mix, mix…stir, stir

Here is a great bar cookie that’s not sickly sweet, greasy, or flavorless. All problems I have had with other bar cookie recipes.  These would be a great bake sale item,  just look at all that chocolate!

The oatmeal in the dough seems to temper the sweetness along with the peanuts. There is just a hint of cinnamon dancing around in the background to add interest. The chocolate center layer is fudgy and soft and remains a distinct chocolate zone rather than melting into the dough which gives a great visual and textural contrast to the cookies. I omitted the raisins to please the non-raisin eaters and used a slightly darker chocolate than standard chocolate chips, but otherwise knocked this recipe out just as Dorie instructed.

My friend Lee and I whipped these up after dinner one night in about 15 minutes, but because they are thick bars they take a long time to cool. We couldn’t stand to wait and dug in before the thick chocolate layer had become structurally sound and ended up with a pile of cookie bar pieces on each plate rather than intact cookies; tasty nonetheless. Once cooled, they cut beautifully and hold really well. We ate the last ones three days later and they were just as good as they were on the first day.

 I lined the pan with a parchment sling for easy removal rather than buttering it. If you haven’t use parchment paper I encourage you to pick up a roll and give it a try. I line cake pans, loaf pans, cookie sheets, really anything I bake that needs to be removed from what it’s baking in or on gets parchment.  To make a sling, just cut the paper so that two of the sides extend beyond the height of the pan walls. This way it’s easy to grab the parchment and lift the entire baked good out of the pan for easy cutting.

Lillian of Confectiona’s Realm picked the recipe this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie reicpe and has it posted on her blog if you would like to make it yourself.

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 109 recipes completed 112 to go!

The biggest surprise with this cake is the color. It went into the oven as a very pale yellow batter and came out looking like a chocolate cake, but still tasting very much like a lovely banana cake.

Cake plate by Boyd Sugiki and Lisa Zerkowitz of  Two Tone Studios

Good banana bread or cake requires one critical element-really ripe bananas. I refer to bake-ready bananas as spotty brown bananas because that’s exactly what they look like. A dark brown spotted peel conceals sweet ripe fruit that is too mushy to enjoy eating fresh, but just perfect for delivering a full banana flavor in baked goods. It’s rare that I ever find such spotty brown bananas in the store; in fact, it’s rare to even find bananas that are ready to eat. The good news is bananas can be frozen, so they can be on hand when a banana baking whim hits. On the rare occasion a banana manages to make it to the spotty brown stage before being eaten, I peel it and pop it in the freezer to have on hand for a baking project. Once thawed, they let off a lot of liquid, which I drain before using.

The banana bunt cake is this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie baking activity. I associate bundt cakes with having a texture much like a pound cake; slightly dense with a fine tight crumb, but this cake is quite light and delicate. I baked a large bundt cake, but had additional batter  and also  filled some individual bundt pans. I liked the little cakes better for two reasons. First, I think my large cake was a touch over baked so it was drier and not as tender. Second, while the cakes were still warm I dipped the minis in the sugar glaze rather than just drizzling the glaze on like I did with the large cake. The dipping method created a more significant glaze coating and biting into one of these petite bundts was just like biting into a glazed buttermilk doughnut. The set glaze crackled and broke apart to reveal a soft tender cakey interior. The mini bundts had a perfect crunchy coating to tender cake ratio that made them dangerously addictive.

When I mixed up this cake I was in a rum mood and added dark rum rather than vanilla to the batter. I also used dark rum and a little milk for the powdered sugar glaze. It worked really well with the banana flavor, but didn’t come off as overly boozy. Classic Banana Bundt Cake is another winner from the book. Thank you to Mary of The Food Librarian for the selection. She has the recipe posted on her blog if you happen to have some spotty brown bananas that are ready to be transformed into a delicious baked delight.

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 85 recipes completed 136 to go!

I usually have a general idea of what something will taste like as I am making it, but there are those occasions when the first bite of the finished product is a complete surprise. Of course surprised can be good or bad, and this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was a delightfully good surprise.

Blanc-Manger (for those of us that don’t speak French, it’s pronounced blah-man-jhay) is cream, milk, sugar, ground almonds, and gelatin. I expected it to be like panna cotta or flan in texture and when I tasted the batter before it chilled that seemed like a logical conclusion. It behaved quite like a panna cotta or flan would when unmolded from the pan, but the moment the first bite hit my mouth this dessert immediately deviated from the smooth  texture familiar to custards and other gelatin desserts. It was light and foamy as though it was effervescing with every chew. This was much more of a creamy rich mousse that just happened to be in the unexpected form of a tart. The big difference between this and panna cotta for example, is the cream is whipped and folded into the milk /gelatin mixture which incorporates air bubbles; air bubbles that pop and tickle your mouth as you eat it. It was the most delightful and unexpected surprise.

Now, a light airy gelatin tart might seem intimidating to make, but it’s as simple as whipping some cream, warming some milk, adding a few flavoring agents and spreading it in a pan to chill for a day. How perfect is this when you need an elegant dessert for a dinner party and you don’t need one more thing to do the day of? I cut out the rounds and placed them on a cocoa-star anise cookie so I could deliver these to friends and they could easily be eaten out of hand, but for a plated dessert I would opt for a thin layer of sponge cake under the tart. I spread a bit of raspberry jam spiked with Chambord and a touch of gelatin over the top. Overall I loved this dessert and thank Susan of  Sticky, Gooey, Creamy, Chewy for selecting it for this week’s baking activity. Susan has the recipe posted on her blog if you would like to experience the delicious effervescence yourself.

I experimented with leaf or sheet gelatin for the first time. Though there seems to be some debate about it being any better than the common granular gelatin, I wanted to try it because it’s what all the cool kids use. The trickiest thing about working with it is trying to decide how much to use when a recipe calls for granular gelatin. I have seen all sorts of different conversion rates in my research. For this recipe I settled on 3 ½ sheets (3” x 6” each) and the texture was perfect.  Like granular gelatin it must be soaked in cold water before being added to anything hot; if gelatin isn’t pre-soaked it can clump and not dissolve easily when added to warm mixtures. The texture of the soaked sheets is very strange. They become very slippery and floppy, but surprisingly are still very strong. Once added to hot liquid the sheets seem to dissolve instantly, which I suspect is the primary appeal of working with leaf gelatin. The other big benefit for me is I don’t end up spilling little granules of gelatin everywhere while measuring.  Somehow I always manage to spill gelatin and yeast when measuring them.

Two last little notes:

According to the food science guru, Harold McGee, gelatin doesn’t strengthen hair and nails. He says there just isn’t any good evidence to support this widely held claim. The protein found in our hair and nails is keratin and gelatin isn’t any better at creating the elements needed to form keratin than any other type of protein source. So you can eat gelatin, but you could also have a nice juicy steak, beautifully grilled piece of fish, or a tall glass of milk and provide your hair and nails with the building blocks they need.

If you want to add a little zip to chocolate cookies, but don’t want to go the common cinnamon route, try a little star anise. It adds the same warm sweetness like cinnamon, but with a fennel/anise flavor that is a nice twist.

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 83 recipes completed 138 to go!

Tuesdays with Dorie is named such because everyone participating in the weekly baking group posts their results on Tuesday; kind of obvious. Today I feel like I am back in school showing up to class with an incomplete homework assignment. I saw this coming because wasn’t able to squeeze a baking project in before leaving town last week. I got home last night at midnight and all week I had been debating as to whether or not I should just skip this week, but that just didn’t feel right so I woke up this morning and started the dough. Of course the week I am pressed for time the recipe involves  yeasted dough rather than a quick batch of cookies.

The dough is mixed and undergoing its first rising and I wonder if I will manage to get the tart made and posted by the end of the day, then it occurred to me to invite you to follow along with the process through real-time blog updates as I progress through the recipe. Brilliant! I just went from a tardy homework assignment to an interactive experience for my readers. Sometimes it just comes down to how you choose to look at a situation.

I hope you will enjoy seeing my Brioche Plumb Tart come to life throughout the rest of the day. To get you caught up: The dough was mixed and rose in a warm spot of about an hour. It was then deflated and put in the refrigerator to rise for 30 minutes. At this point I came up with the post-as-I-go idea so a photo was taken. I have three more 30 minute refrigerator rise and deflate cycles to go through and will move on with then next step in about 1 1/2 hours. In the mean time I will head to the store to see what sort of fruit is ripe. I can’t guarantee this will end up being a plum tart. Isn’t it exciting? Together we have no idea where this is going to go!

2:00 p.m. update: In the pan
Brioche is not a dough that puts up a fight, so it’s fun to work with. It has a soft supple texture thanks to the addition of eggs and butter, which also gives the dough a beautiful golden color. With gentle patting and stretching the dough easily filled the tart pan, in fact, it seems like a lot of dough for this size pan. Hopefully it won’t rise beyond the boundaries and become an uncontrollable bready monster once in the oven.  Now for a 30 minute chill, and then on to the filling. I found some beautiful ripe fruit at the store. Not plums, so check back in a bit to see where this tart is headed (Queue dramatic and suspenseful music in your head).

 3:10 p.m. update: Tart filled
The fruit reveal…apricots! It is one of the alternates that Dorie suggests if plums aren’t available along with apples, pears, or mangos as great winter fruit options. The filling is fruit, jam, and a few tablespoons of chopped nuts and sugar. I included a little ginger zing by adding 1/4 teaspoon of finely grated fresh ginger to the apricot jam, and a warm spicy note by adding 1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground cardamom to the sugar and nut topping. The tart is resting in a warm spot for 30 minutes and then it will go in the oven. In just about an hour it will be time to unveil the final result. Stay tuned…

5:40 p.m. update: Ta-da
Out of the oven and filling the house with the beautiful aroma of freshly baked bread; it now needs to cool for 45 minutes. I am suspicious that the slightly sunken center is actually a raw center, but I need to get to FedEx to ship a package before they close, so I have to leave it be. The upside of needing to run an errand is I don’t have to try to resist digging in while it cools for 45 minutes. The ideal timing of this dish is to make the dough the day before and let it hold in the refrigerator overnight so the bread develops more flavor. In the morning it can be filled and baked for a really spectacular breakfast or brunch dish.

Well, the sunken center did turn out to be a result of under baking. I am a little bit sad about that, but given that I worked this project in with everything else going on today, I’m happy to have gotten it baked. It’s really hard to beat the rich buttery flavor of brioche, especially when topped with ripe seasonal fruit. Interestingly, apricots seem to be one of the few fruits that is actually improved with cooking. The flavor of the fruit really comes to life after being exposed to some heat. I have read comments to this effect from pastry chefs and having just eaten some of the leftover fresh apricots, I can attest that the baked apricots are much more flavorful. The ginger and cardamom additions are nice, but a little too subtle. Next time I will use 1/2 teaspoon of grated ginger in the jam and then add the 1/2 teaspoon of cardamom to the brioche dough rather than putting it on the apricots.

If you would like to see an example of a beautiful Brioche Plum Tart, visit Denise at Chez Us. She selected our baking activity this week and the recipe is posted on her blog. I look forward to making this again when I am able to give the process my full attention.

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 82 recipes completed 139 to go!

This week I learned that I have something in common with Katharine Hepburn; we both like fudgy brownies. If your brownie preference is like hers and mine, read on. I didn’t realize Miss Hepburn was famous for her brownies, but I learned this in Dorie Greenspan’s head notes to this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe. She relates a story published in the New York Times, about a young woman given some advice by Miss Hepburn: 1. Never quit; 2. Be yourself 3. Don’t put too much flour in your brownies.  Truly words to live by.

I have my own brownie recipe that I am very attached to and this is the first recipe that I have come across that I really like, and no surprise it is darn similar to my recipe resulting in brownies that are dense, rich, moist and fudgy. Dorie includes nuts in her recipe, but that is considered a brownie faux pas in our house, so I left them out. These brownies are sweeter than mine and have nuggets of chocolate throughout, neither point a drawback in my book. They are definitely better once cooled, and if you can possibly manage to make them last, they are best the next day.  

This week Lisa, of Surviving Oz picked the recipe for the group, but she isn’t actually in the group. She landed herself this honor by winning a design challenge to create a new logo for the Tuesdays with Dorie group. She was thrilled to win, but slightly horrified at the prospect of being the recipe host for the week. You see, she doesn’t bake. Visit her blog for the recipe and her story of baking her first batch of brownies from scratch.

I followed the recipe as written, but only used 1 teaspoon of espresso powder rather than two, because that was all that was left in the jar. It may have been a happy accident because a few of the bakers in the group commented on how dominate the coffee flavor was. David, not a fan of coffee, wouldn’t have enjoyed that, but I do like to add a little espresso powder to chocolate baked goods because it seems to enhance the chocolate flavor.

My preference when baking brownies, or anything, is to line the pan with parchment paper. For any item baked in a pan with side walls, I cut the parchment long enough to extend beyond two sides of the pan. This way the parchment acts like a sling and the baked delight can be easily lifted out once it is baked. Recipes often instruct that the pan and parchment be buttered and floured. I may be tempting fate, but I rarely do this and have never had a problem removing the parchment paper from baked goods. Do you butter your parchment paper?

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 81recipes completed 140 to go!