Then I did a little poking around the internet.  I  remembered reading another blog around Valentine’s  Day about foods that are thought to bring about feelings of love.  You guessed it, prunes is among those foods listed.  You are welcome to read the list if you are curious.  Then I found the Armagnac Primer in the New Yorker Magazine here where I learned  there definitely is an art to sipping Armagnac, among other points.   When searching for the appropriate cognac for this cake I questioned my local wine & spirits shop about its flavor, a determining factor for acquisition.  I have acquired quite a collection over time.   Dawn was hilarious,  after she giggled she told me it tasted like gasoline.  Anyway, I giggled too as she explained to me its high alcohol content was definitely  handy for the flambe we were doing with this cake.  First it was learning about the flavor of this cognac and then the price.   Of course after I picked myself up off the floor I realized I would most definitely be using the brandy I had in my cabinet.  After all,   this cake wants 2 ounces.  Enough for a fun flambe of the prunes.  Yes, it does have them. What a luscious, velvety result complimenting the bittersweet chocolate with depth of flavor, richness and the all important moist texture.  

Yesterday was a baking day, which I loved.  First there was a carrot cake, followed by the much anticipated  and thank you so very much Lyb of And Then I Do the Dishes,  for finally choosing the lovely Armagnac Chocolate Cake.   This cake was selected from Baking From My Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan.   My last little project was Dorie’s cheescake we made earlier and I varied it as a Chocolate Marble with Oreo crust.  Don’t worry all the delicious calories are going elsewhere.  I was reminded by the little voice in my head plus the other swim suit wearing, spring break going, college age, female people, oh yea that half-iron man training middle aged male person, that we just can’t afford to have this delicious kind of food around the house each week.    Like they think they can tell me what to do……ha ha ha.  One can usually locate some willing donors.  

After a little shopping outing today in St. Louis, we returned to the home for dessert.  An inquiry was made about whether this weeks selection was going “somewhere else” or could we have some of it.  I remarked “oh, you probably won’t like it.”  Have you tried telling your picky children that the dessert they are about to eat has prunes in the ingredients list?  Yea right!  Regardless, I set about cutting a piece for Corbin to photograph.  I left it sitting about, turned my back and listened momentarily as I heard the silverware drawer open and close.  After a few moments, my daughter said “Mom why did you think I wouldn’t like this?  It’s really good!”  Secretly I giggled never admitting my reasons.  

We really liked it so much and I think it will find a nice place among the list of chocolate tortes “for friends.”  I would love sharing this and will definitely make it again.  Remember, its possess items on the list of foods of love.  I hope you enjoyed yours too.  

This recipe selection comes from Tuesdays With Dorie baking group, selected by the wonderful baker Lyb of And Then I Do the Dishes,  where she has graciously added the recipe to her post.  So…Go Ahead, stop by and get it.  Its is totally worth the calories.

Off to the gym!

Thank you for coming by for a visit.  Don’t forget that this weekend is Daylights Savings Time, right?  So, you will definitely need to squeeze in a little more shut-eye now and then.

I’ve never made this  recipe before so there were some ups and downs.  As of this writing the cake has not been cut and tasted other than the crumbs and the remnants of cake batter in the mixing bowl.  Which by the way were really pretty good.   By all appearances the cake is nice and moist.  That is a relief with a dark chocolate cake.  

You know that recipe I haven’t tried before?  I’m sending it (minus one piece in the frig) to work with my husband so maybe his coworkers can hash out if it is something I should buy 8″ cake pans for future baking and refining.  Tomorrow I will post an update after I have a taste.  Yum!

Thank you to Stephanie of Confessions of a City Eater for choosing this wonderfully fun recipe this week.  Don’t forget to check out the cake art of the entire Tuesdays With Dorie Blog roll.  It should be so amazing to see all the black and white cakes.  The recipe for this weeks baking art is here and at Stephanie’s site.  All of the TWD bakers are baking from Dorie Greenspans Baking From My Home to Yours.  

Thank you for visiting here and I hope you enjoy your cake this week.  See you next week for Carmel Crunch Bars.

Google and I decided to join forces and just find out a few, mind you of the trillion (yep, thats right Washington D.C.) of different variations of creme anglaise. There are approximately 387,000 listings for some creme anglaise topic. So, that just gives you an idea of the possibilities one has with this Classic Creme Anglasie. Like ice cream, which it can become if churned and frozen. What? You learned something new? (he he) It can be infused, or flavored with liqueurs, chocolates, coffees and tea, spices, citrus zest….. it is limitless. So, there you go Raskin Bobbins of 31 flavors. ( no, didn’t misspell it…..just a family joke)

I stayed with Dorie’s classic recipe, however I did use Madeleine Kamman’s technique. Call me lucky, because its been a while since I have made Creme Anglaise, but mine came together flawlessly. It was magical to watch the chemistry. Did you enjoy how the bubbles were absorbed as the scalding milk was slowly stirred together with the egg and sugar mixture? One of my “go to” books is The New  Making of a Cook, by Madeleine Kamman (don’t laugh, I’m listening). I’ve included a link where you can read about her technique for Creme Anglaise.  In the pages of her book, Madame Kamman displays more than just a recipe (as on the link).   She writes with detailed information,  and explains the chemistry as well as history.   She really connects you with the food and imparts her passion for food and cooking.  

You know Mary the FoodLibrarian, would love it if you went to your local library and checked out cookbooks for reference. BTW, its a really good way to decide if you want to invest in a particular title before you buy. That was just a tip.

My multi-sport husband, who is training for a half-iron man tasted our Tuesdays With Dorie, Floating Islands tonight.  You probably can guess that this is not in the food group of which he ordinarily partakes.  Please don’t tell on him.  Also, he will be the first to tell you he doesn’t have a sophisticated palate.  He loved it.  He just wanted all the Creme Anglaise as well.  he he  My remarks:  How can anyone not like the classic vanilla of the luscious Creme Anglaise?   I’ve enjoyed it before as an accompaniment to another dessert.  However,  I have never had Floating Islands before, along with the caramelized  sugar on top for contrast both in texture and flavor.   I am speechless.  Lovely, soft clouds, silkie and vanilla with a little crunch of the caramelized sugar.  I love that I learned something new today and tasted (okay, really… I ate some, not telling how much) a dessert I would never have ordered in a restaurant or chosen from a cookbook.

Thanks a million  for choosing Floating Islands for this week’s recipe  Shari, of Whisk a food blog,   where you will find the recipe posted.   Shari, is cooking through the Cordon Bleu at home cooking school curriculum.  She is quite busy in her kitchen making up all kinds of cooking group recipes.    I really enjoyed making this because it was new.  Its fun to learn a new trick or two.  Can you just imagine all the variations and  wizardry you’ll see here on the blogroll at Tuesdays With Dorie?  This baking group is baking from Dorie Greenspan’s book Baking From My Home to Yours.

Corbin says “Its like eating a marshmallow,” he likes it!  He’s my 15 year old baby.  Ya know, near and dear.  He  takes my photos too.  Clap Clap Clap Clap!!

 Back to the ice cream:  As I recall, when I was a little girl, in that little town, I thought ice cream was soft serve…

The Chocolate Chunk Muffins were pretty darn good, to quantify though, how could you not like them?  They have wonderful chocolate chunks in them.   Shhhh, don’t tell anyone that I made a mistake and made them anyway.  Just a note to self to enjoy them sometime too. Dorie’s muffins are simple and go together quickly.  The warm chocolatey muffins were enjoyed this morning by a couple of friends who dropped by with a Boo Wish.  Its the season, you know!  They liked them and said they would be good as mini’s for a brunch or anytime of day.  Nice to have tasters magically appear, huh?  I like that too.  Even better the next day.

Tuesdays with Dorie’s  site has a forum for comments on recipes in progress.  Members of TWD have the opportunity to share their opinions and questions.  That being said, this particular recipe was quite provoking.  There was much discussion, lots of ideas about how to improve the finished cupcake to suit the individual.  I don’t know about you, call me silly, but I just needed to see for myself.  One needs a basis for comparison and of course there is always a personal preference.  I followed the recipe.  Even though I was informed of varying ingredients thought to change the outcome.    I know,  why you ask?   I don’t know, maybe because I was always the member of the family who actually read the instructions for the toys the children received at Christmas time.  Go figure.  Being a girl, I also learned that asking for directions proved to be a more efficient use of time.

The Chocolate – Chocolate Cupcakes from Dorie Greenspan’s, Baking From My Home to Yours, was selected by Clara from I Heart Food 4 Thought. Thank you so much for selecting a timely and fun chocolate recipe.  Stop by her place and take a peek at her Boo-Cakes.  They are adorable.  You can tell she had a blast being creative.    I love chocolate and  the recipes I have baked so far all allow for the chocolate of your choice.  Neat huh?  I like dark chocolate.  I think these would go very well with icecream or with filling.  For those of us who are accustomed to lots of sugary icing either on our cupcakes or on our layered cakes, these may be a little anti-climatic.  I missed the icing, honestly.   What I learned?  Maybe to bake them just a little between  making sure they are done enough not to sink and not too done so that they are dry.  Where is that you say?  Well….maybe with a few crumbs on that toothpick you poked in the middle.  Then, I think I would follow the lead of the other wonderful bakers at TWD who adorned their cupcakes with real cream cheese or buttercream icing. [SinglePic not found][singlepic id="72" w="320" h="240" mode="" float="center" ]

If you would like to see the recipe for this weeks Chocolate – Chocolate Cupcakes click on here 

Remember just a few days away from the end of your opportunity to join in the fun at TWD.  Sign up now… don’t wait!  Next week we are having more fun baking so come back by for a visit and don’t forget to leave me a comment.  I love to talk to new friends. [SinglePic not found] 

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These were pretty good fall muffins.  I varied each row in the pan.  Mixing up the recipe as written, short of the nuts and dried fruit.  This is the point where I scooped enough batter for three muffins into a cereal bowl.  The first three muffins were  plain, for my only remaining child at home.  The second row of batter, I added a handful of chocolate chips, for me.  I’m not on a diet today!   The third row of batter, toasted pecans and dried cranberries were added.  The last and final row dried apple and toasted pecans were added.  The remaining batter went to the mini muffin pan.  My family loves to pop those little guys into their mouths for snacks.[SinglePic not found]

The muffins are good I thought, however, as I’ve read amongst other TWD bakers who share an affinity for pumpkin, we all seem to like a little “More” pumpkin flavor.  Therefore, one might be able to conclude that Dorie provided us the Pumpkin Muffin recipe for all mankind.  Do you think?   Those who may not be pumpkin eaters and those who are.  I like pumpkin and  I like goodies in my muffins and so any additions are interesting to me.   Whether its chocolate, not the non-chocolate variety  (or white), which was delicious by the way, or dried fruits and nuts they all add to the flavor and interest to the muffin.[SinglePic not found]

I didn’t have on hand, nor did I find sunflower seeds on recent trips to the store so they were never topped with a crown of seeds.  Maybe I’ll try that sometime when baking some Pumpkin Muffins with Dorie.  Thank you,   Kelly of Sounding My Barbaric Gulp for selecting this recipe from Dorie Greenspans, Baking From My Home to Yours.  You’ll find the recipe for the pumpkin muffins here or here.  Either way, Enjoy!  As it is a nice time of year to bake pumpkin muffins.  A tip from this baking project I learned and will share with you is freezing the remaining pumpkin from your opened can.  I haven’t tried freezing mine yet, however I read about it and then googled and found many others who have as well.  You’ll find some really interesting suggestions for your remaining pumpkin at ChowHound.

There usually is never enough chocolate as far as I can tell so when Dorie offered the option of either chocolate or regular Ovaltine for the malt flavoring, well, I went with chocolate Ovaltine.  From there I pretty much stayed on target with the recipe.  Although, I did take the advice of veteran TWDers and cut the whoppers in half only.  Using the 60% bittersweet chips and regular Hershey’s cocoa made for a nice mild chocolate flavor.  They actually reminded me somewhat of a little crunchy brownie, nice and soft, puffy little cookies.  Scooping up the sticky cookie dough with my ice cream scoop or triggered cookie scoop, proved to make the process a little easier.  With two college students living in town it is so convenient to have some cookie dough in the freezer for a quick “freshly baked”  dozen or so cookies.  You never know when they might drop by with friends in tow.  You can count on them being hungry. Who would turn down home made cookies?  he he

These were tasty little morsels and I can’t wait to try them with some ice cream like my resident teenager did last night.  Sweet dreams…

So for all of us with lofty ideas of a baking extravaganza each year this is a yummy cookie, I think, for gift giving. I learned to exchange a little of the dairy butter for nut butters in making cookies. On this one I did trade some of the butter for peanut butter. I like peanut butter anyway, so it goes minus a couple of ounces here and add a couple of ounces there. I didn’t have the crunchy type but I did have peanuts so I added 1/4C chopped peanuts to the mix. My chipsters were Chunksters because I used my Callebaut and hand chopped chocolate into chunks. I think the cinnamon was a nice addition for a holiday cookie as well. As many of you indicated the chilling was tricky…did the chilling and whipped out the ice cream scoop after I let the dough warm a bit. Worked like a charm. Thank you. My cookies were large though on the first half so as I baked along I split the dough balls in half for the cute smaller ones. Hubs asked me to give them away ASAP. We both are teetering on the scales. he he

Not being the one to wait for the cookies to cool out of the oven, I had to taste right away. It is like Christmas to experience the surprise of a new cookie in your mouth. Chewy and tasty, but I do think I will try the dried fruit idea from Nancy at The Dogs Eat the Crumbs and make it with dried fruits so that truly it mimics and PBJ… wouldn’t that be just right? Thank you Nancy.

If you would like to preview the wonderful cookies for your Christmas baking projects, check out the rest of the baking maniacs at TWD and see what all the sweet energy is about. Thank you Stephany at Proceed with Caution for choosing a cookie with a combination of All American favorite flavors.

Out of my “Kitchen Toybox” came my molten chocolate cakes pan.  I thought I would try it rather than my usual spring form pan with this recipe and  produce  individual Ice Cream Torte desserts.  Well, I let my teenager be the judge, the one who loves C & C.  Besides since the pan makes 6….I had 6 chances to achieve photographic success.  My photographer guru son got a new photo toy today in the mail.  He was anxious to use his new flash for his Canon Camera.  So, we reshot the pictures and delayed the post.  Oops.  Just for the record.  Last week I made a trip to the store to buy the needed ingredients for the next two posts.  I am hopeful to be prompt.  I actually think my family is kind of excited about all this “sweet energy.”  I  planned it out so that I could dead head the hanging baskets on my porch, and tend  loads of laundry, carpool, let the dog out and so on.

I decided to make one half of the recipe so as to minimize  (to some degree) the limit of temptation.  Ice cream is a temptation especially with chocolate.  Let’s face it… dark chocolate is my nemesis.  I used Callebaut 70% for my ganache.   With that in mind, I poured the ganache in one of my liquid pour measuring cups and proceeded to approximate a measurement of chocolate.  I used about 1/8 cup for each layer of  chocolate in each section of the pan.  Haagen-Dazs Vanilla Ice Cream mixed with Oreo cookies were then layered on top of the frozen chocolate.  I used an ice cream scoop to measure the ice cream/cookie mixture into the pan and a  small measuring cup to help flatten out the chunky ice cream mixture.  Chilled some more, followed by some more chocolate.  (of course in between chilling and filling I worked on my porch plants).  That’s about it, ladies and gentlebakers.  It was a fun, teen-age tested project.  Best part  - the chocolate, of course.

Thanks Amy for your great selection… affording all of us the pick of flavors from the universe.  Click here to visit with the rest of TWD.

This is my first post and from the looks of it…. ar ar ar, I’m new to this whole blogging scenario. Although, reading them has been a hobby of mine. So, if you have read any of the about me stuff, well, I bake and others eat. That way the work out at the gym keeps sizes in check. You know!

A little late to the finish line but I scrambled, to the store, back home, and magically these Granola Grabbers came together lickety split. I was surprised how simple. My son the photographer wasn’t home from football practice, so I snapped a few shots. Not being the photo-talent that he is, you’ll have a giggle, but I stopped the process to take a few photos while mixing up. Which in turn, gave me a some ideas. Like: Okay, here we go ladies/gentlemen bakers. The kind of granola you use has to have an impact on how the cookies taste. I picked up some Cascadian Farm Organic, honey and oat. It seemed to be one of the most straightforward i.e. without fruit. “Grabbed” the wheat germ off the shelf, you know its gotta be healthy so far, right? he he Anyway, well like a lot of us chocoholics out there, had to have chocolate, so the chips came into the mix, minus the raisins. Pulled out the scales, converted the butter measurement to ounces and changed part of the butter to peanut butter. Try it ! You might like it too. I don’t know for sure, maybe someone else did it too. I’m sorry ladies and gents. Still getting through all 250 of the membership. What fun! Thats about it. Anyway, I gave them to a “Birthday Club” neighbor after my football son had some and I had some. We deemed them “keepers”. I’ll definitely make them again! For “Friends”. Thanks Dorie!