TWD - Blackberry Crumb Muffins

This week's Tuesday with Dorie recipe was Blueberry Crumb Cake. It was chosen by Sihan of Befuddlement. Thanks for choosing a great recipe!

I decided to make muffins instead of the cake, as they are easier to pack up to send with my husband for his lunch.


I replaced the nuts in the recipe with almonds and the blueberries with blackberries. The baking time was shortened to about 30 minutes. I got 20 muffins out of this recipe. They turned out very light and moist. My husband and I really liked them.

Be sure to check out Sihan's blog for the recipe. Take a look at the TWD blogroll to see many wonderful variations of this recipe. I love reading all of the different twists that were tried with this one. Warning.....you will probably leave the blogroll very hungry!

TWD - French Yogurt Cake with Marmalade Glaze

This week's TWD recipe, French Yogurt Cake with Marmalade Glaze, has grown on me to the point that I am now liking it. The description of the cake that Dorie uses in her cookbook is right on the mark - it's somewhat of a pound cake and somewhat of a sponge cake. The cake itself is moist and has a nice texture to it, but it is also sort of bland to me. I tasted a piece of it while it was still warm and really didn't care for it. I decided to give it another try once I read all of the rave reviews that it was getting from everyone else. The cake had had time to cool completely and it tasted much better. The nuttiness came through a bit more this time. I bet that it would taste really good toasted just a bit.


I didn't make the marmalade glaze to go with it. For those who did, I bet that it was great. I pureed some strawberries and sugar, and then stirred in a little of the left over almonds from the cake recipe for my topping. With the strawberry topping, it was more like a strawberry shortcake, I guess.


We have Liliana of My Cookbook Addiction to thank for choosing this week's recipe. You can see the recipe for this French yogurt cake on her blog.

TWD ~ Caramel Crunch Bars

It's been a while since I've made a cookie bar like this that everyone in my family has really liked. Finally, the Caramel Crunch Bars that Whitney of What's Left on the Table chose for this week's TWD, hit that mark. Everyone enjoyed them.

The mix of chocolate cookie with the crunchy topping was a nice combination. The fact that it was easy to make was a great relief this week.

Check out what the other TWD bloggers had to say about these yummy cookie bars.

TWD - Savory Corn and Pepper Muffins

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, Savory Corn and Pepper Muffins, was chosen by Rebecca of Ezra Pound Cake.

I hate to say that I've made yet another corn muffin recipe that my family didn't like ...but it's true, no one liked them. I loved the way they looked when they came out of oven...very country homestyle.

One bite into them, though, and they crumbled all over the place. They were very dry. My search continues for a good moist, sweet corn bread/muffins. I'm sure that those who added extra sour cream to their recipes greatly improved the texture.

The only pepper that I used in my recipe was the black pepper. I knew that my family definitely would not eat them with the other peppers in there.

I've read that many other TWD followers had great success with this one so if you would like to check out their pictures and tips, you can click here to check out their blogs.


Happy Cooking!

TWD ~ Grandma's All-Occasion Sugar Cookies

I am finally catching up on everything from being away on vacation for a week. YAY!

For this week's Tuesdays With Dorie recipe we are making Grandma's All-Occasion Sugar Cookies. This recipe was chosen by Ulrike of Kuchenlatein.

The dough was very quick and easy to whip up. However, this is where the "quick and easy" part stops. My dough was very soft, almost too soft. I resisted the urge to add more flour to it even though I thought that it would help tremendously.

I divided the dough into 2 pieces and chilled it for 3 hours. The dough was still very sticky when I took it out of the frig. At this point I did add a little more flour on the top and bottom of the dough to ease in moving the cut-out cookies from the table to the cookie sheet. After one round of cutting and chilling the dough, I decided that it would be much less frustrating to roll the remaining dough into a log and stick in the the freezer for one of those nights when my family wants dessert but I don't have anything made for that night.

I baked one sheet of cut-out candy canes, stocking and small circles. If you take the cookies out of the oven before they start browning, they will stay softer than if you leave them in until they start browning around the edges--of course, this is a personal preference that ranks right up there with "which ketchup is better" or "do you drink Coke or Pepsi?". We prefer the softer, chewier cookies.

I would suggest adding some other flavoring other than vanilla to the dough unless you are looking for a very plain sugar cookie. Since I hadn't added any extra flavoring, I decided to sandwich raspberry preserves inbetween the round cookies and then drizzle them with powdered sugar icing. They turned out pretty and tasted pretty good, too.

I sprinkled chopped up Andes Candies onto a few of the stockings and candy cane cookies and stuck them back into the oven for a couple of minutes to melt the chocolate. For the remaining cookies, I just drizzled them with the left over powdered sugar icing.

I'm sure that my family will enjoy the slice and bake cookies sometime soon! For some reason, cookie dough never seems to last long around here. ;)

Tuesdays with Dorie ~ Linzer Sables

Noskos of Living the Life chose Linzer Sables as this week's Tuesdays With Dorie recipe.

In my opinion, this cookie was just ok, nothing special. I had no problems following the recipe the way it was written, although I only had to bake my cookies 6 1/2 minutes. I chose a raspberry preserves as the filling for these cookies. I really didn't like the taste of the cookies with the cinnamon & cloves mixed with the raspberry filling. Perhaps another filling or even different ground nuts (I used walnuts) would've made them taste better to me.

Anyway, here they are:

TWD ~ Chocolate Arborio Rice Pudding

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is Vanilla and/or Chocolate Arborio Rice Pudding, chosen by Isabelle from Les gourmandises d’Isa . You will find this recipe posted on her blog so be sure to check it out!

After reading over the recipe, I set out to cook it. I started out deciding to make the batch 1/2 vanilla and 1/2 chocolate. Once I mixed up the vanilla, I didn't like the way it looked so I stirred it into the chocolate, added another ounce of chocolate to the whole mix and stirred it altogether. I used semi-sweet chocolate because that's what I had on hand.

When the pudding didn't get thick like I thought it should've, I searched out the link for it on TWD to read the comments by those who had previously made it. (Quick thanks to everyone who posts what works for them and what doesn't on those links!!) I realized that I hadn't cooked it long enough ~ there's an error posted for the cooking time - it should be 55 minutes instead of the posted 35 minutes. So I took my liquid pudding out of the refrigerator and returned it to the pot to continue cooking it. I cooked mine for another 30 minutes and by then, it had turned into a creamy pudding that smelled like hot chocolate! I cooled it for about 1o minutes before dishing it out and setting it in the refrigerator to chill.

Wanna bite?

I am so happy that this turned out to be yummy!



Here you can read about all of the comments on this week's recipe and see the TWD blogroll, too.

TWD ~ Chocolate - Chocolate Cupcakes

Today's Cooking with Dorie recipe is for Chocolate - Chocolate Cupcakes. You can check out the recipe for these chocolatey cupcakes on Clara's blog, IHeartFood4Thought.

Even though the recipe is suggested to be for adults to enjoy more so than children, I made the cupcakes for my son's 11th birthday. I made them more kid-friendly by stuffing the cupcakes with a rich, fluffy buttercream icing and then topping the ganache with colorful candy sprinkles.

When I first made these cupcakes I was extremely disappointed in them--the cake seemed to be missing "something" and I had trouble with the ganache clumping up in the bowl. The only part of these cupcakes that seemed to be any good was the buttercream icing that I used to fill the center of each cupcake.

I was determined to try to make these work!

Here is what I did:

I mixed the batter as instructed. The only difference to my recipe is that I grabbed semi-sweet chocolate instead of bitter-sweet chocolate by mistake, so that is what I used. I altered the cooking time to 17 minutes @ 350*. I tried rushing the process by trying to fill the cupcakes with the buttercream filling before they were completely cool--what a mistake! The cupcakes fell apart. At this point, I was really getting aggrivated so I decided to walk away and give the cupcakes time to cool. This was a good thing! The cupcakes held together much better when they were completely cool.

I filled the cupcakes with this recipe for
buttercream icing:

1 stick of butter, softened
1 TBSP vanilla
1 3/4 C. powdered sugar
1/8 C. whipping cream

Whip butter until fluffy. Mix in vanilla. Alternate mixing in powdered sugar and whipping cream until the icing is fluffy and smooth- this could take several minutes. Use an icing bag to pipe icing into cupcakes.

I made the ganache as directed but I had trouble with it clumping and not staying smooth enough to ice the cupcakes. I added 2 tsp. of milk to the chocolate mixture and then microwaved it for 15 seconds. After stirring it vigorously for about 3o seconds, the consistency was perfect. I spooned the ganache on top of each cupcake, allowing some of it to run down over the sides. Then a splash of colored candy toppings made them look festive.

We were running short on time due to having plans to take my son out for pizza for his birthday, so I left the cupcakes on the rack to dry.

When we returned from our trip, my son was eager to try one of his cupcakes. The time away that allowed the cakes to absorb some of the moisture from the buttercream filling, and combined with the ganache, it turned the cupcakes into a special dessert. Since the cupcake itself is not overly sweet, it made for a great combination with the sweet filling and chocolate topping.

I'm glad that I decided to follow through with this recipe instead of giving up on it.

Tuesdays with Dorie - Pumpkin Muffins

I was so excited to participate in my first Tuesdays with Dorie recipe. I was even more excited when I realized that we would be making pumpkin muffins. Thanks, Kelly of Sounding My Barbaric Gulp, for choosing a great recipe!

My family loves just about any type of pumpkin baked goods and this recipe didn't disappoint!

I added mini chocolate chips to half of the batch and to the other half, I added raisins. The pumpkin/chocolate chips satisfied my cravings for my new favorite flavor combination and the pumpkin/raisin combo made my husband a happy camper.


Like many other have commented, I had to adjust the baking time. Using silicone baking cups, I baked these muffins at 400* for 17 minutes. They turned out very moist; but, they are a more dense muffin, not light and airy. I had a few left over so I decided to freeze them. They weren't nearly as good warmed up again as they were the first day straight out of the oven. I would recommend only making what you are going to eat that same day.