Pecan Sticky Buns - TWD: Baking with Julia

Tuesdays with Dorie: Baking with Julia - Eighth Installment.  The recipe is Pecan Sticky Buns.

Wow - these were very yummy, and although they took some time, fun to make and not too difficult.  

• Love the layers formed by the folding and butter!
• It's hard to imagine how one would do this recipe for a breakfast...the overnight rise of the dough works, but once you start rolling, filling, and rising,  it's 3+ hours until they're ready to eat. That means getting up at 6 if you want to eat the rolls at 9.  I guess if you are getting this decadent with your menu, it's really brunch where you should be serving the rolls, at 10:30 or later :-)  Those who are up at 9:00 can have some oatmeal....
• The (Kitchen Aid) mixer did get hot, but held up.  
• I messed up the sponge step - I misread, and stirred all the flour in at once, instead of half in the sponge and half sprinkled on top.  It was lumpy and took some extra beating in the next step to get it smooth, but it worked.  
• I added extra flour (1/2 cup in all) to get the dough to be firm enough to slap the side of the mixer bowl.
• I left the rolls rising longer than specified, but the room was cool and it was just fine.  

One striking aspect of this recipe was the amount of butter (over a pound).  

In the dough

On the dough

In the pan for the caramel layer - one
stick per 9" round!

Spread in the pan

I found the rolling process easier than the Rugelach.  I baked one roll and froze the other roll for later.

Rolls ready to go into the pan

I didn't put the butter dish on the table, and no one asked for it :-)

Hungarian Shortbread - TWD: Baking with Julia

Tuesdays with Dorie: Baking with Julia - Seventh Installment.  The recipe is Hungarian Shortbread.

First, I want to say (or rather ask) - "Shortbread"?!

 With all my past experience with Scottish Shortbread, this seems more like a buttery cake with filling than shortbread.  It reminded us a bit of the Butterküchen we've eaten in Germany.  You can see from the empty space in the pan that it has been popular in the household :-)

The rhubarb filling makes a nice contrast with the sugary, buttery cake.  I find this shortbread to be very intensely sweet - good as a small slice with a cup of coffee.

The method was definitely interesting (freezing the dough and then grating it!).  It looked more like grated cheese than cookie dough:

Spreading rhubarb filling on lower layer of grated dough

Lemon Loaf Cake - TWD: Baking with Julia

Tuesdays with Dorie: Baking with Julia - Sixth Installment!  The recipe is Lemon Loaf Cake.

(Posting this late because I was on vacation last Tuesday....)

This was a very easy recipe, and the result was great. I was intrigued by the use of heavy cream - I'm not sure I've made a cake with heavy cream as an ingredient before.

I always aspire to have the eggs at room temperature, as specified in the recipe - I notice the difference, but seldom do enough advance planning to make it happen.

The cake also kept well, as described in the recipe - four days later, it was still tasty.

Whisking the flour into the eggs

Ready for the oven

Pizza Rustica - TWD: Baking with Julia

Tuesdays with Dorie: Baking with Julia - Fifth Installment!  The recipe is Pizza Rustica.

First, everyone in the household got excited because "you're making pizza for dinner?!".  I informed them that this was no ordinary pizza, and the excitement level went down slightly.  In the end, everyone ended up liking the Pizza Rustica, even though it didn't fit their idea of "pizza".  In particular, anything with the winning combination of prosciutto and cheese gets approval around here.

I followed the recipe, wondering if it would be too "stodgy" when it was done.  In the end, I thought it was very tasty.  It reminded me of a slightly denser version of a quiche with a lattice crust on top.   I even liked the combination of slightly sweet crust and savory filling.  I used lard in the crust (mmmm....).  The romano I used was very salty, and made the filling a bit salty for my taste, so that's the only aspect I might change - maybe use a different hard cheese, or a little less of it. 

Filling mixed up and ready to go

I'm very grateful that Julia and Dorie included instructions on whether something can be made ahead.  This is turning out to be a lifesaver for me, since I seem to be making these recipes over the course of multiple days because I often don't have the chunk of time all at once.  In this case, I made the crust dough ahead and put it in the fridge until I had time to roll it out and assemble the pie.

It's disappearing rapidly

Irish Soda Bread - TWD: Baking with Julia

Tuesdays with Dorie: Baking with Julia - Fourth Installment!  The recipe is Irish Soda Bread.

Yum!  I love this kind of bread.  I will definitely make this recipe again.

This was simplicity itself, after the Rugelach.  Four ingredients...ahhh.  I was a bit skeptical, since I have made many loaves of Irish Soda Bread, but never made a white loaf without any butter in it.  The two types that my grandmother used to make (and that I have continued to make) are "Brown" (kind of like this recipe, but with the Irish-style whole wheat flour plus wheat germ) and "White" (more of a cake-like bread with dried fruit and plenty of butter in the dough).  But, I should have know to trust in Marion Cunningham ;-)  I loved the result - it was plain, but not too plain. 

The dough seemed rather wet:

 but it baked up perfectly, and was cooked through.  It even kept pretty well into the next day (despite what the recipe said about it turning "as hard as the Blarney Stone" (cliche alert ;-). 

It was great spread with jam for a mid-morning snack with tea.

Rugelach - TWD: Baking with Julia

Tuesdays with Dorie: Baking with Julia - Third Installment!  The recipe is Rugelach.

This was a project that stretched over three days:
Day 1: Made the dough and fillings (prune and apricot lekvar)
Day 2: Rolled the dough out, filled it, and rolled it up
Day 3: Sliced the rolls and baked the cookies

Calling these cookies seems like a misnomer - they are like miniature rolls!   Talk about stuffed with filling....what a crazy amount of nuts and fruit.

I used four different fillings - one for each of the four rolls:
- Apricot lekvar
- Prune lekvar
- Chocolate hazelnut spread plus fruits and nuts
- Chocolate hazelnut spread plus nuts only

So, the first two rolls followed the recipe in the book, and the second two were improvised based on the chat and ideas on the web site.

The results were all very tasty.  I do love dried fruit and nuts - these were not as popular with our household members who are more chocolate-centric :-)  I used a mix of raisins, chopped dried apricots, and dried cherries for the fruit that got sprinkled over the filling.  I used a mix of nuts as well - walnuts, pecans, almonds, hazelnuts, and macadamias (had a bit of everything left from holiday baking).  It was fun to have such a wild combination, as opposed to the typical thing with one kind of nut and/or one kind of dried fruit.

Giant layer of nuts and fruit

Some notes on the recipe:

• Now that I'm looking at the photo on the TWD site, I think I put my rugelach on the sheet the wrong way - they should have been seam side down, rather than lying them down on the cut side!  Or did I just invent something new? ;-)
• The lekvar was easy to make. 
• The rolls seemed not to be securely enough rolled, and they unfurled during the baking process.  I wasn't sure how to seal the rolls shut, since they were so stuffed with filling, so maybe this is expected.
• The recipe was right to warn about watching for too much caramelizing on the bottoms of the rugelach.
• I had a fair amount of cinnamon sugar nut coating left over at the end.  I think I will save it for another baking project or sprinkling on my oatmeal.

Unrolled during baking

Chocolate Truffle Tartlets - TWD: Baking with Julia

Finished Tart

Tart being devoured - you can see the biscotti and chocolate chunks

This is the second installment of Tuesdays with Dorie:Baking with Julia. This recipe went according to the directions and wasn't too difficult.   I liked it, as I am a major chocolate fan, and my family liked it too.  I can see that my strategy to manage all this baking with my busy schedule is going to involve experimenting with advanced preparation of components of the recipes - I made the crust a couple of evenings ahead.

• Since I have no tartlet pans, I made one large 10" tart.  The crust recipe noted that it would make six 5" tartlets or one 10" tart, and it worked well in the larger pan.  I wonder if it would work in a regular springform - I guess it wouldn't look as pretty as it does with the fluted edge of a tart pan.
• I love recipes with make-ahead options, and was glad it said that crust dough could be stored in the fridge for three days.

Baked empty crust

• Very rich filling!  The large tart definitely provided more than six servings - probably closer to 15!  Would the 4.5" tartlets each be a single serving?
• Eight egg yolks - yow.  Definitely only for a special occasion.  I made meringues later in the week with a few of the leftover whites.
• It's unusual to chop up cookies to put in a tart.  I had a bit of trouble finding simple plain biscotti (I wanted basic almond biscotti).  There seemed to be plenty of embellished biscotti available - espresso-whitechocolate-driedcranberry and the like :-)
• I always feel a bit of anxiety when I read that the batter should form a ribbon - never quite sure what that should look like. These directions said that it should "form a slowly dissolving ribbon" which I thought was more descriptive than the usual ribbon instructions.

'a slowly dissolving ribbon'