Steph‘s Bakewell Tart

 I am so close to being caught up with the group baking all the recipes from Dorie Greenspan’s  Baking with Dorie.  Head over to Tuesdays with Dorie for the rules and upcoming scheduled recipes.  Two recipes a month, posted on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday.  I believe that I have only managed to post on one of the actual Tuesdays and Thursdays.  February, here we come.  

Anyway, Steff’s Bakewell Tart was the perfect dessert for a slow winter Sunday.   It’s too icy and slippery to go anywhere so I had plenty of time to work on dinner and dessert.   This tart starts predictably with a tart shell.  My 9” tart pan has a higher than usual edge, so I wondered how this would play out.  I parbaked the shell and filled the base with some blackberry jam.   Then I made the frangipane.  I thought about piping it into the tart, but was able to carefully spread it about.  My tart sides were too tall so I took off some of the height from my tart.  I really don’t want to add more pans to my collection, but I think I need a 9” tart pan with short sides.  

After the bake, I decided to try to feather the icing.  I don’t think that I have ever feathered icing but I saw some beautiful Blakewell tarts out there.  I think that I needed my icing to be a little thicker.  And, some how it looks a little too “EKG strips” for me.   I think that I will make this desert again.  It was unusual, not what I typically think of when I hear tart.  We all enjoyed it. 

I need to fit some cheese puffers into the rotation and I’ll be up to date.

Grain and Seed Muffins

 

I continue to erratically bake along with the group in Tuesdays with Dorie, who are posting from Dorie’s newest book, Baking with Dorie.  January’s Tuesday choices were grain and seed muffins or Steff’s Bakewell tart.  These muffins were delicious.  They started with a combination of wheat and white flours, sweetened with brown sugar and maple syrup.  There was some bran, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds and dried cranberries thrown in.  I added some coconut because I have some coconut to use up.  

I would love to have a bunch of these in the freezer, but I don’t need a bunch of them in the freezer so I gave some away.   I will make a batch of these for our next family get together.  

Mokonuts’ Rye-Cranberry Chocolate Chunk Cookies

I plan on baking along with the group in Tuesdays with Dorie, who are posting from Dorie’s newest book, Baking with Dorie.  I am struggling to stay on schedule, I am doing ok with baking, behind with the posts.  

I would like to got to Paris to eat these cookies at Mokonuts.  We all enjoyed them.  I don’t think that I have ever had poppy seeds in a cookie.  Combined with the rye and cranberry there were layers of flavor.  I used chunks of bittersweet chocolate and at this point I feel I should confess to not really liked large amounts of chocolate in my cookies.  I knew when I started that they would be too much for me but the gang enjoyed them.  

Catch up  with Miso Maple Loaf

This was October’s recipe.   This is the kind of loaf that you like to find in your kitchen.  It made a great toast.  I don’t think many people would be able to figure out what gave the loaf it’s flavor.  The white miso, buttermilk and maple syrup all came together wonderfully. 

Apple Dandowdy

 

I was excited to make this because my daughter was coming for a visit.  She has a good eye for making baked goods look appealing.  

A pandowdy is an easy dessert and a good way to use up any scraps of pie dough that you might have rolling around the freezer.  For this recipe you peeled and cored apples, seasoned them with sugar and lemon juice, dumped them in the bowl and arranged the pie scraps on the top.

I added cinnamon and my daughter cut up pie dough with cookie cutters.   We served it with some vanilla ice cream.   I had a very juicy lemon and I felt there was a little too much zip in the pandowdy.