Tuesdays with Dorie: Crunchy and Custardy Peach Tart

This TWD week, we're baking along with Rachel of sweet tarte to make Dorie's Crunchy and Custardy Peach Tart. Fresh peaches, one of my favorites of Summer!

You know I was invited to the Baking with Betty blog event in MN these past couple days, but because of busy times around here (having to enroll kids in new schools this week, school shopping, Mr's busy work schedule, etc...) I had to sadly decline my invitation and instead I stayed home and baked with my TWDers yesterday. And eat this peach tart! =)

Let me warn you, there are steps to making this tart. You'll need to par bake a crust, let it cool a little, peel the peaches and slice them, make a streusel and bake according to special directions. I also didn't cut and slice/lay my peaches out like Dorie mentioned. Mine were too ripe I guess, more of a mess I'd say. Silly me, I got a little confused by the baking directions and added my streusel after the first 10 minutes, then baked 20 minutes. Then realized it needed another 20 minutes like Dorie mentioned, but my tart was looking pretty dark by then. After I let it cool all day I removed my spring form (sorry still no tart pan here, but it works just as great!) and really saw how dark the crust was. Bummer. I sliced it up for photos and tried a piece. I was reminded back to Dorie's French Pear Tart (which I love!), but this is a little different. It has a baked custard in it. I wasn't too crazy about the custard, the cooked down peaches and the over baked crust. I'm sad to say, the only crunchy part of this tart was the over baked crust.

I think this would be great as a more cold pudding like custard with fresh raw slices of peaches and whipped cream. That'd be a whole other recipe then wouldn't it? Anyways, here is my tart photos...

oh yeah, here's how to peel a peach video here incase you need to know. It's easy but like me, you may need to do it a couple times to get the peel off.



enjoy,

Tuesdays with Dorie: Raisin Swirl Bread and other news...

(day 1) Susan of Food.Baby picked Raisin Swirl Bread for this weeks TWD (go check out her photos! Perfect swirl! Plus she's got the recipe posted for ya!). I tried to plan ahead and wanted to bake this last Weds. but we had company come at the last minute, then I had to go help Mr. with a home he's fixing up, and then the orange I bought molded out on me...so today was the day with a new orange. Only today was a busy day too, so I had to let the dough chill in the fridge for a couple hours and bake it later, and let it cool then I lost my sunlight for photos.



I'm kinda nervous to see how my swirl came out. I guess I rolled it too long or something because I had lots of dough to tuck under, it cause my loaf to bake into a funny shape too. Anyways, I added in the extras such as, orange zest (of the whole orange!), cocoa, nutmeg and vanilla, Sure go all the way! It smelled SO good baking!

(day 2) Well, as you can see my swirls ended up in the corner. I know why. That extra dough, pushed them up. The swirls on the bottom, was the extra dough I tucked under.

Since I sliced this the next day, I found it a little dry. I wasn't so crazy about eating a plain slice, the flavors seemed different to me. So I made some regular french toast with fresh nectarines. It was really good! I think using this as bread pudding would be great too!

*On a side note, I am going to take a short break from TWD recipes and probably other recipes here too. Why? Because that house Mr. is fixing up, is our next home (to rent). We move in, in just weeks, and I've not yet packed!! ACK!

The landlord's wanted to redo almost everything there, so they hired my Mr. Contractor Handyman to do it, plus they gave us the choices on most of how we wanted it! A new kitchen!! YAY! But that's why my blog has been sparse lately, too much painting, ripping up carpet, etc... I do have a bunch of reviews and giveaways lined up, I'll get up between now and mid July, so don't run away! You can bet the first thing that will get unpacked is my other baby, my 'puter.

enjoy,

Tuesdays with Dorie: Tender Shortcakes with Strawberries and Whipped Cream

Cathy of The Tortefeasor chose Tender Shortcakes for us TWDers this week!
Simple sweet biscuits perfect for fresh fruit topping and whipped cream. Yum! With Dorie's recipe I was able to make 11 generous sized shortcakes with my 1/3 C. scoop.

These beauties come out light and very delicate. Dorie says to fork split them, but mine just crumbled away, so I used my serrated knife to slice them.

How do you like your shortcakes? Please visit Cathy's blog for the recipe posted there.

enjoy,

Tuesdays with Dorie: Banana Coconut Ice Cream Pie

Spike of spike.bakes selected Banana Coconut Ice Cream Pie this week (he'll have the recipe for ya). Check this recipe out. You take shortbread cookies, coconut and butter. Cook them down a little then press into a pie dish and freeze. Stir chocolate ice cream with pureed bananas to make the filling. Freeze. Easy as pie! No baking!! Perfect for the upcoming summer! Well for those of use getting summer this year! In Utah it just snowed!
Anyways, this crust is awesome. The overall pie, I was honestly not crazy about. Since it's all frozen, it's hard to slice and my crust stuck to the dish when getting a slice out. Then it was hard to eat just a bite, it was "hard". Well I did freeze mine a day + overnight so maybe that's why. I had to let it sit out a bit to slice it and eat. The kids liked it though. I used a dark chocolate gelato and left the rum out of mine and sliced the bananas for the top per slice of pie.

You know what I'm thinking, this would be great done as a Banana Coconut Chocolate pudding/cream pie instead. But that crust! I may have to think of something else to use that with too, Hmmm....something key lime maybe?

enjoy,

Tuesdays with Dorie: Apple-Apple Bread Pudding with Homemade Challah Bread

Elizabeth of Cake or Death? picked Dorie's Apple-Apple Bread Pudding for her week. This is an apple version, with caramelized sauteed Gala apples and homemade Challah bread smeared with apple butter. Then a lovely custard is poured over all and baked away. We all enjoyed this.

Since I have a hard time finding Challah bread here without the seeds on it, I decided to make my own. I inquired my Mother in Laws bread machine after she passed away (my old machine quit heating), so this is the first time I used it to make the dough. I used a simple recipe I quickly found online, but my braiding skills were not so simple, afterwards I looked up more info and learned to braid it from the middle to the ends. It looked so silly once baked, but tasted great! I wasn't sure if all of this could fit in my bread machine, so I cut the ingredients in half and made 1 loaf at a time. In the end, I'm sure it could've all fit.

The Best Bread Machine Challah
adapted from RecipeZaar

makes 2 loafs (I used 1 loaf for the bread pudding)

1 1/2 cups water
5 large egg yolks
1 1/8 teaspoons salt
1/3 cup oil
4 1/4 cups all-purpose flour or bread flour
1/2 cup honey
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1 large egg, lightly beaten

-Place the water, egg yolks, salt oil, flour, honey and yeast in the bread machine pan, according to the manufacturer's directions.
-Process the ingredients in the dough cycle.
-Remove immediately when the machine beeps.
-Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
-Divide the dough in half.
-Divide each piece into three sections.
-Roll each section into a long strand.
-Braid the three strands (starting from the middle), pinching the top and bottom ends together.
-Place on a parchment-lined or lightly greased baking sheet.
-Repeat with the remaining dough, making the second challah.
-Let the loaf rise, covered, for 30 minutes.
-Brush the loaf with the beaten egg.
-Bake for 30 minutes.
-Cool on a wire rack.

enjoy,

Tuesdays with Dorie: Quick Classic Berry Tart

Cristine of Cooking with Cristine picked Dorie's Quick Classic Berry Tart for TWD this week. Heads up, there is a tart shell to bake and pastry cream to cook and chill, both can be done ahead of time! Find your freshest fresh berries and pile them on! Don't have a tart pan? Use a spring form pan instead, works just as great, gives the tart a rustic look, I think.

For my tart, I used fresh raspberries, blackberries and strawberries (yay! for sales). I goofed and chilled my tart dough before pressing into the pan (lol) so I had to let it sit out before I could use it, but then I just decided to roll it out and lay it in my pan. It gave me taller sides, so I was able to use all the pastry cream.

TIP: Also, if you use egg whites for another recipe, don't throw away the yolk! Freeze it in a baggie, and when you need yolks for a recipe like this pastry cream, just thaw it in cool water (still in the baggie) and whisk away! It'll seem like a weird consistency at first, but it'll smooth out and be perfectly OK.

I loved this recipe, we all did! I love pastry cream and with the fresh fruit and buttery crust....perfect for the warm weather we're having!

my little helpers


enjoy,

Review: Spring Time with Musselman's Apple Sauce and Applesauce Cinnamon Rolls

So Easter is here and I wanted to share with you a couple of recipes I made that would be fun to have during the weekend and anytime.

We were sent one jar of Musselman’s Regular Apple Sauce and one jar of Musselman’s Natural Apple Sauce for review during this Easter Spring time. We were also sent supplies for our kids to create bunny theme table settings, but I chose to do things a little different. Below I made up some special applesauce cinnamon rolls and converted them into a cute bunny face with ears and bowties!

We also made some peanut butter sandwiches with a twist! No jam! Instead we used applesauce, and cut them into cute bunny shapes with our new shaped cutter they sent us!

Grab yourself some Musselman's Apple Sauce coupons here and head to the nearest store! Join them on Facebook too!
See more at "Mommy? I'm Hungry!" http://ldylvbgr.blogspot.com/
I decided to try and find a recipe using applesauce in cinnamon rolls, as a filling, sure enough I found something and adapted it a little to use in my tried and true go-to cinnamon roll recipe.
If you'd like to try another apple cinnamon roll recipe I made, check this out! That one has an apple mixture baked in.

These applesauce rolls were wonderful! I was worried with the pudding and applesauce they'd be to soft and runny, but no! They baked wonderfully and were moist and delicious. The applesauce ended up baking into the dough, and I thought it'd be more of a layer of filling. We loved them!

Applesauce Cinnamon Rolls
adapted Vanilla Pudding Cinnamon Rolls: makes 24 rolls /4 -8" round pans

Rolls:
½ cup warm water
2 tablespoons active dry yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
3 ½ ounce package instant vanilla pudding, made as directed (I use about 1 3/4 C of pudding)
½ cup butter, melted
2 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
6+ cups flour

(adapted) Applesauce Filling:
1/2 cup softened butter
1/2 cup no sugar applesauce
2/3 cup granulated sugar
4 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Frosting:
8 ounces cream cheese
½ cup butter, softened to room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups confectioner’s sugar
2-3 tablespoons milk
Sprinkles of ground cinnamon

Preheat oven on warm temp for rising, about 170'. Grease 4 -8" round pans.

In a small bowl combine water, yeast and sugar. Stir until dissolved. Set aside. In large bowl, take pudding mix and prepare according to package directions. Add butter, eggs and salt. Mix well. Then add yeast mixture. Blend.
Gradually add flour; knead until smooth. Do not over flour the dough! It should be very soft but not sticky. Place in a greased bowl. Cover and let rise until doubled (I put mine in a warm oven for 1 hour). Then roll out on floured board to 34 X 21 inches in size.

Once dough is rolled out, spread with butter, then applesauce. Combine cinnamon and sugar then sprinkle over applesauce.
Roll dough starting at longest side (facing you) and carefully roll up (they may be messy!). Cut that log into half so you have two. Stretch them both little to make longer and cut each log into 12 even pieces so you'll end up with 24 rolls.
Place 6 rolls cut side up in each greased 8" round pan. Cover and let rise 20 minutes until risen a little more (should be close to the top of the pan). Bake for 25 minutes in a 350' oven until golden.

Frost warm rolls with cream cheese frosting (combine butter and cream cheese and mix well, then add vanilla and sugar and mix again, then add milk for desired consistency and cinnamon).

These sandwiches were fun, and actually pretty good, a nice change from using jam. The kids seemed to like them and thought it was silly to use applesauce.

Bunny Shaped Peanut Butter and Applesauce Sandwiches
recipe idea found here

Creamy peanut butter
Applesauce
Cinnamon
Sliced bread

*Use desired amounts for per sandwich.

Combine a sprinkle of cinnamon with the applesauce. Spread peanut butter on one slice of bread, and applesauce on the other slice. Put slices of bread together and use a large cookie cutter shape to cut out. (Shape sandwiches are great if your kids do not like the crust)

I wrote this review for "Mommy? I'm Hungry!" about Musselman's Apple Sauce. I received free product to keep for this review. All opinions for this review are that of myself & family.

Happy Easter everyone!

enjoy,

My Tuesday with Dorie: Soft Chocolate, Raspberry and Cherry Tart

Welcome everyone from TWD, new readers and of course my MIH fans! I am excited to get to share with you, my pick for Tuesdays with Dorie! Soft Chocolate, Raspberry and Cherry Tart on page 354 of Baking From My Home To Yours. I know you all will want this recipe, so I'll get right to that first. =) (sorry if blogger messes up the format of the recipe)

Soft Chocolate and Raspberry Tart
See more at "Mommy? I"m Hungry!".

After this tart has baked and cooled just a little the chocolate filling take on the lovable characteristics of pudding, becoming soft and creamy and seductively slithery, and the flavor of the berried intensifies. I use a mixture of dark and milk chocolates because I think a milder blend is better with berries. If you prefer, you can make it with all dark chocolate; using all milk chocolate would set the balance askew.

3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

2 ounces premium-quality milk chocolate, finely chopped

1/2 cup heavy cream

1/2 stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces

1 1/2 tablespoons sugar

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1 large egg yolk, at room temperature

1 cup (6-ounce container) fresh raspberries

1 9-inch tart shell made with Sweet Tart Dough with Nuts (page 444 & below), fully baked and cooled

Getting Ready: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Put the tart pan on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicone mat.

Set a heatproof bowl over a pan of gently simmering water, add the bittersweet and milk chocolates and heat, stirring occasionally until the are melted. Remove the bowl from the heat.

Meanwhile, bring the cream, and butter just to a boil. Pour the cream-butter mixture over the chocolate and let it stand for 30 seconds. Working with a whisk or a rubber spatula, gently stir the liquid into the chocolate-start stirring in the center of the bowl and work your way out in ever-widening circles. When the mixture is smooth, stir in the sugar, then the eggs and finally the yolk. Rap the bowl against the counter to break any bubbles that might have formed.

Scatter the berries over the bottom of the crust, then pour the chocolate ganache over them.

Bake the tart for about 30 minutes-the filling should not jiggle if you tap the pan and a knife inserted into the center of the tart should come out a little streaky. Transfer the tart pan to a rack and cool to room temperature before serving.

Makes 8 servings

Serving: There are some people who like this tart ever so slightly warm, but the flavor and texture don't really come into their own until the tart is cooled to room temperature. Serve it cold and it will lose its lovely creaminess. Whatever temperature ends up being your favorite, do serve the tart with whipped cream or creme fraiche.

Storing: This tart is best served the day it is made. In fact, it's really best just a few hours out of the oven, is you can swing that.

Playing Around: Try the tart with blackberries or blueberries, but no with strawberries-they're too watery. The tart is also good with cherries, either fresh or bottles small cherries packed in heavy syrup. I like to use slightly sour griottes (French cherries) or amarene (Italian cherries). Both are available at specialty store. If you use cherries in syrup, drain them and pat dry before use.

Sweet Tart Dough
Makes enough for one 9-inch crust

In French, this dough is called pâte sablée because it is buttery, tender and sandy (that's what sablée means). It's much like shortbread, and it's ideal for filling with fruit, custard or chocolate.

The simplest way to make a tart shell with this dough is to press it into the pan. You can roll out the dough, but the high proportion of butter to flour and the inclusion of confectioners' sugar makes it finicky to roll. I always press it into the pan, but if you want to roll it, I suggest you do so between sheets of plastic wrap or wax paper or inside a rolling slipcover (see page 491 of the book).

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick plus 1 tablespoon (9 tablespoons)
very cold (or frozen) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg yolk

Put the flour, confectioners' sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse a couple of times to combine. Scatter the pieces of butter over the dry ingredients and pulse until the butter is coarsely cut in—you should have some pieces the size of oatmeal flakes and some the size of peas. Stir the yolk, just to break it up, and add it a little at a time, pulsing after each addition. When the egg is in, process in long pulses—about 10 seconds each—until the dough, which will look granular soon after the egg is added, forms clumps and curds. Just before you reach this stage, the sound of the machine working the dough will change—heads up. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and, very lightly and sparingly, knead the dough just to incorporate any dry ingredients that might have escaped mixing.

To press the dough into the pan: Butter a 9-inch fluted tart pan with a removable bottom. Press the dough evenly over the bottom and up the sides of the pan, using all but one little piece of dough, which you should save in the refrigerator to patch any cracks after the crust is baked. Don't be too heavy-handed—press the crust in so that the edges of the pieces cling to one another, but not so hard that the crust loses its crumbly texture. Freeze the crust for at least 30 minutes, preferably longer, before baking.

To partially or fully bake the crust: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Butter the shiny side of a piece of aluminum foil and fit the foil, buttered side down, tightly against the crust. (Since you froze the crust, you can bake it without weights.) Put the tart pan on a baking sheet and bake the crust for 25 minutes. Carefully remove the foil. If the crust has puffed, press it down gently with the back of a spoon. For a partially baked crust, patch the crust if necessary, then transfer the crust to a cooling rack (keep it in its pan).

To fully bake the crust: Bake for another 8 minutes or so, or until it is firm and golden brown. (I dislike lightly baked crusts, so I often keep the crust in the oven just a little longer. If you do that, just make sure to keep a close eye on the crust's progress—it can go from golden to way too dark in a flash.) Transfer the tart pan to a rack and cool the crust to room temperature before filling.

To patch a partially or fully baked crust, if necessary: If there are any cracks in the baked crust, patch them with some of the reserved raw dough as soon as you remove the foil. Slice off a thin piece of the dough, place it over the crack, moisten the edges and very gently smooth the edges into the baked crust. If the tart will not be baked again with its filling, bake for another 2 minutes or so, just to take the rawness off the patch.

Sweet Tart Dough with Nuts: This dough has a slightly more assertive flavor than Sweet Tart Dough above, but you can use the two interchangeably. For the nut dough, reduce the amount of flour to 1-1/4 cups and add 1/4 cup finely ground almonds (or walnuts, pecans or pistachios).

Storing: Well wrapped, the dough can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 5 days or frozen for up to 2 months. While the fully baked crust can be packed airtight and frozen for up to 2 months, I prefer to freeze the unbaked crust in the pan and bake it directly from the freezer—it has a fresher flavor. Just add about 5 minutes to the baking time.
See more at "Mommy? I"m Hungry!".


I had gone through her book literally page to page to figure out which recipes hadn't been picked yet. Then I had to find one that would be great for Mr.'s Birthday (the 15th). So I tossed out a few recipes for him to decide from and would you believe he picked Berry Cobbler?! Huh?? No, I wanted something something a little fancier for my TWD pick and his birthday so talked him into this tart. haha! (Hopefully the cobbler will be picked soon). Knowing most of everyone here does not like raspberries, I decided to do a half and half tart. Dorie mentions using cherries instead and I knew they'd go for that!

I know fresh raspberries are not cheap right now (my 6 oz was $3.99 at Vons), but I really wanted to use fresh over frozen mushy ones. I had to time this with Mr.'s birthday so I sucked it up and payed that the day before I made the tart. Hey! It's a special week, why not?

Anyways, I made mine half cherries and half raspberries. I really wanted to try both flavors. Well guess what flavor they all chose to eat? Raspberry! Shocker! lol. I really loved the cherry in it, the raspberry was very raspberry (and those seeds!)...but it was a delicious tart overall and we all liked it. I added some whipped cream and my first ever chocolate curls (if you can call them that) to it, so I had to keep it in the fridge, giving the tart a more denser thicker ganache. Mmm!

Ever since I heard of Dorie Greenspan and her book, I was immediately in ♥ with it, the way she writes and "talks" you through the directions as if she's right there guiding you (she's also very personable "in person" too, online... I have spoken with her a few times on Facebook, my kids got a huge kick out of me speaking to an author of a baking book! She's just wonderful!). I ordered a copy of it and decided to join the TWD baking group. July 22, 2008 was my first TWD recipe, Cherry Rhubarb Cobbler. Since then I have baked quite a lot of treats some great ones, and some that just did not turn out for me. It's great baking a long with others because there are recipes I would never had tried otherwise, and I'm glad I did. Through Dorie, I have overcome my pie crust woes, and have now found my tried and true crust recipes from her book!

A few of my Dorie favorites so far have been: French Pear Tart, Chocolate Pudding, Four Star Chocolate Bread Pudding, Classic Banana Bundt Cake, Sweet Potato Biscuits,Toasted Coconut Cream Tart, and her Pie/Tart Crusts.
See more at "Mommy? I'm Hungry!"

Enjoy! I hope to be able to visit the TWDers to see their tarts and thank them for baking along with me! The group is so large, so it may take a few days. =) (I had to type out the recipe, so if I messed up somewhere please let me know)

Cherry Crumb Pielets for Pi Day!

Right? Pielets? Like tarts are tarlets, mini pies are pielets. Who cares, they're good! March 14th is National Pi Day! So this is my part to celebrate.

I have this Pillsbury 2010 calendar and each month is a feature recipe with a pretty picture to go along with. Well February's feature kept calling my name, so I finally went ahead and made my version of it combining another recipe. They called for ready made biscuits, but I used Dorie's pie crust I had stashed in my freezer (♥ her recipe, see below). I already had the cherry pie filling and the crumb topping was a cinch to put together. This recipe was easy as...PIE!

Cherry Crumb Pielets
3/4 cup all-purpose or unbleached flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup Butter
1/2 cup Chopped Nuts, if desired (I used sliced almonds)
1 can (21 oz) cherry pie filling
1 recipe for pie crust (below)

Heat oven to 425°F.
In medium bowl, mix flour, brown sugar and cinnamon. With pastry blender or fork, cut in butter until mixture looks like coarse crumbs. Stir in nuts.
Roll pie crust dough on lightly floured work surface. With 3 1/2- or 4-inch round cutter, cut 12 rounds from each crust. (*save scraps for little cinnamon sugar treats, just bake the scraps till golden, when done roll in cinnamon sugar!)
Fit rounds into ungreased regular size muffin tins, pressing in gently. Spoon about 2 tablespoons pie filling into each crust-lined cup.
Add a little topping to each pie (about 2 Tbl)
Bake 14 to 18 minutes or until edges are golden brown and filling is bubbly.



Good For Almost Everything Pie Dough
-reprinted with permission from Dorie Greenspan, Baking From My Home to Yours
makes one 9-inch crust

1 1/2 cups all·purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 sticks (10 tablespoons) very cold (frozen is fine) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon-size pieces
2 1/2 tablespoons very cold (frozen is even better) vegetable shortening, cut into 2 pieces
About 1/4 cup ice water

Put the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor fitted with a metal blade; pulse just to combine the ingredients. Drop in the butter and shortening and pulse only until the butter and shortening are cut into the flour. Don't overdo the mixing—what you're aiming for is to have some pieces the size of fat green peas and others the size of barley. Pulsing the machine on and off, gradually add about 3 tablespoons of water—all a little water and pulse once, add some more water, pulse again and keep going that way. Then use a few long pulses to get the water into the flour. If after a dozen or so pulses, the dough doesn't look evenly moistened or form soft curds, pulse in as much of the remaining water as necessary, or even a few drops more, to get a dough that will stick together when pinched. Big pieces of butter are fine. Scrape the dough out of the work bowl and onto a work surface.

Gather the dough into a ball, flatten the ball into a disk and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate the dough for at least 1 hour before rolling. (If your ingredients were very cold and you worked quickly, though, you might be able to roll the dough immediately: the dough should be as cold as if it had just come out of the fridge.)

*My note for mini pies: After this step, roll out on a lightly floured surface and use a 4" cutter (*use a drinking glass!) and cut out 12 rounds to fill your muffin tins. You may have to re roll leftover dough scraps to get more rounds.

To Roll Out the Dough: Have a buttered 9-inch pie plate at hand. You can roll the dough out on a floured surface or between sheets of wax paper or plastic wrap or in a rolling slipcover. (I usually roll this dough out on the floured counter.) If you're working on a counter, turn the dough over frequently and keep the counter floured. If you are rolling between paper, plastic or in a slipcover, make sure to turn the dough over often and to lift the paper, plastic or cover frequently so that it doesn't roll into the dough and form creases. If you've got time, slide the rolled-out dough into the fridge for about 20 minutes to firm up.

To Make the Crust: Fit the dough into the pie plate and, using a pair of scissors, but the excess dough to a 1/4- to 1/2 inch overhang. Fold the dough under itself, so that it hangs over the edge just a tad, and flute or pinch the crust to make a decorative edge. Alternatively, you can finish the crust by pressing it with the tines of a fork.

*To my surprise, these were also featured at The Kitchn! Thanks guys!

enjoy,

Tuesdays with Dorie: Cocoa-Nana Bread

Steph of Obsessed with Baking chose Cocoa-Nana Bread this week. While at a new-to-me market the other day I found some baby bananas, just a little longer than my fingers. They looked ready to be eaten so I thought they'd be perfect for this bread.

I ended up using about 8-10, dicing up a couple so I could have chunks of bananas in the bread. My batter tasted so good and like bananas. Many others said they couldn't taste the banana in the bread, so I wanted to be sure I could. I have no problem pairing my fruits with chocolate. =)

Many TWD bakers mentioned they had issues with their bread being dry. I hate over baked things. So I thought I'd bake it for 45 minutes and check it. It was so not done. I kept checking it every 10 minutes, and it was still jiggly and a knife came out so wet, I never thought it'd bake through! I'm pretty sure it wasn't the melted chocolate chips I kept seeing (see photo). Finally after 78 minutes (the full bake time), the knife came out cleaner so I just took it out.

This is definatly a dense, rich chocolaty bread with a light banana flavor. Mine was almost dry (ok maybe just a tad, more than I like), and I could not finish my piece, it was so much chocolate! You really need some cold milk to go with this!

PS. I just have to come back to say....try a piece of this with some whipped cream! MMM!

enjoy,