mix, mix…stir, stir

Delicate shortbread cookies are one of my favorite cookies to make. They are quick, easy, take to all sorts of favor variations, and always impress. This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is described as being similar to a shortbread cookie, but wafery and lacy. You can see that my cookies are quite classically shortbread-like. I am not sure what happened to “wafery and lacey.”

The recipe includes lime zest, shredded coconut, chopped macadamia nuts, and a pinch of coriander. Not wanting to spend $10 on macadamia nuts, I decided to use sesame seeds in their place. Granted, this change could explain the lack of a wafery, lacey texture, but it would surprise me that the substitution would make that much difference in the texture. I can’t wait to see how these came out for the other TWD bakers.

For a shortbread cookie these were fantastic! The addition of corn starch makes them so tender and crumbly, yet the shredded coconut adds a wonderful chewy texture. I wasn’t completely sure the sesame flavor would work, but it absolutely did. I want to try them again with orange zest, star anise, and sesame.

Dorie uses a great plastic bag technique for rolling the dough that makes working with this very sticky dough trouble-free. Basically, the dough is placed in a gallon-size plastic zip-top bag and rolled to fill the bag. Once chilled, cut the bag open, slice the dough and it can easily be lifted onto a baking sheet. She uses this same technique with other sticky doughs and it always works like a charm.

Jayne of The Barefoot Kitchen Witch picked the recipe for this week and she has it posted on her blog if you want to give it a try, but you should just spring for the whole book so you have all the other recipes too!

I, along with over 350 other baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours. 67 recipes completed 154 to go!

We just returned from the grand International Housewares Show where we debuted our fantastic SpiceCare spice storage system. It is a mind-blowingly large show with thousands of exhibitors filling the McCormick Convention Center in Chicago and buyers from all over the world shopping for the latest and greatest things to fill their stores.

This was our little piece of the action. We made all kinds of great contacts and look forward to getting SpiceCare into stores across the country.

Despite all of the activity in our booth I was able to sneak away a few times to watch some of the chef demos. Gale Gand, Rick Bayless, and Marcus Samuelsson all cooked great dishes that made me want to get home so I could get back to cooking. I am especially excited that all three have agreed to contribute to the Spice Inspirations feature on our site in future months, so keep an eye out for their contributions. If you sign up for our monthly newsletter you won’t miss a single one.

We gave out packets of  TableFare Spice Rub to those that visited our booth. If you would like a very versatile spice rub to use on beef, lamb, chicken, vegetables, or my favorite, sprinkled over scrambled eggs, just follow the link to the recipe and make your own supply to have on hand.

I would like to thank World Spice for supplying us with such fresh and aromatic spices that captured the attention of everyone passing by.

I was indifferent to making this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie baking project. I figured it would be good, as it is chocked full of blueberries, but coffee cake isn’t terribly exciting to me.  I baked it early one morning and ate a piece piping hot from the pan and it was good as I expected.

My original plan was to take a nice photo of the cake in the pan with the one piece cut out. I wasn’t able to wrangle David to take the photo until later in the day and darn if half the cake wasn’t gone by then, and I have to admit that David didn’t have a single bite! I discovered I really liked this cake once it had cooled. Luckily I managed to get the other pieces tucked away in the freezer before I accidentally ate them all.

I made this one almost by the book, only adding a tablespoon of chopped crystallized ginger to the topping. I did find the thick sugary topping delicious, but I would have preferred a less sweet topping, so next time I will just cut back on some of the sugar in the topping and add in some rolled oats.  

Sihan of Befuddlement picked the recipe for this week and on my own I may never have been inspired to make the Blueberry Crumb Cake, so thank you Sihan for opening my eyes and mouth to a great crumb cake. Sihan has the recipe posted on Befuddlement, and of course it is in Dories book along with all the other great things we bake each week.

350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 66 recipes completed 155 to go!

I am thrilled to kick off the Spice Inspirations feature on TableFare.com. World-renowned chef Charlie Trotter shares tips on cooking with grains of paradise and a special recipe. I hope you enjoy the new monthly feature.

The simplicity of this cake makes it elegant and very French. This week’s sweet baking adventure with the Tuesdays with Dorie gang is a cake Dorie Greenspan says just about every home cook in France makes.

It was simple to make, delicious, and versatile. Dorie’s version suggests baking it in a loaf pan making it more like a pound cake, but I wanted to serve this at a party and thought little bite-sized squares would be easier to eat and more festive. To get a thinner cake making the pieces easy to pop in the mouth, I chose to bake it in a 9×13 pan and reduced the baking time to 30 minutes. If I bake this again in a non-loaf pan I will cut back on the levener just a bit. The crumb was a bit more open than it needed to be and I bet if I had baked it in a deep loaf pan this wouldn’t have been the case.

The speckled appearance of my cake is from the almond flour I purchased that was made from almonds with their skins rather than blanched almonds. The cake is glazed with melted marmalade after it’s baked and I was thrilled to put my freshly made mandarinquat marmalade to use. The cake is moist and tender with a rich buttery flavor that is completely satisfying without any additional garnish, but would also take nicely to being frosted like a traditional layer cake.

Thank you to Liliana of My Cookbook Addiction for picking the recipe this week. Liliana has posted the recipe on her blog and  Dorie recently posted a beautiful photo of this cake on her blog.  Dorie baked it in a loaf pan and used skinned almonds so her cake has a smooth creamy pale yellow appearance.

 I, along with over 350 other baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours. 65 recipes completed, 156 to go!