Living the Life

Finally a new Tuesdays with Dorie , this time picked by Mevrouw Cupcake (I'm probably one of the few in the group that can pronounce that correctly :-)) and what a great pick it was. She choose Creme Brulee, one of my all time favorite desserts. You can find the full recipe in Dorie Greenspan's Baking From My House To Yours, or Mari's blog . I halved the recipe since there are only three people here at the moment. The custard was easy to make and I 'm getting much more comfortable with making those after making a few different ice cream recipes, flan and my own creme brulee recipe a couple of times. When I make my own recipe I use a vanilla bean that I steep in the warmed up cream and milk, Dorie's recipe uses vanila extract. I used the vanilla extract that I brought home from Mexico last April, this is the reason my custard is so dark! (egg yolks, sugar and vanilla extract) Since I have the new oven, I still discover new things, one of those tings was that the low...

Another cobbler this week for Tuesdays with Dorie , this time a Cherry Rhubarb one, picked by Amanda from Like Sprinkles on a Cupcake . The recipe for this cobbler can be found in Dorie's Baking or on Amanda's blog. I had never worked with rhubarb before although we have it in abundance at the moment. Cherries is a different story, we all love them! I pitted them with a chopstick, a trick I read about in the Question and Problem section on the TWD site. It worked great so no need to buy a cherry pitter for this cobbler. The top differs from the mixed berry cobler, which has a rolled top, this one has little biscuits floating around in the fruit mixture. How did we like this one? Well to be short we didn't, the biscuit was the best part, the fruit we didn't care for, the rhubarb was overpowering and the taste of the cherries was lost. I think we just stick to fresh cherries next time. I might try this one with different fruit in the future, apples could be nice.

This weeks Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was picked by Melissa from It's Melissa's Kitchen and was right up my alley! Here is Holland we eat pudding after dinner, most of the time a more runny variation we call " vla ", we have it in vanilla, chocolate, coffee (Hopjes, after the coffee candies from The Hague), lemon, raspberry, banana etc. Then there are thicker variaties, bavarois and all kinds of yoghurts. Pies and such we eat when we serve coffee later in the evening, or during daytime coffee, not like in the States right after dinner. This pudding was more work than a boxed version, but it was really, really worth it. It was nice and smooth and the taste, WOW! Like a deflated chocolate mousse! I think I'll make smaller portions next time since it was very rich and not everybody was able to finish a portion. The recipe can be found in Dorie's Baking: From My House To Yours or on Melissa's blog.

Last week I wasn't able to do my Dorie bake but this week I made the Double Crusted Blueberry Pie picked by Amy from South in Your Mouth , You can find the recipe for this pie in Dorie's fabulous Baking: From My House To Yours or at Amy's site. With the prices of blueberries here being 2.99 euro for 125 grams, I figured out I needed about $20 in blueberries for this pie, now I like to stick to the recipe, but that was a little too much for me. So I used some more of the frozen berries that I also used for the mixed berry cobbler we baked 2 weeks ago. Shortening is also a thing that is hard to come by on this side of the pond so I used the cheapest hardest margarine I could find as a substitute, which worked out fine. I used my food processor to mix all the ingredients which made life so much easier. The pie came together very easy. The only thing I forgot was to sprinkle it with sugar but I don't think that that made a lot of difference. The taste was great, the crust ...

Time really flies at the moment, it's Tuesday again and I still had to make the Tuesday With Dorie bake for this week so I made it tonight for dessert, just in time to post it while it's still Tuesday. This weeks recipe was picked by Beth of Our Sweet Life , she picked the Mixed Berry Cobbler, you can find the recipe in Baking: From My House To Yours and on Beth's Blog. One thing I learned from last week's bake is to check the Problem and Question section on the TWD site. A lot of bakers that made the recipe complaint that the dough was a bit bland, so I exchanged the sugar for turbinado sugar, added a bit of cinnamon and some vanilla extract. I also halved the recipe since it was a little too big for just the four of us. The whole thing was pretty easy to make, I used frozen berries from the supermarket, which contained rasberries, blueberries, blackberries, some strawberries and cranberries. The cranberries were very tart so the next time I make this (yes, there wil...

This weeks recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie was picked by Caroline of A Consuming Passion , she picked a recipe with choux pastry. I always wanted to try that and I have a couple of recipes laying around but never got to it. Instead of reading the Problems and Question section on the TWD site , or looking at some of my other recipes, I just made it straight from the book, big mistake! I had hardly any puff in my pastry, there were some small air pockets but not the big fluffy ones you normally see in puff pastry. I just have to try this another time with the lessons learned from this bake. Which lessons did I learn,? Well, don't add the eggs to the dough straight from the fire, let it cool down a bit first. Another lesson, after the pastry comes out of the oven (this is for puffs) make a small incision with a paring knife, to release steam, and put them back in the turned of oven so they can dry out a bit more. Despite the dense structure it still tasted like puff pastry, I filled ...

This week in Tuesdays with Dorie , French Chocolate Brownies, a recipe picked by Di of Di's Kitchen Notebook . Up till now I have only made one other brownie recipe, Sacher Brownies , but I did ate them a few times when I was in the States and I really like them. This recipe is great! Great taste, nice consistency, the occasional rum raisin, the odd top, just great!! Nothing much was new in this recipe, the flambeeing I did already for the raisin snails, all the other stuff was pretty straight forward. The only scary moment was when I wanted to check if the cake was done and I inserted a small knife, part of the top collapsed, later when I checked the Problem and Question section at the TWD site I found out that happened to all of the other bakers too. My trusty tasters loved this one too, H. thinks this is the best Dorie recipe so far! Next week's recipe will be La Palette's Strawberry Tart, choosen by Marie of A Year From Oak Cottage . French Chocolate Brownies - makes 16...

Last week's recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie were the Traditional Madeleines , but the next recipe in the book is Earl Grey Madeleines. I love Earl Grey tea and not the artificial stuff but the higher quality loose tea leaves. I normally steep it for three minutes and add a splash of milk, how English :-) So I made Dorie's recipe to see if they would be a nice match with my tea. For me they didn't disappoint, my trusty taster liked the traditional ones better, but she's not to crazy about the tea either. I really liked the subtle flavor of the tea coming through, I will definitely make these again!! Earl Grey Madeleines (from Baking: From My House To Yours ): Ingredients: 5 tbsp unsalted butter 2 tbsp Earl Grey tea leaves 3/4 cup flour 1/2 tsp baking powder pinch of salt 1/3 cup sugar grated zest of 1/2 lemon 2 large eggs, 2 tbsp honey 2 tsp vanilla extract powder sugar for dusting Preparation: Melt the butter and add the tea leaves. Stir to combine and allow the tea to...

Another Tuesday, another Tuesdays with Dorie , this weeks recipe, Traditional Madeleines, was picked by Tara of Smells Like Home . When I got Baking, this was one of the recipes I put high on my list, but since I didn't have a Madeleine tin I never got to it. So when Tara picked it for this week I had an excuse to get the tin for these classics little cakes. I made the batter a day in advance and let it rest in the fridge. When I baked them I got a nice hump on all of them, I also buttered and floured the tin well and had no problem with the Madeleines sticking to the tin. The verdict on these cakes? I love them, they are moist and lemony. Now that I have the tin I will try some of the others in the book too, the Earl Grey Madeleine just moved up a couple of spots on my "to bake" list. Ingredients: 2/3 cup all-purpose flour ¾ teaspoon baking powder Pinch of salt ½ cup sugar Grated zest of 1 lemon 2 large eggs, at room temperature 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract ...

Florida Pie was this weeks recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie and was picked by Dianne of Dianne's Dishes , thanks for picking one of my favorite American desserts! I've been to Florida quite a few times, the first time was about 25 years ago and that was when I first ate Key lime Pie. Whenever I see it on the menu I have to try it and I made it a few times here at home too. I never did the meringue on top though, so that was the new thing for me. I left the coconut out because I couldn't find any sweetened coconut flakes here in the village and didn't feel like driving 10 miles for just the one ingredient. The pie was very easy to make, I used digestive biscuits instead of graham crackers which aren't for sale in this part of the world but taste almost the same as a base for the pie. Dorie uses more crumbs for the base than my old recipe but it was way better, so this one is a keeper. The filling is pretty straight forward too. For the meringue I made sure there was a...

Another Tuesday another recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie, this week selected by Leigh of Lemon Tartlet . She choose the Gooey Chocolate Cakes and what a good choice it was, we all loved them here! They were very simple to make, I also made the creme anglaise to go with it. The cakes and the creme anglaise complement each other nicely, as Dorie says, these cakes aren't meant to be served alone. As a lot of other members of the TWD group, I didn't have any chocolate oozing out, but it was close, they were very , very gooey. Ingredients: 1/3 cup all-purpose flour 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, 4 ounces coarsely chopped, 1 ounce very finely chopped 1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces 2 large eggs, at room temperature 1 large egg yolk, at room temperature 6 tablespoons sugar Preparations: Getting Ready: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Butter (or spray - it's easier) 6...

People who know me or follow my blog know that I have a big interest in the food from the Southern part of the US. I love to travel around there and I love the food! I've spend there quite a lot of time but never ran into Red Velvet cake which is a Southern classic. The first time I heard of it was from our friend in Chicago, she made it and told me about it, I was intrigued, cake colored red with food die... and it has cocoa, very weird. I wanted to bake it but as it is with some recipes it just didn't happen. Over the last few months I ran into various blog postings were people made Red Velvet cake or cupcakes. I bookmarked some recipes, Joy the Baker has a nice one , Paula Deen also has one but I used a recipe I found on Elise's blog Simply Recipes . I choose this one because it looks very authentic, it has vinegar which makes the red even redder and it has butter which I like better than the vegetable oil Paula Deen's recipe calls for. So yesterday I made and taste...

Yesterday when I was making tiramisu , my brother walked in with a bunch of banana's that were a little too ripe for regular consumption. He brings them so I can make the roasted banana ice cream that he loves and with that I can make a mean banana milkshake that he loves even better! But since I was already working on a dessert I decided to make Banana Muffins, so I jumped on the net and ran into this recipe , later I realized that I made 2 recipes on the same day from Michelle's Sugar & Spice blog! I'm not a shareholder, it's all a coincidence :-) I ended up with 20 muffins, I have only one muffin tin (hey, muffins aren't that big on this side of the pond) so I had to gamble on how much to put in each liner. The smell while they are in the oven is fantastic, and they turned out nice and moist, great banana flavor! Next time I'll add some walnut or pecans to a few for a nice banana-nut muffin. Banana Muffins Adapted from: Giada De Laurentiis Ingredients: 3 ...

I made chocolate mousse last week and flan for Tuesdays with Dorie, so why not go on with making famous desserts? I had this one in my "recipes I want to make" folder for a few weeks, tiramisu is a dessert we all love here, but I've never made before myself. I found this recipe on Michelle's Sugar and Spice blog and was intrigued right away, did it mention Kahlua??? Yes, it did! We love Kahlua a lot here! On our last trip to Mexico we brought back Kahlua Especial, which is a little less sweet and has a little higher alcohol percentage. Beautiful to use in a great dessert like this. It was very simple to put this recipe together, it's not so simple to stop eating from the mascarpone mixture while constructing it :-) Not that it would matter since it can feed an army!! Next time I really have to scale it down to maybe one third, that would still be very ok for 5 or 6 people. Everybody raved about it! The smallest of the trusty tasters wanted seconds, no idea how...

I was very pleased with Steph's (of A Whisk and a Spoon ) choice for this weeks Tuesdays With Dorie . I love flan and made it before . This one went pretty smooth too. I only used the wrong knife to cut the flan loose from the mold which resulted in "debris" on top of my flan. The looks didn't interfere with the taste! Which was fabulous, just like the ones I ate in Spain and Mexico. I got mixed reviews from my trusty tasters, but that wasn't the flan's fault. One thought it was eggy, but it was the first time he ate it and trust me, it tasted like it should. Others didn't care to much for it, but they had the same reaction with my other flans :-) Ingredients: For the Caramel 1/3 cup sugar 3 tbsp water squirt of fresh lemon juice For the Flan 1-1/2 cups heavy cream 1-1/4 cups whole milk 3 large eggs 2 large egg yolks 1/2 cup sugar 1 tsp pure vanilla extract Preparation: Getting Ready: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line ...

Parfaits are a kind of mousse ice cream that don't need churning, so you can make it without an ice cream maker. This one is made with advocaat , a liqueur made with eggs, sugar and brandy. Advocaat here in Holland is very thick compared to the version sold in a lot of other countries, some brands you can get hardly out of the bottle. Advocaat has a kind of old fashioned image here, as it's drank, or rather eaten with a spoon, by old ladies, served in a wine glass, topped with whipped cream. My taste team liked the parfait a lot, it's light, not to heavy on the alcohol and very smooth, great dessert for the first day of Easter! Ingredients: 250 ml whipping cream 50 grams caster sugar 1 sachet vanilla sugar 1 egg yolk 100 ml advocaat Preparation: Beat the whipping cream with the vanilla sugar to stiff peaks In an other bowl beat the egg yolk, caster sugar and advocaat until frothy. Fold the whipping cream through the advocaat mixture, don't overwork it, you want to leav...

This weeks recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie , the group has grown to over 80 bakers, was picked by Peabody of Culinairy Concoctions by Peabody , thanks!! Brioche is something I always wanted to try and this recipe had some nice additions, like flambeing and making pastry cream. The first day I made the dough and I can tell you without a stand mixer that is quite a task! I have a lot of respect for all my fellow bakers who did this one without a Kitchen Aid! So with a lot of elbow grease and some work done by my hand mixer the dough came together nicely. After that I tackled the raisins, well the flambeing wasn't the hard part, no that was which dark rum to use from our liquor cabinet, Captain Morgan Spiced Dark Rum, Bacardi Spice or Bacardi 8 after a long thought I decided on the Captain Morgan. The flambeing went smooth and the alcohol in the rum burned of in beautiful red flames. The pastry cream came together very easy too and I had to restrain myself from eating too much of it! ...

I love desserts and I have a couple of favourites, creme brulee, flan and chocolate mousse. When I'm in a restaurant it's always hard to make a choice if two or more are on the menu. I've made both creme brulee and flan before, but never chocolate mousse which is probably the easiest of the three. Recently I bought a 2.5 kilo bag (over 5 lbs.) of good quality dark chocolate chips at the wholesale so I have plenty of chocolate to experiment with. That's why I decided to try a chocolate mousse recipe by Gretchen Siegchrist that I found on about.com a while ago. This recipe produced a very nice mousse, not too light and fluffy. Might be nice with some grated orange peel and a dash of cointreau also, but that will be another time! Ingredients: 1 1/2 cups heavy cream 5 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1/8 teaspoon salt 3 tablespoons sugar Preparation: Pour 1/3 cup of cream into a small saucepan. Heat the cream over high heat until it j...