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!

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...

It's been quiet a while since I posted here on my blog, I didn't fell of the face of the planet, but thanks to all who asked about my where abouts! The reason I didn't post anything was that I was remoddelling the kitchen together with my brother. It was some thing that needed to be done for a long time, the old one was probably from the 60's, the stove at least 25 years old. We started a little sooner than expected so I didn't have the time nor energy to post during the process. We took everything out, did new electricity, drains, tiles, ceiling etc. The washing machine was moved to the summer kitchen to free up space for our new 3 foot wide stove. The counter is 9 foot. We put in a dishwasher. Apart from the gas, it was all done by us. And the roof of the summer kitchen and the warm water/central heating unit is replaced too. But I'm back in business, just in time for tomorrow's Tuesdays With Dorie, picked by Mevrouw Cupcake who lives here in the Netherla...

This weeks recipe was picked by Ashlee of A Year In The Kitchen , you can find the recipe in Dorie's Baking and on Ashlee's blog. To be honest I wasn't impressed with this one, nor were my taste testers. We found it to dense it had too little banana and chocolate taste. Oh well there is always next week's ice cream to make!

No Tuesday with Dorie entry for me this week, I'm out of town, but I will be back for next weeks recipe. In the mean time have a look at what all the other TWD bakers made this week at the TWD blogroll.