Tuesday with Dorie - White Loaves

Yes, I know it's Thursday, but I'm 2 days late. Better late than never..??..??

The Tuesday's with Dorie group is a blogging group that just started another Dorie Greenspan cookbook, Baking with Julie. We will bake a different recipe from the cookbook every two weeks and the group will all post about the recipe on Tuesday (oops).

This week we baked bread. Wonderful, easy to put together white bread. I only took a few pictures, perhaps I was in a trance from the wonderful aroma.

The dough is now in the bread pans for the 2nd rise. I only have blue plastic wrap, so it looks a little odd.

The bread is done! The internal temperature was at 200.

Don't they look so good. I had an end piece. I love the crust of home baked breads.

To get more information on this recipe, go to the hosts site and find the recipe.

If you want to bake along with us, order Baking with Julia. We just started, so you can bake with us too!!

Baking With Julia

I was once a member of the Tuesday's with Dorie blogging group and I've joined again . The group will begin baking the recipes the recipes from Baking with Julia in February and I can't wait. My book is on the way. If you want to join, start by getting the book.



Then go and join the free group ,http://tuesdayswithdorie.wordpress.com/. Happy Baking!!

TWD - Devil's Food White Out Cake

Thank you Stephanie of Confessions of a City Eater for choosing Devils Food White Out Cake on page 247-249.

I had read that others had problems getting their cake to rise, but I didn't find that to be a problem for me. Mine rose and the top cracked. I wish I had taken a picture of the mess of me trying to cut the cake in half. I had crumbs all over trying to cut both of the rounds in half and trying to cut off the rounded mounds.
The frosting proved to be a little difficult for me. The temperature when cooking it just wasn't getting hot enough, then all of the sudden it was too hot. I guess it turned out okay, because the kids have NOT complained.
I put the cake in the fridge after I was done. It does give the cake more of a brownie texture when eaten, and I love brownies!

TWD has been interupted due to the following announcement........

I'm Engaged!!!

This picture was actually taken prior to Josh proposing, but it's the best pic I have of us. I'm sooo excited, I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am.

Those of you who know me, know what I've been through these past 2 1/2 + years and I thank you for your thoughts, prayers, emails, calls and support more than you will ever know. I plan to have a wonderful future and NO funerals for many many years. I've been to enough in my lifetime, I need a break from them for about a decade or so.

Now...I can't wait to see how fast word travels!! We have announced the engagement to our families and local friends. I want to see who is the first to call me from out of state!! You have to call, email or IM me to find out the date of the wedding. Yes, I have the date already!!

TWD - I really did intend to make the French Pear Tart!! I certainly wanted to make the recipe that Dorie herself picked for this week. We went out of town this past weekend and announced our engagement to Josh's family, so I just didn't find the time. I have all the ingredients and hope to make the recipe this week sometime. Please come back and check out my blog later this week for my "late" TWD French Pear Tart post.

Christmas Eve - TWD, update #1

Okay folks....I've got my cheesecake in the oven. This is a TWD recipe, so I won't post any pics or go into details just yet. I'll wait until next Tuesday and actually be on the regular TWD schedule for once this month.

The cheesecake will have my ovens undivided attention for the next 2 1/2 hours, so I think I'll go and throw together either my breakfast casserole or the sausage balls.

Christmas Eve - TWD

Today, Christmas Eve, will be a busy day for me in the kitchen. I have a long to-do list and hope that all of it will be done before I go to bed tonight. I've already crossed one item off the list. My Tuesday with Dorie recipe, Real Butterscotch pudding. This recipe was chosen by Donna and can be found on page 386 in Baking From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan. I whipped it up fairly easy this morning, but didn't exactly follow the directions. After reading lots of comments about small food processors making a mess of this recipe, I opted to leave it out. Instead, I whipped everything by hand until the very end. At the point of adding the butter, vanilla and scotch, I poured it all into my blender and used it to smooth out the consistency. I have to say that the smell of the pudding was wonderful and very hard to resist as I was pouring it into my individual bowls. The pudding is now resting in the fridge until later tonight when I will dig in.

I hope to be back later today with updates on how my baking and cooking is going. I plan to make a cheese cake (another TWD recipe), Cookies, Sausage balls or Sausage Pinwheels (or perhaps both) a Turkey if the crazy thing will ever thaw, a breakfast casserole for tomorrow morning and of course dinner for tonight!! I hope that's all, but I'm thinking I've forgotten something along the way. hmmmm......

TWD - Grandmas All Occasion Sugar Cookies

A big thank you to Küchenlatein for this weeks selection. This is a great recipe for December. I realize it's now Wednesday, but....here is my Tuesday with Dorie blog anyway...

I usually shy away from sugar cookies because rolling and cutting just isn't my thing. I'm not good at it and it frustrates me (perhaps I just need more practice). Anyway, I opted for the slice and bake method. I made the dough several days ago and placed it in the freezer. One suggestion on keeping the dough in a nice round log, is to save a paper towel roll and cut it open and put in inside. This way, you don't end up with a flat side. Once I was done with my dough and had 2 nice cookie logs, I realized I had NO empty paper towel rolls. It was time to improvise...lol. I had plenty of paper towels, so I used a full roll. It was kind of funny to watch me trying to stuff the dough into the full paper towel roll. Luckily I had the logs skinny enough to just fit. My dough stayed nice and round in the freezer and my paper towels are no worse off for being frozen.
Yesterday, I pulled out my logs and decided I would do the first half with colored sugar. I rolled the log in green sugar, sliced the cookies and then sprinked red sugar on top and baked. These turned out really well. I liked them so much that I almost did the same with the second batch. However, I resisted the urge to use the same route and opted for colored icing on the next batch. I sliced the cookies again and baked them plain. Once they had cooled, I made green Sugar Cookie Icing and spooned it onto the cookies. I then added colored sugar or bits of candy canes to some of the cookies and left others with only the frosting. I think they turned out great. I'm going to be making more of these this holiday season.

TWD - Linzer Sables

This weeks recipe can be found on page 134 or visit Dennis at his blog to view the recipe. I know it's not Tuesday, but I'm adding my December TWD baking blogs as I have time this month. It is a rather busy month you know.

The recipe was easy to put together and the end result was good. I did decrease the amount of cinnamon and ground cloves that the recipe calls for. Dorie said she liked hers spicy, but I don't like when cookies have too strong of those spices. I played safe and opted for less. The recipe calls for either Almonds, Walnuts or Hazelnuts (finely ground). I opted for Almonds and ground them up in my food processor. After adding all the ingredients in my mixer, the dough was rather dry, but I resisted the urge to add some additional liquid. Instead, I kept on with the recipe and rolled out the dough. After reading lots of comments on TWD about many bakers not being able to get enough cookies with the dough being 1/4 of an inch thick, I rolled mine out a little more.
Of course, some are thicker than others. I'm not good at rolling out the dough evenly yet. The edges are always a lot thinner.In the end, I was able to get 23 sandwich cookies. This is only 2 fewer than Dorie said she had. So, I think I did pretty well. I put raspberry jam in my cookies and the girls and I had lots of fun adding the powdered sugar to the cookies.
I think my cookies look very similar to Dorie's. What do you think??

TWD - Thanksgiving Twofer Pie

Last week, I skipped out on TWD. I don't like rice pudding, so I opted to not make it.

This weeks selection was Thanksgiving Twofer Pie. It was really easy to make and mine turned out pretty well. However, I do wish that the recipe would have warned me that this pie will fill every bit of my pie shell. It did overflow in the oven, but luckily I followed directions and put my pie plate on a cookie sheet.

This is my VERY full pie before going in to the oven.

This is my pie fresh from the oven and on the cooling rack. It came out of the oven after my girls had gone to bed. They were very disappointed and wanted to have a piece before bed, but it was too late for them to wait.


Guess what I let the girls have as part of their breakfast. Yep - since they didn't get to try it the night I made it, they got it before school yesterday! Sarah liked it, but Ella didn't enjoy it as much. I certainly didn't want her piece to be wasted, so I ate it!! Yum Yum

Kugelhopf

This weeks TWD reicpe was Kugelhopf. The first web site listed on a google search for this cake gave me this website which gives Dories recipe.
This cake has to rise several different times and takes practically all day to make. Luckily, it was a warm day here in NC and I had no problems during the rising process. You can see in the pan above all the butter I coated the pan with (yummy). I used a pastry brush to be sure and get into all of those groves.

Above is the cake just out of the oven and it has been coated with butter and a layer of suger sprinkled on top.

Just before serving a light dusting of powdered sugar was added. It kind of soaked into all that butter that I put on the top.

I think this cake turned out like it should. It was a very light and fluffy cake, similar to a croissant texture. I used dried cherries instead of raisins, but the quantity didn't seem to be enough. There are several pieces of the cake that were left without any cherries. I had a piece of this cake while it was still a little warm and it was good, however I found it much better the next day with butter (yes MORE butter) and some raspberry jam on top. I put the slice in the microwave to warm it a bit and I really liked it.

I don't think that this is a recipe I will try again. It just took too long and I prefer much, much sweeter cakes. I did enjoy the experience and can say that I've successfully made Kugelhopf.

Rugelach

I've signed up to join the Tuesday's with Dorie baking group. I haven't been officially added yet, but I baked last weeks item (Rugelach) anyway. I should have blogged about this recipe on Tuesday, but due to computer issues I have delayed until today. I guess since I haven't been officially added to the group it doesn't matter when I post..lol.

I have never been much of a baker (or cook either), but recently I've begun to enjoy baking. For me, I found this recipe a lot of work for just a few cookies. They were quite good and even my 16 year old son enjoyed them. I used raisins instead of currents in the recipe and I don't have any white decorating sugar. I do have plenty of red and green decorating sugar and decided to use up some of it. My Rugelach looked really funny, but they tasted great.
My son wanted to eat it before it was even cut up, rolled and baked.

Ready to go into the oven.The final product.