Tuesdays With Dorie: Chocolate-Crunched Caramel Tart September 29, 2009

This weeks Tuesdays with Dorie was chosen by Carla of Chocolate Moosey.  She picked Dorie’s Chocolate-Crunched Caramel Tart which is located on pages 355-357 in Baking: From My Home to Yours.  Once you see the picture to these in Dorie’s book, you are going to want to make these.  On top of that there is caramel, honey roasted peanuts, AND chocolate.  You have to be crazy not to want to try these.

I haven’t had honey roasted peanuts in FOREVER.  I love them.  I remember when I was a kid and I would visit my grandparents there would always be a can of honey roasted peanuts.  I always had to be careful not to eat them all because they were also my grandpa’s favorites

WOW!!!!

I love these.  The combination of the dark chocolate ganache and the caramel and peanuts is AWESOME.   I made 1/2 a recipe and ended up making 5 mini tarts.  I used all the caramel, but I did have some left over ganache.  I would definitely make these again and they actually didn’t take very long too make.

Daring Bakers’ Challenge: Dobos Torte August 27, 2009

The August 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers’ cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

So close…

I ended up making this randomly last night.  I knew that I was going to make it but I kept putting it off each time.  I had all the ingredients on hand, surprisingly.  But I was missing the crucial nuts for the outside

I decided that when I was going to make the Dobos Torte that there was no way that I could make a full recipe because I can’t eat this by myself and even if I had help I would still be left with quite a bit of leftovers.

I also got a call from my doctor yesterday telling me that my cholesterol was a little high, however, I failed to ask how high so I will be calling back Thursday for that.  It wasn’t a surprise since it runs in my family, but it was a bit of a shocker since I am in pretty good shape, eat decent,  and I am 27.  I guess that means I will go to the gym more often (more yoga and biking) and start to eat better.  Which means no more baking full recipe.  The plan was to make 1/3 of the sponge recipe, 1/2 of the chocolate buttercream recipe, and 1/3 of the caramel recipe.  It ended up being just enough to make one 6″ torte.

While making the caramel I realized that I didn’t have any lemon juice so I ended up substituting key lime juice that I had in the fridge.  I also used chocolate chips instead of whole hazelnuts to hold up the caramel triangles, which worked out perfectly.  Ignore the chocolate buttercream piped in the center.  I was starting to make a rosette and then got completely distracted, opps.  It reminds me of the posts on Cake Wrecks where they have the poop cakes.  Someone was piping brown icing on something, like a cupcake, and ended up using a plain round tip and is just looks like poo, unfortunately.  See it in all its glory.  My favorite is the last picture

OH MY!!!!

I thought this was fantastic.  I have only had a small slice, but I am totally going to be making myself a cup of coffee and eating a slice of this later.  LOVE IT!!!!

Tuesdays with Dorie: Caramel-Peanut-Topped Brownie Cake October 7, 2008

This weeks Tuesdays with Dorie was chosen by Tammy of Wee Treats by Tammy.  She chose Dorie’s Caramel-Peanut Topped Brownie Cake which is located on pages 264-265 of Baking: From My Home to Yours. If you go by Tammy’s site you can pick up a copy of the recipe, or you could go out and get Dorie’s book.  You will not be disappointed with it at all.