A chocolate bite of heaven or chocolate air cake on a crunchy circle of chocolate dough with chunks of milk and white chocolates and biscotti bits is how we described this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie v2.0 recipe. Yes, with four uses of chocolate in the first sentence you know it’s going to be good.

Instead of making six 6″ mini Chocolate Truffle Tarts as directed, I went smaller and used my mini-cheesecake pan. The light-as-air filling was a perfect contrast to crunch of the crust and the chunks of chocolate and biscotti. Almost a brownie, but not quite, the tarts deserve their own category.

Thanks to  Steph of A Whisk and A Spoon, Spike of Spike Bakes, Jaime of Good Eats Blog and Jessica of Cookbook Habit for hosting this week. You can find the recipe on any of their blogs or in the book, Baking with Julia page 382.

Photo by Paulrus

Milk Chocolate Mini-Bundt Cake

I am able to cross off two more TWDv1.0 recipes on my list of incompletes. Both are bundts. Both are beyond mini mini-bundt cakes. I recently bought a mini-bundt pan that holds 12 instead of the usual 6 which was the size suggested by Dorie Greenspan to bake Milk Chocolate Mini Bundt Cakes. I also baked the Brown Sugar Bundt Cake as 12 minis.

I had some issues in filling the molds with batter. I tended to overfill. Next time I won’t–I’ll probably scrape the batter in the sandwich bag and squeeze into the molds until the fill is just right.

Kristen of I’m Right About Everything selected the Milk Chocolate Mini Bundt Cakes to host in February 2010.  Again I was still baking with the group back then. I have no clue why I did not bake them then. I’m may have been having fun flying back and forth for a bit (most likely in between bouts of being a mess). Milk Chocolate Mini Bundt Cake Recipe.

Mini Brown Sugar Bundt Cake

Peggy of Pantry Revisited hosted the recipe for the Brown Sugar Bundt Cake (full-size) in May 2011, which was after the start of my blogging sabbatical.

Both bundts were delicious. I added cranberries, white chocolate, and macadamia nuts to the brown sugar mini-bundts.

I have a problem. I’m sure many of you have the same problem. Anytime I see a recipe I like in a magazine I rip it out and add it to the pile. I like a lot of recipes.
I’m slowly ending subscriptions to magazines and I don’t buy magazines at the store anymore so my pile of recipes isn’t growing as fast as it did in the past.
My pile currently resides in the library closet. By library I mean our spare room with piles of books, bags of old clothes that need to be donated, and junk that has no other home. Nothing as fancy as shelves.

How do you organize your magazine recipes? In the past I tried organizing by type. Now I think I’m going to try organization by month of publication. That way when it’s February 2014, I can look at my February pile and pick a seasonally appropriate recipe. I don’t know. I probably should just throw them all away. Until I do, I’m challenging myself to make two magazine recipes a month.

The word crumpet is used as a slightly derogatory slang word in England, similar to tart. However, there is nothing derogatory about the grilled bread treat. Especially when it’s slathered in butter and jam.

Homemade crumpets couldn’t be easier and are made entirely on the griddle unlike English muffins which are started on the stove and end up in the oven.

You simply mix up the ingredients, let the batter rest for an hour, and then scoop it onto the griddle to cook. The King Arthur Flour blog has great step by step instructions with pictures. Within minutes you’ll have ready-to-eat crumpets to top any way you please.

Have you had the chance to try Biscoff Spread yet? Thanks to my bookclub friends who have been raving about it for months, I finally brokedown and bought some. We tried it for the first time decadently spread on our freshly made crumpets. And, oh my, I’m venturing to say it’s better than Nutella.

I’ll have a bit of this crumpet.

Crumpets! Recipe

Photos by Paulrus

Paul introduced me to Wispa chocolate bars. He goes crazy for them. His whole family goes crazy for them. When relatives visit from England they bring bags of Wispas and other English chocolate treats. I think it’s a requirement for allowing them to visit. When Cadbury, the maker of Wispas, discontinued the brand in 2003 there was a massive uproar in the UK which spawned a successful internet campaign to bring the bar back.

It used to be tricky to find Wispas in the States, hence the hoarding by Paul and his family. Now you can find Wispas at any World Market or gourmet grocery. Because of this, Paul subtly (not) suggests  baking with his favorite candy bar. I successfully baked Wispa Chip Cookies–Alton Brown’s The Chewy subbing chopped up Wispas for the chocolate chips. Unfortunately this was done before I returned to blogging and I can’t share the results with you. I can, however, share these glorious Wispa Brownies.

I made the Classic Brownie recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking…From My Home to Yours subbing the chopped up Wispas for walnuts. I think the next time I make these brownies I will leave the bars whole or use 4 bars instead of THE LAST TWO BARS in the house. The chopped up Wispas got a little lost in the brownie goodness.

Anne Strawberry hosted the recipe when the Tuesdays with Dorie Bakers blogged about Classic Brownies in September of 2011. You can find the recipe HERE.

Photo by Paulrus

I love baking bread. The magic of yeast and flour and water and salt coming together to create a meal. I love the feel of the formed dough  in my hands. It feels alive and full of energy. When the bread rises, it’s like POW. I’m alive! Then  in the oven the bread rises some more and gains it final shape with a nice crust. Once baked, we all have to wait patiently while the bread cools. There are different opinions on how long bread should cool. The Fresh Loaf has an interesting discussion. I tend to let bread cool for at least hour. However, it’s not just me anymore.  Both Paul & Nani #17 circle the kitchen island waiting for me to say okay. I don’t know what Nani’s waiting for; he doesn’t get bread.

I created Pink Stripes to join the original Tuesdays with Dorie (TWD) and because of it I’ve met and shared with an amazing group of people. My life got hectic and I didn’t have much time to bake and blog. The original TWD ended with celebration late last year and the group announced the creation of a new TWD. The new group will bake through Dorie Greenspan’s Baking with Julia. I had the book and missed the baking and blogging life. TWD v2.0 was just what I needed for motivation to end my sabbatical.

This week’s recipe: White Loaves was hosted by Laurie of Slush and Jules of Someone’s in the Kitchen

Photo by Paulrus

Happy World Nutella Day! I’m excited to be back after missing last year’s celebration. I almost missed it again, having only realized it was happening a couple days ago.  I quickly searched for a recipe I could make that wasn’t too time-consuming and one that I had all the ingredients on hand.

Nutella-Swirl Pound Cake from Food & Wine fit the bill. Not only was it easy to bake, my swirl worked! I have a problem with swirl cakes. It’s got a pretty good swirl and a great taste. Not dry and the Nutella to cake ratio was perfect. No need for whipped cream or fruit with this cake. You can find the recipe HERE.

“Sara from Ms. Adventures in Italy and Michelle from Bleeding Espresso solemnly declare Sunday, February 5th “World Nutella Day 2012″ – a day to celebrate, to get creative with, and most importantly, to EAT Nutella.”

Photos by Paulrus

My pantry is full of ingredients. Full of ingredients I bought for one recipe. Special whole grains–amaranth, quinoa, farro, barley–and lots of lentils and beans. I have three (3!) different types of lentils.  I made Lentils and Rice with Caramelized Onions from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything  because I wanted to make room in my pantry. I now only have 2 types of lentils.

I cooked a similar recipe from Veganomicon before. It’s a simple vegan comfort-food recipe that’s good when it’s cold outside (even Southern California cold).

You can find the recipe HERE.

A cake? A muffin? A muffin with a cake-like existential crisis? Or is it the other way around? Maybe it should seek therapy.

In my quest to bake through Baking…From My Home to Yours, long-after the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie (TWD) group finished, I can check another recipe off my list. Dorie Greenspan created the Apple Nut Muffin Cake when one day she was making muffins and decided dump the batter in a cake pan and call it a day. I briefly toyed with the idea of making muffins instead of the cake as some sort of poetic finish to the whole thing. After I finished musing, I baked the cake subbing whole-wheat pastry flour for the all-purpose and  dried cranberries for the raisins (Paul doesn’t like raisins!).

The flavor of the cake reminded me of apple-cinnamon oatmeal and therefore I believe a healthy way to have cake for breakfast. The recipe was hosted by Katrina of Baking and Boys last October. You can find the recipe HERE.

photo by paulrus

One of the reasons I enjoy belonging to baking groups is that the decision of what to bake is made for me. I like baking things on my own, of course, but there are just too many recipes I want to try. It gets a bit overwhelming.

For the most part joining baking groups worked for me. That is, until I joined too many {TWD, Sweet Melissa Sundays,Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge, Daring Bakers} life got hectic, I needed sleep, etc. Now that I’m back to blogging, I’m limiting myself to one (1!) baking group: Tuesdays with Dorie (TWD v2.0).  Even though I’m officially joining only one (1!) baking group, I still want to finish all the original TWD recipes (after today I have 62 left!) and that’s the basis of today’s recipe.

The TWD Bakers baked Basic Biscuits in October 2011. There’s nothing basic about the taste and yummy-factor. They rose and were flaky. The recipe was hosted by Jennifer of Cooking for Comfort. You can find the recipe HERE or in Dorie Greenspan’s Baking…From My Home to Yours.

photo by paulrus