Tuesdays with Dorie: Coffee Break Muffins

I'm not sure if you can tell from the photos but these muffin cases actually have little coffee cups on them. Which makes them perfect for this week's Coffee Break Muffins chosen by Rhiani of Chocoholic Anonymous.

We had a garage sale on the weekend and had a bit of a working bee last Wednesday to prepare. What better pick me up than a coffee break muffin for morning tea!

I always replace the espresso powder (which I've never found here) with regular freeze dried instant coffee and I did the same thing here without thinking. This resulted in a lovely speckled muffin but I think hubby was little disappointed the speckles weren't chocolate!


The taste test ...

I'm a decaf drinker but I really enjoy coffee flavoured desserts and these muffins were no exception. Lucky I made a full batch because they disappeared really quickly. Definitely a winner.

Thanks for a great pick Rhiani! Make sure you check out Chocoholic Anonymous for the recipe.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Cranberry Upside-Downer

Cranberries aren't all that common in Australia but I was delighted when Sabrina of Superfluous chose Dorie's Cranberry Upside-Downer this week.

While we never see fresh cranberries here and the frozen ones make only a brief appearance in December, I knew I had one lonely box left in the freezer. Yay!

There was no way I wasn't going to love this cake. First of all, upside down cakes are fun! I've been making a version with tinned pineapple since I was a child. Secondly it has fruit, nuts and spices. All of which I adore.

The cake is a breeze to make and it looks stunning covered with bright, jewel-toned cranberries and its shiny redcurrant glaze.

Served warm straight from the oven with a scoop of vanilla icecream, this is my idea of heaven.

Thanks for a wonderful pick Sabrina! I will definitely be making this again around Christmas when frozen cranberries next make their appearance. You can find the recipe on Sabrina's blog here.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Choc Peanut Butter Crisscrosses

This week Jasmine of Jasmine Cuisine chose Dorie's Peanut Butter Crisscrosses. I've made these before actually (funnily enough when I was pregnant last time) so for yet another week I made the variation.

Unfortunately, something went a little awry and these were nothing like what they were supposed to be. Dorie's photo (and my last attempt) were these big, chewy cookies you could really sink your teeth into. My choc version made flat, soft and cakey cookie pancakes.

Admittedly I left out the peanuts which would have given them some more substance but the cookie mix itself was sooooo soft. I chilled the dough before baking but it didn't seem to help.

They still tasted pretty good and there aren't many left. But I can't work out whether that's because they were nice or because at 30 weeks pregnant I am gimme! gimme! gimme! when it comes to any sort of bakery product and therefore not a good judge.

So make sure you check out Jasmine's blog for the recipe and the other TWD bakers here. I'm sure they had much more success than I did!

Tuesdays with Dorie: Oatmeal Spice Shortbread

Mmmmm ... shortbread! This week Donna of Life’s Too Short Not to Eat Dessert First chose Dorie's Espresso Chocolate Shortbread Cookies. Having made these before (and loved them!) I decided to do the variation which was Oatmeal Spice Shortbread.

Honestly these would probably be a more appropriate pick for Christmas because with all those spices the house smelt wonderful!

Last time I didn't have any ziploc bags and did have problems rolling out the sticky dough. This time though the bag worked a treat and I ended up with perfect little rectangles of shortbread with minimum fuss.

These are a little plain jane in the looks department but the flavour more than makes up for it. I will definitely be making these again and playing around with different flavour combinations.

Thanks for a great pick Donna! You can find the recipe on Life’s Too Short Not to Eat Dessert First under today's date.

White Choc Honeycomb Mudcake

In one of those freaky but awesome coincidences my husband and I have the same birthday. So happy birthday to us today!! While he unfortunately is off to uni as usual, I have the day to myself with Oscar off at daycare every Monday. As soon as I drop him there I am off to the hairdressers.

Tonight we are going to the lovely Bretts Wharf for dinner. For the Aussies out there, you may know head chef Alastair McLeod from Ready Steady Cook.

This year I told hubby to choose whatever sort of cake he wanted and we would make it together. After a little searching he came up with the truly gluttonous sounding White Chocolate Honeycomb Mudcake from taste. Now if that doesn't sound like a celebration cake I don't know what does!


White Choc Honeycomb Mudcake
Recipe from taste.com.au

Mudcake:
250g butter, chopped
180g white chocolate, roughly chopped
1 cup milk
1 3/4 cups caster sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 3/4 cups plain flour, sifted
1/2 cup self-raising flour, sifted
2 x 50g Violet Crumble chocolate bars, chopped

White chocolate ganache:
180g white chocolate, chopped
1/3 cup thickened cream

Grease a 6cm-deep, 22cm (base) round cake pan. Line base and side with 2 layers of baking paper. Place butter, white chocolate, milk, sugar and vanilla in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until smooth. Set aside for 25 minutes to cool. Preheat oven to 160°C/140°C fan-forced.

Whisk eggs and flours into chocolate mixture. Fold in half the Violet Crumble. Pour mixture into prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour 45 minutes to 2 hours or until browned and a skewer inserted into centre of cake comes out with crumbs clinging (cover cake loosely with foil if over-browning during baking). Cool in pan.

Make ganache. Place white chocolate and cream in a heatproof, microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on high (100%) for 1 minute, stirring with a metal spoon halfway during cooking, or until smooth. Set aside for 15 minutes to cool. Whisk ganache gently to thicken. Spread over cake top. Sprinkle with remaining Violet Crumble. Serve.

(I left the honeycomb pieces out of the cake and used them to fill it instead.

I used 220g white chocolate and 300ml thickened cream to make enough ganache to fill and ice the cake. Chop up the chocolate and place into a heatproof bowl. Place the cream in a small saucepan and stir over medium heat until almost boiling. Pour over the chopped chocolate. Leave for 30 seconds then stir until smooth. Refrigerate until cold. Using an electric beater, whip the ganache until soft peaks.

Slice the cake in half. Place about 1/3 of the ganache mix into a small bowl and fold through some chopped violet crumble. Use this to fill the cake.

Smooth the remaining ganache over the top and sides of the assembled cake. Scatter over more chopped violet crumbles and serve.)

The verdict? ... Delicious but sooooo sweet. I mean seriously SWEET. If I were to make this again I would cut the sugar by half and use plain whipped cream to decorate rather than a ganache. The recipe says it will serve 12 but I think it would be more like 20+. Still a success overall though!

Tuesdays with Dorie: Crunchy and Custardy Peach Tart

This week's TWD pick was chosen by Rachel of Sweet Tarte. This recipe was actually on my shortlist when it was my turn to pick back in June but I decided against it because I couldn't get fresh peaches. Unfortunately it is still winter here so no fresh peaches!

This is essentially a sweet pastry base topped with custard, sliced peaches and a streusel topping. Just as the name says it is a 'Crunchy and Custardy Peach tart'!

This was a breeze to make and as always I am grateful to have discovered Dorie's Sweet Tart Dough recipe. It has forever cured me of my aversion to making pastry.

I did stray from the recipe slightly. I used the original tart dough, no almond essence (blech!) and pecans instead of almonds in the streusel. All of which could account for ...

The taste test ...

It was - nice. There was pastry, custard, peaches and streusel. All tasty. But there was definitely something missing and I think it was juicy, flavour packed fresh peaches. My canned peaches tasted quite peachy on their own but they were totally lost in this tart making the whole thing a little too sweet and a little bland. So disappointing!

Thanks to Rachel for a great pick. Sorry I couldn't do justice to it! You will find the recipe on Sweet Tarte or check out what the other TWDers got up to here.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Oatmeal Breakfast Bread

This week's Oatmeal Breakfast Bread was another hidden gem. Well not hidden exactly, but I had certainly never noticed it until it was picked by Natalie of Oven Love!

It also falls into the ugly but delicious category because try as I might I could not get a decent photo.

Let me just say that I loved this bread. Made without any butter it is incredibly moist from the apple puree and buttermilk and the house smelt amazing while it was baking. Because it was so moist it was a little hard to tell when it was done but in the end it was perfect. I used raisins and dried apple in mine and it was fabulous.

I found the streusel topping a little hard to manage, as in most of it fell off every time a slice was cut. Next time I might skip the topping altogether so that I can toast a piece straight from the freezer.

Thank you to Natalie for hosting this week. Wonderful choice! Make sure you check out her blog Oven Love for the recipe.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream Sundaes

This week Katrina of Baking and Boys chose Dorie's Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream. My first thought? Drooooool. My second thought? Damn ...

While I am a lot more relaxed with food this pregnancy the raw/undercooked egg thing still spooks me. So rather than make a batch of what I am sure is truly awesome ice cream that I won't eat, this time around I just made the ganache.

I turned a lovely, creamy vanilla ice cream into rocky road by adding chopped marshmallows, chocolate covered peanuts and a few jelly babies and topped it all off with lashings of gorgeous chocolate ganache.

The taste test ...

This was sweet, rich and very naughty! I'm sure it doesn't even come close to the deliciousness of the original recipe but we enjoyed it anyway.

Thanks to Katrina for a great pick! It is now top of my list for post-pregnancy baking. Incidentally I finally got around to ordering The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz so I predict a lot of ice cream this summer!

Tuesdays with Dorie: Gingered Carrot Cookies

After all the brownies and blondies we've had, finally a cookie for us redheads! Dorie says she created these cookies by accident but I say making carrot cake in cookie form is pure genius :)

While carrot cake can be a stodgy, oily disaster, these were fantastic! Plus they were a breeze to make and we had everything in the pantry already which I love. I used 1/2 teaspoon of mixed spice (cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice) in addition to the ginger which gave them a lovely warmth and perfectly complemented the nuts and raisins.

I only made half a batch and got 16 decent sized cookies. I also whipped up a quick cream cheese icing for some while the rest of the batch ended up in the freezer.

The taste test ...

Umm, it's carrot cake in cookie form so of course they were tasty! They're not special occasion cookies but for everyday I would definitely make them again. That's really all you need to know.

Thanks to Natalia of gatti fili e farina for this week's pick! You can find the recipe on her blog.

Daring Bakers July - Swiss Swirl Ice Cream Cake

It may be the middle of winter here but it's never too cold for ice cream!

The July 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Sunita of Sunita’s world – life and food. Sunita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that’s then used to make a bombe with hot fudge. Her recipe is based on an ice cream cake recipe from Taste of Home.-

This was a brilliant challenge. I've long been afraid of making a swiss roll after a disastrous experience years ago. Although when I think back I was probably about 12 and I'm almost certain I tried to roll up my cake while it was cold.

Anyway, this time around was a cinch! My cakes cooked in the time specified, they came out of the tin easily and they rolled up perfectly. I may have gone a little overboard on the sugar but this made for a gorgeous crackly texture once frozen.

The brief was to make 2 chocolate swiss roll cakes filled with vanilla cream, to line a bowl with the slices and fill the interior with ice cream. I was so glad we were having visitors to help us eat this otherwise it would be ice cream cake for months!

I used plain vanilla ice cream for the top and bottom layers and filled the middle with a caramel ice cream flavoured with fruit mince. This gave the bombe a Christmas in July sort of feel.

The taste test ...

Well it's cake, cream and 2 types of ice cream ... there's no way this can be bad! We loved it! It was also surprisingly easy for such an impressive looking dessert. Turn this baby out at the table and you are guaranteed some ooohs and aaahs!

Thanks for a wonderful challenge Sunita! You will find the recipe on her blog here.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Chewy, Chunky Blondies

This week's TWD recipe was Nicole of Cookies on Friday and she picked Dorie's Chewy, Chunky Blondies. I don't think I've ever made or eaten a blondie so I wasn't really sure what to expect. Turns out these are supposed to be like cookies but in bar form.

We can't get butterscotch chips here but to keep the caramelly theme going I used dark brown sugar and some chopped up Violet Crumbles (chocolate covered honeycomb pieces) as well as extra chopped dark chocolate and some walnuts.

I made a half batch in an 8 x 8 pan and baked for 35 minutes. At that point they were puffed and a deep golden brown but after a few minutes on the bench the middle fell completely. So my blondies were a little on the flat and greasy side. But the taste?

The taste test ...

AMAZING. Especially warm from the oven when they're gooey and melty and oh so delicious. You'll see in the photo above there are 2 pieces missing, well a few more went missing immediately after. I wish we had some left!

Thanks for an awesome pick Nicole! You can find the recipe on her blog Cookies on Friday under today's date.