Twofer the price of.....

This week we have Vibi from La Casserole Carrée to thank for the TWD pick. She chose the Thanksgiving Twofer Pie. A pie with an identity complex...but oh so yummy. Half pumpkin and half pecan, the perfect ending to a Thanksgiving dinner.
I didn't change anything in the recipe except to use regular rum because I didn't have any of the dark stuff...oh and I used about 1/3 cup light molasses and the rest honey because I ran out of the molasses. It still made for a tasty pie. Dorie's crust was easy to make and roll out. I made 2 double batches because I also made her All American Apple Pie. Like the other bakers said..it's not the prettiest pie..but who cares? It sure tasted good, though I also baked it a little longer than called for in the book.
Considering this was my first attempt at pie making, I think I did pretty well.
Check out how the others did..you can find them here!

Not today....

Isabelle of Les gourmandises d’Isa chose Dorie’s Arborio Rice Pudding for this week’s TWD.

I love rice pudding...with lots of whipped cream on the top..however, it was not meant to be this week. My oldest son has a week a minimum days along with a parent teacher conference Tuesday afternoon and some babysitting for other some moms thrown in, it just didn't happen.

So I leave you with this..my French Yogurt Cake with Marmalade Glaze. This was so freakin' good! I actually made three loaves. The first was the recipe in the book...except in place of lemon marmalade (which I couldn't find to save my life) I used orange marmalade. The second loaf was made with whole wheat flour, omitting the ground almonds. The third loaf was made with olive oil in place of the flavorless oil and plain Greek yogurt. The second and third loaves are wrapped up tight in the freezer so I can't tell you how they taste. The first loaf was devoured in a day....so good. I'll let you know how the others taste once they have been eaten!

I'll be back next week with the Thanksgiving Twofer Pie.

Check out the TWD Blogroll to see what the rest of the group had to say!

Kugelhopf!

Wow...baking with yeast....not something I have ever tackled before. It wasn't that bad! This week with TWD, Yolanda from The All-Purpose Girl chose Kugelhopf for us to make. I read all the comments before starting this one and was a little apprehensive and not quite sure what to expect. Some had sticky dough, some not. Some got the dough to rise, others had flat dough. Some had the pan...most didn't. Well, I had nothing to lose.
I started the dough Monday morning and thought I killed the yeast right away with milk that was a little too hot. I kept going and got really wet and sticky dough. After mixing with the dough hook, I took the others' advice and switched to the paddle when I added the butter. I switched back to the hook to finish mixing. It looked ok to me, but then again...I wasn't quite sure what it was supposed to look like.
I followed the recipe exactly except for the raisins, I added dried cherries. I scraped it into a bowl and set it in my oven to rise...or not.
Having never baked with yeast before, I guess I expected the dough to rise a lot more. I slapped it down a couple of times and then put it in the fridge overnight.

The next morning it went into my bundt pan and into the oven (not on) for the final rise. After 2 hours I took it out and the dough was almost to the top of the pan but not quite. I had also put the dough into the pan unevenly so it was a little lopsided. Oh well.

While it was baking my house smelled so good...like sweet bread..mmmmm. That smell was nice on a cold, overcast morning like today.

When it came out of the oven it was nice and golden brown. I put it on a rack and poured the melted butter over the top. ( I didn't have time to brush it on, we were on our way to see Madagascar 2!) My oldest son quickly sprinkled the sugar over the top and we hopped into the car with our bread. We were heading to some friends house after the movie and wanted to share the goodness. Let me tell you, the inside of the car smelled of warm, just-baked bread...soooo good.

I had to hurry and take photographs before everyone dug in. Everybody liked the taste, not too sweet. The kids preferred the top with the sugar crust of course. It reminded me of brioche..with some dried cherries in it. Not very exciting. I think I will try it tomorrow morning, toasted with some butter...we'll see how that goes.

Rugelach!

My first TWD:


One of my first memories of rugelach is my grandma Anderson rolling up the bits of her pie crust after making a pie. She would spread the bits with some butter and sprinkle them with cinnamon and sugar and roll them up crescent style. Now, technically that wasn't really rugelach...but it was the same idea. Fast forward 15 years later to Santa Barbara, CA and my college days. Downtown there was a gourmet deli, Pierre LaFond, that had jars and jars of different flavored Rugelach on their counter. The real deal. The hardest part was choosing which flavor to try..but hey, there was always tomorrow and another flavor.
For this TWD recipe, we have Grace to thank for choosing Rugelach. Click on over to her site for a complete recipe and don't forget to check out the TWD site for all the other bakers.
This recipe was fairly easy...and not too complicated...and I am not one to roll things out. The only hard part was waiting for the dough to chill and then waiting again for the little crescents to chill before going into the oven.
I did change some things in the recipe. For one half of the dough, I spread some homemade fig jam that I had lingering in the fridge along with the cinnamon and sugar mixture and some chopped pecans. On the second half, I used orange marmalade and mini chocolate chips. I didn't use the cinnamon sugar mixture because I thought it might taste weird with the marmalade. I did sprinkle the tops of both with sugar.
The results...I preferred the orange marmalade/chocolate mixture. The sour slightly bitter flavor along with the chocolate was great. The fig/cinnamon/pecan mixture was pretty sweet though that is the one the kids prefer....which is fine with me...I'll just eat the other!


On another subject:
How exciting is that? I actually took that picture a couple of days ago...Whole Foods opens tomorrow at 10:00am!!!