TWD peanut Butter Crisscrosses

Well it has been over a year. Nice to be back with the TWD baking group! Given it is an odd cool Labor day in Minneapolis, making peanutbutter cookies really wasn't odd. And some of the trees are turing already as well!

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.