Chocolate Coconut Pudding

Until I began baking with the original Tuesdays With Dorie baking group, I'd never made pudding from scratch.  Box mixes are very easy and tasty enough.  In the last few years, however, we TWD bakers have tackled homemade pudding on a couple of occasions: split level (vanilla) pudding, and real butterscotch pudding (not to mention flan, creme brulee, cup custard, pots de creme, and various bread puddings - all of these, plus a few non-Dorie offerings, can be found by clicking on my blog's pudding tag).

Dorie has a specific method to her pudding recipes, not difficult by any means, but there are several steps.  The ingredients go in and out of a saucepan and a food processor.  It might seem just a bit... unnecessary, and I know other bakers have taken shortcuts with Dorie's puddings, and proclaimed the results fine.  In the past I've tried it both ways, and I found that following each of the steps produces a smoother, creamier pudding.

The recipe for Chocolate Pudding was chosen shortly before I joined Tuesdays With Dorie in July 2008.  As I have worked my way through the recipes I missed from Dorie Greenspan's book, Baking From My Home to Yours, I knew that the pudding was coming up and I figured it would be a cinch that I'd like it.  This week I got a chance to see.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- Dorie has posted the recipe for her chocolate pudding on her own blog.

-  I was running low on milk, so I used half whole milk and half coconut milk.  If you wanted to make it non-dairy (and you like coconut) you could use all coconut milk.

- After mixing the ingredients in the food processor, when I poured the liquid back into the saucepan it was quite frothy.  It settled a bit as the pudding thickened, and then smoothed out beautifully in its final trip through the food processor.

- I could have boosted the coconut flavor by topping my pudding with toasted dried coconut, but I opted for chocolate-covered cocoa nibs instead.

the verdict:

This pudding was smooth and rich, the best chocolate pudding imaginable.  I liked the little hint of coconut, but I'd love it made with all regular milk also.  The pudding would still be delicious if you didn't follow all the food processor steps, but it wouldn't reach the creamy, dreamy perfection that Dorie's method produces.

Caramel Topped Flan

Flan was on the menu four years ago this week for the Tuesdays With Dorie bakers, and it was on my menu in my quest to bake all the TWD recipes that were baked before I joined the group.  Flan is one of those order-at-a-restaurant treats for my family, and I was interested to see how it would work in my kitchen.

Dorie's recipe for Caramel Topped Flan is one of those mysterious recipes: you put everything in the baking dish and bake the flan and when you unmold it you have a lovely custard which through the magic of baking ends up covered in a delightful caramel sauce formed from the ingredients you put in the bottom of the flan dish.  Of course, as will all upside-down desserts, you never really know how it's going to turn out until it comes out of the pan!

n.o.e.'s notes:

-  Steph, of A Whisk and a Spoon has the recipe here:

-  I made a half-recipe of flan in a 6" round cake pan.

-  The first step in this recipe is to make caramel which is then spread - evenly, Dorie emphasizes - into the bottom of the cake pan.  My caramel kept pulling away from the edges of the pan; you can see from the picture above how that ended up looking.

-  Next, I mixed the custard, poured it into the pan, then baked it in a water bath in the oven until the custard was set.

-  The final step was unmolding the flan, flipping it onto a serving plate, leaving room for the caramel sauce to run down and pool around the edges of the flan. I was a little concerned that the magic wouldn't work, but the flan turned out perfectly. 

 the verdict:

This flan was every bit as tasty, and tastier even, than the versions that we order when we eat out.  We savored every spoonful.  Who knew that making fabulous flan at home could be so easy?

Meyer Lemon Pudding

Although I love most any kind of fruit, citrus is my very favorite fruit family.  It is in season over the winter, and through the miracles of modern transportation, rays of citrusy brightness shine into cold, dreary, dark days everywhere.  As a celebration of all things citrus, Di, of Di's Kitchen Notebook is sponsoring a (Late) Winter Blog Event - Citrus Sunday, inviting her fellow bloggers to prepare a citrus dish and link to it on her site. 

I had found some lovely Meyer Lemons at the store and looked around for a dish that would spotlight this sweet, mellow variety of lemon.  I settled on Meyer Lemon Pudding, perfect cheery comfort food for the chilly, gray weather we were having.

n.o.e.'s notes:

-  I found the recipe on this blog post; it's from a book called Luscious Lemon Desserts.

-  The recipe called for 3 egg yolks, but used 4 egg yolks because the ones from the Jumbo eggs still looked pretty small to me.  I was in California when I made this recipe and it seems true that egg yolks in the western US are smaller than those in the east.

-  I didn't read the recipe and put the lemon juice in the saucepan along with the milk, eggs, sugar, and zest (it was supposed to be added later).  I realized my mistake right away and was nervous that the lemon would curdle the dairy, but I'm happy to report that it turned out fine!

-  I reduced the amount of sugar to 2/3 cup, wanted to retain some tartness of the lemon.

the verdict:

We enjoyed this lovely version of lemon pudding, finding it subtle but unmistakably lemony.  We loved that it was rich and creamy and not too sweet.  The pudding was also a good keeper; we enjoyed it for dessert each evening for several days, plain and dotted with fresh berries.

You can join the fun of the Citrus Blog Event - check out all of the linked recipes or post one on your own site and add your link (until March 25, 2012).

{TWD} Caramel Pots de Creme

It has been one day short of three months since we made Chocolate Pots de Creme for the Tuesdays With Dorie baking group. I must have been living under some sort of rock, because until that time pots de creme had been totally under my radar. After discovering the magic of pots de creme, however, I embarked, along with my partner-in-creme, daughter JDE, on a quest to try as many flavors of this creamy dessert as possible. And in the past few weeks, despite four out-of-town trips and weekly baking for TWD, we managed to try - and enjoy - two other pots de creme recipes (which will make an appearance in this space in due time.)

And that brings us to the excitement that is this week's Tuesdays With Dorie selection: Caramel Pots de Creme - an opportunity to try yet another flavor of luscious rich custardy heaven, while simultaneously crossing off another in the dwindling list of unbaked recipes in Dorie Greenspan's delightful book Baking: From My Home to Yours.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- This recipe calls for a couple of previously-tricky steps that I can now tackle with relative ease, although I'm not above holding my breath when making caramel, and I always, always keep a bowl of ice water on hand in case of molten sugar contact. That stuff burns wickedly.

- Some of the sugar in the recipe is caramelized and some is reserved in granulated form to be added to the eggs. I used golden palm sugar, which has a naturally caramel-like flavor, for the reserved sugar, and white sugar for making the caramel.

- Too late I realized that I should have added a pinch of salt to the recipe.

- I lowered the baking temperature to 285 degrees, and took the pots out of the oven in 33 minutes' time.

- The technique of sealing the pots + roasting pan they bake in with plastic wrap is very useful to know. The wrap doesn't melt at those low temperatures, and you can see through the plastic to check the jiggliness of the custard without uncovering it.

the verdict:

A full recipe of pots de creme is always welcome at our house, and this flavor variation was no exception. Eight teacups split between two people makes for a very nice math problem indeed!

These pots de cream were not quite as unctuous as others I've made. They were a tiny bit spongy when warm from the oven, and while they compacted when chilled, they didn't have the silkiness of the chocolate pots de creme we made in March. The flavor was excellent, however; a subtle, but unmistakeable smokiness of caramel in each creamy, rich spoonful.

Buttermilk Pie for Pi Day

Happy Pi Day! While every day is a food holiday of some sort, one of the very best is Pie/Pi Day, March 14. Get it? Pi, in its most significant digits, is 3.14 so each year 3/14 is the day we punnily celebrate Pi Day with pie!

For this special pie occasion I chose a pie that I've been wanting to try for a long time, Buttermilk Pie, which is an American classic.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- The recipe is from One Big Table by Molly O'Neill. This cookbook is packed full of terrific regional dishes from all across the US. I have enjoyed the things I've made from the cookbook and was excited to try another recipe.

- I made a mini pie in 7 pie shell. For the crust I used half a recipe of the Cook's Illustrated Foolproof Pie Dough, which I posted here.

- For the buttermilk filling I used a heaping 1/3 recipe. I've included the recipe, as I adapted it to a mini, below.

- I watched this pie carefully as it was in the oven, and let it bake until the filling was just set. The pie had the most perfect creamy texture, and the top was just turning golden brown.

- To get the recipe's full effect, I made the blackberry sauce but instead of the liqueur in the recipe I used lemon juice to thin the preserves.

the verdict:

I brought this pie to my book group - and was lucky to get a picture before our meeting because it was totally gone by the end of the evening. The pie made quite a stir. One comment: "Oh. THIS is good." The pie was creamy and sweet with just a slight tang from the buttermilk. The tart fruitiness of the blackberry sauce provided the perfect complement to the pie.

the recipe:

Barbara J. Duke's Buttermilk Pie with Blackberry Sauce,
Montgomery, Alabama, adapted from One Big Table by Molly O'Neill
Makes one 7" pie (serves 3-4)

For the Crust:
one half recipe of pie crust for single crust pie - I used the Cook's Illustrated Foolproof Pie Dough

For the Pie Filling:
1 jumbo egg, (61g without shell)
1/3 cup sugar
1 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
3 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
3 ounces buttermilk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For the Sauce:
1/4 cup highest-quality seedless blackberry preserves
2 teaspoons Chambord liqueur (I used lemon juice)

1. To make the pie: Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Roll out and fit the crust into a 7" pie pan. Beat the eggs slightly in a large bowl. Combine the sugar and flour, add to the eggs, and continue beating until creamy, about 3 minutes. Add the butter and mix well. Add the buttermilk and vanilla and beat well to combine. Pour into the pie shell and bake for 25 minutes or until the custard is set. Cool on a rack.

2. While the pie is baking, make the sauce: Put the preserves in a saucepan and warm on medium heat, stirring constantly with a whisk until smooth. Remove from the heat and stir in the Chambord or lemon juice.

3. Cool to lukewarm and serve over the pie.

{TWD} Chocolate Pots de Creme

It's a testament to the depth and quality of Dorie Greenspan's book Baking; From My Home to Yours that even after three-plus years of the Tuesdays With Dorie baking group, the final 50 remaining recipes include an array of interesting, unusual, and also classic, choices for the group to make. Case in point is this week's assignment, the Chocolate Pots de Creme, a wonderfully elegant French nod to chocolate pudding.

I'm not sure I've ever tasted pots de creme, but I've certainly enjoyed my fair share of pudding, so a fancy-sounding French version seemed quite enticing. I'd make them in my glass ramekins. And then I looked at this week's P&Q post. The first comment, from Becky O., gave a link for purchasing specialized pots to make pots de creme. Once I clicking on that link I was smitten with the little pots, with their adorable little lids, and with their matching saucers. I had no idea such cuteness in baking dishes existed. Although I managed to resist purchasing any unitasking dessert bakeware, seeing the array of pots de creme sets kind of ruined me for making this dish in my everyday ramekins!

n.o.e.'s notes:

- Christine of BlackCatCooking chose this week's recipe. If you'd like the recipe for the pots de creme, click over to her post to find it.

- The hardest part of this recipe was figuring out what in my kitchen would be a decent substitute for the adorable pots de creme pots. I pulled out a couple of small pitchers and some tiny saucers that could serve as lids. Then I spied it: my little sugar bowl was just the right size and nearly the right shape. It didn't have a sweet floral print but it did have its own lid!

- I made half a recipe and decided this dessert was worthy of the good chocolate, so I pulled out some 62% Schaffen Berg dark chocolate.

- Back in the early days of TWD the fact that this recipe entailed tempering eggs would have sent me into a tailspin. But after making custards, ice cream bases, creme anglaises, etc., I've gotten quite used to add hot liquid to eggs without scrambling them.

- As I was portioning the liquid among my four assorted pots, I sampled a little spoonful. It tasted more creme-ish than chocolate-ish, and I wondered if I should have used darker chocolate, or more chocolate. But it was too late to change anything, so into the oven the little pots went, in their water bath, or bain marie, as the French would call it.

- My pots were baked in about 30 minutes.

- I served the pots plain so that we could assess/appreciate the chocolate flavor.

the verdict:

Based on my pre-baking sneak taste, I was not expecting great things from my pots de creme. But baking and chilling magically transformed the custard into a creamy version of milk chocolate heaven. The rich creaminess of the pots put chocolate pudding to shame.

My daughter JDE loved the pots de creme as much as I did. "These are soooooo good," she said, "I'm going to dream about them! Let's make every flavor of pots de creme." I think we might start with vanilla bean. And maybe this will be my signature dessert, and I can justify a little purchase of pots de creme pots...

{TWD} Bourbon Bread Pudding

In the past couple of years of blogging about baked goods, I've learned a few things about bread pudding. One, people either love it or despise it. Two, most people fall in the "despise it" camp. It's either too eggy, or too soggy, or both. Three, the people who despise bread pudding are pretty much never going to change their opinion to a positive one.

And here's a fourth thing I've learned: it nearly impossible to photograph bread pudding so that it looks appetizing, even to those who do like it, but especially to those who don't.

We like bread pudding, a lot actually, so I was happy to make this week's Tuesdays With Dorie recipe, Bourbon Bread Pudding. When I was finished, it didn't look very pretty - bread puddings are never going to win any beauty contests. Because I was seriously short on daylight, and it was time for us to eat the bread pudding, I didn't garnish or decorate before snapping the picture. It might have helped the looks of the pudding but I doubt it would have won over any hearts and minds to the pro-bread pudding camp.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- Sharon of the blog Simply Southern chose the bread pudding this week, and you can click over to her blog post to find the recipe.

- I made a quarter recipe in two individual ramekins. The ingredients divided quite easily except for the eggs - I needed 1 egg + 1 yolk. I solved the problem by using a huge duck egg (75 grams) from my farm box. Duck eggs tend to have very large yolks in relation to the amount of egg white, so I figured it would be perfect.

- My fridge had a perfect-in-size (2 ounce) piece of slightly old Milk Loaf. I further "staled" it in the oven, following Dorie's instructions. while the bread is getting stale and dry in the oven, it's quick business to make the custard, Then the custard is poured over the staled bread and the assembled puddings rest on the counter for an hour before baking, to allow the bread to soak up the liquid. That seemed like a very long time for my puddings; the bread got very soft as it soaked.

- There was only 1 teaspoon of bourbon in my quarter recipe. I gave the custard a tiny taste as I was mixing it up, and the bourbon was barely detectable, so I took a little chance and doubled the amount of bourbon.

the verdict:

We ate these puddings warm from the oven, and they were a welcome finish to a winter meal. They were not, however, my favorite bread pudding. The cubes of milk loaf nearly dissolved in the soaking and baking process, so the puddings turned out a little spongy. I prefer a more pronounced difference between the bread and the custard. If I were to use milk loaf again, I'd soak for a much shorter time before baking the pudding.

The flavor of the bread puddings was a bit bland. The bourbon was very subtle, even though I'd doubled the amount. Maybe tripling it would be a better idea? As it was, the stongest flavor was the cinnamon. I missed the texture and sweetness of dried fruit, which is not included in this recipe.

{TWD} Apple x 5 Bread Pudding

If you don't like bread pudding, this looks like an ugly mess with ice cream, but if you do, this represents a delicious confection!

One thing I've learned as a food blogger is that it really only makes sense to post food dishes in the appropriate season. Hearty foods in the cooler months, cold salads in warmer ones, and so on.

That doesn't mean, however, that I prepare food that is solely redolent of the current season. In the privacy of my kitchen I might be baking pumpkin bread in March or simmering a hearty beef stew in June. But it's not likely to be reflected on my blog. I'll take the photos and write up my notes and save the draft until it feels more seasonally appropriate to post.

Lately I've been eying my stash of apples, which have been hanging around the fridge since at least late winter sometime (apples last nearly forever). Last week I cooked up a big batch of homemade applesauce, some of which I used in applesauce muffins for my mother (saved n the "drafts" folder until the fall.) I also baked Dorie Greenspan's Oatmeal Breakfast Bread, which calls for applesauce (saved in the "drafts" folder until the recipe gets chosen for TWD. Sneak preview: it's delicious!) That left me just a few more slightly shopworn apples kicking around.

Enter the genius of Liz of the blog Cake... or Death? (if you think the blog title is cute, just check out her blog!), who brilliantly chose Apple-Apple Bread Pudding for this week's Tuesdays with Dorie selection. The recipe is beautifully adaptable - Dorie gives instructions - for seasonal produce, yet it allows folks like me to use up those lingering apples in the back of the produce drawer. And I can post an apple recipe in May and not have to wait until September. See how that works? Perfect.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- Liz has the recipe on her blog post, but as always I urge you to buy the fook Baking: From My Home to Yours.

- There are actually a fair number of steps and elements required by this recipe, and I decided to make it a bit more complicated. Here's the basic method: take slices of a plain, preferably buttery, bread, cut it in triangles, spread one side with apple butter, layer it in a baking pan with caramelized apples in between bread slices. Then pour a custard over everything, let it soak into the bread, and bake in a water bath until done.

- I was planning to bake some yeast bread for this recipe but then I realized that there were 2 slices remaining of Dorie's oatmeal breakfast bread. (You can find the recipe by clicking here). I baked my loaf with lots of homemade applesauce, along with whole wheat and oat flours, palm sugar, currants, pecans and some fragrant spices. I wasn't sure how a quick bread would work as a bread pudding base, but I figured it was worth a try. I guessed that my bread was the right amount for 1/3 recipe of bread pudding.

My mother gave me her old food mill last year; it has come in surprisingly handy. In this recipe, the apples are put through the mill, core, peel and all.

- I decided to use up some more apples by making my own apple butter. I found an apple butter recipe on the blog Simply Recipes. The only real change I made was to use palm sugar. While the apples were cooking, all I could smell in the house was the apple cider vinegar, but luckily the finished apple butter tasted very nice. Apple butter is not difficult to make, but it has several steps and takes a fair amount of time and some specialty equipment. I got to use my mother's old food mill, which I've actually used on several occasions in the past year.

This was the apple after being cooked, milled, and combined with sugar and spices. The next step was more cooking/thickening.

- I changed up the custard ingredients just a bit, using boiled apple cider from King Arthur - a very intense apple syrup - instead of vanilla, and palm sugar for a sweetener. Also, I was out of milk, so used a combination of cream and buttermilk.

- Although dried fruit is pretty common in bread puddings I've known and loved, I've never heard of a bread pudding with fresh fruit. Dorie includes caramelized apples in this recipe, which I made with Honeycrisp apple and granulated maple sugar.

Some of the apple-y bread pudding elements:
top, apple butter,
bottom, left, oatmeal breakfast bread with apples and currants,
bottom, right, caramelized apples with their buttery juices

- When I assembled the bread pudding the slices of bread were too thick to layer and too delicate to handle much without crumbling. I just spread apple butter on the bread, tucked the caramelized apples around as best I could and poured custard into the dish until it looked "right". There was a lot of custard left over. Consequently my bread pudding had a higher proportion of apples because I didn't use all of the custard and I didn't have a ton of bread.

- I popped the pudding into its water bath in the oven without giving it any soak time. I baked it until the custard was set.

- Dorie lists an optional glaze for the top of the pudding, using apple jelly boiled with water. I could not resist an easy opportunity to add another form of apple to my pudding, so that's why it is so shiny in the pictures.

- I served the warm bread pudding with leftover burnt sugar ice cream, and drizzled it all with some more of the King Arthur boiled cider syrup.

An apple jelly glaze made the pudding nice and shiny!

the verdict

Bread pudding haters are legion, and I'm not sure that my pudding will convince any of them to change their views. As I look at the pictures, everything looks messy and smooshed-together, and really, it was that way. But a spoonful of this mishmash creation is Bread Pudding Heaven combined with Apple Heaven.

The caramelized fresh apples - along with the apple quick bread, apple butter, boiled apple cider and apple jelly - took this from being a typical bread pudding to something quite different and very complex. It reminded me a lot of an apple crisp, but without the crisp. It was soft but firm with a hint of spice, and the currants, nuts, and whole grains of the quick bread lent the pudding a bit of heft. All of the many elements combined together to produce a lovely effect.

This dessert was perfect when eaten warm with ice cream, but proved irresistible cold from the fridge. Thanks, Liz, for the great pick; it's the best thing to come out of my kitchen in quite a while!

Lemon Pudding Cakes

This is the final week for the Tyler Florence Fridays group, which was formed last November so that bloggers spend a year exploring Tyler's varied repertory of recipes. As the TFF Powers That Be put it:

"So TFF peeps and fans, next week, Friday October 30 will be our last official weekly Tyler Florence Fridays Round-up. (Sniff, sniff) It has been a ton of fun over the past year and we have enjoyed getting to know so many great bloggers. We hope to see you all here for the party--with a new Tyler dish or maybe repeating a past favorite."

I've enjoyed participating - however sporadically - in TFF over the past year, and couldn't miss posting in this final week. Funnily enough, this is the first Tyler Florence dish that I ever prepared, his Lemon Pudding Cakes. I baked these last November and the post has been in my drafts folder ever since!

On a chilly day last Fall we had another couple over for a casual dinner. I served a hearty beef stew and wanted to finish with something rather light and refreshing; Tyler's recipe for Lemon Pudding Cakes sounded perfect. I love serving individual-portion desserts to company.


n.o.e.'s notes:

- This is an easy and straightforward recipe to prepare, and many of the steps can be done ahead, making it ideal for entertaining.

- As it bakes, this dessert separates into a cake layer on the bottom and a pudding layer on top. I guess that's why Tyler calls them "pudding cakes"!

- I used a tea ball for dusting the powdered sugar on top.


the verdict:

These pudding/cakes really hit the spot. I loved the different textures of the two lemony layers and the berries were a delicious counterpoint. I had one tiny quibble: I thought the pudding/cake was a bit too sweet, so next time I'll reduce the sugar.

This is an elegant and easy dessert for entertaining, or for enjoying all by yourself!

{TWD} Split Level Pudding

In the summer of 2003 I was lucky enough to spend a few weeks in Scotland. Our accommodations were "self-catering" (translation: "comes with an equipped kitchen"), so we could eat some of our meals right at the apartment. I reveled in the local Marks & Spencer food hall which was stocked with wonderful ingredients and even more wonderful prepared meals. One of my favorite discoveries was a Greek-style yogurt that came in little glass jars, in flavors such as "Blackberry, Boysenberry and William Pear Yogurt" and " Strawberry and Cornish Clotted Cream Yogurt." Delicious!

On some level I knew that the yogurt was not quite equivalent to the non-fat yogurt choices that I usually stuck to at home, but really it wasn't even close - each of those little guys packed a walloping 900 calories. In blissful denial I simply enjoyed this indulgence, and couldn't resist tucking the tiny jars in my carry-on luggage for the journey home. They've occupied the back corner of the cupboard above my microwave, alongside vases that I seldom use.

When I saw the recipe for this week's Tuesdays With Dorie assigned recipe, the Split Level Pudding, I knew immediately that I wanted to portion it into glass containers so that the chocolate layer would be visible underneath the vanilla layer, and the little jars had a new use.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- I made 1/3 recipe of the pudding, enough for two small servings.

- Dorie's pudding method involves scraping ingredients into and out of a saucepan and a food processor. Back when my daughters and I made the butterscotch pudding, we used the food processor for part of the batch and a whisk for the rest, and learned that the food processor made pudding that is more perfectly smooth than the whisk.

- This partial batch had greatly reduced quantities of ingredients, so I used my mini food processor for some of the steps, but also used my whisk, because the mini wasn't quite big enough. My pudding was smooth, but I'm pretty sure it would have been silkier had I adhered to Dorie's method.

- Last week's P&Q post contained the very helpful suggestion to use the leftover chocolate ganache from the caramel tart for the base layer of this pudding. I had a couple different types of ganache in the freezer. I grabbed the last bits of Sweet Melissa's ganache and warmed it in the microwave so I could pour it into the bottom of the glass jars. I chilled it in the fridge, then carefully spooned the vanilla pudding layer over the chocolate. As usual I found it impossible to layer without smudging the glass.

- There were some white chocolate curls in my baking drawer and I scattered them over the top, but immediately regretted it. They just looked like lumps.

- Because my husband is allergic to chocolate, his serving was all vanilla pudding.

the verdict:

The vanilla pudding was the best I've ever eaten - a really really good vanilla pudding. My husband loved his portion, and I liked the vanilla part of my dessert. But the combination of vanilla and chocolate wasn't really successful, which I attribute largely to user error. I used a different ganache, and it was solid at refrigerator temperatures. I found the two different textures to be very distracting. I also wasn't sure I liked the combination of intense chocolate of the ganache with the lovely delicate vanilla flavor of the pudding.

If I need vanilla pudding I'll definitely call on this recipe, but I didn't like the vanilla and chocolate enough together to try the combination again.

Thanks to Garrett of Flavor of Vanilla for choosing this week's recipe - we have a new favorite vanilla pudding! You can find the recipe on his post or on pages 384- 385 of Dorie Greenspan's book, Baking: From My Home to Yours.

{TWD} Individual Chocolate Souffles

This week's Tuesdays With Dorie recipe is Chocolate Souffle, chosen by Susan of She’s Becoming DoughMessTic.

My post will be short and sweet, just like my souffles. Sorry, that was a bit of "souffle humor"!


n.o.e.'s notes:

- I've actually made souffles before, usually the savory variety, although it's been quite a while.

- This time I decided to play with individual souffles. I scaled the recipe to 1/4, which worked out the following amounts: 1.5 oz chocolate, 1/8 cup + 1/2 T sugar, scant 1 oz milk, 1 egg + 15 g egg whites (I have extra egg whites in the fridge from making ice cream). Next time I might consider adding a drop of vanilla. Whipping the egg whites worked very well with my hand mixer.


- I used two 8 oz ramekins. When I divided the batter, each of the ramekins was around 3/4 full before baking. The souffles puffed nicely in the oven, but the ramekins were too large for the souffles to rise above the rim of the dish. Next time, for a more dramatic appearance, I'd try using 6 oz ramekins instead, so they would be nearly full before going in the oven. That way, they would have that impressive rise over the top of the dish.

- Before filling, the souffle dishes are buttered and then dusted with granulated sugar, which gives a bit of a rough surface for the souffle to grab as it rises in the oven.

- I baked the souffles at 390 degrees for 23 minutes, and they tested done.


the verdict:

The souffles came out of the oven puffed and fluffy. I had just enough time to shoot a few pictures before they gently began to sink. I ate one plain while it was warm, and it was nice and chocolatey. I might have liked it better with a bit of creme anglaise, as Dorie suggests in the recipe, but I was far too lazy to make any! I loved the sugar crust, and realized that one of the benefits of individual ramekins is that there is more sugary crust!


I ate the other souffle as a "fallen souffle cake" - cold from the fridge with a bit of whipped cream on top, and actually preferred it that way.



Thanks, Susan, for choosing such a fun and yummy recipe. (You can find the recipe on Susan's post or on page 408 of Dorie Greenspan's book, Baking: From My Home to Yours.)

{TWD} Blackberry Blanc Manger (Will it win Wimbleton?)

This week's TWD assignment is what Dorie calls Blanc Manger, also commonly known as blancmange. Wikipedia says that it is "one of the few truly international dishes of medieval and early modern Europe." It falls in the category of "white dishes" and was originally made with almond milk, and chicken or fish and considered an ideal dish for the ill. It later became a dessert pudding with cream, eggs, and gelatin. Wow, interesting history, right? Although I’d never actually tasted blanc manger/blancmange I was long familiar with it from years of watching Monty Python. I knew that it's pronounced "blah mahnge" and that as a group, the desserts have a devious ambition to be tennis champions. Check out this video which features blancmanges and reveals that "they mean to win Wimbleton," - one particularly agile blancmange plays a Scotsman for the tournament final:




This is no ordinary boring dessert!

n.o.e. notes:

- The blancmange in the Monty Python video was obviously formed in a fancy mold (see the little ruffled knobs around the top edge?), so I decided that no ordinary round cake pan would suffice for my version of the dessert. I chose a vintage mold and an oval baking dish, and I decided to divide a full recipe between the two, and give one to my good friend D, who has celiac disease, as the dessert is gluten-free. A few weeks ago I had planned to give her a dacquoise, but had to abandon the plan when I ruined the ganache. I'd previously tried to give her some Hidden Berry Torte (that became Hidden Berry Trifle.) My fingers were crossed that this one would be a success! I figured I’d give her the one that most successfully unmolded…


- This dessert would also be suited to individual molds or ramekins.

- I found some ground almond meal/almond flour made by Bob’s Red Mill, which is much finer grind than I am able to achieve with my food processor.

- There is no "undo" button on the coulis. once it's on the white surface of the blanc manger, it's there. (And it starts to bleed into the white pretty quickly also.) Let's just say I need a bit of work on the "coulis drizzle" technique.

- For the blackberry coulis, I combined blackberries, lime juice and agave to taste, whirling it with the immersion blender.

- Oops, I forgot to save out any berries for garnish. Thank goodness for mint leaves!


the verdict:

The blanc manger is like a creamy vanilla mouse. We love "spoon foods" around here, so we thought it was deliciously refreshing. My husband's commented, "This stuff is really good. Not as good as ice cream, but really good."

My friend D was thrilled with her blanc manger, and sent me the following email:

"Are you sure it is without gluten…way too good….like, but better than, a crème brulee(sp)…not as overwhelmingly sweet. Wow…was it hard to make? I am going back for just a little more…"

The bottom line: this blanc manger was so versatile and fabulous, I wouldn't be surprised if it took Wimbleton after all. Move over, Roger Federer and Andy Roddick!

Note: I'm in the middle of celebrating my one-year blogiversary! As part of the festivities, I'm giving away a pretty cool pair of vintage baking pans. Stop by and leave a comment on that post by Friday, July 24, for your chance to win!!

{TWD} Chocolate Cream Tart, or The Day I Liked Chocolate Again

That crust is just a bit fragile!

Back in "the" day, I had a reputation as a chocolate fanatic. And while I still really like chocolate, there are times when enough is enough, and a bit more is, well, too much. I reached that point right after Easter. I'd given up all sweets for Lent, and then found myself awash in Easter bunnies and not one, but two, intense chocolate creations. I was totally chocolate-d out, but decided to make this tart fresh on the heels of the torte and the cake because my book group was meeting Easter week. I knew they'd be the perfect targets for me to unload this group to enjoy a good chocolate tart. (Planning is a bit trickier when the dessert is not susceptible to being frozen or easily transported.)

The recipe sounded like a bit of chocolate overkill. Chocolate filling in a chocolate crust? I was veeerrrry tempted to substitute a different - nonchocolate - tart crust, but since I was serving this to a large group of people who had not just made and eaten two cakes, I baked the tart as written.

And I've got to confess to a healthy dose of skepticism about this recipe. Back in our pre-TWD days, my daughter J.D.E. baked Dorie’s Tarte Noire - which is a totally and amazingly delicious chocolate tart. I didn’t think this would come even close to measuring up.


n.o.e.'s notes:

- This tart has three components: chocolate crust, chocolate pastry cream filling, and sweetened whipped cream. I made a full recipe in a rectangular tart pan that is equivalent in size to the round pan that Dorie specified.

- The tart dough was not sweet - at all, really. Dorie was telling stories when she said it's delicious on its own.

- I'm pretty sure I overworked the tart dough. I forgot to reread the instructions and then got carried away pressing it in the pan.

- I froze the tart dough in the pan for a good hour.

- I was pretty cavalier in my foil-buttering, so my crust stuck and crumbled apart when I pulled the foil off. Of course I had forgotten to keep a bit of dough out for patches.

- I cooked the pastry cream over med-low heat. It thickened really fast, and in fact I caught it trying to scramble but I took the whisk to it very vigorously and it relented of the mischief tht it had planned. It still was not as smooth as I'd like but I pretended not to notice.

- For chocolate I used Trader Joe's 72% bar chocolate. It comes in thin 3.5 oz bars, so two were perfect for this recipe. Even better? I could break them while they were still wrapped in their foil and just empty the foil packets into the pan - no chopping required.

- I eliminated another dirty dish by measuring the milk by weight right into the saucepan. It's the little victories, people.

- After putting in the butter the pastry cream seemed really oily - it almost didn't incorporate but it finally came together.

- I probably should have built up the tart crust walls a bit higher, because I ended up with an extra bowl of pastry cream after I assembled the tart. It turns out that some people churned theirs into ice cream, but I've been content to eat mine from the fridge with a spoon.

- I was sure that I'd stopped the mixer at the perfect time for soft luscious whipped cream, but somehow by the time I spread it on top of the tart it didn't look as silky as I'd hoped. I would have liked piped whipped cream on this tart, but seeing as I would have been the one to do the piping, it didn't happen. I decided to dress the tart up with a row of something all lined up. All I could put my hands on was mini chocolate chips, and lining them up neatly before they melted (or I lost patience) was a bit beyond my decorating abilities.


the verdict:

In the end, it didn't matter that my crust was a touch crumbly, or my pastry cream was a bit thick and grainy, or my whipped cream a tad dry, or my decorating more than a little wobbly. No, what really stood out was how fabulous this tart tastes! Oh, my, those three elements: crust + filling + whipped cream combine for a total flavor experience that is OUT OF THIS WORLD!!! It shook me out of chocolate overdose and landed me right back on my chocolate-appreciating feet.

This tart easily rates in my top 5 Dorie recipes. (along with the French Pear Tart, the Dimply Plum Cake, the Tall Creamy Cheesecake, and the World Peace Cookies. Oh, and the Chocolate Armagnac Cake. Well, you get my point.)

I served this to book group, and people were in agreement that it was delicious. AT said that it would be even more fantastic with a drizzle of raspberry coulis. Her husband JT disagreed: "It's perfect - don't change anything." When I asked him if he liked this one or the pear tart better, he said, "Don't make me have to pick."

proving once again that rustic is my only option!

Thanks to Kim from Scrumptious Photography who chose this week's recipe - you made me very happy indeed! Stop by Kim's post to get the recipe.

And finally, stop by and leave a comment on my 200th Post for a chance to win a King Arthur gift certificate.

{TWD} Four Star Bread Pudding

I come by my love of desserts, as they say, "honestly." The sweet tooth gene was passed directly to me from my mother, who in turn received it from her mother. Luckily a few of my grandmother's dessert recipes have also passed down to me. One of her specialties was a chocolate bread pudding - the recipe was originally from the 1937 Better Homes and Gardens! I have distinct memories of this dessert, although my mother prepared it far less frequently that her nearly-daily apple pie.

Although the ingredients and methods of Dorie's recipe differ significantly from my grandmother's, I was excited to try this week's Chocolate Bread Pudding., chosen by Lauren of Upper East Side Chronicle. You can find Dorie's recipe on Lauren's site (or on page 410 of Dorie's book); for my grandmother's recipe, just scroll down to the end of this post.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- My freezer contained half a kugelhopf that I made in February. It had turned out a little dry (but with great flavor) so I figured it would be the perfect base for this bread pudding.

- With my husband out of town, I made 1/4 recipe. The P&Q contained many reports of extra custard, so I used 1/3 recipe's worth of bread cubes (4 oz rather than 3 oz).

- I "staled" my already dry bread in the oven.

- Because the kugelhopf contained some currants and golden raisins (and the occasional sliced almond) I didn't add any dried fruit to the pudding.

bread cubes all "staled" and ready to use

-The recipe was very easy to cut, aside from the egg quantity. A 1/4 recipe means 1 yolk and 3/4 of a whole egg. This is actually not too difficult to do with a digital scale. But (and if you're a regular reader, please feel free to gasp at this next bit of information) I didn't calculate. I didn't weigh. I didn't measure. I just winged it. I had a lot of egg wash left over from my Sweet Melissa apple turnovers - I'm guessing there was about half an egg and maybe a tablespoon of cream in a little container in my fridge. I've orphaned so many partial eggs in recent baking forays (7 egg whites last week alone, which I will freeze and/or use soon) and I didn't want to toss this egg wash. So I scraped it into a bowl. Then I broke yet another egg and added the yolk and some of the white.

- I reduced the cream a bit because there was cream in the egg wash. For milk I used Smart Balance nonfat lactose-free. It claims to taste as rich as whole milk so this seemed like a great use for it.

- Since I only needed 1/8 cup of sugar, I decided to use some of the fancy stuff in my stash of baking ingredients, and chose Golden Baker's sugar.

- I used Scharffen Berger 72% bittersweet chocolate. The best thing about 1/4 recipe is that chopping 1.5 oz of chocolate is no big deal!

- The pudding baked in a water bath for 25 minutes. I forgot the double layer of paper towels, but it didn't seem to be a problem.


To accompany the pudding I made some brandied whipped cream - with a whisk and a bowl and some elbow grease. Because I was making such a small amount I didn't think my mixer would whip it. It was surprisingly easy.

the verdict:

Dorie recommends this be eaten room temperature or chilled. I tried it warm, room temp, and cold. I liked it best when it was still medium-warm - with the brandied whipped cream. A little bit of the vanilla/orange/cinnamon/nutmeg flavors of my underlying bread came through in the taste of the pudding. So good! I still have a good bit of the kugelhopf in the freezer and I think It'd make a fabulous regular bread pudding, or even a version with a berry sauce stirred into the custard.

The chocolate flavor seemed stronger when the bread pudding was cold. It put me in the mood to try my grandmother's recipe!


my grandmother's (and mother's) recipe:

Chocolate Crumb Pudding
Better Homes and Gardens, October 1937

In double-boiler heat 1 oz sweet chocolate, 1/4 cup butter, 1/2 cup milk; add slowly 4 beaten egg yolks, 1/2 cup sugar. Cook until thickened. Add 2 cups soft bread crumbs, 1 cup shredded blanched almonds, fold in 4 stiff beaten egg whites. Cover and steam in double boiler 25 minutes. Serve hot or cold with cream or custard sauce.
Serves 8

{TWD} Bay Custard Cups (Duck Egg)

This week's recipe was a lot of fun for me to play with. I got to: (a) be inspired by another recipe, (b) use a new ingredient, and (c) do lots of math!!

(a) Another recipe for inspiration:
I'd been planning to make Dan Lepard's Bay Custard Tarts for my book group. I measured all of the dry ingredients and was all ready to bake them up on the day of our meeting. But on Book Group Morning I learned that Dorie's French Yogurt Cake had been chosen as one of the March TWD recipes, and I immediately baked that instead (will be posted next week). I was on a mission to bake all of the March recipes in the few days before Lent began so that I could sample them, so the TWD recipes took baking priority.

A couple of days later the rest of the March recipes were announced and one was for a Lemon Cup Custard. Seeing as I had just made the lemon yogurt cake 2 days earlier I wasn't really in the mood for more lemon so I decided to take Dorie's permission and play around with the flavors. I cooked Dorie's custards with the bay flavor of Dan's recipe.
(b) A new ingredient:
I was lucky enough to get 1/2 dozen duck eggs through my farm box folks. They are not always offered and they sell out quickly, so I was pretty excited to experiment with this new-to-me ingredient. When I opened the carton I saw that the eggs were of wildly varying sizes. I used the two biggest ones for scrambled eggs (yummy, btw!). The two smallest eggs weighed in at 65 grams each - just a bit bigger than my 61 gram large chicken eggs. I used these small ones to make 1/2 recipe of custard (plus a little bit).
(c) An opportunity for quick math:
Although I was pretty sure I could just substitute the larger duck eggs for the chicken eggs, I thought I'd try an easy scaling of the recipe. There are only 3 ingredients, so it was pretty simple with the digital scale: I first measured the sugar and the milk, then for every 60 grams of weight, I increased the ingredient by 4 grams. There, that wasn't so painful, right?

n.o.e.'s notes:

- I didn't have whole milk, so I used approximately 3/4 of 2% milk and 1/4 half-and-half.

- Once the milk was hot, I steeped three dried bay leaves and a corner of a fresh one. I couldn't really tell whether Dan's recipe contemplated fresh or dried, so I went with dried since they were supposed to be "crumbled."

- My small glass custard cups were 1/2 cup each, which was perfect for 4 custards with the half recipe. (Dorie's recipe calls for 3/4 cup ramekins)

- The duck eggs had really large yolks. I figured this would be a good thing, since Dan's bay custard recipe was a yolk-only custard.

- I managed to temper the eggs without curdling them (a minor victory when considering my luck with a few previous TWD recipes).

- I grated fresh nutmeg over the tops and floated a fresh bay leaf on the surface.

- The water bath went off without a hitch. Unlike last time.

- I baked these at 315 degrees, which is lower than the recipe specifies. I did expect my smaller ramekins to cook a bit faster, but I was pretty surprised when I happened to check after 15 minutes and they were done! In fact, past done - they were firm and not jiggly at all. I grabbed them out of the oven, and then promptly forgot to take them out of the water bath, so they stayed there for a while, cooking even longer.

the verdict:

Luckily - miraculously? - the custards were not overcooked, or at least they were not rubbery. Or eggy. The custard had a rich silky texture - almost pudding-like. There was no danger of it falling off the spoon (as Dorie warns); it clung to the spoon lovingly. Some of that texture was no doubt from the duck eggs, with their extra rich flavor and large yolks. And I don't really know if my 2%/half+half mixture had more butterfat than whole milk or not. That was one equation I decided not to calculate.

The bay/nutmeg flavor was unusual and good. My husband liked these even more than I did; he thought the bay leaves gave the custards a "clean" taste. I could have used just a smidge less bay - maybe if I'd not put the fresh bay leaf on the top while it baked. But all in all, this is a nice dessert with a sophisticated flavor. I do want to try Dan Lepard's recipe to see what his tarts would taste like (I still have the dry ingredients all measured out). And I'd like to experiment with some of the custard flavor combinations that Dorie lists in the recipe, such as the lemon-clove or the orange-star anise.

This lovely recipe was chosen by Bridget of The Way the Cookie Crumbles. Judging from the P&Q post, the TWD bakers have had mixed success with this one. You can check out their experiences by visiting the TWD blogroll and clicking on each baker's blog. If you'd like to make this custard for yourself, you can find the recipe on page 387 of Dorie Greenspan's book Baking From My Home to Yours, or on Bridget's post.

{TWD} Real Butterscotch Pudding

Hello, both a.l.e. and j.d.e. here, taking over the Tuesdays With Dorie post because our mom was busy grappling with our Christmas tree.

When our mom approached us individually about cooking one of the Tuesdays With Dorie recipes together, we both separately picked this one. Fate! I [j.d.e.] am a notorious fan of butter, and my sister is a notorious fan of scotch, so this post is, one could say, the perfect mix.

a.l.e and j.d.e., keeping a watchful eye on the simmering scotch

While j. and Mom fiddled around with various ingredients, I (a.l.e.) got down to the very serious business of ascertaining the most optimal Scotch for the occasion. Cautionary tales of boozy grown-ups-only-style puddings ringing in my head, I began the taste testing. Now, we have a pretty prodigious liquor cabinet going, and that is especially true in terms of Scotch Whisky:

After DQing several (including the 3 unopened bottles) - Laphroaig was way too smoky, Edradour was too wonderful to use up in a pudding, Tallisker made me go "Phroooowargh" - it was down to the Macallan 12 yo and the Glenfiddich Special Reserve 12yo. The latter took the prize. A word to the wise: it would probably be best to aim for a mellow single malt rather than the strong variety as suggested by the recipe. Even a blend would work - Cutty Sark and J&B were close runners up in butterscotchy flavor potential.

I, however, don't like Scotch, so I was happy to absent-mindedly stir bowls of ingredients (unnecessarily) and provide for the music (alternating between singing David Bowie and the music from Les Miserables). We decided to make two variations of the pudding: one for the girl who thinks that Scotch tastes like burned jet fuel, and one for the other, who has instituted a cocktail hour in our household. We decided to make my version (1/3 recipe) using none of the scotch, double the vanilla, and a tablespoon of eggnog, and my sister's (2/3 recipe) was made using the technique whereby the scotch is added while the milk mixture is heating, so that we didn't get that "I'm eating cold, mushy congealed raw scotch" sensation.

Despite several mishaps, which luckily all happened to my sister's (non-alcoholic) batch, the puddings tasted fantastic. Besides forgetting to set aside some milk for the sugar/egg mix rather than dumping it all into the hot sugar, I started making the next batch in the Cuisinart before the first batch had been through its final mixing. We made do with a whisk and Mom's whisking talent and arm-power, and though slightly lumpier than the next batch, it was v. good. Having learned from our mistakes, the Scotchy batch came out picture-perfect, and tasting just like butterscotch should.

here's the real boozehound in the family.

the verdict:

Hi, Nancy here! This pudding was our dessert for Christmas dinner. We found it absolutely delicious. All of us preferred the "with scotch" version - even the scotch-hating j.d.e. It was silky smooth (from the food processor) and subtly butterscotch-y (from the scotch).

We had such fun cooking this together - I'm so thankful that my girls are such competent hands in the kitchen and also that they're great at writing guest posts! I'm going to cry when they leave home this weekend, going 950 miles and 4,700 miles away, but in the meantime we're doing lots of cooking... and talking, and laughing!


I've had fun baking all 5 of December's recipes. Luckily we were given leeway on which order we could bake and post our creations; this was a huge help during the busy holiday season!

The pudding was technically last week's Tuesdays with Dorie assignment, and was chosen by Donna of Spatulas, Corkscrews & Suitcases, who made an incredible butterscotch pie with it (you can find the pudding recipe on that post or on page 386 of Dorie Greenspan's book Baking From My Home to Yours. )

This week Anne of Anne Strawberry chose the Tall and Creamy Cheesecake (which I posted last week!). Go to her post to see an incredible peppermint bark cheesecake and find the recipe. Or you can pick up your very own copy of Dorie's book (cheesecake recipe on page 235-237 ).