'Baking: From My Home to Yours' Recipes by Dorie Greenspan Photographs by Alan Richardson Houghton Mifflin - 2006 Buy it on Amazon
Dorie Greenspan is something of a goddess to home bakers: not only are her recipes unfailingly delicious, but the directions that accompany them are both reassuring and authoritative.
Greenspan possesses an ease and charm as generous and homespun as her desserts: she's not afraid to admit past mistakes (as she does in a humorous remembrance of a cake that got her fired from a restaurant), and you can imagine that she'd be tolerant of yours, too. Given her mastery of traditional French pastry and love of more down-home delights, the book offers something for everyone, whether you're craving a Parisian apple tartlet or poppy seed muffins.
Takeaway Tips: Greenspan organizes her chapters by baked good genus: chapter titles like "A Cache of Cookies" and "Breakfast Sweets" hint at the wonders contained within. All of the recipes include helpful serving and storage tips, and many have a "Playing Around" sidebar that provides ideas for recipe variations.
See what we tested and whether the book's worth buying after the jump.
Several weeks ago on a Monday evening, Scott and I met up at home. Our individual days at work had battered us nearly beyond recognition and we needed something to raise our spirits. It was decided that the only thing that could help were brownie sundaes.
I pulled Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours down off the shelf, surveyed the ingredient list and began to bake. The moment the scent of melting chocolate arrived at our noses, the stresses of the day eased. While I don't believe in turning to food to solve all of life's problems, those brownies truly redeemed our otherwise crappy days. I would recommend you keep this recipe on hand for those moments when nothing but chocolate will do.
The Slashfood Flickr pool is awash in glorious Halloween-themed cupcakes and cookies right at the moment, thanks to a bounty of creative and generous bakers. This particular cupcake comes to us from Ezra Pound Cake and is actually a Tuesdays with Dorie challenge mixed with decorating instructions from Hello, Cupcake!
The cakes are Dorie Greenspan's Chocolate-Chocolate Cupcakes and the decorations are nothing more than Oreo cookies, M&Ms and some artfully applied frosting (head over to Ezra Pound Cake for more detailed instructions).
Thanks Rebecca, for adding this picture to the pool!
Between this and Deb's chocolate sorbet, I am positively dying for a chocolate dessert of some kind (what are you people doing to me!). The chocolate pudding was made by Maya at My Feasts and was part of the the Tuesdays with Dorie cooking challenge. I could go for a big old spoonful right about now!
Thanks to Maya for adding her pic to the Slashfood Flickr pool! Remember to snap some photos of the delicious dishes you cook up this weekend and add them to the group.
Oh muffins. Is there any time of the day when you aren't delicious? You're good in the morning or as an afternoon snack. You're especially nice in the evening, leftover from breakfast or brunch. Personally, I like to stash a few in the freezer, for those times when I need a sweet snack that isn't too cloying or unhealthy (I try to make my muffins fairly low sugar and high fiber). These particular Orange Berry Muffins look like they would satisfy the baked good monster that lives inside of me. Baked and photographed by Slow Like Honey, the recipe can be found here.
If you've been following along for a while, you might remember the granola recipe I posted back in the summer. It's a basic, easy recipe that is a great way to get comfortable with the process of making your own granola. However, as the post up today on Dorie Greenspan's blog reminds me, there are a variety of ways to spice up your granola. She describes the homemade granola that friends brought with them when they came to visit over the weekend.
I am intrigued by the combinations she describes, especially the one that they made just for her that included bits of black licorice. I've never thought of incorporating that kind of sweet into granola and already my brain is racing with the possibilities.
If you are traveling this week to spend the holiday with friends or family, think about stirring up a batch of homemade granola to take with you. It is sure to inspire exaltation and joy from whomever receives your bag of oat-y, nutty goodness.
In the winter months I think of comfort food, and when I think of comfort food three things immediately come to mind: meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and carrot cake. Brilynn at Jumbo Empanadas is allowing me to satisfy one of those cravings vicariously with a 3-layer carrot cake she adapted from a Dorie Greenspan recipe. Certain substitutions were made after discovering she was either missing or short on a few ingredients, but I think the addition of dried cherries (to make up for a lack of raisins) would really enhance this dish.
Though she made the cake itself for a potluck lunch, the 6-layer sample shown in front was ingeniously prepared for her own tasting pleasure. I really need to remember that trick the next time I bake something.
If you've been staying on top of baking blogs lately, you've probably noticed that quite a few people have been using recipes from Dorie Greenspan's newest book, Baking: From My Home to Yours. Sara, from i like to cook, organized the huge event with the publishers and got out the book to many different people so that readers could get some real-life feed back on the recipes. She also made up a roundup of all the recipes that people tried, so take a look at the recipes she tested herself and at the recipes tested by others for a comprehensive listing (with photos!) of all the treats our food blogging friends enjoyed.
Getting back to the book itself, it is over 500 pages and has more than 200 recipes. Although it is called Baking, it doesn't cover too many yeast breads or completely savory recipes. Instead, it concentrates on sweets, divided into six sections: breakfast sweets, cookies, cakes, pies and tarts, spoon desserts and base recipes. From these categories, you'll find more tempting recipes that you can imagine and but book is filled with excellent pictures that will tempt you. Unfortunately, not every recipe is illustrated, so we're probably missing out on some food porn, but since the recipes turn out to look exactly like the photographs, you can easily make your own food porn at home.
'Baking: From My Home to Yours'
What Can I Get You Folks? - Server Revenge
Reality-Show Celebrities Serve Up Chef Curtis Stone's 'Hundred-Dollar Burger'
Foods Celebrity Chefs Hate
