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.

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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!

This week I get to step up to the podium and host the recipe for the Tuesdays with Dorie baking group. When I first joined the group 15 months ago, I wondered how I would ever choose which recipe to pick, but when my name was called, it really wasn’t such a hard choice. I turned immediately to my favorite category of baked goods, cakes, and honed right in on the Perfect Party Cake. June seems to be a big celebration month with Father’s Day, graduations, and in my family there are lots of June birthdays, so a Perfect Party Cake seemed like a perfect choice.

This party cake was extra special because I made it for my mother-in-law, Phyllis, in celebration of her 80^th birthday. A number of months ago she called to tell us she would like to gather the family from our scattered locations to celebrate her birthday in Las Vegas. David’s response was, “that sounds great, but there won’t be a cake.” I need to give you a little back story here. When David’s dad turned 80 our family got together to celebrate in Idaho, where they were spending the summer. I had the great idea to make him a cake and fly from Seattle to Idaho with it. David was sure this would be disastrous, but thanks to his expert skills of running blocker for me through the airports, we made it there just fine with the cake in perfect condition. Back to the phone call inviting us to Las Vegas, I grabbed the phone and assured Phyllis there will be a cake! This is a quick direct flight; of course I will bring a cake.

The big unknown with this trip were the new airport security rules. The cake isn’t liquid and can go through the scanner, so no problem, right? A little online sleuthing revealed that cakes getting through security can be hit and miss. If you happen to get a TSA agent in a bad mood (or maybe hungry?) the cake may just be denied passage. I am the eternal optimist and really didn’t believe there would be any issue. As the cake is being scanned, the agent behind the machine asks me in a friendly, just curious manner, “Is it a pie or a cake?”  I answer, and then she asks, “What kind?”  I tell her it’s a lemon cake with a raspberry filling and she smiles. The agent on my side of the scanner turns to me and says, “Raspberry filling is a gel and we can’t let that through.”  I am sure I turned as white as the layers of cake, yet I assume he is joking, but I’m also thinking if he’s joking he may not want me to know that right away.  There is also the chance that he is completely serious! My brain is about to short out trying to decide if I should just laugh it off or play into it. I go with the play-into-it strategy and deliver a stunned “No! Please tell me you’re kidding.” This went back and forth a few times and finally the agent holding my cake hostage in the x-ray machine sent it through and they started laughing. Really not so funny from my perspective, but if it lightened their day and I get to proceed with my cake, I’m happy.

The cake arrived mostly unscathed. The thing about jam fillings is they are slippery. Had I been thinking I would have stuck a few chop sticks or straws through the layers to pin them together. The top two layers slid off one side crushing a bit of the piped edging, but a tilt of the box slid them right back on. Once we arrived in Las Vegas we delivered the cake to the Grand Lux Café  at the Venetian Hotel, where the whole family was having dinner that night. The Grand Lux Café was so gracious and accommodating. They took the cake early in the day and kept it in the refrigerator for us. Once we arrived for dinner two different people came out to talk to me about how the layers had slid off and offered to have one of the chefs try to fix it up. They smoothed out the icing and piped on a new bottom boarder and made it look great. Then they added birthday candles and presented the cake to Phyllis. Thank you to the staff at the Grand Lux Café!  We had a great dinner and fun time that night.

The cake was tender, light, lemony and perfectly accented by the lush raspberry jam. I will admit that my first attempt flopped. Not that there were difficult techniques, it was more about mixing finesse. Knowing this was a big-deal cake; I turned right around and made it again with much better results. As I looked at the cake layers, I decided they weren’t grand enough for an 80^th birthday celebration, so I made the cake a third time. The third time was even better and I think the difference was in letting the batter beat exactly as described in the instructions. It was noticeably more aerated and the baked cakes were much lighter. Rather than cutting the two layers to make four, I left them whole and added a third layer from the previous batch. I wanted the cake to be tall and I thought cutting the two layers, just wouldn’t be enough. From previous experience I know it’s difficult to spread buttercream over a layer of jam, so I reversed the steps and put the buttercream down first, chilled it so it was set, and then spread the jam on with no problems.

This was a Perfect Party Cake for a great celebration. Happy Birthday Phyllis!

 Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 80 recipes completed 141 to go!

As the recipe selector for the week, I have the honor of posting the recipe. Here is Dorie Greenspan’s Perfect Party Cake from her book, Baking: From My Home to Yours. Here are a few additional tips from Dorie on making this cake.

Perfect Party Cake

Stick a bright-colored Post-it to this page, so you’ll always know where to turn for a just-right cake for any celebration. The original recipe was given to me by my great dear friend Nick Malgieri, of baking fame, and since getting it, I’ve found endless opportunities to make it – you will too. The cake is snow white with an elegant tight crumb and an easygoing nature: it always bakes up perfectly; it is delicate on the tongue but sturdy in the kitchen- no fussing when it come to slicing the layers in half or cutting tall, beautiful wedges for serving; and, it tastes just as you’d want a party cake to taste – special. The base recipe is for a cake flavored with lemon, layered with a little raspberry jam and filled and frosted with a classic (and so simple) pure white lemony hot-meringue buttercream, but because the elements are so fundamental, they lend themselves to variation (see Playing Around), making the perfect cake not just perfect , but also versatile.

For the Cake

2 ¼ cups cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ cups whole milk or buttermilk (I prefer buttermilk with the lemon)
4 large egg whites
1 ½ cups sugar
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ teaspoon pure lemon extract

For the Buttercream

1 cup sugar
4 large egg wites
3 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
¼ cup fresh lemon juice (from 2 large lemons)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For Finishing

 2/3 cup seedless raspberry preserves, stirred vigorously or warmed gently until spreadable
About 1 ½ cups sweetened shredded coconut

Getting Ready: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter two 9-x-2 inch round cake pans and line the bottom of each with a round of buttered parchment or wax paper. Put the pans on a baking sheet.

To Make the Cake: Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.

Whisk together the milk and egg whites in a medium bowl.

Put the sugar and lemon zest in a mixer bowl or another large bowl and rub them together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and fragrant. Add the butter, and working with the paddle or whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat at medium speed for a full 3 minutes, until the butter and sugar are very light. Beat in the extract, then add one third of the flour mixture, still beating on medium speed. Beat in half of the milk-egg mixture, then beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients until incorporated. Add the rest of the milk and eggs, beating until the batter is homogeneous, then add the last of the dry ingredients. Finally, give the batter a good 2-minute beating to ensure that it is thoroughly mixed and will aerated. Divide the batter between the two pans and smooth the tops with a rubber spatula.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the cakes are well risen and springy to the touch- a thin knife inserted into the centers should come out clean. Transfer the cakes to cooling racks and cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes, unmold them and peel off the paper liners. Invert and cool to room temperature right side up. (The cooled cake layers can be wrapped airtight and stored at room temperature overnight or frozen for up to 2 months.)

To Make the Buttercream: Put the sugar and egg whites in a mixer bowl or other large heatproof bowl, fit the bowl over a pan of simmering water and whisk constantly, keeping the mixture over the heat, until it feels hot to the touch, about 3 minutes. The sugar should be dissolved, and the mixture will look like shiny marshmallow cream. Remove the bowl from the heat.

Working with the whisk attachment or with a hand mixer, beat the meringue on medium speed until it is cool, about 5 minutes. Switch to the paddle attachment if you have one, and add the butter a stick at a time, beating until smooth. Once all the butter is in, beat the buttercream on medium-high speed until it is thick and very smooth, 6 to 10 minutes. During this time, the buttercream may curdle or separate-just keep beating and it will come together again. On medium speed, gradually beat in the lemon juice, waiting until each addition is absorbed before adding more, and then the vanilla. You should have a shiny, smooth, velvety, pristine white buttercream. Press a piece of plastic against the surface of the buttercream and set aside briefly.

To Assemble the Cake: Using a sharp serrated knife and a gentle sawing motion, slice each layer horizontally in half. Put one layer cut side up on a cardboard cake round or a cake plate protected by strips of wax or parchment paper. Spread it with one third of the preserves. Cover the jam evenly with about one quarter of the buttercream. Top with another layer, spread with preserves and buttercream and then do the same with a third layer (you’ll have used all the jam and have buttercream left over). Place the last layer cut side down on top of the cake and use the remaining buttercream to frost the sides and top. Press the coconut into the frosting, patting it gently all over the sides and top.

Makes 12 to 14 servings

Serving: The cake is ready to serve as soon as it is assembled, but I think it’s best to let it sit and set for a couple of hours in a cool room-not the refrigerator. Whether you wait or slice and enjoy it immediately, the cake should be served at room temperature; it loses all its subtlety when it’s cold. Depending on your audience, you can serve the cake with just about anything from milk to sweet or bubbly wine.

Storing: The cake is best the day it is made, but you can refrigerate it, well covered, for up to 2 days. Bring it to room temperature before serving. If you want to freeze the cake, slice it into the freezer to set, then wrap it really well- it will keep for up to 2 months in the freezer; defrost it, still wrapped, overnight in the refrigerator.

Playing Around

Since lemon is such a friendly flavor, feel free to make changes in the preserves: other red preserves- cherry or strawberry-look especially nice, but you can even use plum or blueberry jam.

Fresh Berry Party Cake: If you will be serving the cake the day it is made, cover each layer of buttercream with fresh berries-use whole raspberries, sliced or halved strawberries or whole blackberries, and match the preserves to the fruit. You can replace the coconut on top of the cake with a crown of berries or use both coconut and berries. You can also replace the buttercream between the layers with fairly firmly whipped sweetened cream and then either frost the cake with buttercream (the contrast between the lighter whipped cream and the firmer buttercream is nice) or finish it with more whipped cream. If you use whipped cream, you’ll have to store the cake in the refrigerator-let it sit for about 20 minutes at a cool room temperature before serving.

Candied Lemon Party Cake: Make a batch of candied lemon slices (page 468) to slip between the layers. Spread each of the bottom 3 layers of the cake with preserves or marmalade, then buttercream; pat some lemon slices dry, slice them into small pieces and arrange them in a single layer over each layer of buttercream. Omit the coconut, or not, and finish the top of the frosted cake with lemon slices or with one decoratively twisted candied lemon slice in the center.

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie project starts out with me not being able to find a pineapple at either of the two stores I visited. Not having the time or desire to do a city-wide pineapple search, I happily settled on a mango substitution.

Figuring I am already off-track with this recipe, I decide to play around with a few other elements. The filling is supposed to be a white chocolate ganache, which is simply white chocolate and cream combined. With a fresh bundle of basil resting in my fridge, I couldn’t resist infusing a nice handful of the fresh leaves in the cream. Basil with mango certainly works and I love basil in sweet creamy things, so I considered it a safe bet. After just a 10 minute bath in the warm cream the basil left a light herby aroma and flavor as delicate as the gentle green tint the cream had taken on. After whisking in the white chocolate and chilling the mixture, I was a little surprised and slightly worried at how runny the ganach was. Following the instructions to whip the mixture I felt a rush of happiness when the liquid transformed into a pillow of fluff. So taken with admiring this transformation, I proceeded to overbeat the fluff to a slightly lumpy consistency, but it still had a divine sweet herby fresh flavor that I couldn’t get enough of.

Dacquoise is a nut flavored meringue, traditionally baked as round disks until dry and crisp. The meringue is then layered with cream or buttercream and chilled so the meringue becomes soft like a layer of cake, but still maintains a slight crunchy element in the center of each layer. The texture is delightful and addictive.

The pineapple was to be roasted under a broiler, so I did the same with the mango, but also basted it with a bit of honey to boost the caramelization, and sprinkled it with a touch of curry powder. Yes, curry powder. A friend I recently met has a spice company, Nataraja Spices, making different Indian spice mixes, and he gave me a sample of the Sambar Powder.  As you can see, I have been putting in and on just about everything, including Caramel Rice Krispie Treats, but that’s a story for a different post. It’s a warm rich mix of spices that isn’t shy about delivering a heated kick. I have had great results with it in more expected applications like chicken, fish, and potatoes, but also really like it as a balance to sweet. I used a very light dusting on the mangos adding a subtle warmth that grew quietly, but never fully revealed itself, just lending a perfect touch of flavor intrigue.

I really enjoyed making this dessert, especially the meringue, but overall it was too sweet for me. I was glad to have added the spices as a counterbalance, but I suspect what it really needed was the acidic bite from the pineapple that was supposed to be used. Maybe the mango would have worked better without the white chocolate adding so much sweetness to the filling. This week’s pick comes from Andrea in the Kitchen, where you can find the recipe posted, and visit the blog roll to see the results of other bakers who may have actually followed the recipe!

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 79 recipes completed 142 to go!

Sunny warm air and a bounty of ripe fruit can only mean summertime. Of all the luscious seasonal offerings a perfectly ripe peach stops my world. Plump and fuzzy with blushes of ruby red, orange and pale yellow, based on appearance alone there is a promises something lovely.

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, selected by Tommi of Brown Interior, had me down at Pike’s Place Market searching for some beautiful peaches to make Honey Peach Ice Cream, and though I love ice cream, I knew it would be a challenge to forgo eating the fresh peaches to make this recipe. Standing at the counter staring at glistening pile of juicy ripe peach slices was a test of will, but most of them did make it into the ice cream.

I really can’t seem to heat milk or cream without the thought of a flavor infusion creeping into my mind. I became fixated on the idea of mace with this ice cream and infused one large mace blade in the cream and milk for 10 minutes, and then preceded with tempering the eggs and cooking the custard with the mace blade, removing it before chilling the mixture. The flavor was exciting, spicy, warm and peachy. The mace seemed a touch too pushy but when I tossed in a pinch of pink flake salt the flavors balanced to a lovely harmony.

The cool creamy texture initially hijacks the tasting experience, but once the texture is satisfactorily processed, the sunny flavor of fresh peach blooms bringing with it smooth spicy hints of nutmeg from the mace infusion. I used my good honey for this ice cream; the honey that gets to live in my new honey pot.  Last month I attended the International Food Blogger Conference organized by Foodista, and one of the sample products, or gifts, graciously bestowed to the participants was a ceramic honey pot from Le Crueset. Growing up we always used a honey pot with a wooden honey dipper, but I seem to have gotten by all these years using the handy upside down squeeze bottles, which are an amazingly clever idea. Though clever and handy, the squeeze bottle misses on the pleasurably tactile experience of dipping and drizzling honey from a pot.

Special honey now lives in my pot. I don’t know if it was a happy coincidence or a well planned strategy, but a beautiful jar of Guajillo honey from Range Honey in Texas was also gifted to us conference attendees. I had a Winnie the Pooh moment while making this ice cream when I was standing over the sink licking every last drop of honey out of the measuring spoon. Needless to say, I really like this honey.

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 78 recipes completed 143 to go!

After a run of excellent results in the weekly baking group, Tuesdays with Dorie, this week’s recipe fell a little short for me. It is definitely tart and lemony, but maybe just a little too tart for my taste buds. The filling is made with the whole darn lemon!

The entire lemon, peel and all, is processed to a smooth batter with likely companions; sugar, eggs, cream and butter. I am not a big fan of orange marmalade because of the bitter peel flavor, and that is what I picked up with this filling which I think is what made it not so appealing to me. I will admit that I did add my own little twist to the recipe by infusing the cream with fresh thyme. The thyme added a very subtle herby note that I thought played nicely against the lemon flavor, but the lemon flavor was a bit too bitter for me.

The recipe specified 1 ½ lemons, which I felt was a bit ambiguous and I would have preferred to have had a weight to provide some standardization.  My lemons were small so I used two of them, which may have actually been too much. I don’t know.

The other issue I had with this recipe was the mess it made when baking. The recipe warns the filling will bubble up and quite likely flow over the sides of the tart pan, so I baked the tart on a sheet pan to catch any overrun and it’s good I did. The tart does not look pretty right out of the oven with filling overflowing and burning onto the sheet pan below. The complicating factor with the overflow is the tart is essentially seared to the top edge of the tart pan making it rather challenging to release. If the taste had been out of this world, I would happily overlook the mess, but I think this will just be one, of very few recipes in the book, that I probably won’t make again. I suspect anyone who loves marmalade will go nuts for this tart, so if that’s you, you should visit Barb of Babette Feasts for the recipe and give it a try. You can also see the results and opinions of the other bakers by visiting the Tuesdays with Dorie blog roll. The crust for the tart, however, was excellent!

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 73 recipes completed 148 to go!

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!