Tribute to katherine Hepburn Brownies

I know the term "yum" is often overused, but in this situationYUM! It was a nice really rich batter. I didn't have an 8-inch square pan, but you can see I had a heart shaped pan of the approximate size. I didn't have ground instant coffee, but I did have ground instant expresso, so that is what I used. I forgot to mix the vanilla before scrapping the batter in the pan. So my option was to add the vanilla to the top of the batter in the pan. Oh well! Baked up fine, minor trouble when I inverted the pan. But you know, it still tasted great!

Independence Day

Wow, it's 4th of July! How did this happen already? June was a blur with teaching a class in summer school twice a week for 5 weeks on top of a full time day job. So on 04 July I celebrated by baking back at the kitchen of Open Arms. I made Dark Chocolate Sables for 360. I forgot what a nice dough this is to work with. You basically end up with 7-8 giant tootsie rool shaped doughs weighing 4 pounds each. What's not to love? It was fun to make and I think the clients will be happy.

Then it was off to check out the Midtown Farmer's market and then the Mill City Farmer's market as well. Normally my usual stop is the Saint Paul Farmer's market, but I wanted to do something different today. Usually, I tend to overbuy when I'm at the farmer's market. This time I went with no money. So I had the opportunity to just; walk, look, talk with people and think about what I could make with the products available. It was a good experience and there was a lot of produce at home already.

Then it was time to watch the depart a Monaco for the Tour de France! So until 26 July I'll be catching up on Versus cable channel (and blog), the New York Times sports pages (and blog),and VeloNews. I have been a Tour nerd for over twenty years, and this is my usual July activity.

I love July!

And the extra surprize, I see the Foodnetwork had started their Next Footnetwork TV star show a few weeks ago. So, I'll be catching up on the three weeks I missed.

And finally getting back to Tuesday's with Dorrie. Sunday I'm baking Tribute-To-Katherine Hepburn Brownies.

The photo is the deck in the back yard and the corn and sunflowers growing in the Earthboxes.

TWD Tartest Lemon Tart

What a tasty lemon tart! And with homemade creme fraiche...it was enjoyed for three days which was quite a surprize. It is really easy to make, nice and puckery lemon flavor and the rich creme fraiche adds a nice note.

Tuesday's with Dorrie -TWD (the online baking blog) baking through the cookbook Baking from my home to your by Dorrie Greenspan rocks!

TWD Tiramisu Cake

OK, so it was 10:38 PM on Monday night. Why do I do this? I should know better by now to bake something for the first time on a weeknight. And this was after working all day, having a French lesson and then goin gto the grocery store. Did I mention that American Experience was on PBS and there was a problem with taping it? So you see what my Monday night was like.

This time I did this because I needed a cake for Tuesday night and I thought if I made it on Sunday afternoon it would be too long of a gap in time for a good cake.

This recipe was straight forward. No problems and wow the kitchen and dining room really smelled good! Only forgot to put the parchment on the buttered pans, but really no problem. The soaking of the cakes I thought went well, but when we eat the cake on Tuesday I saw that it didn't soak all the way throught the cake. Also, maybe next time chop the chocolate a bit finer. The amount of frosting at first was a concern. It worked out ok, a little tight from time time to time, but ok. My mistake was licking the spatula and beaters etc so late at night when the frosting was made with espresso syrup! Next time some chocolate covered beans for decoration!

Chocolate Cream Tart, baking with friends, and Julia Child's house in Cambridge

Wow, where to start? I spent the weekend in Cambridge, MA (where I used to live) with my friend Stephanie. We made dinner, baked this TWD recipe, drank wine on the deck in great weather, had some great meals out. It was a great weekend! We had fun baking the Chocolate Cream Tart. We made the chocolate shortbread dough a day ahead and froze it in the pan. I think the only problem we had was slightly overbaking it. Directions were add 5 min to the 25 + 8 min to fully bake the crust. Next time, I think will be a few minutes less in the oven. The filling went well as did the topping and chocolate shaving. Also ran a little short of the topping, bu tno complaints and it tasted good!

Between the making of the dough and finishing the tart was the drive to see Julia Child's old house. See yesterday's post.

Julia & Paul Child's Cambridge House

I was back in Cambridge,MA 25-27 April. I stayed with a long time friend (not an old friend!) Stephanie, and she showed me a postcard from about a year ago. It was a notice that the house of Julia & Paul Child was for sale. So we did a drive by and you can see the photos here as well as the postcard. It is a big house, over 6,000 sq ft. The timing of seeing this was fun. Stephanie and I were making the current recipe for Tuesday's with Dorrie this weekend, while staying in Cambridge. Dorrie had worked with Julia on previous cookbooks, so there was a link. I also remember walking by Julia in Harvard Square many years ago when I lived there. It is also timely that I am reading Appetite for Life, the biography of Julia Child by Noel Riley Fitch.

15-minute magic: Chocolate Amaretti Torte

So this was for TWD. It is really fast, really simple and really good! So what else can you ask from a great chocolate torte?

French Yogurt Cake with Marmalade Glaze

This was for TWD. I baked the cake on Sunday afternoon and my Monday night it was gone. In my house that usually means it was tasty! I couldn't find lemon marmalade, so the closest, and the one I used was Tangerine Marmalade. It was easy to make and smelled good while it was baking. I don't have a regular loaf pan, so I used a slightly rusty 500g pain de mie avec couvercle. It is a sandwich bread baking pan.

Sorry, no photos for this posting, the camera is in South Africa for a few weeks.

Lemon Cup Custard for TWD

OK, first, YUM! This was very polular at my house. Beautiful, eggy custard with a very slight hint of lemon. What's not to love?

Not Chocolate Armagnac Cake but Chocolate Wiskey Cake

This week for TWD we made Chocolate Armagnac Cake-The cake that got me fired. My version was whisky, not Armagnac. I also would have been fired, but not for creativity as was the case for Dorie, but for baking a not great cake in my case!

My learnings; take the time to go buy the bottle of Armagnac, chop the prunes a bit finer, and let the cake cool for more than an hour before frosting. All in all I didn't start working on this until after 8PM on a Monday night and was done before 11PM. And finally don't bake after a long day at work!

TWD Devil's Food White-Out Cake

Finished

Mmm
Peeking in the oven

Getting ready to bake

This week's recipe for Tuesday's with Dorie is Devil's Food White-Out Cake. It was fun to make! Baked the cakes on Sunday afternoon. The boo-boos were I forgot to put the melted chocolate into the batter before pouring into the pans. So, I just drizzled it over the top of the batter in the pans. Then I forgot to put the cut out parchment into the bottom of the pans before pouring in the batter! The cakes came out of the pans no problem, even without the parchment. The drizzled melted chocolate looked a little interesting on the baked cakes. The frosting was fairly srtaightforward. Adding the crumbled cake slice was interesting. The melted chocolate drizzle on the top of the cake was a problem when I crumbled it up. I didn't realize that the chunks were so big with the drizzled chocolate holding them together. Oh, well it will still taste good!

Sneaking food into the cinema

When you were in high school, college, other did you sneak food into the cinema? My brother, and soon to be sister-in-law used to sneak in food. Faith had a oversized purse she kept in the car for just this reason! We would buy bags of chips, cans of soda, etc and fill the bag. Once the lights went down out came our goodies at much lower prices.

Fast forward about thirty years. My friend Joyce had mentioned that she was going to attend a Live HD broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera at a local cinema. She asked me if I was intersted and I said sure. She also told me that she often put a peanutbutter sandwich in her purse for a little something for the long operas. Well, look at the photo. This is a sample of what I sneak inside a small knapsack for our opera picnics! This is what I made for Orfeo ed Euridice. It was better than the picnic for La Rondine, which was better than the one for Thaiis. So I think if the trend continues, then the picnic for Madama Butterfly, La Sonnambula, and La Cenerentola will be even bette.

To check out information on the Met Opera Live HD broadcasts go to http://www.metoperafamily.org/

Double Chocolate Sunday with Greenspan and Keller

So, I was working on the TWD project of World Peace Cookies as well as trying bouchons. Let's just say the World Peace Cookies should be served at the UN. They rock! My first attempt at Bouchons... well they need more work. For the cookies, the chocolate I usually use E. Guittard bittersweet 72% cocao was out of stock! So I substituted with Ghirardelli baking chips bittersweet 60% cacao. Not bad. Only challenge is the chips still need to be chopped a bit. Also found out that the cookies need to set when they first come out of the oven or they will crumble. Thank you Dorie for a great recipe!

Now, Thomas Keller, you have given me a challenge. The namesake bouchons of the cookbook titled Bouchon. Mmm, it will definately take a second try. Let's just say that my bouchons (French for cork) didn't look as smart as they were supposed to. I ended up with quite a butter leakage out of the top of the molds, the baking sheet and onto the floor of the oven. Two days later I still smell it when I turn the oven on. The good news was finding Vosges haut chocolat Red Fire Bar. Keller recommended Valrhona Equatoriale 55% bittersweet, but no luck finding it. The Vosges was really nice and the product info sounds cool.

Better luck next weekend!

Also, took 5 pounds of onions and just carmelized the heck out of them. Delicious! Great on steaks for dinner on Sunday and also a little snack Tuesday night as I am baking of the remainders of both chocolate recipies!

TWD Berry Surprise Cake

Unincorporated flour how I hate you...let me count the ways! First of all, thank you tot he other TWD bakers who tried this recipe before I did. I read your comments and thought I was ready to tackle it. That was not the case. Yes, I treated the eggs like divas and was careful not to over mixed/folded. Then I saw some unincorporated flour as I was pouring the batter into the pan. Oh yes, I forgot, my springform pas is 10 x 2.5, not 8 x 3. Oops again for this cake! My cake didn't rise, and was maybe an inch high. I ended up with a half circle of a cake. The filling and frosting were not sweet enough. And this is from someone who doesn't like really sweet desserts!

TWD Pear tart

So does this look "smooth & silky" to you? It didn't to me. I thought something was wrong, and what have I made? Not to worry. Once in the oven and baking along, it looked not bad for the first time. Even made a little 4 inch tart to go along. And the taste? Bliss! Next time a bit more care in slicing and placing the pears and a bit more of the almond cream if trying to make an extra 4 inch tart.