When I tell you it has been HOT outside I mean it’s been HOT outside. The heat index has been in the low 100 degrees for the last two weeks. And the rain keeps going around us. I don’t remember it EVER being this hot at this time of the year for so long. And I’m 70+ years old!
I am sure the ice cream companies have been selling a lot of the cold stuff. I was glad I made the coffee cake as my first TWD choice two weeks ago because Dorie’s S’Mores Ice Cream Cake has been real popular for the last two weeks. I wish it had lasted longer.
This cake is layers of three types of ice cream (Chocolate Chip, Vanilla, and Oreo Cookie), fudge sauce, and Peanut Butter Fluff filling. There is a graham cracker crust on the bottom and toasted marshmallows on the top. I had to pull out my little torch for this one.
It does take a long time to put together because it has be frozen between putting the layers together. And then it has to freeze for about 6 hours. But, believe me, it is worth it!
With the heat I bet a lot of the bakers with TWD made the ice cream cake. You can check them out HERE
June was just not a baking month for me. So trying to get back into it for July. Starting with Dorie’s Crumb-Topped Ricotta Coffee Cake. It is not real sweet and that is perfect. The blueberries added a little tartness and the crumb topping…oh that crumb topping…adds just the right amount of sweet crunch
It came together very quickly once the crumb topping had been chilled for a while. The addition of the brown sugar to the topping and the cornmeal is what makes it different from other crumb toppings. It was my favorite part of the cake. I even saved some to sprinkle over some ice cream.
And the cake was great with ice cream melted on top.
It has been a slow baking month for Tea and Scones. It has just been to hot to cook. With Highs in the lower 100s and Heat Indices in the 105 area turning on the oven just did not seem like a good idea. Unless I wanted to bake really early in the morning. THAT wasn’t going to happen!
We finally had rain today and the temps dropped. Seemed like a good evening to bake. And it seemed a good idea to start back baking with Dorie’s Cornmeal Buttermilk Loaf Cake, with or without berries.
Instead of the loaf I used Dorie’s idea of a skillet cake. Same ingredients. Shorter baking time.
B is a big fan of cornbread. Sweet cornbread. So I figured he would like this cake.
I used Strawberries on his half …
…and blueberries on my half.
This was very good. Not real sweet. I topped with vanilla ice cream or sweet whipped cream.
The recipe is on page 264 of Dorie Greenspan’s Everyday Dorie.
If you need a simple but tasty cake this might be the one for you. It has a light maple flavor in the cake and more in the maple cream frosting. The cake has brown sugar which seems to heighten the maple flavor and the simple cream and maple ‘frosting’ means it is not a heavy cake at all.
The recipe is from Donna Hay’s off the shelf (page 176) which has so more wonderful recipes I want to try.
Check out Gayle and Kayte for their WWDH dishes this week.
As is true with TWD now we have two choices during the month from Baking with Dorie and the choice of what date we make and post which. I didn’t quite make it for the first posting in March but was determined to make the second posting. After all, what is better than a bundt cake. And not just any bundt cake but Dorie’s Swirled, Spiced Source Cream Bundt Cake.
Dorie said she tweaked her original sour cream bundt and added whole wheat flour, brown sugar and cinnamon. She also added more allspice. What she did was make her cake even BETTAH!
I didn’t swirl the cake as much as I should and I didn’t have quite enough nuts but it was still tasty. Nuts and chocolate! How can you go wrong with that?
Eventually I will make the the Glenorchy Flapjacks. They sound delicious.
Tonight is the night of the monthly church supper. It is a perfect night to bake and share Donna Hay’s Pound Cake. And it is the most basic pound cake recipe ever.
All the typical ingredients. 12 oz butter, 1.5 cups of sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, 6 eggs, 3 cups AP flour and 1 Tbl baking powder.
Simply whip the butter and the sugar. Add the vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time. Sift the flour and baking powder and then FOLD the dry into the wet. Does it get any easier than that? I didn’t think so.
I added a cup of coconut with the flour mix and topped the cake with a simple coconut and powdered sugar glaze. The glaze added a bunch of coconut flavor.
My only regret is baking it in a square pan, as Donna listed, instead of a bundt pan. Ah, well. Next time.
You can also make it plain, with poppyseeds, with orange zest or lemon zest for different flavors. Each one is a simple cake to make.
The recipe is on page 158 of Donna’s The New Cook. Lots of great recipes in this one.
Ah, the Bakewell tart. Essentially British in nature. Delicious in person. It first appeared in British cookbooks sometime in the early to mid 1800s – no one is quite sure of the actual date. Is it a pudding or is it a tart. It all depends on who you read and your perspective.
Whatever it is it is quite tasty.
I have made this tart before. I used to belong to a group called the Daring Bakers and they really took me out of the box with my baking. I had just started with TWD and was in a baking frenzy with several groups. Looking at the DB recipe HERE I see it is quite different. Dorie’s is so much easier.
I used Muscadine jelly I was gifted some time back. W don’t eat a lot of jam and jelly so I had a whole collection to choose from – Mayhaw, muscadine, apple, FROG (not what you are thinking…).
I figured the muscadine would have the most flavor and combine well with the almond.
I was not disappointed in Dorie’s Bakewell. It is light and full of almond flavor. A crust on the bottom. Jam in the middle and sponge on top. How can you possibly go wrong with that?
The recipe is on page 208 of Dorie Greenspan’s Baking with Dorie: sweet, salty, and simple. It is her wonderful new baking book and I look forward to baking my way through it with the talented bakers of Tuesdays with Dorie. You can see how their tarts and the Grain and Seed muffins (the other January recipe) came out HERE.
You should join in the baking fun. Lots of great bakers. Tons of great recipes.
A whole new year as begun. 2022. Fingers crossed it is a good year for everyone.
And it is time to start eating healthy again. I have been neglectful since Thanksgiving. Too long to neglect my health. I am going back to KETO which has been my friend off and on for the last year to so. It is easy to stick to and the food is often delicious. Especially since it is all made at home with fresh ingredients and NO sugar. No processed food. No starch, etc.
So, this week I decided to start the year off right with Ellie’s Autumn Vegetable Curry. Delicious!!
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
4 cloves garlic, peeled
1 1Â 1/2-inch length fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
1Â 1/2Â 2 tablespoons yellow curry powder
1/4Â teaspoon cayenne pepper, plus more to taste
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 tablespoons tomato paste
3 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
1 cup light coconut milk
1 cinnamon stick
1/4Â teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste
1/2 head cauliflower, broken into 1½-inch-wide florets (about 3 cups)
2 cups broccoli florets
1 pound medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
2 large carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch rounds
2 tomatoes, cored and chopped
Grated zest of 1 lime
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 15-ounce can no-salt-added chickpeas, drained and rinsed
5 cups fresh baby spinach leaves
3/4Â teaspoon salt
1/4Â cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves
3 cups cooked brown rice, for serving, optional
Directions
Place the onion, garlic, ginger, curry powder, and cayenne pepper in a food processor and process to combine. Add the oil and process until a smooth puree is formed. Transfer the curry puree to a large pot and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, about 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring frequently, until the mixture begins to darken, about 5 minutes more.
Add the vegetable broth, coconut milk, cinnamon stick and ¼ teaspoon black pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the cauliflower, sweet potatoes, carrots, and tomatoes, season with salt and pepper, and return to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium low, cover, and simmer until the vegetables are tender, about 25 minutes. Remove the cinnamon stick. Stir in the lime zest and juice, chickpeas, and spinach and cook until the spinach is wilted, about 5 minutes. Season with up to ¾ teaspoon salt.
Garnish with cilantro and serve with rice.
Cook time is about 30 minutes.
You can see that I left out some ingredients. Some of them simply because they aren’t keto friendly. I did leave in the sweet potato but decreased the amount. A little of it was needed for the taste of the stew. I also increased the amount of broth to use it more as a soup rather than a stew. It was just spicy enough to warm you up on a winters day.
The recipe is HERE if you want to see it in the original form and in Ellie’s comfort food fix (page 208).
Check with
Kayte, Peggy, and Gaye or their first Eating with Ellie post for 2022.
If you would like to join in, just leave a link to your post in any of the comment sections of the participants and we will come and see what you made.
The beginning of a whole new year. And I find myself asking what happened to the last one. It seemed to have passed so quickly. But, that seems to be the way it is as one grows older. Quick!
But the new year does mean a new beginning and mine is to get back to healthy eating. KETO to be exact. Donna Hay’s classsic baked lemon cheesecake was adaptable to KETO with very little problem.
B has been asking for something sweet. He loves lemon and I love cheesecake. Perfect.
Just a hint of lemon flavor. There is lemon zest in the filling and I increased it.
The adapting I did was in the base or crust. I used a cheesecake crust that I use for all my cheesecakes now.
Mix these ingredients will and press into a 9″ springform pan.
The filling is all Donna Hay – except for the sugar. By replacing the sugar with erythritol I made this KETO friendly.
1 1/4 lb cream cheese
3/4 cup sour cream
6 eggs
1 Tbl grated lemon zest. I used 1 1/2 TBL
1 cup sugar erythritol (and I added a tad more)
In a food processor mix together the cream cheese, sour cream, and erythritol. Mix until smooth. Add in the eggs and lemon zest and blend until well combined. Pour the filling into the crust. Bake for 1 hour at 275. Allow to cool before serving.
It took longer than 1 hour to bake. About 75 minutes total.
It had a delightful mild lemon flavor. I might add more zest and maybe a little lemon extract next time.
The original recipe is in Donna’s flavours cookbook (page 50)
This week some of the bakers at Tuesdays with Dorie made an pandowdy. What is a Pandowdy? It is a pie with just a top crust. And the top crust is usually made with odd shapes/pieces of dough. Which means it is an easy pie to make because you don’t really have to roll out that perfect circle of dough to put on top of the pie. I LOVE that!! While I can make a good crust (usually one of Dorie’s) I can never seem to get it on to the pie just right.
While many bakers choose to use rectangles or triangles I wanted something pretty as it was going to church for our after service treat. I found a small flower cookie cutter and used that to make lots of flowers for the top. It was then brushed with milk (as per instructions) and I sprinkled the top with demerara sugar which gives the top of the pie a pretty texture and shine.
I like apple pie and this was the first time I had made one as a pandowdy. I may just make all my apple pies this way from now on.
I did use a mixture of apples (Ambrosia and Sweet Tango) along with some pears I had canned earlier in the year. There was nothing left after the social hour at church. You may think that is odd but there are only 12 people in our little church and there was another dessert (with lots left).
While I liked the pandowdy I thought it was TOO lemony and I really couldn’t taste the apples. I would rather do it with cinnamon and cardamom. But they like it and that was all that mattered.
The recipe is on page 257 of Dorie Greenspan’s new (and inviting) book – Baking with Dorie : Sweet, Salty and Simple. We are not publishing the recipes as we did with Baking from my Home to Yours. You will just have to purchase her book and join us every other Tuesday.
We had a choice of making the pandowdy or English Muffins.
You can see how the muffins or the pandowdys turned out HERE.
Tea and Scones 