twd: chocolate truffle tartlettes

are you ready for another tuesday with dorie?  this week's challenge is being hosted by 4 different participants; steph, spike, jaime and jessica.  i know i was raring to go-how could you not be ready for chocolate?  since this was a chocolate challenge, i decided to make them for valentines day with my husband and one of our daughters.   both of them are fans of chocolate, especially dark chocolate but being a pastry chef, i decided to customize my tart for them.  what that means is rather than dark and white chocolate chunks and chopped biscotti being added to the tart, i opted to use dark chocolate, peanut butter cups and peanut brittle.

 first, the dough mixes up incredibly fast in the food processor.

 rather than 6 small tartlettes, i made one 9" tart

 as always, the marbles came out of the closet with a coffee filter to serve as pie weights

 perfectly baked!

 for the filling-egg yolks are whipped with sugar to the ribbon stage

 the booty-peanut brittle, mini peanut butter cups and bittersweet chocolate were folded into the mousse filling.

 the filling in the prepared tart shell before going into the oven

 after baking-the large tart took about 25 minutes at 350 to bake

fudgy perfection!  it was a huge hit with the husband and daughter-me too!!!

many thanks to this weeks hosts-looking forward to the next challenge.  bake on friends and if you dare, bake one and send me a photo-i will post it here!  see the tarts from all of the participants here

kaiser rolls-a work in progress

i've come to realize that my sanity may depend on securing another book deal...but, i digress.  my new found freedom (read that as kids out of the house and husband working insane hours) has left me with time to try new things.  so what do i do with this freedom?  why, i bake of course-what did you think i would do???  kaiser rolls have always been something that i love-the thin, crispy crust and the fluffy, light bread...mmmmmm...then again, cookbooks are a bit of an obsession too.  i went onto the public library's website and secured myself a copy of peter reinhart's book, the bread baker's apprentice and decided to try my hand at kaiser rolls.  luckily for all of us, the recipe was posted by the gang that blogged their way through the book and can be found here.  i say luckily because none of the recipes in this book are short-all are extremely detailed and take a lot more time than you would expect.  this recipe spanned two days and honestly, i wasn't happy with the results, but that is probably my inexperience and not the recipe at fault.

a preferment-or a batch of "old" dough is mixed and allowed to rest overnight in the fridge.  on baking day, it is cut up and allowed to come to room temp so it can be incorporated into the dough.

my old mixer got the workout of a life time!!!

if you read this book, you will see that temperatures are just as important as measuring and mixing.

the dough after mixing

after the first rise

yes, i have had lots of practice shaping rolls-old habits die hard...

i tried the stamp this time, next time i will try the other two methods; tying a knot and folding the petals to the center.

they rise upside down and then you turn them over

mmmm......seeds

not bad for this attempt but definitely not the rolls of my youth!  i will work on these again because i love kaiser rolls and good ones are impossible to find here in nashville.  that and the fact that mine looked nothing like all the ones i looked at from the bloggers group!

gingerbread beer cake with bittersweet chocolate glaze

gingerbread.  beer.  chocolate... what more does anyone need?  mix it all up and bake it in a bundt and trust me, you will not need anything else.  i recently entered this recipe in a food52.com contest so wish me luck!  you can view the recipe here and use the photos below from the step by step to see what things should look like.

 when i know that i need to sift dry ingredients, i place a mesh strainer over a bowl and place all the ingredients to be sifted in it.  then i sift it into the batter a portion at a time.  the bowl makes it easier to contain and the stuff that falls through the strainer can be dumped in without the hassle of lifting paper...

 the two batters in the pan before swirling them

 swirling the batters carefully, so that you do not remove the grease/flour layer from the pan, is best done with a small spoon.  gently insert the spoon and stir and lift small quantities of batter to marbleize it.

 the cake after turning it out of the pan.  the hardest part-not cutting into it while it is warm!

 drizzle the glaze over the cake in a free form manner for the best look.

and that meeting i took the cake to-this was all that was left; two skinny slices of heaven...so this is in this weeks food52.com contest for your best chocolate and spice.  and as always, if you bake one, send me a photo and i will post it here!  bake on my friends, bake on...

thali restaurant, decatur

while i enjoyed the rainy weather during my trip to atlanta, i enjoyed the food even better.  we ate out every night but only once did we take photos of the food.  in decatur, there is a large indian population and judging from the restaurants, many of them are vegetarian.  we stopped at one strip center where 3 of the 4 restaurants proclaimed they were vegetarian-indian restaurants.  not a problem for us.  we walked in to thali restaurant and were seated, handed menus and like a couple of tourists who don't speak the language-we sat there lost.  luckily for us, a nice young man came over and explained to us that we didn't need to worry, the menu was prix fixe and all the dishes would be chosen by the chef-all we had to do was eat.  so, eat we did!  and by the way, we have no idea what we ate; we took comfort in the fact that it was vegetarian and that at least it would be plant parts and not critter parts.

  a snack to start with-fried crunchy snacks that were a bit spicy when dipped in the sauces

  the appetizer platter.  i tried it all and i enjoyed it all too

 the main course.  i loved the breads and the potatoes.  the soup and the dal were tasty too, i ate a lot

the third course was beans and rice and sauce.  i liked the beans, they were creamy like refried beans but they were probably mung beans and not pintos.  our fourth and final course was a scoop of ice cream with saffron, pistachios and fruit-it was tasty.  we finished up, paid the check ($37.08 for 2 with a $5 tip!) and we rolled (literally) to the car...had fun and i can't wait to go back!

mega mart, atlanta=mega amazing!

parents dream of the day that the kids move out and they finally get the house to themselves.  then, in the blink of an eye, it happens and parents don't know what to do with themselves...what you do is you pack a bag and go visit them in their house-you take up space, eat the groceries, watch all the wrong shows, sleep in their bed and complain a lot.  just a thought.  i recently went to atlanta to visit alix in her new home town.  she and i spent a lot of time wandering the shops and one of the best stops was mega mart.  the korean community is huge in atlanta, so are many other ethnic asian communities, and the variety of shops that cater to each community is huge!  after visiting a bunch of places, mega mart made the biggest impression on me and i look forward to going back to shop there and at another similar store, h mart.  between you and me, mega mart has more to offer but h mart has better prices.  like tourists in disneyland, we took lots of photos-gotta love the iPhone! 

 one of the cleanest produce sections i have ever seen and certainly one of the largest as well.

 off to one side of the produce section is one of those little walk-in fridge sections that had an amazing selection of noodles, tofu and miso

 just look at the different kinds of miso-have you ever seen so many to choose from?

 the fresh seafood selection was impressive-so are the prices.  amazing what being 8 hours from the gulf can do to prices.

 i don't care what you say, monkfish are ugly.  so ugly that they are not at all cute...

 grouper-try and find that in nashville

 i loved these packages-fish soup kit.  all you do is put it in a pot with water and cook-instant fish soup!
providing you like fish soup.

 for those of you not likely to purchase a whole fish, no problem.  they had the largest selection of cut/cleaned fish i have ever seen in a grocery store.

 no trip to the market is complete without checking the bakery case.

 gorgeous cakes!

the rest of the store looked like this aisle.  wide, neat and clean.  can't wait to go back.  i will share more of my trip to atlanta-i did plenty of eating there too!

baking with julia: white loaves

way back when, at the beginning of my blogging days, i discovered the tuesdays with dorie group.  they were hard at work on their mission to bake every recipe from baking: from my home to yours and they did.  just before christmas, they posted their final challenge.  and then the whole bunch of them found themselves with a little time on their hands-whatever would they do with tuesdays?  luckily for everyone, and folks like me who missed out on the first run, the decision was made to do it again but this time with julia child too.

in 1996, dorie greenspan wrote the companion book to the julia child pbs series, baking with julia.  it is a large book with wonderful photos, many of which are step by step process shots, that give the user a complete idea of what things should look like as you prepare the recipe.  as a cookbook author, and more importantly a cookbook user, those are the most important parts of a recipe.  nothing is worse than choosing a recipe that is new to you, it includes unfamiliar techniques and absolutely no photos.  frustrating!!!

having borrowed the book from a friend long ago, it was always on my wish list but as a mom (with 2 kids) the priority list always placed the book way down near the bottom.  then, several years ago, my mom and i were wandering through a flea market in saylorsburg, pa and i happened to see it lying on a blanket with several other cookbooks.  i immediately snatched it and when i saw the $3 price tag, yes $3, i nearly yelled out and did a stupid fist pump.  however, i contained myself and just paid the nice lady and quickly wandered off before she realized what she just sold me and how much she should have asked me to pay.  needless to say, i have enjoyed using the book.  and now, i get to use every recipe in it, something i have never done with a cookbook before.

so, the way this works, we will post the results on tuesdays, every other tuesday to be exact but in respect for cookbook authors, the members will not post the recipes-only the host will do that.  we want you to buy a book and keep cookbook authors and publishers working.  you can check the tuesdays with dorie website to see what the next challenge is and follow the links to see the results of all of the participants.

with my baking assistant, twitch, i got to work on my bread loaves

white loaves

allowing the yeast to activate in warm water with sugar

 the kneaded dough rising in my kitchen

 after shaping the loaves, they rise until they are just above the tops of the pans

 warm from the oven....nothing comes close to the aroma of bread, warm from the oven

quite possibly the best loaf of white bread i have ever made.  it made incredible sandwiches and toast too.


what a great way to start the challenge.  the technique of adding soft butter to a dough that is already mixed is a little different but experienced bakers will recall that brioche is mixed in the same manner.  this step makes  the mixing process a little nervewracking but the results are amazing.  so follow the links and see the results of all the participants then buy the book and make some bread!

what are we baking next???  i has cookbook, i will bake kitty treats...