and didn't serve this until a day after it was made. I think it helps.

This was a very moist golden cake.

Thank you Carmen of Carmen Cooks for giving the girl a new favorite.

The girl and her soup (with help from the boy)

The other day the girl made a list of ingredients for me that she thought would make a good soup. The boy chipped in with his ideas.

Here's the list:

tomato

spinach

lobster

seasoning (salt, pepper, ginger)

cream

peas

carrots

potato

On Wednesday we made her soup. I had to do a few minor substitutions (onions for tomatoes, shrimp for lobster, fat free half and half for cream, and we didn't have peas so I skipped those.) You know what? Her soup was fabulous! It was creamy and fresh tasting, and the ginger gave it just a little bite. I'm going to let her create more soup recipes!

Awesome, Delicious, Supreme Spinach Soup

1 T. olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

4 c. chicken broth

1 1/2 - 2 pounds spinach, washed

1/2 c. fat free half and half

4 carrots, chopped and par-cooked (I used the microwave)

1 pound potatoes, chopped and par-cooked

1/2 t. powdered ginger

1/4 t. powdered garlic

salt and pepper to taste

cooked shrimp

In a large dutch oven, brown the onions in the olive oil until they are a golden color. This may take a bit. Add the broth to the onions and bring to a simmer. Add the spinach and cook until tender 6-8 minutes. Using an immersion blender, blend the mixture until it is creamy. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer until everything is warmed through. Serve with shrimp (I served it on the side and let everyone add as they saw fit)

I would have pictures, but I didn't think of it until later, and it's gone. Next time!

TWD: Dulce de Leche Duos

Mmmm. I was very happy about this week's recipe. It's a cookie made with dulce de leche and has the stuff sandwiched in the middle as well. YUM.

Dulce de leche is cooked, sweetened milk. In my case it's cooked sweetened condensed milk. I can buy it in the grocery store, but I prefer to make mine. It's beyond simple. (take the label off a can. Put it in a slow cooker. Cover with water - 2" over the top of the can. Cook on low 8-10 hours. Done) It's amazing on just about anything.

This was a simple cookie to make and bake. I love a one pan drop cookie. I really like that these are slightly off in terms of shape and size. It makes them look more homey. I tried the cookie on its own and with the dulce in the middle. As much as I love the stuff, my preference was the plain cookie. I liked the chewy sweetness without the extra sweet of the dulce. I was the only one at my house, however. The Girl can't get enough of these cookies. The Boy and the Husband like them a lot as well.

Here's a close up. Golden brown cookie with golden brown dulce de leche peeking out.

I would certainly make these again. They make an excellent foil for ice cream. Hmmm, perhaps a dulce de leche cookie with dulce de leche ice cream in the middle....

Just picture a stack of these filled with ice cream. Or chocolate. Or frosting. I could go on and on.

Go check out Jodie's blog if you'd like to see the recipe. Or go buy the book and bake along! That is if you don't already. ;-)

Not a TWD: And, I have nothing

Nada. Zip. Zilch. I have nothing delicious to show for myself this week. I made some good meals, and I baked ahead for another week, but I have nothing for this post.

Sorry Rachelle. Go check out her blog, Mommy I'm Hungry. I'm sure you'll see something gorgeous there.

TWD: Thumbprints for Us Big Guys

I'm glad this was finally picked. I've been eyeing this recipe for about as long as I've owned the book. This is essentially a butter cookie filled with jam. What could be bad!?

On the fuss scale, this was really low. The original recipe called for ground hazelnuts, but I can't stand them. And, I have ground almonds on hand. Easy substitution. The dough came together quickly. I made a half batch, so some of my measurements were a bit of a guess. (the flour and nuts were a generous 3/4 cup). The dough was pretty crumbly. It took a bit of squeezing, but I got the dough into 28 balls. I used the end of a fairly wide wooden spoon to make my holes. I've made this kind of cookie before, and I've learned to start with bigger holes because they fill in as they bake.

Here is the unbaked cookie. The hole is pretty deep.

Here it is baked. See how much it spread and leveled out?

I did make a minor change to the recipe. Instead of boiling the jam to make it spreadable, I just put glops on the cookies while they were hot. The jam filled in the holes very easily. I used four jams for variety. Clockwise from the left -- blackberry, apricot, strawberry, and orange-vanilla marmalade (homemade!)

I only tried the marmalade version. I really liked it. The sandy quality of the cookie was a nice contrast to the smooth jam. The Girl liked that the cookie wasn't sweet and the jam was so "it met in the middle." The Boy wasn't so sure about the orange, but he liked the apricot. This wasn't my favorite dough to work with, but the fuss factor was so low I might have to make this again if I need this kind of cookie. They ended up being very pretty, so I could easily see them on a dessert table.

Look for the recipe on Mike's Blog; Ugly Food For an Ugly Dude.

Not a TWD: Instead, we make hamentaschen

This week's recipe for TWD was a Toasted Coconut Custard Tart. I saw some people talking about how this was an amazing recipe that you can't wait to make again. This did not happen in my house. First of all, I can't stand coconut. As in can't eat it at all. I'm pretty sure I've referred to this before, but you know the scene in the movie Big? The one where the Tom Hanks character is at the party and he eats caviar, spits it out, and then has to wipe out his mouth with a napkin? That's me and coconut. So, yeah, it didn't happen. (Sorry, Beryl -- it's not you, it's me. Go check out her blog, Cinemon Girl to see what was supposed to be here.)

So no to coconut and yes to hamentaschen! This Sunday was Purim. Instead of re-posting the Purim story, I'll link to my blog entry from last year that discussed the holiday. I will post new photos of hamentaschen. Normally, we have some kids over to bake with us and eat. This year, we were recovering from the plague, so two dozen of the little beauties was all we could handle. Hamentaschen are essentially filled butter cookies. The traditional fillings are prune and poppy. Here we use strawberry jam, apricot jam, and chocolate chips.

Here's the Boy and Girl (with lots and lots of stuff on the table) filling and forming the cookies.

This is a cookie sheet with filled cookies ready to go into the oven.

Mmmmmm. Delicious!

TWD: Honey Wheat Cookies

I was excited to try this cookie. After all of the super sweet chocolate we've consumed lately, wheat sounded almost... healthy. Truth be told, I'm not a huge fan of honey. But, hey, I'm game!

This is intended to be a mildly sweet, lemony, perfect-for-a-cup-of-tea cookie. Except I didn't have lemon. I have lime zest in the freezer, but I wasn't sure it would work. Hmmm, check out the fruit drawer and I find - tangerines. Ok, honey/wheat/tangerine it is!

This was a simple cookie to put together. I had wheat germ left over from my (far too many batches of) granola grabbers, so I didn't have to skip the coating. I really liked rolling these in the wheat germ. I was expecting the finished cookie to be a little fuzzy. You know, the germ pieces would sort of be feathers on the top, but they melted right in.

The cookies smelled wonderful while they were baking. The Girl and the Boy loved the finished product. The pronounced honey flavor was a drawback for me. I might make these again, but I'm not sure. So many cookies so little time!

Go check out Michelle's blog, Flourchild, to see the recipe and some fun photos.

TWD: My Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ok, not my best chocolate chip cookies. Hi, it's Debbie Downer with another "eh" recipe this week. I have been making chocolate chip cookies for many more years than I care to remember. I started with the traditional Toll House recipe. I tweaked. I added. I studied. And now I have a recipe that I swear by. This one is not going to take its place. My favorite recipe makes a chewy centered crispy edged buttery chocolatey little bite of joy. These didn't quite measure up. (Well, sure. With that build up, what could?)

This was an easy recipe with a low fuss factor. I ended up leaving the dough in the fridge for two days. I thought it would improve the texure/flavor. And I made the dough and ran out of time to bake it. It's a simple process to make these -- scoop, place, bake. The only change I made was to sub out half of the chocolate chips for cappuccino chips.

Dorie says that these are flat cookies. I was prepared for flat. I was not prepared for FLAT. These dough mounds really sank to ultra thin dimensions. I thought maybe the oven was too hot, so I lowered it 25 degrees. Nope. Still flat. Hmmmm. Apparently, that's how they are supposed to come out. I thought it might have just been me, but other bakers commented on the total flatitude of these cookies.

I didn't like the way the chips "stuck out." I like for them to be nestled in the cookie. These were not my favorite cookies. I can't say that they even rank in the top ten. Having said that, even an "eh" homemade chocolate chip cookie is good. The flavor was decent. I just can't get past the shape and texture. I like a little more substance to my cookies. These will not find a place in my baking rotation.

All plated up for the Husband's meeting.

Go check out Kait's blog for the recipe and some beautiful photos.

TWD: Rick Katz's Brownies for Julia

This week's pick was brownies. A really long name for brownies. I did a whole thing on brownies once where I discussed that I'm a baking snob and I never ever use mixes. Except when it comes to brownies. They are really easy to doctor up and Ghiradelli does a great job. (Because I'm lousy at doing tags, and I don't remember when I wrote it, there's no link)

But hey, I'll make these. I've made other brownies from the book and they've been good. Anyway, so, I read the recipe. And then I re-read it. And then I read it again. It took me about four readings to make sure that I understood it. And I'm sure I read it a few more times when I was in the middle of things. This is a very rich (read-fattening) brownie. And there were a lot of steps. A lot of fussy steps.

I greased the pan (a topic of discussion for some) and baked away. Mine needed an extra few minutes (another topic of discussion) to make sure that the brownies, while gooey, were not liquid in the middle.

In the end, we decided that these were very good brownies. Rich, delicious, fudgy. However, they are not good enough to warrant the effort and dishes. I'll stick to the box. Which for me is saying a lot. Unless you have an easy fabulous recipe for me....

Here's a photo of the cut edge. Very moist. (not great photos to choose from this week. Have I mentioned that I need to work on my photography skills?)

Thanks to Tanya of Chocolatechic for choosing these. I know that she'll have a great photo and story on her blog.

**** Edited to add -- Don't get me wrong, these were excellent brownies. Very chocolatey and moist. Still, I thought they were a lot of effort for, you know, brownies.

TWD: Milk Chocolate Mini Bundt Cakes

Or in my case, dark chocolate mini Bundt cakes. I'm not a huge fan of milk chocolate, and I didn't have any anyway. So dark chocolate it is!

This is a pretty simple cake. It's a chocolate cake that you layer with something. The original recipe called for pecans. I made the buttermilk variation from the "playing around" section. I did stick with the pecans.

I think that I over baked these a bit. While the taste was good, the texture was a bit crumbly. That may also have something to to do with using dark instead of milk chocolate. I left mine unadorned (mostly due to sheer laziness), though the original calls for a chocolate glaze.

I made these once before using dark chocolate. Instead of the pecans, however, I used candied ginger. I much preferred that version. This was very good with a scoop of ice cream plunked right in the hole, though. I think ice cream fixes many baking mistakes.

These ended up with quite a few holes. I think the glaze would have made them much prettier.

Here's a little cross section. You can see the cocoa covered pecans.

Thanks to Kristin of I'm Right About Everything for choosing this week's recipe. Get it at her blog, or go buy the book already!

TWD: Cocoa-Nana Bread

I'm going to come right out and say it. This one was a bit of a disappointment. It was neither cocoa nor banana enough for me. And it certainly wasn't bread. This was cake. Not that that's a bad thing, but the whole name led me to believe that this was going to be something else.

This was a simple recipe to make (whew!) It calls for a lot of cocoa. More than in most recipes. I use a black cocoa from KAF. It makes dark, rich, wonderful things. Because of all the cocoa, I was hoping for a rich, chocolate taste. The cake also uses two ripe bananas. I just want to show you what a RIPE banana that is ready for baking looks like. (I throw them in the freezer when they start getting black. That's why they look wet)

I used 2 1/2 because that is what I had in the freezer. This was a very thick batter. I was a little surprised with the instructions at the end. Normally, when there is a liquid to add, it is added alternately with the dry ingredients. In this case it was all dry and then the buttermilk. Thanks again to my trusty stand mixer.

I used the full baking time plus a couple of extra minutes. It was tasted the first night by some friends of the husband. They all thought it was ok, but it would have been better with ice cream. The next day it was better. I'm discovering that with certain baked goods, a bit of ripening is helpful. Having said that, I didn't love this. It wasn't strongly cocoa flavored, and it wasn't strongly banana flavored. It's as if the two flavors almost cancelled each other out. I have other things that I love to make when I have black bananas.

Here's the full cake.

Here's a slice begging for some ice cream. Those lighter brown spots are semi-sweet chips. When they say black cocoa, they aren't kidding.

Thank you to Steph of Obsessed with Baking for choosing this one. I don't think this will be joining my baking list any time soon. Ah well. It's good to try new things anyway.

TWD: Chocolate Oatmeal Almost Candy Bars

Well, with a title like that, who wouldn't want to make this?! It's almost health food what with the oatmeal and raisins and everything....

This is a bar recipe with two components that make three layers. It is very rich and pretty sweet. The good news is that a little goes a long way.

The base layer calls for a rather large quantities of the chosen ingredients. There's brown sugar, flour, oatmeal, butter, eggs, nuts, and some other stuff. The recipe calls for three cups of oatmeal alone. This is when I was grateful yet again for my KA stand mixer. It handled the job easily. The crust mixture is divided, and most of the mix is pressed into a 13 x 9 pan. The rest is set aside. The chocolate layer was pretty simple to make. I used a homemade double boiler (bowl over pan of simmering water) to melt chocolate, butter, and sweetened condensed milk (not to be confused with evaporated milk. I guess it's a common mistake because I see the warnings in almost every recipe that calls for one or the other.) You add chopped peanuts and raisins to that. I used a mix of almonds and peanuts because that's what I had. I did add the raisins, though other bakers were worried about the sweetness. The chocolate layer is spread over the base layer. The remaining crust mix is crumbled over the top. It didn't need a long bake, but it does require a long cool -- at least three hours.

See, Oatmeal! It's good for you!

Here's the whole pan.

This was my corner piece. It was excellent and chewy.

I cut mine while it was still at room temperature. It was easy to do. Much easier than when it was cold. We also ate it while it was still warm, though Dorie makes a case for eating it cold. I really liked it warm. I liked the contrast of the gooey chocolate and the crunchy top and base. Though, it was pretty darn good the next day right out of the fridge. It wasn't as sweet as I was expecting it to be. I wonder if I just used a different chocolate than some of the other bakers. It does make a lot, so half of my pan went into the freezer for later use. I could certainly see myself making this one again. I might play around with cappuccino chips to replace the raisins and using all almonds. Thank you Lillian of Confectiona's Realm for choosing this recipe. Go to her blog to see the recipe.

Not a TWD: I made a cake, though

This week's recipe was for something called Mrs. Vogel's Scherben. It is essentially fried dough with powdered sugar on top. I am not opposed to frying. I own a deep fryer. I like dough and I like sugar. However, this one didn't appeal to me. I did go to Teanna's blog, Spork or Foon, and saw a lovely photo that made me think I want to try these another day.

I did make a delicious cake, though. I have fairly recently discovered cardamom. It has a sort of herbal, woodsy taste. It's used a lot in Scandinavian baking and Indian cooking. (Thank you Wikipedia!) We had friends over this summer and I made a wonderful cardamom ice cream. I had plenty left over, so when I was trolling blogs, and I found this recipe, I knew I wanted to make it.

The cake was very easy to put together. It has two parts: cake and swirl. I used a whole vanilla bean instead of a half and yogurt in place of the sour cream for the cake. Each component had orange zest and cardamom in it. The swirl ingredients were unchanged. My kitchen smelled amazing while it was baking. I let it "ripen" overnight. (I'm discovering that this is a good trick for most of the cakes I've made lately)

This is an excellent cake.

My swirl didn't end up very swirl-like. It sort of clumped. Truth be told, the cake would be fabulous without it. It's a rich cake with hints of cardamom, citrus, and vanilla. The swirl is a little more crunchy with a very concentrated cardamom taste. The cake is very moist.

I would absolutely make this cake again. I might either play with the swirl or take it out completely.

TWD: Cocoa Buttermilk Birthday Cake

Happy 2nd anniversary to Tuesday's With Dorie! It started small with one woman and her Christmas present: Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. It expanded slowly with a few bakers joining in to help her bake through the book. Then it exploded. Now hundreds of bakers pull out their well-worn copies and bake along.

This week we had the choice of Tarte Tatin or the Cocoa Buttermilk Birthday Cake. It was a coin flip for me. Both sounded wonderful. The cake won. Since we have been eating plenty of sweets lately, I did at least cut the recipe in half so I could (eat it all in one sitting and no one would know) limit the sugar intake of the boy and girl.

The cake was easy enough to put together. I made a mini version. I have a set of 3" pans that make an adorable layer cake. I had a bit extra so there was also a mini loaf cake for us to snack on. On day one, I was a bit disappointed with the taste. All I really got was sweet. Today, when I was trimming the layers I took a little bite of the crumbs. Much better on day two! The chocolate flavor became a bit more prominent.

I used a simple brown sugar caramel icing. Yum on its own.

This cake is 3" wide and about 6" tall.

Happy anniversary, TWD! We'll cut this tonight and clink our forks in honor of the big day.

*** Edited to add -- this was tasty! The boy and girl especially enjoyed the frosting. The cake was good as well. ;-)