Milk Chocolate Mini Bundt Cakes – in disguise
Posted by Amy Ruth | Filed under Desserts, For Friends, Tuesdays with Dorie
This past Friday, I made a huge bowl of guacamole and took it with me to the gym. (Its hard to take Texas out of the girl) Along with the Tostitos, was a sack of yummy flax seed spicey corn chips from Trader Joes, for my gluten intolerant gym friends. Those of you who are lucky enough to live near TJ’s ….well, I’ll just be nice and say you are lucky. Once in a while I think my gym friends need a little pick me up. I’m telling you they really do like food and I’m just kind of fond of them all. Still out there sharing the love. Its just been a little quiet around here.
Even though I have been under the radar for a couple of months, YAY, I had big fun with my little family for the holidays. Santa was so good to the kids this year!!! They’re in college & a teenager, and they were happy! Score!! So you’re a skeptic and you don’t go for all the hoopla? Duh, You bet I believe! Would you deprive the jolly, beloved, velvet enrobed man the pleasure?
Anyway people, its fun to talk to you again, if you’re out there. I hope you are.
February baking is always festive and happy. Beginning the month with Dorie’s Milk Chocolate Mini-Bundt cakes is pretty sweet . The quintessential personal serving of a gentle milk chocolate cake glazed with chocolate sauce. A selection this week made by the lucky baker Kristin, the Queen of Quite a Lot and blogger I’m Right About Everything…. who can argue? Seriously a fun month to be part of the recipe rotation. You see, if you’re new to this baking thing called Tuesdays With Dorie then let me just say its a growing bakers group who take turns choosing recipes from Dorie Greenspan’s cookbook, Baking From My Home to Yours. Each week a featured member chooses a recipe that all who participate can bake and then post to their blog on Tuesday. Its a magical day. That featured baker then posts the recipe for all to see on her or his blog. In this case once again it is Kristin at I’m Right About Everything. Just click on her link or here. Lots of ovens working, right? Of course you really should add Dorie’s book to your shelf and bake along if you like.
My Lift and Serve Molten pan hosted this recipe because I do not own a mini bundt pan. It worked out perfectly. Also, I substituted buttermilk for the whole milk with the minor addition of 1/8 teaspoon of baking soda as suggested by Dorie. A couple of the little cakes had a pecan swirl, the rest were pure milk chocolate. They are nice little cakes, quite delicious and tender. I paid particular attention after they passed the 18 minute mark in the oven. They remained there for the toothpick test for a few more minutes until they were tenderly baked, but not too much. Just right Goldilocks!
Thanks for the visit.
All-In-One Holiday Bundt Cake
Posted by Amy Ruth | Filed under Uncategorized
In Dorie’s book, Baking From My Home to Yours, she describes this concoction as the ”name your favorite Thanksgiving flavor, and you’ll find it here.” After putting the cake in the oven, it was time to do the clean up and I tasted the remnants of batter in my mixer bowl. Yes, it definitely is all things Thanksgiving. Truly it is. Among the array of ingredients or flavors present are pecans, cranberries, apples and pumpkin. All the wonderful spices you would expect to follow along are cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and brown sugar, to round it out. You know all these wonderful things combined will provide you the perfect chunky piece of cake suitable for eating out of hand. Dorie suggests making a glaze with maple syrup to finish off the marriage of flavors. So there you have it folks. My cake is resting right now, on a rack. You see it is too hot to cut right now so I will have to come back later and tell you all about how wonderful it tastes with a strong black cup of Jo. I do love my coffee. Have no fear, I’ll let you know what I think about it. Until then, go on out and buy yourself the book. If you don’t have it yet you should. It is the baking season and Dorie Greenspan has a wonderful variety of holiday goodies for you to try in Baking From My Home to Yours. There now, no excuses.
Okay, maybe you can have just one so go on over to Britan of the Nitty Britty and she will have the recipe right there for you to bake from and enjoy this tasty, worthy of giving to your friends, beautiful holiday bundt cake. Just for fun, there is at least one more stop at Mary The Food Librarian who has baked Big Bundts for an entire month. Yup, that’s right!!! If you don’t believe me, check it out. hehe She has that many bundt cakes with recipes posted. Have you ever thought someone could solve all your bundt cake challenges?
Thanks folks for being so kind and stoping by for a visit. Have a wonderful holiday season. Happy Thanksgiving!
Photos of this holiday concoction are forthcoming. For those of you who have an X-box in the house you may be aware of a new game recently introduced. I am a midnight baker and so he is a game player. You’ll see the proof later this evening. Thanks again.
At last, the photo shoot was completed and, (this is where it gets good) I finally cut the cake. Yup, I tasted it and then some. It is moist, full of fun Fall flavors, a perfect choice for warming up the season with loved ones and sharing with friends. Dorie’s All-In-One Holiday Bundt Cake is a keeper and definitely will be repeated. Even my sweet Texas friend who isn’t a TWD baker is getting ready to make it. See, I can be convincing.
Sugar Topped Molasses Spice Cookies & Cran~Apple Crisps
Posted by Amy Ruth | Filed under Uncategorized
These recipes are from Dorie Greenspan’s book Baking From My Home to Yours. Since I assume by now that you are aware of the baking group called Tuesdays With Dorie, then you are probably also knowledgeable of how this game is played. You know the one, so I won’t explain myself.
Somewhere on this page you will see a photo of a beautiful Paula Dean pie plate. Do you see it? Around the end of October I opened my email to find an email from a lovely young Mom, Angie of Southern Grace Gourmet, who notified me that I had won the pie plate from her blog. I never win even though each time I enter a contest I tell myself, “Amy, someone is going to win it may as well be you.” Yea, I know… . Anyway, this time I scored. Of course, original intentions were to make a pumpkin pie. You see Angie has a post using pie pumpkins which inspired me to give it a try. However, I couldn’t resist baking the Cran-Apple Crisp in it. It worked perfectly. I love it! Thank you so much Angie and Mr. Random Picker Program! (whoever you are?)
Let it be said that the crisp is out of this world, thank you Dorie! Just one of those familiar tasty fall spice kind of treats. Super simple to make and the only additional ingredient I required was the fresh cranberries, duh…. tis the season. You must make and enjoy one or two or three or okay more spoonfuls. De-lish!
Now as far as those cookies go…. I love molasses! Know what? So does Corbin. He loves these cookies too. Sweet little guy. Well, he isn’t so little but it just makes me happy that he loves them. A Mom thing. Also, one must understand that this third child is very discriminating. A polite way of saying he is a picky eater. ugh! Well, I’ve made these for Corbin before during the fall season. The aroma brought the boy to life so tonight I whipped the dough out of the freezer and sliced off six little cookies to bake along while making the Cran-apple crisp. They were sort of a reward for taking these scrumptious photos, ya know. he he
One more order of business, the recipes of course can be found in Dorie’s wonderful book or if you like you may also find them at the following blogs, because these bakers are the lucky ones who took their turns choosing the recipes for this month. Isn’t it such a wonderful season?
Pamela of “Cookies” with Boys chose the cookies, ha ha do ya get it? cookies…. haha Okay, well the Sugar Topped Molasses Spice Cookies recipe can be found on her blog here.
Well, guess what? Sometime this month Em of The Repressed Pastry Chef will reveal to you the magic recipe for Cran-Apple Crisps. Just stop by for a visit. I know lots of others in the baking group have been baking up lots of special treats for their families and friends so please join in if you would like. All you need is the book, a blog and a visit to the TWD site to get yourself set to roll.
Thank you so much for stopping by. I really enjoyed sharing these treats with you this week. They were among some of my favorites from Dorie’s book. Hope you’ll like them too. (They weren’t even chocolate?)
Dorie’s Sweet Potato Biscuits ~ TWD
Posted by Amy Ruth | Filed under Uncategorized
Sweet Potatoes are a little mystifying to me. I never know what I’m getting when I pick one up out of the bin at the grocery store. I like them and grew up eating sweet potato concoctions, the southern version with toasted marshmallows on top. Sweetness, sweetness.
It is the best way to eat your vegetables I would say. Recently, while flipping through the final issue of Gourmet I noticed a small article near the back explaining all the varieties and further describing their appearance as well as nuances of their flavor. Still I would probably have to have flash cards or the magazine with me to identify the different varieties. Crazy huh? 
Erin of Prudence and Pennywise chose these unique and yummy biscuits to help usher in the upcoming Thanksgiving season. They are pretty tasty especially with jam. To top it all off, you can whip these up in no time and you can even use canned sweet potatoes if you want. That’s remarkable. This little biscuit is in the front section of Dorie Greenspans Baking From My Home to Yours along with some other types of biscuits and scones. If you would like to give them a whirl, you can find the recipe on Erin’s blog or in Dorie’s book. Hope you are enjoying the Fall season along with all the yumminess too.
Allspice Crumble Muffins for TWD
Posted by Amy Ruth | Filed under Uncategorized
What theory do you subscribe to regarding caloric intake? Generally, moderation has proved to be fairly effective along with regular gym time. You know a splurge now and then sort of sneaks in there. Okay, yea lately a lot. sssshh So, today as I was at the gym, the subject of what was being baked or what type of food I was “cooking up” became the topic for the rest of the hour. That was when I thought I would give it a whirl with a different twist. When baking, I almost always follow pretty closely or exactly to the letter how the recipe is written. Today was different. I modified the flour with 1 cup AP, 1/2 cup whole wheat, 1/2 cup kamut flour. I replaced the butter with unsweetened applesauce. Two large eggs were modified to one whole and one white. I followed the rest of the recipe as written.
Well, I suppose you are wondering what became of all the efforts to reduce the fat content? The Allspice Crumble muffins reduced fat version, actually weren’t that bad with out the butter fat and minus one yolk. Don’t get me wrong. I love living the good life just like anyone else. Like butter in my baked goods. No shortening for me. The flavor with the brown sugar, allspice and optional lemon zest (included) was quite comforting and nice.
COMO has had grey, cool and partly rainy weather lately. I think that is what they call Fall. Darn, really liking warmer weather right about now a whole lot better. Does a warm sunny beach sound pretty good? Yea, that’s what I was thinking too. The point is, Kayte of Grandma’s Kitchen Table lovingly and thoughtfully chose this weeks recipe for all the bakers this week. If you are reading this Kayte, thank you for this choice. Nice of you to choose a simple, “go-to” muffin. I had all the ingredients on hand even the whole milk which I keep for baking and I really use it. Go figure with all these new found thoughts of reduced fat. hehe Yes, you will want the recipe and you can find it posted on Kayte’s site. You can also journey through the blog roll of all the Tuesdays with Dorie bakers here. There really are a lot of very talented people who love to write their stories, bake a little for their friends and families not to mention some awesome photography. (BTW Corbin was busy so…..these are mine with a different camera)
I shared this little treat with one of my special gym rat friends along with a small bottle of 2% chocolate milk.
Even they like treats. Yes they do.
Thanks for stopping by. I’ll be sure and come by your place for a visit too.
