I’ve previously mentioned my friend/coworker, Gilad, who won the charity auction, where I offered up one of the Baking Bible bake-along desserts each month. It may have occurred to you that, for the final auction to reach $600, there had to be at least one other coworker bidding against him. That someone was Doug – who is known in some circles as the perpetual winner of the New Dundee Women’s Institute pie of the month auction, and I’m pretty sure he had planned on winning this one, too. This past weekend, we had Doug & his wife over for dinner (meatloaf in a cheddar cheese crust, inspired by the recipe in the Pastry Bible), and as a local authority on pies, he offered his feedback on the frozen pecan tart. 😉 Read on, to see what he had to say. Continue reading “Frozen Pecan Tart”
Category: The Baking Bible
Almond Coffee Crisps
On Saturday afternoon, when I pulled the first batch of this week’s Baking Bible recipe out of the oven, I thought, “That can’t be right.” While the first batch cooled, so that I could shape the next batch, out of habit, I grabbed my phone to browse Facebook, while I waited. Oh, look! Somebody’s posted in the “Rose’s Alpha Bakers” FB group. I tap it, read the post, and think, “Huh, at least I’m not alone!” The cookies, according to the recipe, are supposed to be light, crisp, and airy. Mine were… crisp, flat, and full of holes.
The Ischler
It turns out I’m bad at remembering to post, until I go to get myself a snack and think “Oh, right, I’m supposed to blog about these.” I don’t remember what I thought about these cookies the first time around, but I do remember baking them as part of testing recipes for The Baking Bible. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Lekvar (apricot puree, more or less) that I have in the fridge is from when I was testing recipes. This week, the “alpha” bakers were working on The Ischler. Apparently, this is a cookie that is normally dipped in chocolate, but Rose’s take has an equal amount of chocolate in every bite. You can find the recipe on the blog that Rose has linked to, here.
I decided to make mine star-shaped, for more Christmassyness (yes, that’s a word, now).
English Dried Fruit Cake
Dried fruitcake? No, dried fruit… cake. I don’t typically like fruitcake. I like dried fruit, though! Actually, one of the two cakes that I made this weekend is going out to my friend and co-worker, Gilad, who donated a significant sum of money to the PTC Movember team in support of men’s health programs, in exchange for one surprise dessert a month, selected & baked by yours truly, from The Baking Bible. I chose this one for Gilad this month, because I happen to know he has a taste for cranberries, apricots, and apples, and isn’t a big fan of things that are super-sweet or covered in frosting, so this seemed like a good choice.
Kouigns Amann
I’m back on the bake-along bandwagon! This time around, Rose’s ‘Alpha’ Bakers are starting off with a bang – we’re baking Kouigns Amann, which are the recipe that made the cover of The Baking Bible. These are a laminated pastry, which means they’re made with thin layers of dough and fat – in this case, bread dough and butter. Think croissant, but with some sugar in the mix. In other words, they’re delicious. I made these once before, as part of the group that helped test some of the recipes, but I couldn’t blog about them at that time, under a strict non-disclosure agreement!
Oh, and I apologize for the lousy pictures in this post. I think it’s going to take me a bit to get back into the swing of things with the bake-along blogging. I did my photography today with my phone’s camera, which is usually pretty decent, but I wasn’t paying enough attention and ended up with several blurry shots. Continue reading “Kouigns Amann”
Movember Auction
Today at work, we had an auction at lunch in support of the Movember fundraiser. People donated items or services for the auction, that others could bid on. I figured I’d take advantage of the fact that I’m already planning to be doing a lot of baking for the blog over the next year (or two), and offered up a ‘dessert of the month’ service. I’ll pick one recipe that is scheduled for any given month, and bring it to the office for the winner on Monday morning.
I’m gratified that my donation brought in almost twice what anything else did, at $600! That’s $50/dessert!
The Baking Bible
I’m getting ready to start on a new bakethrough! Starting December 1st, I’ll be part of a group baking my way through The Baking Bible. It’s the latest cookbook from Rose Levy Beranbaum, and is the project that I cryptically referred to in this post (quite some time ago). I was part of the group that Rose asked to help test out some of the recipes prior to publication.
I’m regularly refreshing my amazon orders page to see when my copy of the book ships (since today’s the release date!), even though I know I’ll get an email the moment it does!
eatsndrinks.ca 