{twd} oasis naan or we’re married

I wavered in my decision to make this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie selection–Oasis Naan. In the end I chose to bake a half a recipe. I love naan, the flat bread served in Indian restaurants, and have baked it before. Of course, I didn’t bake it in the traditional tandoor oven. It was still tasty and overall simple to bake. This recipe differed from others in that it is sprinkled with coarse salt, cumin seeds, and chopped scallion. We ate them with scrambled eggs for lunch.

No good pictures, though. The charger for Paul’s camera was left behind at his parent’s house after our wedding. Oh, yes. We’re married. 🙂 It was a perfect day. Gorgeous weather and great guests. We departed quickly for our beach honeymoon, hence the forgotten charger. I’ll share a few wedding pictures instead. I’m sure you won’t mind.

The ceremony. Barefoot!:

Nani #17, our dog, took the proceedings very seriously:

We had a doughnut cake instead of cake:

With my “sisters”:

We’re married 🙂 :

Back to the reason for this post…I took horrible pictures of the naan with my phone. So horrible, I’m embarrassed to share.  Please visit Maggie of Always Add More Butter and Phyl of Of Cabbages & King Cakes for the recipe and for great pictures. You can also find the recipe in Dorie Greenspan’s Baking with Julia on page 149.

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No Nut Sticky Buns

While I wouldn’t mind a pecan or two, Paul is not a fan of most nuts in baked goods. And I have a wedding dress to fit into in 4 days (!). Speaking of which, with last minute RSVPs, multiple calls to catering and the party rental people, and figuring out seating arrangements–I am very ready for our mini-moon to the beach. Until then, we have massages and facials on the calendar today and I’ve started physical therapy.

This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is for Pecan Sticky Buns. Instead of pecans, I used white chocolate chunks and dried cherries. I made a full recipe of brioche (in my food processor–first time! as my stand mixer is dead and no way was I going to make brioche by hand with my bum knee) but only half recipe of the buns. I baked the buns in a cupcake tin which made them more like morning buns.

My gosh, these things were good. A flaky and tender, sweet breakfast treat worthy of a full batch when I’m back to cycling and running and training and working and moving. You can find the recipe in Dorie Greenspan’s Baking with Juila or you can visit the blogs of this week’s hosts:  Lynn of Eat Drink Man Woman Dogs Cat and Nicole of Cookies on Friday.

And this marks my 400th post! Cheers!

photo by paulrus

{twd} hungarian shortbread

Hungarian Shortbread? What the heck is Hungarian Shortbread? I had visions of a smoky, spicy version of the buttery, sandy cookie. As it turns out, this week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is a shortbread sandwich cookie filled with jam.

I made a quarter of the dough recipe and only used half of what I made. Once made, the dough is formed into balls and frozen. Then it’s grated directly into the pan (in my version I used round cookie cutters to bake the cookies), spread with jam (I didn’t attempt the rhubarb jam recipe instead used mango butter from Trader Joe’s as the filling), and then topped with more grated dough.

This created a light airy buttery cookie (or my case 4 cookies total) that was a winner here and enjoyed by all (okay, only Paul and I because there wasn’t enough cookies to share.)

You can find the recipe for Hungarian Shortbread in Dorie Greenspan’s Baking with Julia or with these week’s hosts:  Lynette of 1smallkitchen and Cher of The Not So Exciting Adventures of a Dabbler…

{twd} lemon loaf cake

*sigh* I’m one week post-surgery and I’m bored silly. Actually, bored silly may be a bit more fun than what I really am: bored-bored. I should be grateful. I’m sleeping again and my pain is under control. Paul is taking very good care of me and has the patience of a zen-master. Since the surgery, I’m only allowed to get up to use the restroom (no baking!). I see my orthopedic surgeon for my first post-surgical follow-up appointment tomorrow. I hope all goes well, the x-rays show I’m healing nicely, and my orthopedist allows more moving around.

I baked this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie selection, Lemon Loaf Cake, the morning of the day I broke my patella. As it was a busy weekend and Paul was leaving for a week-long business trip, I  stuck it in the freezer for a later date.

Yesterday we took it out of the freezer and enjoyed the lemon cake for dessert. Perfect timing for a time when times are strange in our house–we were surprisingly out of treats to eat.

I made 1/2 recipe in a full recipe size pan so it baked up low and dense. I also used my homemade rough and tumble vanilla sugar in place of regular sugar. We liked the lemon flavor and thought it was a nice little cake to enjoy with tea. It’s not a stop-the-presses! type of recipe which lemon desserts have high-potential to achieve, so I probably won’t make it again.

You can find the Lemon Loaf Cake recipe in the book we’re all slowly baking through, Baking with Julia, or on the blogs of the hosts for this week: Truc of Treats and Michelle of The Beauty of Life.

photos by paulrus

{TWDv2.0} chocolate truffle tart bites

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