Category: The Baking Bible

French Orange Cream Tart

I haven’t turned on my computer since Saturday night. I think that might be a recent record, which I’m going to celebrate, despite it making me a day late with this post! Jay gave his notice to his (now previous) employer a couple of weeks ago, and his last day was Friday. He decided to take a week off, before he starts a new job at a very early stage start-up on the 8th. I decided to take a couple of days and join him, and we figured we’d go on a short road trip to visit my aunt & uncle and do a little exploring in their neck of the woods. I’m going to be out of town next week for PTC Live, so we thought this would be a good opportunity to spend a little quality time together. I made this French Orange Cream Tart on Saturday, along with a Ricotta loaf (post to come tomorrow), planning to take them to my family’s for Sunday dinner. Unfortunately, Sunday morning, Jay woke up with a fever and he still hasn’t fully recovered. So, instead, we spent some quality movie-watching time, I made meals (super rare, in our house), and the big event of today was me mowing the lawn. Woo!

Delicious!
Delicious!

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Baby Blue Cheesecakes

Quick post. I’m late writing this one up, even though I baked it last week, so pictures are more or less all you get! This week’s “Alpha Bakers” selection is mini-cheesecakes, with Stilton (blue) cheese mixed in.

CHEEEEESE, Grommet!
CHEEEEESE, Grommet!
Walnut crust
Walnut crust
Mashed blue cheese in sour cream
Mashed blue cheese in sour cream
...looks kinda grey next to the cream cheese.
…looks kinda grey next to the cream cheese.
(Over)baked cheesecake cupcakes.
(Over)baked cheesecake cupcakes.
Crackly and sunken. :(
Crackly and sunken. 😦
Peary good?
Peary good?

I think I had two of these, Jay had one, I gave one to Gilad along with a dozen Oriolos, and I took the remaining 8 or so to work. Only a few people were brave enough to try them. One came back for seconds! He loved the taste & texture, and thought the pear went well with it. Jay said they were quite a bit less sweet than he had expected. I didn’t get a lot of feedback from anyone else, so I’m guessing this one wasn’t a huge hit! Check out the other Alpha Baker posts (link in the right sidebar) to see some other takes and commentary!

Chocolate Oriolos

This week’s “Rose’s Alpha Bakers” choice is the “Double chocolate Oriolos.” I like ’em. They’re quick & easy. But I refuse to call them double chocolate . I can accept “chocolate,” since they’re certainly chocolate-y, but double chocolate to me implies two kinds of chocolate, and all that’s in these is cocoa. That’s chocolate. But it isn’t double chocolate. Maybe if they were sandwiched together with ganache in between? Or dipped in chocolate? I think I’ll have to make another batch. More than half the batch went to my friend for his treat for the month, and given how easy these are, maybe I’ll make a second batch, but with a second type of chocolate, send some with him, and get some comparison input.

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BlueRhu Pie

I love making pie. The effort/annoyance factor versus payoff ratio is perfect. This week, the Rose’s Alpha Bakers group had blueberry-rhubarb pie on the schedule. Ever since the first time I made Rose’s flaky cream cheese pie crust, I’ve had a go-to recipe for pie dough, and it comes out perfectly every single time. I’ve detailed her process for pastry dough before, both on the post about the black and blueberry pie, and the one on the sour cherry pie, so I’ll skip that part of the process here, which, to be honest, doesn’t leave much to talk about. Since Jay’s not a fan of either blueberries or rhubarb (“Yuck! Gross! Disgusting!”), I figured that this would be a good recipe to take to my Thursday BBQ lunch at work. On Tuesday night, I made the pie crust, figuring I’d make the filling and assemble on Wednesday. Then I looked closer at the recipe, and realized that the filling was supposed to cool before going into the shell, so I made it on Tuesday evening, too!

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Lemon Jammies

What’s a Lemon Jammie, you ask? Well, it’s not bright yellow pajamas, that’s for sure. If this recipe is anything to go on (and really, it’s in The Baking Bible, so it must be), a lemon jammy (what is the singular of jammies, anyway?) is a lemon zest infused sandwich cookie, with something in the middle. The recipe calls for lemon buttercream, lemon curd, or your favourite jam/jelly. I went with lemon curd, since it’s easier than lemon buttercream, felt less like a cop-out than just using jam, and because this week’s Alpha Bakers recipe is going to my friend Gilad, and I know he loves lemon.

This recipe is pretty straightforward. You make a cookie dough in the food processor, let it chill, then roll it out, and cut your shapes. Bake, then fill with curd. Unlike some of the other Alpha Bakers, I really enjoy making cookies, and I find that they’re the perfect (most dangerous) treat to have around the house, because it’s so easy to just grab a couple on your way through the kitchen. Jay has much more self-restraint than I do (more than zero), so if cookies aren’t leaving the house, they’re going on his counter, so they’re not in my line of sight every time I walk through the kitchen.  Continue reading “Lemon Jammies” →

Polish Princess Cake

Blogging inspiration
Blogging inspiration

I was chatting with one of my teammates on Friday afternoon, close to the end of the day, and said that I was going home to do some baking. He asked what I was baking, and when I answered, he asked what made it Polish. I suggested it might have something to do with the vodka!

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Dattelkonfekkt

I *think* I spelled that right.

Dattelkonfekkt, basking in the spring sun
Dattelkonfekkt, basking in the spring sun

This week, we’re going German, for Passover. I’m not sure how to say dattelkonfekkt, but it apparently translates (not terribly surprisingly) into “date confection”. I made a half-hearted attempt to learn a bit of German last fall, before meeting some German customers, but recently I’ve been pulled into more and more conversations with Chinese customers, so I’m questioning which language is more likely to be useful. Probably stick with German, since Duolingo doesn’t support Mandarin, yet.

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Skipping Strawberry Shortcake

While the other alpha bakers are baking strawberry shortcake this weekend, I’m staging a quiet protest because there’s snow falling on my strawberry patch today. I realize it’s strawberry season in some parts of the world, but it definitely isn’t, here.

No Easter strawberries, here
No Easter strawberries, here

I could have tried making it with the frozen strawberries from last summer that are dwindling in my freezer, and I know that part of this recipe requires thawed frozen strawberries, and I know that the grocery stores have California strawberries on sale, but… it’ll be way better topped with strawberries fresh from the garden in a couple of months.

Cran-Raspberry Upside-Down Cake

Today, we’re celebrating Rose’s win at the annual awards of the International Association of Culinary Professionals. The Baking Bible took home the 2014 award for the “Baking: Savory or Sweet” Cookbook of the year. A big congratulations, to both Rose and her assistant, Woody! If you’re interested, the full list of the awards is available at the Washington Post.

This week’s assignment from the award winning cookbook 😀 was cranberry upside-down cake. I went into this with fairly low expectations for appreciation from the other resident of this house, given the cranberry component. He’s generally not a cooked squishy fruit fan, and cranberries are the bottom of that list of “no thanks” fruits, where the bottom is the worst of the worst. The recipe includes rhubarb as an alternative, but Jay’s not a rhubarb person, either. In fact, I think the only things I’d ever seen him eat with rhubarb or cranberries are things my Grandma made.

Dessert for 2
Dessert for 2

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Luxury Oatmeal Cookies

Basking in the sun
Basking in the sun

This weekend’s assignment, from The Baking Bible bake-through, is oatmeal cookies. But these aren’t just any oatmeal cookies. They’re Rose Levy Beranbaum’s take on oatmeal cookies, so you know they’re not going to be just like the ones Grandma made, because what would the point of that be? You’ve already got Grandma’s recipe, or the Joy of Cooking recipe, or the one from the Fannie Farmer cookbook, or the one from some well-aged newspaper clipping.  Nope, these are going to be a little different, and you pretty much have to expect that. It’s like Rose says at the top of her chocolate chip cookie recipe in this book – many people asked for her perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe, and her response was always, “How could I improve on a classic?”  I think it really boils down to not being afraid to challenge peoples’ expectations.

I think a lot of my fellow bakers played with this recipe somewhat, but I always like to try things exactly as written, before tweaking, so that’s exactly what I did.

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