Too hot

Well, the school year is officially underway.  I still find it strange that school starts so early around here, since we always went back after Labor Day.  And lucky us, Mother Nature decided to celebrate the first day of school with our hottest day of the year so far, with a high of 104 degrees.  Fortunately, it looks like things are supposed to "cool off" this weekend, with highs in the high 80s or low 90s.  Have I mentioned how much I hate the month of August in Texas? =)

You might think that the heat is the reason for my lack of blogging in the past week--that it's been too hot to bake.  Well, that's not entirely true.  (Thank goodness for air conditioning.)  Last week was mostly taken up with a single project, a 50th birthday cake for a friend of mine.  I spread the frosting making, cake baking and assembly over several days, and delivered the cake to the happy birthday girl on Friday afternoon after work.  Friday was exciting for another reason, too.  I had the chance to meet one of our fellow Tuesdays with Dorie members!  Amy of Amy Ruth Bakes was in Texas to visit family, and happened to be driving through my part of Texas on her way home.  She stopped by my branch at lunch time, and the fun part was explaining to my coworkers that no, I hadn't met her before, but I "know" her from one of my baking groups.  (They know a little bit about TWD because they get to eat a lot of the completed recipes.)  It was a very brief visit, but it was so great to put a face with the name and the blog, as she put it. =)  

And speaking of TWD, I'll be taking a lot of this week's tart to work with me today.  Rachel of sweet tarte picked Crunchy and Custardy Peach Tart for us to make this week.  Despite the heat, I baked the tart and several other things over the past couple of days.  (I took Monday off for back to school and to enjoy some peace and quiet.)  I've just had to adjust my schedule to do my baking in the morning and evening to avoid heating up the house (even more) in the afternoon.  I also had to adjust the tart based on available ingredients.  While we had some fantastic peaches a few weeks ago, the few that were at the store this week didn't look all that great.  I ended up bringing home some nectarines instead.  Close enough, right?  Amazingly enough, I did use almonds in the crust and streusel, since I had some leftover from last week's birthday cake (which featured almond praline in the filling).  For the tart crust, I used my favorite crust from Alice Medrich, with a few tablespoons of chopped almonds added.  My only change to the custard was to leave out the almond extract, since I don't really like it.  Not quite all of the custard fit in my pan, since I used my rectangular one (which has slightly less volume than my 9" round one).  I also adjusted the baking time, baking the tart for 8 minutes at 425 degrees, 15 minutes at 375 degrees, and then another 15 minutes at 375 after adding the streusel.   

The verdict?  I really wanted to like this, but it wasn't quite my thing.  (I would have been happier just eating it the way it is in the picture up above, with just fruit and crust.)  I'm just not a big fan of custardy things (except for ice cream).  I'd like to try making a peach tart with the almond cream from this tart instead.  And my crust ended up way too dark, which didn't help.  I know that's probably mostly due to my change in pan size, but I do wonder about baking anything with eggs/custard at such a high temperature to start.  If I make this tart again, I'll probably just stick with 375 degrees for the whole time.  

If you'd like to try this recipe for yourself, you can find it on Rachel's blog.  And to see what everyone else thought of the tart, check out this week's links to the other TWD bakers.  

Tasty cake

Quick post this time (as quick as mine ever are), since I'm already posting this incredibly late.  I was very excited that one of my favorite food bloggers and Twitter friends got to pick our Tuesdays with Dorie recipe last week.  Nancy has two wonderful blogs, one devoted to yeasted creations and the other a wonderful collection of sweet and savory dishes.  She's a woman after my own heart, posting her recipe notes and often figuring out the math to fit a recipe to the pan(s) she wants to use. =)  And I've been fortunate enough to bake along with her on quite a few occasions, with recipes from all sorts of different sources.

For this week's TWD pick, she selected a wonderfully easy and tasty cake for  us to make, Swedish Visiting Cake.  As Dorie indicates in the recipe notes, this one is quick to mix up and bake.  That's good, because I decided to tackle it before work one morning last week.  I'm happy to say that it was indeed quick and easy.  Part of the reason I was baking early in the morning was because I wanted to take some of the cake to someone who was nice enough to do a favor for me.  So I decided to make the full recipe, but split the batter between my two 6" round pans.  That way I would have one to give away and the other for us to taste.  I greased my pans with baking spray, and thought about lining them with parchment, but decided to go with out it.

Mixing the batter reminded me a bit of the French Yogurt Cake (before I played around with it).  First you rub lemon zest into sugar, which smells wonderful. =)  Then you whisk in the eggs, flavorings and salt.  (I stuck with just the vanilla extract, since I don't like almond extract very much.)  Then you stir in the flour, and at the end you fold in melted butter.  Once in the pan, the batter gets topped with sliced almonds and a sprinkling of sugar (I used coarse decorating sugar).  My cakes only needed 20 minutes to bake.  After letting the cakes cool in the pans for about 10 minutes, I was able to carefully turn them out onto a couple of plates to cool.  (I really need to get some more disposable plates for when I'm giving stuff away--the only ones I have are pink or Princess.)  When I got home from work that night, I decided to dress up the cake that I kept with a bit more lemon.  I made a glaze with some juice from the lemon I zested, plus some powdered sugar.

The verdict?  This cake was very tasty.  Great for sharing, whether with people coming over or if you're the one doing the visiting.  For the cake that I gave away, I don't know what the recipient thought of it.  I ate the other one over the course of several days.  No one else actually got to sample it.  Oops.  =)  It's excellent with tea.  I'll definitely be making this one again.  I think it would be fun to try different types of zest for flavoring, or add some sort of fruit.  

If you'd like to try this one for yourself, head on over to Nancy's blog.  She has the recipe as well as some great process pictures.  And be sure to see what the other TWD bakers thought of this one!

Proof that I can bake well...

...at least according to Gillian. =)

It's been an interesting week of vacation. Vacation mainly in the sense that I wasn't at work at all this week. Thank you to everyone who's been sending well wishes for Jamie. (My husband who had his tonsils removed last Monday, for those who haven't been following the whole saga...) Thursday afternoon and Friday morning were the worst, but he seems to be starting to feel a bit better. Drugs are your friend...

One thing that has been good about this week is that I've been able to do a bunch of baking. I made a new batch of bagels (part whole wheat this time) to restock the freezer. I made another batch of cinnamon chip scones and shared them with Brianna's day care teachers. I made some more milk loaves (also some whole wheat in those), which I will get around to blogging one of these days. Of course I didn't get to everything that I wanted to (like challah), but I have more baking planned for today and tomorrow.

One of the things that I had deliberately left until this week was my June Daring Bakers recipe. I knew I'd have the whole week to get it done. So naturally, I waited until the last day again... =) It wasn't really deliberate, it just kind of happened that way. This week turned out to be somewhat emotionally draining, between Jamie not feeling well and having to deal with Brianna and Gillian (who were taking advantage of the fact that only one adult could really keep tabs on what they were doing, or not doing...). Wednesday went by, then Thursday. Before I knew it, it was Friday morning. I realized I needed to get my act together and took another look at the recipe...

The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England.

I wasn't really familiar with Bakewell Tart, but I did recognize all of the components. Sweet tart crust, I've made that before. Jam--no problem. I didn't have the time or energy to make my own, but fortunately I have access to some really wonderful store-bought stuff. Frangipane, that's a cool word to say. =) Actually, I've made that before, though it wasn't specifically called that. The "almond cream" in Dorie Greenspan's French Pear (or apple) Tart is basically frangipane. So I was hopefully that I wouldn't have too much trouble putting everything together to get the tart done before the day was over.

I started off making the sweet tart dough, which is similar to shortbread. I did it all by hand, as recommended. For adding the butter, the recipe suggests grating frozen butter into the dry ingredients. Yeah, not going there, since I had a bad experience the last time I tried that. I grated my well-chilled butter, though, which worked reasonably well. I tossed the butter and dry ingredients together, rubbed the butter in a bit, and then added the egg yolks and some cold water. I held back and didn't use all the water, since I didn't want the dough to be too sticky. I stopped when I could press the dough clumps together and have them stay. I formed the dough into a round, wrapped it in plastic and stashed it in the fridge to chill. It was only about 11:00 am at that point, so I figured I was doing pretty well.

Yeah, so much for that. I finally pulled the dough back out around 8:30 pm. At that point I had to let it warm up a bit before I could roll it out. The rolling went okay--this definitely isn't my favorite dough, though. It kept wanting to break when I was trying to put in in the tart pan. I probably should have added just a bit more water. But I got it done and popped it in the fridge to rest while I finished feeding the girls and chasing them to bed.

Next up was the frangipane. But first I moved the tart crust to the freezer so it could chill further while I made the filling. (I'm guessing so the jam wouldn't make it too soggy.) I took the easy route--I had picked up ground almonds the week before. I creamed the butter and confectioner's sugar together, then added the eggs one at a time. Even though I remembered to warm up the eggs, the mixture definitely looked curdled after I added them. But once the almonds and a bit of flour were mixed in, the batter came together nicely.

I took the tart crust out of the freezer and placed it on a baking sheet. Then I spread about a cup of my favorite raspberry fruit butter over the bottom of the tart shell (just eyeballed the amount). I put spoonfuls of the frangipane batter all over the raspberry butter and carefully used my little offset spatula to smooth the batter out to cover the jam layer. Then the whole thing went into the oven to bake for 30 minutes at 400 degrees F.

When I checked the tart at about 25 minutes, it was puffed up a bit but looked like it needed to be a little more browned on top. So I left it in for the last 5 minutes. Then I took it out and set the pan on a rack to cool. The puffy top settled quickly into an even layer. It looked perfect. But at that point it was late, so I realized that I'd be waiting until morning to dig in and take pictures. While I was drinking my tea and winding down toward bedtime, I figured I'd check out some of the posts on the Daring Bakers forum to see how others did with this one. That's when I started to scare myself. It's really hard to tell with a big tart whether the middle is really done. I worried that the bottom crust wouldn't be cooked enough or that the frangipane wouldn't be cooked through. I finally decided that there wasn't anything I could do at that point and went to bed.

The verdict? My tart was perfect! The bottom crust was done enough. The frangipane was cooked nicely. The tart raspberry butter was a great foil for the other sweet components. To quote Gillian, "Mmm! This tastes delicious." Gillian really did love it--she quickly polished off a (small) piece and asked for more. Brianna decided that she liked the raspberry part and the tart crust, but not the almond topping. I thought the whole thing was wonderful. I was kind of worried about making the full 9" tart, since I won't have a chance to take any to work or the daycare until Monday. But we've already eaten almost a third of the tart, so we'll see how much makes it through the weekend. I'll have to see how long I can store a piece in the fridge (or maybe freezer) so that Jamie can try it. It's going to be a while longer before he's up to eating something that solid.

I really enjoyed this month's challenge. It wasn't that difficult, but it was something I probably wouldn't have tried on my own. Be sure to head over to the Daring Kitchen to see lots of other amazing Bakewell Tarts. And visit Jasmine or Annemarie for the full recipe.

Time for dessert

Yes, I'm down to the wire.  Fortunately, this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is perfect for that.  Holly of PheMOMenon chose 15-Minute Magic--Chocolate Amaretti Torte for us to make this week.  And I'm happy to report that it really did come together in a short amount of time.  Unlike some of my blogging friends, I didn't actually time it.  =)  But even with Brianna helping, it was in the pan pretty quickly.  And it didn't really tie up the oven for that long, either.  

The ingredient list was fairly short, but did have one key thing that a number of people had trouble finding.  Dorie recommends a specific brand of amaretti cookies, Amaretti di Saronno from D. Lazarroni & Co.  Some people had a hard time finding amaretti at all, let alone those ones.  Some people made their own.  I am fortunate enough to have a great place to shop, and I was able to find the small version of the cookies.  There was a spot on the shelf for the big ones, but it was empty.  

Besides the amaretti, you just need chocolate, almonds, sugar, eggs and butter.  And the batter comes together quickly in the food processor.  It goes into a parchment lined 8-inch pan and is baked until cracked on top and the center is still moist but not wet--25 to 30 minutes (mine took 33).  Once cooled, the torte gets a ganache glaze.  I didn't quite follow the recipe there--I just made some ganache with 2 ounces each of bittersweet chocolate and heavy cream and added a bit of rum to it.  

The verdict?  Jamie really liked it, which I expected.  I thought it was okay, but I'm not a big fan of almond flavor, and the amaretti are very strongly flavored.  Since it was so late, I didn't chill the torte at all.  I wonder if I might like it better cold.  I'll have to let the girls try it tomorrow.  Worst case, I'll keep some for Jamie and take the rest to work or to the teachers at the daycare. =)  

To give the torte a try for yourself, head on over to Holly's blog for the recipe.  And be sure to check out all the other wonderful variations on this week's cake by looking through the TWD blogroll.  

Modern bakers

Despite the fact that I just got two new cookbooks for Christmas, when a 40% off Borders coupon appeared in my inbox, I just couldn't resist.  So after work on Monday, I made a quick stop at the bookstore.  I didn't have much time, so I picked up a book that I've borrowed from the library, the King Arthur Flour's Whole Grain Baking.  Right, another huge book that I don't have room for. =)  But it's in keeping with my recent attempts to make our diet healthier.

As I was quickly browsing, a book cover caught my eye.  It was Nick Malgieri's new book, The Modern Baker.  I'll have to take a closer look at it the next time I'm at the bookstore.  But it got me thinking about how lucky today's home bakers are.  We have access to a lot of tools that just weren't easily available to home bakers not that long ago.  For instance, I love my scale and parchment paper, just to name a couple things.  And we have access to some fantastic ingredients, either online, in specialty stores, or often in our neighborhood grocery stores.  

But I think the greatest thing we have available to us is the knowledge and experience of others.  The Tuesdays with Dorie group of bakers is a great example.  We have the collective experience of several hundred bakers to draw on.  We can ask each other questions, through the weekly P&Q posts, by email, on Facebook...  Each week we can read about each others experiences, mistakes, new ideas, best practices...  And it just amazes me that we can so easily connect with Dorie Greenspan herself, the author of the cookbook we're baking from.

Which leads me to this week's TWD recipe.  The way our group works is that each week, a different person selects a recipe for everyone else to make.  Well, for the start of the new year, Laurie asked Dorie to choose a recipe for us and bake along with us.  What a great idea!  She chose the French Pear Tart.

The biggest change I made to the recipe was to use apples instead of pears, since I don't like pears.  I thought of Nancy over at The Dogs Eat the Crumbs as I picked up some macoun apples at Central Market on Friday night.  I made the Sweet Tart Dough for the base, adding a little freshly grated nutmeg, since I like nutmeg with apples.  The almond cream filling came together quickly in my food processor.  I was lucky enough to be able to buy almond meal in the bulk section at Central Market.  Then I peeled and sliced the apples to place on top of the filling.  

I baked the tart for about 45 minutes, until the almond cream was getting browned on top.  But after taking it out of the oven, I realized that the middle didn't look done enough.  So I ended up putting the tart back in the oven for another 15 minutes, with foil over the edges to keep it from browning too much.  I'm still not sure it was quite done enough, since the filling was pretty soft in the middle.  Dorie suggests brushing the tops of the apples (or pears) with apple jelly as a glaze.  My apples looked pretty dry on top, so they definitely needed something, but I didn't have any jelly that seemed like a good flavor match.  So while the tart was cooling, I made a quick batch of caramel syrup to brush onto the apples.

Okay, that last statement really sums up how far I've come in the last year.  I never would have said that I could quickly make caramel anything this time last year. =)  Some of the confidence comes from practice, but some of it comes from the great tips I've gotten from other bakers.

The verdict?  Wow.  I loved this dessert.  The flavors were delicious together.  My crust got really browned around the edges, which was fantastic.  The apples were just right, and I was surprised how much I liked the almond cream, since I'm not that fond of almonds.  I especially liked how it got crisp on top and sort of melded with the crust near the edges of the tart.  I liked it the first day, but I think I liked it even more the next, once the flavors had more time to blend together.  Jamie liked it a lot too, and so did Gillian.  Brianna just liked the crust, so maybe I should just make her some shortbread cookies. =)

For the recipe, head on over to Dorie's blog.  Don't forget to check out all the other wonderful French Tarts on the TWD blogroll.  And for a special anniversary treat this week, read Dorie's answers to many of the questions that the TWD members have wanted to ask her over the past year.