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!

Ellie's Crispy Fish Fingers and Ina's Outrageous Brownies

This week's CEiMB recipe, Crispy Fish Fingers, was chosen by Rainforest Recipes. I've been totally confused all week about what day it is, and almost didn't get to this. But frozen fish sticks are one food (or at least "food-like product") that my kids will eat, so I thought there was a chance that the real thing would go over well. These are pretty easy to make - throw a couple of slices of wheat bread in the food processor to make bread crumbs and then toast the crumbs in a dry skillet; dredge strips of flounder in a mixture of whole wheat flour, salt & pepper; then eggs; then the bread crumbs, and bake. I used Aggie's trick and baked them on a cooling rack on top of a baking sheet, which really helped make them crisp all around.


I served the kids' with ketchup, and David's and mine with Ellie's dipping sauce (greek yogurt, mayonnaise, dijon mustard, Worcestershire sauce and a pinch of cayenne). Verdict? My littlest one loved these. My second born took a couple of bites of the fish, but was mainly distracted by the broccoli that she wanted removed from her plate. My oldest looked downright sullen at the prospect of having to eat the fish. He tried to negotiate his way to a frozen waffle with peanut butter, but we showed him who's boss and told him to focus on the sides if he didn't like the fish. David and I had a similar opinion of these - like many of Ellie's recipes, the fish fingers were very good, if maybe a little bland. But the sauce was really flavorful and pretty much took care of any bland fish problems.

The Barefoot Bloggers recipe this week is Ina's Outrageous Brownies, chosen by Eva of I'm Boring (note to Eva: No you're not!). I've had problems lately with raw brownie innards, so I was happy to see Ina's baking method for these brownies -- they get baked on a large baking sheet rather than in the usual 9"x13" pan. This worked out fabulously -- these were not thin brownies by any means, but they were baked all the way through. I should note that the full recipe makes an obscene amount of brownies. I needed a nap by the time I cut through all of them. This is definitely the brownie recipe you want to break out when you find out that the army of a small nation, an NFL team, or Kayte's 16 year old sons are coming over for dinner.

Here are the brownies. I took them out of the freezer to photograph, so they look kind of frozen in this picture:


I told the kids to scoot while I took a couple of pictures, and then they could have a brownie for dessert. Here they are, scooting:


These brownies are not just outrageous, they are "pound-of-butter-two-pounds-of- chocolate-two-plus-cups-of-sugar-half-dozen-eggs" outrageous. They really do shock the conscience even if you bake every week like I do. But if you are going to go all out in the brownie department, this is a great one to go all out with. My one mistake: the recipe calls for instant coffee powder, and I substituted an equal amount of espresso powder, which is what I had on hand. I think the coffee powder would have just enhanced the intensity of the chocolate, but the espresso powder (at least in the amount I used) gave these brownies an unmistakable coffee, or mocha, flavor. They were still very good, just not exactly what Ina (or I) had in mind.

Be sure to check out the Ellie and Barefoot blogrolls to see some fabulous versions of these!

TWD: Grand Chocolateapalooza Finale - Chocolate Cream Tart

April has been quite a chocolatastic month for TWD. Sure, we started out the month exploring the coconutty, lime-y and banana-y end of the dessert spectrum, but by mid-month we were solidly into chocolate, and we haven't looked back. As the only reliable chocolate eater in my house (my kids would pick Skittles over chocolate - where did I go wrong?) I sort of found myself on my hands and knees last weekend, clawing and scratching my way to the chocolate finish line. But boy, am I ever glad I made it there, because this Chocolate Cream Tart is certainly the best chocolate dessert I've ever made, possibly one of the best I've ever eaten, and absolutely among the handful of the best desserts I've made since joining TWD.

The tart calls for Dorie's chocolate shortbread tart dough. This is a pretty simple dough -- mix up flour, cocoa powder, sugar and salt in the food processor, and then cut in some butter and an egg yolk and mix until "clumps and curds" form. I might as well just come out and say it: I've got pastry issues. I just can't stop mixing it. I want to stop, I know I should stop, but then there's my finger on the "pulse" button again. Dorie provides the best, clearest directions for pastry dough -- she even tells you that the mixer will start making different sounds when the dough is almost ready, and it really does -- so as long as you don't have pastry dough OCD like I do, you should have no trouble with this.

My slightly overmixed dough after being turned out onto work surface:


The other great thing about Dorie Greenspan recipes, thankfully, is that they are generally pretty forgiving. So you can overmix the crust a little bit, as I did, and it will still taste great. I could tell that mine didn't have that perfect shortbread consistency, but it was very good, and when it came together with the chocolate pastry cream and the whipped cream, it was downright incredible. A tad crumbly, though - I made four 4" mini tart crusts, and two of them kind of fell apart on me. But those pieces worked great in parfaits!

I thought the chocolate filling was the star of this show. Making it, of course, involves that whole custard making process, which for me is inherently stressful. Adding to the usual custard stress was the realization -- after I started boiling the milk and whisking together the yolks, sugar and cornstarch -- that I didn't have enough bittersweet chocolate -- whoops! At that point hubs was not home, and I had three sticky, sandy kids, so I did a quick analysis and decided that losing my pastry cream would suck less than taking my kids to the grocery store at that moment. Fortunately, the pastry cream was as forgiving as the crust, and graciously agreed to come together for me in fits and starts over a two hour period.


The night I made these tarts, David and I went out to dinner at one of the restaurants owned by one of our little town's favorite sons, James Beard Award-nominated (that's why he's a favorite son) Frank Stitt. David ordered dessert, but in an unprecedented move that is likely to never again be repeated, I did not. Because I knew that I had Dorie's chocolate cream tart waiting at home, and I was confident that it would rival anything that Frank could throw my way. When we got home, I prepared the tart for David's parents (our awesome babysitters - thank you!) and myself. And the three of us proceeded to be wowed by the tart as David looked on longingly. Okay, not really, he had just finished off a strawberry cheesecake twenty minutes earlier. But the tart eaters in the house really were wowed!

The three components of this dessert - the crust, the pastry cream, and the whipped cream topping, unite to create a spectacular dessert. Each part is good on its own, but it is not until the pieces come together that this tart becomes really special. What can I say, I'm kind of running out of English words/adjectives to describe the fabulousness of Dorie's desserts. As Jessica and I have discussed, pretty soon we are going to have to move into symbols, a la Prince, or interpretive dance. Suffice it to say that this tart is crazy good.

Kim from Scrumptious Photography chose this week's recipe. Kim has been one of my favorite bloggers from my early days in TWD. I swear I can just stare at her photographs all day long. In fact, come to think of it, some days I do. She is a supremely talented food stylist and photographer. Visit Kim's blog for the recipe, and for more eye candy (and eye cookies . . . eye brownies . . . eye pie . . . you get the idea.) Thank you for this incredible pick, Kim!

TWD: Four Star Chocolate Bread Pudding

This week's Tuesdays With Dorie recipe for Four Star Chocolate Bread Pudding was chosen by Lauren of Upper East Side Chronicle. I love bread pudding -- I will never forget the first time I tried the bread pudding souffle at Commander's Palace in New Orleans -- but I have never made it before. And my track record with the so-called "spoon desserts" I've made with TWD did not exactly leave me brimming with confidence going into this one. Some of my spoon desserts turned out more like "straw desserts;" others more like "shot glass" desserts. There have been the fugly mutant custards and the floating islands that reminded my husband of alka seltzer (in a good way). So I was really feeling the pressure to turn out a semi-respectable bread pudding, so as to not be permanently banished to the spoon dessert hall of shame.

The threshold question that must be asked before making any bread pudding is "what kind of bread?" Dorie suggests "brioche, challah or white," and there were all kinds of cool ideas floating around on the P&Q, including doughnuts. Oh yeah! But as soon as I saw that brioche was a good option for this bread pudding, I knew that it was time for me to roll up my sleeves and attempt to make Dorie's version of this rich, buttery bread that has long intrigued and intimidated me.

I made the brioche (and sticky buns with the other half of the dough). My loaf had a misshapen form and slightly overdone crust that only a mother could love:



But it looked much better when sliced



And it tasted delicious. I cut off the amount needed for a half recipe of this bread pudding, and let it sit out in the open air to "stale up" a bit. I kept checking it, but you know how the old saying goes, "a watched loaf never stales" -- so I ended up using Dorie's technique to speed up the staling process in the oven.

Once the bread is stale, cube it and throw it in a pyrex pan. Heat up some whole milk (I used 2% because that's what I had) and cream, and in a separate bowl whisk together eggs, egg yolks, and sugar. You know what's coming next, don't you? Milk heating, eggs in a separate bowl? Oh yes, that could only mean one thing -- "tempering the eggs so they don't curdle." I have a Pavlovian reaction (profanity) whenever I read those words, which is interesting because I think I actually have not curdled eggs much more than I've curdled them. But I always have this nagging feeling that the eggs are going to do what they are going to do regardless of anything I do in the hot-milk-pouring or whisking department. I guess I am an egg fatalist.

But my eggs did not curdle this time, and I continued pouring and whisking vigorously, and then added chopped chocolate to the mixture, whisking all the while.

ACTION SHOT!!!



Pour the custard over the bread. I apparently did not do as good of a job de-bubbling as I was supposed to.



And let the bread sit on the counter for 30 minutes, pressing down on the bread with the back of a spoon occasionally.

This gets baked in a water bath -- the bread pudding pan goes in a larger roasting pan, and then you pour hot water into the roasting pan until the water comes halfway up the sides of the pudding pan. I managed to slosh some water into the pudding while I was pouring - I was apparently just being "careful," rather than "very careful," as Dorie advises. It's done in 35 to 45 minutes, or when "the pudding is uniformly puffed, the top is dull and dry and a thin knife inserted deep into the center comes out clean."



The result? This was delicious! Unlike some of the other desserts we've made recently, this was chocolatey, but not insanely so. It was rich, comforting and satisfying, and there was no doubt that the brioche was the star of this pudding. This might be one of the first times I've ever disagreed with one of Dorie's serving suggestions -- she recommends serving this at cool room temperature or cold instead of warm, but I really loved it best warm (the warm pudding was especially good with homemade vanilla ice cream!)

Hubs doesn't eat chocolate, so I enlisted my kids to help me with this. My one year old loved it; my four year old would not try it; and my six year old tried one bite and said that it was really good, but then wouldn't eat any more. I must look like I have a fragile ego, though, because he went out of his way to reassure me that just because he wasn't eating it didn't mean that he didn't like it.



You can hop on over to Lauren's blog for the recipe. Thanks for the great pick, Lauren!

TWD: Chocolate Armagnac Cake

I have to admit that I was more than a little bit dubious when I first read the recipe for this week's TWD pick, Chocolate Armagnac Cake. I loved the fun story behind the cake, of course -- Dorie was fired from her first real professional kitchen job for swapping out the whisky and raisins in the restaurant's wildly popular chocolate cake with armagnac and prunes, which Dorie calls "the world's most misunderstood fruit." Well, I'm not proud of it, but I will stand up and be counted among the world's prune misunderstanders. It seems like any fruit that is most commonly mentioned in the context of ". . . it comes in a blue bottle, and if that doesn't work, try some prunes" is just begging to be misunderstood.

So I wasn't really fired up about the prunes, but given the great story behind this cake, I wanted to stay as close to Dorie's subversive version as I could. Therefore, I reluctantly settled on prunes pretty early in the process. Unfortunately, I could not get Armagnac; in fact, my liquor store guy had never even heard of it, which is sort of like the hardware store guy not knowing what needle nose pliers are. In spite of this, I will continue to patronize this store for all of my bizarre cooking liquor needs, because the proprietor is friendly, eager to sell me the airline-sized bottles rather than going for the up-sell, and willing to not recognize me no matter how many times I go in there, which helps alleviate my Catholic guilt over being in the packy in the first place. With Armagnac being a no go, I settled on an orange-infused cognac:



which I figured could also be used to make a killer margarita sometime.

So I procured the key ingredients for this cake, but I was really worried that the prunes in particular were going to distract from the chocolatey goodness of the cake. I tend to get easily distracted when something/someone has a really distinctive characteristic that you wouldn't expect that thing/person to have. For example, I have an old school friend who bears an uncanny resemblance to Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He was a really cool guy (still is, I'm sure) -- fun, interesting, witty -- but whenever I found myself in a conversation with him, he would be talking away and I would just stand there thinking "you look exactly like Flea." Which would cause me to miss most of what he said. So I was worried that the prunes would be to this chocolate cake what T's resemblance to Flea was to T.

The new chocolate and peanut butter?



And, of course, nothing is ever easy around here, so I had a couple of speed bumps on the path to making the cake. I made a shrimp dish for dinner the night I made the cake -- the same shrimp dish that I dropped earlier in the week -- and this time I did not drop it, but I did burn really inconvenient parts of my hand when I grabbed the skillet handle (which had been in the 400 degree oven) with my bare hand after setting it down on the counter. That made things like holding a knife or stirring anything rather painful. Then I realized that our long lighter was out of fluid, so I couldn't set the prunes on fire. So I made a grocery list and asked David to run to the store for me. I love that this man doesn't even bat an eyelash anymore when I tell him I need a few more things in order to make my cake, and hand him a list that reads:

lighter
eggs
neosporin

In fact, he will usually be proactive and say "okay, are you sure that's it? You're all set on vanilla? Gauze?"

Time to make the cake! Not many dry ingredients in this one - just 2/3 cup of ground pecans, 1/4 cup of flour and a little salt. But Dorie wastes no time getting the ol' adrenaline pumping, because once that stuff is all mixed together, it's time for the pyrotechnics! The prunes get cooked in a little water to soften them up, and then add the liquor to the pan and ignite. I was nervous -- for years I operated under a no-flambé rule in my kitchen. While my hubs is very supportive of my passion for cooking, I think he has witnessed one too many "incidents" over the years to be able to feel really good about the idea of me taking a match to highly flammable substances around high heat sources. But I ended up setting some brandy on fire in conjunction with coq a vin a few months ago, and while it did produce spectacular flames that scared the hell out of me, no harm was done, so the flambé moratorium was lifted.

This time, I experienced an odd combination of disappointment and relief when my prunes burned in a decidedly non-spectacular manner:



It clearly did what it was supposed to do -- it burned a low, blue, contained flame in the pan for several minutes. It was kind of like watching Britney when she's on the wagon -- I'm GLAD she's on the wagon; that's where she needs to be; I hope she stays there forever. But admit it -- it's not as interesting to watch.

After firing up your prunes, you proceed to dirty up more bowls than you even knew you had in your kitchen. There's the bowl for melting the chocolate and butter. The bowl (or two) for separating your eggs. The bowl for whisking together the egg yolks and sugar. The bowl for whisking together some egg whites. It is kind of hard not to think "Holy bowls! This better be one darn good cake!" (Don't worry -- it is.)

After mixing together the chocolate/butter mixture with the egg yolk/sugar mixture, the prune/booze mixture, and the ground nut/flour mixture (which had all been in different bowls up until this point), you add in some egg whites that you've been whipping up in another bowl until they hold "firm, glossy peaks." I went through my usual egg white whipping thought progression: "that looks glossy but not firm. Is that firm? It is not holding a peak. Wait, yes it is. But it's not glossy. Did I just blow right past glossy? %^@$!."

Folding in the egg whites:



Ready to bake:



The glaze is a combination of bittersweet chocolate, butter and confectioner's sugar. Mine seemed more like a frosting than a glaze (I followed the recipe exactly), and the consistency was more "spreadable" than "pourable." But I thought it was perfect -- I would not change a thing.

Wow. What can I say about this cake? It is amazing. I have enjoyed almost all of the Dorie recipes I've made since I've been in TWD, but every once in a while we make one that leaves me in a complete state of disbelief that I produced something so wonderful in my own kitchen. The French Pear Tart. The Tall & Creamy Cheesecake. And now this cake. If I ordered this in a restaurant, I'd have to drop out of the conversation when this cake arrived, because I would be able to speak of nothing other than the awesomeness of the cake, which would annoy my dinner companions (especially since I would not be inclined to share). My first instinct is to want to compare this to the the Devil's Food White Out Cake that we made a couple of weeks ago because they are both chocolate cakes. That is not really a fair comparison, though -- while they both have chocolate in them, they are completely different cakes. The Devil's Food cake is a traditional party cake with a crumbly texture. This armagnac cake is an extremely dense, rich, decadent, fudgy cake. It is really most reminiscent of a flourless chocolate cake.

I worried about the prunes for nothing. While I knew they were there, they just added a nice textural element and some subtle flavor interest to the cake. I could not taste the alcohol at all, which for me is a good thing -- I've come to realize that I generally do not enjoy a strong alcohol flavor in my desserts. I think the various flavors all came together beautifully to produce a truly fabulous, special dessert. Dorie was obviously far too good for the restaurant that canned her, and this cake proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt.



The wonderful Lyb of And Then I Do the Dishes chose this cake. Lyb, you certainly picked a cake worthy of your blog name! But believe me, this cake is worth every bowl you'll have to wash, and then some. If you are looking for a really amazing dessert for the chocolate lover in your life, look no further. Thank you for this awesome pick, Lyb!

TWD: Caramel Crunch Bars

There is a guy in my office I've worked with on several occasions over the years. He is not in my practice group, but our areas overlap every once in a while. Let's call him W. W kind of has a quirky eccentric professor quality about him, and whenever I have a conversation with him, I walk away amused in a "what WAS that?" kind of way. I'll never forget the first time we worked together on a matter, and he started corresponding with me in haiku:

Will they assume lease?
Until we know the status
We will have no peace

Bonus points for working an actual rhyme into that haiku, W. Given that most of my colleagues communicate with me in prose, I wasn't quite sure what to do with this -- but I finally decided that if someone asks you a question in haiku, you should answer in haiku. And so I responded:

They have sixty days
We can't make them go faster
I'll find peace somehow

And so it went. But what started as a couple of nerds just having a good time turned out to be a surprisingly efficient way to communicate. When you have to express your thoughts in a mere 17 syllables, and in a 5/7/5 pattern at that, you really need to think about what you want to say and choose your words carefully. W and I ended up getting a good result in this matter while conducting at least 50% of our communications in haiku. So I know that it IS possible to get the job done without wasting lots of words.

But you'd never know that from my blog posts, which tend to go on and on (and on). That's consistent with most of my communications; it's pretty much the same thing if I leave you a voice mail message, send you an email, or run into you at the grocery store. Facebook routinely tells me that I've run out of characters when I try to update my status -- that's just plain embarassing. But I can't help it; I have a lot of not-interesting things to say in non-succinct ways. But I swore to myself that this week I WILL keep my TWD post short (er, minus this extra long intro), and the only way I can reliably do that is by forcing myself to stay within the rigid confines of the 5/7/5 haiku form. Plus, Sabrina has already shown us that haiku is an acceptable literary form to use in a food blog, so the ground has been broken. So without further delay . . .

Buy one get one free
Way too much milk chocolate
Used lots of it here


Cover KitchenAid
Don't say we didn't warn you
If you get powdered


Here is the batter
I think that it was yummy
But it's been awhile


Spread batter in pan
Will this be like a cookie?
Or more like brownie?


Bars skinny like Posh
Need a little fattening
Chocolate and heath


Now that's more like it
I just made my own Heath bar!
I think I'll dig in


Name says "caramel"
No caramel making, though
Breathed sigh of relief

Crunch bars delicious!
Must get them out of house quick
Too many baked goods


Tried to wrap pretty
To say "We love you, teachers!"
Picture really bad


Another great treat
Dorie has done it again!
I love TWD!

For recipe go
To What's Left on the table?
Big thank you, Whitney!

TWD: Devil's Food White Out Cake

My hubs and I agree that great beach reads are essential to any good beach vacation. But we could not share a bookbag, because on our annual family beach trip last summer, David brought along this book:



and this one, also by Mr. Life of the Party himself, John M. Barry:



I, on the other hand, I brought along this classic, which I had been meaning to get to for a few years:



and the latest by our law school friend Emily,who had the good sense to quit practicing law and become a New York Times bestselling author instead:


And it goes without saying that you'll never see these toes of mine setting foot on sand without a copy of this:


Yes, I do sometimes feel frivolous sitting on the beach chair next to David, and he does kick my butt in Trivial Pursuit. But particularly since having kids, I really can't handle overly heavy subjects in books or on film, which eliminates most of the world's great literature and the vast majority of nonfiction, at least for the time being. I fell asleep on the sofa in self-defense fifteen minutes into "No Country for Old Men" -- Mr. Creepy Assassin was just too much for me. I just can't read about or watch suffering of any kind without thinking "UGH! That is somebody's CHILD!!!" Really, the worst kind of pain I could handle these days is the pain of somebody who just got reamed out by Anna Wintour for taking too long to come back with the lattes. Especially when I'm recreating. David obviously does not have these hangups (but just for the record, he really is a fun and wickedly funny guy, even though he reads about public health pandemics at the beach.)

Well, just as we agree on "books" but have wildly divergent opinions on "which books" to bring to the beach, my hubs and I agree that "cake" is an essential part of any birthday celebration, but we part ways when it comes to choosing "which cake." Because for my perfect birthday cake, I now need to look no further that the famous Cover Cake itself,


this week's TWD selection, Devil's Food White Out Cake, chosen by Stephanie of Confessions of a City Eater. To me it is everything a birthday cake should be -- dramatic, decadent, delicious, and d'chocolate. But poor David will have to make do with some other, lesser cake, because he gave up chocolate of his own volition back when he was 16, just to see if he could do it. And boy, could he ever!! The man has not had a bite of chocolate in over twenty years, just 'cuz. I wish that this kind of willpower could be bottled and sold, that's for sure. I can't even seem to give up chocolate for a day. Well, we'll just have to find some other cake for David, but for the chocolate eaters among us, this is a veritable dream cake.

As I looked over our completely and pitifully empty jam-packed social calendar for February, it was really hard to figure out how to pull a triple chocolate layer cake occasion out of thin air decide which of the multitude of events was Cover Cake-worthy. David's birthday actually IS in February, but . . . okay, we won't beat that dead horse anymore. Then there is Valentine's Day, but my Valentine doesn't eat . . . nevermind. Of course, there's always President's Day, but as David pointed out, that is already well-celebrated with deep discounts on sofas and mattresses, just as Grover Cleveland would have wanted it. Cake hardly seems necessary. Finally, I remembered that Elizabeth's preschool BFF was coming over for a playdate -- we were out of town for this little girl's birthday party, so I had told Elizabeth that we'd have her over to celebrate. Perfect! Move over, Teddy Grahams and apple juice -- we won't need you at this playdate!

The cake itself came together easily.

Requisite batter shot:



And the cakes:



I was a lot afraid to slice these in half horizontally -- they weren't particularly thick, after all -- but I didn't have any trouble. I was relieved to know going in that one of the four half cakes was going to get crumbled up anyway. That somehow removed approximately 1/4th of the pressure of this undertaking.

Time to make the filling & frosting! This requires heating up some sugar, water and cream of tartar in a saucepan, and then mixing it with some beaten egg whites once it reaches the magic temperature of 242 degrees. I dug into the depths of my spice rack and finally found cream of tartar:



August 2003: my first baby had just turned one, Lil' Kim and Matchbox Twenty were jockeying for the top spot in the Billboard Top 40 countdown, and my cream of tartar expired. Funny how you just don't burn through this stuff until you start baking every week. I sprung for new cream of tartar -- just didn't want to take any chances with the cover cake.

Requisite shot of my candy thermometer sitting in boiling liquid and not budging:



I was worried about this part from the beginning, because boiling sugar is just never easy around here. Personal injury, property damage and/or emotional distress are just part and parcel of the sugar boiling process for me. Dorie does not provide an estimate of how long it should take the boiling liquid to reach 242 degrees, so while I didn't know what to expect, I started to feel like this was not working about 30 minutes into the process when my thermometer was still stuck on 180 degrees. My mind started drifting (close your eyes if you are easily offended) to the store-bought white frosting that I would have to use to put this cake together. But there wasn't really any harm being done in standing there watching the pan boil, so I waited a little longer. And I was shocked when all of a sudden the little thermometer started to creep up! I started beating the egg whites, and when the sugar mixture reached 242 degrees, I added it to them. It worked perfectly! The frosting was delicate, but sturdy enough to hold up to layering, and it tasted great. I can't believe I made it (and can't help but feel like it's a total crapshoot as to whether I'd be able to do it again).

Here is the cake, layered up, before getting doused with crumbles:



Here is the cake after getting doused with the crumbles:



Oops, missed a full quarter of the cake a spot! Funny, I didn't notice that giant bare swath until I uploaded the pictures. I will fess up to having eaten some crumbles, but c'mon. There is just no excuse for this kind of sloppy work.

Here is our little birthday friend checking out her cake.



See those cookies she's reaching for? I had taken some of Dorie's Grandma's All-Occasion Sugar Cookie dough out of the freezer so the girls would have a cookie-decorating activity. Unfortunately, they were definitely more into the cookies than the cake. That's just how things tend to go around here.

Here is the cake cut in half. Not the cleanest cut in the world, sorry:



I sent half of the cake over to David's brother's house. My SIL called me later to tell me that the cake was delicious, and couldn't have come at a better time -- my 11 year old niece had broken her toe just weeks before a big dance event, and my 7 year old niece was feeling sad because the hamster that Santa Claus brought her for Christmas had just lost a brave battle with an upper respiratory infection. I am glad that my cake was able to spread some cheer. (UPDATE: toe is much better and replacement hamster has been acquired.)

This is a really fabulous chocolate cake. This would become my go-to chocolate cake recipe in a heartbeat, but I have to admit that the filling part was pretty stressful. I kind of feel like it was just dumb luck that it actually worked for me the first time around -- between getting the sugar/water to the right temperature, and trying to time the eggs so that they are whipped enough, but not too much, when the liquid reaches temperature, it seemed like this was just fraught with danger at every turn. I wouldn't want to be making this an hour before anyone's party, that's for sure. That said, I enjoyed this cake enough that I will most definitely attempt it again, but not without having an easier frosting in mind as Plan B in case this crazy marshmallow stuff doesn't work.

Stephanie, thank you for finally choosing the cover cake for us! It was so much fun to make, and completely lived up to its hype!

TWD: World Peace Cookies

I first made the World Peace Cookies right before Christmas. I was mailing off cookie packages to relatives and wanted to include them in the assortment. I had read numerous rave reviews about these cookies around the food blogosphere -- they are kind of legendary here in food cyberspace. They looked easy to make. I had everything I needed except for fleur de sel. Imagine my complete lack of shock when they did not have fleur de sel in Publix. I ended up going with Morton's Fine Sea Salt instead.

Morton's Fine Sea Salt: When Only the Second Best Will Do.



I later looked for fleur de sel at Whole Foods, and examined every last spice container on aisle 4 before finally concluding that Whole Foods did not have it either. I think our local Whole Foods buyers must have just said "Look, this is a total middle-market city. Can't even attract a Crate & Barrel. Zero chance of landing the 2020 Olympics, even though the crazy-ass mayor is trying. The promoters didn't even send all of the real Wiggles last time the Wiggles tour came through town! They don't need the fancy salt. And while we're at it, scratch the red lentils off the list, too."

So I've had to make do with Morton's Fine Sea Salt (Morton's Fine Sea Salt: Too Fine to be Abbreviated), but these cookies still amaze me every time that I make them. And of all of the cookies that I mailed off, the World Peace Cookies are the ones that got mentioned by name the most, and in reverential, hushed tones at that.

I had a helper when I made these the most recent time.


Making this dough is easy as can be. Okay, you do have to sift the flour and cocoa together. But if I've learned anything since I started blogging, it is that if you complain about something enough on the internet, people will start throwing things your way just to get you to shut up already. I once griped about how tedious it is to sift flour through a sieve, and like magic, my great friend Lisa sent me this sweet sifter:

and David's awesome parents sent me this über-cool one:

Y'all are the best! Now that I have the right tools, sometimes I'll just go sift things when I find myself with ten free minutes. It's just that much fun when you are properly equipped! And even though you've created deep incentives for me to become an insufferable online complainer, I will try to keep it in check. Juicing citrus fruit by hand really does make me insane, though.

Spooked by salmonella? Have we got the dough for you! There are no eggs in World Peace Cookie dough, so you can nosh with abandon.


I doubled the recipe when I made these, and I will always double the recipe when I make these. One, because the recipe just doesn't really make that many cookies, when you get right down to it. And two, because this dough freezes so well, it just makes good sense to keep an extra log or two in the freezer for those moments when a psychotic chocolate/Morton's Fine Sea Salt craving strikes. Or is that just me?

Dorie says that you can slice these straight from the freezer, but I find that they cut much more easily and cleanly if you let the dough sit in the fridge or on the counter for 10 minutes or so before trying to slice them. Also, my previous attempts to cut through very frozen things have not ended well for my fingers, so I am really trying to change the way I do business this year.

The recipe says to cut them 1/2 inch thick, but I tend to cut them thinner than that. Maybe 1/4 inch? I find that the wonderfully crumbly texture comes through a little bit more when they are thinner. But I won't turn my nose up at a thick one, either, believe you me.

These don't spread, so go ahead and cram them onto your cookie sheet:



And in a mere 12 (13 if straight from the freezer!) minutes, you will be experiencing pure cookie bliss. If this is the first time you've had a World Peace Cookie, you won't be quite sure what just happened, but you'll know that it was something big. You will be moved to jump onto your blackberry immediately and shoot your friends messages like the one that Lisa sent me last week:

************
Subject: World Peace!

Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with Dorie! Oh my God these cookies are incredible! Hillary should bring a plate to every summit.

This is why I love my blackberry....for really important messages like this.
************

Or the note that Amanda left on my Wall on Facebook right after she made them:

************
The World Peace Cookies changed my life. I'm not kidding. I really think I'm a better person because I ate some . . .
************

Now that I've made them a few times, I'm able to hold myself together when I take a bite, but just barely. The secret to the fabulousness of the World Peace cookies lies in their surprise saltiness, brought to you courtesy of Morton's Fine Sea Salt, and their irresistible crumbly texture. The chocolate doesn't hurt, either. Honestly, when you read through the list of ingredients, you would never be able to predict that these cookies will be so utterly amazing. But something magical happens in the oven. It doesn't make any sense. But we live in a world where Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen run a multi-gazillion dollar multi-media empire. Not everything makes sense.

The World Peace Cookies were chosen by my bloggy friend Jess from Cookbook Habit. Jess lives in Connecticut, and her posts are always super fun for me to read, both because of her natural wit, and because she will sometimes say things like "Stop & Shop" which makes me feel warmly nostalgic for my home state. Run-don't-walk to Jess's blog for the recipe. Jess, thank you for picking the greatest cookie ever!