Tuesdays without Dory and what's up.

I'm glad that TwD is optional this summer, because I am 1. exhausted and 2.not making icecream without an icecream maker.

The girls are at day camp this week and last and they have been having a good time. I think they have seen more of Berlin than I have! Although I will be off in the morning to check out one of the more interesting spots, a children's farm yard because thing1 left her rucksack there. When I got to camp to pick the girls up, she was sitting there crying. She did, however, look glorious. I think they had a hair session today, while waiting for the park to open before leaving, because her hair was done in the most wonderful updo, with two small braids, one on each side and the rest of her hair drawn up in the most adorable bun, puffed around rather than twisted. I think she had as many pins in her hair as I did at my marriage ceremony (no- she had only 16, I think I had 35:)). I took pictures in hopes that I can reproduce it for her.

So tomorrow off down the autobahn. This will be good for me because I don't like driving on the autobahn, so what does not kill me will make me stronger. Thank goodness I have the GPS.

When I was cleaning up last week for Thing1's party, I finally finished all the seasonal clothing shifting as well as packing up and away two boxes of clothing thet Thing2 has outgrown (I don't put away T1's clothes because T2 is so close behind her). I used a lot of party favors that I had brought over from the US and I can see that we are actually running through some of the supplies that we brought with us from the US 23 months ago. Without surface air, I don't think that we are going to be able to keep up with our appetite for Annie's Organic Mac'n'Cheese or Crystalight.

We have already resupplied with coffee twice and I just ground the last of my Costco Jamaica Blue beans. I have been out of Dunkin Donuts decaf for almost a month. Luckily, I am so tired that even when I drink caffeinated coffee at night (I love the taste, I like the warmth) it doesn't keep me up. Thing1 can't seem to get over waking me before 6 am and without the German to take occasional duty getting up with her I have an awfully early start to my day.

We are also running out of craft materials and small toys, so I checked Idee out last week and it's really a great craft store. Not as good (or as wide ranging) as Michaels, but the best that I have found here. They have such wonderful supplies and patterns for making a Schultuete that I feel a bit guilty not making one. Howver, Thing1 chose her schoolcone and her schule rucksack from her painfully thumbed and lovingly studied happytoys.de catalog.

The German school bag custom is amazing. The bag is so large that German pediatricians hand you a brochure warning you of the dangers of its size and weight to your tiny 6 year old child, But what can one do? Every single child has the same bag, and generally the same brand (Scout is preferred).
When I went to the school orientation for parents, I was given an unbelievably long and unbelievably detailed list of items that needed to be contained within the requisite rucksack (as well as ancillary items), all the way down to the size of the Pelikan pen and the # of the 3 separate paintbrushes. There are 10 notebooks, all to be specific colors. As I was looking over the list, another parent asked why so many and why so detailed and I burst out laughing. My response: This is how Germans are trained to be German. A few of the non-Germans laughed, but the Germans didn't understand the joke:).

Luckily, the regulation rucksack came with a number of the required items, like the two separately sized pencil cases, the sport bag, the colored pencil set (with space for the specified Pelikan left empty), the required water color set with three differently sized brushes, the bus pass holder. The bag is rigid and there is enough room for the 24 books and notebooks that she will be using next year. If I weren't dropping her off and picking her up, I wouldn't in conscience be able to let her use it. As is, I expect to carry her bag for her every day for at least the next few years.

Tuesday's with Dorie: Not this summer. And what's up.

I'm taking the opportunity offered to take the summer off. I just can't seem to get ahead of myself with the German out of town what is working out to be 5 days out of 7. Particularly with all retail shops closed on Sunday, this makes doing things a bit crazy.

This past weekend we went on a family religious retreat. Although it was fun and refreshing, it didn't make coming back to a very busy week without another set of adult hands any easier.

This week is Thing1's birthday party at kita (and the last week of kita), a good-bye "party" for Thing2's class, as some children leave for Israel and other places and as they move up to another group, and on the weekend Thing1's "real" birthday party.

This is the first time I have attempted a birthday party here in Berlin and I am finding it a little daunting, primarily because of the kosher issue (as, I can't cook anything here because my stove is not kosher, etc.). A friend is bringing a cake and I am not certain what else I will be doing- I'll tell you next week:). Then there is the "theme" issue: party novelties in Germany are poorly made, extremely expensive, and back-ordered. Yes, I should have brought more with me from the US and I really should have pinned T1 down to her desired theme earlier so that I could trans-ship novelties (send them to a friend in the US, have them shipped here). But I didn't. So I mixed (Disney) Princess themes and I'll do the best I can with that. But I can't bake a cake myself, which is really disappointing. I hope the weather remains good and then we can take an hour in a spielplatz around the corner.

Now I'm off to draft a dunning notice for the 2/3 of parents in T2'sclass who haven't paid their dues: really- was 3 Euros a month too much for them? Won't catch us being class parents again.

Tuesday's with Dorie: Parisian Apple Tartlet

What I made is actually Berlin Rhubarb Tartlet, as I cook along with Tuesdays with Dorie. Jessica of My Baking Heart chose the recipe this week, and it is posted on her blog.

I was very grateful to see a recipe without chocolate and a recipe that I could make from ingredients in the house as I am dealing with single Mum-hood during the week: this is week 2 for the German being in Munich. So far it's been okay, except for the occasional weeping fit (by Thing2- I am old enough to get by with Skype and Thing1 falls asleep very quickly). We are still deciding whether to move down or continue the commuting for the next 6 months to a year.

In any case, the Tartlet. I have Blatterteig in the freezer (oh, I love my freezer) but I was out of apples and I am seriously in a rhubarb mood. I actually made a rhubarb turnover this weekend (that was the first time I used the puff pastry) and thought this would be a simple throw together. It turns out that my oven ran a bit hot, though, and my pastry blackened a bit on the edges at 190C and 15 minutes. I'll lower the rack next time.

For the filling I just diced a rhubarb stalk, added some sugar and macerated in lemon juice for the 15 minutes that I thawed the sheet. Voila!

It was delicious, even with a bit of blackening, as I am sure it would be with any fruit filling. Watch out for the dripping of the caramelized sugar, though, it can cause an oven mess if you use a flat (German style) cookie tray rather than a jelly roll pan.

Tuesday's with Dorie: Cinnamon Squares

Well, it has been a while! Even though I just got back from the States yesterday, I thought that now I am well again (or at least well enough), I needed to start posting my Tuesdays with Dorie again. Tracy of Tracy's Culinary Adventures chose today's recipes and it is linked here.
My husband is in Munich and the house is a wreck (not so much from my being away in the US, as from getting home and unpacking and doing laundry and dealing with the children alone) so I was grateful that I had all the ingredients in the house (except esspresso powder, which I really don't think exists here) and threw it together. (Photos added after the kids are asleep.)
A few thoughts:

• When will I learn? Even though I knew that I would not add the chocolate frosting (my goodness, I really don't like chocolate), why did I add the chocolate chips in the center layer? It really detracted from a decent cinnamon breakfast cake.
• I generally find Dorie's cakes too sweet- I lowered the sugar by 1/4 cup, but perhaps should have decreased it more.
• I often find the temperature/time incorrect- this time I turned the pan at 20 minutes and at 40 found it done. I might have been able to take it out at 35.
• Dorie's cakes are frequently not spicy enough for my taste: when decreasing the sugar I should have upped the cinnamon. I did increase the salt and the vanilla and felt that to be better.
• I dislike attempting to melt tablespoons of butter when I live with grams here and there are no sticks: I substituted 1/3 cup of olive oil and found the cake moist. I may continue to do this although in the case I think I would have preferred using 1/3 cup of unsweetened applesauce. I may try this again with much less sugar, yogurt instead of milk, applesauce and a real crumb topping (because sugar mixed with cinnamon is ehh in comparison).

As you can tell, it's ok. I have a coffee guest tomorrow and will hope she enjoys it. The girls don't love it, husband's not here and for me the streaks of chocolate damage my enjoyment (and I used a lot less than the recipe). It's a learning experience.

Tuesday's with Dorie: Not today.

I'm tremendously better than I have been for the last 37 days. Except for a lingering cough and a need for the inhaler, I feel safely past the point where I worry about waking up in the morning because I wouldn't be able to breathe through the night, but I'm not up to any real baking yet. I have made a few dinners for the family, though, and they have been grateful:).

Look for me next week, when I get back aboard the train and start baking. No promises, but when I get back from my weekend in New York, perhaps I can even catch up on a few missed recipes: that tramisu cake looked great.

Tuesdays... but not with Dorie

Even though today's recipe, Tiramisu Cake, from Megan at My Baking Adventures looks nice, I am still weltering in my illness and I am not doing either baking or cooking. So far I am in my third week of significant illness: this actually feels far worse than when I had pneumonia twenty years ago. I am on day 3.5 of some extremely big antibiotic pills (and quite new as well) but I am still taking drags off the inhaler as my lungs sound like they are full of crinkled up plastic bags and wax paper. The coughing has decreased to the point where I no longer think that I will break a rib, but it is still ongoing, and I just don't have a huge amount of energy. Even though I napped last evening, when I woke around midnight I had a great deal of trouble feeling that I was oxygenated enough to go to sleep and wound up staying up for about 2 hours feeling panicked. I'm hoping that I feel better by tomorrow.

Tuesday's with Dorie: Banana Cream Pie

I was certain that I would not make Tuesdays with Dorie this week. It's the week before Passover, life is crazy, and I have already removed all the chometz from the house. So there's now way that I could make a pie crust (no flour), nor did I want to make it a few days earlier (no time and didn't want to have it hanging around the house). Amy of Sing for your Supper chose Banana Cream Pie and the recipe is here.

Tonight I was looking through the TwD blogroll and started to feel bad about not being a functional part of the group, particularly as I won't be able to bake the next recipe (no flour allowed until eight days from Wednesday night, during the eight Paschal days). Also, I saw that some folks had made their pies as parfaits and thought: I can do that!

So I whipped out my potato starch and the other ingredients (white not brown sugar, powdered, not fresh nutmeg) and put together a half batch of the pastry cream. Because I read the P&Q, I put in 1/2 the amount of starch called for and I was also able to whip the pot off the stove almost as soon as I returned it (after tempering the mixture): it turned "solid" almost immediately and without coming to the boil. So far, great.

Then I gathered the ingredients for the topping. Because I so rarely use heavy cream, I keep H-Schlagsahne in the cupboard. I whipped it out and started beating. And beating. And beating. It didn't whip! Instead, it seemed to separate and curdle. After a while I just gave up. Luckily, I had three egg whites from the pastry cream and I beat those add, added a tbl. of powdered sugar, a teaspoon of vanilla, and then as I continued to beat, a judicious dollop of Kahlua and a few more tbl. of granulated sugar.Looked great.

I spread the cream in a pastry dish, layered slice bananas on top, and attempted to pipe the meringue on top. Err. My plastic baggie didn't work very well. Threw a few more banana slices on top, sprinkled some sugar on, then put it in my 225C pre-heated oven to brown. As warned, I waited and about three minutes later it came out looking great.

The German had two bowls full, I had a taste: the cream is too sweet for me, even though I cut back on the sugar. This seems to be a regular problem for me with Dorie's recipes and I need to more proactively reduce the sugar in her recipes. Spouse gives it two thumbs up, we will see how the girls feel tomorrow.

Tuesday's with Dorie: French Yogurt Cake with Marmalade Glaze

You might be wondering, how can G be cooking for TwD when she is gallivanting around the US East Coast rather than at home in her kitchen? Well, it's because I actually made today's French Yogurt Cake with Marmalade Glaze on February 25th, for a book club at my house which I really need to post about (perhaps when relaxing at Disney later in the week?).

I would like to thank Liliana of My Cookbook Addiction for this choice: I have actually made the classic French Yogurt Cake several other times and I really liked Dorie's version (and it's glaze) very much. In fact, I made the two versions side by side and decided to taste test them and Dorie's won it was completely eaten, while the other was only partially eaten).

I used all flour instead of using partial almond flour (not a nut lover) and we were all very happy with the result: flavorful, not too heavy (although not as light as the other contender, Clothilde's from Chocolate & Zucchini). In particular, I made the glaze with bitter grapefruit marmalade and it was marveelous.

Tuesday's with Dorie: Lemon

Bridget from The Way the Cookie Crumbles chose Lemon Cup Custard for this week's Tuesday with Dorie recipe. It received an awful cot of negative comments on the P&Q
So many, in fact, that I was motivated to make it even though I was overwhelmed with Purim and packing to go to the US for two weeks. Even worse, in some ways, to NY, Massachusetts and Florida, so lots of different climates and activities.
However, the majority of people since I joined have been doing chocolate and nut recipes and as those are really the ingredients I hate most, and because I really like flan, those comments actually made me interested in doing it. So I cut the recipe in half and used double the quantity of vanilla and it was great.
The German heartily agreed as we both had it for lunch. I used a bit less than half the amount of sugar and next time I would cut that a bit more, but otherwise it was great. In fact, after I publish this post I will go split the last one with the German:).

Tuesday's with Dorie: Devil's Food White Out Cake

I have been starting to wonder whether I am cut out for Tuesdays with Dorie. I have had a few failures and a few items I really didn't want to make and I am starting to think that there will never be a recipe that doesn't have chocolate in it (which is bad, as I don't like chocolate).

But this recipe, chosen by Stephanie of Confessions of a City Eater, was exactly the type of recipe that I was looking for when I joined. It had a frosting that I had never made and it was just gorgeous looking.

As usual, I had functional deficits: it seems that all the recipes in the cookbook require the use of a stand mixer or a food processor. So I used my hand mixer. I have imported cream of tartar: that was the missing ingredient covered.

I didn't think that I had brought my candy thermometer with me and the marshmallow frosting required the use of a thermometer so I sent the German out to fetch one on Saturday when he and Thing2 did some shopping. He couldn't find one and, of course, there is no Sunday shopping for that type of frivolity (food stuffs can be found in markets within train stations that have short Sunday hours) but today I looked through the last two unopened boxes from the US and found my cany making oils and equipment, including the thermometer.

I had only 1 8" cake pan but that was fine because my oven is actually too small to take two so I baked the two required rounds sequentially. As did many others, I found that the cake rounds were extremely flat. I'm not certain if this was because of the 1/2 cup of boiling water that the recipe called for toward the end of the mix- would it have risen more without it? In any case, I have annotated my book to read that next time I should use 6" pans. The rounds were too flat to allow me to slice them through and make layers, so I cut leach layer instead in half and then stacked three demi sections, retaining the fourth to crumble after frosting the layers (that demi section was large enough that I used only half of it for crumbs and cut and stacked and frosted the rest to be mini-cakes for the girls).

The girls both had tremendous fun licking the beaters for the frosting (I let it cool first) and then watching me frost. They greatly enjoyed making crumbs and then applying them to the frosted cake. Thing1 adores it and Thing2 likes looking at it: after a while she gave her piece to her older sister (who is now agitating for another slice after dinner).

For me, too sweet and too chocolatey. A huge thumbs up from Thing1 and the German though and the cake is extremely attractive to look at.

How about some less sweet choices though?

Tuesday's with Dorie: Not this week.

Although in penance I am reading through everyone else's posts and wow, it's exhausting!

Check out their beautiful successes and a few interesting failures. This was too sweet, too eggy, and too complicated for my life this week.

Tuesday's with Dorie: World Peace Cookies

Another week joining my fellow Tuesdays with Dorie bloggers as we bake from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: from my home to yours. Today's recipe, World Peace Cookies, was chosen by Jessica of Cookbookhabit. That's a habit I share (along with garden books, sf, novels, travel books and expat reads- in fact, I am a bit of a reading addict) so I was glad to have a chance to check her site out.

The cookies, apparently based on a Pierre Hermes recipe, were an interesting recipe for me. I am finding cooking through this book fun because in so many cases I am cooking recipes that I would not choose: I am just not a chocolate lover. As I read the recipe, I saw that Dorie called this a variation on a sable (as were the Linzer cookies we made several weeks ago). Yet, this recipe included no eggs or fluids, unlike the other recipe. I also saw that it had a good 1/2 tsp of Fleur de Sel, as does the New York Times Chocolate Chip recipe (highlighted in my side bar) which is my current favorite cookie recipe (I especially love the sprinkling of sea salt on the top).

As I put the recipe together, and read the discussion, I saw that others seem to have had a problem with the texture being too crumbly. When I was done with the mixture, what I had in my bowl was actually what looked like a mess of flour (chocolatey flour, but still it looked as if there were no fluids). (I used my hand carried Dutch process cocoa- anyone know where to find it in Germany and what it is called?)

Although the recipe warned against overmixing, I kept on trying to beat the butter throughout the "dough".

Then I gave up. It looks as if later in the day some suggested removing a little of the flour prior to mixing, but at this point I just tossed in an egg. After mixing, when it still didn't look moist enough to roll, I added a few glugs of non-fat milk (that's what I had in the fridge). That brought it together as I stirred in a scant palmful of chips.

I separated the dough in two parts and wrapped it in Saran wrap. I then rolled it (within the wrap) into logs.
Here is the brilliant tip Dorie gave: take two paper towel rolls (what, doesn't everyone collect them for children's craft projects?), cut one side open, and put the dough "log" inside. This shaped it perfectly as I put the logs in the fridge. The recipe calls for a 3 hour chill, but I left it overnight and baked the cookies after my class this morning.
I preheated the oven to 160C and then cut thick (between 1/4 and 1/2") slabs of the cylinder onto my Silpat sheet on a cookie sheet. 12 minutes exactly later and I pulled them out. The half of the dough that I used (the other log is still in the fridge) made 11 cookies.

After cooling, I tried one. The cookies are surprisingly light and tasty (not too sweet). I assume the lightness came from the added egg and milk, because som of the other bakers are mentioning a density in their cookies?

In any case, both my girls (very picky baking testers) loved them and I am going to guess that my husband will as well. -Yes, he did. I'll freeze the other log and bake it up for them next week, I think.

Tuesday's with Dorie: Fresh Ginger and Chocolate Gingerbread

I baked this cake for this week's Tuesdays with Dorie.

Heather of Sherry Trifle chose this recipe and will post it.

Thanks Heather, this was surprisingly good considering that I don't really like chocolate. I do, however, love ginger and happened to have a large root just hanging out in my fridge. I used top quality bittersweet chocolate and as a result, although rich, the cake was not cloyingly sweet. I would have preferred a stronger ginger flavor, though, and I used extra ginger.

It was an interesting cake to make. I have recently found brown sugar here in Berlin at my local Asian markt, so that ingredient was covered. The molasses was a treasured import from the US, and the chocolate was a pretty high quality chocolate I picked up some time back for cooking purposes (I don't like chocolate myself). As you can see, I didn't have a 9" pan, so I used an 8" and added a mini-loaf pan. That was super and I wish I had made the whole recipe in mini pans, because this is too rich and chocolatey for my little family.

The German liked it and he will eat the mini-loaf (he has just volunteered to take half the larger pan in to work),while the larger cake will go to German class with me tomorrow I'll hope the young and hungry things there can help me to get rid of it;).

Even the frosting is surprisingly non-sweet and good. Someone on another blog mentioned ganache- is this what that is? I like it- does it come in vanilla?

Anyway, I am off to visit other bloggers on the roll to see how it turned out for them- come along and take a look!

Tuesday's with Dorie: Savory Corn and Pepper Muffins

Neither of us liked this muffin.
It looked good but when I pulled it out of the oven it was crumbling. A few hours later it had moistened up and held together but I still found it very dry and I actively disliked the taste. Since I am a savory lover and a cornbread lover, I'm not certain what combination of the ingredients I disliked so much (and I ate half a muffin- the husband spat his out- the whole batch went into bio recycling).

Was it the buttermilk? Probably not. We like buttermilk pancakes.

I think the cilantro and the chili powder just melded extremely poorly with the cornmeal for us. (I sort of resent it, too, as I hand carry that corn meal here- can anyone tell me the German equivalent of stone-ground corn meal? Because it isn't Mais Mehl or Mais Gries.)

Everyone else seems to have loved this recipe (although Cynthia suggests it might be because my cornmeal was stone-ground and that I should have used regular- which might actually be Mais Mehl), while I am regretting not trying the Corniest Corn Muffins on page 4 instead. It was chosen by Rebecca of Ezra Pound Cake. Head on over to her blog and others on the blogroll to see Corn Muffins that actually taste good.

Tuesdays with Dorie: French Pear Tart

I finally have my camera up and going on a Tuesday and today is a special Tuesdays with Dorie as Ms. Greenspan has chosen the recipe of the day: French Pear Tart on page 368 of
Baking: From my home to yours. Here she also displays and discusses her rendition of her recipe. She has also taken the time to answer some of our many questions in a gracious interview.

My take is definitely not as lovely. I don't own a tart pan in this country and every week I continue to regret leaving my food processor in the US (I really think that I will purchase one before our next recipe!). On the other hand, this recipe worked for me. It cooked up well and tasted wonderful. As you can see above, I finally found ground almonds. That saved me mixing them up in my coffee mill again. Then you see my mise en scene, a mix of weight and volume measurements (I have translations taped to my wall as well).

The next picture is of the long suffering husband, as he kindly assists me in the grating of the frozen butter. I did that to facilitate the making of the "tart" crust, Dorie's Sweet Tart Dough from page 444. She wasn't kidding when she said that one should press that dough into a pan. Since I didn't have a tart pan, I wound up using a pie pan. As you can see below, that resulted in a bit of crisping at the edges, but I'm fine with that.

Continuing the saga, after making the crust, I needed to freeze before baking. Since I have a European (or perhaps a German) freezer, that means that it is the size of a breadbox. I put the pan outside on the patio, as it is currently below freezing in Berlin. Then I pre-baked the crust for 15 minutes, as I found the directions a bit unclear as to the required duration for pre-baking. I cooled the crust on the balcony again.

While the crust was cooling, I put together the almond cream. I found it was too stiff (perhaps a result of small German bio eggs? or that I used the vanilla rather than the rum?)so I added two tablespoons of water and remixed and it looked good.

My pears are a bit funny, but I think I got the hang of it after the first try and luckily the expansion of the cream while baking just makes it look great. I think it over-browned a bit and next time I might try putting tinfoil on for the last ten minutes or perhaps it would be better in a tart pan with its deep edges. However, this was a great relief after the failure of the pudding- it tastes great and set well.

Tuesday's with Dorie: Real Butterscotch Pudding

This Tuesday with Dorie recipe, from page 386 of her Baking: from my home to yours, was a failure for me.

The recipe was chosen by Donna of Spatulas, Corkscrews & Suitcases . I made this on flying trip moving things from the my in-laws, 6 hours west of here, to our apartment by trailer. I did it in a rush, I admit, but I did follow the recipe. When we got home today and tried it, it hadn't jelled properly and it was so rich as to be inedible. I'll be interested to see if others had the same problem.

Tuesday's with Dorie: Linzer Sables

I'm catching up! I waited to make the Linzer Sables because I was not enamored of the recipe calling for 1 1/2 cups of "finely ground nuts". This recipe was chosen by Noskos of Living the Life.

I looked and looked for any ground nuts, or the almond flour that he mentions but was never able to find any. I wound up grinding walnuts in my (spice) coffee grinder and it was a fine line between ground nuts and walnut butter. After I had that ingredient in hand, the recipe itself was quite easy. It mixed up extremely soft, so I understand why it was necessary to chill the dough for some time.

This is  the first time that I have ever had a recipe call for rolling the dough (between wax or parchment paper) and then chilling it before cutting it (rather than chilling it then rolling and cutting it) and it worked very well. I split the recipe in half, rolled each between two sets of parchment paper and then placed the two pieces on a cookie sheet and placed the sheet outside on the balcony to chill: Berlin in December is quite chilly. It's also quite grey and rainy, so luckily I rescued the sheet just after it started drizzling and was able to shift things about in the refrigerator and fit it in there. Things got busy then and I didn't finish the cookies until two days later.

When I pulled the rolled out cookie dough out of the fridge (after pre-heating the oven to 180 celsius (once again less than the recipe), I found the dough cut and held shape extremely well. I will definitely use this technique for my sugar cookies in the future.

I cut out shapes and filled two trays with the stars. I made half of them cut out (by using the top of the tomato paste tube). While I worked on these, I rolled the scraps (already too soft to work woth) back out between parchment and refrigerated the sheet.

I found that 9 minutes was enough bake time and with the first tray I tried to skip the step of turning the cookies half through and discovered that my oven requires that step to evenly bake the cookies. For the filling I took my favorite seeded raspberry jam, boiled up a bit with a teaspoon of water in the microwave, let it cool and filled the cookies. I had rolled the dough thinner than the suggested 1/4 inch and I still found that the resulting cookie sandwich was too thick. I had 12 filled cookies and with the remaining dough I made 8 single cookies which I dusted heavily with powdered sugar.

The German liked these very much (as did his parents when I brought them over) but the children liked only the powdered sugar and I found the cookies far too heavy. I generally don't like recipes made with nuts and this recipe shows me that I don't like recipes made with ground nuts either. I won't make this recipe again, but I will make a ginger snap to see if the German just likes the cinnmon and the cloves (which I also like very much).

Tuesday's with Dorie: Buttery Jam Cookies

(I'm posting my TwD entries together, although I have had them done for a while. With the girls' illness and the school festivities, then running off to the in-laws, I am running a bit behind. I hope that I find my card reader and get the photos uploaded today, but at least I wanted to get my postings up.)


Buttery Jam Cookies was chosen by Heather of Randomosity and the Girl. It's on page 80 of Baking: From my home to yours by Dorie Greenspan. After reading all the comments and questions on the cookies, I was worried that they would would spread too much, not spread at all, be tasteless or be too soft.

I changed up the recipe a bit by increasing the jam (I added a bit more than 1/3 cup of seeded raspberry jam- because that's what I have and it's what I like), increased the vanilla extract to 3/4 t. (I like vanilla), increased the ginger to 1 teaspoon (ditto).

I also find consistently that the temperatures and times that Dorie prescribes are off. It's a rotten stove, a translation to celsius and I haven't calibrated it, so it may be my fault, but I changed the temperature down to 180 celsius and kept the time at 10 minutes. In addition, the stve has ony 1 rack, so I placed it in the middle and I did turn the cookie sheet at 5 minutes.

The cookies puffed up (from my wonderfully active Clabber Girl baking powder) and spread a bit but they tasted very much like what I would call scones (or what my South African friend called rock cakes) rather than cookies (or what I think of as cookies). I liked them very much and think that they would be great eaten for breakfast or tea, perhaps with a smear of jam added and accompanied by a cup of tea. As smeone else mentioned. we did find them a bit sweeter the second day, but they did not survive until the third to check for progression.

This recipe is a keeper.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Grandma's All-Occasion Sugar Cookies

The strangest thing has happened: when I try to connect to Tuesdays with Dorie, I am not able to access any of the regular pages. Therefore, I'll have to link in to the person who chose the sugar cookie recipe after the links work for me. Here are the December recipes: the Sugar Cookie pick is from Ulrike of Kuechenlatein.

This is a different sort of baking month. Because December is so busy, we have been given all 4 of the recipes and we can post them any time before the end of the month and in any order. I have chosen to make the sugar cookies first and next week I will attempt the Linzer Sables chosen by Noskos at Living the Life.

I made these cookies with high expectations: my older daughter was sorely disappointed in the last pie and she has been asking me for cookies. So we made the dough together and while it was chilling she got to lick the beaters and scrape the bowl.

Then we rolled them out and made some stars: I put colored sugar on them. When I cooked them, at 170C, I set the timer for 5 minutes, rotated them and baked for another 5 minutes. I immediately took them off the cookie sheet because they were already browned and the recipe said that they shouldn't show color.

I found them dry and relatively unappealing. I tried another batch that I smeared jam on and a few set with Cape gooseberries, which tasted slightly better due to the added moisture, but still, these were a disappointment. I need to have my mother send me the Betty Crocker recipe because it is far superior to this one. I wonder if I should have added an extra egg, as the recipe called for large eggs and I think that all European eggs are actually small? Could the recipe have been negatively impacted because I doubled it (I was really expecting a great sugar cookie)?

Anyone have better results?

(edit: I made another batch today with my girls-- I still have two more balls of dough in the refrigerator-- I rolled the dough a bit thicker, I lowered the heat to 165C, and changed the time to 5minutes, turn, 4 minutes. The cookies were very pale but tasted better. Still dry though, and not a sugar cookie recipe I will return to.)