Tuesdays With Dorie – Martin’s Gâteau de Savoie

Isn’t baking just magical? You assemble a series of random ingredients into an undiscernable mass, only to have it transform into the most beautiful, delicious thing when you apply heat to it.

I used the Nordicware Rose bundt pan for this cake. It just required something special. If you have ever baked with one of these pans, then you know the labor of love it is to butter it, with all of its nooks and crannies. It left me a lot of time to reflect on a time in 2nd grade when we made butter in our class. We used hand beaters, and passed it around the desks. I mean it’s practically child labor, and I didn’t even get a chance to taste it. And here I am, 30 years on, elbows deep in butter! She who laughs last, laughs best. 🤔 

I loved this cake so much. The texture is like a cloud, and is similar to angel food cake (a little more close textured, but…). And I loved the little crispy sugar bits throughout the cake! We served it with some Cappucino Gelato made by Adelheidi’s, an organic and natural gelato and ice cream shop in Naples, FL. Yum!

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Led Whoopies – Tuesdays with Dorie

Well the good news is that I won’t be travelling for work again until October. It’s been so regular and exhausting that it wipes out my juju to do anything that I enjoy, like baking and cooking.

So, months ago my cookie scoop died. I have not remembered to replace it,  and didn’t have a small compartment whoopie pie tray so I improvised… and made 6 “muffin tops” which I trimmed the bottoms off of (But seriously… why do muffin top trays have a bottom at all?). And not just 6 because that is, like, half the tray, but 6 because that is an entire tray. I filled them with Fluff lightened with whipped cream. They were enormous. 

So, with their being so large, they were definitely rich. I could only eat half of one, which I am sure, even at that, was gluttonous. Reminded me a lot of Devil Dogs, which is kind of what I was going for. 

Cook the Book Friday’s – Hummus

I made this several months ago, as part of our “OG Easter”, or, Easter as Jesus might have had it. I made a grilled lamb leg that had been marinated in yogurt, lemon, lemon zest, and mint, lavash bread (from scratch), a tomato salad, yogurt sauce (as my husband calls it, but really tzatziki), and hummus. 

We are huge fans of middle eastern food in our house. My husband mostly grew up in Northern VA, just outside of the DC beltway, and we lived there for a few years after we got married, wherr there was the infamous Moby Dick’s House of Kabob, which started small, vut in recent years expanded to a very large enterprise in the DC metro area. Thursday night’s were reserved for “Mobys and a Movie”, where we would get take out from Moby’s”, to this day, our gold standard of Middle Eastern restaurants, and watch a movie at home. 

Moby’s hummus is amazing. I have yet to find a place that makes such balanced, flavorful  hummus. That is, until, I made David’s recipe. Balanced and flavorful are but a few words I would use to describe it. If beans were paleo (and bread, too) I would probably eat this every day and be a very happy camper. Alas, I am happy to know that, at a minimum, my search for delicious hummus is at an end.

Tuesdays With Dorie – plain and Simple Almond Cake

This week’s project was fun. My husband started to dream about chopping up all kinds of Ritter Sport to go into the cake. I told him that, if he wanted to get creative, he would have to make the cake. 

Of course, it’s moments like this that really make me realize how much I take for granted knowing the techniques involved in making a cake like this. I wound up walking him through the process. And we wound up getting some milk chocolate Ritter Sport chopped up into it, too, though not the Pralines and Cream bar he wanted (we couldn’t find it). It all turned out magnifique!

And oh! Was this ever delicious! I helped myself to a second piece. It was so tender and flavorful, and dare I say the word… MOIST. 😂 I am looking forward to this being leftover when I get back from my business trip at the end of the week. 

Tuesdays With Dorie – Lemon Meringue Tart

I have faint memories of Lemon Meringue as a kid. I seem to recall Mom would color the meringue by putting it in this countertop toaster oven. Pretty sure this is a also the time the toaster oven went up in flames and nearly burned the house down. So, not too many memories of this in our house!

This was delicious, and almost had my fill of it by eating the components as I went. Am I the only one that eats the dough scraps, and scoops the remnants from the bowl? Waste not want not! Ha! I also had these gorgeous pasture-raised eggs that my supermarket has started carrying, so if it hadn’t been for the milk, my curd (which isn’t really a curd… more like a pastry cream) would have been orange! I doubled the meringue, too, because for me you need a good ratio of filling to meringue to temper the acidity of the lemons. That, and it is one of my favorite parts. 😇 

Cook the Book Fridays – Coffee Crème Brûlée

We love coffee in our house. Our current favorite is Starbucks’ Italian Roast, and my husband makes it the best. I was pretty excited to make this for Easter dessert – we ate outside in the beautiful Florida sunshine after a delicious meal and bottle of wine. A feast for two!

I know we all had issues with getting this to set. I had mine in for 40 minutes and thought it was done, but it definitely was too soupy when we dug in. I think it needed about another 20 minutes. The taste was great but I was pretty weirded out by the consistency. 

I also only had Folgers instant coffee, which I have used in the Milk Bar cakes (and thusly had on hand which is why I used it), but I think this recipe needed something a little better, with a richer taste. I would be interested to know what everyone else used since I would like to try this again.

On to the next!

Cook the Book Fridays – Salted Olive Crisps

I knew I was going to make these, and needed to do so to get this done in time for tomorrow’s posting. As our weekend tends to sometimes, way led on to way, and two Tom Collins later I’m remembering I forgot to make this. Needless to say, this was easy enough to put together at a late hour, and after a few cocktails. Even warm and a little soft right before the second bake, I really enjoyed this.

I will say that I did bake the Crisps  (post baking) for a little longer and never could quite get these crispy. Delicious, yes, especially with a swipe of goat cheese. The earthiness of the Herbs de Provence was the perfect compliment to the earthy, but briny kalamata olives. I left out the nuts, which should be no surprise to anyone. 

Cook the Book Fridays – Green Beans with Snail Butter

I only made half a pound of string beans, but definitely made all of the garlic butter because garlic. And butter. Yum! It made me think back to when I was a kid and we grew string beans in our backyard garden in Queens, way before urban gardening was a thing. There is nothing quite like fresh, sun-warmed veggies right out of the garden.

I love the little squeeze of lemon at the end… it really brightens up all of the flavors. The only sad thing is that the green beans don’t hold the garlic and parsley too well, so tonight I made the garlic butter with broccoli, which holds all of the flavor bits in its florets. The even better part is how quick this is to make, which is perfect for a night where I have meetings running late.

Cook the Book Fridays – Caramel Pork Ribs

So mostly these were difficult to photo. I made these several weeks ago because this would fall on St Patrick’s Day, and it is sacrilege to have anything but corned beef on the day. I should have written this when I first made these, but way leads on to way, and so much happened between now and then. 

All that is left to say about the ribs is that they were freaking delicious and they made good leftovers. 

Cook the Book Fridays – Farro Salad

Hi all! Made it back to CtBF! Technically I did the Coq au Vin, but I took the picture with my DSLR, and then lost my usb cable for it. I actually had to buy a new cable… mine seems to have just vanished! By the time that happened, the challenge was long passed. That sauce tho… amirite? 😍

This week I could not find wheat berries, so I used the recommended alternative of farro. I used all carrots for my root veg, and just made enough for one meal – we do paleo during the work week. I cubed the carrots smaller than was recommended to more closely align with the size of both the grain and the arils. I roasted a chicken to go with this, and I set a table outside on our deck since it seems our 5 minutes of “winter” have mostly passed. This was the one quasi-healthy thing I ate that day before I gorged myself on coffee and beignets, and then couldn’t eat anything else for the rest of the day afterwards!

I will say that this recipe can be adapted, and following the recipe at all steps may not he necessary. It is important that you use all senses to know where you are in the process. For example, I used pearled farro which cooked in about 20 minutes vs the 40 had it not veen pearled. I used smaller cubed carrots than was called for, and they required a shorter roasting time than had I cubed them larger. I did not use radicchio because it was 5.99 for a small head!

As for the salad it was good, but not a favorite. I really enjoyed the pomegranate arils, and conveniently enough we could buy them already cleaned in a package in our produce aisle. My husband did reminisce about how, when he lived in LA for two years, pomegranates just grew on trees in many neighborhoods, and he enjoyed eating them whenever he found one. Also, I have never had had farro before, and I thought it was pretty similar to barley, which I do quite like.