TWD: Sweet Potato Biscuits

This weeks Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is Sweet Potato Biscuits on pg. 26. Chosen by Erin of Prudence Pennywise.

These defeated my most basic rule of baking. They required rolling. *grumbles* I suppose it wasn't so bad. Mine didn't rise very much, and I still suck at mixing in the butter with the dry ingredients. All that being said, I'd totally make them again. Even though they were ugly, they tasted really...neat. They were good, bit weird at the same time. I guess that doesn't make much sense, but there it is.


Make em. They're worth it. Even if you have to scrub the counter for an hour to get all the residue off. Oh, and I used a cup of canned pumpkin instead of sweet potatoes. Worked great. Look here for the recipe, or buy the best baking book EVER!

TWD: Allspice Crumb Muffins

This week's Tuesday's with Dorie recipe was chosen by Kayte of Grandma’s Kitchen Table. She chose for us to make Allspice Crumb Muffins, citing that she wanted a recipe that was easy, didn't require a lot of dishes, and readily available ingredients. I think she did a great job!



These were great (even though I may have forgotten them in the oven about 5 min too long). I wasn't really sure how they'd rise, so I didn't fill them to the top of the muffin cup. Mine didn't rise much at all but that's OK, I think my baking powder is kinda old. Good thing I ran out while making these! They tasted great and that's pretty much all that matters. I also found out that I stink at making streusel which is always good to know. As Kayte wanted, the process didn't take many dishes, and the ingredients were all things I had in the pantry.

These muffins would be perfect for breakfast. In fact, tomorrow before my dreaded root canal, I'm going to eat all 10 that I have left. You know, just in case I can't eat later...yeah...that's why!

For the recipe, you can either buy the best baking book ever, or go to Kayte's blog.

TWD: Split Level Pudding

This week's Tuesday's with Dorie recipe was Split Level Pudding on pages 384-385 chosen by Garrett of The Flavor of Vanilla.

I love pudding. I love this pudding. It was really easy to make, even though I chose to use a whisk to mix it and not a food processor like the recipe said. Maybe I should get a food processor sometime...

I also chose not to make the chocolate layer. I made a really really chocolatey cake yesterday, and I can't handle more chocolate. Forgive me.

Anyway, to get the recipe, go to Garrett's blog or buy Baking: From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan. Its an awesome baking book.



(By the way, how does one make pudding look decent in a picture?)

Reason 500,000 Why I Love Joy the Baker

Root beer float cake...weird name eh?

My root beer loving sister told me it sounded gross.
My root beer loving mom thought it sounded gross as well.
My root beer hating husband ate 2 pieces.
I hate root beer and I think it rocks.
My sister and mom aren't getting a single piece!

Its chocolate. Its great. My only complaint is that the icing is a little much for me, so I only dotted it around the top and let it run down the sides a bit. But I'm not one for icing, so I'm a crazy person anyway. The soda makes it lighter feeling and it gives it a little "hmm?" taste. Did I mention it's super easy? It is.

Here's the recipe. Its from Joy the Baker's website. She's awesome. Go there.

Root Beer Float Cake
(Baked: New Frontiers in Baking)

Ingredients:
2 cups root beer (don’t use diet)
1 cup dark unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs

Preheat even to 325 degrees F. Spray the inside of a 10-inch Bundt pan with nonstick cooking spray, or butter generously and dust with flour, knocking out the excess.

In a small saucepan, heat the root beer, cocoa powder and butter over medium heat until butter is melted. Add sugars and whisk until dissolved. Remove from heat and let cool.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt.

In a small bowl whisk the eggs until just beaten. Then whisk into the cocoa mixture until combined. Gently fold the flour mixture into the cocoa mixture. The batter will be slightly lumpy. You can give it a quick whisk if you like, but don’t over beat the batter or it could cause the cake to be tough. Don’t worry, the batter is very loose.

Pour the batter into prepared pan and cook for 35-45 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through baking until a sharp knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely then loosen edges with a butter knife and turn out onto a cake plate.

Chocolate Root Beer Frosting

Ingredients:
2 ounces 60% cocoa, melted
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon salt (I used none, Joy says use 1/2-1)
1/4 cup root beer
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

In the bowl of a stand mixer, or using an electric hand mixer, beat softened butter and cocoa powder. Once combined add the melted chocolate, salt, powdered sugar and root beer. Beat together until smooth. Spread on top of cooled cake. Slice and serve with vanilla ice cream.

Forgive me, no picture for this one!

Well, first off, I didn't get a chance to make the awesome looking Tuesdays with Dorie recipe this week. It was the Chocolate Crunched Caramel Tart chosen by Carla of Chocolate Moosey. I think its such a neat blog name btw. Anyway, if that sounds like something you'd like, head to her site and check it out.

Now...I did bake this week. I made this weird dessert (yes, weird, once you try it, you'll agree). Its called Neiman Marcus Brownies. I wanted to make it since one of my customers at work keeps bringing some to me from his Rotary club meeting that is catered once a week. The recipe came from a lot of different ones since I just google'd the name and figured it out from there. Here goes:


Neiman Marcus Brownies
Ingredients:

For the crust:
1 box yellow cake mix (just use the powder, no additions)
1 stick butter, melted
1 egg, beaten

For the top:
1 8oz package cream cheese
1 box powdered sugar (the small boxes that brown sugar comes in too)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

And for the in-between:
1 cup pecans, chopped
1/2-1 cup coconut
1 cup chocolate chips

OK. The process:
1. Mix the ingredients for the crust together. Press it in the bottom of a greased 9x13 inch pan. Its going to be easier to do with your hands than anything else. I tried a spatula and gave up.
2. Press the pecans, coconut and chocolate chips into the crust mixture.
3. Mix the top ingredients together. Pour over the crust.
4. Bake for 1 hour at 300 degrees.

I took mine out at 40 minutes and added some more pecans and coconut to the top and then put back in for the remaining minutes. Watch it when it gets close to done, I took mine out a couple minutes early since the crust was already golden.

I kept mine in the refrigerator, though I think it would probably be OK on the counter as well. I ate some that night after it got done, and then some again this morning. And I have to say, I think it gets better a day later. Give it a shot, let me know what you think.

TWD: Flaky Apple Turnovers

This weeks Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was Dorie's Flaky Apple Turnovers. Julie of Someone's in the Kitchen picked the recipe and you can find it on her blog. Or you could always buy the best baking book ever.

Lets get started by saying that I'm the worst kind of baker ever...I almost always refuse to roll things...like dough. I hate it. It hates me. So...for this recipe, which I'm sure would have been easier to do than normal...I may have used frozen puff pastry. Shh, don't tell!

Anyway, the filling was probably the easiest thing I've ever made. I love apple pie but usually have a love/hate relationship with the filling. This was awesome. Not too fussy, but just right. I halved the recipe, but put in probably more than the normal amount of cinnamon. They looked kinda scary when they came out of the oven, but once I trimmed up the scary stuff that spilled all out, they looked alright and tasted even better. A definite hit with the family! I'm going to try these again but next time I may go for squarish ones and maybe put some jam in the middle.


(This is some of the scary stuff. I assume its buttery goodness, but I'm not trying it!)

TWD: Chocolate Souffle

Oh my goodness...

Just...

Wow.

That's all I can say really. Just wow.

Anyway, on to the food. I was really intimidated by the name. I had no idea what it was supposed to be like. And what, you might ask, is it like? Heaven. That's what. It was probably my perfect idea of a chocolate dessert. It was a brownie mixed with a cake that was slightly gooey in all the right places while still done and kinda spongy in a good way.

I baked this pretty much as the recipe stated. The only difference was I used 4 ramekins and a fiesta coffee cup to bake in. I baked at 390 for about 22 minutes. My wonderful egg-master of a husband did however spill a bit of egg yolk into the batch of whites, but it worked out just fine. When folding in the egg whites, I was being extra gentle so I didn't go for completely mixed up and was a little worried but apparently it didn't make any difference at all. My only complaint was nothing to do with the recipe and more to do with lighting and my crappy camera. Oh well :)

Many thanks to Susan at She's Becoming DoughMessTic for picking this. Check out her blog for the recipe. And thanks to Dorie for writing the best baking book ever!


(This one didn't rise very high since I filled it last and didn't have half a cup of batter. I'm still glad I didn't waste it, it was so good!)