Beckyjean's Blog

TWD Coconut Butter Thins

beckyjean — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:32:01 +0000

Well I’m kind of torn over this recipe, I think I like it. I’m just not sure it they turned out right. The cookies are still warm from the oven and maybe I need to give them a little more time to cool. The sweetness I would say is perfect. I did substitute hazelnuts for macadamia nuts because thats what I had in the pantry. I’ve seen a couple of pictures of these cookies and mine don’t really fit in as far as asthetics go. Besides subbing the type of nuts I followed the recipe exactly. Maybe my oven is running a little hot today, they really lost their shape and the tine marks from the fork are gone. On the up side, I love coconut and these remind me of Pepperidge farms cookies…I think they’re called Bordeaux. So my second batch is now in the oven so we shall see how the turn out!!!

The remaining batches turned out the same as the first, and of course I did some quality control on each batch…..and the flavor is great. This is a really good and easy cookie. I have several people in mind who I know would love this combination of flavors and can’t wait to share with them.

TWD Blueberry Crumb Cake

beckyjean — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 13:48:48 +0000

Sometimes a pictures isn’t worth a thousand words. This picture sadly does no justice to the wonderful recipe it evolved from. This TWD Blueberry crumb cake is absolutely amazing. I followed the recipe exactly as written. One of my favorite techniques I’ve learned from Dorie’s cookbook is rubbing the sugar together with lemon zest or other zest, I feel this adds so much to each recipe. It’s almost spiritual, using your hands to infuse flavors in the foundation of the recipe…..maybe I’m just weird. Anyway, this recipe seems to be open for change; such as substituting raspberries, peaches, or cranberries for the blueberries. I personnaly loved it as written as I’m a huge blue berry fan. My co-workers demolished this one in minutes!!! Highly recommended and quick to make!!!

TWD French Yogurt Cake

beckyjean — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 21:59:13 +0000

I have gotten behind in my participation with TWD, my wonderful grandmother passed away last week and it’s been a difficult few weeks. So hopefully I can now get back on track. Last night I made Dorie’s French Yogurt cake and must say that it delicious. A quick and easy one bowl recipe with basic ingredients.

I followed the recipe as written, except substituting orange marmalade for the lemon.

I typically use my 3cup mini chopper to process nuts, but this time I used my coffee bean grinder and Wow what a difference!!! I should of thought of that a long time ago!!! The cake came together nicely and baked evenly for 50 minutes. I glazed while it was still warm and then couldn’t resist trying it ……it was sooo good!!! Now that was last night, I just home from work and am having another piece and it’s even better today!!! As soon as my camera charges I will post pictures of the steps I took.

Thanks,

Becky

TWD Caramel Crunch Bars

beckyjean — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 01:28:55 +0000

This week’s Tuesday’s with Dorie recipe is Caramel crunch bars. I really love Dories idea of making theses into ice cream sandwiches, but I’ll save that variation for warmer weather. The recipe is pretty easy and straight forward compared the last few weeks. The dough was easy to make, except for the part of the recipe where you add the flour and cover the mixing bowl with a tea towel. Even after my many years of baking I seem to have a lead foot when it comes to the speed control on my mixer……flour everywhere!!!

After rescuing what flour I could, I chopped 3oz of Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate and realized that my favorite Henkel was in dire need of sharpening!!!

The dough was very sticky, but also soft and pliable. I lined a 9×13 pan with non-stick foil and sprayed it with Pam. I always have a problem “spreading evenly” so once the dough was almost filling the pan, I used a straight sided glass to even it out, it worked very good.

The recipe calls for sprinkling 6oz of chocolate over the hot crust, but being the rule breaker that I am I used almost 8oz. Here’s a great shot of the melting chocolate!!

The finished product looks amazing!! In a few hours I will do a little quality control and report back!!!

TWD Devil’s Food White out cake

beckyjean — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:57:12 +0000

Uhg….I’ m late but here is this week’s Devil’s food White out cake!! I found the batter easy to pull together, but the cake itself was a little crumbly coming out of the pans. Maybe I overmixed?? It is tasty though!! The frosting is pretty easy so far, the sugar has taken about 12-15 minutes to reach 242deg. I’ve stopped beating my whites at this point, waiting for the syrup to come to temp.

And here is the finished cake, the frosting came out beautifully and there was alot of it!!!

Baking a memory

beckyjean — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 19:21:55 +0000

I have been itching to make some kind of fabulous cake lately. I’ve been looking at all sorts of recipes like Dobos torte, Sacher torte, Princess tort ect. I want a challenge!! This has been on my mind for a couple of weeks now and this morning it finally hit me. Many years ago we had a birthday party for my step-moms father, and the cake was from the bakery at Hotel Sofitel when there was still a location here in Toledo. I remember the cake was so stunning and tasted amazing. But what was it??? So I called her this morning and we both seem to remember almonds and caramel. Not being able to find just what I was looking for I ‘ve concocted my own version. It consists of an almond cake with a small amount of cocoa, vanilla pastry cream mixed with whipped cream and crushed almond brittle. I haven’t decided on the frosting yet, I’m leaning towards a mocha butter cream with some ganche accents….I would love any suggestions!!!

Here is the finished product not quite what I had in mind but I’m sure it will be tasty!!

Mocha Almond sponge cake with lofty pastry cream and almond brittle

It would have been perfect if I had centered the cake on the board!!

I’ll be posting the recipes that I used shortly….they are from several different sources plus just a combination of “what felt right”, I’m sure you all know what I mean.

TWD World Peace cookies

beckyjean — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 01:51:10 +0000

I must say this has been one of the easiest recipes that I’ve made in a awhile that resulted in an amazing cookie. As most people stated in the P&Q the dough was very crumbly, so I opted to over mix just to see what would happen. I mixed the until it fully came together, it was quite soft and easy to roll into a log. After chilling several hours I baked off half of log, I just couldn’t wait any longer because the dough itself tasted soo good.

Chilled dough

Now my husband is not the biggest chocolate fan and he just loved these cookies. I baked them for exactly 12 minutes and they were just perfect. The first batch I made was gone the next morning….hmmm non-chocolate loving husband at work??

World Peace cookies

Hopefully there will be some left tomorrow morning. I thought the flavor and texture of these cookies were great and I would definatley make them again.

TWD Chocolate gingerbread cake

beckyjean — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 23:05:36 +0000

So I love ginger!!! Ginger in Chinese food, ginger in chili, gingersnaps; but I’m almost ashamed to say that I’ve never eaten gingerbread. I made this weeks recipe after much hemming and hawing about different types of ginger; as best I could. It calls for three, different ginger preparations. One being fresh ginger, that’s a no-brainer. Second powdered ginger, easy as pie. Thirdly STEM GINGER??? Well there was no stem ginger to be found in my quaint suburb so I opted for “Sugar Ginger” made by a company named Dynasty.

Fresh ginger

Curdled loking batter

According to the recipe the batter will look curdled, this is true. It looked so nasty that I thought it wasn’t going to turn out at all.

Adding "Suger Ginger"

Next time I make this recipe I would double, yes double the “sugar ginger” it added some really nice sweet “crunches” to the cake that I thought were great.

Finished cake and mini cake

I had enough batter to fill an 8×8 pan and 2 ramekins. I did make the frosting a little too early and it began to set up way before I needed it. So I decided to frost the cake while it was still warm, this worked alright except the frosting lost it’s nice gloss. Still tasted great though!!

Really bad photo

TWD Nail biting, nerve racking Berry Surprise cake

beckyjean — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 04:52:46 +0000

Getting started

Due to my crazy schedule at work I can see that I will be a last minute poster. It’s 11:12pm and I still have to frost the cake for my hungry minions at work tomorrow. After reading all t he discouraging posts in the P&Q I was really worried about this recipe. I’m the general manager of five flower shops, getting ready for Valentine’s day and I just couldn’t get this cake out of my mind!!!!! I really wanted it to turn out. So I did a lot of research about genoise, read the recipe four times, measured everything in advance, and I think I got it right!!!!
I started with room temperature eggs and whisked them continuously over simmering water until they were almost hot. Then I pretty much followed the recipe to a T with only minor adjustments.

Eggs after cooking and beating

I then oh so gingerly sifted part of the flour into the egg mixture, then the butter, then said a prayer and the remaining flour.

Shhh be very quiet....don't deflate my batter!!!

I prepared my pan and also used my magic cake strips. I f haven’t tried theses I highly recommend them. They’re simply a cloth strip that is soaked in cold water and wrapped around the outside of the cake pan and secured with a pin. Apparently it helps to distribute heat evenly and therefore your cake rises evenly as well. I can tell you in this case it worked like a CHARM!!!

I did it I did it!!!! It rose!!!

AHHH success, now if I can cut it evenly I’ll be happy.

My nest

Lucious fruity filling

[caption id="attachment_51" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Ready to chill before frosting"][/caption]Here is the finished product…keep in mind I’m a florist and a baker, not Ansel Adams!!!

Ta daa!!!

Ooo la la!!!

beckyjean — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 03:05:32 +0000

My Finished tart!!!