Merry Christmas!

Better Late Than Never

photo: Mike Marques

I know, I know. Two months plus? What was I thinking??? I got so wrapped up in school, but thankfully the semester is over and I have a month off. so now the posts will (hopefully) fly fast and furious. The first thing I want to post is a tart I made for Thanksgiving. We went to my cousin's and her husband's house and hung with his parents, my aunt and uncle, my other cousin and his wife and kids.

I made a few desserts, the biggest hit was this Chocolate Crunched Tart. I was psyched because I finally got to use my tart pan and it worked fabulous. Thanks, mike, for taking the pictues!

Sweet Tart Dough from Baking with Dorie by Dorie Greenspan
1 and ½ cups all purpose flour
½ cup confectioners’ sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
9 tablespoons (1 stick and 1 tablespoon) very cold (or frozen) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg yolk
Put the flour, confectioners’ sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse a couple of times to combine. Scatter the pieces of butter over the dry ingredients and pulse until the butter is coarsely cut in – you should have some pieces the size of oatmeal flakes and some the size of peas. Stir the yolk, just enough to break it up, and add it a little at a time, pulsing after each addition. When the egg is in, process in long pulses – about 10 seconds each – until the dough, which will look granular soon after the egg is added, forms clumps and curds. Just before you reach that stage, the sound of the machine working the dough will change – heads up. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and very lightly, knead the dough just to incorporate any dry ingredients that might have escaped mixing.
Butter a 9-inch fluted tart pan with a removable bottom. Press the dough evenly over the bottom and up the sides of the pan, using all but one little piece of dough, which you should save in the refrigerator to patch any cracks after the crust is baked. Don’t be too heavy-handed- press the crust in so that the edges of the pieces cling to one another, but not so hard that the crust loses its crumbly texture(my dough was wet, I don’t know what she was talking about – not crumbly at all and it turned out fine). Freeze the crust for at least 30 minutes, preferably longer; before baking (I froze mine for about 8 hours).
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Butter the shiny side of a piece of aluminum foil and fit the foil, buttered side down, tightly against the crust. Since you froze the crust, you can bake it without weights. Put the tart pan on a baking sheet and bake the crust for 25 minutes. Carefully remove the foil. Patch if necessary.*
Bake for another 8 minutes or so, until it is firm and golden brown. Transfer the tart pan to a rack and cool the crust to room temperature before filling.
*To patch a crust: If there are any cracks in the baked crust, patch them with some of the raw dough as soon as you remove the foil. Slice off a thin piece of the dough, place it over the crack, moisten the edges and very gently smooth the edges into the baked crust.

Chocolate –Crunched Caramel Tart from Baking with Dorie by Dorie Greenspan

For the Caramel:
Scant ½ cup heavy cream
½ cup sugar, sifted (I didn’t bother)
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
2 tablespoons salted butter, cut into 4 pieces, at room temp
Pinch of salt if you are not using salted butter

Getting Ready: Because you have to work quickly once the sugar caramelizes, you should have all the ingredients for the caramel measured out and at hand before you start. Also have a medium heatproof bowl at hand to hold the hot caramel.
To Make the Caramel: Bring the heavy cream to a boil.
Meanwhile, put a medium skillet, preferably nonstick, over medium heat and sprinkle in about 3 tablespooons of the sugar. When it melts, stir it with a wooden spatula or fork and sprinkle over another 3 table spoons. When that sugar is melted, add the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar – the sugar in the pan may already have started to color, and that’s fine. Stir in the corn syrup and boil the syrup until it reaches a deep caramel color – it will probably begin to smoke, and that’s normal.

Stand back from the skillet and stir in the butter (and salt if you’re using it). The caramel will bubble furiously and may spatter, so make sure you’re away from the action. When the butter is in, add the warm cream – the caramel will bubble furiously again. Lower the temperature just a tad and let the caramel boil for just 2 minutes. Pour the seething caramel into the heatproof bowl and set aside while you make the ganache. *You may decide to substitute caramel topping for this*

For the Ganache:
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons heavy cream
½ stick unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces, at room temperature
To Make the Ganache:
Put the chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl and have a whisk or rubber spatula at hand.
Bring the cream to a boil, then pour half of it over the chocolate and let sit for 30 seconds. Working with the whisk or spatula, very gently stir the chocolate and cream together in small circles, starting at the center and working your way in increasingly larger concentric circles. Pour in the remainder of the cream and blend it into the chocolate, using the same circular motion. When the ganache is smooth and shiny, stir in the butter piece by piece. Don’t stir the ganache any more than you must to blend the ingredients – the less you work it, the darker, smoother, and shinier it will be.
Cover the ganache with a piece of plastic wrap, pressing the plastic against the surface of the chocolate to create an airtight seal. Set aside at room temperature.

To Assemble the Tart:
¾ cup honey- roasted peanuts, coarsely chopped (I left mine whole)
1 9-inch tart shell (I sent the recipe before this one), fully baked and cooled
Using a small rubber spatula, stir the peanuts into the caramel. If the caramel has cooled and is too thick to spread easily, gently warm it in a microwave oven using 3 second heat spurts. Spread the caramel over the bottom of the tart shell; you’ll have a thin layer. Refrigerate the tart for 15 minutes to set the caramel.
Check the ganache. If it has thickened and is no longer pourable, warm it tin 3 second bursts in the microwave.
Rap the bowl to break any surface bubbles, pour the ganache over the caramel and jiggle the tart pan to even it.
Refrigerate the tart for 30 minutes-no longer-then keep it at room temperature until serving time. Best eaten the day it’s made.

Caramel Apple Cake

Last weekend my father came up from Georgia to visit. He brought along my step mother, Chuy, and brother, Tony. It rained. And rained. And rained. During a lull of semi dry weather, we took advantage and went to Averil’s apple orchard to pick apples. Averil’s is in Washington, CT and has been a farm since before the Revolution. We go every year to pick apples and get cider. This year we found some awesome maple sugar coated peanuts. Dave and I polished them off before the weekend was over.
We picked two kinds of apples, Rhode Island Greenings and Sparta. I have been putting off any kind of baking but found this recipe on Smitten Kitchen. I have a weak spot for caramel with my apples so I tweaked it a bit and it was fabulous hot out of the oven.

Caramel Apple Cake adapted from Smitten Kitchen

6 apples, I used 4 Greening, 2 Sparta

1 tablespoon cinnamon

5 tablespoons sugar

20 individually wrapped caramels
2 tablespoons apple cider

2 3/4 cups flour, sifted (I used 1 and 1/2 cups unbleached white flour and 1 and 1/4 cups unbleached white whole wheat flour)

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup vegetable oil

2 cups sugar

1/4 cup apple cider

2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

4 eggs

1 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a tube pan. Peel, core and chop apples into chunks. Toss with cinnamon and sugar and set aside.

Unwrap caramels and place in saucepan over low heat. Add 2 tablespoons apple cider and heat until melted. Keep on low heat while preparing batter.

Stir together flour, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together oil, apple cider, sugar and vanilla. Mix wet ingredients into the dry ones, then add eggs, one at a time. Scrape down the bowl to ensure all ingredients are incorporated.

Pour half of batter into prepared pan. Spread half of apples over it. Drizzle with half on the melted caramel. Pour the remaining batter over the apples and arrange the remaining apples on top. Drizzle with the rest of the caramel or to taste. Bake for about 1 1/2 hours, or until a tester comes out clean (it took about 2 hours in my oven).

Not a Baking Post

but a writing one. October is less than twenty four hours away and the lead up to National Novel Writing Month begins. Especially exciting for this year is that NaNoWriMo is celebrating its ten year anniversary. I haven't decided if I will participate this year as school is so busy. The basic gist is that you have to write 50,000 words of original fiction in 30 days (November). That works out to about 1667 words a day. And it's tons of fun. It's the one writing contest that focuses on quantity, not quality so anything goes. Hey, I've won twice so if you commit to the daily word count, you can do it! Go ahead, try it. You know you want to.

Happy Birthday John!

For my brother: Happy birthday John! Thirty seven years ago today mom delivered you. Thirty seven years ago tomorrow I told her to take you back, I wanted a sister. Since then we have fought and commiserated. Schemed and rode roller coaster, living large one day at a time. There are still days you frustrate the hell out of me, likewise I’m sure. But I love you. I’m glad mom didn’t listen to me.

I made a cake for John and brought it to his office. I can’t post it yet, because it’s super secret. I’m part of The Cake Slice started by Gigi at Gigi Cakes and Katie at Apple & Spice. We’re baking recipes from Sky High: Irresistible Three Layer Cakes. It’s a fabulous book and I had fun baking the first cake. There was a small incident due to my husband distracting me, but I’ll post the story when I post the cake. John loved the cake and so did his co-workers. Look for the recipe and pictures October 20th.

Late night baking

Well, not too late. Around 9 last night I felt a bit peckish and there is a Dorie Greenspan recipe that I wanted to try ( in Baking with Dorie - I love this cookbook. Great pictures and recipes. I made my birthday cake from this).

So I pulled out the mixer and got down to it. I used malted milk balls from the nearby grocer because they don't carry Whoppers. next time I'll use the brand name stuff - I cut mine into quarters. During baking, the malted bit turns into caramel that can be a bit drippy, so be careful transferring them from the baking sheet to the rack.

Otherwise, Dave is busy painting. My father, brother and step mom are visiting next weekend and we're trying to get the house in some kind of order. At least there'll be treats. We're hoping to go apple picking with everyone, so with any luck I'll post a pie in a bit.

Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops from Baking with Dorie by Dorie Greenspan

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F, position racks to divide the oven into thirds. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and silicone mats.

1 and 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup malted milk powder (or Ovaltine - regular or chocolate)
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
11 tablespoons unsalted butter
2/3 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup whole milk
2 cups chocolate covered malted milk balls, coarsely chopped
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped, or 1 cup store bought chocolate chips or chunks

Sift together flour, malted milk powder, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Working with a stand mixer and paddle attachment, or a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together on medium speed for about 3 minutes, until very smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, beating for 1 minute after each addition. Beat in the vanilla. Scrape down sides of bowl. Mixture will look curdled but will come together when dry ingredients are added.

Reduce the mixer speed to low and add half the dry ingredients, mixing just until they disappear in the batter. Mix in the milk, then add the remaining dry ingredients, mixing only until they are incorporated. The batter will look more like fudge than cookie dough. With the mixer on low, or by hand with a rubber spatula, mix in the malted milk balls and chopped chocolate.

Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto the sheets, leaving about 2 inches of space between spoonfuls. Bake for 11-13 minutes, rotating sheets from top to bottom and front to back after about 6 minutes. When done, the cookies will be puffed and set but slightly soft to the touch. Let the cookies rest for 2 minutes before transferring to rack to cool.

Repeat with remaining dough, cooling the baking sheets between batches.

A gorgeous day

Beautiful day out today. Clear skies, low temps. There was some dew this morning and a huge spider web in the field, so I took my camera out and shot this cool pic. spiders make the bast subjects. Anyway, I found a recipe for blueberry crumb bars on Smitten Kitchen's blog http://smittenkitchen.com/2008/07/blueberry-crumb-bars/#more-531

Hers look much better than mine - I used the wild Maine blueberries and they're smaller. I think if I used the same berries again I'd increase the amount of berries and add some oats to the top layer. But they were delicious. And better chilled.

Blueberry Crumb Bars

Adapted from All recipes and smitten kitchen

makes one 9 x 13 pan

1 cup white sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 and 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 and 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour (or you can use 3 cups all purpose and omit the whole wheat flour)

1 cup cold butter (2 sticks, I used unsalted)

1 egg

1/4 tsp salt

zest and juice of one lemon

4 cups fresh blueberries

1/2 cup white sugar

4 tsp cornstarch

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a 9 x 13 inch pan.

In a medium bowl, stir together 1 cup sugar, both flours, and baking powder. Mix in salt and lemon zest. Use a fork or pastry cutter to blend in the butter and egg. Dough will be crumbly. Pat half of dough into the prepared pan.

In another bowl, stir together the sugar, cornstarch, and lemon juice. Gently mix in the blueberries. Sprinkle the blueberry mixture evenly over the crust. Crumble remaining dough over the berry layer.

Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes or until top is slightly brown. Cool completely before cutting into squares.