Tuesdays With Dorie: Popovers

For this week's exploration of Baking With Julia, we got to make popovers. (For me, they ended up being birthday popovers! Or at least day-before-birthday popovers, anyway.)

Fortunately, the temperatures and dew points have calmed down a little bit, so it wasn't a burden to crank the oven up to 425°F. While I've made popovers before, I never think of my own as much as I think of eating them at the Jordan Pond House at Acadia National Park. Tea and popovers are an afternoon tradition there, deservedly so.

The only thing I didn't do according to Marion Cunningham's recipe is use ramekins for the popovers. I have a popover pan and don't really use it a lot, so I decided it was worth the opportunity to dust it off and get it in the oven.

I'm not sure exactly how you're supposed to consume popovers except with butter and jam, so that's what we did. It was kind of shocking how quickly three people consumed a batch of warm popovers, too.

For this week's recipe, you can go to this week's hosts and makers of exemplary popovers, Vintage Kitchen Notes or Bake With Amy.

In one other TWD procedural note, I did make the galettes, but failed to post a blog entry in a timely fashion. I'm aiming to get that posted in the next day or so.

Tuesdays With Dorie: Blueberry-Nectarine Pie

Available to a good home: one double batch of pie dough, separated into four disks, one disk gently used. Amazingly, dough was made without a drop of liquid, aside from that existing in a hyper humid atmosphere.

For this week's Tuesdays With Dorie project, we made Blueberry-Nectarine Pie. You know, pie seems like the perfect summer dessert. What could be better than to harvest summer's bounty of fresh fruits and berries, encase it in a flaky dough, and bake it into a dreamy dessert? Basically, when the weather is all disgustingly hot and humid, it all falls apart with the flaky dough. That's why someone invented cobblers, crisps, grunts, and their ilk: all the glory of summer fruit without the agony of producing pie dough.

So that leaves us with the baking assignment. I dutifully made the pie dough from the book. I decided to make the dough early in the day, before the temperatures got too hot; there was nothing I could do to avoid humidity. I chilled everything. Since I figured it would be quicker, I decided to use the KitchenAid mixer to prepare the dough. Before I got done incorporating the shortening -- after already having mixed in the cold butter -- everything came together like cookie dough. I had ice water ready to go, but didn't need it.

What to do, what to do? I dumped out the ice water, divided the dough into four disks, and put it in the fridge. I then decided that I needed a backup, so I turned to Cook's Illustrated. While I'd never made their vodka-infused pastry dough, I remembered the article and figured I'd give it a try. Again, I had the same problem with cold ingredients become warm so quickly that I had a cookie-dough-like situation instead of pie dough. I added the liquid anyway, wrapped up the dough, and put it in the fridge.

The filling was not a problem, unless you count the horrific blueberry-buying trip to our local Costco, which is currently being renovated, meaning the store and its parking lot are in complete disarray.

When it was time to assemble the pie, I got out a disk of dough, floured it, and placed it on the marble. Unfortunately, it could not be rolled out. I went to plan B and got out the CI pastry. It wasn't pretty, but I got it rolled out and into the pan. I had to patch a couple of spots. Next, the filling went in. Then I rolled out the top crust and got it in place, again with a few patches.

Amazingly, it didn't look too bad. I chilled it while the oven was heating, and then crossed my fingers, held my breath, and popped it in the oven. Forty-five minutes later, I ended up with this:

How did that happen? The pie looked great. It smelled great. The crust didn't shrink, despite the amount of liquid I'd dumped in it.

I ended up bringing the pie to work today. After I sliced it, I found that the filling was a little on the runny side, yet the fruit managed to stay together within each slice of pie. All things being equal, the crust was not bad. The sprinkle of sugar on top made it nice and crispy, and it even had a slightly flaky quality.

No idea what I'm going to do with the other batch of dough. Maybe I can press it into small pie tins or tart pans. Now that I've finally tried the CI pie-dough recipe, I feel pretty sure that I'll be using it again. On a dry, cool day. In September or October.

Tuesdays With Dorie: Semolina Bread

The weather we've been enduring on the East Coast this summer has made baking a challenge. Even having central air isn't much help; the heat and humidity are offensively oppressive.

That said, I was on the brink of bailing on this edition of TWD, then decided that if I got going later in the day, then I might be able to bake after things cooled down in the evening.

This recipe for this yeasted bread is pretty easy, with a minimal list of ingredients and relatively long rising times between each step. You start by making a sponge, which rises for an hour. Then you make the dough and let it rise for a couple of hours. Finally, you shape the dough and let it rise for a couple more hours.

For this bread, the dough is pretty sticky. Of course, with the dew point, everything was pretty sticky yesterday. I used the full amount of flour, then added a little more to make the dough manageable.

Because the dough was so sticky, it was challenging to slash the top of the unbaked loaf as directed in the recipe, especially since I didn't happen to have a razor blade handy for that purpose. (Maybe I should have tried it with my Atra? Ha.) I managed to get a few slashes across the top with a sharp chef's knife.

The bread turned out OK. It has a soft crust and a relatively salty flavor. I wouldn't be opposed to making this bread again under different meteorological conditions; it would probably taste good with fresh basil and tomatoes. Since we are in vacation-prep mode and aren't bringing more fresh produce into the house, we are making do by consuming the loaf with a slathering of butter on each slice.

For the recipe, visit this week's hosts at Keep It Luce and The Way to My Family's Heart.

Chocolate-Chip Muffins

A request came in to Baking Central for chocolate-chip muffins. This request occurred in the grocery store near packages of chocolate-chip muffin mix.

Sigh.

Since I had multiple motivations (ridding the fridge of perishables prior to vacation; kitchen already overheated up for this week's Tuesdays With Dorie project), I decided to make a batch of muffins using the recipe from Joanne Chang's Flour. Instead of two cups of juicy, healthful fruit, I added a bag of dark-chocolate chips.

Aside from a couple of small glitches (such as discovering that my six-cup muffin tin isn't as nonstick as I'd like, even when it's spritzed with Pam), the muffins came out pretty well. I suspect they'd be even better when the humidity isn't out-of-control crazy.

Tuesdays With Dorie: Hazelnut Biscotti

Our latest recipe in the exploration of Baking With Julia is Hazelnut Biscotti. So far, I've tried to be pretty strict in making the recipes as directed the first time out, but I didn't have hazelnuts and didn't feel like buying them. Instead, I decided to use whole almonds: hence, I made almond biscotti. I substituted amaretto for the hazelnut liqueur, and also added a handful of mini chocolate chips.

One of the best things about making biscotti is that you can control the crispness of the cookies. Personally, while I like biscotti, I don't really like the kind that are so hard that I feel like my teeth are going to shatter when I eat them. I made mine just a little softer than that. They still crunch, but I won't need to set up a dental appointment to replace any shattered crowns.

All in all, this recipe (from the most excellent contributing baker Alice Medrich) is enormously adaptable. I could easily foresee a biscotti jag in my future, especially since I now need to use up a Costco-size bag of whole almonds.

If you'd like the recipe, visit this week's recipe hosts, Jodi at Homemade and Wholesome and Katrina at Baking and Boys.

Tuesdays With Dorie: French Strawberry Cake

Our latest entry in the Tuesdays With Dorie exploration of Baking With Julia is French Strawberry Cake. Basically, it's a super-upgraded version of strawberry shortcake, made with a genoise split into three layers, sandwiched with mashed, macerated berries and whipped cream.

I intended to make this cake last weekend, but my free periods ended up disappearing. I then figured I'd do a catch-up later, but when I saw that we would have three recipes to prepare in July, I decided to just get it done. As it turned out, it all came together pretty quickly, although I started it in the evening and finished it the next morning.

I guess I lucked out, but my genoise turned out really well. Next time, I need to remember the cooking-school trick of whisking in the flour, which helps to avoid those nasty pockets of unincorporated flour. I made the cake last night, and prepped the berries. Instead of an all-strawberry cake, I used raspberries for a portion of the strawberries that were called for.

I'd split the cake into three layers last night, so the assembly went together quickly this morning. I drained the berries in a sieve to get rid of the extra juice, then got going.

The amount of whipped cream seemed a little spare, so I was not overaggressive with what I used between layers.

In a few minutes, the cake was filled and ready to frost.

I am not necessarily a huge fan of whipped cream as a frosting, but I liked the way this one turned out. It seems like this could be a really versatile base, too: I'm thinking a peach-raspberry filling would be good, or pear-raspberry. This recipe will be revisited.

One confession: While I picked up a pint of local-farm-fresh strawberries for this cake (intended for decoration), I ended up eating most of them because they tasted so dang good. What a reminder of how dreadful mass-produced strawberries have become. That said, the mass-produced berries are what I used on top of the cake, and as the filling. No regrets there, either. I loved each and every fresh, sweet, juicy local berry I consumed.

If you'd like the recipe, please visit this week's hosts at Sophia's Sweets and Think, Love, Sleep, Dine. (Both of their cakes look amazing!)

Tuesdays With Dorie: Oasis Naan

I'm about a week late with my Oasis Naan for the Tuesdays With Dorie project. Since I knew I was going to be out of town the weekend before the post date for blog reports, I planned to make the naan over Memorial Day weekend. Then, for Memorial Day weekend, it was about 7000°F with a dew point of 6999, and I didn't much feel like it would be a great idea to turn the oven on.

Fast forward to yesterday. I decided to make broccoli quiche for dinner, but needed an onion. I went to the nearest grocery store and bought the onion, along with four bags of other stuff, including a tikka masala sauce and some chicken. It wasn't til I was on my way home that I thought: Hey, naan would be good with chicken tikka masala. I knew I didn't have any scallions, and since I wasn't about to head back to the store, I decided to substitute chives, which I had bought for another recipe.

I ended up making the Oasis Naan dough by hand and have to admit I can't remember the last time I made a yeasted dough in that fashion. The dough was very easy to work with. After I got under way with baking the naan, I should have refrigerated the balls of dough that were awaiting baking as the dough was starting to get puffy as it sat in the warm kitchen.

One other plus to making the naan: I finally had a reason to use a pizza stone I got for my birthday last year. I couldn't track down my pizza peel, but instead, I used a huge spatula that I got for holding cake layers after they've been split. Worked like a charm.