Archive for June, 2008

TWD: Apple Cheddar Scones

June 30, 2008 at 10:33 pm · Filed under Tuesdays with Dorie

Apparently this isn’t a popular position, but I love having overnight guests. Even though my apartment is basically never company-clean, I love fussing around all day cooking and cleaning to get ready for company. But without a doubt, my favorite part of having friends stay the night is the excuse to make breakfast in the morning. That’s why I love the breakfast chapter of Baking, and it was a serious struggle to decide which recipe to pick for my long awaited Tuesdays with Dorie turn. It came down to Glorious Morning muffins or the Apple Cheddar Scones. I went with the scones, since I’ve never gotten around to making scones before. Dorie didn’t disappoint (holy alliteration!) and these scones were all kinds of delicious. Plus, I was lucky enough to have a guest staying with us to share them with!

Apple Cheddar Scones

My favorite fall snack, during the peak of apple season, is apple slices with smoked gouda melted over them. To die for! So I had no doubt the apple cheddar combination would be fantastic in scones. But I was pleasantly surprised at how good the dough encompassing the apple and cheddar was. The cornmeal gave it both flavor and texture, and the scone was ever so fluffy and moist. As Dorie said, they were at their very best straight from the oven, but even the single solitary one that survived until the next morning was still yummy. These will definitely be going into our regular breakfast rotation!

Continue reading for the recipe.

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TWD: Mixed Berry Cobbler

June 24, 2008 at 8:05 am · Filed under Tuesdays with Dorie, blueberries, dessert

I don’t think I went in to this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, Mixed Berry Cobbler, with an open mind. The recipe had so many negative reviews from other members that I was expecting the worst. What I got was a perfectly acceptable dessert. It wasn’t mind blowing, it didn’t wow, but John and his brother gobbled it up pretty quickly. I think we’ve all come to expect perfection from every single recipe in Baking, but the reality is that there are a couple of recipes that are just plain ho hum, and this is one of them.

Mixed Berry Cobbler

The problem is, I really wanted this one to be a star. My freezer is constantly full of half empty bags of frozen berries, and this recipe is a great way to use them before they get freezer burned beyond recognition. It’s also a great summery dessert that can be made in the dead of winter, and goodness knows I need that. So even though this one was a bit of a disappointment, I’ll probably keep making variations of it until I get it right. I’m envisioning blueberries and raspberries with vanilla sugar in the crust and the filling for next time.

You can find the recipe posted by Beth of Our Sweet Life or in Baking: From My Home to Yours, which is currently on a sweet sale at Amazon.

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Boston Baked Beans

June 21, 2008 at 5:40 pm · Filed under dinner

While I believe that the price of gas right now is actually a good thing in the long run – I fully expect that my next vehicle will get a hundred miles to the gallon, maybe more -, it sucks right now. Due to the fact that gas costs a million dollars, and also that we have visited home more weekends than not for what feels like months, we did not see John’s father for Father’s Day. Which was sad, but also delightful because, seriously, we have not spent enough time just hanging out around the house on a Sunday afternoon recently. Since it was a rainy, gloomy, chill Sunday afternoon I decided it would be nice to have something soothing cooking. I considered soup, due to my romantic notions about pots of soup simmering away on a rainy day. But instead I decided to celebrate John’s dad, even if we weren’t actually with him, with one of his specialities: Boston baked beans.

Boston Baked Beans

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TWD: La Palette’s Strawberry Tart

June 10, 2008 at 10:21 am · Filed under Tuesdays with Dorie, dessert, strawberries

Around here, we’re still about a week away from local strawberries. Instead, we’re still rocking the ugly, bulbous, traveled 3,000 miles to get here California strawberries. I am fairly certain that California has some sort of berry conspiracy going on. Californians are always bragging about their amazing berries. But somehow all the California berries that make it all the way to New Hampshire suffer from under-ripeness, mold, blandness or some combination of the above. Ironically, the closer we get to strawberry season, the worse those California strawberries look. Perhaps the Californians are trying to force us to shop local and in season by sending us their cast offs?

So I wasn’t completely thrilled with this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, La Palette’s Strawberry Tart (chosen by Marie of A Year From Oak Cottage), knowing that I would have to make it with disappointing strawberries. Not only that, but I had to throw away more of the berries than I was able to use! But once I took a bite of this tart, it was worth the headache. I will DEFINITELY be making this tart again once we reach the peak of NH strawberry season. It was so good! And I think the crust and the jam must have rubbed off on the berries, because they somehow transformed from bland to amazing!

Strawberry TartStrawberry Tart
Strawberry TartEmpty Plate

I have to gush a little about the crust in particular. It was the easiest crust I’ve ever made. Seriously, I was baking this crust on the hottest day of this very hot week that we are experiencing. My kitchen was easily 95 degrees while I was making it, and it didn’t give me the slightest bit of trouble. It came together perfectly, and you press this crust into the pan instead of rolling it out, so there was no headache there either. Plus, it tastes so good (both baked and raw) that I may never use another recipe again. All morning I’ve been making excuses to go into the kitchen just to cut off a sliver to eat plain.

We will no longer be posting the recipes for TWD treats, but this recipe is on page 374 of Baking. If you don’t already own a copy, use this as an excuse to go buy the book!

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TWD: French Chocolate Brownies

June 3, 2008 at 6:00 am · Filed under Tuesdays with Dorie, chocolate, dessert

If I told you I ate nothing but brownies for dinner Sunday night, would you judge me? Yes? Well then, forget I said anything…

French Chocolate Brownies

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is French Chocolate Brownies, chosen by Di of Di’s Kitchen Notebook. That would be brownies with raisins in them. Now, I have to say that when I first saw the recipe, I cringed a little. I have a difficult enough time coming to terms with common additions like nuts, and now Dorie wants me to put raisins in my brownies? I probably would have skipped them, but I was starting to feel bad about swapping out the raisins in every Baking recipe I’ve made so far. So I decided to trust Dorie about the raisins this time.

As usual, I had nothing to worry about. These brownies rocked. I underbaked them just a little bit, and they were amazing. So very chocolatey, and the raisins were actually a great addition. They added a juicy bite and a natural sweetness that took these brownies over the top. That doesn’t mean I’m not schemeing up substitutions for next time (dried cherries? Yes, please!) but it does mean I might start trusting Dorie’s raisin judgement in the future.

Continue reading for the recipe.

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