Wowie, wow, wow, WOW!!!  Dorie’s Cranberry Lime Galette packs a huge wallop!  To be honest, I didn’t expect such a bold, “in your face” punch of flavor – but I got one.  This galette is the simplest thing in the world to make, but make no mistake, there’s nothing else simple about it.

The galette starts off benignly enough with a flaky, buttery pie crust.  But, what’s inside of that pie crust is the thing that makes this pastry so special.  The filling is a symphony of tart, sweet and a little heat.  Plump, fresh cranberries are blended with brown sugar, nuts, raspberry jam, apples, lime, dried cranberries and a firm kick of fresh ginger for a brighter than sunshine flavor experience.  Seriously, I almost had to put on my sunglasses to eat a slice!  The zing of that fresh ginger was just…well…zingy.

Once the crust was made, putting the galette together took no time at all.  First, you roll out your crust into a large circle and spread the center with a layer of ground nuts and plain bread crumbs.  You can use any kind of nuts you like, but I used walnuts.  Then, you throw the rest of the filling ingredients into a big bowl and smoosh them around a bit.  I used my hands to get everything mixed together really well.  After that, you pour the filling on top of the layer of nuts and fold up the edge of the pie crust towards the center.   Stick it in the oven until the crust is golden and the filling is nice and bubbly – and you’re done.

If you want to skip the whole making the pie crust part, you could just use a premade refrigerated crust instead.  I won’t tell.  Who am I to let a little pastry shell stand between you and the joy of eating this scrumptious dessert?

Doesn’t it look pretty in a rustic kind of way?  Those cranberries look like glistening red jewels.

Thanks to Elizabeth, Whitney and April from Celestial Confections for choosing such a great recipe for TWD this week.  If you’d like to make your own Cranberry Lime Galette (because I’m not sharing), you can find the recipe in the book or on the Celestial Confections site.  And of course, don’t forget to stop by the Tuesdays with Dorie site to check out what the rest of the group has done.

Enjoy!

In the three years that I have owned Dorie’s Baking: From My Home to Yours, her Cranberry Shortbread Cake flew completely under my radar.  I probably never would have noticed it, much less baked it, if it hadn’t been this weeks TWD pick.  Why?  Well, first of all, because there was no picture of the cake in the book for me to drool over.  And second, because the recipe didn’t jump out at me as being a showstopper.  I just never gave it more than a casual glance as I flipped through the pages searching for the showier selections with that “wow” factor.  I now stand corrected. Dorie’s Not-Just-For-Thanksgiving Cranberry Shortbread Cake might not be the prettiest dessert I ever made, but it definitely is one of the tastiest. It just goes to show that you can’t judge a book by its cover, or in this case, an unassuming little recipe without a flashy photo.

This cake consists of two components:  a luscious sweet/tart homemade cranberry-orange jam, and a shortbread “cake”.  It’s kind of like a great, big, giant shortbread sandwich cookie.  Except, the cookie isn’t quite really a cookie.  Nor, is it quite really a cake.  It’s a buttery, crumbly, slightly puffy cross between the two.  And oh, is this cake delicious!  Actually, it’s more than delicious.  It’s delectably delicious!

I did make one small change to the original recipe.  (You know I can never just leave well enough alone!)  Instead of making my jam with a quarter cup of orange juice, I swapped out half of the juice with some orange liqueur.  The alcohol burns off during the cooking process and adds a nice pop of flavor to the jam.

I could see making this cake using lots of other kinds of fruit fillings as well, such as strawberry, blueberry or apricot.  Or how about a Nutella Shortbread Cake?  Now that would be something to behold!

In the meantime, I’m just going to enjoy a big slice of my cranberry shortbread cookie/cake with a nice steaming mug of coffee and hope that no one comes home until I’m done.

Many thanks to Jessica from Singleton in the Kitchen for choosing our TWD recipe for this week.  You can find the recipe on Jessica’s site or in Dorie’s book.  And, please check out the TWD blogroll to see what the rest of the group did with this one.

Enjoy!

One of the many things I love about Dorie’s recipes as that most of them are pretty forgiving.  That is to say, that when I’m not paying attention and screw something up, I can usually fix it and no one but me ever knows.   Case in point: this Pumpkin Caramel Pie.    One of the tweaks that Dorie suggests for this pie is the addition of a pecan streusel topping. I thought it sounded like a great idea and whipped some up to use for my pie.  The topping is supposed to be added to the pie after it has baked for ten minutes.  Well, I put that streusel in the fridge to keep cold and totally forgot about it – until after my pie had already been baking for about forty minutes.

Crap!  I hate when that happens!

I wasn’t sure if I should put the topping on anyway, or just forget about it.  I took a chance and threw it on anyway.  So glad I did!

Dorie’s Caramel Pumpkin Pie alone is nothing to sneeze at.  She takes a pretty standard pumpkin pie recipe and amps it up by swirling a luscious homemade caramel sauce into the filling.  The marriage of that cool, smooth pumpkin and velvety, rich caramel is definitely something to drool over.  Adding a nutty, buttery streusel to the mix is nothing short of brilliant!

Instead of using a regular pie crust for this one, I decided to try it with a spicy gingersnap crust.  I just liked the idea of something crunchy to go with all that creaminess.  That, and because I was feeling lazy and didn’t want to make a crust from scratch.  It was a good call.  As planned, the gingersnap crust was crunchy, but with a tiny bit of a chewy vibe going on.  I really loved how it worked in this pie.  The texture was a nice counterpoint to the filling and all of the spices played really well together.  This Pumpkin Caramel Pie is going to be a strong contender for a spot on my Thanksgiving table this year.

If you’d like to see a lot more variations on this pie, stop by the Tuesdays with Dorie blogroll and take a look.  If you’d like the recipe, you can find it in the book, or on our hostess, Janell, of Mortensen Family Memoirs.  I’ve included the recipe for the gingersnap pie crust in case you’d like to try it too.

Gingersnap Pie Crust
adapted from Martha Stewart

Ingredients:

2 cups gingersnap crumbs
1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon unbleached all-purpose flour
Pinch of salt
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In  a large bowl, whisk together gingersnap crumbs, brown sugar, flour, and salt. Add butter and stir until mixture is moist and well combined. The crumbs should hold together when pinched with your fingers.  If the crumbs do not hold together, add up to 1 tablespoon of cold water, a teaspoon at a time, and stir to combine.

Press crumb mixture into a 9-inch pie plate, evenly covering the bottom and sides. Transfer to freezer and chill for 10 minutes. Place pie plate on a baking sheet and bake until crust is fragrant and set, about 10 minutes. Transfer pie to a wire rack and let cool completely.

Makes one 9-inch pie crust

Enjoy!

Summer is almost over.  Hurray!!!  I have to admit, Summer has never been a good friend of mine.  Between the oppressive heat and humidity, hurricane season, and eleven weeks of school vacation, by this time each year, my nerves are raw.  I know, I know – why in the heck do I live in Florida if I hate the heat?  It isn’t by choice.   I guess I’m a victim of circumstance.  I grew up here.  I met my husband here. Our business is here.  And, most of the rest of my family is now here too.  I suppose there were a few opportunities for escape over the years, but my fear of the unknown coupled with my sense of responsibility kept me from grabbing them.  I still have hope, though.  Mini SGCC will be off to college in a few years. Our nest will be empty.  Perhaps that will be the catalyst to shake us out of this rut.

What does this have to do with Oatmeal Breakfast Bread?   Nothing, really.  But, the temperature is hovering at around ninety-three degrees in the shade as I write this, and my brain is feeling a little like a fried egg right now.   Or maybe, I’m just becoming one of those old ladies who ramble on about nothing that has anything to do with anything.  If I start walking around wearing purple hats and peppering my conversations with words like “putter” and “early bird special”, please just shoot me! 

But, the bread.  Oh yes, the bread!  That tender, cushiony, slightly sweet, lightly spiced crumb surrounded by a crunchy shell of cinnamon, brown sugar and nuts.  Dorie’s Oatmeal Breakfast Bread is fabulous!  It’s made with healthy whole wheat flour and rolled oats.  And, did I mention that it has little juicy bits of dried fruit inside?  It does!  A slice of this stuff is the perfect thing to grab on your way out the door in the morning to catch the school bus.  Or to go to the office.  Or to run errands. Or just to sit in front of your computer at home with a nice, hot cup of coffee.  It’s very versatile that way.

You can add whatever kind of fruits and nuts you want to this bread.  Dorie likes to add raisins.  I do too, but I didn’t have any raisins when I made mine.  I used a tropical fruit blend of dried mango, pineapple and papaya.  I also used toasted, chopped pecans in the topping.  They were good choices, but the next time I make this bread, I’ll definitely add raisins.  Or dried apples and cherries.  Or maybe strawberries….. There I go rambling again.  But, you get the idea.

Before I totally lose my mind, I’d like to thank Natalie of Oven Love for choosing this recipe for this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie assignment. You can find the recipe for this delicious Oatmeal Breakfast Bread there, and of course in Baking: From My Home to Yours.   And, don’t forget to stop by the TWD Blogroll to see how the rest of the gang fared with this one.

Hmmm. I think I’ll go turn the air conditioner down a few more notches and grab another slice of that bread…..

Okay, I’ll admit it.  I’m not a big fan of chocolate ice cream.  Never have been.  I really don’t know why that is, because I love other chocolate things.  I love brownies, chocolate chip cookies and chocolate cake. And, I absolutely adore chocolate pudding, especially when it’s homemade.  But chocolate ice cream, not so much.  The name of this particular ice cream, however, is Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream.  I really love chocolate ganache!  Love, love, love!  You could put chocolate ganache on Brussels sprouts and I would eat it.  You could even put it on duck lips, and I’m pretty sure I would still eat it.  So of course, when I learned that Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream was on the menu for this week’s TWD, I had to try it.  And, I’m glad I did.

Dorie’s ice cream is made by basically rolling two recipes into one.  First, there is her decadent, deep, dark chocolate ganache, which we all know is sublime by itself.  Then, there is a rich, creamy custard, which is the base of the ice cream.  The two are blended together and, when churned in an ice cream machine, become melded into one glorious, velvety and intensely chocolatey mound of frozen lusciousness.  Seriously, people. This ice cream is a little bit of chocolate heaven in a bowl!  And coming from someone who doesn’t really care for chocolate ice cream, that is really saying something.

Oh yes.  I also added some dark chocolate bits to the ice cream as well.  You know, just in case it wasn’t quite chocolatey enough.

Many thanks to Katrina from Baking and Boys who selected this recipe for us this week.  You can find the recipe on her site.  If you’d like to see lots more of this delicious ice cream, please check out the Tuesdays with Dorie blogroll.

This has been one crazy, messed up week!  Honestly, I don’t even know where to begin. But, if there ever was a week where I could have used some of Dorie’s sinfully creamy and delicious Burnt Sugar Ice Cream, this was it!

If you read my Lemon Linguine post, then you already know that we just got a brand new puppy.  Bella is a sweet little Golden Retriever puppy and she is absolutely beautiful, as her name suggests. I’m totally smitten with her, but I’d forgotten just how much work caring for a new puppy involves.  It’s like having a new baby and a toddler all rolled up into one.  They have very little control over their bodily functions and they get into everything. Except with babies, you can slap a diaper on them, pop them in a playpen, and they’re good to go.  Bella is a very good little girl, but I’ve worn a path to my front door taking her in and out to potty a gazillion times every day.  Plus, have you ever noticed that with puppies (and babies), there is no direct correlation between what goes in and what comes out. There is definitely a lot more of what comes out! Not very appetizing fare for a food blog, I know.  Just keeping it real. The rest of the time, I run around the house after her, pulling an assortment of inappropriate “chew toys” out of her mouth and trying to keep her from nibbling on a) the furniture; b) my Oriental rugs; and c) my shoes! Suffice it to say that this “up and down” and “in and out” situation is definitely not an ideal work environment!

Inconvenient as it may be, the Bella situation wasn’t really even the crazy, messed up part of my week.  That revolting development occurred last Tuesday evening.   I was out in my front yard trying to coax Bella to “get on with it”, when Mini SGCC came flying out of the house with my purse, yelling something about being late for a choir practice that I didn’t even know she had.   The three of us jumped into the car and took off.  Luckily, I had Bella’s pet carrier in the back seat.  Unluckily, my cell phone wasn’t in my purse. You will understand the significance of this later.

Mini SGCC’s school is less than two miles from our house.  It’s less than a five minute drive with no traffic.  Bella and I were on our way home after dropping off the kid, and I was stopped in the right lane, waiting to make a right turn.  I was diligently waiting for the oncoming traffic to pass before I did.  It was broad daylight.  All of a sudden, my car was jolted out into the middle of a busy six lane road and my head slammed into the steering wheel.  I literally didn’t know what hit me!  I scrambled to get the car back over into the right lane before I was roadkill.  As I tried to collect myself, there was a tapping on my car window.  It was the guy that hit me. 

The first thing I did was check to make sure the puppy was okay.  She was a little scared, but otherwise fine (thank God!).  My shock quickly turned into anger and I launched.  I started screaming at the guy, using words I didn’t even realize I knew!   You know what he said?  He said that didn’t see me.  DIDN’T SEE ME!?!?  HE WAS DRIVING A HUGE A$$ COMMERCIAL VAN AND HE DIDN’T F*#%ING SEE ME? He could have seen halfway to Texas from the driver’s seat of that van!  Plus, I was driving a big, German sedan. I wasn’t exactly hard to spot!

I reached into my purse for my cell phone to call the police, and…..it wasn’t there.  Remember, I said this would become significant.  Well, Mr. “I Didn’t See You Because I Was On My Way to the Fish Market to Buy Some Clams for Dinner and Wasn’t Paying Attention” didn’t have a cell phone either.  So, there we were – standing in the middle of US 41 – with not a cell phone between us.  He walked one way to find a pay phone, and I trudged the other other way, with the puppy in my arms, to find a shop where I could call for help.

Here’s where it gets a little dicey.  I’m usually pretty calm in a crisis.  However, this time I was really shaken up.  And, Mr. SGCC was out of town and wouldn’t be home for three more days.  I was disoriented and my head was beginning to throb.  I couldn’t even think of someone to call.  The clerk in the store was very sweet, though.  Or, maybe he’s a sucker for cute little puppies.  Anyway, when he saw how my fingers were shaking as I tried to dial the phone, he did it for me.  I called my brother (the chiropractor) and he came to help.

Thank God the deputy that came to investigate the accident was also very nice.  I was such a mess that I spilled the contents of my glove compartment all over the car and couldn’t even find my registration and insurance card.  He was able to get all of the information he needed from his computer.  Did I mention that my head was throbbing?

While the deputy was writing up the accident report, I finally mustered up the courage to take a look at the damage to my car.  Trust me, you don’t wanna know.  It was pretty bad.  The whole rear was bashed in and the bumper was in pieces.  The trunk wouldn’t close either.  I was beginning to feel as though I’d been hit in the head with a sledgehammer.

In the end, the other driver was cited for careless driving and I was in the clear, but carless.  Ugh!  While I am very thankful that neither Bella nor I were seriously hurt, I’m very upset about my car.  It wasn’t a new car. In fact, it was over ten years old.  I probably needed a new car anyway, but here’s the thing.  That car belonged to my dad – and he loved it.  I have many memories of the two of us tooling around together in it – going out to lunch, Christmas shopping or whatever.  Every time I got behind the wheel, I felt a little bit closer to him. I drove my daughter to her first day of kindergarten and her first day of high school in that car. I dropped her off at her first school dance in it.  The value of that is something that you just can’t measure on any “blue book” chart or insurance company valuation table.  So, now it’s gone, and so is a little piece of me.  Yes, it’s been a crazy, messed up week over here at Chez SGCC. Did I mention that my head hurts?  My heart does too.

So, now as I wait for the lump on my head to go down, my black eye to heal and the various bumps and bruises to fade, I don’t feel too much like baking.  The fact that this week’s TWD assignment didn’t require it is a blessing.  I could handle ice cream.  Especially a fabulous ice cream like this one!

My thanks go out to Becky at Project Domestication for choosing this week’s recipe.  If you’d like to try it for yourself, the recipe can be found HERE.  As always, check out the TWD blogroll to see lots more versions of Burnt Sugar Ice Cream.

Have I ever told you that this Swedish Visiting Cake is one of my favorite cakes of all time?  If not, then consider yourselves told.  It was the first recipe I ever tried from Dorie’s Baking: From My Home To Yours way back before the days of TWD, or even SGCC.

I love this cake’s buttery, almondy, slightly chewy crumb.  I love its golden brown, lightly caramelized and almost crispy outside crust. I love the hint of crunch that comes from the sprinkling of sugar and sliced almonds over its top, and the whisper of fresh lemons that catches you by surprise when you take that first bite.  I also love the fact that this magical little cake is baked in a cast iron skillet, and can go from mixing bowl to plate in thirty short minutes.

I could go on, but the bottom line is that you really need to try this Swedish Visiting Cake for yourself to fully understand just how good it is.  Once you do, I’m pretty sure that you’ll love it too.  And if not, that’s okay because then there will be more cake for me! 

Many thanks to Nancy of The Dogs Eat the Crumbs for choosing this recipe for TWD this week.  I’m so glad that someone finally did!  If you want the recipe, visit Nancy’s site.  And, if you’d like to see more Swedish Visiting Cakes, check out the Tuesdays with Dorie Blogroll.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s another piece of cake in the kitchen with my name on it!  

I have a terrible cold and I feel like crap, so this post is going to be short and “sweet”.  This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is Dulce de Leche Duos, selected by Jodie from Beansy Loves Cake.  Basically, they are sandwich cookies that contain dulce de leche right in the cookie dough, and that are filled with more dulce de leche.  Dorie says that these cookies are supposed to turn out “round and flattish, crisp on the outside and soft, almost cakey and just a little chewy in their skinny centers.” Mine were round, but the similarity ends there.  My cookies were not very flat, and they definitely didn’t have any crispiness or chewiness in them.  They were really more like small round disks of cake.  I think I would have loved them if they had been flat crispy cookies, but they weren’t – and I didn’t.

I didn’t dislike these cookies, by any means. They just weren’t what I was expecting.  Besides, anything with that much dulce de leche involved can’t be all bad!  I was surprised that the cookies themselves were not terribly sweet, as I had expected them to be.  Because of this, Mr. SGCC actually ate a few – and liked them!  Mini-SGCC liked them so much that she didn’t even bother to make sandwiches out of them.  She just dunked her cookies right into the dulce de leche jar and had at it. 

I thought about drizzling some melted chocolate on top of my Dulce de Leche Duos to up the “wow factor” a little, but as I mentioned earlier, I feel like crap and just couldn’t muster up the energy to do so.  I did, however, sprinkle a few flakes of Maldon sea salt on top of each cookie before I baked them.  It gave them a little “salted butter caramel” vibe, which I liked.

If you’d like to see lots more Dulce de Leche Duos, stop by the Tuesdays with Dorie blogroll and have a look.  If you’d like to try them for yourself, the recipe can be found on Jodie’s site and, of course, in Baking: From My Home To Yours.

I’ve been MIA for a while.  Did you miss me? I missed you.  Unfortunately, real life gets in my way sometimes and the time just flies by.  But, I’m back.  Hopefully, I’ll slide right back into a regular posting schedule. Keep your fingers crossed!

This week’s TWD recipe was chosen by Mike from Ugly Food Dude. Mike selected Dorie’s Thumbprints for Us Big Guys.  They are a butter-based, shortbread-like cookie made with ground hazelnuts and a dollop of jam in the middle.  I’ve made other thumbprints cookie recipes before and they’re always crowd pleasers, so I was happy to make these.

Instead of hazelnuts, I used ground almonds, mostly because I already had them at home.  I also chose almonds because I wanted to use a lovely homemade cherry jam that I had.  I really love the cherry-almond flavor combination. 

These thumbprint cookies are not difficult at all to make, but I definitely had some issues with the dough. Mine turned out verrrrry crumbly and I had a heck of a time getting my cookies to hold together.  I followed the recipe precisely, so I really don’t know why that happened.  I’ve heard that several other TWDers had the same problem.  If anyone has any ideas, I’d love to hear them.

Even though my cookies looked a little like moon rocks, they still tasted good.  I wouldn’t say that I liked them better than my “go to” thumbprint cookie recipe, but I did like them a lot.  They were nice and buttery, although crumbly, and had delicate almond flavor that really did go well with my cherry jam.

If you’d like to try these cookies for yourself, you can find the recipe on page 164 in Dorie’s book, or on Ugly Food Dude.  Also, don’t forget to check out the Tuesdays with Dorie blogroll to see lots more Thumbprints for Us Big Guys.

I was pretty excited when I learned that this week’s TWD recipe was one for brownies.  Aside from the fact that I love brownies, it gave me an opportunity to use this:

It’s my new handy, dandy Perfect Brownie Pan!  (Don’t scoff.  When you can’t sleep at 3:00 a.m., and the only things on TV are infomercials, your judgment gets a little cloudy. Okay?  Thanks.)

Anyway, Dorie explains that this recipe came from some guy named Rick Katz, a pastry chef who did the prep work for Julia Child’s show, Baking With Julia.  He used to make these brownies for the cast and crew and Julia loved them.   Hey!  If they’re good enough for Julia, they’re certainly good enough for me! 

The recipe for these brownies is different from any I’ve ever made before.  Instead of dumping all of the ingredients in a bowl and mixing, you whip some of the sugar and eggs together like mad and then fold them into the rest of the batter.  It seems like an awful lot of trouble just to make a batch of brownies, but that’s the recipe and I do what I’m told.

If you like fudgy brownies, though, this is definitely the recipe for you.  These brownies are the absolute fudgiest I’ve ever tasted.  So much so, that they bordered on goopy.   I had to freeze them for a while before I could scrape some of them out of the pan.  Thank goodness my fancy brownie pan obviated the need to cut them, or else I could have been in trouble!

Look at how perfectly they came out!  No joke, people, this pan is the brownie-baking bomb!

I brought these brownies to a Super Bowl party, so I wanted to jazz them up a little.  When people know you’re in the “food biz”, the bar is automatically raised.  Plus, this was kind of a sophisticated crowd.   So, I added about two tablespoons of instant espresso powder to the batter. I really liked the slightly bitter edge it gave to the brownies.  Also, Rick’s brownies are incredibly rich, so I cut each brownie in half.  It was a good call.  A lot of the women at that party looked like a brownie hadn’t passed their lips in twenty years or more.  Some even broke those small halved ones in half again!  (Sheesh, ladies!  It’s only a little, tiny brownie.  Live a little!)

Many thanks to Tanya from Chocolatechic for choosing this recipe for us this week.  If you’d like to make these brownies for yourself, and you’re one of the five people on the planet that don’t already have Dorie’s book, you can find the recipe on Chocolatechic.  If you’d like to see lots more goopy fudgy brownies, stop by the Tuesdays with Dorie site and have a ball!

Enjoy!