Living the Life

No TWD for me this week and the next few weeks, I'm traveling. Our trip started last Friday when we left for Rome. For us (H. and I) it was the our first visit, K. had been here before. We have visited a lot of the city's high lights, like Galleria Boghese , Sistene Chapel , Pantheon Colosseum , Trevi Fountian, the Spanish Steps etc. But also left a few for a future visit. For H. and me both the Galleria Boghese was the most beautiful thing we visited, loved the statues by Bernini there! Trevi Fountain And than there was the food of course, great pastas, pizzas and desserts, wow, we really have to come back. Tomorrow we will leave by train to Civitaveccchia, where we will board the Carnival Splendor for our 16 day Rome to Ft. Lauderdale cruise. On the way we will visit Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Malaga, Funchal (Madeira) and St. Maarten. If I have access to the internet I'll keep you up to date!

Gretchen of Canela & Comino picked this weeks Tuesday with Dorie recipe, she picked Lenox Almond Biscuits which made me very exited. I know biscotti from my visits to Starbucks when on vacation in the US. I love them and always wanted to give them a try. They weren't hard to make, although I had to double the time for the first bake. I expected that the logs would spread quite a bit, my sheet pan isn't very wide so I bought an extra one. Glad I did because I could never had fit 2 logs on the one sheet pan I have. On one sheet pan I put the biscotti's cut side down, on the other I stood them up as Dorie suggested, it didn't make much of a difference taste wise. I used polenta instead of cornmeal, cornmeal isn't very common on this side of the pond. I'll try to get some next time I make this recipe again. It left a bit of gritty texture. Apart from that I think this is my favorite Dorie recipe so far. Great flavor, nice and crisp, love the almond flavor! Nex

Tammy of Wee Treats By Tammy was the lucky one this week and could choose a recipe from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My House To Yours . She picked the Caramel Peanut Topped Brownie Cake. The recipe can be found in on Tammy's blog and of course in the book. The cake was easy to make, I don't have a 8" spring form so I used a 9" one. The caramel with cream was a first but wasn't too hard in the end, it did take way more time though than Dorie stated in the recipe. What did we think of the cake, most of the trusty tasters liked it, but we all agreed it was a little on the dry side. Maybe because I used the larger springform? I don't know, but a layer of jam or cream would have lifted it a lot. It wasn't gooey like a brownie that's for sure. Want to know how the other Tuesdays With Dorie bakers did? Go and visit the TWD site. Want to join us? Hurry up, there is only until the end of this month left to do so!