Tailgating with Dorie~ A COOKBOOK GIVEAWAY!!

Well, the more accurate title for this post would be Biscuits with Dorie, but because I made these biscuits for our first tailgate of the year, I was inspired to come up with a football themed pots title...Biscuits are perfect in many, many settings- including on a paper plate with fresh berry jam, on a Saturday game-morning at the start of the season. While making these biscuits I though about how much I love my copy of Baking from My Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan. I purchased it when I joined the weekly baking ranks of Tuesdays with Dorie, and loved each and every recipe I tried! While I was unable to keep up with my weekly TWD commitment, I still cherish this book and use it VERY often!! There are so many great recipes that are really not all that technically difficult and yield professional, delicious results. When I make something from this book I prefer to post the link to buy the book vs posting a copy of the recipe...I've decided to go one step further and GIVE YOU THE BOOK!!! THAT'S RIGHT, A FREE COPY OF DORIE GREENSPAN'S BAKING; FROM MY HOME TO YOURS!!!!

Just type "Tuesdays with Dorie" into the search feature on this blog to get a tiny idea of the bounty of glorious recipes that this awesome book contains! Mine is a floury-sticky mess, but don't worry, the winner will receive a shiny new copy~ ready to get coated in flour and sugar!



Here's how it's going to go down~
All you have to do is POST A COMMENT with your favorite Dorie recipe or if you've never tried one, the one you'd like to try, on to this post on or before Tuesday September 15th and a winner will be chosen at 6pm PST on Tuesday September 15, 2009.

I'll post links back to this giveaway on my TWITTER and FACEBOOK page to remind you to get your post up before 9/15/09 at 6pm PST!!
Good Luck~

Angel Food Cupcakes

With all the heavy eating we had planned for the 4th of July weekend, I struggled to think of something that would be sweet and desserty at the end of the day with out being too heavy...so I thought angel food cake would be light and still substantial enough for our sweet tooth after a long day of bike riding in the sunshine...

I came across The Cupcakery Blog , where Wendy had highlighted the Angel Food Cake recipe from the Buttercup Bake Shop Cookbook, which was, as promised, easy to prepare.

We are talking MAJOR egg whites here...2 cups, which is about 14 eggs worth...Wendy suggests just purchasing the carton of egg whites (which I didn't do this time, but that would make it even easier, so I will do this next time...)



This made 24 mini cupcakes and 12 regular size…

1 cup cake flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
14 egg whites (2 cups)
1 1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. salt

Preheat the oven to 375° degrees and line the muffin tins with paper wrappers.
In a medium bowl, combine flour with one cup of the sugar. Sift these together three separate times. ( I am pretty sure this is essential, so you will need a sifter for this recipe…) Set the sifted whatnot aside and put remaining sugar in a separate cup for later use.
Pour the egg whites into the bowl of a stand mixer and use the whisk attachment, mix on lowest setting for about 1 minute. Then add cream of tartar, vanilla and salt.
After another minute of beating, turn the mixer to medium speed and gradually add the 1/2 cup of remaining sugar. Stop and scrape the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula after all the sugar is added. Resume beating until the whites are stiff but moist. (This should take about 5 minutes.)Transfer the egg whites to a large bowl. Sift the flour-sugar mixture over the whites and gently fold until all the dry ingredients are mixed in. Using a ladle, fill the cupcake liners about ½ full, or a little less than ½ full.
Bake about 8-10 minutes, but not any longer to prevent the bottoms from burning.
Cupcakes will be done when a toothpick comes out of the center clean. Remove cupcakes from the pan and place on a wire rack. Cool completely before frosting.
I made these and took them (un-frosted) with a big bowl of fresh strawberries and a container of Cool Whip to our HB 4th of July gathering at Jeff & Lia’s and they made a great late night (meaning 9pm) sweet treat!

Tuesdays With Dorie~ World Peace Cookies

This is a great recipe because, like so many in this Dorie Greenspan's; Baking from My Home to Yours, it is one that can be broken up in sections over days, even months if you go the freezer route! We try to DO as much as possible every weekend- really SQUEEZE every bit of fun, productivity, relaxing etc. as we can into those precious two days. Sometimes that curbs having 3-5 hours to bust out some fab baked goodness on a weekly basis. I highly recommend this as a SUPER simple cookie dough that is quick to throw together, and can be frozen for up to 2 months, so you can slice & bake anytime!! Love that. Seriously. Also an easy recipe to 1/2 for a smaller crowd, or bake half/freeze half (which is what I did).

This week's TUESDAYS WITH DORIE is the chocolatastic WORLD PEACE COOKIE, chosen by Jessica of COOKBOOK HABIT. Cruise on over to her blog to see these yummy peaceful cookies!!
THANKS JESSICA!!



We loved these cookies, they were awesome flavor and texture wise and would be fun to try some different add-ins with next time~
I will be out of town and miss next week so see ya for some SERIOUS cake the week after next!

Peace out~

Tuesdays With Dorie~Rugelach

Alllllrightythen. A day late, but OH SO YUMMY!! This is a new favorite recipe/cookie for me and you will see them again at the Holidays, no doubt! The dough can be made ahead and frozen, they were freaking beyond easy and they are DELICIOUS!! I can't wait to try different variations of this sensational cookie! I had never heard of or tried Rugelach before so CHEERS to yet another spectacular discovery via Tuesdays With Dorie.



Head over to Grace's Blog Piggy's Cooking Journal to see a stunning version of these yummy cookies and to get the recipe! Thanks to Grace for a fabulous pick!



Don't miss all the other RUGELACH, visit the TUESDAYS WITH DORIE today!

Tuesdays With Dorie~ Double Crusted Bluberry (Bluecherry) Pie (s)..

It will still be Tuesday for about an hour here in LA, so I made it! YAY!!
I couldn't resist this weeks TUESDAYS WITH DORIE pick, brought to all of us by Amy of SOUTH IN YOUR MOUTH! Amy chose Dorie's Double-Crusted Blueberry Pie, from "Baking; From My Home to Yours" By: Dorie Greenspan, a fabulous baking group that is baking and eating our way through this SENSATIONAL book. My copy is now pretty evenly coated in a very thin layer of sugar, flour and a few vanilla extract stains here and there. Hop on over to Amy's blog if you are still waiting for your book to be delivered or if you're at work and need the ingredients for your grocery list before heading home. She has the whole breakdown, a beautiful pie and a great story!



Back to the pie....or in this case pieS. I decided to make mini-pies instead of one whole pie. This makes it a little easier for Nate and I to stay on our health kick and share the pie love with our co-workers. While we were grocery shopping this past weekend I came across disposable "pot-pie" pie tins and figured that would be perfecto!

I picked up a whole mess of fresh, giant blueberries, and got to pie makin'!
First I made the double crust (a double batch of Dorie's go-to pie crust that is the BIZOMB.) The only change I made is using the plastic "dough" blade on the food processor....



While the dough was chillin I cleaned up my flour mess and gathered up the filling ingredients. I could find one of the containers of blueberries, but where the heck was the second container?? I tore the fridge apart, checked my grocery receipt (rang up for TWO containers of blueberries) and had no luck turning them up. I was not giving up on the pie making (and was not going back to the store) so took some filling liberty on this recipe.
I used 1 pt of fresh, delicious blueberries and about 1 to 1 1/2 cups fresh cherries, pitted (we drove to Tahoe last weekend and scooped the cherries up on our long Sunday drive home through the farm lands of Cali).
I kept everything else about Dorie's filling recipe the same (and crossed my fingers!)



I rolled out the first disc of dough and it made enough crusts to fill 5 of the lil pot-pie tins (which I buttered BIG TIME!).
Then I tried to be as even as possible with the filling.
I rolled out the second disc, used one of the un-used pot-pie tins as a stencil and cut out my top layer of crust, sealing each little pie up~




I baked the 5 pies 25 minutes before lowering the oven temp a bit, but then for about 35 minutes- so in the end the same cooking time.



These were a HUGE hit!! The flavor combination was absolutely beautiful, and the pies were adorable! Nate and I cut one in half and shared it (perfect amount of decadence)then he had a little more...




These were fun to just dig into with a fork like we did at work today! I loved it as Blucherry Pie, but think it would be brilliant with just the blueberries~

This recipe was DELICIOUS and a most definite keeper!

PS the other container of Blueberries was in my freakin trunk! (I'll check there SOONER next time!)...

Tuesdays With Dorie- Peanut Butter Torte

Well this could not be more UP MY ALLEY! Of course it took me ALL friggin day to post this delicious concoction, but I did well time-wise in making it and did not stay up all night last night crushing peanuts!! After a pretty rough weekend, that I will absolutely not get into, I took a LONG nap after the Laker game on Sunday and then whipped this up, easy peasy!!




This recipe involved Peanut Butter, Cream Cheese, and Oreo Cookies. That's all I needed to know. There was also a yummy frosting included in the original recipe, but Nate wasn't into that AND I was lazy so I thought what better to top this with then a bunch of chopped up mini-Reeses peanut butter cups and chopped peanuts! This worked out famously and I have no regrets.



Thank goodness for Tuesdays With Dorie because the book we've been baking out of; Baking: From My Home To Yours, by Dorie Greenspan is an absolute MUST OWN GUIDE to BAKING GLORIOUS DESERTS!! I am so happy to be a part of this sensational group, and this weeks selection was picked by Elizabeth (what a fabulous name) of Ugg Smell Food.



She chose the Peanut Butter Torte, that is not only SUPER DELICIOUS, but also SUPER easy to throw together!! This is a desert I will no doubt be making MANY, MANY, MANY more times...I stuck straight to the recipe this go-round, but can't wait to make it again so I can play around with some of the flavors.

You can either visit Elizabeth's blog to see the recipe or as I said before and will say again BUY THIS COOKBOOK!! (it's worth it!!)




Also- go scope out the Tuesdays With Dorie Blog for every body's take on this yummy torte. The group has grown BIG TIME and it is filled with some pretty exceptionally talented and creative peeps~

Tuesdays With Dorie~Marshmallow Madness

Hooray for making new things for the first time! When I first joined Tuesdays With Dorie and bought the "Baking: From My Home to Yours" cookbook by Dorie Greenspan, this recipe jumped out at me immediately! I have been very anxious to attempt homemade marshmallows, this was really exciting! So again, HOORAY!!! For this week's TWD recipe, JUDY of JUDY'S GROSS EATS has selected Dorie's Marshmallows! Pages 404-405 of the book, "Baking: From My Home to Yours" by Dorie Greenspan. To see the full recipe visit Judy's Blog, or the TWD Blogroll (many of the members will post the full recipe along with their GORGEOUS photos of marshmallows) OR even better, if you have not already, go buy this awesome book!!



My experience with the "mallows" was not so mellow. I think the recipe is good, and I did really enjoy the challenge of making something I have never attempted before, but we still ran in some problems this go around and I'd give our end result a C+ at best.
I was very excited that this was such an intriguing concept that Nate (even on a weeknight) could not resist helping me with this fabulous experiment.
Armed with my spanking new candy thermometer, we measured our ingredients and got to makin' mallows. Because this was a first attempt at such a delightful sweet- I decided we'd make the plain vanilla mallows, and save the juicin' it up for next time.

Nate (even though I was meddling and poking around) manned the sugar and thermometer, while I prepped the gelatin and egg whites. Before the sugar mix had reached the proper temperature, it started to caramelize and so we pulled it off. At that point I think the egg whites were ALMOST ready but another minute or two would not have been a bad thing. So onward we trudged, mixing everything together and spreading the sweetness on to our prepped cookie sheet (which ended up being a jelly roll pan, because that was our best bet with the higher sides...).
We used some ramikins to prop up the parchment paper, and because we were doing this at 10:00pm on a weeknight like lunatics, we left them to set overnight. I opted for a sharp knife to cut them in squares, using tons of cornstarch all the way. I read about one of our brilliant TWD'ers using a powdered sugar/cornstarch combo which I will definitely try next time. Because of the sugar mix getting caramelly these were not snow-white in color, and I think I'd use a little less vanilla next time, but that's just my taste. However, they were squishy and made for some fun photos and a good adventure story. I will attempt the "regular" mallows a few more times before I get tricky with the other flavors.



Enjoy all the beautiful mallows by visiting the newly beautified Tuesdays With Dorie Homepage

My BEST FRIEND is getting married this coming weekend and the weekend after that Nate and I will be off on a camping trip to celebrate our first wonderful year of marriage!! So please go to the TWD site for the next couple Tuesdays to check out what's crackin', I may not be back until May (but sometimes I am able to squeeze it in there, so we'll see!)

Tuesdays With Dorie~Gooey Chocolate Cakes

OOOOHHHHH YAAAAAAHHHHH! Who doesn't want a personal molten chocolate gooey cake? Feel free to ask, I don't know the answer, because I don't think anyone I know would turn down one of these bad-boys.
This marks my whooping comeback to the wonderful baking brigade Tuesdays With Dorie. My big birthday month has come and gone, and I am back in the kitchen, and back in the mix (finally)!

A HUGE thanks to LEIGH of LEMON TARTLET, who chose this rockin' recipe! I LOVE CHOCOLATE, LOVE CAKE and LOVE anything GOOEY. As usual I loved reading Dorie's intro- noting that she prefers to use the disposable muffin tins and even keeps it "green" by washing them in the dishwasher- who knew that was possible?! Answer: I do...now!



This is a simple and totally glamorous desert that is a big hit for a dinner party (I made molten cakes previously,HERE, for a dinner party we had around New Year's Eve.)
And while this desert, as Dorie notes in the side column, is best enjoyed right out of the oven, it can be wrapped and enjoyed the next day. Since Nate and I have been on the fitness tip, I made these babies last Thursday night because last Friday was my homie Natalie's Birthday! This worked out famously because Nate and I split one (after it's close-up) when they were hot and amazing, and the next day my co-workers enjoyed them with a little vanilla ice cream, not gooey, but still oh-so-delicious!!

For the recipe, go out and buy BAKING; From My Home To Yours By: Dorie Greenspan. Or pop on over to LEMON TARTLET to scope it out right now!

Mini Chocolate Molten Cakes

Ok, you can't win them ALL, the Prime Rib was cooked to perfection, but these badboys stayed in the oven just one minute too long and were not really very lava-y in the center. Gooey, but not LAVA-Y. I really don't have any complaints though- they were ultra delicious and I know they will be perfect and uber-oozy the next time I make them. These are a FANTASTIC dinner party desert, not at all too difficult to whip up, and once you have prepared the flour-less batter, it can go into the muffin tin and into the fridge from 1-24 hours prior to baking time, which ROCKS! I made them earlier in the day, into the fridge they went, then as we finished dinner and sat around drinking wine- I popped them into the oven, 13 (shoulda been 12) minutes later- YUM!




I was also very excited to make these because this is the first item I have cooked out of one of my FAVORITE wedding presents- "The Joy of Cooking"...growing up this was the quintessential cookbook in our house (of course as second place to the Ohio State University notebook with hand-written gems and years of collected recipes that is my mothers Bible of Cooking. I always remember the red and white guide to damn-near-everything-kitchen-related and it being my mom's go-to when she was getting creative, since you couldn't really hop on Google or All Recipes back then...


Mini Chocolate Molten Cakes
Source: 75th Anniversary Edition of The Joy of Cooking, pg 729
Serves: 8,original recipe shown (I halved it and it still worked perfectly!)
6oz bittersweet or semi sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
6 T unsalted butter
1/4 c unsweetened cocoa powder
4 large egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
2 T sugar

Place chocolate and butter using a double boiler (or a big pot with simmering water on the burner and a smaller sauce pot with the chocolate in it held over the simmering water) and melt, stirring often.
Remove from heat and sift in cocoa, stir until smooth. Beat egg whites and cream of tartar in a medium bowl until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar, beating on high speed until peaks are stiff, but not dry. Use a rubber spatula to fold 1/4 of the egg whites into the chocolate, then fold in the remaining whites. Fill muffin cups 3/4 full. Bake at 400 7-8 minutes (cracked on top but still gooey in the center)Let sit 2-3 minutes, cakes will shrink up a bit from the sides of the pan. Place rack or plate over the cakes to unmold & serve em HOT!

note: If you prepare the batter, fill the muffin tins, cover with saran or pressn'seal and refrigerate 1-24 hours, cook about 10-12 minutes.

The Lady's Cheesy Mac

Recently I got my first Paula Deen cookbook and have been very excited to try one of her recipes! She is just so cute and always makes dishes that look so delicious!
I chose The Lady's Cheesy Mac as the first recipe from Paula Deen's Kitchen Classics cookbook to try.





Serves 6
4 cups elbow macaroni, drained (about 2 cups uncooked)
2 cups grated cheddar cheese
3 eggs beaten
1/2 cup sour cream
4 Tbsp butter, cut up
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk , or equivalent in evaporated milk (I used regular milk)

Preheat oven to 350. After macaroni has been boiled and drained add cheese while macaroni is still hot. Combine remaining ingredients and add to macaroni mixture. Pour into a casserole dish and bake 30-45 minutes. Top with additional cheese if desired.

This made a TON of mac & cheese, and I would add a bit more salt and some black pepper next time, our guests liked it and I would definitely make it again :)