This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s cookbook, Dorie’s Cookies is for Cast Iron Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars.
These are caramelised and crispy around the edges, soft and chewy in the centre.
The dried apricots soaked in hot water and the shredded moist coconut in the recipe add sweetness and depth of flavour.
It tastes like a wonderful chocolate chip cookie yet has the texture of a moist, chewy, muesli bar.
I found this playful and delicious.
The whole family loved this week’s recipe!
It is the first day of school holidays for us here so I don’t expect these will last long in our house!
To see the rest of the group’s thoughts on this week’s recipes click here!
This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is Swedish Visiting Cake Bars.
I didn’t make these! I really wanted to.
They sound delicious.
And full of almonds.
I love almonds, however two out of my three children have a nut allergy.
Some nuts are absolutely no problem, like hazelnuts, which means Nutella is ok!
However almonds are not on our friendly nut list.
So I thought I’d take this opportunity to catch up on one of the recipes I have missed.
I keep saying I’m not a fan of chocolate and then I choose the most chocolatey thing I can find to bake! Like the Chocolate, Prune and Whiskey Cake a couple of weeks ago.
Well this was just as decadent and rich as that cake. However while that cake bordered on bitterness from the chocolate, I found this tray of brownies waaaaayyy to sweet for me. The recipe does have 2 cups of sugar!
The family loved it however.
I made it mostly for them, they are all fans of chocolate.
For chocolate lovers this seemed to be a success!
I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone thought of their Swedish Visiting Cake Bars, now they are definitely more up my alley 🙂
Cowgirl Cornmeal Pecan Financiers from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking Chez Moi cookbook, are simple, honest and I think I ate an entire tray of 12 mini muffin sized bites all by myself.
I loved these!
There are some nuts my nut allergic children can tolerate and luckily, pecans are one of them! I loved eating the pecans straight off the tray as they came out of the oven, toasty, fragrant and warm. And I loved the strong pecan flavour that builds in your mouth as you bite into the financiers.
They were simple to make and easy to eat 🙂
Eaten warm, their texture is light and airy. Once they are cold, the texture becomes heavier and more dense however the flavour is not compromised. I am waiting for the kids to come home from school so I can bake another tray of 12. Or maybe 24…
I love having the batter in the fridge ready to cook, makes me feel very domestic goddess like (laughing).
Looking forward to reading about the thoughts of the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie group!
This week’s Tuesday’s with Dorie is Sunny Side Up Meringues.
I love meringues. Adore them. However, there was something about these egg looking cookies that messed with my head. I just kept thinking of boiled eggs. So I took Dorie’s suggestion and filled the center with a dollop of cream and fruit and called them mini pavlovas 🙂
Every year we make a 12 egg Pavlova for Christmas (it is perfect for our hot Sydney Christmas weather). Then I make another one for the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. And a third one to eat as we watch the fireworks to welcome in the New Year!
We are hard core Pavlova fans.
So the decision to make mini Pavlova’s was easy.
These were delicious! Very delicate and waaay too easy to eat!
Looking forward to reading what the rest of the Tuesday’s with Dorie group thought about these.
I love apples, I love cinnamon and I loooove cake.
This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe was a winner in every way with us.
It was quick and easy to make.
The cake was light, yet moist and full of flavour.
I didn’t have rum so I opted for the extra teaspoon of vanilla.
I found myself looking for a more pure and simple smell and taste of apple.
Next time I will skip the extra flavouring.
It was that simple 🙂
And we had more time to enjoy the last days of summer at Manly Beach…
I can’t wait to see what the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie members thought!
It has been another long while since my last post.
There are weeks I cook along with the group, read up on what everyone thinks and then don’t actually post anything!
Then we decided to get this little guy a few days before Christmas…
We suddenly had a new fur baby in the house!
He threw our daily routine into chaos for a little while 🙂
Most of all however, the humidity of the Australian summer has just sucked the life right out of me. Living by the beach definitely helps. I think Manly Beach is stunning…
So… finally… Chewie the puppy is house trained.
I have a new laptop that actually works with my phone so I can upload/download things (lol).
Most of all, the temperature has finally dropped!
And I have been wanting to make Hamantaschen for the longest time.
These little cookies have fascinated me for a while now.
So many variations on the internet I didn’t know where to start.
When I saw they were the recipe of the week for the Tuesdays with Dorie group I knew it was meant to be!
I loved these. I rolled my pastry thin, I was worried it might have been thinner than the 1/8 inch height Dorie recommended. I just managed to get the dough on the baking sheet before it melted in my hands, so I’ll admit my expectations were low. The result was such a delicate and fine pastry I could have happily eaten it on its own.
The filling I thought would be too sweet when I tried a spoonful. Yet somehow it balanced out in the light delicate pastry shell.
I thoroughly enjoyed these and am very happy that my first attempt was Dorie Greenspan’s recipe from her Dorie’s Cookies book and as part of the Tuesdays with Dorie group! Cannot wait to see what others thought.
It has been a very long while since I cooked with the Tuesdays with Dorie group. I have always enjoyed being a part of the group. However, as I mentioned in my last post, I was working with rape and domestic violence clients, working a 24 hour roster and then I caught every virus going, the last one being glandular fever. I just could not recover. I made attempts to join in with the cooking, however it was always short lived.
I have recently found a functional medicine doctor, not many of those here in Australia! I wasn’t expecting much, considering my experience to date with doctors has been… not great to say the least.
Some genetic testing revealed I have inherited faulty MTHFR genes. Not one, but two faulty copies from each parent! Basically, this gene mutation effects my ability to convert folate I eat into something my body can use. If you are cruising through life, this might not be much of an issue, and for me it was fine for some 40+ years. However once I became very ill, it was hard to recover.
I tried everything! Even going vegan for a while, which I now realise made things worse as my body needs a much larger amount of B12 than the average ‘non mutant’ gene person 🙂
I am excited that with high doses of B12 and methylfolate (tiny doses) I am already feeling better! And the first thing I wanted to do was cook!
This week’s recipe was interesting for me as part of my healing was cooking green apples, with a handful of raisins, cinnamon and some honey. I love this combination. The crumb topped apple bars are the same combination (minus the cinnamon) on a cookie base!
It was so much fun cooking this. I haven’t used butter and sugar in a while and it was ridiculously enjoyable! I realised my tastes have changed a bit and while I loved the apple filling I did find the whole bar a bit too sweet! Something I did not think I would ever say in my life!
The rest of the family was very excited with the smells that filled the house with this recipe. They have enjoyed the raw desserts I’ve been making however they did say they missed the smell of baking 🙂
I am looking forward to reading about what the other members of the Tuesdays with Dorie group thought of their recipe of the week.
I love rice pudding.
It’s one of those dishes that takes me back to my childhood both in Yugoslavia and then later here in Australia.
My mum would sprinkle chocolate on top and it was real comfort food to me.
This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe sees classic rice pudding topped with fresh strawberries and a spiced hibiscus syrup.
I was surprised by how much I liked the hibiscus syrup. The kids weren’t keen, they said it tasted like medicine! However I loved it. Especially once I added a squeeze of fresh lemon juice to the syrup before serving. The colour was so pretty and vibrant and I think it lifted the flavour of the strawberries. The kids (and my husband) preferred their rice custard topped with just fresh strawberries.
It’s winter here in Australia and it’s been pretty mild, apart from a storm that swept the entire East Coast last weekend.
The northern beaches of Sydney where I live were hit pretty hard, the photo below captures one of the local beaches before and after the storm. It made the rounds on facebook so I have no idea who to credit it to but it captures the impact of the storm pretty well.
This weekend they are predicting another round of storms.
The rain and the wind were so fierce last time, we were pretty much housebound.
If we have a repeat of this weather this coming weekend I am planning to make another batch of this rice custard, watch movies and keep warm. Maybe try some warm winter toppings on the custard!
I am looking forward to seeing what the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie group chose to cook this week!
This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was Betty’s Chocoholic Cake.
Wow! This was a hit with all the chocolate lovers in the family.
The cake is dense and rich, to me it tastes like 3 layers of brownies stacked on top of each other.
Which, according to the kids, is awesome!
Unlike the rest of my family however, I’m not that fussed on chocolate!
So I added a raspberry sauce between the three layers to break up the sweetness.
I blitzed 300g of raspberries, strained them them to remove all the hard bits and then boiled the raspberries with 1/4 cup of sugar and 1 tablespoon of cornflour. I spread the sauce between the 3 layers and then covered the cake with Dorie’s chocolate ganache.
I woke everyone early on the weekend and we headed to the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney and walked from Coogee beach to Bondi beach to try and work off some of the sugar from this cake 🙂
It’s a long and somewhat tough walk but it’s also really pretty so that makes it easier somehow!
We then felt good about coming home and having more cake!
Looking forward to reading what the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie group thought of this month’s recipes!
My last post was David Lebovitz’s Chocolate Pudding.
I made a double batch of his recipe three times last week.
I made it for my son’s 16th birthday and it was sooo delicious, I just kept making it again and again and again…
We kind of overdosed on chocolate last week, so this week, choosing the Tarte Tropezienne for the recipe of the week was an easy choice for us!
When my copy of Baking Chez Moi first arrived, way back at the beginning of Tuesdays with Dorie, the Tarte Tropezienne caught my attention immediately. I love brioche, I love pastry cream!
I’ll be honest though, I felt a bit hesitant making this.
Making dough has always made me nervous. I think mostly because I don’t do it that much.
I made the dough as Dorie said, using the paddle attachment of my Kitchen Aid and I made a soft, sticky, runny paste!
So I started again and this time I used the hook attachment and it worked! I beautiful smooth ball of dough formed, joy!
I made the dough and pastry cream one day and the next day I baked and assembled the cake.
I could not find pearl sugar so I bought sugar cubes and smashed them. Oh my what a mess!
I had bits of sugar all over the bench, floor and in my hair. But it looked so pretty I didn’t mind one bit!
I love this cake! It turned out delicious.
I am looking forward to reading what the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie group thought of this month’s recipes! I’m already thinking about Betty’s Chocolate Cake I’ll be making next time!
Cowgirl Cornmeal Pecan Financiers from Dorie Greenspan’s 
This week’s 
Kitchen Therapy 