TWD: Cran-Apple Crisps

Our fearless leaders at Tuesdays with Dorie have permitted us to post the November recipes in whatever order best accomodates our busy holiday schedules. The recipe that I've decided to post this week, Cran-Apple Crisps (chosen by Em of The Repressed Pastry Chef) is a classic fall dessert that would be a fabulous addition to any Thanksgiving table. But it was also great on that random Monday night in early November when I had my act together well enough to make a Cran-Apple Crisp for dessert. It is versatile that way - you can dress it up, you can dress it down. I never hesitate to make apple desserts, since my husband loves them and can be counted on to be a volume eater of them, and at least one of my three kids will eagerly join him (that's the best percentage I ever get).

Tempted as I was to make individual crisps, I decided to make a half recipe of this crisp in one large baking dish. It's an easy dessert to throw together. The only aspects of the recipe that might cause me to avoid it on those (numerous) Monday nights when I DON'T have my act together are that (1) it requires peeling/coring/cutting apples, and (2) it requires that I break out the food processor. But honestly, if either of those activities seems overly daunting, I know that I don't need to be making a crisp anyway.


This crisp is fairly traditional, but the topping has the unexpected addition of coconut. I'm not a huge fan of coconut, except when I am, and in this case, I think I'd have preferred the topping without the coconut. But I'm certainly not going to quibble - this is a delicious, crowd-pleasing dessert. It certainly pleased (3/5th) of my crowd!

You can find the recipe in Dorie Greenspan's amazing book, Baking from my Home to Yours, or by visiting Em's gorgeous blog. Thanks for the perfect fall pick, Em!

TWD: Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies

Even though I've been a monumental blog slacker of late (which I am really sorry about, particularly to my friends whose blogs I have not been visiting), I always get as excited as a kid in a candy store when the Tuesdays with Dorie recipes for a new month are announced. It's the promise of a clean slate - the promise of a new month in which I CAN make caramel. I just can't click over to the TWD website fast enough when I see that "new recipes are up!" tweet. And typically, I am affirmatively excited about one or two of the recipes; one or two of them scare the heck out of me (usually custard or caramel-based); and one or two of them fill me with indifference. The Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies, chosen by the fabulous Pamela of Cookies with Boys, fell into my "overwhelmed by indifference" category for November. Other people were really excited about them, but as someone who, when presented with a platter of chocolate chip cookies, lemon cookies, and spice cookies, would ALWAYS choose the spice cookies last, my primary thought was "Good. These won't tempt me and David will eat them."


Well. Then I made them. And realized, after taking one bite of their crispy-on-the-outside-chewy-on-the-inside-perfectly-spiced-subtly molassesy goodness, that these cookies now rank solidly among my top three favorite cookies EVER, right up there with World Peace Cookies and Alton Brown's The Chewy. This, a spice cookie! I don't know if my taste buds have changed (there's been some banter on Twitter that your taste buds die as you get older, and I did just have a birthday) or if I was just young and stupid back in the days when I thought I didn't care much about spice cookies, or if these spice cookies are just particularly amazing, given that they are a Dorie Greenspan recipe and all. I don't know and I don't care. All I know is that I am deep deep deep in Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookie love. If you see me sitting there with sort of a faraway look and a goofy half-grin, you can assume that I'm thinking about the Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies again.

I was a little thrown off kilter by my love for these cookies. I had to scramble to change my plans, because again, I was expecting to be indifferent to these cookies while my husband, he of the superhuman metabolism, ate them all. But after I had one, I knew I had to get some of them out of the house pronto. I needed a worthy recipient, though, someone who would fully appreciate their awesomeness - maybe someone who is eating for two. Yeah, that's it! So I brought some to my 8 months pregnant friend, Amanda. She called me after trying one and said "I am SO glad that you're on a diet." And I replied "I am SO glad that you are not."

Amanda can expect more of these cookies before she has the baby (and some after she has the baby); and I am going to start sharing them with some of my non-pregnant friends, too. If you are likely to receive baked goods from me for Christmas, these will be in the package. Just wanted you to know so you can plan your Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookie needs accordingly. Don't worry, the World Peace Cookies will be in there too.


My only cookie-related disappointment is my pictures of them. I got a fancy new camera for my birthday, and I expected to take it out of the box and instantly start taking beautifully styled, perfectly composed, well-lit pictures (on full auto, of course). Instead, these are even darker than the ones I took with my old point & shoot! I'm taking an Introduction to Digital Photography class starting this week, so maybe that will help. But I'm afraid that there may be inherent talent limitations at work here, and at the end of the day, I suspect that this is just not going to be the place you want to come for pretty pictures. But this IS the place to come for unbridled enthusiasm about Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies!!

Pamela, I loved you before you chose these cookies, and I love you even more now. Thank you for introducing me to a new favorite cookie!

TWD: Chocolate Caramel Crunched Tart

I should start by saying that there have been far, far more TWD desserts that I expected not to enjoy, but ended up loving, than there have been desserts that I expected to love but did not. I will also say that when I affirmatively do not like a Dorie Greenspan dessert, and cannot explain that dislike purely by personal taste (see, e.g. custard, flan), I assume that I made an error. Usually I can identify the error, but in the case of this week's Tuesdays With Dorie dessert, Chocolate Caramel Crunched Tart, I cannot. But since most of the TWD universe heard angels sing upon tasting this dessert, and I was most disappointed, I can only conclude that I messed something up somewhere.


I cut most of the recipe down to make one 4" tart, but I made a full batch of the caramel because I had visions of my non-chocolate-eating husband enjoying the leftovers over vanilla ice cream. And he might have, if we owned a jackhammer. I had one previous run-in with caramel that, um, did not go well, so I was nervous going in. In fact, when my husband asked me that Saturday morning what I had on the agenda for the day, I told him that I was totally flexible for most of the day, but that at 1:00, I needed to concentrate on caramel completely, and would be most appreciative if the children were out of the kitchen (out of the house = even better). He totally wrangled the kids during the appointed time, and I had zen-like focus on the caramel. It seemed to go fine. The temperature was right. The color was right.


But the caramel was so, so wrong. It was spreadable at first, but once it cooled, it became rock hard, and I found the flavor to be on the bitter side. Not at all the smooth, luxurious caramel I had been hoping for. The caramel was very hard to break through without a knife (or with a knife, for that matter), and the ganache did not seem to be properly set. While this screams "company dessert!" on paper, I would not serve it to company unless Dorie herself were in the kitchen making it with me, because I don't want to have to raid my toolbox for proper dessert utensils (wire cutters? needlenose pliers?) nor do I like to ask my dinner guests to sign a waiver before biting into my dessert affirming that they have not had any recent dental work.

Carla of Chocolate Moosey chose this tart. It is obviously wonderful in just about everybody else's hands, so head on over to Carla's website for the recipe!

TWD: Cottage Cheese Pufflets

I find that participating in a weekly baking group is mostly a good thing, but one bad thing about it is that sometimes you bake for the wrong reasons. You might find yourself baking not because you feel like baking, or because you are going somewhere where it might be nice to bring a cake, or because you or anyone you live with or know actually wants what you're baking. No, sometimes you bake just to get the darn thing baked, because that's what you do. You get things baked.


But it's always great when you taste something that you baked for the sole purpose of getting it baked and find that you really really like it. Then it's all worth it. Such was the case with this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, Cottage Cheese Pufflets, which were chosen by Jacque of Daisy Lane Cakes. It's not that they didn't sound good to me -- they did. But I baked these in a hurry several weeks ago before heading out of town to visit my adorable new baby nephew, so I was kind of checking things off the ol' list left and right, and the pufflets were just another item on the list, along with "buy TSA-approved baggies" and "pick up monogrammed bib." Therefore, I remember very little about baking them. I don't think they gave me too much trouble, or I would have remembered. I know that some people found the dough to be hard to work with, but I don't recall having any particular issues with it. I know that I did a poor job sealing them, as the jam kind of oozed out while they were baking, as you can see in the picture.

I do know that we really liked these. The pufflets were more breakfast pastry-ish than dessert pastry-ish, in my opinion. The dough puffed as it was supposed to puff and was flaky, tender and not too sweet. It went well with strawberry jam, which I can see from the pictures that I used. I might have made a few with apricot jam as well. David?

I knew that David would be turned off by the name "cottage cheese" pufflets. As I handed him one, I thought for a split second about calling them "jam pufflets" or "pufflet pastries" or "jam pastry thingies," but I told it like it was -- "cottage cheese pufflets" -- and watched him grimace. But fortunately, the worst thing about these is their name, and after one bite hubs was a believer in the deliciousness of cottage cheese dough. Who knew?

Thank you Jacque for the great pick!

TWD: Flaky Apple Turnovers

This week's Tuesdays With Dorie recipe for Flaky Apple Turnovers was chosen by Julie of Someone's in the Kitchen. For whatever reason I did not get my act together and make these over the weekend, when the timing and lighting conditions would have been more favorable. So I found myself scrambling to get these done and photographed on Tuesday, which (fair warning) will be obvious from the quality of the photos and the post.


Dorie calls the sour cream turnover pastry a "miracle," because it is rolled, chilled, and folded in a way that encourages it to gently puff. Sadly, I tend to be a miracle killer when it comes to pastry, but I was very intrigued by this dough and hoped for the best.

I read the recipe and saw that the dough calls for three (3) sticks of butter.

[QUIZ: How annoying is it to watch someone who voluntarily signed up for a weekly baking group act horrified by the quantity of butter that she is using on a weekly basis? ___ kinda ___ really ___ really really.]

I decided to quarter the recipe, because my family of five (and only three sure-bet turnover eaters) did not need 16 turnovers, and because somehow three ounces of butter seemed less menacing than three sticks, even though the per-turnover butter quantity would be exactly the same as if I went with the full three stick version. Nope, deep down, I wasn't fooled. But I used light sour cream because I had a fridge full of it, thanks to a 3 for $5 special at Western. I didn't need three 16 oz containers of light sour cream (who does?) but I couldn't afford not to buy it at that price. I wasn't sure how light sour cream would work in the recipe, but decided to have faith that all the butter would carry me home in the turnover fat department.

The dough is a simple mixture of sour cream, sugar, flour, salt and, of course, butter. The butter gets cut into the flour with a pastry blender, two knives, or your fingers. I do not have a pastry blender, and even one knife at a time is plenty dangerous for me, so I decided to follow Dorie's lead and use my fingers. Worked like a charm! I achieved that coarse meal consistency, although there were still a few large gobs of butter in there. Dorie's instructions suggested that that was preferable to over mixing, so I left them, and then added the sour cream/sugar mixture.

After a couple of rounds of chilling, rolling, and folding like a business letter, my turnovers were filled and ready to bake:



I didn't expect to see anything as dramatic as puff pastry, but I was hoping to get flaky dough with some decent puffage* (*probably not a word).

Verdict?

Success!!! We LOVED these! They were puffingly* (*actual word) flaky:



The dough was wonderful - it is indeed miraculous; Dorie is not kidding. The texture was perfect, and it was not overly sweet, so it complemented the apple/sugar/cinnamon mixture very well. My hubs raved about these and said that they reminded him of a fried pie (that's a compliment) but without the grease. As expected, David, Caroline and I were the only ones who ate these. Someday, perhaps my older two children will look back with regret on those days when mom baked crazy delicious things multiple times a week, only to be rebuffed in favor of Transformers fruit snacks. Until then, more for the rest of us!



Thank you for this fabulous fall pick, Julie! And thank you Dorie for yet another incredible dessert.

TWD: Chocolate Soufflé

I'd never made a soufflé before this week's Tuesdays with Dorie, although I joined TWD in the first place because I was excited about the prospect of making renowned desserts that I would never otherwise try, like soufflés. Soufflés are synomous with difficult and fussy (although Dorie assures us that this reputation is undeserved) and, as my husband pointed out, a plot point in numerous Tom & Jerry episodes (i.e., Tom & Jerry's antics cause soufflé to collapse). I couldn't wait to tackle it.

I never really knew what went into a soufflé, and now that I know, I'm totally amazed. Chocolate, eggs, sugar, milk. That's it. No flour. No butter. The fact that these four ingredients can combine to create a dessert with this crumb


blows my mind. It's nothing short of magical. I mean, do a few different things with those same ingredients and you get ice cream. It's almost too much for me to get my head around.

I didn't think that anyone would eat these besides me and my two year old, Caroline, so I decided to quarter the recipe and bake the soufflés in two 6 oz ramekins. The recipe is so simple that I can actually remember what I did without having to go upstairs and check the cookbook! Melt sugar and chocolate over a pan of hot water, whisk in milk. Let the chocolate cool for a few minutes and whisk in egg yolk. Meanwhile, whip egg whites until they are opaque, add in sugar, and continue whipping until they start to hold peaks. Fold egg whites into chocolate mixture. Fill ramekin(s):


And bake. I took a picture of them in the oven to prove that they rose, just in case they immediately deflated as soon as I opened the oven, which was very possible since I live in a Tom & Jerry kind of world:


These soufflés left me speechless. What can I say? They are shockingly easy to make. They are intensely chocolaty, decadent and rich, without feeling heavy. This is, hands down, a top 5 Dorie dessert for me. My only mistake was in making just two of these, because my seven year old and four year old loved the soufflé and wanted their own. Lucky for them, they won't have to wait long to try these again.



One of my favorite blogger friends, Susan from Doughmesstic, chose this week's recipe. Do yourself a favor and visit Susan's blog - she's talented, creative, and really fun. She made the most adorable (and delicious!) custom cookies for my daughter's birthday party a couple of weeks ago, and I've been telling all my real life friends about her ever since! Thanks for the cookies, Susan, and for this fabulous TWD pick!

BBA: Cinnamon Raisin(less) Walnut "Swirl" Bread

The Slow & Steady subgroup of the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge took on Peter Reinhart's Cinnamon Raisin Walnut Bread this week. I tell you, the deeper I get into the Bread Baker's Apprentice, the more hooked I get on bread baking. It's like a little miracle happens every time that dough rises.


Of course, there's always something about my breads that keep them from being perfect (see, e.g, tiny ciabatta holes, preternatural hugeness, or gaping holes in cinnamon bread where swirl is supposed to begin) and therefore I don't usually get to revel in the miracle of my risen bread for very long. But still, even less-than-perfect homemade bread is pretty darn good, and this cinnamon walnut bread is Exhibit A.

Many of Peter's breads are two-day breads, requiring some kind of overnight soaker before the dough is mixed, but this one is a one day bread. It's also a one-bowl bread, so it is just about as easy as it gets. I started this one on Sunday evening at about 7:00. I don't usually like to start bread at night because I never know when I'm going to hit The Wall, and if I do happen to hit The Wall when my dough still needs to rise for another 30 minutes and bake for 40 minutes, I'm likely to make decisions that are good for my sleep needs but bad for my bread. Fortunately, on the first rise my dough doubled in 1.5 hours (rather than the 2 that Peter estimates it will take), and crested the pans on the second rise in about an hour. So the bread was out of the oven at the respectable hour of 10:30, and my night-owl husband graciously offered to cover the bread once it was cool. Delicious cinnamon bread and a decent night's sleep to boot - yup, it was a good day.

I left out the raisins here, but decided to try for a cinnamon swirl when shaping the bread. Peter provides clear instructions for doing this, and I tried to follow the instructions exactly, but my swirling clearly needs work. The slices of bread on the end of the loaf had these crazy half swirl things -- kind of like a semicolon with a huge hole where the top dot should be:


I'm a big fan of the semicolon, but not in the middle of my bread. Fortunately, when you got towards the center of the bread, the swirl looked a little more like a swirl is supposed to look (except for the big hole). I gave one loaf to David's parents, and I'm curious to hear how their swirl looked. I'm hoping that it didn't evoke thoughts of punctuation marks for them.


But mutant swirl or not, this is incredibly delicious bread. I was pleased with the crumb, and while I think this would be delicious fresh, cinnamon bread seems like it is meant to be toasted. So I toasted it, buttered it, and sprinkled it with more cinnamon sugar. My entire family loved this. Another great one from the Bread Baker's Apprentice!