TWD - Chocolate Caramel Chestnut Cake

Guess who had a birthday? My baby boy is 22. How the heck did that happen? Of course, a birthday is celebrated with cake. A special boy deserves a very special cake. Happily this birthday coincides with the week to try a celebratory cake recipe from Dorie Greenspan's Baking From my home to yours.

Chocolate Caramel Chestnut Cake is supposed to contain, well, chestnuts and chestnut puree. Since my family is slightly "new food" averse, I decided to omit any chestnuts. Instead I made a walnut puree.

Walnut Puree with Vanilla
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 vanilla bean pod
1/2 cup ground walnuts

Make a simple vanilla syrup using the sugar, water and vanilla. Place the sugar and water in a small heavy-bottomed sauce pan. Scrape in the vanilla beans. Bring to just a boil and stir until the sugar completely dissolves. Have the ground walnuts in a heatproof bowl. Add the warm syrup to the walnuts and stir until mixed.

That was just the beginning. Creating this cake was a two day event. The first night I baked the cake. The walnut puree was incorporated into the batter. Because in this recipe the eggs are separated, the beatened whites help the cake retain its light texure, even under the weight of the sugar syrup and nuts.

For baking, I used a 9 1/2" round springform pan with 3" sides. When fully baked, this cake filled most of the pan. It did take an extra 20 minutes over Dorie's suggested 48 minutes.

The next morning, I started with the caramel sauce. This was my third caramel sauce, so I now know not to touch the pan while it's boiling. Not even a swirl. Just let it darken. Then stand back and add the cream.

The taste highlight of this recipe is that the caramel is added to the milk chocolate ganache. Dorie is right - you make the cake because it's rude to eat all the ganache straight from the bowl. Though I tried.

This is a very dense dessert. A pound of butter, more than two cups of heavy cream - that was just the start. I used two whole 300 gram bars of Lindt chocolate, the milk chocolate for the ganache and the dark for the glaze.

This cake is so rich, we're eating it a sliver at a time.

With the cake as I made it, the ganache was ridiculously delicious, but the caramel was not necessary. For those who made this with the chestnuts, did you find the caramel in the ganache added an important flavour balance?

Please go to Second Dinner, the blog of Katya. She has the complete recipe posted there along with her photos of the baking process. As Katya says, this is a serious cake.

MSC - Candied Sweet Potato Cupcakes

This month's recipe for the Martha Stewart Cupcake Club was chosen by Karen of Karen's Cookies, Cakes & More.

It's a lovely homage to the classic Thanksgiving dish of yams with a mini-marshmallow topping.

Easy, delicious, maybe a little too sweet for me. The nutmeg and cinnamon combination gives these a carrot muffin flavour. My family enjoyed them. I hope you will too.

Happy Friday the 13th!

TWD - All-in-One Holiday Bundt Cake

Dessertwise, my family is so spoiled. If it's not chocolate or filled with chocolate chips, it's not happening for them. In the case of the delicious bundt cake, it's their loss.

The cake uses an entire can of pureed pumpkin, as well as fresh cranberries and chopped apple. Even with all that fruit, it had a nice light texture. I followed Dorie's advice and let it sit for a day. The flavours were rich and irresistable. Each bite had either some tart cranberry or apple to go with the deep pumpkin flavour. A little cream cheese frosting added extra sweetness.

I took it to my choir practise where it was thoroughly enjoyed.

You can find the recipe at Britin's blog The Nitty Britty.

St. Jacob's Farmers' Market

There is a wonderful Farmers' and Mennonite Market about an hour and a half from Toronto. It's in the town of St. Jacob's. This market runs year round, but the Thanksgiving weekend is my favourite time to visit. On the second Saturday in October my hubby and I rose early and drove out to the market. Delights of the harvest abound!

Hubby's back got off easy this year since I passed on getting the 50lbs bag of potatoes for $15. We settled on some of all the lovely fresh Ontario vegetables.


Why are brussel sprouts more interesting on the stalk than on the plate?


I stocked up on locally raised beef, pork schnitzel, bacon and bison.

I didn't end up getting a sausage, but I did sample some.

Of course I bought pies, sticky buns, and donuts. You can't bake every day!

I sampled great chilies and relishes.

Hubby got a danish break between trips to the car with my groceries.

And what would the market be without a little wisdom?

TWD - Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies

I was raised into a Jewish style of baking. All desserts tasted like either cheese or chocolate. Never both. And, in season, apples. I don't remember the first time I ate a gingerbread man, but I was hooked. So much flavour! With edible limbs!

Today's cookie reminds me of my earliest gingerbread. Not too ginger-spicy, with lots of other notes - cinnamon, allspice and, most notably, black pepper.

Here's a question for everyone who baked them - the recipe implies that it makes two dozen. I rolled the dough into 1 1/4 inch balls and got 6 1/2 dozen of 3" cookies. How many did you make? How big were they?

Thanks to a great blogger Pamela of Cookies With Boys for choosing this recipe. Since we're baking out of order this month, the recipe isn't up yet. Please stop by her blog anyways and check out her cute cran-apple crisps in ramekins.

I found these cookies simple to put together and difficult to stop eating. Have I mentioned that I have 6 1/2 dozen? If you're in the neighborhood, please stop by for tea and cookies!

Happy Halloween

Flower Girl and Ring Bearer.

Monkey Bread

I have Bundt Fever! Is there anyone out there following The Food Librarian's I Like Big Bundts: 30 Days of Bundts who hasn't been affected? Not possible.

After 12 days of a-bundt-ant circular loveliness I had to get up off this chair and bake a bundt.

My humble contribution is a reprise of Food Librarian's day 7 Monkey Bread.

Like my bundt mentor, I followed Martha Stewart's recipe. My only change to the batter was the addition of a teaspoon of cinnamon. I like the golden colour it gives the finished cake. Also, when I was constructing the last layer, I switched out the chopped walnuts for chocolate chips. I like a little chocolate in, well, everything.

This was my first monkey bread and it won't be my last. Imagine taking a plate of cinnamon rolls, separating them into bite sized pieces and dipping each individual bite into a buttery cinnamon, brown sugar, nut mixture. Salivating? Me too.

Before I head back to the kitchen for another slice, let me encourage you again to visit The Food Librarian's blog where she is industriously baking a bundt a day, leading up to November 15's National Bundt Day. Please cheer her on.

TWD - Cherry-Fudge Brownie Torte

Oh, fudge! This should have been the best recipe ever. Heaps of chocolate, mounds of cherries, a mousse topping. What happened?

As my waistline can attest, I love chocolate. I eat a couple of squares of 70% cocoa chocolate almost every day. I also love brownies. I really love fudge. I especially love fruit mixed into my chocolate.

There was too much chocolate in this recipe. Even though I left out two ounces that would otherwise have been added to the batter for crunchiness, the chocolate overwhelmed all flavour. And worse - it added no texture. Instead it sank the fudge/brownie, crushing the cherries and making it almost impossible to slice.

I also had a problem with the mousse. I used ricotta as an economical alternative to mascarpone. I felt that it never came together in the way I expected. Later, I looked up other mousse recipes and in every one the heavy cream had been whipped before being added to the cheese. Before taking my photos, I froze the dessert for an hour. Later in the fridge, it did stay together, but the taste of the ricotta did not compliment the torte.

If you've read this blog before, you know that I'd never let a little thing like failure stand in the way of success, especially when it comes to dessert. I scraped off the sour mousse, chopped up the cherry fudge brownie and got out the ice cream maker.


As an addition to homemade vanilla ice cream, this torte was superb! Each component - brownie, cherries, chocolate pieces - could be tasted and enjoyed. It disappeared right away and I made a second batch with the remaining torte.

For this week's actual recipe please check out April's blog short + rose

Breadmaker Creamy Rye Bread

If you walked into the kitchen and saw this:


Wouldn't you run to the Halloween candy bowl and do this?



To be fair to my son who made this lovely loaf, here's another photo.


It's his breadmaker rye, a family favourite. Delicious when warm and slathered with butter. Here's his recipe:

Creamy Rye Bread

1 cup water, heated to 110F (one minute in microwave)
2 tsp yeast
2 tsps caraway seeds
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp butter
1 1/2 tbsp molasses
2 1/2 cups bread flour
3/4 cup rye flour

Put warm water and yeast into breadmaker and let sit for 10 minutes.
Add remaining ingredients and bake as for a 1 1/2 pound loaf.

TWD - Sweet Potato Biscuits

How can I call them a failure when they tasted so good?

I love biscuits. I've made them many times, often with self-rising flour. Biscuits are a cinch. Yet -- when I added the freshly made and mashed sweet potatoes to the mix, the dough turned into a heavy, sticky mass that I knew wouldn't rise.

You know what they say, when life hands you flat disks of sweetness, make icing! That's exactly what I did. With a generous amount of cinnamon drizzle, these turned into a delicious dessert. The drizzle recipe was simply five parts icing sugar to one part cinnamon, with just enough warm milk to make a drizzle-able paste.

Many thanks to the awesome and unique Erin of the blog Prudence Pennywise for choosing this recipe. Please check out her blog. She is the hostess with the mostess.

MSC - Pumpkin Patch Cupcakes/ Muffins

I would like to apologize for every snide comment I've made about Martha Stewart. Her deep attention to detail, her obsession with every seasonal turn of the calendar, her perky blond hair. She has earned the right to be as Martha as she likes. This is the third recipe I've made as part of the Martha Stewart Cupcake Club. Each recipe has been better than the last. They are all perfect and delicious.

If you go to the What the Whisk, the blog of Kim, an experienced baker, You'll see that she's given this recipe the full Martha touch, right down to making marzipan pumpkins. Hers are so beautiful, I'm glad I didn't even try.

Here it's post-Thanksgiving and we're still downing the last of the pumpkin pie - there's turkey soup for dinner - so I didn't bother with frosting for these cupcakes. They are perfect on their own. My only tweak was to use fresh grated ginger which gave them a bit livelier taste.

I'm sorry that I earlier in the month I didn't get around to posting my Martha Stewart Banana Pecan cupcakes with caramel icing. They were very delicious and I've never tasted anything like the icing with homemade caramel stirred in. Perfection! Here's a photo of this cupcake.

TWD - Allspice Crumb Muffins

I know nothing about allspice and so I was worried about these muffins. Specifically, would anyone eat them? I don't like to waste food. These seemed iffy. Should I add berries? Raisins? Nuts?

I put these off until yesterday. I have a house full of visitors for the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. I figured I could slip a plate of these on the table and someone would eat them, politely, if not with gusto.


Well, shame on me for doubting Dorie. These are lovely, buttery with a hint of delicate spice. The streusel topping is a crunchy bonus. All the guests were delighted. I will certainly make them again.

Many thanks to Kayte at Grandma's Kitchen Table for choosing Allspice Crumb Muffins. Please check out her blog for the recipe and some lovely photos!

Happy Thanksgiving, Canadians

Enjoy the turkey squash!

TWD - Split Level Pudding

Homemade pudding with a spoonful of chocolate ganache. This is what is meant by "sinfully good".

Fearing that vanilla pudding might be too boring, I made the espresso variation. I used only one teaspoon of vanilla extract, then added three teaspoons of espresso powder that had been mixed with four teaspoons of hot water. It was beyond belief delicious!

Many thanks to Garrett of The Flavor of Vanilla for selecting this recipe.

I like pudding but it's always gone too soon and that was definitely the case with this recipe. That said, pudding is always a good excuse to bring out the old glassware I collect. The photo at the top of this post is a tiny shot glass. The one at the bottom is an old sugar bowl.

*****
I want to apologise to everyone who has commented on my blog the past few weeks whose blogs I haven't gotten to myself. I'm going to try to get to everyone this week. My 83 year old mom has been ill and, as an only child, I'm the one who's been taking her to appointments. Hopefully, we'll soon know what's wrong.
Thanks for understanding.