Dorie Greenspan's Fresh Fruit Tart

I think I made this in September.  It turned out pretty good--my mom went out and got the fruit for me and the fruit was absolutely gorgeouss. A very easy, delicious recipe! The recipe can be found in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours, which of course is my go-to recipe book for impressive desserts! Her recipes are always beautiful and delicious and easy to follow, although sometimes time-consuming (and definitely not low-cal...but this one wasn't so bad, I mean, the majority of the sugar was natural fruit-sugar!).

Espresso Chocolate Chip Shortbread

I'd been wanting to make these for a while and finally got a chance to. Very easy although a little time consuming to make, and very delicious with tea or even alone! I made them for the people working on our roof--probably wasn't the ideal thing to serve them, since they probably would have been fine with big simple chocolate chip cookies, but I really wanted to make these!

Espresso Chocolate Chip Shortbread
Recipe from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours
Found on Use Real Butter

1 tbsp instant espresso powder
1 tbsp boiling water
8 oz. unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
4 oz. bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped OR 3/4 cup store-bought mini chocolate chips
confectioners’ sugar, for dusting (optional)

Dissolve espresso powder in boiling water. Set aside to cool to tepid.

Beat butter and confectioners’ sugar together on medium speed for about 3 minutes, until the mixture is very smooth. Beat in vanilla and espresso, then reduce mixer speed to low and add flour, mixing only until it disappears into the dough. Don’t work the dough much once the flour is incorporated. Fold in the chopped chocolate or chips with a sturdy rubber spatula.

Using the spatula, transfer dough to a gallon-size zip-loc bag. Put bag on a flat surface, leaving the top open, and roll the dough into a 9 x 10 1/2 inch rectangle that’s 1/4 inch thick. As you roll, turn the bag occasionally and lift the plastic from the dough so it doesn’t cause creases. When you get the right size and thickness, seal the bag, pressing out as much air as possible, and refrigerate the dough for at least 2 hours, or for up to 2 days.

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Put the plastic bag on a cutting board and slit it open. Turn the firm dough out onto the board (discard the bag) and, using a ruler as a guide and a sharp knife, cut the dough into 1 1/2-inch squares. Transfer the squares to the baking sheets and carefully prick each one twice with a fork, gently pushing the tines through the cookies until they hit the sheet.

Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, rotating the sheets from top to bottom and front to back at the midway point (I didn’t do that either – I bake one sheet at a time). The shortbreads will be very pale–they shouldn’t take on much color. Transfer the cookies to a rack. If you’d like, dust the cookies with confectioners’ sugar while they are still hot. Cool the cookies to room temperature before serving.

Makes about 3 dozen.

Dorie Greenspan's Devil's Food White-Out Cake, revisited

I made this cake less than a year ago, but Lucy wanted it for her birthday and I figured I'd try to make it prettier than last time. I used 8in round pans this time and still it wasn't as tall as I wanted, but I guess I'll try again next time! Also I felt I was being too stingy with the frosting--you can really glob it on! To find the recipe, you can search online or see it in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours.

Dorie Greenspan's Sables

Before I left for home for winter break (I'm home now) I made 4 batches of cookies. One was the chocolate chip recipe I tried before and loved, and then I made Dorie Greenspan's Sables. The recipe can be found here or in her book, Baking: From My Home to Yours. I made them festive only by using red sprinkles on the edges, because red was the only kind I had at college. I really liked the texture of these and they were pretty straight-forward to make.

Dorie Greenspan's Corniest Corn Muffins

Another Dorie Greenspan recipe...anyway, I also made this on Thanksgiving. I made 1.5 batches of this recipe by doubling the whole egg but not the yolk and it turned out fine, and I got like...about 20 good-sized (not large) muffins. You can find the recipe here, or find it in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours. People really liked these. Real cornbread, real corn...I could have done without the actual corn myself, but everyone else loved it!

Dorie Greenspan's Sour Cream Pumpkin Pie

No post in a while because I've been busy, but luckily for Thanksgiving I had time to bake more! First thing I made was my first pumpkin pie, which I was really nervous about...it turned out okay but I did way too many substitutions and I think they made it lose a bit of flavor. I used pumpkin pie spice instead of most of the spices, and then didn't have cloves so had to leave that out. And I didn't have rum (because I'm not 21) so I left that out, too. But I did make my own whipped cream, which people liked.

I made Dorie Greenspan's Sour Cream Pumpkin Pie (recipe found HERE, and originally made Dorie Greenspan's Good for Almost Everything Pie Dough (also on that same link), also available in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours. But this pie crust kinda freaked me out--I didn't know I wasn't supposed to add ALL the ice water, just enough to make the dough pliable, so my dough ended up looking like this:

So, unsure about whether it would work out, I whipped together a different pie crust that turned out a bit small but was looked a little better. I'll post that recipe below. Anyway, when I prebaked Dorie's pie crust as she instructed, the edges turned a little dark...but I still poured the batter into this one because the pie crust worked out anyway. It turned out, Dorie's recipe had enough for both of my pie crusts to be filled!! I don't know if that was because she intended it for deeper pie dishes or what, but it worked out and I used both my pie crusts.

My friend hosted Thanksgiving to 20 people, and about one and a half to three fourths of my pies were eaten. I didn't think it was GREAT, but it was good.

Basic Flaky Pie Crust
From Allrecipes

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shortening, chilled
3 tablespoons ice water


Whisk the flour and salt together in a medium size bowl. With a pastry blender, cut in the cold shortening until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Drizzle 2 to 3 tablespoons ice water over flour. Toss mixture with a fork to moisten, adding more water a few drops at a time until the dough comes together.

Gently gather dough particles together into a ball. Wrap in plastic wrap, and chill for at least 30 minutes before rolling.

Roll out dough, and put in a pie plate. Fill with desired filling and bake.

(Above) The first pie crust
(Above) Second pie, unbaked

Dorie Greenspan's Chewy, Chunky Blondies

Finally I baked again. I'll probably bake once a week and update on the weekends from now on until I get a break from school. For this recipe I used butterscotch chips, left out the walnuts, and for the chocolate used chopped up pieces of Ghiradelli 70% cacao for 4 ounces that was the bar, and then about a fourth a cup for semi-sweet chocolate chips. I'd been wanting to make something with coconut and butterscotch for a while, so I'm glad I finally got around to doing it!

Chewy, Chunky Blondies
Recipe from Dorie Greenspan's
Baking: From My Home to Yours
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups (packed) light brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chips, or 1 cup store-bought chocolate chips
1 cup butterscotch chips or Heath Toffee Bits
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
1 cup sweetened shredded coconut

Getting Ready: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Butter a 9×13-inch baking pan and put it on a baking sheet.
Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until smooth and creamy. Add both sugars and beat for another 3 minutes, or until well incorporated. Add the eggs one by one, beating for 1 minute after each addition, then beat in the vanilla. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients, mixing just until they disappear into the batter. Using a rubber spatula, stir in the chips, nuts and coconut. Scrape the batter into the buttered pan and use the spatula to even the top as best you can.

Bake for about 40 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center of the blondies comes out clean. The blondies should pull away from the sides of the pan a little and the top should be a nice honey brown. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for about 15 minutes before turning the blondies out onto another rack. Invert onto a rack and cool the blondies to room temperature right side up.

Cut into 32 bars, each roughly 2-1/4 x 1-1/2 inches.

Dorie Greenspan's Tender Shortcakes

After the first day of classes, I made this dessert for my roommate and some friends. It was good and very easy to make. I made homemade whipped cream, and used frozen strawberries, though you can use any kind of fruit (and I think Dorie said to use fresh fruit). To use frozen fruit, just let it defrost completely. The juices just make it better. Add a lot of sugar and mix it with a wooden spoon to get it all together. Start with 1/4 or 1/2 a cup and add more to taste. I ended up adding a lot of sugar, haha, and my berries were still a little frozen, but they were great.

You can find the recipe here, or just buy Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours, like I did. You can use any kind of berries, really, but I used strawberries because frozen strawberries were cheapest when I bought them. Mine made 12 biscuits, some bigger than others, and I probably could have made at least one more. I didn't use them all though so the rest are probably getting stale right now...I might have tried freezing them, but I guess I was too lazy.

Mine baked for much less than Dorie said: the first batch was done in about 7 or 10 minutes and they were perfect, and the second batch took about 12 minutes to be perfect (they were a little bigger than the first batch). Also, my oven was being mean and only heated up to 400 degrees when I made them, sometimes getting as low as 350, but they still turned out fine. This was an easy and delicious recipe!

Lemon Cake with Chocolate Buttercream

So my mom had her bookgroup retreat, and she asked me to make a cake. She loved the lemon cake from Dorie Greenspan's Perfect Party Cake from her book Baking: From My Home to Yours, and wanted something like that for dessert at her retreat. The book she and her friends read for the retreat, to boot, was The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender (which, by the way, is a pretty good read). So of course I wanted to try and make a cake that looked like the cake on the cover! It was a three layer yellow lemon cake with what looked like milk chocolate buttercream. I ended up making mine a little different, but it still suited the occasion.

I used Dorie Greenspan's Perfect Party Cake recipe for the lemon cake, but instead of cutting two layers in half, I wanted a three layer cake, so I split the batter into three pans and baked them for about 25 minutes.

For the frosting, I used Dorie Greenspan's Perfect Party Cake lemon buttercream recipe and substituted a fourth a cup of unsweetened cocoa powder for the fourth a cup of lemon juice. I was surprised that it turned out so well: it tasted like chocolate meringue frosting, not chocolate buttercream, and was a good match for the light crumb of the cake.

I took a bit of dark chocolate and made chocolate shavings to put on the sides to make the cake look a little nicer. So my recipe for decorating the cake was to frost between the layers and all over, then press the shavings into the side: perfectly easy and perfectly delicious.