TWD - Fold Over Pear Torte

This week’s TWD recipe was chosen by my good blogging friend Gaye of Laws of the Kitchen. I was interested to see what Gaye would pick and she chose the Fold Over Pear Torte. Gaye said she chose it because there is no photo in the book and she was curious as to what it would look like. Reading through the recipe I must say it wasn’t one that I would pick first, but once it was made, it was so delicious I would definitely make it again!

I ended up making this torte on Sunday afternoon. As it would be just my husband and me eating it, I quartered the recipe and made it in a little 10cm round cake tin. Because of the size of my tin and the amount of pastry I had, my torte ended up looking like a pie. The crust is Dorie’s good for anything pie crust and it is delicious. In this case it was used to line a spring form tin and then was filled with a mixture of chopped pears, dried apricots and walnuts – I subbed flaked almonds for the walnuts. The fruit was then topped with a custard flavoured with vanilla and almond essence, the pie crust folded over the top and the torte baked.

We ate the torte warm out of the oven. It would have been wonderful with whipped cream, but we ate it with no accompaniment as we did the dishes after we put Harry to bed. Yum! Thanks Gaye for choosing something I may not have otherwise made! See what the other TWDers thought here.

TWD - Double Apple Bundt Cake

This week’s TWD recipe is Double Apple Bundt Cake and was chosen by Lynne of Honey Muffin. I made this on Saturday when we had my husband’s brother, his wife, her son and his friend staying with us. We had it for pudding after eating fresh snapper my husband had caught in the afternoon (delicious!!).

This cake was amazing. Everyone went back for seconds. It had a real apple flavour, but because it used grated apple instead of chunks of apple, it was much nicer on the palate. I must confess, I don’t know what apple butter is, which is one of the ingredients. I’ts not something we have in NZ and I can only imagine that it is a bit like lemon curd. So I did a substitution of apple jelly, using an apple jelly I had made quite a few years ago, but never used. Perhaps that was the secret ingredient to this delicious, moist cake. I drizzled over a lemon drizzle made simply with icing sugar and lemon juice. We had it with whipped cream. Perfect!

See what the other TWDers thought here.

TWD - Tarte Fine

This week’s TWD recipe is Tarte Fine and was chosen by Leslie of Lethally Delicious. In the book Dorie says that a tarte fine is also known as apple pizza in the States and it is essentially finely sliced apples baked on a flaky pastry base. This isn’t a recipe that I would have chosen to make as while I love apple pie, I love the shortcrust pastry version – but I am not really a lover of flaky pastry.

I actually made this recipe in a hurry last night. I had bought the flaky pastry in the weekend but for some reason didn’t get round to making the tart. I had bought a roll of ready rolled pastry, but then forgot to defrost it, so I ended up putting it in the microwave which I know is a huge no no when it comes to pastry, but it didn’t seem to have any real detrimental effect. I made the variation of the tart and instead of using an egg wash, I brushed the apples with melted butter and sprinkled over sugar. Even though I was sceptical as to whether I would like this tart or not, it was the perfect speedy dessert (it probably took 5 minutes in total to prepare), it was actually delicious with vanilla ice cream. See if the other TWDers enjoyed it here.

TWD - Coffee-Break Muffins

This week’s TWD recipe is Coffee Break Muffins and was chosen by Rhiani of Chocoholic Anonymous. I try to have muffins in the freezer for my husband for his lunches at all times, so it was appropriate to make these as I needed to make muffins to stock up the freezer in the weekend. The only thing is that neither my husband nor I are coffee drinkers, so I usually wouldn’t purposely make something coffee flavoured. This muffins are quite strongly coffee flavoured as well, using a cup of coffee instead of milk and also having an added tablespoon of espresso powder.

I decided to add chocolate chips to the muffins to give them a little more oomph and to perhaps add something extra to detract a little from the whole coffeeness of the muffins. While the chocolate was a great addition, I must say we were pleasantly surprised by the muffins – the coffee flavour wasn’t strong enough to put off a non coffee drinker. I would make these muffins again as they were really easy (as muffins usually are) and I imagine if I was a coffee drinker they would go well with a cup of coffee. See if the other TWDers agree here.

TWD - Cranberry Upside Downer

This week’s TWD recipe is Cranberry Upside downer and was chosen by Sabrina of Superfluous. I made this cake for pudding on Saturday night when my Mum and Dad and sister and her partner were staying. The cake was delicious and the 5 of us who ate it (Mum is gluten free) ate two helpings each, demolishing the whole cake! That in itself is testament to how good this cake is.

Cranberries are not a common berry in New Zealand and I only had some in the freezer as I had bought them last Christmas to make cranberry relish and as I was pregnant at the time, I never got round to it. You could easily substitute blueberries or raspberries for the cranberries and Dorie suggests substituting peaches. Peaches would work well, but I liked the berries as it didn’t matter how you placed them, the cake still looked good. Dorie didn’t say to line the bottom of the tin for this up-side down cake, but I did, just to make sure that it came out of the tin easily. We had this cake slightly warm with whipped cream. It was delicious and I would definitely make it again. See if the other TWDers loved it too here.

TWD - Peanutbutter Crisscrosses

This week’s TWD recipe is peanutbutter criss crosses and was chosen by jasmine of Jasmine Cuisine. This is a recipe I have been wanting to make for a while. Peanutbutter cookies, filled with salted peanuts. Yum! I made a half batch of these – I was going to make the full batch as my sister and 9 year old nephew were meant to be coming up for the weekend to visit from Christchurch, but unfortunately they were flying out on Saturday morning and the earthquake meant that they weren’t able to come. Thankfully for my family, neither my parents nor my two sisters who live there have suffered any material damage, but it has been a very scary few days.

The criss crosses on my cookies don’t really stand out, I think because I accidentally reversed the quantities of baking soda and baking powder, putting in a larger amount of baking powder than baking soda. This meant that the cookies puffed up more rather than staying flat. It made me realise how important the kind of raising agent you use is. The cookies are actually quite crispy – I imagined that they would be a bit more chewy. But they do taste delicious and I will definitely be trying the chocolate version of these as suggested by Dorie.

See what the other TWDers thought here.

TWD - Espresso Chocolate Shortbread

This week’s TWD recipe is espresso chocolate shortbread and was chosen by Donna of Life’s Too Short not to Eat Dessert. I don’t like coffee but for some reason love espresso shortbread. I have a recipe I have used for years which is just plain espresso shortbread, but I dip the rounds of shortbread in melted dark chocolate.

This recipe is similar to that although uses white sugar instead of the brown sugar my other recipe uses. This recipe also has chocolate in it, but chopped chocolate or chocolate chips throughout the biscuits rather than dipped at the end. This shortbread was delicious! The chocolate chips were great (as anything with chocolate chips is!) and the espresso gave a lovely flavour. I would definitely make these cookies again, and may have to as they lasted only just over 24 hours in my household (I did halve the recipe though!). See what the other TWders thought here.

TWD - peach tart

This weeks TWD recipe is Crunchy and Custardy Peach Tart and was chosen by Rachel of Sweet Tarte. This posting is short and sweet – a bit like the tart! The tart was very easy to put together – a peach and custard filling in a shortcrust base, topped with a little almond streusel topping. The tart was delicious. I had nothing in the fridge to serve with it (cream would have been perfect) but even unadorned it was lovely. See if the other TWDers loved it too here.

TWD - Oatmeal Breakfast Bread (muffins)

This week’s TWD recipe is Oatmeal Breakfast Bread and was chosen by Natalie of Oven Love. I actually made this recipe into muffins, as I had limited time and as loaves take a while to bake, I thought I would shortcut the time by making muffins.

This recipe is a relatively “healthy” one. It has comparatively little fat in it, moistness and flavour being created with apple sauce. I didn’t take a special trip to buy apple sauce (it’s not such a common ingredient in NZ as it seems to be in the States), but of course I do have loads of cans of baby apples in my pantry at the moment (I buy canned fruit for Harry, but cook my own everything else), so I used baby apples for the apple sauce component of the recipe. The recipe made twelve muffins – lovely muffins, full of oats, a touch of spice with a lovely walnut cinnamon crumble on top.



I would definitely recommend these as a very quick and easy to make, but delicious muffin. I am sure the loaf version would be delicious as well. See if the other TWDers agree here.

TWD - Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream

This week’s TWD recipe is Chocolate Ganache Ice –Cream and was chosen by Katrina of Baking and Boys. This ice cream was very easy to make – basically you made chocolate ganache, then made custard, combined the two, chilled and then churned in the ice cream maker. I used energy chocolate (which is about 50% cocoa butter I think) which resulted in a rather mild chocolate flavour. But the ice-cream was lovely and creamy. My in laws are staying at the moment and we had the ice-cream for pudding last night with some little banana puddings I quickly whipped up. The combination of banana and chocolate was delicious. The puddings were very easy to make and the recipe is below.

Check out the other TWDers chocolate ganache ice-cream here.

Banana Puddings (adapted from Donna Hay)

5 tbsp sugar
5 tbsp maple syrup
1 c self raising flour
2 eggs
2 mashed bananas
100g butter, melted

• Combine all ingredients in a bowl
• Spoon into four greased ramekins and bake at 170c for 25-30 minutes or until cooked through

TWD - Gingered Carrot Cookies

This week’s TWD recipe is gingered carrot cookies and was chosen by Natalia of Gatti Fili e Farina. These are very interesting cookies – Dorie describes them as being almost scone like, but I am not so sure and wonder whether that description gets lost in translation between American and English definitions of scones, biscuits and cookies!

I halved the cookie mixture, but still used one full egg. The cookies turn out to be knobbly little things – they don’t really taste carroty (but then neither does carrot cake). I also didn’t find the ginger flavour that pronounced. I also left out the raisins as I don’t like raisins. The thing I likes best about them was the pecan nuts. I love pecan nuts and find they make a great addition to lots of things (in fact I added the leftover pecans with cumin seeds, currants and diced preserved limes to cous cous we had for dinner with roasted salmon – they made a delicious addition). I wouldn’t make these cookies again. Even though they tasted ok, they don’t look great and I am not sure that they will keep so well. See what the other TWDers thought here.

TWD - Chewy Chunky Blondie

This week’s TWD recipe is chewy chunky blondies and was chosen by Nicole of Cookies on Fridays. I think of blondies being brownies made with white chocolate, but these blondies were rich, fudgey bars with delicious add ins in the form of chocolate, walnuts and toffee pieces – no white chocolate in sight.

I loved this recipe as it was easy to make and had great taste results. I halved the recipe and made it in a 20cm square tin. Next time I would make the whole recipe though as the blondies are so delicious. They were almost like a soft chocolate chunk cookie made in a tin. The add ins of dark chocolate, walnuts and toffee bits were delicious. You cant get Heath’s toffee pieces in NZ, so I smashed up some werther original toffees which have the same effect. The recipe also called for coconut – I actually left that out, as even though I like coconut, I think it would have detracted from the other flavours.

The blondies were delicious – I would definitely make these again. Check out the other TWD links here.

TWD rewind - Brrrownies

Last week’s TWD recipe was Brrrrownies – the extra “rrrr”s in the word brownies, referring to the fact that the brownies have chunks of peppermint patties in them and have that “brrrr” flavour to them that peppermint things tend to have. We don’t have peppermint patties in NZ and I was curious to know what would be the next best thing. I googled images of peppermint patties and also asked a friend who has spent quite a bit of time in the states – it seems that the closest thing to peppermint patties would be after dinner mints, so I bought a packet and started baking.

The brownie recipe is a straight forward one and made a lovely rich, fudgey brownie. The addition of after dinner mints (in my case) is inspired! I chopped the mints in half and folded them into the brownie mixture which resulted in the mints melting into the brownie leaving the occasional glimpse of white. I loved these brownies – the mint flavour was enough to make the brownies have a very fresh taste which was welcoming against the richness of the chocolate brownie. I cut the brownie into smallish pieces, freezing most of it, but I have to be honest and say that the brownie also tasted very good frozen and it didn’t last long in our house (in fact I think it was less than 24 hours!)

The only thing holding me back from making these time and time again is the cost of after dinner mints – I used a whole box and a box costs over $6. By the time you add in the cost of the chocolate for the brownie mixture and then the other ingredients you are looking at somewhere around $10 which is ok for a pudding you may take somewhere, but a bit expensive for an everyday piece of baking to have in the tins. You should try them though – you can find the recipe here.

TWD - shortcake rewind

I haven’t made this week’s TWD recipe yet – we were in Chch for a few days visiting my family and the time just got away on me. But last week before we left I did do a TWD rewind, making these tender shortcakes. These are very light, flaky almost scone like shortcakes which were split in half when cooled, filled with whipped cream and in my case, jam. The recipe in the book showed fresh berries with the shortcakes, but being the middle of winter in NZ at the moment, fresh berries are not that easy to find! My version is a take on scones with jam and whipped cream.

As usual, I scaled the recipe back to make a half batch which was three rather large shortcakes. My husband and I shared one for pudding and he had the other two the next day. I added a little cinnamon to the basic mix which made the shortcakes slightly fragrant. These shortcakes were quick and easy, but delicious and I would definitely make them again. You can find the recipe here.

TWD - Tarte Noire

This week’s TWD recipe is tarte noire and was chosen by Dharmagirl of Bliss. Tarte noire is a simple chocolate tart – a shortcrust base filled with a rich chocolate ganache. I chose to make my shortcrust base chocolate as well, making this tart truly noire!

I wanted to only make enough tart for my husband and I, so while I made the full amount of pastry, I froze about 2/3 of it and used the remainder to line two small tart tins. I divided the ganache mixture into about ¼. Dorie said to choose a chocolate that you like the flavour of as that is what the tart filling would end up tasting like. I chose good old energy chocolate which is a very milk dark chocolate. I quite like dark chocolate, but find the 70% stuff just a little bitter for my tastes. The energy chocolate is about 50% I think and it made a very pleasing, smooth ganache.

We ate our tarts for pudding on Saturday night, having them with natural yoghurt which tempered the richness a little. This is a simple way of making an elegant tart. See what the other TWDers thought here.

TWD - Lime Drenched Loaf Cake

This week’s TWD recipe is rum drenched vanilla loaf cakes and was chosen by Wendy of Pink Stripes (one of my favourite bloggers). I don’t like rum at all, so I decided to make a variation of one of the suggested variations – I made lime drenched vanilla loaf cakes. Actually, I made a loaf cake, singular. I only have one loaf pan and only needed one cake so I easily halved the recipe to make just one loaf.
This was an interesting recipe as the liquid ingredient was cream. I didn’t have any cream and forgot to get some on the way home from work, so instead just used milk, which worked just as well. The recipe called for a vanilla bean instead of vanilla extract – I used some vanilla sugar that I always have on hand. I have a jar that I throw any used vanilla pods into and keep topping it up with sugar. The sugar is beautifully infused with vanilla fragrance. The flavouring of choice (in my case lime juice) was also added to the cake mix.
Once the cake came out of the oven, a cooled syrup (in my case lime syrup) was poured over the cake. We ate a slice of loaf each while it was still fairly warm and delicious. It was incredibly moist and the vanilla and lime flavours worked so well together – I think lime goes with vanilla even better than lemon does, as limes have quite a floral undertone. I am sure that the loaf keeps well, but ours didn’t get the chance, as we ate the whole loaf the next day. This would have to be one of my favourite TWD recipes. See what the others thought here.

TWD - Dressy Chocolate Loaf Cake

It’s been a while, but at long last here is a TWD post! This week’s recipe is dressy chocolate loaf cake and was chosen by Amy of Amy Ruth Bakes. I was looking forward to making this recipe as I thought it may have been reminiscent of both the chocolate banana loaf which was a TWD recipe and was perhaps one of my favourite TWD recipes, and also a chocolate loaf cake in Nigella Lawson’s book, Feast, which is just divine. Unfortunately, I didn’t really think that this loaf cake was as good as either of those recipes.


I halved the recipe for the loaf cake to make 6 mini loaves and they may have been my mistake. No-one else probably noticed, but to me they were too cakey and not dense enough – I think I was after something a bit more fudgey. The dressy part of the recipe is that the loaf cake was then split into three, filled with cherry jam, re-assembled and then covered in a chocolate and sour cream glaze. To be honest, the highlight for me was the glaze – I loved how glossy the sour cream made the chocolate and even though I had slightly over heated my chocolate, I kept stirring like Dorie said to and the glaze came together beautifully. I also liked how the sour cream made a slightly less rich topping than usual ganache.
This cake was nice, but I don’t think it had any WOW factor. See what the other TWDers thought here.

Catching up With Dorie - ALmost Fudge Gateau

In the last four months while I havent been blogging, I have still been doing most of the TWD challenges each week. However, I haven’t been completely on to it and have about 12 recipes I need to try as a catch up. There are also about 5 recipes that were baked before I became a TWD member that I have to catch up on. This recipe, Almost Fudge Gateau, is one of those.

My sister was staying with us in the weekend and I made the almost fudge gateau for our pudding on Saturday night. I halved the recipe, and made two 10cm gateaux and there was enough mixture left to fill 6 cupcake cases. The gateau is very light and simple to make. It is almost like a soufflé cake, as you fold in beaten egg whites to lighten the mixture, and the cakes puffed up then deflated upon cooling. There was an optional ganache to go on top of the cakes. I didn’t make that on Saturday night, instead serving our gateaux with whipped cream, but yesterday I made a little ganache for this week’s TWD challenge and put some of it on top of one of the cupcake size gateaux – delicious!!



Almost-Fudge Gateau
Ingredients:
For the cake:
5 large eggs
9 oz. bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 cup sugar
5 tbsp. unsalted butter, cut into chunks
2 tbsp. coffee or water
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
pinch of salt
For the glaze:
4 oz. bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tsp. light corn syrup
Directions:
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9-inch springform pan, line the bottom with parchment paper, butter the paper, dust the inside of the pan with flour and tap out the excess. Place the pan on a baking sheet.
Separate the eggs, putting the whites in a mixer bowl or other large bowl and the yolks in a small bowl.
Set a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and add the chocolate, sugar, butter and coffee. Stir occasionally until the chocolate and butter are melted; the sugar may still be grainy – that is fine. Transfer the bowl to the counter and let the mixture sit for 3 minutes. Using a rubber spatula, stir in the yolks one by one, then fold in the flour. Working with the whisk attachment of the mixer, beat the egg whites with the pinch of salt until they hold firm but glossy peaks. Using the spatula, stir about one quarter of the beaten whites in to the batter, then gently fold in the rest. Scrape the batter into the pan and jiggle the pan from side to side a couple of times to even the batter.
Bake for 35-45 minutes, or until the cake has risen evenly (it might rise around the edges and you’ll think it’s done, but give it a few minutes more, and the center will puff too) and the top has firmed (it will probably be cracked) and doesn’t shimmy when tapped; a thin knife inserted into the center should come out just slightly streaked with chocolate. Transfer the pan to a cooling rack and let the cake rest for 5 to 10 minutes.
Run a blunt knife gently around the edges of the cake and remove the sides of the pan. Carefully turn the cake over onto a rack and remove the pan bottom and the parchment paper. Invert the cake onto another rack and cool to room temperature right side up. As the cake cools, it may sink.
To make the glaze, turn the cooled cake onto another rack so you’ll be glazing the flat bottom, and place the rack over a baking sheet lined with parchment or wax paper to catch any drips.
Put the chocolate in a small heatproof bowl. Melt the chocolate over a pan of simmering water or in a microwave oven – the chocolate should be just melted and only warm, not hot. Meanwhile, bring the cream to a boil in a small saucepan. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and stir very gently with a rubber spatula until the mixture is smooth and shiny. Stir in the corn syrup.
Pour the glaze over the cake and smooth the top with a long metal icing spatula. Don’t worry if the glaze drips unevenly down the sides of the cake, it will add to its charm. Allow the glaze to set at room temperature, or slip the cake into the refrigerator for about 20 minutes.

TWD - Mrs Vogel's Scherben

This week’s TWD recipe is Mrs Vogel’s Scherben and was chosen by Teanna of Spork or Foon. I have to confess, looking through the whole Baking from my Home to Yours book, this recipe is probably the last recipe I would pick to make – mainly because the cookies are deep fried. And, in fact, I was very close to not making these until I read that others had brushed the dough with oil and baked in a hot oven. I decided to do that too.

I halved the recipe to make just enough scherben to taste. They are almost like strips of unsweetened shortcrust pastry, dusted with cinnamon sugar and icing sugar at the end. My husband and I ate one each, but I threw the rest out as they are the kind of thing that even though you don’t really like them, they are strangely compelling to eat. I wont be making these again, but am still happy that I didn’t decide to completely give them a miss.

See what the other TWDers thought here.

TWD - holiday catch up

Well, not only have I been a slack blogger over the Christmas break, I have also been a slack baker! It has been a busy but relaxing Christmas period and I have been doing lots of reading and resting, quite focussed on the arrival of our wee one, and not so much baking.

I did do the last two TWD recipes. I made the low and luscious chocolate cheesecake for Christmas day. It made the perfect accompaniment to the other puddings I made which were individual pavlovas, red and green jellies, strawberry trifle and lots of fresh strawberries. The cheesecake was very rich and made a rather large cheesecake, but with 11 of us for Christmas, we ate the whole thing over a couple of days. I actually made the base with arnotts rice biscuits to make it gluten free so my Mum could eat it too.



I have to confess I only made the cocoa buttemilk birthday cake yesterday afternoon and my husband and I had a small piece each as a last holiday treat. The cake was baked for the second anniversary of TWD – we could choose between the cake and tarte tatin. Tarte tatin is not one of my favourite puddings, so I opted for the cake. I actually halved the recipe and made the cake in little oval tins. Half the recipe still made a rather substantial cake.

I didn’t fill the cake with the buttercream Dorie suggested, but simply filled it with whipped cream flavoured with icing sugar and vanilla. Dorie is right, this is a great cake! It’s denser than a sponge, but still light enough to taste fabulous with whipped cream. I will definitely be making this cake again.

You can see what the other TWDers thought of this recipe here.