Tuesdays With Dorie begins October with Double Apple Bundt Cake, the first in a whole month of fabulous-sounding autumnal recipes. When I was tabbing up my book for the month of October and telling Josh what he’d be eating for dessert the next few weeks, he said he was surprised there are so many good recipes left. It’s surprising, though definitely true: the recipes in Baking are consistently good. Oh, sure, there are certainly ones we love more than others, but there is a seemingly endless supply of wonderful recipes.
The only substitution I made was subbing currants for raisins, since that is what I had on hand. I soaked the currants in rum, which I thought would be appropriate with the warm spices in this cake. I also reduced the sugar by about half a cup when I realized the apple butter I bought was incredibly sweet. I have joined a new baking group (the post for that one will be up later) and we made a cake for that group this week; since Bundts are easily transportable and good keepers, I sent this one to work with Josh.I have only had a small nibble of the cake and thought it was very good. So apple-y and moist, and I enjoyed the crunch from the walnuts. Josh rated it a 7.5 and when I spoke to him around lunchtime today, he said there was about a third of a cake left, as opposed to being immediately decimated, so that sounds like an accurate rating to me (he later told me it was competing with some bagels). I gave it a 3 for Effort, for an EDR of 2.5. Many thanks to Lynne of Honey Muffin for a lovely seasonal choice. You can find the recipe on her site and visit the TWD site for more cake.
Tuesdays With Dorie is kicking off the fall baking season in style with Tarte Fine. From the name, I had no idea what kind of confection this was, and was happy that it is a lovely French apple tart. I didn’t get around to making this until last night and I wasn’t feeling that great. Luckily, this must be one of the very simplest recipes in the book: it only has a few ingredients, and since the base is made out of frozen puff pastry, there is very little to do other than slice apples. And I delegated the task of slicing apples to Josh (though I did peel them). He gave me a mandoline as a gift, but I get sort of nervous using it ‘cos I managed to slice my finger the first time I used it. He enjoys using it, though, so it really is a gift that keeps giving.
I made the version of the cake from the “playing around” section of the recipe, which involves adding more butter (since there’s not enough in the puff pastry) and sugar to the tart. Dorie advises to eat the tart within an hour of baking, but word on the Problems & Questions section had it that the tart was fine the next day, which worked out well since it wasn’t done until after ten last night. Josh took a couple pieces with him to work for breakfast/snack and he said it was gone before noon. This recipe gets an 8.5 for Deliciousness and a 1.5 for Effort, for an EDR of 5.66. A big thank you to Leslie of Lethally Delicious for a fantastic selection – I’m sure I’ll be making this one again. Leslie is a witty writer and it’s always fun to see what she’s up to in the kitchen; her post on the Tarte Fine is no exception. To see what the other bakers thought of this treat, visit the TWD site.
Around here it’s a good week if I have made my Sweet Melissa recipe by Friday, but I actually made this week’s selection, Double-Crusted Caramel Apple Pie, last month. Between Tuesdays With Dorie and Sweet Melissa Sundays, there were a lot of dessert-desserts (you know: pies, cakes, tarts) chosen for the month of March, so back when the Sweet Melissa group made lemonade in February and I had a little free baking time, I gave Josh a choice of recipes and he, not surprisingly, chose apple pie. This worked out perfectly since his annual Boyz Trip was this weekend, and Eloise and I went to visit my family. (I’m sure my family wouldn’t have minded me bringing an apple pie with me. Instead they got an upcoming cake that I knew Josh wouldn’t be interested in).
I don’t fear caramel nearly as much as I used to, but have had enough mishaps to make me slightly apprehensive when a caramel recipe comes up. I used a 10-inch shallow skillet to make the caramel and I’m happy to say that this one came together in exactly the amount of time the recipe specified – awesome! For the crust, I tried Melissa’s all-butter pie dough for the first time. I made the dough by hand with my pastry blender and thought it was having a little trouble coming together, so I added the maximum amount of water the recipe suggested, which made it a little sticky to roll out. The crust baked up fine and tasted excellent, though. However, I have no idea how this happened:
Okay, maybe some idea: I probably could have been more careful trimming the sides. On a semi-related note, the recipe said to bake the pie for an hour and forty-five minutes, but I checked it around an hour and it was done just a few minutes later. Josh enjoyed this pie quite a bit and it took him back to his single days: now he has a constant influx of homemade baked goods of different varieties, but before I came along, store-bought apple pie and ice cream was his favorite post-run indulgence when he was marathon training. This recipe rated an 8 for Deliciousness and a 4.5 for Effort, giving it an EDR of 1.77. Many thanks to Susan of Baking With Susan for selecting this yummy pie. I bake along with Susan in both baking groups and always enjoy visiting her blog. You can find the recipe here and visit the SMS blogroll to see what the rest of the group thought of this pie.
Look who ghosted over when I was trying to photograph the pie.
November is a special month for Tuesdays With Dorie: we are permitted to post the recipes any Tuesday we want, as some of the desserts are suitable for Thanksgiving. As evident from my inability to post anything for weeks other than baking group desserts, I need as much structure as possible in my baking/blogging right now, so I thought I would stick with the schedule and post the recipes in the order they were selected, just in case I accidentally forgot about one at the end or something. But then I got busy this weekend and there was absolutely no way I was going to be able to fit in an elaborate layer cake by Tuesday, so I decided to swap the Chestnut Cake scheduled for today, with the less time-consuming Cran-Apple Crisp(s) slated for next Tuesday. (And confession: I was initially hoping to do a double-header this week and also make the one recipe I haven’t completed since I joined Tuesdays With Dorie one year ago. Oh well.)
The cranberries I purchased were much more red and robust than the ones I bought to make sorbet a few weeks ago (I couldn’t resist, I was just so happy to see cranberries) and the apples I sampled were crispy with just a hint of tartness, so I have high hopes for the flavor of this dessert, which is still cooling. Oh, Josh just came up with a huge bowl of crisp smothered in ice cream and it’s yummy. I made a half recipe in a 7-inch pie pan – I find this size pan perfect for half recipes and also portion control, since it’s not small-looking at all – and it baked up nicely in forty minutes. The only thing I did not halve was the coconut in the topping: I quartered that so the flavor wouldn’t dominate too much. I’m not sure about coconut and cranberries together. This crisp rated a 7.5 for Deliciousness and a 2 for Effort, giving it an EDR of 3.75. Many thanks to Em of the Repressed Pastry Chef for selecting this great dessert. The recipe will be on her site next Tuesday, and stop by the Tuesdays With Dorie site to see what everyone else chose to bake this week.
One of the things that kept me busy over the weekend was attending Northern California Weimaraner Rescue’s annual Weim Gala. Josh and I attended last year as prospective dog owners and it was fun, though not as relaxing, to attend it with our own dog this year. Eloise was even in the Parade of Rescued Weims, which is the closest she’ll ever come to being in a dog show (seriously, I’m beginning to see why the Weimaraner owners in “Best in Show” were so snippy – it’s hard to control your frenzied animal at a big event). Anyway, it was a beautiful afternoon in wine country and we managed to refrain from coming back with another dog.
This week’s Tuesdays With Dorie treat is Flaky Apple Turnovers. My boyfriend is particularly fond of desserts in the apple and flaky category (it’s really a good thing we don’t live close to a good bakery, I think he’d get a pastry every single day), so I was definitely looking forward to making these. I did have my reservations, though: back in April when the Sweet Melissa group made apple turnovers, a recipe that called for pre-packaged puff pastry ended up taking me almost two days to complete and some minor frustrations due to various mistakes I made and I did not want a repeat of that. I think I subconsciously began the process on Friday evening in anticipation of disaster, so I’d have time to start over if the recipe didn’t work the first time. This is what my dough looked like after chilling overnight: a big crumbly mess!
I was afraid of “overworking” the dough, so I may not have mixed it enough before it went in for its first chilling period, figuring it would be cohesive after resting for a night in the refrigerator. Instead of tossing it, I hydrated it by adding a tablespoon of water and a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar (a good dough tenderizer), mixed it back up, and refrigerated it again. When I took it out ten hours later, it pleasantly rolled and folded for me – I guess it’s pretty forgiving dough. In addition to apples, I filled a few with some jumbleberry jam I made the previous weekend; the turnovers seemed like such a fall recipe, but technically we still have a tiny bit of summer left, so it seemed appropriate. I thought it would be fun to make some minis with a three-inch biscuit cutter; unfortunately, though cute, I could hardly get any filling in them at all. I also had a little problem sealing the turnovers and it didn’t occur to me until filling my second-to-last turnover that putting a little egg wash on the inside would help seal them up. Oh, well – next time. And I would definitely make these again (though I didn’t do it this time, I love that you can freeze them and bake them up when a pastry craving strikes) since any problems were easily remedied and we thought they were fantastic little treats. The pastry was nice and flaky and I liked the simplicity of the apple filling.
This recipe rated an 8.5 for Deliciousness and a 4 for Effort, giving it an EDR of 2.12. Many thanks to Julie of Someone's in the Kitchen for selecting this wonderful dessert (or breakfast or snack). You can find the recipe HERE on Julies’s site and see what the other bakers thought via the TWD blogroll.
This week’s Tuesdays With Dorie treat was Applesauce Spice Bars. Dorie says to not overlook these bars since they seem simple and old-fashioned. And I can see easily passing right by these, as the idea of an applesauce bar sounded a little boring to me. I like applesauce, but I’m not really sold on it being a dessert. I was wrong, though, these bars are delicious! In addition to being incredibly flavorful, these bars also had lovely texture, with the chewy dried fruit (I used currants) and crunchy pecans. And they smelled amazing while baking; they could definitely sell a home. I was feeling like they were fairly healthy, since I only used half a stick of butter for my half batch. Then I made the glaze (a full batch), which was more butter and cream, but its caramelly goodness was definitely worth it – so yummy.
These bars were very easy to make and they would have been quick, too, if I didn’t find out the apple I bought was moldy when I cut into it (better than biting into it, though). I sent Mr. Penpen to the grocery store for another apple, but decided he may as well pick up ingredients for dinner while he was there and I forgot to write down apples when I made my list for him (he has informed me that I can never be too specific when sending him to the store). So he had to go to the store again since apples were a pretty central ingredient for these bars. My glaze was pretty thin after cooking it for the instructed time, but I let it cool for several minutes and whisked it, so it ended up being nice and thick.
We were a little divided on the Deliciousness of this recipe. Mr. Penpen gave the bars a 9 and I thought they were more like a 7.5 or 8, so I guess we’ll give them an 8.5 (they were better the next day), and I gave them a 2.5 for Effort, giving this treat an EDR of 3.4. Many thanks to Karen of Something Sweet by Karen for reminding us that Fall is just around the corner. You can find the recipe here on Karen’s site and see what the other bakers thought by visiting the TWD blogroll.
The recipe selected for the third Sweet Melissa Sunday was Caramel Apple Turnovers with Sweet Ricotta Filling. I was very excited to make this recipe, as there is rarely an apple dessert I don’t like. In fact, my very first blog post was about apple desserts. The recipe was seemingly easy to make (you can prepare each component in advance and use purchased puff pastry), but for some reason it took me forever. I partly blame the weather, since it was so beautiful this weekend I continually wanted to get outside and enjoy the sun. There were also a couple of technical difficulties on my side that prevented the turnovers from being made late Sunday afternoon rather than early Saturday morning as planned.
The first issue was my apples not caramelizing. After two attempts to get amber-colored syrup, I decided that I just would not have nice caramelized applesauce and get on with my day. By that time it was too late to make the turnovers for breakfast, and as it turns out, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway because my frozen puff pastry was completely distorted and impossible to remove from the paper, which I discovered on Sunday morning when I tried to make the turnovers. Since Mr. Penpen and I had a brunch to attend, errands to run (including purchasing more puff pastry), and a dog to exercise (although basically all she did was move from one shady spot to another), I finally got around to baking the turnovers this afternoon.
The result? Wonderful flaky pastries, with a sweet and creamy filling – the apple filling was fine. I gave this recipe a 10 for Deliciousness and a 4 for Effort, giving it an EDR of 2.5. Many thanks to Tracey of Tracey’s Culinary Adventures for choosing such a fantastic dessert – or breakfast. You can find the recipe on Tracey’s site, and be sure to check out the Sweet Melissa Sundays site to see what the other bakers thought of these.
