Tuesdays with Dorie: Chocolate Caramel Chestnut Cake November 17, 2009

This weeks out of order Tuesdays with Dorie was chosen by Katya of Second Dinner.  She chose Dorie’s Chocolate Caramel Chestnut Cake, which is located on pages 269-272 in Baking: From My Home to Yours.

The picture of this cake in Dorie’s book is beautiful.  I thought about going the same route as Dorie and making it in a square cake pan, but I couldn’t do that to myself.  I do own one.  I think it is because where I work I am use to glazing round cakes with chocolate.  Holding the cake in one hand, while simultaneously pouring chocolate glaze and turning the cake.  It take a bit getting use to, but I knew I could do it and have it come out pretty good.  I also decided to finally use my adjustable round cake form that I got last year for my birthday.

I built the cake inside of the form, place it in the fridge to set up (3 hrs), un-molded the cake, and smoothed out the icing on the top and sides.  I placed the cake in the fridge again to get firm before I poured the glaze over the cake.  I was surprised that everything turned out so well.  I should have taken a picture of the inside of the cake, but I ended up taking to my Nanny’s house and then it went down to the shop so the rest of it would get eaten.  I loved the taste of the cake.  It wasn’t too sweet, and one slice was just enough.

The ingredients for this cake was a little hard to find.  I was surprisingly able to find jarred chestnuts at my local grocery store, however, they didn’t have the spread.  I ended up ordering the Chestnut Spread from The Frenchy Bee.  My order was fulfilled in a timely manner and I got the product rather quickly.  I don’t know if I will ever make this cake again because it is a little pricey, but it was very delicious.

Tuesdays With Dorie: Chocolate Souffle September 8, 2009

This weeks Tuesdays with Dorie is brought to you by the letter S.

As in Susan of She’s Becoming DoughMessTic.

She chose Dorie’s Chocolate Soufflé, which is located on page 406 in Baking: From My Home to Yours.

It has been awhile since I have made a chocolate soufflé or just a soufflé in general.  I actually remember the first time that I ever had a soufflé, it was at Carmelo’s back home in Houston, TX.  Since they make this to order you always had to order it before the meal so that they could time it to be finished baking right at the end of the meal.  We only would get it every once in a while because it is kind of a pain in the ass to get right.  As all of us have experience one time or another.  If I am remembering correctly it was a Vanilla Soufflé and it had a white dessert sauce with it.  It has been over 15 years, but I remember it being white in color   I do remember once that we ordered it and it fell before it got to the table so we were given it for free.  Which was nice and it still tasted fantastic.

The soufflé came together without too much incident.  I did have one problem.  I ended up wasting 3 egg whites because I was separating them and the yolk fell into the whites and I couldn’t remove it all.  Instead of saving the contaminated whites and making eggs later, I wasn’t thinking and threw them away :/  Oh well.

The soufflé ended up baking up perfectly and actually tasted very good.  It wasn’t too sweet and had the flavor of the chocolate.  I ended up serving it straight out of the oven with cool whip on top.  It was very yummy

Tuesdays With Dorie: Classic Banana Bundt Cake August 4, 2009

This weeks Tuesdays With Dorie was brought to you by Mary of The Food Librarian.  She chose Dorie’s Classic Banana Bundt Cake which is located on page 190 in Baking: From My Home to Yours.  I LOVE banana bread.  If you knew me back in college you more than likely saw me eating homemade banana-walnut bread with butter spread on one side and Duncan Hines Homestyle Vanilla Frosting on the other side

Yes, I am that weird and it tasted SOOOOO GOOD!!!

So, I was a little excited about this weeks recipe and it being a pretty straight forward and easy recipe added to the excitement.  In the same day, I also made the Creamiest Lime Cream Meringue Pie for a dinner party, which is the recipe for the end of the month.  I guess you could say I was busy baking a bunch of crap yesterday.  Well, not crap, but you know.  I also made Jell-O Shots using my friend Animals super secret recipe

The flavor of the cake reminded me exactly of my banana bread sans walnuts  but the bundt cake was actually a lot moister.  I would definetly make this recipe again, very tastey.

What I did before work tonite :) July 17, 2009

I promise to post about this experience later. But for now, enjoy the wonderfulness that is Harry Potter in cake

Tuesdays With Dorie: Perfect Party Cake June 30, 2009

This weeks Tuesdays with Dorie was chosen by Carol of mix, mix… stir, stir.  She chose Dorie’s Perfect Party Cake which is located on pages 250-252 in Baking: From My Home to Yours. I made this recipe almost a year ago for my Nanny and PaPa’s Anniversary.  I have also used the base recipe of the cake to make other cakes, like my lemon cake with raspberry buttercream, fresh raspberries, and lemon cream.  I love this cake.  The cake recipe is perfect for anyone that wants a lemon cake.  It has a nice tight tender crumb.

Tuesdays with Dorie: 15 Minute Magic: Chocolate Amaretti Torte April 14, 2009

This weeks Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was chosen by Holly of Phe/MOM/enon.  She chose Dorie’s 15 Minutes Magic Chocolate Amaretti Torte which is located on pages 276-277 in Baking: From My Home to Yours.  As soon as I saw this recipe, the first thought that went through my head was where was I going to get my Amaretti from.  I didn’t really have the time to make my own, but I guess I could :/  However, I haven’t been able to find the Amaretti that I grew up with, Lazzaroni Amaretti Di Saronno.  When I was in college there was a specialty food store that actually carried them but since I moved I couldn’t find them.  Those are the amaretti that made me want to learn how to make them, and the recipe I have actually is very close to the same flavor.

Happy Birthday March 28, 2009

I made this cake for my friend, KW, this past week.  I thought I wasn’t going to finish it in time, but I put the final decorations on it 1 hour before she even picked it up.  It is a yellow buttermilk cake (Dorie Greenspan’s recipe) filled with White Chocolate Mousse (Florilège Gourmand ) and fresh raspberries, and iced with my go to Vanilla Italian Buttercream recipe (CIA).  I also made 3 fondant roses to decorate the cake with.  As you can see I was trying to make dots on the cake, but the icing was alittle soft and it ended up looking like spikes which I thought looked cool.  So I left it that way.  I haven’t heard the verdict from KW yet, but I had some left over filling and cake and I thought it was perfect.  If you eat the white chocolate mousse by itself it can be a little much, but together with the cake and fresh raspberries it was perfect.

Tuesdays With Dorie: Blueberry Crumb Cake March 24, 2009

This weeks Tuesdays with Dorie was chosen by Sihan of Befuddlement.  They chose Dorie’s Blueberry Crumb Cake located on pages 192-193 in Baking: From My Home to Yours.  I would like to thank Sihan for picking this recipe.  I have actually been looking forward to making it.  I was really close to changing it to a Vegan recipe, since I have gotten back into some vegan cooking.  But in the end I decided that I wanted to try it the original way first.

Tuesdays with Dorie: French Yogurt Cake with Marmalade Glaze March 17, 2009

This weeks Tuesdays with Dorie was chosen by Liliana of My Cookbook Addiction.  She chose Dorie’s French Yogurt Cake with Marmalade Glaze which is located on pages 224-225 in Baking: From My Home to Yours.  This recipe was very easy and pretty straight forward.  I chose to stick with the flavors that were in the base recipe.  The only thing that I changed was that I used toasted ground almonds, hence the specks.  I also was unable to find lemon marmalade so I used orange and it turned out fantastic.

I had one problem with the cake.  When I was trying to take it out of the pan, the bottom of the cake got stuck.  This in turn lead to the cake splitting in half.   I have no idea why because I greased the pan and everything.  In the end, I pryed off the stuck pieces and applied them back to the cake, and you couldn’t even tell.  I think that when I make this cake again; I will put it in my mini non-stick loaf pans.

Tuesdays With Dorie: Chocolate Armagnac Cake March 3, 2009

This weeks Tuesdays with Dorie was chosen by Lyb of And then I do the dishes.  She chose Dorie’s Chocolate Armagnac Cake, which is located on pages 279-281 in Baking: From My Home to Yours. I always wondered how this cake was going to taste since it has prunes soaked in Armagnac in it and ground pecans.  The picture for the cake looks so good that I knew I couldn’t pass it up.