TWD: Coconut Lime Tea Cake

I thought of myself as a coconut hater for so long that it is hard for me to remember that I'm now a (sometimes) coconut liker. My mind immediately defaults to its standard coconut setting (aversion, disinterest, lack of enthusiasm, Coppertone) when I see a coconut recipe, and this week's Tuesdays with Dorie selection, Coconut Tea Cake, was no exception. It wasn't until the neurotransmitters carried the "Coconut Butter Thins!" message to the "baking motivation" section of my brain that I was able to rally enough to make this cake.

And (how predictable is this?) I'm so glad I did! I decided to make the coconut lime version of the cake, since I've enjoyed that combo before. The cake came together easily. I did make one mistake though - I was supposed to beat together the eggs and the sugar until "pale, thick and almost doubled in volume." Instead, I just beat the eggs until pale, thick and almost doubled in volume, and then had to go back and add the sugar (and lime zest) later and beat for another few minutes. Those poor eggs. Believe it or not, I actually have to read things carefully for a living. Apparently when I'm not on the clock I prefer to read every third word.

The dry ingredients, coconut (I toasted mine), vanilla and dark rum get added to the eggs eggs and sugar, along with a melted butter/coconut milk mixture. I don't think I've ever used regular, full-fat coconut milk before. I've used light coconut milk in various Thai recipes. Dorie warns that you need to stir the coconut milk first, and it states clearly on the can that coconut milk naturally hardens and separates, but even so, I wasn't ready for this:

Mmmmmmm, can't wait for that coconut tea cake!

I poured the batter into my kugelhopf pan, and an hour later, D and I were eating and reviewing the cake:

D: It's really really good. It's kind of dry, but not in a bad way.
C: Exactly! That's just how Dorie's friend who grew up eating Austrian desserts likes it.
D: Um, yeah. I mean it's really good. It's not what I'd call a decadent cake.
C: Okay good, I nailed it then. I'd be worried if you thought this was decadent. Dorie specifically says that it is more of a well-mannered cake.
C: Good with coffee or tea.
C: Refined.
C: Perfect for cutting slice after slice every time you walk by it.
D: OH COME ON, that was a WALK!!!

(My taster got distracted by the end of the Tennessee/Michigan State game.)



One thing we both agreed on: the coconut flavor was VERY mild. If you are coconut-ambivalent, this is the perfect coconut cake for you. Honestly, if it weren't for the occasional coconut flake (more of a texture issue there), I'm not sure I would even identify this as a coconut cake. David said that he wouldn't go quite THAT far, but he agreed that the coconut was subtle. Either way, we loved the flavor and thoroughly enjoyed the cake.

Carmen of Carmen Cooks chose this week's recipes. Fabulous pick, Carmen!

TWD: Dulce de Leche Duos

We recently replaced our ten year old tube TV with an LCD flat screen. Then just weeks later, after listening to our ancient desktop grind and sputter whenever we tried to switch between applications, we bought a laptop and got wireless in the house. After the cable guys left after installing the wireless, I could barely resist the urge to carry the laptop around the house and email my husband from each room: "Works in J's room!" "Emailing you from the garage." "Just thought I'd say a quick hello from the deck." Later that night, as we sat on the couch, David patted my back and said that we had finally arrived in late 2006.

But having the technology in the house does not mean that I understand any of it or can troubleshoot when things go wrong. None of this is intuitive to me, and to make matters worse, I find it a little boring, so I have a hard time paying attention when someone tries to explain it to me. Basically, I can turn the TV on and off, and change channels, and after much studying, I learned to switch between the TV and the Wii. But if one of the kids presses the wrong button and the screen goes to static? Well, there's just nothing to be done about that until David gets home.

Same with computer stuff. I can handle the most basic functions as long as nothing goes wrong, but as soon as it does, I wave the white flag. And that is why the only picture I can post of this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, Dulce de Leche Duos, is this lone, sad "bottom of the cookie jar" shot:


I took other pictures of these cookies. I tried to make them look pretty and stack them up and take them outside in good light and everything. And I can see the thumbnails of these dulce de leche cookie pictures in the folder on my (old, since the dulce de leche pix pre-date our new) computer. The thumbnails are plainly dulce de leche duos. But bizarrely, when I double click on the pictures and/or upload them to Blogger, the dulce de leche duo pictures freakishly turn into pictures of my husband opening presents on his birthday.

Wait, that's not a Dulce de Leche Duo! It's David, opening the Star Wars Wii game, given to him by our seven year old, who just happens to have an interest in Star Wars Wii games himself:


Here's another one of my dulce de lecho duo thumbnails that, when double clicked, turns into a picture of David opening a pair of argyle socks:


Does this kind of thing even happen to other people? I can't even begin to find the right words for a google search to help me solve this problem. I'm just hoping that it's not a chronic situation and it goes away on its own.

I did happen to post one dulce de leche duo picture on Flickr, so if you are interested, you can find it here. But if I were you, I'd know that I could probably find a thousand better pictures of dulce de leche duos in other places.

I made these cookies over a month ago (around David's birthday, in fact) so I don't remember much about making them. I had a can of dulce de leche that I was excited to use. I loved the texture of the cookies -- soft and chewy and maybe a little cakey -- but I think opinions about the flavor of these cookies will come down to whether you like the taste of the dulce de leche that you use in the recipe. In the end, I wasn't a huge fan of the canned stuff that I used, and that affected my overall impression of the cookies. I know that several other people made their own dulce de leche for this recipe, and I'll probably give that a try next time. David, on the other hand, LOVED these cookies -- I would say he was as enthusiastic about these as he's been about any cookie I've made with TWD. The kids preferred the singletons over the duos - I guess for them a little canned dulce de leche goes a long way.

I will probably make these again because my hubs was such a big fan of them. I'll attempt my own dulce de leche next time and see how that goes. Jodie of Beansy Loves Cake picked the dulce de leche duos. These were fun to make - thanks for the pick, Jodie!

TWD: Soft Chocolate and Raspberry Tart

I love this tart.


This tart is a perfect example of why I don't bother to order dessert in restaurants anymore. Even excellent restaurants. [Exceptions: the bread pudding souffle at Commander's Palace. And the chocolate souffle at Hot & Hot. Then there's the apple cake at Chez Fon Fon. Oh, and let's not forget the profiteroles at Highlands! Er, nevermind, I guess I do still bother to order dessert in restaurants. My husband told me in our early dating days that he wasn't attracted to salad-eating women, and I'm just doing my part to keep the fire burning.]

But if I wasn't bothering to order desserts in restaurants anymore, it would be because I can make THIS myself:



Dorie's recipes are delicious from top to bottom, but I think her tarts in particular are truly fabulous. After TWD is over and I look back and think about the experience and why it's been so valuable, one reason will be desserts like this one. I never would have even attempted a dessert like this pre-TWD. I would have assumed it was the kind of thing that real bakers make, not hacks like me. But Dorie has demystified the process and broken it down into manageable components, bringing these special, elegant desserts within the reach of the casual home baker.

The tart starts with Dorie's sweet tart dough, fully baked. I've made this dough numerous times, and every time I make it I'm afraid I'm handling it too much or somehow overworking it. And every time, it's delicious anyway. Delicious + forgiving = keeper.

Fill the tart shells with fresh raspberries. I know they're not in season, but mine were beautiful and really delicious.



I made two minis. Should have made the full recipe with this one - I wanted to sneak off for a good cry when this was gone.

It seems like Dorie has a hundred different recipes for ganache, and somehow one is better than the next. The ganache for this tart is made with a combination of milk chocolate, bittersweet chocolate, sugar, cream, butter and eggs. Dorie describes the texture of the finished product as "seductively slithery," which sounds rather snake-like to me. It is certainly seductive, though -- my intended "one bite" turned into a second, then a third, then a fourth, and then I started to think about rescinding that offer of half a tart that I had just extended to my dad. This tart turned me into a monster, a greedy monster, I tell you. Something about that slithery chocolate with the tart raspberries and the buttery shortbread crust - yup, this was pretty much heaven on a plate.

Nom nom nom . . .




Rachelle of Mommy, I'm Hungry! picked this week's most excellent recipe. Great pick, Rachelle!

TWD: Thumbprints for Us Big Guys

The name of this week's TWD recipe, Thumbprints for Us Big Guys, makes more sense if you own the cookbook (which you REALLY should!), where it follows the "Kids' Thumbprints." The Kids' Thumbprints are peanut butter cookies (or maybe more accurately, peanut butter and jelly cookies), whereas the Big Guy Thumbprints are more of a buttery nutty shortbread cookie. And, as with many things associated with being a Big Guy, making these may involve the kind of minor hassle that you just don't have to deal with when you're a kid; namely, that of tracking down hazelnuts (Dorie's nut of choice for this recipe), which I never even knew were all that exotic until the mainstream Big Guy grocery store in my medium-sized city did not carry them, at least not in any of the normal places where you would expect nuts to be found, like the nut aisle, the baking aisle, and the bulk specialty foods aisle. I eventually asked, and was alternatively sent to the Asian food aisle (?) and told that it was a seasonal item (?). I was not to be deterred, though -- I've had my eyes on these Big Guys for over a year, so if I had to drive to Nashville or Atlanta or even New York itself (or the Whole Foods on 280), I WOULD find the hazelnuts I needed for this recipe. Then I heard that Kayte and Tracey were using almonds, which I had in the house and love, and suddenly NOT running around town on a nut quest seemed like the sane thing to do. And for once, I did the sane thing.

This is a simple recipe. Mix up the dough (a combination of flour and ground nuts, butter, sugar, salt and vanilla and almond extract). No dough chilling required. Then make thumbprints (pinky prints if you want to get technical) in the dough to make room for the jam. Bake. After they come out of the oven, a quick once-over with the trusty pinky may be necessary.

Once they cool, heat up some jam and fill the indentations. I used some raspberry and some strawberry. I had a helper.



She turned five a couple of months ago, and suddenly she can fill thumbprints as neatly as I can. Quit that growing up too fast, kids.

The verdict? Everybody enjoyed these. I baked the full recipe (which yielded 50 cookies) on Saturday afternoon, and here it is Monday night and they're already gone. I knew I could count on David to eat most of these, and he did not disappoint me. His dad and my dad helped him out - thanks, menfolk. I liked the crumbly texture of these. They teetered on the "dry" line, but not in an unpleasant way. If I make them again, I might do a 3/4 flour to 1/4 ground nut ratio rather than 50/50, but that's just quibbling for quibbling's sake - I thought the cookies were great. I think the stronger flavor of the raspberry jam worked better than the milder strawberry. All in all, this recipe is a keeper and I'll make these again. They'll probably show up again at Christmas.

Mike of Ugly Food Dude chose this week's recipe. Nice pick, Mike!

TWD: Coconut Cream Tart

There are few desserts that just don't sound all that good to me, but coconut cream anything is one of them. I'm not a huge fan of coconut except in unusual circumstances. And while I'll never say no to a spoon dessert that is set in front of me, I generally don't get hit with those intense "must . . . have . . . custard . . ." cravings the way I regularly do with, say, brownies, or chocolate chip cookies. And that's just from the "eating" perspective. From the "making" perspective, there are few things I enjoy making less than custard. Caramel would be one of them, but that's only because of the devastation it tends to unleash in my kitchen. Even though caramel is more dangerous, I'd still rather make it than custard, because if by fluke the caramel works, I have caramel! But if the custard works, I just have custard. Did anyone follow that?

I'm trying not to eat sweets much over the next six weeks, however, so this week's TWD selection, Coconut Cream Tart, sounded like the perfect dessert to me. I could make it without being remotely tempted by it, and then pass it over to my husband, who doesn't have the coconut cream issues that I do. I would take one bite, purely for journalistic purposes.

Having thus hatched the perfect plan, I started with Dorie's sweet tart dough, which I've made several times and love. I made a full recipe of the tart dough, even though I knew I'd be scaling back the filling, because I planned to use some of the dough for this tart, and save some for the upcoming chocolate raspberry tart. I've got to tell you, every time I make the sweet tart dough and get to the part of the recipe where Dorie gives you the heads up that the food processor will start making a different noise when the dough is almost ready, I'm reminded of why Baking is such a truly fabulous cookbook.

Random photo of toasted coconut inserted into middle of post to break up the monotony of the long-winded prose
I made a half recipe of the custard, and it came off without a hitch. I think cornstarch really helps me in that regard -- thanks, Argo. I added the full (half recipe) amount of toasted coconut to the custard. And to make the tart even more resistible to me, I added the full (half) amount of dark rum called for in the recipe (both in the custard and in the topping). I'm not a big liquor girl (now wine is a different story), unless the drink is fruity and has a name that ends with the diminuitive "-ini," (e.g., "Sweet Tartini"), and I tend to have a real aversion to boozy desserts. But I knew I could count on my husband to take one for the team and review the recipe exactly as written.

I made poor David eat this when he was one his way out the door to take Jacob somewhere. ("What?! You're leaving now?! But Dorie says this is best right after it's assembled. You can't go now -- you need to eat this first. What? Well yeah, I knew it started at 3:15, but I had to assemble it now or it would be too dark for pictures later. Eat it. EAT IT!!!") Fortunately, he really enjoyed this. He said that even though this is not a dessert he'd ever pick on his own, he thought this was about as good as coconut cream pie (tart) could be.

I agree with that assessment. I thought this was delicious. While the rum was definitely noticeable, I did not think that it was at all overpowering, and it complemented the other flavors nicely. Leave it to Dorie to come up with a version of this dessert good enough to convert a coconut cream hater. Beryl of Cinemon Girl picked this week's tart - thanks for the great pick, Beryl!

TWD: Honey Wheat Cookies

I actually made this week's TWD recipe, Honey Wheat cookies, several months ago, when I was trying to use up what was left in the gimormous jar of wheat germ that I purchased for my very first TWD recipe, Granola Grabbers. Wheat germ makers apparently believe that if you eat wheat germ, YOU REALLY EAT WHEAT GERM. You just can't find a small jar of this stuff (at least I can't). I foolishly did not take pictures of these when I made them before, and I almost did not make them again because I did not want to have to buy another monster jar of wheat germ that I later needed to use up. But my husband really liked these when I made them the first time, and I'm trying to be on my best TWD behavior these days -- so I decided to march into that grocery store, hoist that wheat germ into the cart, and go home and make these suckers again.

What I remembered most about these cookies from the first go-round was that they were mighty wheaty, but I remembered nothing about the process. The recipe calls for a full cup of wheat germ, half of which gets mixed in with the flour, and half of which is used to roll the dough balls before baking. This time around, as soon as I dumped the full cup of wheat germ into the flour mixture, it all came flooding back to me - that's EXACTLY what I did last time! I used all of the wheat germ *in* the cookies, rather than saving half of it to go *on* the cookies, which no doubt accounted for their epic wheatiness. This time, I was able to fish most of the excess half cup of wheat germ out of the flour. Repeat disaster averted!

These cookies, when made in accordance with the recipe, have a very pleasant, tangy honey wheat lemon flavor. They're fantastic with a cup of hot tea, but they would also totally work as a "summer" cookie, if you are one to assign seasons to your cookies.

My husband was really excited to see these cookies show up in the cookie jar again --you would have thought they were World Peace Cookies or something -- and seemed to enjoy the cookies as much as he did the last time, even without the excess wheat heat. I enjoyed them much more this time around. And now that I have a bushel of wheat germ in my freezer, I'm sure I'll make them again!

Michelle of Flourchild chose this week's recipe. Michelle has a great blog, and you can find this recipe, along with many other goodies, over there!

TWD: Dorie's Best Chocolate Chip Cookies - The Challenge

Most evenings, you'll find the television on in our house, and it's almost always turned to ESPN or Fox Sports World. I don't really pay attention; I mean I like sports and all, but I can't really sit still for too long or I fall asleep. But every once in a while a sports story will catch my attention, like the hair pulling soccer player, or the Krispy Kreme Challenge. And of course every year come late fall, I look forward to watching someone on TV rant about college football's BCS system:

{on the TV}
Bob: All I'll say is this Dan - the BCS is a mess. It's a complete travesty and it is hopelessly broken. And until we fix it by instituting some kind of playoff system, we will never be able to crown an Undisputed National College Football Champion!
Dan: I agree Bob.

{in the living room}
Cathy: Um, David? WHY do we have to crown an Undisputed National College Football Champion? Didn't it just used to be like somebody won the Orange Bowl, somebody won the Cotton Bowl, and then it was New Year's Day and the sun came up anyway?
David: Yes, but that was that a very dark era in sports history, even though nobody knew it at the time.

Recently, however, I've become unsettled by the fact that I don't really know which chocolate chip cookie is the Undisputed Chocolate Chip Cookie Champion. I've become borderline obsessed with finding the best chocolate chip cookie -- and suddenly I understand where the football people are coming from. No, it's really NOT good enough just knowing that there are lots of swell CCC recipes out there. I want to know which is THE BEST, dammit!! And there are a lot of other people like me out there. Be afraid, be very afraid.

On my quest for the perfect CCC, I decided to have a cookie taste-off.


Despite what the lighting in these pictures would indicate, I did not actually hold my chocolate chip cookie taste-off at 3 a.m.

The contenders:

(1) This week's TWD recipe, Dorie's Best Chocolate Chip cookies
(2) The New York Times CCC.
(3) Alton Brown's The Chewy.

Notes and disclosures:

(1) The NYT CCC and The Chewy are both famous among those of us who frequent chocolate chip cookie chat rooms (just kidding) (kind of). I've made both of these cookies before and am in crazy love with both of them. I was really looking forward to making them again and tasting them head to head so I could figure out which was better. Because not knowing was really bugging me, even more than that year that Auburn went undefeated yet got shut out of the National Championship game.

(2) Dorie describes her CCC as being a "Toll House cookies' kin," but with her own tweaks. While I love Toll House cookies -- they are probably the only thing I ever baked from scratch until I started baking from scratch maniacally last year -- I felt like recipes such as the NYT, The Chewy and others, with their unusual techniques and somewhat different ingredients, were created in an attempt to improve on the Toll House Cookie, and I personally like them better than the original Toll House. Therefore, based solely on her description of the cookie -- and this has never happened before -- I bet against Dorie. I really went into this thinking either the NYT or The Chewy would win.

(3) Dorie says her cookies are "thin and crisp and a bit chewy in the center." They certainly were thin:


In fact I pretty much had one large thin chocolate chip pancake on my silpat. I would not describe this as a "crispy" cookie, though (that's a good thing, in my opinion) - it had a little bite to it, but I thought the hallmark of its texture was its wonderfully chewy center.

We held the taste-off at David's dad's birthday party. The voters were provided with milk to cleanse their palates between cookie tastes:


One of our voters, Caroline, age 2, found the whole "Crowning of an Undisputed Chocolate Chip Cookie Champion" process to be a bit overwhelming, so girlfriend spent a lot of time on the floor:





THE RESULTS:

The Chewy did not fare well in the taste-off -- it only garnered one first place vote. David's brother described it as a "pre-scone." I'm pretty sure that's not what Alton was going for. Don't worry, *I* still love you, The Chewy.

The contest between the NYT and Dorie's CCC was almost too close to call, but in the end, the NYT won by one vote. But several people said that they had a hard time deciding between the two and really could have gone either way. When I started to explain the differences (the NYT uses a combination of cake flour and bread flour whereas Dorie's just uses all purpose, etc), David's mom (who voted for the NYT) said that she would never go out and buy cake/bread flour just to make the NYT cookies -- Dorie's were almost as good, so she would just make Dorie's with the all-purpose flour that she was certain to have on hand.

I think what a lot of people liked about the NYT CCC was the sea salt that is sprinkled on the top before baking. Of course, nothing is stopping us from getting out the salt shaker before sticking any old CCCs in the oven.

In short, I should have known better than to bet against Dorie. Her chocolate chip cookie more than held its own in my taste-off. It is a delicious, classic chocolate chip cookie. While some people might prefer a cookie that's not quite so thin, it's hard to go wrong with her recipe.

Many thanks to Kait of Kait's Plate for choosing this wonderful cookie. I'm not sure I'm any closer to crowning an Undisputed Chocolate Chip Cookie Champion, but I'm sure having fun trying!