TWD- Rick Katz’s Brownies for Julia

February 9, 2010- Tanya of Chocolatechic chose Rick Katz’s Brownies for Julia, on page 91 of Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan.

I am so glad I had a squiz at the P & Q for this recipe before I dove right in.  I was on my second last bar of unsweetened chocolate and I have to make it count!  Baking chocolate just isn’t sold here (commonly) in Australia.  I bought some in Singapore 1 1/2  years ago and it has lived in my fridge since then.

I think these lovely brownies are closer to a lava cake, and I am so glad I baked them in individual financers shapes.  I am all about the crust with a brownie and individual serves means I don’t hack off the edges and leave the rest for others with less baking prowess.  And I could see the middle bits would not have sliced neatly.

Well that is until they chilled up in the fridge.  Check out the texture change

Anyway, they are darn tasty.  Now check out the blogroll for the other bits of chocolate goodness.

TWD- Milk Chocolate Mini Bundt Cakes

For this weeks TWD instalment Kristin of I’m Right About Everything picked Milk Chocolate Mini Bundt Cakes, from pages 188 and 189 of Baking From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan.

In my rather extensive silicone collection (I can quit anytime I want) I have a mini bundt pan.  This recipe made enough for my pan of 6 as well as a couple of cupcakes.

I wasn’t sure how much I was going to be into the nut swirl but that was what made this mini bundt.  The cake was good but not great.  I think they go from underdone to well done in moments.

Now go and check the TWD blogroll for the other mini cakes out there.

TWD- Orange Berry Muffins- Catch Up

Way back on January 29, 2008 – Orange Berry Muffins were chosen (not sure who by) the recipe is found on page 3 of Baking From my Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan.

These muffins almost break into song “All things bright and beautiful”.

My brother moved house today and these were perfect to bring round for breakfast and pick me ups in between all the picking up of boxes.  Sorry for the less than fab photo- the iphone really doesn’t do food photos well.

The sprinkle of sugar on top really is wonderful.  I loved this catch up.

Daring Bakers- Namaimo Bars

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca.

So for Australia Day (26th of January) I made the Namaimo Bars.  From the bottom up they are a Hedgehog type base with home made gluten free graham crackers, coconut and almonds in a chocolate custard.  The next layer is essentially a vanilla icing.  Then it gets topped with melted dark chocolate.

The graham crackers were actually my favourite part of this recipe.  I ended up liking this recipe a lot more than the all purpose flour recipes I have tried before.  I needed to use millet flour as sorgham flour just wasn’t available in my neck of the woods.

For my tastes the middle layer was just too sweet.  I have wondered is a more custard like filling would be my cup of tea.  Also I am going to try some of this crumbled through home made ice cream.

It was interesting to play around with new flours.  I think even if a recipe isn’t to your taste you can almost always learn something from it.  Isn’t that the joy of the Daring Bakers?

TWD- Coco- Nana Bread

January 26, 2010-  Steph of Obsessed with Baking chose Cocoa-Nana Bread, page 46 from Baking from My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan.

As I looked at this recipe I was fairly shocked at the amount of cocoa.  I had to go and buy another container.  This is a deep complex almost bitter cake (in the way espresso is bitter but not unpleasant).  The banana rounds out the assertive nature of that much cocoa.  It has a fine cake like crumb with dark chocolate shards mixed through.

I made mine into individual loaf shapes.  I liked them but did not love them.  Definitely a recipe to keep in mind as the texture was lovely.

Now go and check the blogroll and see what the other TWD crew thought.

TWD- Parisian Apple Tart- Catch Up

Way back on June 9 2009-  Jessica of My Baking Heart picked Parisian Apple Tartlet on page 319 of Baking From My Home to Yours By Dorie Greenspan.

This is a really simple and easy recipe.  The hardest part may be deciding how big to cut your circle of butter puff pastry.

If you don’t have the time or patience to caramalise your apples for a tart tatin this is a worthy substitute.

Also since I had been checking Dories blog recently she was writing about pastry pin wheels and I had some odd shapes left over after cutting my circles out of the square frozen pastry and I had some cinnamon sugar still floating around post scherben so it was baking kismet.  These gave me (and the child who was not refusing to eat his dinner/put away toys etc) something to munch on whilst I waited for the caramel to be slightly less molten before eating the tarts.

TWD- Chocolate Oatmeal Almost Candy Bars

January 19, 2010- Lillian of Confectiona’s Realm picked Chocolate Oatmeal Almost-Candy Bars, from Baking From My Home To Yours pages 114 and 115 by Dorie Greenspan.

You start with a fairly healthy oat and nut cookie crust (Dorie suggested peanuts, I used cashews).  Then you melt condensed milk and dark chocolate add in some more nuts and raisins and crumble some of the reserved base mix on top and bake it for 25 minutes.  I made a half batch in a 6×10 pan.

The result is in fact as Dorie suggests similar to a candy bar.  I have yet to freeze some to see how I like it best but we shall see.  Now go and check out the Blog Roll and see how the other cookie bases crumbled.

TWD- Brioche-Raisin Snails- Catch Up

Way back in March 18, 2008 – Brioche Raisin Snails, pages 56-57 Baking From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan were picked by Culinary Concoctions by Peabody.  (The link will take you to the original post from days of yore).

Anyway, that was pre me owning the book, and now I am making a concerted effort to catch up on all the recipes from before I started and the few I have missed along the way.

I resisted the urge to use the no knead recipe I know and love.  Back when we did the honey pecan buns I did do the sub and got comments telling me how good Dories recipe was, so this time I made Dorie’s brioche.  It is in fact worth the time spent slowly adding butter watching the Kitchenaid do it’s thing (but can I tell you although I know it is possible I wouldn’t mess around with the wooden spoon method…) I usually make a ‘poorer’ dough (much less butter and eggs) so I am not sure  if that has to do with the ‘oh my goodness me’ factor or not.

Anyway 12 oz of butter and 3 eggs later and the dough was made.  Then I made the pastry cream- sadly although I make pastry cream fairly often I must not have cooked this one quite long enough.  It just just didn’t set up  in the fridge overnight and was a bit wet.  I continued on, but it made moving the bun from the sliced roll to the baking tray an exercise in slippery dripping crossness.

These also have drunken raisins in them.  These were so yummy I was inspired to make a batch of rum and raisin ice cream (the custard is chilling in the fridge right now).

These (pastry cream issues aside) are amazing.   Not something you just throw together, but given the calorie content maybe it is a good thing you have to work and plan (just a little) to make these.

TWD- Fresh Mango Bread- Catch Up

Way back on May 19 2009- Kelly of Baking with the Boys selected Fresh Mango Bread on page 45 of Baking From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan.

I was in Vietnam on holidays at the time of the pick but as I was going through the freezer recently I noticed some mango tucked away.  I have been making an effort to catch up on missed recipes over the slow time at work.  It looks like I have about 24 to catch up on including the ones from before I joined in April 09 (Class of Bill’s Big Carrot Cake).

Anyway these are seriously yummy.  They somehow manage to get a strusel  like topping without the need for making a separate layer.

Glad I took the time to bake this one.

Daring Cooks- Satay

The January 2010 DC challenge was hosted by Cuppy of Cuppyliciousand she chose a delicious Thai-inspired recipe for Pork Satay from the book 1000 Recipes by Martha Day.

We love a bit of Satay action here in Darwin.

I made 3 types beef, pork and turkey.  All good.  The pork (probably because of the lovely fat marbling hmm fat…) was the nicest but seriously all good.  In my local grocery store there were heaps of roasting meats on sale so I went nuts.

Given it is summer here we did the BBQ thing for tasty charred goodness.

I made the peanut sauce as well- but it just wasn’t photogenic or amazing tasting.  So I will leave you to linger on the tasty goodness that  marinated meat on a stick.  Now go and check out the blogroll and see what other delights await you.