TWD: Tarte Fine

You can tell that we are entering fall.  The recipes that my fellow bloggers are putting out there are all about the fall ingredients - Soups, stews, and most of the desserts are being made with fruits found in the fall: apples, pears, gone are the summer light berries and citrus and in are the squash, cranberries, dates and figs.

This weeks Tuesday with Dorie choice is coming to you compliments of Leslie of Lethally Delicious

As Dorie mentions on the recipe, this is the most popular tart in France.  I can see why. It was simple to do, fast to cook and according to the testers “appetizing!” – can you tell that Tom’s food vocabulary has expanded since I started to give him more food to “taste”?  He no longer uses small words like “yum!” or “Delish!”, but things like “scrumptious”, “mouth-watering”, and “luscious”.

Read More

HCB: Apple Caramel Charlotte


Disclaimer: this post is long and there is a bit of a rant.  Just as long as making this cake was and reading about it.

A few months ago, I was emailing with Jenn from Knitty Baker and we were discussing those cakes that were still left to do in our HCB list and this one in particular came about in conversation.  We both were totally dreading it.

With 7 pages of instructions and 7 different steps, we knew it was going to take A LOT of resilience and baking savvy to do this one.  Jenn was hoping that Marie would give us this one on a long weekend so we would have more time to plan for it.  I was hoping that Marie would have a total Opps-y moment and would forget about this one.

We totally jinx ourselves.  Because not even a week after this whole discussion took place - there is was in the baking list, and NOT on a long weekend.

This cake, even from the start was a total Prima Donna, and not in a good way.  Did you know that the word “diva” means evil in some parts of the world?
Read More

TWD: Peanut Butter Crisscrosses

After all the cakes in the past week, this weeks Tuesdays with Dorie choice, which was made by Jasmine of Jasmine Cuisine, was a welcome change around these parts.

No cake, no buckle, no upside down fruit tart.  Just a simple, straight forward cookie recipe.

Cookies!

My cookie jar has been empty for a while now.  So when I started to make these Tom and the little man were ecstatic to say the least.  Asking if they were ready about a trillion times during the 20 minutes it took me to put them together.

And in times like this you realized that you really never fully know your other half.  Because after two years together, it was news to me that peanut butter cookies is Tom’s Holy Grail.  His words, not mine folks.  He has some serious Peanut Butter cookie love going there.

But, back to the cookies.  

Read More