TWD: Double Apple Bundt Cake

Dear TWD,

Yes, I'm still baking. It's the blogging and photography that have gotten the better of me. So I made the chocolate espresso shortbread, and the peach upside-downer. Then my husband and I embarked on the "ships passing in the night" month, where one of us has been out of town for the past 4 (loosely defined) weekends.

So I stayed up late last night, and I baked the double apple bundt cake. Only a day late. I'm enjoying it, even though I was a bit short on the apple butter, and supplemented with a combination of plain yogurt and apple cider. I also added some chopped candied ginger. If there is still some cake left when Allen returns from this week's trip, I'll be surprised.

TWD: Custardy Crunchy Peach Tart

I should know better than to multitask. But I got away with it this time.

I made the tart, popped it in the oven, turned the oven off with about 15 minutes of baking remaining, and went to the gym.

After the gym, I more than deserved my tart.

Yum!

TWD: Lots of Ways Banana Cake

Totally Delicious. I made this cake with dried cranberries, toasted coconut, yogurt, and my mom's chocolate yogurt frosting, which puddles around the edge of the cake.

Chocolate Yogurt Icing

6 tbsp butter

1/4 c. cocoa

1/3 c. plain yogurt

2 1/2 c. powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Combine butter, cocoa, and yogurt in saucepan and bring to rapid boil. Remove from heat and stir in powdered sugar and vanilla. Spread over warm cake.

TWD: I've been baking, but not blogging

Here is my orange version of the vanilla cake. I took it to a tennis match, but the leftovers were better, griddled in butter.

The Brrrownies were minty. They travelled well too. But we had so much fun on our trip that we forgot to eat them. So they travelled well home.

TWD: Dressiest Chocolate Loaf Cakes

I'd rather have almost any brownie from Baking...

Dressed up with black raspberry jam, vanilla ice cream and fresh wild raspberries

TWD: Tender Shortcakes

Loved these shortcakes. I added the powdered and candied ginger for extra oomph. But I went tried and true with the berries and the whipped cream, partially mashing some of the berries with the sugar. For the whipped cream, I used an old Gourmet recipe and whipped heavy cream with some sour cream and powdered sugar.

TWD: Coconut Banana Ice Cream Pie

Thanks TWD! This is a page I would have skipped right over. I'm glad that I didn't. There's nothing better on a warm day than a dessert that doesn't require anything other than a food processor.

TWD: Apple Bread Pudding

Really, I made this one. A week ago.

I like bread pudding, but I think, like salad, it tastes better when other people make it for me. This was good. A. told me the kids thought it was fine. So I sent the rest to work with him. The kids came home and told me it was the "best dessert ever" and wanted to know why I sent it away.

TWD: Classic Berry Tart

But the berries in the grocery looked terrible. So I grilled the pineapple that was sitting on the counter and used that instead.

Yes, the pineapple/pastry cream combination was a bit unconventional, and my attempts to "Hawaiian-ize" the tart with macadamia nuts and coconut fell victim to an empty pantry (darn chockablock cookies!). I left off the jam glaze, although I might have gone for a ginger preserve in this case.

TWD: Burnt Sugar Ice Cream

It tasted so nice that we made it thrice!

I was significantly less gutsy with the "amber" color of my second caramel. The resulting flavor wasn't nearly as intense. I loved the lack of "egginess" in the custard base of this ice cream.

The third version was "skinny" with the last of the whole milk and some skim. With all those egg yolks in the ice cream, I used some of the whites for the Cafe Volcano cookies that I skipped a few months back. They go very well together.

TWD: Swedish Visiting Cake

We don't have any Swedes coming to visit, but we enjoyed the cake while discussing the Civil War.

TWD: Dulce de Leche Duos

Ok, so we were supposed to make these, maybe a month ago? I wanted to, but life got in the way. And while I was busy with non-baking essentials, I also went through a grocery store funk. One of those, "ok-I-know-that-there-is-something-I-can-make-into-dinner-here-so-that-I-can-avoid-the-grocery-store-for-at-least-one-more-day" funks. It lasted until we had finished every single frozen fruit and vegetable in the freezer. We also ran out of flour. So then I remembered to buy the sweetened condensed milk.

These cookies were great. I shared them, and ate them. And didn't photograph them.

TWD: Thumbprints for us big guys

These lived up to their name.
The little kids threw them in the trash after one bite.
Everyone over 10 thought they were wonderful.
I'll vote with the "over 10" crowd, although I'll admit that I came down with the stomach flu after making them am still working past tea and toast.
Fortunately, my cookies, filled with brandy spiked chocolate ganache, didn't seem to make anyone sick.

The Very Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

It was mighty gutsy of Dorie to put these on the line. I mean, everyone, everyone has a "best" chocolate chip cookie recipe, but I must tell you I loved these. They spread thin, rather than puffed up cake-like and the streaks and occasional bites of chocolate hit the spot!

TWD: Rick Katz's Brownies for Julia

I like a fudgy brownie, and I worried that these would be cake like. I worried that Dorie forgot to tell me to butter the pan. I worried that these would be a let-down. When the timer went off, I worried because the center was quite wet. I worried when it took at least 10 minutes more in baking time.

But I worried needlessly. Fudgy interior, but not too dense. Flaky, crusty top. They might have been even better had I not forgotten the semisweet chocolate altogether.

TWD: Coco-nana Bread

Full disclosure: This is not bread. Not even close.

• Hungry helpers meant that we weren't going to hang out for 75 minutes of baking. Muffin time!


• At some point in my childhood, I associated bread with the grain group. Now the food pyramid has been turned on its head, but coco-nana bread isn't in the grain group.


• Quick breads are good for breakfast. This one is so rich, it's more like a dessert.

So go ahead, eat it for dessert. It's a bit like dense chocolate cake, with closing banana flavor. Best with milk.

TWD: Not Scherben and Chocolate Oat Almost Candy Bars

Last week, I almost made a stop a Gourmet Garden, seeking out the fried won tons. You know, camera angles can lie, and I'm still convinced that I might have fooled you into thinking that I made the scherben. But I didn't lie, and I didn't make them.
So when the almost-candy cookies didn't get my oven lit, I fought on. I baked them, subbing walnuts for my dreaded peanuts. They weren't bad, although, surprisingly, J immediately found the raisins hidden in the fudge. After deciding that I'd prefer my chocolate and my oatmeal cookies as separate events, I stashed the rest in the freezer.

TWD: Tarte Tatin

I first learned to make this at a cooking class almost a decade ago, and it became one of my standards. I knew the recipe by heart, I knew the dish would turn out perfectly. I almost always had the ingredients in the house. But I fell away from tart tatin, for no good reason. I'm glad that TWD brought it back. The apples caramelized on low heat. The remainder of my Daring Bakers Puff Pastry stretched over top. I scraped the remaining caramel from the side of the plate. Please don't tell my scale, or my orthodontist.

I don't have a picture, as my camera is headed for repair just in the nick of warranty.

TWD: Holiday fruit cake

I love to give gifts, but only when I have found the right gift for the giftee. And sadly, it doesn't always line up with the gift-giving demands of the calendar and more often, with my budget. So right now, I'm all geeked about Nudo. That's right, it's open in my browser window right now as I ponder the fact that it's over my gift giving budget. But I digress.

My parents have always been gift givers. Christmas was, and still is, a big deal. For years, my dad baked loaves of bread for all of the neighbors and friends, and we'd head out on Christmas Eve to deliver them. When his schedule became too full, my mom would bake muffins, or make jam. And the reciprocity -- there were bottles of wine, and boxes of fruit and cheese, and poinsettias, from friends and associates. It's those tastes of the season that I remember -- and that have made me a loyal customer of Harry & David pears year after year. It brings a holiday giddiness that I have a hard time explaining.

I grew up not far Claxton, GA, which might be the fruit cake capital of the world. Claxton Fruit Cakes, too arrived many Christmas', bricks, or doorstops of a pound cake, loaded with red and green maraschino cherries and nuts. They took their place on the piano with chocolates and bottles of scotch. I imagine the shelf life of a fruitcake to be infinite, and honestly, I couldn't ever bring myself to take a bite.

Honestly, I wasn't psyched to see that Dorie had included a fruit cake recipe, but I whipped it up anyways. Added the maple syrup glaze, and send 3/4 of it off to work with A. I kept a wedge on the counter, thinking I take a picture. But with spur of the moment dessert guests, the cake was served. And enjoyed. I didn't want to tease you with a picture of the empty plate.

TWD: Sugar Topped Molasses Spice Cookies

My apologies to Mitch Albom, as it's been Wednesdays with Dorie around here lately. I know that I've spread myself a little bit thin when I run out of cinnamon. Seriously, now, I. Ran. Out. Of. Cinnamon. In the fall. It's one of my favorite spices, or really one of my favorite flavors, and I use multiple 8 oz Penzey's bags each year. So imagine my surprise when I went to make this recipe and found myself scraping the jar and raiding the cinnamon/sugar container to finish.

These gingersnaps were delicious. They were quick to make, and I stored half the dough in the fridge for more than a week before baking a second mini-batch. As everyone was eating them, dunked in cups of milk, I realized that I ought to take a picture. So here are the last three cookies, which hung around mere minutes after their photo shoot.