Babas - TWD: Baking with Julia

Tuesdays with Dorie: Baking with Julia - 97th installment. The recipe is Babas.

After the Savarin project back in 2013 (wow - so long ago!), I was kind of skeptical that I would like this, but I was pleasantly surprised.  The dough is the same dough from that cake - a yeast dough, but this time I included the currants soaked in rum.  The dough was very easy to make in the Kitchen Aid mixer.  I didn't have the prescribed baba molds, but I have a mini popover pan that seemed similar in shape to the cylindrical baba molds, which allow the top to rise up and form a crown.

Before rising

After rising

 
Once the babas are risen in the molds, you bake and cool them.  In parallel, you make some pastry cream, which should be chilled in preparation for assembly.
Now to finish them:  you make some sugar syrup, dip each baba into the hot syrup and then cool on the rack. You fill each baba with pastry cream - I used a pastry bag with star tip to poke a hole in the bottom of the baba and squeeze cream into the baba, followed by piping a small rosette on the top of the baba. I topped it with a few bits of candied orange peel.  The flavors were a bit subtle, and unusual, with the yeast-based cake, but we really enjoyed them.  

Cornmeal-Currant Biscotti - TWD: Baking with Julia

Tuesdays with Dorie: Baking with Julia - 96th installment. The recipe is Cornmeal-Currant Biscotti.

Good to drop back from the Brie extravaganza of last month to a more simple recipe - a yummy cornmeal biscotti from Nick Malgieri.
This recipe is very easy and the flavor is good. There are equal amounts of cornmeal and flour, with egg, butter, and currants, plus lemon zest and vanilla.  you cut the butter into the dry ingredients (similar to pie crust):







After mixing the wet ingrediting into this mixture, you form logs from the dough.  At this point, you can either bake the log (for traditional biscotti shape), or flatten the log and cut diamonds out of it.  I tried both methods.

Once you've baked the log, you slice and bake the slices, as in regular biscotti recipes, for a crunchy style of cookie.   The diamonds are complete after one baking, and are a softer, crumbly style of cookie.  We liked both of them - kind of a nice change to have a cookie with cornmeal and lemon as the primary flavors.

Brie in Brioche - TWD: Baking with Julia

Tuesdays with Dorie: Baking with Julia - 95th installment. The recipe is Brie in Brioche.

Wow - what a blow-out recipe :-)  Finally got to this in January, and it was definitely delicious and had some unique techniques along the way.   This recipe isn't a ton of work, but does need advanced planning, as there are various chilling steps of multiple hours.

An entire wheel of Brie is topped with super-carmelized sweet onions, and the entire thing wrapped in brioche dough and baked.  The recipe makes 16-20 servings (!!), and given that we weren't having a party, we were snacking on this for days, extending the holiday eating period by an additional week 
:-)

Carmelized onions after pressing in the colander

The onions are carmelized by cooking 6 whole large sweet onions with a stick of butter in the slow cooker on low for 24 (!!!!) hours.   They turned an amazing color, and the fragrance in the house was pretty incredible.  Once they've cooled, you weight them in a colander to extract any remaining liquid. These flattened onions are sliced in half horizontally in preparation for assembly.

The brioche dough recipe is designed for a bread machine (which we have), so that was incredibly easy - put the ingredients in the machine, set for "Dough", and then a quick check to be sure it's the right consistency after mixing.   You could certainly make this dough by hand or in the power mixer.  Once the dough has gone through its initial rise, it needs to be chilled for at least 24 hours.
Finally, it's time to assemble.  You line a 9" springform pan with part of the dough, put the cheese wheel on top of it, top with the onion slices, and then cover in more dough, tucking in the sides to close off the cylinder.  One last piece of dough is used to make a braid for decorating the top.
The assembled creation is brushed with egg wash and left to raise for 40 minutes before baking for a total of 45 minutes.
It is served in slices -  here's one of ours.  


The cheese oozes out, so it's not necessarily beautiful, but delicious - the combination of butter brioche dough, sweet onions, and melted Brie is wonderful.

Vanilla-Hazelnut Cheesecake - TWD: Baking with Julia

Tuesdays with Dorie: Baking with Julia - 94th installment. The recipe is Vanilla-Hazelnut Cheesecake.

This is a very simple and tasty cheesecake with a non-traditional ingredient list, including cottage cheese. 
First step - a caramel hazelnut paste.  You prepare a caramel syrup, and then stir in chopped, toasted hazelnuts. Once this is cool, you process it in the food processor into a paste (mmmmmm.....)

Now the unexpected cottage cheese step - you drain it for a hour in a strainer, and then process it in the food processor until it is silky smooth. 

Cottage cheese after processing

You add the additional ingredients to the processor:  Neufchatel cheese, eggs, sugar, salt and vanilla.  Once that is combined, you mix a cup of this plain batter into the hazelnut paste, to make the hazelnut batter.

To bake the cake, you put the plain batter in an 8" pan, and then top with dollops of hazelnut batter.  The cake is baked in a water bath (inside a roasting pan with boiling water), and then cooled and chilled.  Once unmolded from the plan, you press graham cracker crumbs on the outside edge (this step was a pain - seems a little fussy, given the ease of the rest of the recipe!).
Here's the finished cake - I think I would try to make the top a little more marbled next time:

We really enjoyed the cake - it's lighter than the traditional cheesecake, but the flavor and texture were very nice, and the hazelnut caramel flavor is a great addition to vanilla cheesecake.

Parmesan Puffs - TWD: Baking with Julia

Tuesdays with Dorie: Baking with Julia - 93rd installment. The recipe is Parmesan Puffs.

Didn't mean to completely fall off the wagon on Baking with Julia - I have been baking and keeping up with the monthly recipes, but not setting aside the time to blog about it!  Clearly, baking is more important to me than writing :-)  But now it's time to catch up on the backlog....

These puffs are described as a way to use up puff pastry scraps.  I didn't have any leftovers, so I needed to make another batch of puff pastry - at least all this repetition is demystifying the puff pastry process! 

You roll out the dough, cut it into diamonds (I used a fluted pastry cutter) and heat up 2" of peanut oil.  Once the oil is at 325 degrees, you fry the diamonds for 5 minutes.


After frying, you sprinkle the puffs with parmesan cheese.  The puffs were really delicious, and we devoured them quickly.  This is a really simple recipe and would be pretty handy if you had some scraps hanging around after a puff pastry project - the only drawback is the hassle of disposing of deep frying oil after you're done. 

Hazelnut Baby Loaves - TWD: Baking with Julia

Tuesdays with Dorie: Baking with Julia - 92nd installment. The recipe is Hazelnut Baby Loaves.

Thank goodness for simple recipes - a nice interlude between complicated ones.  This cake is delicious, and I will definitely add it to the roster.  I was lucky to have a family gathering that coincided with my baking time, since it makes 8 large servings.  

The cake is kind of reminded me of a pound cake, but lighter.  Butter and sugar beaten until fluffy, and then you alternately fold in the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt, and ground hazelnuts) with the wet ingredients (creme fraiche, almond extract).  
Looks a little messy when in progress, but it does come together. 

The recipe calls for mini loaf pans (4.25" by 2.5"), which I don't own, so I used some small square ceramic pans, plus muffin tins for the rest of the batter. The muffin shapes weren't as attractive as the little squares, but gave a good portion size. 

I think the portion size called for by the recipe might be a bit large - these squares are smaller than the mini loaf pans would be, and with the cream topping, it was plenty for one person.   I'd like to try making it in a larger pan, so the serving sizes could be variable.

You serve the cakes topped with a conbination of whipped cream and mascarpone cheese (mmmmm). The cake would be very nice topped with fruit as well.  

Raspberry Swirls - TWD: Baking with Julia

Tuesdays with Dorie: Baking with Julia - 91st installment. The recipe is Raspberry Swirls.

These are shown in the cookbook photo with chocolate/nutty side up, but I wondered if they were more attractive with the swirl showing.
This was the second recipe for October, and I got it baked (and eaten :-) but neglected to post about it.  November has caught me off guard, as my mind is still in August somewhere....
This was a fun one, and delicious as well.  It's included in the "Cakes for Occasions" section, and was a little bit fussy, but actually took less time than some of the more "casual" recipes.  I enjoyed the construction process.  
It starts with a basic Genoise (sponge) cake batter, which you bake in a greased and floured foil-lined jelly roll pan - this is the "Sheet Genoise" recipe from the "Batters and Doughs" chapter.  Once it's baked (8 minutes, because it's thin), you take it out of the pan and off the foil for cooking - peeling off the foil went OK, thanks to the grease and flour.

Once the cake is cooled, you cut it into four rectangles - each of these will be one roll.  The recipe calls for raspberry jam for the filling, and I did two rectangles with that, and two with our natural food store version of Nutella:

Rolled cake, not terribly round

Each rectangle gets rolled with a piece of parchment being used as a guide, and the baking sheet as a tool, you roll and press to get the roll wrapped firmly (hard to photograph - no free hands!).  Then, keeping the paper wrapped around the outside, you let the rolls sit for 30+ minutes. After they sits, you slice the rolls into inch-wide slices.  I am still wondering if I baked the cake too long - my rolls seemed kind of squashed, and the cake cracked significantly as a result of rolling - perhaps less baking would make it more flexible.

Slices ready for dipping

Each slice is dipped in a cocoa-based glaze (heavy cream, sugar, and cocoa in equal proportions!) and then in chopped pistachios and unsweetened shredded coconut.  The combination of vanilla cake, bittersweet chocolate glaze, crunchy toppings, and raspberry is wonderful.