Hungarian Shortbread Bars with Blueberry Preserves Filling
For the record, I spent four glorious days in Budapest last Fall. Cruised on the Danube. Stuffed myself with pierogi. Hiked up Gellert Hill and crossed the Chain Bridge. Nowhere was I offered Hungarian Shortbread.
Those Hungarians don’t know what they’re missing!
Mise En Place, The Ingredients and the Box Grater
This week our TWD/BWJ group is baking shortbread bars. These delicacies are delicious and a bit of a smile to make. Have you ever grated cookie dough? For this recipe, we needed to pull out our box graters, choose the side with the largest holes, and go crazy. If grating is your technique of choice and you wish to make this bar cookie, find the recipe directions here or here. This week’s hostesses, the gals who did the heavy-lifting, are Lynette and Cher. We thank both of you.
Instead of making the traditional rhubarb jam filling, I used a jar of organic blueberry preserves. Although there’s nothing unusual about putting together the dough mixture, the next chill-and-grate step may give you pause……. but charge right ahead. The filling goes in the middle and is covered by more grated dough. Immediately after baking, dust the top of the shortbread heavily with confectioner’s sugar.
Grating the first ball of frozen shortbread dough into the pan
After carefully spreading blueberry preserves over the shredded dough, I grated the second frozen dough ball on top.
Although my batch was delicious, they were a tad chunky because my baking pan wasn’t large enough. This is a rich cookie. My portions should be smaller. I think I’ll perfect this recipe and use it on my cookie platters during the upcoming Christmas holidays (okay, still 8 months away). If the filling were homemade raspberry or cherry preserves, it would look very festive.
After slipping it into a 350 degree oven, I just had to catch a picture of the preserves seeping through the dough.
Do we think I was a bit heavy-handed with the confectioner’s sugar?!?
A 5A.M. Snack and Taste Test, Coconut Friands, at the local athletic club.
It’s probably true that you either like coconut, yum-yum, or dislike it intensely, yuck. If you’re in the black camp, just close this Post and take a peek next week.
Egg Whites, Coconut, Sugar, Flour, Vanilla, Salt and Melted Butter – Whisk Together.
I added the blackberries before baking the mini-cakes.
Coconut friands are light, moist teacakes, very close cousins to the financier, a small, rectangular French almond pastry. The financier, baked in a shaped mold, is somewhat more complicated to make. Friands, very popular in Australia and New Zealand now, are simpler to make and usually have additional flavorings. Chocolate. Fruit. Nuts. For this week’s FFWD recipe choice, we are making Coconut Friands.
Although the blackberry was rather large for the dainty mini-cake, it tasted delicious as a breakfast treat.
With the added cupcake liners, the friands unmold from the pan easily.
The ingredients all go together quite easily. The batter turns out thick and shiny. The most difficult part is spooning it into mini-muffin tins. I suggest using paper cupcake liners. Because I wanted to share these with my early morning exercise class, I plopped a big, fat blackberry on the batter before baking. A mini-breakfast. Enjoyed by All. Simple.
Adriana, enjoying a mini-cake before our 5:30 A.M. Spinning Class.
Dominick, our spinning instructor, to taste or not to taste. “It’s Early.”
With thanks to the athletes at the Anthem Country Club Athletic Club, Henderson, Nevada. To be asked to taste test a tea cake as well as have a camera flash go off in your face at 5A.M. in the morning qualifies as being not only sports-minded but a good sport.
When life hands you lemons, forget the lemonade, vodka or tequila and salt. Here’s an idea…….Lemon Loaf Cake. (You can thank me later.)
Happy Easter. Pina, with her Sicilian candy, Torrone Siciliano, meets my very American Lemon Loaf Cake.
I’m a lucky woman. If I cannot join my kids for a holiday celebration, I am always invited to join neighbors Adriana and Bobby Scrima, and their extended family. I’ve been adopted. This Easter my kids were in Hawaii so I was asked to join the Scrimas for dinner.
Adriana and her family immigrated to the United States from Sicily forty years ago when she was 8 years old. Their story deserves a Post of its own but today’s TWDorie/BWJulia is about food so I’ll stay with that subject. Her mother, Pina, still cooks in the European tradition. Her food is fresh, what’s locally available, and absolutely delicious. If Pina’s cooking, there’s not an empty seat at the table. This year, as usual, Bobby’s boyhood friend, Joe, his wife, Amalia and their 8-year-old son were joining us. What made Easter 2012 special was the presence of Amalia’s parents, Maria and Fernando, who were visiting from Madrid.
Tony, Adriana’s father, keeps me stocked with ground Italian oregano and sundried tomatoes.
Clockwise, Tony, Fernando, Maria and Pina. A four-language conversation!!! A joyful Easter.
As far as languages go, here’s the lineup, who speaks what:
Maria – Spanish
Fernando – French, Spanish
Pina – Spanish, Italian, and English
Tony – Italian
Amalia – Spanish and English
Joe – English, English and English
Adriana – Spanish, Italian and English
Bobby – English, English and English
Yours Truly – English and French
Although we considered charting who could understand whom, we decided to throw all those languages into a pot and let it boil. It worked.
Bobby, by the grill, with Joe. And, the English-speaking guys stand alone.
Lemon Loaf Cake, Tuesdays with Dorie, Baking with Julia
Usually, at Easter, I give my hosts chocolates and wine. This year I decided to bake this week’s recipe, Lemon Loaf Cake, a scrumptious citrus sidebar to the traditional pound cake. Developed by Ritz Carlton’s corporate pastry chef, Norman Love, I found this cake to be moist, firm and rich.
Just out of the oven. No added attractions. The color is nice.
This cake is simply made and easily eaten. The most difficult technique is grating the zest of 3 large lemons! The other ingredients can be thrown together in ten minutes. Bake it for 60 minutes. That ubiquitous toothpick, to be inserted into the center, must come out clean. Although I sprinkled confectionary sugar on this loaf, it requires no special embellishments. Simply standing on its own or with the fresh fruit and sorbets we offered as toppings, this Lemon Loaf Cake is a winner.
Zest three large lemons.
Ready for the Oven.
Everyone tried, tasted, and had an opinion about my dessert. In Italian. In Spanish. In French. In English. What I know for sure is that the English-speaking crowd loved it. My international friends wrapped up the leftovers, to enjoy a bedtime snack. Food has a universal language all its own, doesn’t it?
I want to whisk together a bowlful of gratitude to Marilyn, http://cookteachgrow.wordpress.com/about/, a Colorado baker who is part of the Tuesdays with Dorie/Baking with Julia group. Marilyn, aka Piebird, has just given me a Liebster Award, a fun recognition of food blogging sites. It’s nice to realize we high-altitude bakers are hanging together, Marilyn. Thank you.
My daughter, Melissa is a gem, a real jewel. Through thick, thin and thinner, she has always been supportive of her Mother. I must admit, however, that her finest buoy-up-Mom time may have been during the past two months.
We’re talking Baking.
Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table recipe book. Photo: Elise, Simply Recipes.
When I joined this French Fridays with Dorie group, more than a year ago, everyone who sits at my table was licking his chops. If only for the Garlic/Lemon Chicken in the Pot shown on the book cover, they would have been happy. But they’ve also enjoyed many other dishes, including Spinach and Bacon Quiche, Roasted Rhubarb and Pissaladière, It is true, however, that in this cookbook, the focus is more on cooking than baking.
That’s why my call to Melissa, saying I had also joined the new Tuesday with Dorie Baking with Julia group was met with silence (This, I know, is when she counts to 10 and takes 3 deep breaths.)In my family it’s acknowledged by everyone but me, that I am not much of a baker. I attribute my poor baking results to living in the high-altitude. Who the hell can bake bread and make cookies at 9000 feet? The fact that I was going to blog about my baking? Not good, she felt, but supported my enthusiasm, misplaced as it might be.
Simply put, my family does not ever judge my Tuesday with Dorie baked goods with gold stars, accolades, or empty platitudes. They talk ‘scars’. Each week my oven and I do battle and, often, the oven wins. To say I’ve become a ‘marked woman’ is not an understatement.
COCOA SABLÉS, my square version.
Which brings me to the recipe for this week’s FFWD. It’s baking. We’re making Cocoa Sablés, the French version of a shortbread cookie.
Girl Scout Shortbread Cookie Photo by justfoodstuff.wordpress.com
Sablé means sandy and correctly describes the slightly crumbly texture of the pastry. It’s much different from my traditional butter cookie memory. Remember the Girl Scout cookie made in the shape of the trefoil emblem? Shortbread à la Americana.
Sablés are sometimes called a Breton Biscuit because they originated in Normandy. Although they are not chocolate, Dorie channeled pastry wizard Pierre Hermé and came up with this week’s version. The verdict? This is a two-scar cookie and produced my best burn yet. A real winner!
Slice and bake, it’s as simple as that. Before baking the cookies, the dough must be chilled, of course, for at least three hours or days in the refrigerator, or two months in the freezer. The addition of 1/3 cup of Dutch-processed unsweetened cocoa powder provides a deep intense chocolate flavor which was a bit too bitter for me. As Dorie suggested, I rolled half the cookies in sugar, creating sparkle edging and a bit more of the sweetness I needed.
Flour, Sugar, Salt, Unsweetened Cocoa and Vanilla. Ready to roll, meaning round.
Finally, February, and the long-awaited premiere of Tuesdays with Dorie, Baking with Julia. If there was an Oscar for recipe books, Baking with Julia written by Dorie Greenspan, would win one of those glitzy golden guys. While my Euros for best picture is on “Hugo”, Martin Scorsese’s magical 1930’s tale set in a bustling Paris train station, my time has been spent in the kitchen, polishing up my basic baking techniques. Focus, Mary, Focus.
For the past 23 years of high-altitude living (Aspen, 8200’), my baking has had issues. “Home-made” turned to “store-bought”. My best cookies, Nabisco’s Oreos. Sara Lee does my pound cakes. The Pillsbury Dough Boy? He’s cute. Lately, older but not wiser, I decided to give-it-a-go-again and joined with 300-some other bloggers to mix, measure, whisk and stir my way through this book based on Julia’s PBS Series. (HINT: My library carries the videos of this Series.)
Twice a month, on Tuesday, my battalion, The Baking 300, will join with me to present and comment on our chosen recipe. I expect to not only brush up on my techniques but also glean a few high-altitude nuggets from this group. And, to my Readers who ask, and, many already have, WHY I would want additional caloric baked goods in my house (thank you, gentle readers, for not adding “at your age”), this is my answer. The majority of the TWD participants are younger than I, from their late 20s to a slow cruise into their 50s. These Bloggers appear to be genuinely concerned about good nutrition, staying fit, and will tweak these recipes down a caloric-notch or two, if need be. I consider this a learning experience.
Don’t We All Love Julia? Buy the Book by Dorie Greenspan. Bake With Us.
My first attempt, Chocolate Truffle Tartlets, was, for me, fun and challenging. Since the recipe called for three different chocolates (bittersweet, white and milk) it helped that Dorie and Julia thought to provide a short tutorial on chocolate (pgs 7-8) in the book. Although Julia used Chocolate Dough, I used Dorie’s plain tart dough recipe from Around my French Table (pgs. 498-9) to take the richness down a beat.
Melting 3 different types of chocolate together is a little tricky.
Having already chilled the tartlet dough, I will prick the crust bottoms with fork tines before baking at 350 degrees.
In the spirit of full disclosure, my recipe analysis is shortened this week because my tarts were “shanghaied and decorated” a little too quickly!
Morals of this Picture: 1)The Cook should never nap while the tarts are cooling. 2)Perhaps Reddiwip shoud NOT be a refrigerator staple.
Don’t you just hate it when you have to “eat your words”?
Story of my Life.
I first tried Nutella,the European’s version of peanut butter, thirty-five years ago when I was in Paris.
I last tried Nutella, a chocolate and hazelnut spread, when I first went to Paris thirty-five years ago.
Yuck! That’s the reason I wasn’t looking forward to inflicting this week’s recipe, a Nutella tartine, on any of my family, neighbors or designated-guinea pigs.
Nutella, A Cupboard Staple for Every Household. kerrycooks.wordpress.com
Instead, I quietly slipped it into my Super Bowl Sunday repertoire of afternoon goodies and snacks. Somewhere between the Giant’s 2-point safety, Manning’s nine-completed passes and Brady’s first-half comeback, I served this goûter ( an afternoon snack ) to an unsuspecting crowd.
This recipe was developed by renown French pastry chef Pierre Herme. The bread is brioche. The chocolate is Nutella. The sweet surprise is orange marmalade. The nuts are hazel.
Brioche – The perfect Bread for this Tartine.
Buttered Brioche Slices, Ready to Toast
Put aside the nachos. Hold the chicken wings. Save the veggie and cheese platters for another day. The football fans at my house loved this treat! As did I. (That’s where the “eating my words” comes in.)
At half-time the critiquing and suggestions poured forth. By using a lighter hand to spread the Nutella, this could be breakfast. Even, lunch. Taken up a notch, an afternoon pick-me-up, with espresso. Dessert, cut and served like a brownie or tart. This is a delicious toasted-taste. Like, really delicious.
Superbowl Sunday – “Got Milk?”
What I did not know at the time was that February 5th was also World Nutella Day. Here we Americans just thought it was Super Bowl Sunday.
http://www.nutelladay.com/
While some fellow Doristas, Nutrella naysayers, were also not looking forward to this week’s recipe choice, check out our site to discover other surprising results.
P.S. Word on-the-street is that Madonna uses Nutella as her go-to energy food. Whether you are a Madonna-fan or not, keep in mind the lady is 53-years old. Did you SEE her during the half-time show? Reason enough to mainline Nutella.
