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Dorie Greenspan

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Everything posted by Dorie Greenspan

  1. Pat W -- it's great that you liked the biscuits. I'm leaving for Paris this afternoon and I'm bringing a tin of baking powder so that I can make a batch of biscuits for my French friends -- I think they'll love them. Foodman -- I love your kids! A four-year old with a taste for bitter chocolate has a future in the food world, I"m sure.
  2. Frogprincess, none of those sounds like leaveners to me. Here's what's in Swan's Down, I just pulled it off their site: Ingredients: enriched cake flour (bleached wheat flour, niacin, iron, thiamine mononitrate and riboflavin). Looks kinda the same, doesn't it?
  3. I'm really confused about what's happening with the Perfect Party Cake. In one case that I heard of, the baker used self-rising flour and it seemed that the batter was tuckered out from trying to rise from the combination of the self-rising flour and the leavening in the recipe. But now the problem seems to be occuring even with regular cake flour. I'd blame it on kitchen gremlins, but that wouldn't be fair. I really don't understand it. I'll try to make the cake during the week (I'm someplace without an oven now -- hard as that is to believe and difficult as it is) and see if I can figure out what the problem is. Back to you soon. WAIT -- I'm afraid I didn't read the post carefully -- I think THE CULPRIT IS THE CAKE FLOUR WITH RISING AGENTS -- sounds like the batter was being pushed too hard and so just didn't achieve take off. The cake was tested with Swan's Down Cake Flour, which does not have any rising agents.
  4. I've been away and not checking up on you guys for a while -- wow! have you been busy. Really nice stuff, especially Desert Culinary's Chocolate Oatmeal Almost-Candy Bars. It's been a long, long while since I've made those, but seeing the picture makes me want to whip up a batch now -- something that would make my husband, who really loves that recipe, very happy. Hope you're all having a great start to 2008!
  5. Bonjour from Paris! I just wanted to wish everyone the happiest holidays. I hope you'll all have a Merry Christmas and that the New Year will be one filled with peace, joy, happiness and sweets, sweets and more sweets. Dorie
  6. Simonne, the hole doesn't have to be very big, just big enough to hold some jam. Make sure you start off with a nice ball of dough, then use your pinkie or the end of a slender wooden spoon to form the indentation. You don't want to go all the way through the dough, but you do want to go as far down as you can without piercing the bottom.
  7. I am delighted to have had a little hand in making your Thanksgiving delicious. Thanks for letting me know.
  8. How do you work the icons? Is the pink one the one for blushing? Thank you.
  9. Malawry - how did the pie turn out in the end? I'm still perplexed about the tapioca. Emmalish - getting paid to bake banana loaves by someone who doesn't even like bananas? A great story. Ruth - you should bake during the day more often - the galette looks so gorgeous!
  10. Malawry, the tapioca I have says "quick cooking" on the box and it's kind of granulated. The brand is "Bascom's" and I've never had an experience with it being "crunchy." AARRGH. I'm really sorry, especially since I don't think there's anything you can do about it now. Maybe it will soften overnight, but I'm not sure and not hopeful, since tapioca needs heat to soften and dissolve. But I hope that even if your beautiful-looking pie has a little extra crunch, your Thanksgiving will be a good one.
  11. Prasantrin, I bet your candied peel would be delicious in the cookies. Yes, chop it up into tiny bits and maybe cut down the recipe's salt a tad (which seems a shame, but I'm not so sure that salty citrus is great). Welcome Dianabanana
  12. Pax, I don't know what you did to your dough to end up with it being unrollable, but I do know that you're one resourceful person -- your coffeecake sounds great!
  13. I can't believe you've made soooooooooooooooooo many recipes from the book! I don't know how many are listed, but it certainly looks like most of the book. I can't think of anything so say that Emmalish didn't say when she wrote: Yowza! iii_bake -- I'm not sure what recipe I've made the most times, but I think it must be World Peace Cookies. Cakewalk -- your madeleines and linzer cookies look fabulous! I'm in Paris and was thinking of making madeleines today to bring to my friend's house for dinner tonight. I think she'll be surprised to have a homemade version of these sweets, since no one I know here bakes them themselves. Tanita -- I bet the rugelach, which look beautiful, were delicious with your homemade pear jam. I think you might like the savory rugelach recipe I did for the AARP website.
  14. I just had citron caviar for the first time Thursday night at Olivier Roellinger's restaurant in Cancale. A small slice of the lime was served alongside three small oysters -- one plain and the other two flavored with spice blends. The outside of the lime was pink and green, the inside was pink and the waiter instructed us to make sure not to leave it on the plate because it was too good to send back to the kitchen. Of course, he was right. We just got back and the first thing I did was to search online for the limes and -- bingo -- egullet! Unless I read too quickly, no one has posted a source for these, right?
  15. Hi all, Thanks for the good wishes! And thanks for the heads up on the 1000 th post. As I've said before -- I find it all pretty amazing. Even after 1 year, I'm still knocked out by your collective enthusiasm for the book and your deep love of baking. Pax, I'm so glad your brioche turned out well despite your several distractions. I learned to make brioche early in my baking career and I was so proud of myself for being able to do it and do it well. I made brioche once a week, every week for years and always had that same wonderful sense of satisfaction. While I'd never thought about it in forgiveness terms, I think you're one to something. How nice that something so delicious and so elegant can be so gracious too. iii-bake -- I haven't kept track of what's been baked from BAKING and what hasn't. My guess is that the majority of recipes that have been baked and posted are the recipes for which there are pictures. And, of course, the pictureless World Peace Cookies. But that's just my guess. It's a fun idea, isn't it? Thank you!!
  16. Dana, like most tarts, the Alsatian Apple Tart is really best eaten soon after it's made. If you wait a day to serve it, the texture of the crust will change and the apples and custard will probably pull away from one another (you could glaze the tart the day you're serving it and fill in the spaces, but ...) Would you consider making something else that keeps better? Like maybe the Double Apple Bundt Cake? Or the Applesauce Spice Bars? But, if you're set on the tart -- go for it! It will be softer than when it's first made, but it will still be homemade and there's a lot to be said for that.
  17. This week, according to amazon.com, Baking From My Home to Yours is one-year old. Actually, it’s a couple of weeks older than that, since it was on September 1, 2006, that Russell Wong put up the first eGullet post about the book – and, in the process, informed me that the book was out in the world! For over a year, you eGulleters have baked hundreds (could it be thousands?) of World Peace Cookies, pans and pans of Applesauce Spice Bars, bunches of Bundt cakes (including the one that recently flew off the plate!) and just about everything else in the book and I have been surprised, thrilled and so touched by your enthusiasm and energy. And I’m so very grateful for your tremendous support. THANK YOU! To celebrate BAKING’s birthday, Houghton Mifflin, my publisher, and I are giving away 10 signed copies on my blog – just leave your name to be in the random drawing. (www.doriegreenspan.com) Again, thank you, thank you, thank you and sweet wishes to you all – Dorie
  18. It must be fall -- we're all baking again! Hooray, hooray! Malawry, I'm sorry you've been so miserable lately, but isn't it nice when somethine sweet can distract you and yours for a while? It could almost make one believe that it's possible to get a grip on life. Notice, I said "almost." It also must be Dimply Plum Cake time. I've got one on my mind, too. And I've even got the plums to make it a reality -- tomorrow.
  19. Bekkiz -- I can imagine what your World Peace Cookies looked like because it has happened to me when I've forgotten to lower the oven temperature after I'd baked something else. The cookies are very sensitive to heat. You must bake them at 325 degrees F -- bake them at 350 and they spread and become a completely different cookie. I'm glad you liked everything else that you baked! Emmalish -- So happy that the blueberry crumb cake got a good reception. I'm volunteering at a farm dinner next weekend and was thinking of baking that or the blueberry brown sugar cake that Food Man posted using the berries from the farm. It should be fun -- even if I've never baked for 150 people before! yikes!! DesertCulinary - it was such fun to see your beautiful cranberry shortbread cake in the middle of the summer. I'd forgotten how pretty it is -- yours looked beautiful. Zoe B -- about the Brrrr-ownies. Laniloa is right: You should cut the Peppermint Patties into tiny bits -- it will be much easy to cut the brownies. Once again, I'm knocked out by how beautiful everyone's stuff looks. Great Perfect Party Cake and wonderful Dimply Plum Cake. The Plum Cake is on my list too because our farm stand in Connecticut just put out their plums. Maybe that's what I should do for the 150-person dinner ... I could make it in BIG pans ...
  20. Everyone's stuff looks amazing -- even the cake that didn't rise too high. About cake flour -- cake flour is a low-protein flour that should NOT have any leavening. I think that if you use a cake flour with leavening, and you add the recipe's leavening, it's like over-rising a yeast dough: it rises and then falls. I've gotten a couple of messages from bakers in Canada, who have said they've had cake-flour cakes come out flat and when we've investigated it's been because their cake flour has a leaving agent. Here's a suggestion -- use all-purpose flour, but remove 2 tablespoons of the flour from every cup. I think this should help.
  21. Desert Culinary, your cookies look great! Lindacakes, about chopping chocolate: I find that it's best to use a long serrated knife. I don't think you'll get evenly sized pieces of chocolate, but I think you'll have a little more control. It's funny, what I like about chopping my own chocolate -- in addition to using great chocolate -- is the fact that the pieces aren't uniform. I like that element of surprise, sometimes a big chip, sometimes a little one, but if you don't, try to cut the chocolate into bars and then to cut the bars into even chunks.
  22. Patrick -- how great to see you and your pictures again! Abra -- I want to be wherever your picture was taken. Nina -- my husband and I got such a giggle out of your stadium cake. It just might have to add that pan to my collection for some of our sports-nutty friends. And Habeas Brulee -- I'm glad you made the Whopper cookies and knew that the oven temperature should be 350. About your flat cookies, Lindacakes -- it's the one hazard with World Peace Cookies. What you're describing sounds to me like what happens when I don't pay attention and bake the cookies in a 350 degrees F oven. The cookies are very sensitive to heat and need to be in a 325 oven. That said, I once had these cookies at a French chef's house and his were flat and crunchy. I asked him why and he just shrugged. My guess is oven temperature.
  23. I've been a little crazed lately, so I've just been popping in and out for a quick peek, but you guys certainly have been baking away -- and the stuff looks so good! Obviously, I'm a fan of the Chunky Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Cookies, in fact, they're among my favorites. They might be, as Jennifer's husband said, a little "busy", but I think that's part of what I like about them -- they've got so much flavor and so much texture. And they look so good in Chufi's photo. But, as hard it is to believe, not everyone has the same taste as I do so I can understand if hubby and friends aren't fans. I like to think that when someone doesn't like something, it just means there's more for those of us who love whatever it is. Jassi, the Flaky Apple Turnovers look perfect -- glad you enjoyed them. I really like that dough and am looking forward to using it this summer to make turnovers filled with soft fruits like peaches.
  24. Chufi, your chocolate-chip cookies look great and they're just the way they're supposed to be. Ruth, thanks for the giggle. Yes, it's true I've been traveling a lot -- I'm writing this from Las Vegas! Patrick, it's nice to see you back. I've missed you. Badiane, I think your advice to Seisei is good -- certainly, your attitude is right on. Seisei, I think you'll have problems making the lemon cream with a mixer. If you have a blender, that's the perfect tool for this recipe. I dont' know where you live, but you might be able to buy a really inexpensive blender. I just bought one that I really like for $15 in Connecticut -- I use it for the lemon cream, of course, but it really gets a workout making soup. If all you've got is your teeny Cuisinart, divide up the cream and butter and work on it in batches. It'll be slow, but I think you'll get the right consistency.
  25. Wow! I haven't checked the thread in a while, but you've all been baking like crazy -- makes me feel like a slug. Thank you all for the kind congratulations. One week and one day later and it still seems unreal. Chufi - about those cookies going soft. Part of the reason is, as you guessed, inevitability and part might be the crystallized ginger softening in its cozy cookie home.
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