Daring Bakers: Pizza

It's time for Daring Bakers again! This month we all made pizza dough from scratch, which I thought was such a great challenge that I invited over several friends to share in the pizza making and eating.

Here are my four little pre-pizzas, ready to go into the fridge, rise, and become grown up pizzas by way of hand tossing. How exciting!!!


The next day....
Oh, wait. They feel quite stringy. Oh, dear, this tossing thing is not working out, despite watching three "Sexy Pizza Toss" u-tube clips.

So... one of the pizzas became a pizza roll, OK? All those holes didn't matter once it was rolled up into a long tube filled with cheese and sauce. The other three pizzas were treated with tender loving car, and yielded stunningly crunchy, crusty results.


I bought ingredients for two kinds of pizzas:

1. traditional (OK, when I say traditional I mean dandelion pizza sauce, organic mozzarella, and marinated artichoke salad)

2. Brussels Sprouts with Gruyere cheese. I sauteed the sprouts with some garlic, shallots, and onion, then tossed them on some pizza with a mixture of gruyere and cheddar cheeses.


I recommend, at the recommendation of my dad who is always on the hunt for efficiency and cool gadgets, using kitchen shears to cut your pizza. Here's why:

1. Shears can cut on any surface.

2. Shears can cut around big chunks of topping.

3. Shears come apart and go into the dishywasher. :)


Don't the sprouts look good? Lurking in the background you will see the aforementioned pizza roll, which looks a bit unwieldy but tasted fabulously doughy and cheesy.

Finally, thanks to Diana Ecker for taking lovely photographs. You can see more of her work here.

TWD: Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes

I am sad they are gone. Will they ever return? Do you ever feel that something you bake tastes so lovely that the experience must be fleeting? That no matter how precisely you replicate the recipe, you will never find that taste again?

I am not gonna write much for this Tuesdays with Dorrie post because the pictures say it all: perfect, perfect, perfect cupcakes.

Moist chocolate cake.

Marshmallow creme filling.

Dark Chocolate Ganache.

All organic.



OK, the cutie sprinkles are not organic, and probably not natural in any sense of the word, but they look pretty no? You can eat around them.

Because god knows you want to eat this cupcake. The recipes from Dorrie Greenspan's book, Tuesdays with Dorrie, just keep getting better! Check out the other cupcakes made by members of this food group here.

Pics are: cupcake in fall leaves, cupcakes on cute Martha Stewart stand, cupcakes pre-ganache.

Iron Cupcake Earth: Cheese

Local Cheddar Biscuit Cupcakes with Apple Pie Filling

Voting is open! Vote for my cupcake at the Official Iron Cupcake Earth site by selecting "a sweet peace" from the column on the right. Then you can browse the other wonderful cheesy cupcake creations.
Now let me tell you about how I made these cupcakes. At first, when I heard that the challenge ingredient was Cheese, I thought about ricotta, marscapone, and cream cheese. These are the sweet cheeses that one traditionally finds in baked goods. Not surprisingly, many of the other cupcake entries include these cheeses. But I wanted to branch out- be a little different- and to include the feeling of autumn in my entry, therefore I created a combination of cheddar and apples. Not surprisingly, many of the other cupcake entries ALSO had these thoughts. However. I truly believe that of all the apple cheddar combinations, mine tasted the best.

Imagine eating a warm, flaky, cheddar cheese biscuit. Now imagine that biscuit topped with warm, gooey, apple pie filling. A tart slice of apple crunches in your mouth. A sliver of sharp cheddar slides past your tastebuds. Your hands are covered in apple pie filling and you lick every finger. You smile, thinking happy, homey thoughts.

Here is how I did it:

1. I made Martha Stewart's recipe for Spicy Cheese Biscuits, which can be found on the blog Eat, and baked them in a muffin tin. I used local organic cheddar cheese. If you make these for dinner, use some spicy smoked paprika! If you are making cupcakes, use regular or sweet paprika, which will give it color but not spicy flavor. I didn't have a pastry cutter, so I mixed in the butter with my hands.

After baking, I cut out a well from each cupcake where the apple pie filling would sit. Do this by angling your knife downward as you cut in a circle. Lift off the top and cut off the small cone you have created. Eat the cone. :)

2. I made a canned apple pie filling to put into the muffins using local organic apples. This was super tasty, and I have been eating it as a topping for yogurt, ice cream, and granola. OK, and by itself, too.

Thanks to Diana Ecker for taking lovely photographs! See more of her work here.

TWD: Pumpkin Muffins

Oops! OK, so I forgot to post my pictures this week, because I had SOOO much fun with the challenge that I posted early on Facebook and then thought, "I already did my post!" Thanks, Jes, for reminding me. So here goes:

This week's recipe for Tuesday's with Dorrie, the on-line cooking group that makes tasty recipes from Dorrie Greenspan's book "Baking, from my Home to Yours," was pumpkin muffins. I loved them!! Too moist for words, and full of pumpkin flavor, especially since I used the full can of pumpkin. (Why do I need a quarter can of pumpkin hanging around in my fridge?)

Now I have to admit something here: I lied about the muffins. Since my friend Jes and I were hosting a dinner party with college buddies (and their cool girlfriends), I decided to dub the muffins "cupcakes" and put together a cupcake decorating activity to stimulate our inner children.

Decorating Cupcakes+ dinner party with college friends+ playing Apples to Apples= Best way to celebrate fall!!! Enjoy our creations!


Before the decorating began... innocence.

TWD: Lenox Almond Biscotti

This week's TWD challenge, (the weekly on-line food event where bakers with blogs cook the same thing from Dorrie Greenspan's book, "Baking, from My Home to Yours") was to make Lemon Almond Biscotti.

I don't normally like biscotti. I have found that many people feel the same way... Too crunchy! they said. Too dry!

Have we always been a biscotti-hating nation but never realized it, forced into consuming $3 sticks wrapped in plastic because it's the right thing to do, according to some barista?

No more. These were hands-down the best Tuesdays With Dorrie recipe I have ever made. Thank goodness I took her advice and made a double!

I have become a biscotti fan. The dough for this recipe includes cornmeal and flour (I subbed 1/2 white flour, 1/2 whole wheat pastry flour), so the cornmeal gives the biscotti an enduring crunch without dryness.

The fillings are almonds and currants, which have been soaked in rum. Mmm!




Before baking, the dough is formed into rectangular logs that look so much less gracefull than the end result!



After baking for 15 minutes, the long log of dough comes out of the oven and cools.

Then you cut the log into strips, and bake again for another 15 minutes.

Perfection... these biscotti have been taste-tested with coffee, tea, beer, dessert wine, water, and other beverages. All recieved a resounding "Can I have another?"

TWD: Caramel Peanut-Topped Brownie Cake

The pics of this dish speak for themselves: yum. But I will say that in all perversity I think I prefer the gooey, dense texture of boxed brownie mixes... could I get this by using oil, instead of butter, I wonder?


Check out the other Tuesdays With Dorrie Posts for more deliciousness.

Pumpkin Lump and a Triumphant Potluck

The day started with a beautiful pumpkin pie.

And then I ate it. Oh dear, my pretty pie tasted like Lump. I forgot the sugar!

I got several recommendations to douse the pie in maple syrup... Voila! Pumpkin Lump in tasty syrup. Edible, but not exactly desirable.


Thankfully, I had plans to go to a potluck that very night. Normally, potlucks involve lots of yummy dinner treats; greens, soups, dips, and bread. This potluck had those things, true. But dessert is usually an afterthought. Someone throws in a pan of brownies from a mix... A few cookies...

At this potluck, the hosts made not one, not two, not three, but four pies. Tasty, sugary pies.

Oh yeah, and homemade ice cream. Doesn't it look like clouds?



This was my favorite pie. A tart apple concoction with currants and blueberries and a homemade crust.

Yummmmm. Hot, sweet-tart pie and cool vanilla ice cream.

Thanks to Paul Salvatore Mercurio and Mike Sanoki for hosting their "Fall is for Food" triumphant potluck. You made my day by rescuing me from my Pumpkin Lump.