French Fridays with Dorie: Savory Cheese and Chive Bread

Baked melty cheeses.  Fresh oniony chives.  Baked into a savory bread (or mini muffin in my case) sounds like pure deliciousness.  That's why I was excited to bake this week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe for Savory Cheese and Chive Bread.  When it comes to bread I love bread that has a crispy, chewy outside and my Hubby likes the soft pillowy inside.  So when I made this bread, I knew mini muffins would be perfect for me.  I could maximize the chewy, crispy cheesy exterior with each little muffin.  Check it out!

How do these mini muffins rate on the deliciousness meter?   They get high marks across the board.  This would be the perfect accompaniment to a chili or a soup.   This is no cakey "muffin".  It's a hearty bread.  I used 3 types of cheese, grated gruyere, small cubes of sharp cheddar and grated parmesan.  For extra flavor I used basil flavored olive oil.  And they get a nice little kick from white pepper.  These savory treats will definitely make a repeat appearance at our house.  Next time I plan to add pancetta or finely diced bacon.  That would make these just about perfect.  My mouth is watering just thinking about how they will taste with salty yummy bacon!  Mmmmm.

The dough is simple.  There is no yeast in this bread.  It's a quick bread.  Which really means dry ingredients (flour, salt, white pepper and baking powder) are mixed together (gently) with the wet ingredients (eggs, milk and olive oil) and then you stir in the mix ins (cheese and chives).  Easy. 

I halved the recipe and ended up with 14 mini's. 

My Hubby, who doesn't really like cheese, or crispy bread, ate 4 right off the bat.  Either he was starving or he really liked them.  Hard to tell.  I baked them for about 19 minutes.  The truth is the interior of the muffin was done at 15 minutes but I left them in a few minutes longer to get more browning on top. 

Next time I will take them out at 15 because they were just a touch on the dry side.  Though these aren't intended to be "moist", they would have benefited if they came out of the oven a few minutes earlier.

To see how other French Friday's with Dorie bakers did click here.  The recipe can be found in Dorie Greenspan's book, Around My French Table.

Sweet Melissa Sundays: Chocolate Pudding

Chocolate pudding baked in the oven?  Definitely a first for me.  Making pudding that didn't come from a box is also a first for me.  When I read through this week's Sweet Melissa Sundays recipe for chocolate pudding it sounded a lot like a pot de creme.  Melissa Murphy describes it as "so thick and creamy on your tongue, one of the richest desserts I have ever eaten--and one of the best."  Sounds like my kind of dessert.

I decided to half the recipe because hubby won't eat chocolate desserts.  But my friend was in town visiting from Chicago and she helped me make it and helped me eat it.  The half recipe ended up making 4 small ramekins of pudding.  The only modification I made to the recipe was to use 72% cacao chocolate.  To account for that I added a touch more sugar. 

The result?  I don't think it turned out quite the way it was supposed to.  First off, mine was not as silky and creamy as I was hoping.  I think I may have overcooked it because the texture of the top of the and outer edges was much more dense then the pudding at the bottom of the ramekin.

Will I make this again?  I'm torn.  I was really sold on Melissa Murphy's description of this dessert.  I might give it another shot after reading about the great success from my fellow SMS bakers.  In the meantime I have some other tasty chocolate creamy desserts I want to try out like the Triple Chocolate Pudding on Tracey's Culinary Adventures and the Chocolate Pot de Creme on A Cooking Life. 

Thanks to Leslie of Lethally Delicious for picking this week's recipe.  Pop over to her site for the recipe.  To see how other SMS bakers did with their pudding click here.

Creamy Lemon Almond Tart

Do you own a tart pan?  I recently went from owning zero tart pans, to owning 5.  Way to ease into it, right? I bought 4 mini tart pans and a large 10 inch pan.  I couldn't decide if I wanted to make mini's or a full tart, so I went with both options.  Last week I used the 10 inch pan to make my very first tart.  It was a moderate success.  The filling was a delicious almond cream.  But the tart dough was a little tough.  It did not live up to the description of being like a tender a shortbread.  I pressed the dough into the tart pan.  I am pretty sure I manhandled it a little too much.  So I thought I needed to give the tart another go this week.  I used my mini tart pans and a little more love and care with the dough.

I flipped through, Baking: From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan and found there were many tarts to choose from.  At this point it came down to what ingredients were in the house.  Lemons? Check.  Eggs?  Check.  Butter?  Check.  Sugar?  Check.  "The Most Extraordinary French Lemon Cream Tart" it is!  

The lemon cream is a mixture of sugar, eggs, lemon juice and lemon zest cooked in a bowl over a saucepan with a few inches of simmering water in the bottom.  Just whisk, whisk, whisk until the mixture reaches 180 degrees.  The problem is the 2 thermometers I was using wouldn't go above 140 no matter how long I waited and whisked and no matter how much I turned the heat up.  Dorie says that it could take up to 10 minutes to bring the mixture up to temperature.  After 20 minutes, I finally resolved to the fact it wasn't going to get to 180.  But the good news was it did thicken and take on the characteristics that were described in the recipe.  The creamy filling gets pushed through a fine mesh sieve or strainer to discard the zest.  After it has cooled a bit the lemon cream goes into a food processor to slowly get emulsified with room temperature butter, making it even creamier.  A brief 4 hour rest in the fridge and the filling is ready. 

Meanwhile I started working on the dough.  I decided to go with a sweet tart dough with ground almonds.  I followed the recipe to the tee....except I snuck in some vanilla extract for some extra flavor.  The dough consists of powdered sugar, flour, salt, butter and an egg yolk and comes together in a food processor.  I was careful not to over process and not overwork.  I separated the dough into 2 disks and refrigerated it for about an hour.  Dorie says she always presses her dough into the tart pan.  But I decided to roll it out instead since the pressing method didn't yield good results for me last time.  Dorie warns that rolling tart dough can be tricky because of the powdered sugar content in the dough, making it sticky.  I sprinkled a little powdered sugar on each side of the dough and then rolled it between 2 pieces of parchment paper.  I worked fast and, though the dough was delicate, I was able to gingerly lay it into the tart pans.  The mini tarts baked in the oven for 20 minutes to a nice golden brown.  Check out my tender, shortbread-like crust.  Take two on the crust was a success!

Even though the filling was a little finicky, it had a nice creamy texture and just the right amount of lemon.  Topped off with fresh whipped cream, it made for a pretty nice Sunday afternoon dessert.

There are more tarts in The Ginger Snap Girl's future.

The Most Extraordinary Lemon Tart

from Dorie Greenspan, Baking: From My Home to Yours

Tart Filling

1 cup sugar
Grated zest of 3 lemons (I used 1 1/2 lemons)
4 large eggs
¾ c fresh lemon juice (from 4-5 lemons) (I used 1/2 cup lemon juice)
2 sticks plus 5 T butter (10 ½ ounces) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon size pieces, at room temperature.
1 9-inch tart shell made with sweet tart dough (see below).

Have a instant-read thermometer, a strainer and a blender (1st choice) or food processor at hand. Bring a few inches of water to a simmer in a saucepan.

Put the sugar and zest in a large heatproof bowl that can be set over the pan of simmering water. Off the heat, rub the sugar and zest together between your fingers until the sugar is moist, grainy, and very aromatic. Whisk in the eggs, followed by the lemon juice.

Set the bowl over the pan and start stirring with the whisk as soon as the mixture fees tepid to the touch. Cook the lemon cream until it reaches 180 degrees F. As you whisk- you whisk constantly to keep the eggs from scrambling- you’ll see that the cream will start out light and foamy, then the bubbles will get bigger, and then, as it gets closer to 180F, it will start to thicken and the whisk will leave tracks. Heads up at this point- the tracks mean the cream is almost ready. Don’t stop whisking or checking the temperature, and have patience- depending on how much heat you’re giving the cream, getting to temp may take as long as 10 minutes.

As soon as it reaches 180F, remove the cream from the heat and strain it into the container of the lender (or food processor); discard the zest. Let the cream stand, stirring occasionally, until it cools to 140 degrees F, about 10 minutes.

Turn the blender to high (or turn on the processor) and, with the machine going, add the butter about 5 pieces at a time. Scrape down the sides of the container as needed as you incorporate the butter. Once the butter is in, keep the machine going- to get the perfect light, airy texture of lemon-cream dreams, you must continue to bend the cream for another 3 minutes. If your machine protests, and gets a bit too hot, work in 1-minute intervals, giving the machine a little rest between beats.

Pour the cream into a container, press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface to create an airtight seal and refrigerate at least 4 hours, or overnight. (The cream will keep in the fridge for 4 days or, tightly sealed, in the freezer for up to 2 months; thaw it overnight in the refrigerator.)
When you are ready to assemble the tart, just whisk the cream to loosen it and spoon it into the tart shell.  Serve the tart, or refrigerate until needed.

Sweet Tart Dough

1 ½ cups all purpose flour (or 1/4 finely ground almonds or another nut and 1 ¼ cups flour)
½ cup confectioners’ sugar
¼ tsp salt
1 stick plus 1 tablespoon (9 T) very cold (or frozen) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg yolk

Put the flour (and ground nuts), 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 fakes and others the size of peas. Stir the yolk, just 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 this stage, the sound of the machine working the dough will change-heads up. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and, very lightly and sparingly, knead the dough just to incorporate and dry ingredients that might have escaped mixing.

To press the dough into the pan: 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. Freeze the crust for at least 30 minutes, preferable longer, before baking.

To partially or fully bake the crust: center a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 375 degrees F.

Butter the shiny side of aluminum foil and fit the foil, buttered side down, against the crust. (Since you froze it, 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. If the crust has puffed, carefully press it down with the back of a spoon. For partially baked crust, patch the crust if necessary, then transfer the crust to a cooling rack. To fully bake the crust, bake for another 8 minutes or so, or until it is firm and golden brown. Transfer pan to a rack and cool the crust to room temperature before filling.

Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

Brown bananas were calling desperately from my kitchen.  "Use me! Use Me!"  And my friend Amy kept telling me how much she really wanted to make the Banana Cupcakes I posted last month.  Since I was going to see Amy this week I thought she needed a little banana and chocolate love.  Plus I have been wanting to try these cookies for a few years.  Yet another recipe from my favorite cookie cookbook, Martha Stewart's Cookies.  Her recipe calls for walnuts and chocolate chunks.  I omitted the walnuts and used chocolate chips instead of chopping up chunks.  I made the full recipe which yielded 3 dozen cookies.

These cookies are super easy to make and they are delicious.  They are a moist and cakey cookie.  A marriage of 2 perfect foods....banana bread and chocolate chip cookies.  They are very delicate and so moist that they had to be separated by pieces of parchment for storage.  And speaking from experience, they make for a nice breakfast!

If you have a brown banana calling out to you.....click here for the recipe.

French Fridays with Dorie: Orange Almond Tart

I have been making a pretty poor attempt to keep up with the weekly cooking and baking for the online group, French Fridays with Dorie.  The goal is to cook and bake our way through Dorie Greenspan's cookbook, Around My French Table.  Though with more than 300 recipes (according to the tag line on Amazon.com) in the book, making 52 recipes a year, we'll be done sometime in 2016!  Good grief.   I have never done the math on that before.  Anyway, if you are interested in joining the fun click here.  That probably wasn't my best effort to convince you to join our group!  The nice thing about this group is there are no frequency of participation requirements.  So cook and bake along as it suits you.  Ok, that's a little better.

The group made Dorie's Orange Almond Tart on February 11th.  So I'm only a couple of weeks behind.  I'm clearly engaging the bake along as it suits you concept.  This recipe was a stand out and I knew I wanted to make it, even if it's a little bit late.  I love oranges and have had a constant supply of them in the fridge for the last month and half.  I've never a seen a recipe with baked oranges, so this was definitely intriguing.  This is also my first time making a tart so I had to go out and purchase a tart pan. 

This recipe has been described many of the FFwD folks as "fussy".  And it is.  This isn't something you can just throw together.  It's best made over the course of 2 days.  You can do all the prep on day 1 and then assemble and bake on day 2. 

The preparation starts with making a sweet tart dough.  The dough is made in a food processor and then can either be pressed into a buttered tart pan or it can be chilled then rolled out and laid into the pan.  I opted for the press in method. 

I don't think I got the same thickness all around, but it still worked out ok.  Once the dough is pressed in, you prick the bottom all over with a fork and then freeze it for at least 30 minutes.  It bakes for about 25 minutes until the crust is lightly golden. 

The second step in preparation is cutting and segmenting the oranges.  This also has to be done in advance because the oranges need to dry out on paper towels for an hour or more, or Dorie even suggests overnight.  I went for overnight. 

The third step is preparing the almond cream.  This part of the recipe also comes together in a food processor.  The almond cream really isn't technically a cream, however, has a creamy texture.  It's a mix of almond flour, butter, sugar, vanilla and egg.

The fourth step is assembly.  The cream goes in the tart shell.

The orange segments get distributed in a design of your choosing on the top. 

Finally, you are ready to bake! 

60 minutes in the oven or until the almond cream puffs up around the oranges and turns lightly golden brown.  Mine took the full 60 minutes.

So?  How did it turn out?  To be honest, it was a little weird.  The almond cream is amazing.  It's almondy and creamy and has a rich brown sugary taste (even though there is no brown sugar).  It almost reminded me a little of pecan pie filling.  The tart dough was thick and on the "tough" side.  I think I overworked the dough (Dorie warns against this).  But the taste of the tart dough is nice, just slightly sweet and shortbread like.  The oranges were the "weird" part.  When baked they had a slight bitter flavor.  They were hard to cut through and were almost chewy.  Dorie also suggests trying this tart with other fruit, such as pears or plums.  Both would be a wonderful compliment to the oh so delicious almond cream.

Good enough to make again?  Yes!  With variations and hopefully a little more finesse on my tart dough.

For the recipe check out Dorie's book, Around My French Table.

Sweet Melissa Sundays: Earl Grey Tea Truffles

The Sweet Melissa Sundays baking group is now posting every two weeks.  For some reason it feels like more than two weeks passes in between.  I will be making my very best effort to bake each of the remaining weeks this year as we are nearing the end of the book.  This week, Nina of Nina's Cupcakes selected Rum Truffles.  I'm not so big on liquor in my sweet treats so I did another truffle this week--Early Grey Tea Truffles.  The group made these back in November 2010 but I didn't get a chance to make them then. 

I love the aroma and the flavor of earl grey tea so this seemed like a natural choice for this week.

The first time I made truffles was with the Sweet Melissa Sundays group in May 2010.  We made peanut butter truffles.  My first go round was a little rough and had to be trashed.  But the second time was much more successful.  I love the idea of rolling truffles in various toppings for a different twist.  This round of truffles was no exception.  Melissa Murphy's recipe calls for rolling the truffles in cocoa powder.  I did that.  But I also thought almonds would be a nice pairing with early grey.  And I also chopped up a cookies and cream candy bar in my food processor for the third coating.

I made half the recipe and it yielded about 42 truffles.  Some will be going to work and I will be sharing some with my Grandfather.  And of course a few have been set aside for me to enjoy with a nice cup of hot tea.  The aroma of earl grey tea comes from the bergamot orange rind.  Something I didn't know before today.  Apparently the bergamot orange is a sour fruit, but it's rind gives off a wonderful sweet aroma. 

These truffles are a silky deep dark chocolate with the light flowery bergamot scent.  A very tasty, sophisticated and decadent treat. 

I thought they would have paired nicely with a coating of shaved white chocolate to bring a little more sweetness.  Unfortunately I didn't have any white chocolate in house.  I would definitely make these again.  They would make a nice gift for a chocolate or tea lover.

For the Early Grey Tea Truffles recipe click here.

Chocolate Chubbies

Can you say chocolate?  More chocolate?  Then more chocolate?  A little peanut butter for kicks?  It's intense.  And it's good.  I have had my eye on these cookies since Christmas day when I cracked open one of my gifts, Sarabeth's Bakery: From My Hands to Yours.  She describes them as "the moistest, most intensely chocolate chocolate chip cookies in the world."  Wow.  That's serious.  And these are serious cookies.  They have a rich deep dark chocolate flavor...much like a brownie. 

The batter is fudgey.

 When they bake up they get that nice crackly top like a brownie.

 Then you break one of these bad boys open.....

Need I say more?

The chocolate chubby is great with a cold glass of milk. 

I suppose I should tell you about the recipe now.  There are 12 ounces of melted chocolate in the batter.  That's a lot.  And only 1/2 cup of flour.  That's not a lot for a cookie recipe.  Sarabeth Levine mixes in 2 cups of semisweet chocolate chips and nearly 3 cups of chopped pecans and walnuts.  I am not a fan of nuts in my cookies (or most sweet treats for that matter).  So I did deviate a bit from the recipe.  For my mix ins I used approximately 2 2/3 cups of a mix of milk chocolate chips (1 cup), peanut butter chips (1 cup) and semisweet chips (2/3 cup).  Given I was nearly 2 cups short on the mix ins, my cookies didn't come out quite as chubby as the ones pictured in the book.  I enjoyed this combination of mix ins, but I thought the peanut butter chips got a little lost in the chocolate.  Next time I want to throw in some white chocolate chips....and dare I say, some toasted almonds?  I know.  I just said that I don't like nuts in cookies.  Ok, I might have to think about it.  But the white chocolate chips are a definite. 

The recipe calls for superfine sugar.  If you don't have superfine sugar, you can make your own by grinding regular sugar in a food processor for a minute or two until the granules reduce in size by about half.  That's what I did.  I used my mini prep.  If you are considering purchasing a food processor but think a big one is just too much, check out the mini prep.  For $30 it's a great buy and can be used for a variety of things--from grinding nuts or chocolate, pureeing vegetables and even making fresh whipped cream (a tip I saw recently on Tracey's Culinary Adventures who saw it on another blog, who saw in the LA Times).

Keep a watchful eye on these cookies during baking.  The recipe says to bake them for 17 - 20 minutes.  I checked mine at 17 and they were done.  I think they could have come out at 15.  And unfortunately one tray was cooked for an undetermined amount of time because I never heard the timer go off.  Luckily I was able to salvage the cookies, but they were on the dry side.  Go for underdone versus overdone.

The chocolate chubby is a kick butt cookie.  Enjoy!

Chocolate Chubbies

by Sarabeth Levine from Sarabeth's Bakery: From My Hands to Yours 

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter cut into 1/2 inch cubes

9 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate (no more than 62 percent cacao), finely chopped

3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped

1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

3 large eggs, at room temperature

1 1/4 cups superfine sugar

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 cups (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips

1 1/2 cups (5 1/2 ounces) coarsely chopped pecans

1 1/4 cups (4 1/2 ounces) coarsely chopped walnuts

Position racks in the center and top third of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees.  Line 2 half sheet pans with parchment paper.

Bring 1 inch of water to a simmer in a medium saucepan over low heat.  Put the butter in a wide heatproof bowl, and melt the butter over the hot water in the saucepan.  Add the semisweet and unsweetened chocolate, stirring often, until melted and the mixture is smooth.  Remove the bowl from the heat and let stand, stirring occasionally, until cooled slightly but still warm, about 5 minutes.

Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together into a medium bowl.  Whip the eggs in the bowl of a heavy-duty stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment on medium-high speed until the eggs are foamy and lightly thickened, about 30 seconds.  Increase the speed to high and gradually add the sugar, then the vanilla.  Whip until the eggs are very thick and pale yellow, about 3 minutes.  Reduce the mixer speed to medium and beat in the the tepid chocolate, making sure it is completely incorporated.  Change to the paddle attachment and reduce the mixer speed to low.  Gradually add the flour mixture.  Remove the bowl from the mixer.  Using a wooden spoon, stir in the chocolate chips, pecans, and walnuts, making sure the chunky ingredients are evenly distributed at the bottom of the bowl.  (Do not turn the dough out onto a work surface).

Using a 2 inch diameter ice-cream scoop, portion the batter onto the prepared pans, placing the cookies about 1 1/2 inches apart.  Bake the cookies immediately--if you wait, they won't be shiny after baking.  Bake, switching the position of the pans from top to bottom and front to back about halfway through baking, until the cookies are set around the edges (if you lift a cookie from the pan, the edges should release easily, even if the center of the cookie seems underdone), 17 to 20 minutes.  Do not over bake.  Cool completely on the baking pans.  (The cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature, with the layers separated by parchment paper, for up to 3 days.)