Breakfast Biscotti

I made these back in October and didn't write any notes on the page in Dorie's Cookies.  Does that count for baking today??!!!

I like all of Dorie's biscotti recipes because they have a nice crunch without being super dry.

Tuesdays with Dorie participants don’t publish the recipes on our blogs, but we encourage you to buy Dorie's Cookies for yourself from your local bookseller or from Amazon

World Peace Cookies

I've made these cookies many, many times since they appeared in Dorie Greenspan's Baking From My Home to Yours.  The cookies are too good to be left out of Dorie's newest book, Dorie's Cookies,  and I'm so glad that the Tuesdays with Dorie bakers decided to bake them to start off the new year.

They are chocolate with more chocolate, sable-like in texture, and they have that secret ingredient of fleur de sel which makes them sparkle.

Not much to share about the technique although I'm so glad that I learned from Dorie how to make a tight roll by placing the mostly cylindrical cookie roll on parchment paper, folding the edge of the parchment over the roll, holding onto the bottom edge of the parchment while pushing with a bread scraper against the dough.  I should have taken a picture of this technique, but it is really the coolest, most effective way to get the dough squished evenly into a roll.

I store my rolled dough in a paper towel tube that I have slit open so that it forms a trough.  This way the dough doesn't flatten on one side when you put it in the fridge or freezer.

The cookies were great, as usual, and much enjoyed by my fellow contra and English country dancers at a dancing event last week.  Here's hoping they contribute to world peace!

Tuesdays with Dorie participants don’t publish the recipes on our blogs, but we encourage you to buy Dorie's Cookies for yourself from your local bookseller or from Amazon

Spiced Honey Cake

This week I baked Dorie Greenspan's Spiced Honey Cake from Baking Chez Moi.    It's a loaf cake that begs to be tweaked and, since I had neither lavender flowers nor Szechuan peppercorns, I had to make do!  I used some regular peppercorns and upped the ginger.

The cake will be different every time, depending on the honey and spices.  This time, my honey was from a beekeeper, organic farmer near Portland, Oregon.  Next time, I'll use honey from a beekeeper and farmer in Ithaca, NY.

Christmas Spice Cookies

It's the right time of year for  Christmas Spice Cookies!  In Dorie's new book, Dorie's Cookies, she is clearly inviting and encouraging her baking fans to experiment.  For example, there is a basic recipe for "Do-Almost-Anything Vanilla Cookie Dough" which is a lovely, soft dough to which various spices and flavorings can be added.  The Christmas Spice Cookie version has cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and all spice.

I mixed the spices into and the dough smelled (and tasted) terrific.  Once I baked the cookies, however, I wished I'd used even more of the spices.  I wanted more oomph.  Lucky for me, when I bake these again I'll be able to double or even triple the spices, tweaking the recipe until it is just perfect for me!

Here they are, ready to go into the oven.  Sorry, no pictures of them out of the oven since they were packed up and given away before I got my camera out!

 

Chocolate Truffles

I've never made truffles before and now I wonder "Why not?!"  Dorie Greenspan's recipe in Baking Chez Moi makes it an easy task.

I served these to folks attending a meeting at my house.  One person commented, "These are really good.  Are they chocolate and butter?"  To which I replied, ". . .and cream."  That's basically it.  I enjoyed cutting up the chocolate (notice my chocolate designated cutting board!)  The hard part, if there was a hard part, was rolling the truffles into  reasonably smooth spheres.  I ended up squishing and pinching them to form a sort-of ball, then rolling them in my palms.

Quite yummy and I'm sure I'll try some variations in the future.

Smushing the butter

Stirring the butter into the chocolate

Finished truffles, fancied up in their own little paper holders.

Check out what the other Tuesday with Dorie bakers baked this week.

Pfefferneusse

It's marathon cooking baking today as I promised to supply ten dozen cookies to an open house of a local conservatory tomorrow night!  How lucky that I have Dorie Greenspan's new book, Dorie's Cookies.   

One of the recipes I am making is Pfefferneusse, cute little rounded spicy cookies that are dipped in some slinky chocolate.

Here are three of them by the gingerbread house I made this year.

Caramel Tart

This week, the Tuesdays with Dorie bakers baked non-chocolate goodies.  I baked the Caramel Tart which seemed very easy to me, until I realized that the ease in baking is all because of Dorie.  Having baked through her Baking from my Home to Yours, and halfway through Baking Chez Moi, I've learned a great many techniques.

This tart has a lovely sweet tart crust which I chose to pat in rather than roll.  It did make it a bit thick, but it is so tasty that no one complained.  I found the flavor of the caramel filling to be wonderful:  not overly sweet, not overly delicate, in other words it was just right.

Looking at what other bakers said last week, I carefully skimmed off the foam (which I ate and it was tasty!).  The tart was lovely on its own, however I decided to add just a little chocolate sauce.  How long can I go without chocolate?  Not very long apparently.