My nephew, Jack, is rocking in my dad’s recliner when Henry the Wonderdog launches over the armrest and licks the tip of Jack’s nose.
“HENRY TRIED TO BITE ME!”
We tell him nooooooo, Henry was just trying to kiss him.
“HENRY KISSED ME!”
I tell him he should feel special, because Henry doesn’t go around kissing everyone. This doesn’t help.
Finally, Jack asks for the only thing that will take away the pain.
“Are we having pie?”
This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, Peanut Butter Torte, is pie taken to the extreme–big flavors in ridiculous quantities–and it’s illegal in states that frown on The Devil’s Threesome: Oreos, peanut butter, and cream cheese. There’s also butter. Ganache. Chopped peanuts. If I didn’t know it was a Dorie recipe, I’d swear Emeril. This is a recipe that goes over the top, then takes a hot air balloon and a rocket.
So, how is it?
Straight out of the fridge, it softens fast, gets hard to slice, and the peanut butter-cream cheese filling has an odd twang to it that makes two bites plenty. I divided it into Rubbermaids, shoved it in the freezer, and forgot about it for a few days.
Put it in the freezer. Seriously. The texture and flavor are much, much better. The filling mellows and becomes more like ice cream. Frozen, it’s Jack-worthy.
When I was 17, a friend set me up on a blind date with her cousin. He picked me up in a monstrous white truck with extra stereo speakers installed where padding should have been. The windows rattled. Deafening. He drove me to his parents’ house, had his mother make him a grilled cheese and tater tots (nothing for me), and ranted about how his ex-girlfriend had cheated on him and women couldn’t be trusted.
What does all this have to do with Dorie’s Fluted Polenta and Ricotta Cake?
It’s like a blind date. You want to like it.
What’s not to like about polenta, ricotta, sugar, honey, butter, and figs? Separately, delicious. In this particular combination, grainy and cloying.
Still, I wasn’t ready to give up on it. I tried adding Dorie’s suggested whipped cream sweetened with honey.
Didn’t help.
Sometimes bad cakes, like bad blind dates, require dumping. But one woman’s frog is another’s prince, so I give you the Fluted Polenta and Ricotta Cake recipe.
My birthday was last Sunday, and my sister’s was on Friday, which means last weekend was a birthday extravaganza, filled with grilled steaks and twice-baked potatoes, brownie pie, baked brie, fruit salad spiked with fried goat cheese, Belgian waffles, a picnic in the park, and a wedge of chocolate cake so uncompromising I know it’s still sitting, like the Lincoln Memorial, in one of my arteries.
Such gluttony, mere days after “The Biggest Loser” finale! Beatings, beatings, beatings.
This morning, I was back to the breakfast of the penitent: high-fiber cereal, 1% milk, and shame. But then I remembered this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie challenge, Bill’s Big Carrot Cake. And out came the butter, the sugar, and the cream cheese.
Oh, well. Everything in moderation. That’s why I turned Bill’s Big Carrot Cake into cupcakes. Portion-control and DENIAL.
Yesterday, I could have run a marathon (or at least jogged to the mailbox) thanks to this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie challenge: marshmallows. Marshmallows cut with cookie cutters. Marshmallows sliced into classic squares. Marshmallows melted into Rice Krispie Treats. Marshmallows bobbing in hot chocolate. My veins were coursing with sugar, corn syrup, and potato starch. I broke a sweat.
Am I some sort of marshmallow fiend? No. Those chewy, powdery little knobs that bookend my grocery’s baking section have never had much appeal.
But homemade marshmallows … the taste is similar, but the texture is so very different. When you stir them into hot chocolate, they don’t resist the spoon, all jet-puffed and stubborn. You can taste them in every sip.
And homemade marshmallows have style. Even though they stay soft, they can maintain the clean lines of a cookie cutter, so you can cut them into any shape–hearts, snowflakes, stars. I used a flying pig cookie cutter, but the pig was too big for the cup and unfortunately had to be … halved. There’s a reason I didn’t include that photo. Did you need the visual of a pig’s head (or tail) bobbing around in my mug of hot chocolate? I didn’t think so.
Obviously, I’m not old enough to handle so much sugar in the house. That’s why I’ve bagged the rest of the marshmallows. They’re on the way to my nephews.
My sister’s birthday is this week. She’s threatening to stay in bed.
Oh, don’t feel sorry for her. She’s got looks, she’s got brains, she’s got talent. She’s hilarious. She has a big heart, a way with people, and very well-behaved hair. Woe is her.
What she lacks is perspective.
I mean, what are you before 30? A fetus with a driver’s license.
So, in preparation for my sister’s Triple X, here’s a bold, spicy, delightfully inappropriate recipe: Spaghetti alla Puttanesca (”pasta in the way a prostitute would make it”). No one really knows from whence this classic Italian dish got its name. I’ve read that maybe it’s because a.) the dish is spicy, b.) it was sold cheap to lure hungry men into brothels, or c.) it’s a quick-prep meal that the ladies could cook and eat between appointments.
Recipes, like people, are more interesting with a little history.
Lemons, lawn care and a pound of butter
08 Apr
Posted by Rebecca as Pies & Tarts, Tuesdays with Dorie
The grass. It’s high.
It’s grown past “maybe they’re on vacation” to “maybe we could have the front yard declared a wildlife preserve.”
What brought us to this shameful state? Stomach flu. Sinus infections. And a push mower that spontaneously combusted after two rows. Two horizontal rows right in front of the house. It looks like we cut a path with a machete. Or tethered a baby goat to the front door.
But finally, after days of scratchy throats and sniffling, we woke up with the amazing ability to breathe through both nostrils, for which we are truly grateful. And we probably have Dorie’s Most Extraordinary French Lemon Cream Tart to thank. Benadryl didn’t work. Sudafed didn’t work. But juicing five lemons–that worked.
The tart, like our yard, has room for improvement. The crumbly, shortbread-cookie crust would be even better with ground macadamia nuts and maybe a little shredded coconut. And the lemon cream is so pungent, I wish I’d topped it with a little whipped cream. Because what this recipe needs is more dairy fat.
As for the lawn, we were feeling so good last night, we bought a new push mower. Right now, it’s all potential, but as soon as I get my sneakers on, the hobbits in the front yard better run for cover.
March ended with unnecessary roughness. A miserably muddy soccer field. A single-point loss in overtime. A busted lip. Not mine, Jeff’s.
So much for going “out like a lamb.”
His bruises skipped blue and went directly to black and purple. So, we skipped the rest of the afternoon and went directly to evening. Closed the shades. Ordered dinner at 3:30 p.m. Wrapped up in a blanket on the couch and watched “John Adams.” Nothing like the bloody pox and a maritime amputation to put things in perspective. And then there was the chocolate.
The night before, we’d made Dorie Greenspan’s Gooey Chocolate Cakes. Six ramekins brimming with lethal amounts of bittersweet chocolate, butter, and sugar. And the texture… even though they looked cracked and dried out from the oven, one light tap on the surface, and your finger would sink into the chocolate quicksand.
A much better way to go than the bloody pox.
The next day’s cakes were just as moist as the first. We popped the ramekins into the microwave and topped the bounty of molten chocolate with a scoop each of Ben & Jerry’s Vanilla Heath Bar Crunch. You know, to cut the sweet. The perfect way to end a woolly month.
On one of our first dates, Jeff took me to dinner at the now-beloved La Hacienda, where–as luck would have it–a gloriously sequined mariachi band was making its way around the room. Loudly. If you made eye contact with the band leader, they would serenade your table. If you didn’t, they would play on to the next.
I stared down at the menu, trying to will myself invisible. Jeff made eye contact.
“Play something that will make the lady swoon,” he said.
There I sat, turning as red as the roses on their jackets. But Jeff was beaming. So, instead of hiding my face or praying for The Rapture, I took his outstretched hand and enjoyed the moment.
He still makes me swoon.
I tell this story so you will know how much I adore Mexican food. I so wish I had been thrilled with the announcement of this week’s Tuesdays With Dorie group recipe: Caramel-Topped Flan. But, sadly, I am not a flan fan. It’s probably some sort of character flaw.
If you are a flan fan, I suspect this is a good one. The recipe is quick and easy, and the finished dessert is incredibly smooth, a lovely amber. The taste was a little eggy for me, but I’ve got some lemons, limes, and oranges. A little citrus zest could be just what this flan needs to wake it up and make it swoon.
One of the many nice things about Dorie Greenspan’s recipe for Brioche Raisin Snails is that it requires you to make a full recipe of brioche dough but use only half for the snails. The other half is all buttery potential.
Last year, when I was working at a German bakery in my hometown, a beekeeper in bright blue overalls stopped by with an aluminum pan full of cinnamon rolls. They were his calling card, but his regular baker had stopped making them, and he wanted to know if we could duplicate the recipe. A few days later, we were serving the cinnamon rolls I would later use to lure Jeff into town (or accompany me to see him in the city). But I never saw the old beekeeper again.
I thought of him when I read Dorie’s suggestion to make Pecan Honey Sticky Buns with the unused brioche dough. What better showcase for his liquid sunshine than a perfectly golden, buttery sticky bun? Baptized in honey! Christened with pecans! But beware, I’d warn him. Even after they cool enough for you to finally, finally eat one, the gooey orphaned pecans at the bottom of the dish will call your name.
Last week, I joined Tuesdays with Dorie, an online baking group committed to making one recipe a week from the same cookbook: “Baking: From My Home to Yours” by Dorie Greenspan. My first assignment? Brioche Raisin Snails.
After a night spent making the lovely, buttery dough and Dorie’s pastry cream, I spent the next morning lost in rolling, shaping and baking the snails. And since I couldn’t let the other half of the brioche dough go to waste, I prepped a quick batch of Dorie’s Pecan Sticky Buns.
A bounty such as this must be shared. As soon as the snails were glazed, I packed them, along with the still-rising sticky buns, and drove the 45 minutes to my parents’ house.
I had an ulterior motive. My mother always has a crockpot of corned beef on St. Patrick’s Day. I baked the sticky buns there and also left some snails. She sent me home with all the makings for the World’s Best Reubens. So good, my pup curled himself around the package of corned beef nestled in the backseat and slept all the way home.And the sharing continues. I sent Jeff to work with the rest of the snails and sticky buns this morning. All that’s left are the memories, the smell (oh, the smell!), and a sink full of dishes. Well worth it.
