Chocolate Oatmeal Almost-Candy Bars

Apparently January is not going to be my favorite month for recipes. Last week our recipe was Mrs. Vogel’s Scherben, I skipped this because it was described as tasting like the fried dough from county fairs. The repulsive, so must be avoided, funnel cake. I also did not want to deal with a large quantity of grease.


In lieu of the Scherben I elected to make a recipe from the past - Dorrie's marshmallows. I have made marshmallows a couple of times in the past so I thought I knew what to expect. But, I was disappointed, these marshmallows were not nearly as fluffy as the ones I made previously. To go with them, I made some of Ina Garten's hot chocolate. Turns out once I put the marshmallows into the hot chocolate, I couldn't stomach the sweetness!


I made the cappucino flavored marshmallow - this was my first attempt at a flavored marshmallow. They are a nice color and they have a nice background flavor. However, I was not impressed with the yield, with their strange ability to absorb the dusting sugar and generally with their overall taste. I'll stick to my other recipes and give this one a miss.

Then this week - Chocolate Oatmeal Almost-Candy Bars - oatmeal cookies (not my fav), in bar form (not my fav) and my containing peanuts (not my fav in fact they are my least favorite nut for cooking). Before even beginning my expectations were very low.


I found the cookie base to be a poor carrier of flavor. I did not get the sensation of rich buttery oatmeal cookies - it just seemed to lack cohesion. I liked the hint of cinnamon but that was all. The chocolate layer was okay - it reminded me of today's Chunky candy bar - I prefer the original with the Brazil nuts. So, I did not care much for it. Once the individual sections were combined into one cookie, I hoped the sum of the parts would be larger than the individual components. For me, this did not happen.


I cut the bars into fairly small servings, but my bars were quite tall so even a small cookie was a lot of cookie to eat.


I did find their construction to be surprisingly easy considering all of the elements involved. I will be looking elsewhere to satisfy any oatmeal cookie cravings that I develop. Lilian at Confectiona's Realm selected and posted this recipe. Visit the other TWD blogs to see how our other bakers fared with this recipe and buy the book, if you want to own all of these recipes for yourself.

And next week's recipe is called Cocoa-Nana Bread - now you know that thing is going to have at least one stinking banana in it! Bleech! I can't wait for February's recipes - I know I'll like them better!

Happy Birthday to TWD

This week marks the second anniversary of Tuesdays with Dorie. I haven't been with the group for the entire time, but what a great journey this has been. To celebrate our anniversary we voted on which recipe we wanted to make next and there were two winners: Tarte Tatin and Cocoa Buttermilk Cake.

I elected to try them both. I made the Tarte Tatin a week or so ago. I used a mixture of apples: pink lady, granny smith and macoun(?). I had neither a cast iron frying pan nor a tarte tatin pan with me - I was pet sitting for a friend - but my sister had a new Calphalon 10-inch skillet that looked like it would be a perfect replacement. Indeed, it worked fantastically. I did let my sugar go a tad too long and my photos appear to show some carbonized apples vs. caramelized apples, but in actuality, the color appears darker than the flavor. This happened because it was taking far longer to caramelize the butter and sugar than I anticipated. I got a bit bored and took my eye off the stove at just the wrong time. Oh, well, live and learn.

I topped the tarte with puff pastry. Oh, did it look fabulous when it was ready to come out of the oven - all poufed up and a gorgeous brown color. I waited the requisite lava cool-down period and then tried a slice. Oh, my God - this is fabulous. I ate it plain, but I can see where the addition of some whipped cream or good vanilla ice cream would take this from fabulous to decadent.

I had no trouble at all flipping the tarte. I did wear hefty oven mitts, but I had nary a stray splash of caramel with which to contend. I did leave a couple of apples behind in the pan, but a quick flip of the spatula and they were back on the crust where they belonged.

This desert looks so elegant but it was so easy to put together, that I am sure I will try it again. I will probably lower the amount of butter and sugar used in the caramelizing process, but it was definitely delicious as Dorie wrote the recipe.

Then today, I made the Cocoa Buttermilk Cake. Well, truth be told, my sister and I had made this cake about a month ago for my brother's 60th birthday party. We made a large sheet cake, half of the batter was from Sky High - the Park Avenue Cake - made completely as white chocolate. The other half was the cocoa buttermilk cake. We must have done something wrong when we made it then, though. The batter was extremely dense and very dark.

The batter was much more fluid this time around and far less dark in color. I also made the cake as cupcakes this time. I got a dozen regular sized cupcakes and nine jumbo cupcakes out of the batter.

I had problems flipping the large cake out of the pan, but I attribute that to (a) failing to line the pan with parchment paper and (b) waiting too long to flip the cake. When I did flip the cake some portion of the chocolate cake stuck to the bottom of the pan. I made some adjustments and salvaged the cake for his party but I know now that regardless of how much heat remains in the pan, you should always flip your cakes at ten minutes and a parchment paper liner never goes out of style.

I found this cake to be a bit dense at Dennis's birthdayparty , but it was much lighter today. The cupcakes baked a bit unevenly though and I ended up leaving them in for about four minutes too long. I had checked them and should have removed them from the oven when a bit of batter was still clinging to the tester. Their residual heat would, no doubt, have finished baking them.

They are still quite tasty, however. I made a whipped cream icing for the cupcakes. One portion was vanilla flavored and the other was coffee flavored. I love the extra tang of the espresso in the whipped cream. Now to find room in the fridge to store the little devils! Well, if that proves too hard, I'll just put them on the back porch - this may be Richmond - but it feels like the frozen tundra these days!

Two great recipes to celebrate a great idea. Thanks for starting this group, Lorie.

Cafe Volcano Cookies

Like so many of the other bakers, I am just astounded at the ease of making these cookies. I thought I made them just as cited in the recipe, but it turns out I accidentally doubled the espresso powder. Even at that, I thought the taste of coffee was on the backburner. That was no doubt because the taste of sugar was on all of the other burners!

I used walnuts and sliced blanched almonds for my nut mixture. When I make these in the future I use a different nut combination. Walnuts have such an overpowering flavor - a good one when they are roasted - but no way could I taste the almonds in these. I do love a roasted nut though. In addition, I would highly recommend using either whole almonds or almond slivers to make these and when you - don't bother chopping them. I never should have chopped the sliced almonds - they just about melted into the background. That fits with a meringue cookie though as they pretty much just melt when you eat them, anyway.

Super easy and they pack a wallop of flavor. Great choice, MacDuff.

Sablés

Another easy recipe - just the way I like it. Well, easy to put together, anyway. I did find it just a tad difficult to keep my logs round while cutting the cookies. I just can't seem to master that knack!

My brother, Dennis, celebrated his 60th birthday this past Sunday (his actual birthday was yesterday). He and his wife (Marilyn) hosted a brunch at Deerfield Gold & Tennis Club - formerly DuPont's Louviers Country Club. It was really a lovely event.

Dennis likes a patriotic theme so we decorated the room with those festive trappings. If I do say so myself, it looked quite nice. My sister and I baked the cake and made bags of cookies for everyone take home as a favor.

The sablés were the first cookies we made. Apparently I cut them too thick as I did not get the yield Dorrie suggested. Nevertheless, I found them quite tasty. I rolled them in red & green sugar or red, white, and green nonpareils. I liked the look of the nonpareils best.

Unfortunately I made a packing mistake with these cookies as well. I packed them in a container with some carrot/spice bars. I divided the cookies with parchment paper. Sadly the bars still exuded too much moisture and it caused one entire layer of the cookies to become soggy. So, we had enough for the treat bags but no extras for our own personal munching. We did try one the night we baked them and I can attest to their great taste.

I love shortbread in general so will definitely be adding this cookie to my list of keepers. I do need to fine tune my sugar rolling and my cutting, but other than that, total keeper/success. These delightful morsels were selected by Barbara and the recipe is posted at her site, Bungalow Barbara. Of course, you could also always find it in the book! Enjoy.

All in One Holiday Bundt Cake

I loved making this cake. It was almost as easy to pull together as a dump cake. I did my mise en place before starting and I have to admit, slacker than I usually am, life is so much simpler if you practice mise en place. No stuttering between steps, just a smooth transition from one part of the process to the other.

I thought my basic bundt pan was the size Dorie suggested, but it is apparently a bit smaller. I baked the cake in the classic bundt, but had batter remaining that would not fit into the pan. I put that into a small bowl from my life with Pampered Chef and the mini-cake baked up very nicely indeed. Surprisingly the cakes were both done quite quickly. The mini-cake took no more than 25 minutes and the regular bundt no more than 45. They both "depanned" with no issues.

The bundt was given to a friend of mine who is moving this week and my sister and I shared the mini-cake. I quite like this cake and will definitely keep it in mind for the future.

This recipe was selected by Britin of the Nitty Britty. She will post it sometime this month or you can find it in the book!

Cran-Apple Crisp

I love crisps - they are so easy and they have crumble toppings! Does it get any better than that? I do not think so. This one was particularly tasty. I made mine with granny smith apples and for many people it would probably border on the slightly too tart side - in other words - pucker up - but I like it that way. I would use the same apples the next time, but I just might use half brown sugar and half white sugar.

I did use double the spices putting them in both the topping and the apple/cranberry mixture. I was fortunate enough to be able to find fresh cranberries and loved using them. I used raisins as the add-in to the body of the crisp after that. I had found a raisin medley some time back at one of the warehouse stores and I love them. It contains red, yellow, green and normal raisins but they are all on steroids. No joke - they are all at least 3/4 of an inch long. They fascinate me.

I made my crisp in one large pan and it made a very thin layer. I liked it but will also switch to a different pan the next time - just to see how it tastes with a thicker layer of apple/cranberries. I liked the thin layer, I just want to experience a thicker one before I decide which way to make my own. I love the idea of individual layers and if I make this at Christmas, as I very well may, I will probably give that a try. I am definitely rolling this out on a regular basis, moving forward. The recipe can be found in the Book or at Em's.

Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies

Putting these cookies together was quite easy and always being on the look-out for my childhood favorite, the gingersnap I was quite looking forward to these. The finishing touches were a bit too fussy for me. I favor the version where you roll the cookie in the sugar and it flattens as it bakes, giving you a slightly thicker cookie with more pronounced crevices. The cookie of my childhood has a darker hue as well and I have come to learn that in general it will be entitled the molasses chew and not a gingersnap, but when I was growing it, my mother always called it a gingersnap and when she made it, it involved pinched off rounds of dough rolling them in sugar and having them miraculously flatten into dark disks of deliciousness. Ahh, I remember them well.

She always used regular granulated sugar it always had the courtesy to appear on the top of the cookies as a pronounced decorative accent. I rolled these cookies in my sparkling sugar and had I not the cookies would have had a decidedly different appearance after their time in that dessert oasis we like to call the oven! I know this because for the last six cookies I had to resort to regular granulated sugar and my last six cookies lost that sparkling scintillating appearance of the others. Next to the other cookies they look almost Amish! They still have the lovely little crannies of the earlier batches but they bear no shiny plumage to catch the light - they do not sparkle and shine.

Mind you they taste mighty fine - they just don't beckon you to bite them, rather they are chosen simply because they are next up on the plate rather than because the sun has hit their enticing granules of taste. Having said that, when I tried the first of these cookies, I wasn't entranced. I found the sparkling sugar taste far too pronounced and was sorry I had used it so liberally. I wished I had dipped my glass in granulated sugar or rather had not dipped my glass at all. But, I knew that I had I tried pressing these flat without dipping the glass that I would never have been able to remove it from the cookies at all. The cookies I pressed with the glass dipped in regular granulated sugar released the best of all - of course all the cookies released with the glass that did not have the inverted bottom released the best - live and learn, people, live and learn! I find that the spice flavor in these becomes more emphasized the more these sit and that the sugar coating becomes less so, so I like these more as time goes by. The recipe is a definite keeper and can be found in the the Book or at Cookies with Boys.