Tuesday's with Dorie July Catch-up!

Well, all I can say is that my free time seemed to disappear over the summer...  I did a lot of baking, but never managed to set aside the time to edit photos and post to the blog.  Summer is a busy time with two kids!  Better late than never, though! 

The first recipe in July is the White Chocolate Patty Cake from Baking with Julia.  What appears to be a simple white cake, above, is actually a rich, velvety cake made of white chocolate and lots of eggs.  It was fluffy and velvety and scrumptious.  I am not generally someone who jumps for joy for white chocolate, but it really made this cake something special!  The cakes themselves collapse a bit when taken out of the oven, but that's totally fine.  You sort of smoosh the cakes together anyway!  There is a layer of "raspberry crush" in between the layers, and also some on top of the cake (that's the red sauce you see).  It was supposed to be made with frozen raspberries in a light syrup, but my raspberries were simply frozen - no syrup involved.  That worked fine with me though, as it was not too tart by any means.  Plus, the cake itself is sweet (all that white chocolate!) so the contrast between the sweet cake and the tart sauce was perfect!  Once the sauce is spread over the bottom layer, the top layer is placed and then the edges are smooshed together.  Then more sauce is put on top, with fresh raspberries.  This is a delicious summer treat!  It looks and tastes like you worked really hard, and it is actually quite simple!  Try it!  You can find the recipe here! 

Ready for some more raspberries?  I am!  Truly, when raspberries start showing up in the grocery store, I am thrilled.  My kids love them (call them "finger berries") and I could easily eat an entire tray (no matter the size!) in a sitting.  If you are a Costco member, go there for your summer raspberry fix.  They are AWESOME and like everything at Costco, comes in a bigger container than in the grocery store, for about the same price!  Win! 

This particular recipe is from Baking Chez Moi, and is the Apricot Raspberry Tart.  You can find the recipe on page 145.  This recipe was supposed to have a layer of stale cake crumbs or brioche between the sweet tart and the fruit layer, to absorb the juices.  OR, Dorie suggests that you create an Apricot-Almond Cream Tart and spread a layer of almond cream over the bottom of the tart.  Yeah, HELLO?  I'll take that option, thank you very much!  But I didn't see the purpose of losing the raspberries in the process (Dorie leaves them out in this version) so I used them anyway.  Are you with me here?  Sweet tart dough, almond cream, apricots, raspberries, and pistachios on top.  NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS!  Delicious.  This is totally my kind of dessert.  I tend to lean towards the fruity pie-ish type desserts and this baby is right up my alley! 

Finally, in July we made Vanilla-Mango Panna Cotta.  This recipe is also from Baking Chez Moi and can be found on pages 370-372.  This I made at my parents house, where the kids and I went to help my mom after a minor surgery.  Surely delicious food and love from grandkids helped her heal well!  I like to think so, anyway!  This is another recipe that looks like a million bucks but is actually fairly simple to make!  If you've never made a panna cotta, you really need to give it a try.  It takes minimal time to prep and can (in fact has to) be made in advance, so at the right time you just have to get it out of the refrigerator and BAM an amazing dessert is served! 

The panna cotta sits on a puree of mango and lime.  You could also add honey to the mix, but my mangoes were sweet so I didn't add any.  The puree goes on the bottom and into the refrigerator.  Then you make the panna cotta, which is made by infusing vanilla bean into heavy cream and milk, then adding bloomed gelatin.  Pour this on top of the cold puree, refrigerate at least 2 hours, and there you have a beautiful dessert!  If you don't care for mango, you could use a different fruit puree or use NO fruit puree, set the panna cotta in a lightly oiled mold, and then pop them gently out to serve on a plate with berries or some sort of syrup.  Panna cotta is super versatile!

Oh, and I can't believe I took this picture.  I probably couldn't do it again if I tried but I love how it turned out!  I'll take my successes where I can!

There you go for a July catch up...  There is still one recipe that I haven't gotten around to making yet, but I'll get there.....  eventually.....

TWD: Baking Chez Moi June Catch-up!

More catching up to do!  The first recipe for June was Chocolate-Cherry Brownies, found on pages 322-323 of Baking Chez Moi.  Though I do have a favorite brownie recipe, I am certainly willing to try new recipes, especially when in a cookbook written by Dorie!  And this recipe certainly did not disappoint!  Truly, if you use good quality bittersweet chocolate and tart dried cherries that have been soaked in port wine until nice and plump, you cannot go wrong!  Mmmm.  I love tart cherries and when paired with bittersweet chocolate, it is just divine.  These brownies are a one-bowl recipe, which makes them quick to both make and clean up!  Oh, and they will quickly disappear as well!
 

See the nice crackly top?  That is an important brownie element for me - the nice crackle top before the moist and chocolatey inside.  Mmmm.  Kinda makes me want to bake these again...  Good thing they are so easy!


Our second June recipe was Strawberry Shortcakes, Franco-American Style, on pages 338-340 of Baking Chez Moi.  Instead of using a biscuit, Dorie uses round ladyfingers.  They are nice and light and crunchy and elevate the dessert to something elegant! 

In addition to the ladyfinger substitution, Dorie also recommended using roasted strawberries in lieu of traditional macerated or plain strawberries.  This recipe can be found on page 458 of the book, and essentially involves mixing sliced strawberries with sugar, cloves, olive oil and thick balsamic vinegar and then roasting them in the oven until nice and soft.  I used the roasted strawberries in the middle of my shortcakes, but only for the adults.  I figured the kiddos were better off with typical plain strawberries.  The roasted strawberries provided a nice fancy taste to the dessert.  It was like a surprise with each bite as I don't generally associate those flavors with strawberry shortcake, but it was so good! 

This is definitely a dessert to be eaten as soon as it is made.  I am not sure how the ladyfingers would last, maybe okay in an airtight container for a day or so?  But you might as well just eat it up at once.  Strawberry shortcakes are too good to be left around! 

My summer baking is way off schedule, but I'm catching up, slowly but surely!  Hope you've been enjoying whatever summer treats come your way!!

TWD - Baking with Julia: Ka'kat

I took a bit of a hiatus from TWD for reasons unknown even to me.  It just got away from me, I guess.  And I missed some recipes that looked to be quite good, so I'll have to make them up at some point!  This week, though, was Ka'kat.  Are you thinking, "what the heck?"  I was too.  I would say that bagel+pretzel=ka'kat.  Technically,  this bread is supposed to be covered with sesame seeds (I was out) and flavored with something called mahleb.  I didn't even look for mahleb as I remembered this week's recipe on MONDAY and it was due to be posted on Tuesday.  However, it turns out that Penzey's actually carries mahleb - it is the pit of a dried sour cherry.  Now I know!  At least I know it is fairly easily accessible!  

So, my ka'kat are sesame-less and mahleb-less, but still quite good!  They have the texture of a soft pretzel (which I love) but more of the flavor of a roll or bagel.  I thought it could use more salt, but that could be because my brain was thinking PRETZEL.  Best of all, this little guy was easy to make with only a short rise time.  In fact my handy mixer stayed in it's cabinet the entire day, as all I needed for this bread was a bowl and a spoon!

I am anxious to hear what other bakers thought of the ka'kat and whether anyone used the mahleb.  Is this a spice that I need to acquire??  Click here to find out who else tried this recipe and what they thought!

TWD: Baking with Julia - Sweet Ricotta Pie

 

Our recipe for today is Sweet Ricotta Pie, from Baking with Julia.  I made this recipe for Easter dinner, hence the bunny!  I have to admit, when I first saw this recipe I was not very excited.  The main flavor in the recipe is anisette, of which I am not actually a fan.  So I changed things up a bit for our tastes and it turned out quite good!

My first change:  Well, this may not actually be a change but I made my own ricotta for this recipe!  I know, crazy, right?  But I happened to get a recipe for making homemade ricotta in my Fine Cooking magazine this month and thought I should give it a try.  I have made it twice now and yum, is it good!  The key thing I need to figure out is the length of time for draining the ricotta.  The recipe says you can drain it anywhere from 30 minutes to 24 hours, depending if you want it soft or firm.  On my first trial, I made it fairly soft, and this time it was more firm.  None of this was actually intentional, it just happened this way because of course I didn't set a timer or anything smart like that.  Have you ever made ricotta?  It is not hard, just takes a little time.  The basic ingredients are whole milk, heavy cream, sea salt and lemon juice or vinegar.  It is all a matter of quantities of these ingredients.  Many recipes seem to have a 3c whole milk to 1 cup heavy cream and 3 TB acid (lemon juice/vinegar) ratio.  The Fine Cooking recipe used way less heavy cream (1 cup for a gallon whole milk) and called for 1/2 cup lemon juice.  I am not sure what difference the milk/cream ratio makes (creaminess) but the acid amount really does vary.  Lemon juice can have a varied level of acid so I found using apple cider vinegar seemed to get better results.  Using additional lemon juice worked fine too, which is what I did the first time.  It also depends on how pasteurized your milk/cream are.  The less pasteurized your dairy products are, the less acid you will need to get nice curds.  But I'll be darned if I could find anything but ultra-pasteurized dairy!  Anyway, if you have never attempted homemade ricotta cheese, I recommend giving it a try.  It's kinda fun to watch the curds form and could be a fun science experiment for your kids!

Back to the pie recipe!  There are/were very few ingredients for this pie:  crust, ricotta, sugar, anisette, eggs and cinnamon.  The crust recipe is from the book, called Pasta Frolla.  It is a very forgiving crust but not as yummy as my tried and true flaky pie crust.  I'd use my own crust next time.  To figure out what I wanted to do with the filling I did some internet research and learned that a ricotta pie is a traditional Italian Easter dessert!  Huh.  I looked at some recipes to get flavor ideas.  Instead of (1 TB!!) anisette, I used 1 teaspoon Fiori di Sicilia (have you ever used this extract?  Amazing!) and the zest of 1/2 Mandarin orange (about 1/2 teaspoon).  I also added an additional tablespoon of sugar, as it seemed to need it when I tasted the batter.  I mixed the filling in my stand mixer, but an immersion blender would have been even better to get the filling nice and smooth. 

The pie was pretty funny looking when it came out of the oven.  The filling puffs up quite a bit, to the point that some of the lattice strips disconnected from the edges and sort of hovered above the pie plate!  When I looked at the end result, I decided it needed to be served with some blueberry sauce.  It was just a bit boring looking by itself!

I am glad I added the blueberry sauce.  It really did make it better.  My pie was a bit dry, which could be because my ricotta was to firm(?) so the blueberry sauce helped.  I did notice that one of the recipes I saw for a ricotta pie included a cup of cream in the filling, so that would have helped as well.  The filling itself is very light in texture,  almost like a light cheesecake.  I do not think it needed the lattice top, as it seemed to add to the dryness.  I am curious to know what others thought of this recipe.  I liked the pie with the changes I made, but it is not my favorite dessert ever. 

The recipe for Sweet Ricotta Pie can be found on page 376 of Baking with Julia. 

Blueberry Sauce
adapted from allrecipes
Ingredients
2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
1/4 cup water
1 cup orange juice
3/4 cup white sugar (I used a scant 3/4 cup)
1/4 cup cold water
3 TB cornstarch (I used 2 TB as I wanted a thinner sauce)
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:
Combine the blueberries, 1/4 cup water, orange juice and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat.  Stir gently and bring to a boil.  Mix the cornstarch and 1/4 cup cold water in a small bowl. Stir the cornstarch mixture into the blueberry mixture, being careful not to squash the blueberries.  Simmer gently until the sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a metal spoon, 3-4 minutes.  Remove from the heat and stir in the almond extract and cinnamon.  If the sauce is too thick, thin with a little additional water.
Printable Recipe

TWD: Crispy-Topped Brown Sugar Bars (BCM)

I'm back!  I did not post with TWD last week, as (1) I was on vacation in Florida (yeah, me!) and (2) when I looked for barley flour in the grocery store I couldn't find it and decided it wasn't worth the stress of getting "pebble bread" done before vacation.  But I am back this week with Crispy-Topped Brown Sugar Bars, from Baking Chez Moi. 

This cookie is sort of like a super-fancy rice-crispy treat, but better!  My family was not a big fan of the marshmallow-y rice-crispy treat, so my mom made them with peanut butter instead.  This was definitely an improvement, but nothing compared to working with CARAMELIZED rice crispies!  Yes, caramelized.  That even sounds better, right?

The base of this cookie is what I think a sugar cookie would taste like if made with brown sugar instead of white.  Though Dorie says that the cookie layer is thin and chewy, mine was more crunchy, but not overly hard.  Many fellow bloggers had warned about baking the cookie layer too long, so I kept a close eye on mine and took it out as soon as it started getting golden brown.  I maybe should have taken it out sooner to get the chewy texture Dorie describes...

On top of the cookie is a thin layer of dark chocolate.  You literally chop it into small pieces and spread them over the cookie bottom when it is still hot from the oven.  Pop it into the still-warm oven for a few moments and then spread that melted chocolate all over the cookie.  Mmmm.

Now, it is the top layer that is the most important.  This is where the caramelized rice crispies come into play.  Before starting this entire project, the caramelized rice crispies are prepared and allowed to form a sort of brittle.  This crunchy deliciousness is crumbled on top of the melted chocolate and then the entire thing is refrigerated until the chocolate hardens.

What you end up with is a crunchy, fun sweet treat!  This would be fun for a school bake sale - a surprising upgrade from your typical rice crispy treat.  The end result is pretty sweet, and you could probably get away with cutting them into smaller pieces, to be honest.  But they are fun to eat and oh, that caramelized topping.  I'll be making more of that to put on ice cream and such!

These bars are a bit hard to cut and eat, as bits of caramelized rice crispies fly off in every direction.  But finding those little bits of goodness makes it all fine in the end!

The recipe for Crispy-Topped Brown Sugar Bars can be found on pages 324-325 of Baking Chez Moi.  If you google the recipe, you will find some people who have posted the recipe on their blogs, but you might just want to buy the book instead...  It's a good one!

TWD: Baking Chez Moi - Lemon Madeleines

Lemon Madeleines, from Baking Chez Moi.  Yes, the glaze is a bit drippy looking.  Let's just ignore that, shall we?  I should probably entitled this "looks can be deceiving" or something, as that would certainly be appropriate.  

My madeleines don't look anything like the glorious picture in the book.  They were supposed to be a bit more golden instead of brown, and have a lovely hump on the underside.  My oven temp seems to be off, which would explain the darkness of the madeleine.  Plus I super overfilled the pan, as the recipe said it would make 12 so I just used all of the batter in the 12 madeleine holes, instead of getting out my second pan and putting some in there.  They certainly would have looked prettier if they hadn't overflowed the pan.

This recipe was supposed to GUARANTEE a lovely  hump on the non-grooved side, which mine did not get.  This also could be due to overfilling the pan, I suppose.

However, looks aren't everything, because these are delicious little lemony treats.  I want to make a cup of tea and devour the entire bunch.  I will make these again someday.  That time I'll use more pans and see if that makes a difference.  But really, looks aren't everything.  These taste delicious, which is what it's really about!

The recipe for the Lemon Madeleines can be found on pages 212 -213 on Baking Chez Moi. 

TWD: Baking with Julia - Not-Your-Usual Lemon Meringue Pie

Lemon Meringue Pie is something I have made many times.  We are pretty big lemon pie eaters in my family, on both sides, actually.  It is my dad's favorite and something Mr. Clever Mom requests as well.  This is not to say that I make the perfect lemon meringue pie.  Not at all.  In fact recently I tried a lemon icebox pie and found that to MAYBE be superior to a lemon meringue....  (fighting words!)

Anyway, when I saw this week's recipe, literally entitled "not-your-usual lemon meringue pie" I definitely gave it a second look.  Huh.  It is sort of like a deconstructed lemon meringue pie, I would say.  Sign me up!

You start with making a lemon curd.  I followed the recipe against my better judgement, in that I used the requested amount of sugar.  We are tart lemon pie lovers, not sweet.  So I should have reduced the amount of sugar or used more lemon zest.  However if you like a sweeter lemon pie, the amount of sweetness might be just fine for you.  Even on our regular lemon meringues we drastically reduce the sugar amount.  Pucker up!

After the curd is made, it has to sit in the refrigerator for a little while to set.  In the mean time, you can take a nap as the rest of this recipe is really pretty simple to put together!

Using phyllo dough (from the frozen section of the grocery store), you make little triangles that are layered with clarified butter and sugar, and then baked until crispy.  This is the deconstructed crust.  You were supposed to bake this with a baking sheet on the top so that the phyllo does not puff, but instead I baked it most of the way with the sheet on top and then removed it for the last minute or so, which allowed the phyllo to brown a little.  No puffiness!

By the way, is anyone else watching The Great British Baking Challenge on PBS??  If so, I haven't watched the finale yet so don't spoil it, ok?  In a recent episode they MADE phyllo dough.  As in FROM SCRATCH.  Holy guacamole it was incredible.  These are home bakers, and their challenge was to make homemade phyllo.  I just sat there with my mouth gaping open, watching them pull the dough so thin!  (I do typically watch this show with my mouth gaping open at the bakers total amazingness, and drooling a bit as well, to be honest!  It really does  blow my mind!)  If you haven't been watching this show, I highly recommend seeking it out.  It is available "on demand" here... 

Anyway, back to the deconstructed lemon meringue pie!  Once the phyllo is made into crispy little triangles, whip up some egg whites with brown sugar and then all of the components are ready!

Here we go!  Layer one phyllo triangle,

Spread some lemon curd on the top,

Then top it with a zig-zag of meringue and torch the top.

Repeat this layering one more time and then end with a triangle.  Dust with powdered sugar and there you go!

This was a fun little treat to eat.  I liked breaking apart the phyllo triangles to get a full piece, and they provided a nice crunch to a pie with soft fillings.  Had I reduced the sweetness in the lemon curd, this pie would have been perfect!

Fun, relatively easy, and tasty!  A win-win over here!

You can find this recipe on pages 403-405 of Baking with Julia, or you can also find it here.   I made half of the recipe for  my little family, which worked out just perfectly!  Click on over to the Tuesday's with Dorie blog and check out what the other bakers though of this recipe, okay?

TWD: Baking Chez Moi - Pink Grapefruit Tart

This week's Tuesday's with Dorie recipe is Pink Grapefruit Tart.  This is a tasty recipe that has a LOT of steps.  I am not trying to dissuade you from wanting to make this recipe, I am just warning you that there are lots of steps that have hours of timing inbetween.  Figuring out how to actually plan for this tart was more than I could handle, so it wasn't actually chilled enough at dessert time and was eaten later.  No big deal, it just meant that the clever girl didn't get a piece at that time as she was already in bed.  However that worked out fine, as quite honestly I don't think she would have cared for this tart. Which is not to say that it isn't good, because it is.  But there is a bitter component that I am certain she would not like.  You'll understand as I go along...

Are you ready for the components of this tart?  Looks like there isn't much, doesn't it?  Ha.  First, there is the sweet tart dough.  Easy to mix together, and the it is refrigerated for at least 2 hours, then rolled out and placed into the pan, then chilled again for 30 minutes.  Bake for approximately 35 minutes and allow to totally cool.  That's step 1.  Other steps can be made simultaneously, as there are lots of different timing issues in this recipe.

Next:  Lemon Almond Cream.  This is essentially butter, brown sugar, almond flour, lemon zest and an egg, that get whirled together and the refrigerated for at least 1 hour.  I was excited for this element, as it gave me a chance to use the almond flour that I made by drying some pulp from making almond milk!  Almond milk is my new true love and I make it extremely often so we always have some available.  Thus I have lots of almond pulp left over for which I try to figure out uses.  Almond flour is one of my first!  The bonus is that this almond flour also contains a little vanilla and date, as that is how I make my almond milk.  Mmmm.  I digress...  Let's continue with the Pink Grapefruit Tart components as we are still just beginning...

The next item is grapefruit cremeux.  Here is where I learned a great lesson.  Well, maybe two lessons.  Fresh grapefruit juice is used in this mixture.  So of the 100's of giant Texas grapefruits I purchase and eat every year, there are always a handful that are not very sweet, they are a bit more bitter.  Of course the grapefruit I grabbed to juice for this recipe was one of those!  And of course, I did not taste the juice before using it, as that would have been the OBVIOUS thing to do.  I realized the problem when the cremeaux was almost finished and I noticed a tiny bit of grapefruit pulp sitting by, so I tasted it.  Ack!  I was horrified.  Doubly horrified as I knew that another ingredient for the cremeaux is Campari.  I didn't know anything about Campari before I bought it and then checked it out via my friend Google.  (Had I done that first I probably would not have purchased it, and used Grand Marnier instead or something).  About.com uses these terms to describe Campari:  "extremely unique flavor" of "very bitter orange", it "takes some getting used to" which "might take a few years".  Years?  Good grief.  So here I have a bitter liquor mixing with bitter grapefruit to make a tasty dessert?  Yikes.  I used  little less Campri and added 2 tablespoons of light brown sugar towards the end of making the cremeaux (when I realized my predicament) and hoped for the best.  Honestly, had i used a normal sweet grapefruit, it would have been MUCH better.  You live, you learn.  My lessons here?  Taste, taste, taste.  Oh, and don't work on desserts after drinking 3 glasses of wine.  Just saying.  Probably not my best choice...

Oh, in case you are wondering, the cremeaux has to chill for at least 6 hours.

Then there are the grapefruit supremes.  They are supposed to sit between thick layers of paper towels for 3-8 hours BEFORE you plan to eat the tart.

The lemon almond cream is spread in the tart shell and then baked, then it has to chill completely before the cremeaux is spread inside.  Then, guess what, the whole tart is refrigerated AGAIN after you place the supremes on top, for at least 2 hours.

You see the timing confusion here?  Easy steps, but lots of timing issues!

Taste:  The crust is kind of like a shortbread cookie, yum.  The lemon almond cream is good, though I probably could have used less lemon zest.  It called for the zest of one lemon, and since lemons differ in size I may have used too much.  Good though.  The cremeux definitely has a bitter tone, but isn't bad, especially when you get a piece of the supreme with your bite.  The burst of sweet juiciness of the supreme makes up for the bitter in the cremeux.  Oh, and I served it with lightly sweetened whipped cream.  Mmmm. 

Would I make this again?  I would love to taste it with a sweet grapefruit inside instead of the crummy bitter one I used.  But I don't think it is worth the extensive timing for this dessert.  It is beautiful and fairly tasty, but a ton of prep.  Maybe one of the other bakers figured out a better way to coordinate the timing of this one.  I should have planned this by figuring out what time I wanted to eat the tart and worked backwards from there to figure out the right timing, probably.  But that takes real forethought, which I rarely have on  good day it seems, and certainly don't have after 3 glasses of wine!

The recipe for the Pink Grapefruit Tart is on pages 139-141 of Baking Chez Moi. 

TWD: Baking with Julia - Creme Bruleed Chocolate Bundt

Our recipe for Tuesday's with Dorie this week is Creme Bruleed Chocolate Bundt cake.  Since it was chosen at a time that corresponds with Valentine's Day, I think many of us probably served it then.  I did, anyway!  We had some neighbor friends over for dinner, which is a good plan as this cake serves a lot and I certainly don't need to eat the entire thing!!

So let's think about this - it is a chocolate bundt cake that is filled with liqueur soaked raspberries and then topped with a light creme brulee custard and then caramelized.  Um, okay, sign me up!  Let's go over the individual elements:

The cake itself is a recipe I would make again even just on its own.  It is delicious.  Super moist and chocolatey.  And guess what, it involved lots of folding and I did a good job!  Maybe I am getting better at this folding business...  Hoping that is true, anyway!  So, chocolate bundt?  Yum.

The next element is the berries...  This is simply raspberries that are tossed with liqueur.  I used a raspberry brandy that we happened to have.  I think I would use less liqueur next time, as it was a bit strong for me.  Plus it ran out under the cake and then mixed a bit strangely with the custard that came next.  So, liqueur soaked raspberries?  Okay but needs a slight revision.

Finally, we get the creme brulee.  To be honest, I am not sure what makes this a creme brulee and not a creme anglaise.  Is there a difference, really?  This is a creme brulee that you can pour, which is unlike any creme brulee that I have ever had.  Which is not to say that this was bad in any way, but I had a different idea in my head as to what it was going to be like.  Unless maybe I screwed up somewhere and it really was supposed to be thicker?  But then you couldn't pour it over the top of the cake, so surely not.  Anyway, the "creme brulee" was delicious (as it always is, thick or thin!)

Overall?  Yum.  The adults all really liked the cake.  The kids did not, but I think that was because of the brandy in the raspberries.  This was not a difficult dessert to make,  it just took a little planning ahead to allow the creme brulee to refrigerate for a while.  It certainly has great visual appeal and looks like you did something tremendous, especially when you pull out a brulee torch! 
 

You can find the recipe on pages 280-281 of Baking with Julia, or you can find it here.  To see what some of the other bakers thought of this dessert, head to the Baking with Dorie blog and check out the LYL posts (leave your link). 

TWD: Baking Chez Moi - Marquise au Chocolat

It's Tuesday's with Dorie time again!  This week our recipe was from Baking Chez Moi, and we made Marquise au Chocolat.  That is fancy French for frozen chocolate mousse.  Sounds fancy, yes?  I served mine with vanilla creme anglaise (another recipe in the book) and some fresh raspberries.  The raspberries are actually crucial, in my opinion, as they add a nice tart zip to a sweet dessert.  Which is not to say that the dessert is too sweet.  No.  It is not.  It is absolutely delicious and divine.  But I do l like a little zip to cut the sweet sometimes, just me.

This recipe is really not difficult at all, and it even includes FOLDING ingredients (a word that makes me tremble with anxiety).  It simply involves melting a large quantity of bittersweet chocolate (my fave) with some butter (how could this possibly go wrong?).  In the mean time you whip some egg yolks with sugar and some fleur de sel or sea salt.  Fold the chocolate in to the yolks then whip up some lightly sweetened heavy cream and fold that into the mixture as well.  Pour it into a plastic wrap lined loaf pan, wrap it up and put it in the freezer.  You are done.  It needs to freeze for at least 6 hours, so it is best to think ahead a bit with this dessert.

Here is where some bakers got stumped, though.  If you look closely to my abbreviated instructions above, you will see that in no place do the egg yolks actually get COOKED.  Uh, huh.  You mean this includes RAW EGGS?  Yep, essentially that is the case.  There are things you can do to change this up, which some bakers in the group tried, but I didn't go there.  I just bought some pasteurized eggs and called it a day.  Those eggs are safe enough for me.  The percentage of eggs that contain salmonella is very small and since my eggs were pasteurized they were theoretically safe from being part of that small percentage anyway.  Plus, if you added up all of the raw cookie dough/cake batter/etc. that I have munched in my entire life, I have probably eaten about a zillion raw eggs already!  Maybe this was chance-y, but it is the route I took.  If you follow this blog, you might recall that while I was pregnant I made a tiramisu for a birthday celebration that included 2 other pregnant gals.  Tiramisu (at least my recipe) also involves uncooked egg yolks and I took the pasteurized route that time too.  You have to bake/cook in a manner that makes you comfortable, and this works for me!

Anyway, back to the dessert.  Since the mousse freezes overnight, you can also make a creme anglaise to go with it, which is refrigerated overnight.  Then the next day, at dessert time, you can just grab these two pre-made amazing items, plate them, and you are ready!  No sweat! You can see in the photo below that my plastic wrap had some wrinkles, which were sort of carved into the marquise, but I don't mind.  I am actually not sure how to line the pan without getting wrinkles?  Maybe one of the other bakers did a better job and will have some tips to share!

This dessert was made as part of my very dear friend H's birthday dinner.  Happy birthday, H!  Your friendship is an amazing blessing in my life.  What would I do without you?  It is just too dreadful to contemplate!

The recipe for Marquise au Chocolat can be found on pages 357-358 of Baking Chez Moi, and the creme anglaise can be found on page 441.  

TWD: Baking with Julia - Salsa Quitza

I'm back with this week's Tuesday with Dorie/Baking with Julia recipe:  Salsa Quitza!  Are you wondering what the heck a quitza might be?  It is sort of what you would get if you combine a quiche and a pizza, according to the book.  Hmmm.  I"ll try to go with you on that one....

This recipe was written for use in a bread machine, but I gave mine away a few years ago.  Luckily, some of the other members of this group made this in advance and posted on the TWD site what they did, which helped a lot.  Oh and get this....  at first one person made a post about how to make it without a bread machine and DORIE GREENSPAN HERSELF posted back her thoughts.  Hello!  How cool is that?  (Yes, I really am a food dork, I know.)

This is one weird recipe.  The dough is just weird - it contains the usual suspects, i.e. yeast, flour, salt, water, egg, yeah okay no surprises there, right?  Keep reading though and you'll see nonfat dry milk, chili powder and refried beans!  Yes, IN the dough.  Interesting, huh?  I think this makes this sort of bread VERY HEALTHY to eat because obviously it is now a source of protein, right?

Anyway, instead of using a bread machine I put everything into my mixer, mixed it together and let it rise until it was about double in volume, which took about 1 1/2 hours.  Then it goes into a pan, which is supposed to be a 12-inch springform but I don't have one that big so I used a 10-inch cake pan.  I trimmed off a little dough to make it fit the pan better since it was smaller and hoped for the best since it wasn't a springform.  On top of the dough, you spread soft cream cheese.  Then pour over some salsa (I used a peach cherry salsa that was a gift) and top with grated cheddar cheese.  Let it rise some more as the oven heats to 475 and it's ready to bake.  I used less salsa than was called for because the bakers that finished this in advance pretty unanimously determined that the requested amount was TOO much.

My verdict?  Well, it is different.  The clever girl liked it, which makes me think I should definitely make it again as dinnertime has become quite interesting with this child. But I am just not totally sold, I suppose.  There was too much cream cheese though, and I even reduced the amount, using 10oz instead of 12.  Maybe with different toppings in general...  Not sure.  

I can't wait to see what the other bakers thought!  You can find this recipe here, but it differs from the book in these two areas:  the book calls for 12 ounces cream cheese, not 8 (though I agree with the 8) and the book calls for 2 cups salsa, not 1 1/2 (though I used 1 cup and it seemed perfect).  So really, the recipe on that link is probably about right!  You can also find it in the book, Baking with Julia, on pages 440-441.  Check out this link to see what the other bakers thought of this recipe!

TWJ: Baking Chez Moi - Brown Butter and Vanilla Bean Weekend Cake

You may have noticed that I haven't done many Baking with Julia recipes lately.  I promise that I haven't given it up.  The thing is, the recipes for this month I was super ambivalent about, so I chose not to make them.  In case you are interested, the first was an upside down inside out Tiramisu, and the second was a European Rye.  The thing is, I have troubles with both of these recipes.  First, I LOVE Tiramisu.  But I want my tiramisu to be the real deal.  And I have a recipe for the real deal that is DIVINE (completely swoon-worthy), so creating a deconstructed version of this treat just does not interest me.  I want the bonafide amazing dessert. 

As far as the European Rye bread, the thing is, I don't actually care for rye bread.  Sad, to some of you, but true.  So why make this loaf?  For the experience, yes, but....  Just to be clear, I do intend to do more Baking with Julia recipes.  Just not these two....

Here we are then, with a Baking Chez Moi recipe.  Brown Butter and Vanilla Bean Weekend Cake.  I personally haven't ever heard of something referred to as a weekend cake before.  Here is Dorie's explanation, "a simple, sturdy cake that will last the weekend, that can be put out to be nibbled by family and houseguests, that will be as good for a dessert as it will be for an end-of-the-afternoon snack or an end-of-the-morning tide-me-over."  Ah-ha!  Now I get it.  And personally, I love this idea!

This cake is super simple to make.  No mixer necessary, just some bowls and a whisk and spatula.  Now I have to admit, any time that a recipe says to "fold" I get a quiver of trepidation.  Folding is not my forte.  I have no confidence in this arena and tend to hold my breath and pray for the best each time.  Is there anyone out there that has any sage folding advice for me?  It always makes me nervous.  Luckily, the amount of folding in this recipe is minimal and I had success (I think). 

The flavors in this cake are simple and delicious.  Browned butter and vanilla bean.  Oh and rum or amaretto if you like.  (IF??)  If you have never used brown butter, you need to.  It adds a lovely nuttiness to the flavor of your dish.  You do have to be super careful when making browned butter.  Do not multi-task at this time.  This is very hard for me, as I often multi-task in the kitchen, but trust me.  You can't multi-task and brown butter.  The difference between lovely browned butter and yucky burned butter is a second.  And then you have to start all over!  Grrr.  So just stand there at the stove and focus on that lovely butter.  It is worth it and your dessert will thank you.  And quite honestly it doesn't take long at all to brown butter, it isn't like cooking risotto or something!   Oh, I used dark rum in my cake, but I think I'll try amaretto next....  YUM.

I would describe this as a pound cake, if someone didn't get the "weekend" cake concept.  They look similar and have a similar texture.  And like a good pound cake, you can heat this up in the toaster the next morning and have a special breakfast! 

You can find this recipe on pages 6-7 of Baking Chez Moi.

For insight as to what our other bakers thought of this recipe, go here and click on "LYL: Brown Butter and Vanilla Bean Weekend Cake".  All of my fellow bakers list their blog addresses there for you to visit!  Who knows?  You might get inspired to join this group or to follow another of the great bakers!  I have!

TWD: Baking Chez Moi - Granola Energy Bars

Today's recipe for Baking Chez Moi is Granola Energy Bars.  I was especially interested to try this recipe, as I have long searched out recipes for CRUNCHY homemade granola bars.  I recently found one recipe that I like, but am always up to try another.  This recipe uses a different ingredient - brown rice syrup, for binding.  This is the trouble with most homemade granola bars - they  just are not crunchy.  Dorie claims that brown rice syrup will do the trick and guess what?  She is right!  (As if we are surprised!!)  Though my regular grocery store did not carry brown rice syrup (What??  Devastated, truly devastated), I was able to find some at a more "natural" supermarket.

The thing is, I can't decide whether I like these granola bars.  I mean, I must like them, because I eat them up.  However while I eat them, I have a constant thought of "hmmm, do I really like these" going through my mind.  It may be that I am just not used to the taste of brown rice syrup.  Or maybe they need a bit more oomph or something, though I am not really sure what the oomph would be.  I used raisins and cherries in my bars, so there is good flavor there.  The cherries and raisins were both large though, so if I cut them in half there would be more bites with dried fruit.   Maybe I should have toasted the oats and almonds longer?? 

When you take these out of the oven, they are nice and shiny looking and you are supposed to press down on them with a spatula to help them stay tightly together.  I forgot this step, so I did have some crumbles when I cut the bars. 

Overall, I give this recipe a hesitant thumbs-up.  It is definitely worth another try, and besides, what else am I going to do with my jar of brown rice syrup???

If you are curious about this recipe, check out Baking Chez Moi, pages 328-329.  And be sure to visit the TWD blog and click on "LYL: Granola Energy Bars" to find links to other blogs in our group!

TWD: Baking Chez Moi - Gingerbread Buche de Noel

Our last Baking Chez Moi recipe for December is Gingerbread Buche de Noel!  It was actually scheduled for before Christmas, but I made it for Christmas and figured I would post it later.  Later ended up being today!  

The huge ginormous benefit to baking and posting after the post-date is you can see what other bakers thought of the recipe and what advice they might have!  Yeah!  So, thanks to that information, I made a few pieces of this recipe in advance, and halved the frosting amount.  Thanks, everyone!

There are four components to this cake:  The cake itself, which is a chiffon-style very thin cake that is rolled up' the filling, the frosting, and some pecan praline.  I  made the praline and the filling in advance!  This was fantastic since I made the somewhat crazy decision to serve this on Christmas.  The thing is, this is theoretically a perfect cake for Christmas, BUT there are lots of components so if you are making a big Christmas dinner (which we did) it makes getting the cake done a bit of a squeeze.  I got it done, but boy was I ready to be OUT of the kitchen that night! 

To further explain the cake, the actual cake part is a gingerbread flavor.  It is a very thin cake that is baked in a half-sheet pan and then rolled up.  In fact, it is rolled in a powdered sugar coated tea towel  as it cools so that it cools with the ability to roll up when the time comes.  Smart.  Before it is rolled for good (as in after it is cool and you are ready to actually put this cake together) you spread a filling of butter, cream cheese, cinnamon, vanilla, and a little of the pecan praline over the cake.  Then roll it up tightly, using a piece of parchment and a ruler and this fun pull-tug technique to make the cake roll nice and tight.  Again, smart.  That sits in the refrigerator a bit while you make a marshmallow frosting that is puffy and lovely.  Put a thick layer of the marshmallow frosting around the top and sides of the cake and then sprinkle on the praline pecans and you are ready!  

The magic occurs when you slice it.  Before hand, it just looks like this:

This is nice and everything, but once you slice it and you see all the rings, SUCCESS!!

This was really quite tasty.  I liked that the filling did not actually contain any sugar, as the cake, frosting and praline evened everything out.  And, (this is weird for a cake) but when i had another piece a day later, I thought that the flavors were actually more pronounced!  

So, overall a success!  I am not sure whether I would make this again, as there are lots of great desserts for Christmas-time.  But this was very tasty!  Dorie is right... This would be good if you just made it on some random day and then invited people over for cake and champagne. 

Oh, and there was an article in the Food section of the NY Times before Christmas that mentioned that this is the most complicated recipe in the book.  I did it!  Surely I will have continued success!!

Happy holidays, everyone!  I look forward to baking and crafting with you in the new year!

TWD: Baking with Julia - Chocolate-Mint Nightcaps

We are back to Baking with Julia this week, with Chocolate-Mint Nightcaps.  Had I not watched a video of Marcel Desaulniers making these cookies with Julia, I would have never figured out the "nightcap" part.  See that swirl on the top of the cookie?  It is supposed to look like an old-fashioned nightcap.  Whatever.  Personally, aesthetically, I am not thrilled at the nightcap swirl.  It too closely resembles things that are not food and should never be confused with food, in my opinion.

However, let's not judge a book by it's cover, okay?  Let's talk about the cookies themselves.  I made half of the recipe, and ended up with 16 cookies.  The clever girl called these "cookie cakes".  The actual cookie part is quite cake-like.  Soft like a moon-pie. I would prefer a little more texture, since the ganache is also soft, but they are nice and soft and airy. 

The ganache is where the mint comes into play, or where it is SUPPOSED to come into play.  You heat cream with some fresh chopped mint, and then strain the cream into a bowl of chopped chocolate (which was supposed to be semi-sweet, but I used 2/3 semi-sweet and 1/3 70% dark chocolate).  The mint flavor did not come through as much as I would have liked.  I think to get a better mint flavor, you would have to heat the cream with the mint and then let it steep for a while, 20 minutes or so, and then heat the cream back up to then strain into the chopped chocolate.  The mint needs a bit longer to release its flavor into the cream.  You could also just add some peppermint extract...

Also regarding the ganache - the recipe says to spread the hot ganache on a sheet pan and refrigerate it to chill completely.  Well, at that point, it is unworkable so you then have to leave it out at room temperature for a while.  I initially thought I'd be lazy, so instead of getting out a piping bag and tip, I just scooped the ganache into a ziplock bag and trimmed the corner to pipe onto the cookies.  Maybe it was just that the ganache was still to firm to use, but it did not work for me.  It was a mess and then somehow the ziplock bag got a hole in another random spot so chocolate was oozing out all over the place!  (This is not always a bad thing, mind you, but in this case I was trying to convince said chocolate to behave and swirl out onto cookies for filling!)  So I went ahead and got the piping bag and a proper tip and suddenly the ganache knew I meant business so it complied and piped out nicely.  I'll show that ganache who is boss!  HA!

Overall, these are yummy and would be really great on a party tray.  You are sure to get oohs and aahs with cookies filled and topped with ganache!  I would probably try to bake the cookies a bit longer next time, and try to extract more mint flavor into the ganache.

This recipe can be found on pages 307-308 of Baking with Julia.  Check out what our other bakers did by clicking here!

TWD: Baking Chez Moi - Rugelach

This Tuesday is a "Baking Chez Moi" week, not to be confused with the "Baking With Julia" weeks.  If you aren't confused, congratulations, because I sure am!  I can't keep it all straight!  Hopefully I get the hang if this soon....  Surely I will, right?  I mean, RIGHT??

Anyway, the recipe this week was Rugelach, and if you are a frequent visitor to my blog, you will know that rugelach is an important cookie in my house.  We have had them at Christmas for as long as I can remember, and for as long as my sister can remember, and let me tell you, that girl remembers EVERYTHING.  It is amazing, really.  Isn't it crazy how some people remember the details of so many things?  My memory seems to have a quota, so as new memories get in, others get dumped.  Maybe I need ginko biloba or something...

ANYWAY, this is all to clarify why a new rugelach recipe is up to a big test in my house.  We did another rugelach recipe for the Baking with Julia book, so this is rugelach recipe number 3.  I discuss more about the history of Rugelach and the other recipes in the other posts, if you are interested.  According to Dorie, this is the Rugelach that Won Over France.  But will it win over my rugelach-loving house??? 

"My" rugelach recipe rolls the cookies into crescents, as opposed logs that are sliced like in this recipe and the BWJ recipe.  The benefit to the crescent?  You get  more cookie!!  Each cookie is more substantial.  I give that two thumbs up.

This particular recipe uses a dough that is rolled very thin, and then a filling of coconut, dried cherries, toasted pecans and semi-sweet (bittersweet) chocolate is spread across and it is all rolled into a log.  This filling is DELISH.  I will definitely be incorporating it into my family's rugelach when I make it for Christmas this year.  Can you go wrong with that combination?  I say not.  I did switch the semi-sweet chocolate to bittersweet, just because that is how we do things in my house, but I am sure it is delicious the other way too, for those who prefer semi-sweet.

To go back to the substantial-ness of the cookie....  Yes, that is probably not really a word but I think you know what I mean.  The BCM rugelach cookies are TINY.  So yes, it makes like 4 dozen, but they are 4 dozen TINY little cookies.  My rugelach recipe makes about 5 dozen, and they are actual cookies.  So with this recipe, you might want to eat a handful (or two honestly) because you can convince your brain that one or two cookies is just ridiculous and you certainly deserve more than that.  OR, if you have much more self discipline than I, you could only eat your two cookies and be so proud of yourself for really "cutting back" during the holidays. 

This cookies is like a middle ground between the BWJ rugelach and my rugelach.  And it is a very happy, yummy middle.  I still love my rugelach the best (totally biased, I know) so I will stick to that recipe HOWEVER with the addition of this new filling.  This is too good not to share with the rest of my family!!

For other baker's thoughts on this recipe, visit the TWD blog and click on "LYL:  Rugelach".   The recipe can be found on pages 301-302 of Baking Chez Moi. 

(P.S.  I did actually make the previous BCM recipe, Cranberry Crackle Tart, for Thanksgiving this year.  It was dive-bombed before I got photos taken, and I wasn't in love with the recipe, so I didn't bother to post anything.)

TWD: Baking with Julia - Amaretti

We made Amaretti this week with Baking with Julia!  Now, I have to admit, I had no idea what amaretti actually were when this recipe was chosen.  I  mean, I knew it had to contain almonds, but I had never heard of amaretti before.  Essentially it is an almond flavored macaron.

Here are my thoughts on amaretti:
1)  They are super easy to make.  Literally, there are 3 ingredients:  almond paste, sugar, egg whites.  Yes there is a pine nut on top so that is technically ingredient number 4 but it isn't actually IN the cookie, just pressed on top so I don't count that one.  It's essentially decoration.
2)  They are gluten-free for the many people who sadly cannot digest gluten well.
3)  Weird technique alert:  After piping the cookies onto the cookie sheet, you dab them with a wet tea-towel to smooth out the tops.  That's a new one for me!
4)  They are crisp on the outside and chewy inside.
5)  They are one of the weirdest cookies I have ever eaten.
6)  However, I can't stop eating them!  I am constantly lifting up the lid on their container and eating another one!!  And each time, I think, "huh, these are weird, but good, too!"

Truly, I think I would enjoy anything involving almond paste.  I love almond flavor so that is right up my alley.  If you DO NOT like almond flavor, these would NOT be the cookie for you!  But if you do, yum.  Get yourself a nice hot mug of tea and a couple of these cookies on a plate and put your feet up.  Well, only put your feet up if the cookie tin is nearby, so you don't have to get up to get more.  Because you might want to do that, and it would be a fat bummer to get all comfy with your cookies and tea and then  have to get up again just to get more!

I might try to reduce the sugar a bit in these next time.  And I am not sure if I really need the pine nut on top.  Why not a slivered almond?  Too much almond?  Maybe do a sprinkle of big-grain sugar?  

Check out the TWD blog under "LYL:  Amaretti" to see what the other bloggers thought about amaretti!

TWD: Baking Chez Moi - Palets de Dames

Welcome to the first recipe in a new baking adventure!  The Tuesdays with Dorie group has taken on a new cookbook!  See, Dorie Greenspan published a new cookbook, Baking Chez Moi, so we couldn't let this awesome event pass us by.  We are taking it on, while continuing with our other cookbook, Baking with Julia.   Honestly, this is an undertaking that I am not certain I will be able to totally complete, as it means that we are baking and posting something for every Tuesday.  And while you know I have a compulsion to bake, I have other things I want to bake/cook/post about as well, so this could get tricky.  But I will do my best and I hope you'll stick with me!

So, our first recipe is Palets de Dames.  They are a cakey cookie with a delicate vanilla flavor that is brightened with a lemony-sweet icing on top.  The batter for this cookie is really like cake batter.  Very soft and sticky.  It refrigerates for at least an hour, which helps it firm up to be a bit more cookie-dough-ish.   It is then scooped out in little balls onto the cookie sheet.  Dorie recommends using a 2-teaspoon cookie scoop for such an endeavor.  That lady is smart.  I don't have one so I just used 2 teaspoons-worth of dough and rolled it in my hands.  This was sticky and messy.  Doable, of course, but don't you think I should purchase some cookie scoops?  I think it is definitely a good idea.  You can never have too many baking gadgets, can you?  (Hint: The correct answer is "No, of COURSE not!")

While these cookies are cute, and tasty, I am not sure I'll make them again.  They aren't a cookie that call to me every time I walk near the kitchen, "come have a treat...." which, actually, is probably a good thing.  However if anyone asks for iced cookies, I'd make these in a heartbeat.  They really are easy and tasty.  Oh, and I added the sprinkles.  They aren't a necessity for these cookies, but they sure make them cute, huh?  And trust me, sprinkles take them OVER THE TOP for 6-year old girls! 
 

You can find this recipe on pages 272-274 of Baking Chez Moi.  Since this is my first recipe out of this book, I can't say much about the book as a whole yet.  However, based on the brilliance of Baking: From My Home to Yours and my complete admiration for Dorie Greenspan, I suspect that this cookbook will be fantastic!  I was able to pre-order it before it was published, so it arrived on my doorstep the exact day it came out!  I have to admit that I grabbed the book from my porch, ran into the house, and slowly but eagerly looked through every page.  I'm such a dork. 

If you want to see what other bakers thought of this recipe, head to the Tuesdays with Dorie blog and click on LYL:  Palets de Dames.

TWD: Baking with Julia - Sunny-side-up Peach Pastries

Our Tuesday's with Dorie group decided that October would be puff pastry month.  Theoretically, the weather has gotten cooler (in many parts of the world, but not here, phooey!) so making puff pastry would not be as difficult.  Making puff pastry is a time consuming project but I find it rather nice.  It's kind of like a meditation.... Roll roll roll, fold into thirds, turn, do it again...  According to the book, when you are done with the 6 turns you make with puff pastry, there are 994 layers of dough and 993 layers of butter!  I'll have to take their word for it.  I will not be testing that theory! 

Pounded butter on dough

I have made puff pastry before and found this dough to be quite easy to work.  It was simple to make and rolled out very smoothly.  I did learn that while puff pastry recipes call for very cold butter, you should  NOT use frozen butter.  I had only 2 sticks of butter in the refrigerator when I started this recipe, and you need a pound, so I pulled 2 out of the freezer.  Well, frozen butter doesn't pound as well as cold butter does.  It just doesn't give!  In case you are wondering, when you first start working with the butter, you literally pound it with your rolling pin to get it softened a bit and into the right size to start.  It's quite nice, the pounding.  It just feels good, trust me!

A nice present.. Dough wrapped butter!

You wrap the butter in the dough and then roll it out into a long rectangle.  Fold it into thirds like a business letter, turn it, and roll it out again.  If you live somewhere that isn't actually cool, this can take a while because if the butter gets too warm, you need to cover the dough with plastic and put it in the refrigerator for at least 30-60 minutes to cool down again.  Then start again!  When you make puff pastry, you do 6 "turns" which includes rolling the the rectangle, folding the dough, and then turning the dough a different direction.  I refrigerated my dough after every 2 turns.  

Here is a hint for making puff pastry:  You need a cool room and a cool rolling surface.  I can't change the weather here that brought humidity into my house, but I could help out the rolling surface.  I do not have a marble board for rolling pastry (though obviously I NEED one!) so I improvise.  I set a metal baking sheet that just has a tiny rim on the ends upside down on top of a reusable ice mat.  The baking sheet becomes my rolling surface and it stays nice and cold with the ice mat underneath!   Here is mine:

I purchased mine at The Container Store but you can probably buy them on Amazon or other places.  

These pastries are supposed to look like sunny-side-up eggs.  There are supposed to be apricots on top, but since I could not find any, I used peaches instead.  Each pastry contains 1/2 of a peach, cut into two quarters for the "eggs".  While they aren't exactly what the recipe requested, they turned out pretty tasty just the same!

Me being me, I didn't sit down to actually WATCH the Baking with Julia episode that contains the puff pastry and Sunny-side-up Pastries until my own pastries were in the oven.  Yes, it is a bit late by then to change anything, but that is just how it goes sometimes!

My thoughts on this recipe:

1. The book says to roll out the puff pastry to 1/8 to 1/4 inch and then cut into 4-inch circles.  The video says to roll out the puff pastry to 1/2 inch and then cut into 4-inch circles.  I think 1/2 inch would have been better.  By the time I had rolled my 4-inch circle into an 8-inch long oval, it was pretty darned thin in the middle.  Had I started out with a thicker circle, I'd have a thicker  oval.  And who would complain about a little more puff pastry??
2. I prefer a different pastry cream recipe I think.  I didn't find this one to be as delicious as I thought it should be.  I wanted to want to lick the bowl, you know?  This was good, but it was not lick-the-bowl good.  It could be because I used vanilla extract instead of vanilla bean (out of sheer laziness and time conservation).  Maybe the vanilla bean would have made the difference?  But you could use any pastry cream recipe here.
3. Speaking of pastry cream, I dalloped mine onto my pastry and then spread it around a bit to have a place for the peaches.  Wrong!  The better plan is to dallop it on and leave it in a mound.  Set the peaches/apricots up against the mound of cream. They help hold the cream in the pastry so it doesn't leak out.  Mine did leak a bit.  Lesson learned!

Overall, we  enjoyed these pastries!  They are certainly a delicious way to start the day, if you have them with breakfast as intended.  Mine were for dessert (I cannot imagine making these in the morning, but my mornings are a bit hectic with two kiddos) and they made a nice dessert as well!

Making these pastries gave me some nice scraps of puff pastry that will be used in the next Tuesdays with Dorie challenge.  However I also have another 1 1/4 pounds of puff pastry (this recipe used 1/2 of a puff pastry recipe, if  that makes sense) so what should I create with that???  Any suggestions?

The recipe for the puff pastry can be found on pages 46-49 of Baking with Julia, or you can find it here.  The recipe for the sunny-side-up apricot pastries can be found on pages 192-194 of Baking with Julia, or you can find it here. Remember, you don't have to make your own puff pastry to make this recipe!  You could grab a box at the grocery store and have an awesome pastry in no time!

Check out our other bakers thought by going to the TWD blog and clicking on the different baker's links!

TWD: Baking with Julia - French Bread

Do you see that beautiful basket of bread??  I baked it!!  I really did!  I can hardly believe it.  I really, really wanted to succeed with this week's Tuesday with Dorie recipe, making French Bread, and I did!  Yahoo!

We are all friends here so I will be completely honest.  This recipe scared me.  I just had this idea that there was no way that I was going to be able to accomplish baking a batard or baguette.  Especially not in Houston.  Humid climates are not helpful in bread baking, so that was a major strike against me.  But I beat the odds, I guess.  You never know what you can do until you try, do you?  Can you tell I did the happy dance all over the kitchen when they came out of the oven?  And AGAIN when I tasted one?  Ahhh.  Delicious freshly baked bread.  Is there ANYTHING more wonderful???

I am not going to go step by step through this recipe, because let me tell you, there were lots of steps.  However, at the same time, it wasn't totally overwhelming.  I mean, I was able to complete the last part while making dinner AND helping the clever girl with her homework (homework, in first grade!!) AND attempting to keep the clever boy from opening up my flour container and shaking it all over the floor handful by handful (his new totally favorite thing to do, ugh).  And it turned out well!  So, if my totally multi-tasking self could accomplish this bread, YOU CAN TOO!

A couple of things about this recipe:

• It calls for 0.6 ounces of fresh yeast.  I have never found that in the grocery store and substituted 2.5 teaspoons of instant yeast instead.  This amount was determined after checking many conversions online that mostly agreed.
• You can make this bread by hand, in which case you have to knead the dough for 10-15 minutes with your big muscley-muscles, or make it in your heavy-duty stand mixer.  I opted to use the mixer.  That was what I initially thought and then when I watched the video and saw that Danielle Forestier kneaded and turned the bread over 800 times, my inclination for the stand mixer was confirmed.  There is no way my current multi-tasking brain would be able to manage 800 turns.
• There are specific times given for different steps for this recipe.  I underlined each of them in my book so I wouldn't miss them.
• I found the video quite helpful for shaping the batards.  Unfortunately, I started shaping the first one and then started watching the video, so the outside of that loaf got a bit dry.  You can tell if you look closely at the sort of bumpier looking loaf that I tried to hide a bit in the basket above.  However blemished this loaf was on the outside, it was still delicious.  You can't judge a book by it's cover!

One other thing...  This recipe has you create a shaped cloth for resting your shaped batards/baguettes (a batard is a shorter, wider baguette).  Then you have to get the shaped dough off of the cloth and onto the preheated baking stone very quickly without losing the shape of the dough.  Instead of doing that, I rolled up 4 tea-towels into tubes and placed them in a row with spaces inbetween for the batards.  Then I laid a piece of parchment over those towel rolls, and placed the dough between each roll, on the parchment.  When I was ready to bake, I turned them all over and slit them with a sharp knife.  Then, I slid the towels out from under the parchment and moved the batards a little closer together, so they would fit on my baking stone.  I slid my bakers peel under the parchment, carried it to the oven, and slid the parchment onto the stone.  The bread baked on the parchment on the stone.  I could have opened the oven and slid out the parchment after about 10 minutes of baking, but I forgot.  This would theoretically given me a better crust on the bottom, but honestly the bottom crust turned out great so I don't think I missed anything.  I hope this explanation makes sense.  I was not confident that I would be able to get the batards onto the stone quickly while maintaining their shape (the biggest problem - I find that the bread shape often gets a bit wonky at this point).  This method worked well!

Oh, and the taste?  Yum.  The bread had a great crust on the outside and was soft and airy on the inside.  The flavor was great, like most baguettes I have eaten out.  Are you  up for a challenge?  Give this recipe a try.  The recipe and video give great explanations, and I believe you will find success!  The IDEA of this bread is scarier than the reality.  You can find the recipe on pages 123-127 of Baking with Julia, or here. 

Truly, the feeling of accomplishment and success is worth the work of this recipe!  Yeah, me!  Now it's your turn!