TWD - Blueberry Nectarine Pie

There's something about pie, that no matter how bad the day, pie makes it better. This pie was no exception.  I was having a bad case of the "Mondays" at work, but I made this pie after work and it turned things right around. 

The pie crust is very similar to the one I always use so I knew I would like the dough. I haven't seen my mom's post yet, but I guarantee that she rolled her dough in a perfect circle (unlike mine that looks like I got it at the second-hand store).  She is really a whiz at rolling perfect pie dough.  Every.single.time.

Filling added - ready for top crust

Ready to bake.  I love using an egg wash - I know it will yield a pretty pie.

Mom had warned me this pie had a runny consistency and she suggested doubling the flour.  I did that, but it still was pretty runny.

But no worries, we all loved this pie, even if it was runny.  I liked the addition of the nectarines.  It almost added a floral and fragrant note to the pie.

TWD - Semolina Bread

I made this bread early as my family, along with my mom and dad, will be in Spain on the Tuesday this will post.  We are all pretty excited about the trip, so I didn't give this bread much thought.  But it turned out to be a great bread.  In fact it was my son's favorite TWD endeavor so far.

I made the sponge first as directed, but did not find it to double in size.  I called Mom about this and she said not to worry as long as it was bubbling.  It was, so I proceeded.

The first rise did double in size, so I moved on to the next step.

The second rising went well, until I deflated it try to make the slashes in the bread described in the book.  But it all worked out in the end and we all loved the bread.  I didn't find it to be too salty as some commented until the second day.

This recipe is a keeper.  Although it took most of the day to make this bread, I think it's a perfect bread to make when hanging out at home all day.

TWD- Hazelnut Biscotti

I love hazelnuts and I love biscotti, so this was a win win week for me.  I was a little fearful of the recipe because I usually find biscotti recipes with no fat make biscotti better used for a game of boules than eating, but this recipe turned out wonderful.

I was curious how the preparation of the hazelnuts would go because I had always used the towel method in the past.  This boiling method in baking soda water worked really well, but, what a mess it made of my pot.

The preparation of the biscotti itself went lickety split and was very straight forward. I did find the loaves to be skinnier than I was used to, but this yielded small biscotti which I think are perfect for eating with coffee. I only baked them 10 minutes the second time so they wouldn't get too hard.

My favorite part of the recipe was baking them right on the cooling rack.  Woo hoo for that idea! What a time saver - you don't have to flip the biscotti AND you don't have to transfer them again for cooling.

Well actually my favorite part was eating them!

TWD - French Strawberry Cake

I have always been intrigued by genoise cakes, but never made one.  But I think this might be a cake where practice makes perfect and I need to revisit this recipe and try it again because my cake did not rise enough.
I beat the eggs and sugar for 5 minutes and found I had to go about 90 seconds more to pass the 10 second ribbon rule.

Things were going well until I added the third batch of flour.  I could not get it all to fold in and with each stroke I could see my batter deflating.  I since learned from the comments on the TWD site that perhaps it was the bump in the Kitchen Aid bowl.  The next time I try this I am going to put the batter in another bowl to fold in the flour.

Finally all the flour was in and I baked the cake.  It was not very tall and I knew there was no way I was going to successfully slice it into 3 layers even though I have a nifty saw type cutter for cutting cakes.  I could not set the setting low enough to slice the layers that thin.  So I made do with 2 layers.

I sliced it and decorated it with the whipped cream.  One thing I loved about this recipe was the addition of the sour cream to the whipped cream.  I think it helped stablize the whip cream so it didn't droop when decorating.  I used the wrong size pastry tip to decorate it, so I had to improvise and just piled strawberries on top for the finished look.

(See the pretty table runner?  My daughter spent a week with my mom and dad and they made this together!

My husband and I really liked the taste of this cake.  It seemed very French.  I like how sturdy the cake was to hold all the juicy strawberries.  I will try this cake again and see if I can get it to rise more so I can cut three layers.

TWD - Oasis Naan

The other day on the radio I heard an interesting study.  They polled women and asked what they thought men wanted for Father's Day.  Women said they thought men wanted tickets to a sporting event and power tools.  But when they polled men, what they really wanted was a smart phone/ipad type device.  And the second thing they wanted was A HOME COOKED MEAL!  I am guessing if you are participating in TWD, a home cooked meal for the father in your life is not a big deal. But I think that says a lot about today's society that a home cooked meal ranks above sporting tickets and power tools for men.  I would venture to say that study shows not many men are getting a home cooked meal.  So what does all that have to do with Oasis Naan?  I think it's a shame how many people are missing out on something so easy, yet satisfying like this bread.  This bread was so easy and with so few ingredients, yet when I finished with it I felt like a rock star baker.  It was so good, especially with some hummus.  So I am so grateful for this group that keeps my love of baking and cooking alive and shows me new recipes like Oasis Naan that I probably would have never tried without this group.

The Persian Naan dough, fully risen

The dough rolled out and with seasoning.  I don't own a pizza stone and used the back side of a jelly roll pan to bake them on.  What a slick trick!  I didn't know you could do that.

Ready to eat with some hummus!  My whole family loved it.  What an easy party food this would make!

TWD - Pecan Sticky Buns

You've heard of the five stages of grief?  Well, at the risk of sounding a tad bit like a baking drama queen, that's what I went through with these sticky buns.

Denial - "I did not just use 5 sticks of butter to make these sticky buns.  I did not just spend 12 hours making these sticky buns."

Anger - "I used 5 sticks of butter and spent 12 hours making these sticky buns and they are no better than this?!  They have so much butter, it's running down my childrens' faces as they eat the sticky buns.  This is not buttered corn on the cob, these are sticky buns!"

Bargaining - "If I could somehow just suck some of the butter out of these rolls, they would be good. If only I had trusted my instinct that 3-1/2 cups of flour cannot support 5 sticks of butter..."

Depression - "I thought I was a better baker than this; but these aren't any good.  They have an oily taste with all that butter.  I gave some of these buns to my neighbors.  They will think I have jumped the shark with these sticky buns.  My baking life is over."

Acceptance - (next morning when I was really hungry and the butter had soaked into much of the brioche).  "These sticky buns are not that bad. I do love the layers that are reminiscent of puff pastry. I did learn something about laminating and making a sponge.  I bet if I were to try these again and cut out about half of the butter, these would be good. That's why I joined TWD, to learn new stuff and challenge myself."

So far so good.  This was a wonderful brioche dough and I found it easy to work with.

In hindsight (and after watching the BWJ video), this is where my trouble started.  My pieces of butter are too big which caused big chunks of butter to melt into the buns as they baked.

Can you hear the menacing music?  Trouble ahead!  The butter pieces are too big!

Out of the oven.  Little do I know of the trouble that lies in the bottom of the pan - the butter bath!

Ready to eat.  For me these were better the next day, when the butter had a chance to seep into the brioche dough and wasn't as overwhelming.

TWD- Hungarian Shortbread

Those Hungarians.  So clever.  Who would have thought to use a cheese grater to make a dessert?  Makes you wonder if there was once a shortage of cheese in Hungary and a housewife felt bad about the cheese grater her kids had given her for Christmas that never got used, so she decided to grate some shortbread dough into a pan? Whatever the reason, I loved this recipe.  I mean really, really loved it, can't wait to make it again, loved it.

I was excited from the beginning when I saw the recipe had rhubarb.  Growing up in Ohio, rhubarb was a rite of spring.  But living in Texas, I never see it.  Luckily a fancy super market sells it frozen in one pound bags.  I was skeptical of how thick the shortbread looked in the picture, but once I tasted it, thickness was not an issue.  It just meant more of the yummy buttery flavor to sandwich the tart rhubarb.