baking with dorie – Beyond Umami

Steph’s Bakewell Tart from Baking with Dorie

Beyond Umami — Thu, 27 Jan 2022 05:59:00 +0000

When I looked through the chosen recipes for January for Tuesdays with Dorie I saw that the Bakewell Tart was on the list. After looking through the recipe I realized it sounded familiar. In fact, I had seen this once before, on the CBC Great Canadian Baking Show (Season 4, pastry) for one of the technical bakes!

But, what is a Bakewell Tart? The Bakewell tart is a British classic dessert and usually has a short crust pastry, frangipane and jam (typically raspberry). From what I have read, there can actually be different variations.

To me, it feels like you you are mixing the essence of a pie and cake together. Perhaps that simplifies it a bit, but let’s go into how it went for me.

To make the recipe in Dorie Greenspan’s Baking with Dorie you first make a pie crust. Hers is a pate sucree (mixture of cold butter, flour, egg and sugar). The dough is then rolled out into an 11inch circle, then partially blind baked (where you add pie weights onto the crust – to keep it from bubbling up in the oven).

Blind baked pie crust cooling

This ended up being a baking project spread over two time periods as I started making my pie crust a bit too late. By the time it finished cooling it was too late to make the rest of the pie. So I waited until the next day. Once the pie crust has cooled, add a layer of jam to the bottom. Traditionally it is raspberry jam. I used Haskap Jam as I am making an effort to use what I have in our pantry. Haskap berries are similar in taste to saskatoon berries. But if you don’t have saksatoon berries in your area, think of haskap tasting like blueberries, raspberries, with some flavours of black current. My friend Carmen had gifted me this for Christmas so thought this would work nicely for the Bakewell Tart. After the layer of jam, the rest of the filling is added on top. It is a bit difficult to spread but not impossible.

Once the tart is fully baked (around 45 min at 375F), allow it to cool.

At this point, you can decorate with just a drizzle of icing (icing sugar mixed with water). However the first time I decorated my Bakewell Tart it turned out terrible. So in an effort to make it more aesthetically pleasing (for myself) I added icing all over the tart and then attempted to make some pink lines for a feathering effect. That didn’t go nearly as well as I had hoped but it looks decent!

In all honesty, if this was a real technical bake in a real baking challenge I would have failed on the presentation alone. My feathering (for the lines) did not go very well as I was trying to work fast as the icing was starting to set!

I love how tasty this Bakewell Tart is. It isn’t too sweet, despite the icing on top and the haskap jam went very well with the rest of the tart. The cake part of the tart has a nice almond flavour from the almond extract as well as the addition of almond meal and flour. I personally also love the nice crispy pate sucree crust at the bottom as it is my favourite part about pies. So, there you have it, my experience of baking up my first Bakewell Tart!

You can get the recipe for Steph’s Bakewell Tart on pg.298 of Baking with Dorie or here.

Apple Pandowdy from Baking with Dorie

Beyond Umami — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 03:55:00 +0000

All right everyone! We are back with another recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking with Dorie. Of the two options for those month I chose to do the Apple Pandowdy first. We were going over to a friends’ place so bringing a warm dessert seemed to fit the occasion nicely. We happened to just have enough ambrosia apples in the fridge to make the dessert so it was meant to be. The main difference for this dessert is that usually when you see a dessert with apples you think of cinnamon. Dorie Greenspan highly suggests keeping it simple and just having a lemon forward dessert for this apple pandowdy. The apples are simply dressed with sugar, lemon zest and lemon juice. The reason why its called a “Pandowdy” is because typically this dessert is made with the scrap pieces of dough you may have around after baking a pie. It isn’t about perfection but just random scraps of dough.

In our case, since we were using fresh dough, we decided to make it fun and cut out some heart shapes. I must admit that this might be the first time I even used our heart shaped cutter! I have also been fairly busy prepping for my first ever pottery sale and keeping Luna (our pup) busy that Dan actually did everything for this dessert. He blended the pie dough in the food processor, made the flat dough, peeled and cut the apples and even assembled the Apple Pandowdy. I think the most I did was mix the ingredients together and put the Pandowdy in the oven! Thanks hubby for being such a great sous chef/baker.

The top of the apple pandowdy is topped with ample amounts of sugar

Would we make this again? Most definitely. The lemon forwardness of the dessert didn’t make us miss the cinnamon at all. Dorie Greenspan also gives ideas on how to change up the dessert; more spice for a warmer dessert and/or adding in different fruits depending on the season.

Clearly it must have smelled amazing as Luna (our own pup) made an attempt to hop up onto the bench at our friend’s place to get a taste. Don’t worry, she wasn’t able to. But you can definitely see in the picture how much she wanted to while Lovey (her sister from another litter) looks on.

You can find the recipe for this Apple Pandowdy on page 257 of Baking with Dorie or here.

Feel free to check out the Tuesdays with Dorie page to see what everyone else ended up cooking up (you had the choice to make either Apple Pandowdy or English Muffins).

Baking with Dorie – Maple Miso Loaf

Beyond Umami — Sun, 24 Oct 2021 21:16:00 +0000

Baking with Dorie: Sweet Salty & Simple

Side profile of the Maple Miso Loaf

Yes it is true! Dorie Greenspan wrote another amazing cookbook – Baking with Dorie. I have honestly learned so much in the past few years cooking through Every Day Dorie with the Cookthebookfridays group. When I received the initial PDF of Baking with Dorie I was so excited for the glorious pictures that it would hold and was even more pleased upon receiving the real cookbook. The pictures are excellent as always (read: mouthwatering), all the directions are easy to follow and Dorie writes in a way that you feel like you are baking in the kitchen with her.

This newest cookbook – Baking with Dorie: Sweet Salty & Simple has now launched into the world. To celebrate some of us baked up her Maple Miso Loaf (page 69-70). I know it is interesting to think about baking with miso. Not miso soup but the paste is used to create this sweet yet savoury loaf.

I love that there is ample time spent rubbing the orange zest (or lemon if that is what you have) with the sugar so it becomes infused with the orange flavour.

Sugar and orange zest rubbed together

Then all the ingredients are whipped together (sugar, butter, miso paste, maple syrup) and finally the dry ingredients.

As the maple miso loaf bakes in the oven our entire place filled with a lovely zesty savoury smell.

Before the bake

We actually served the Maple Miso Loaf during Luna (our pup’s first birthday) party. Don’t worry the pups had beet pupcakes with yogurt icing, while the adults had slices of maple miso loaf. Everyone enjoyed the loaf. It is a coarse-crumbed cake, but still super soft. Certainly made for a different sort of dessert.

Typically you should not post the recipes straight from cookbooks but in this case we have permission. Definitely check out the Tuesdays with Dorie group to see how everyone else did. If you want to join the group all you have to do is bake and then post your link to the group (under the LYL post/comments). This cookbook is baked on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month.

Maple Miso Loaf Recipe

from Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan

4 ounces/113 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for the pan
1 ¾ cups/238 grams all-purpose flour, plus more for the pan
1 ¾ teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¾ cup/150 grams granulated sugar
¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
finely grated zest of 1 orange or tangerine
¼ cup/70 grams white or yellow miso
¼ cup/60 milliliters pure maple syrup (I used dark)
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
⅓ cup/80 milliliters buttermilk (well shaken before measuring)
¼ cup/80 grams orange marmalade or apricot jam (for the glaze, optional)

Directions

Center a rack in the oven and heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8 1/2-inch loaf pan and dust with flour, or use baker’s spray.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder and baking soda in a medium bowl. Put the sugar, salt and zest in the bowl of a stand mixer or a large bowl that you can use with a hand mixer. Reach in and rub the ingredients together until the sugar is moist and fragrant; it may even turn orange. Add the butter, miso and maple syrup to the sugar. If using a stand mixer, attach the bowl and fit it with the paddle attachment.

Beat on medium speed for about 3 minutes, scraping down the bowl and beater(s) as needed, until the mixture is smooth and creamy. One by one, add the eggs, beating for a minute after each goes in. Beat in the vanilla. The mixture might curdle, but this is a temporary condition. Turn off the mixer, add the dry ingredients all at once and pulse to begin the blending, turning the mixer on and off in very short spurts on the lowest speed. Then, beat on low speed until the dry ingredients are almost incorporated. With the mixer still on low, pour in the buttermilk and blend well. Scrape the batter into the pan, working it into the corners and smoothing the top.

Bake for 50 to 55 minutes, checking the loaf after 40 minutes and covering the top loosely with a foil or tented parchment if it’s browning too fast. The loaf is properly baked when it pulls away from the sides of the pan and a tester inserted into the centre comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and let the bread rest for 5 minutes, then run a table knife around the edges of the loaf and unmold onto the rack; turn it right side up.

If you’d like to glaze the loaf, stir the marmalade or jam with 1 tablespoon water and heat the mixture in the microwave or over low heat until it comes just to a boil. Using a pastry brush or a spoon, cover the top of the loaf with the glaze. Allow the loaf to cool to room temperature before slicing.

Wrapped well, the cake will keep for about 4 days at room temperature. If it becomes stale — and maybe even if it doesn’t — toast it lightly before serving. If you haven’t glazed the cake, you can wrap it airtight and freeze it for up to 2 months; defrost, still wrapped, at room temperature.