Baking with Dorie: Peppermint Cream Puff (Ring)

Okay, so technically this isn't the cream puff ring I was supposed to make and it doesn't even contain any peppermint. It's just a solitary little cream puff.

I was unsure about successfully completing this challenge but after I made cream puffs this morning all I can say is that there is nothing to fear but fear itself. I was not intimidated in the least bit and my choux pastry was perfect. The whipped cream let me down because I couldn't get it to be stiff enough to pipe rosettes and so I spooned some into just one cream puff to take the photo for this post.

Thank you for taking us out of our comfort zones and picking this challenge, Tina!

The recipe can be found on pages 290-2 of Baking from my home to yours by Dorie Greenspan. Or you can head over to Tina's post here to get the recipe and view her pretty photos. Please see the blogroll for other participating blogs. 

Next up we're making Golden Brioche Loaves, picked by Chaya. If you'd like to be a part of our baking group, please email me at needfulthings at ymail dot com. We'd love to have you bake along with us!

Baking With Dorie: Quintuple Chocolate Brownies

Five kinds of chocolate in a fudgelicious brownie. 

This is the gooiest, most chocolatey treat I've made in a while. Dense and so fudgy you need to chase these brownies down with a glass of cold milk. But I'll be honest. I don't like the white chocolate frosting and wish I had paid attention to my instincts and left it out. Maybe it's the quality of the white chocolate I used. Or maybe it's the fact that we're not a white-chocolate-loving family. 

But don't let me dissuade you. These brownies are good. Very, very good. Chewy & packed with chocolate flavor. I don't think I need to say a lot more to convince you what a great idea it is to bake these. 

For the recipe, please head over to Shahieda's blog Decadent Delectables, or to page 99 of Baking from my home to yours by Dorie Greenspan. Please visit the blogroll here to check out everyone else's posts. 

Next up, we're baking Rhubarb Cherry Cobbler, picked by Ryan. If you'd like to join our baking challenges, please drop me an email at needfulthings at ymail dot com. We'd love to have you bake along with us! 

Baking With Dorie: Links to BWD bakers this week (Big Bill's Carrot Cake)

My entire kitchen had to be packed up earlier than anticipated as our renovation comes to an end & so I have not been able to bake this cake despite every intention to make it ahead of time.

A few others are skipping the challenge so please head over here to check out the blogroll & the links to bakers this week. For the recipe, please head over to Rebecca's blog Beurrista or page 254 of Baking from my home to yours by Dorie Greenspan.

Baking With Dorie: Cinnamon Squares

While I love both cinnamon & chocolate and don't mind combining them together in a dessert, this recipe disappointed me a little (Sorry, Dorie!).

I made the Cappuccino version suggested in the book but even with addition of extra espresso, the cinnamon flavor was too over-powering for my family & even myself. I liked the chocolate & crunchy-sugar-cinnamon-y swirl in the middle of the cake as well as the chocolate frosting & the cake was very moist. But overall, this was not my favorite bake from BFMHTY. Which makes me very glad that I cut the recipe in half and baked mini-cakes. Maybe I wold have liked it better had I made the original version so that is something I would like to try out at some point in the future. 

I was aiming to get mini heart-shaped cakes (despite the fact that I'm a Valentine Grinch), but I over-filled my molds and ended up with some mushroom-topped cakes that looked nothing like hearts. Oh well, better luck next time. 

Please check out Chaya's blog Bizzy B. Bakes for the recipe (or pages 210-11 of Baking from my hoome to yours by Dorie Greenspan) and the blogroll here to see everyone else's versions. So far they've all enjoyed this cake better than I have. Next up we're baking Brownie Buttons. If you'd like to be a part of our baking challenge, please email  me at needfulthings at ymail dot com. We'd love to have  you bake along with us!

Baking With Dorie: Coffee Break Muffins

It was my turn to pick the recipe this week & I apologize for not posting mine on time: I had un-announced internet outage for the entire day yesterday and it set me behind on everything. 

I baked these muffins two weeks ago and was surprised at the mild coffee flavor despite the whole cup of coffee that goes into the batter. They are moist & lovely on their own and especially so with a cup of coffee. But when I made them again yesterday, I felt they needed something extra so I threw on a mixture of chopped dark and white chocolate. The dark chocolate brought out the taste of coffee and the white chocolate added that extra bite and hint of flavor I was looking for. These muffins are so unassuming, so quick to put together and so good.

You can find the recipe on Page 15 of Baking from my home to yours by Dorie Greenspan. Please see the BWD Blogroll here to check out other BWD bakers. Next up we're making Cinnamon Squares, chosen by Chaya. If you'd like to join our baking challenge, please drop me an email at needfulthings at ymail dot com. We'd love to have you bake along with us. 

Coffee Break Muffins

from Baking from my home to yours by Dorie Greenspan

2 cups all purpose flour

1/3 cup sugar

1 tablespoon instant espresso powder

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 tsp salt

1/3 cup packed light brown sugar

1 cup strong coffee, cooled

1 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 large egg

1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Center a rack in the oven and preheat to 400F. 

Butter or spray 12 molds in a muffin pan or fit them with paper muffin cups. 

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, espresso, baking powder and salt. Stir in the brown sugar and make sure there are no lumps. 

In a large glass measuring cup, whisk the coffee, butter, egg and vanilla till combined. Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and with a whisk or rubber spatula gently but quickly stir to blend. Divide the batter evenly among muffin cups. 

Bake 20 minutes or until a knife inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack to cool for 5 minutes before carefully removing each muffin from its' mold.

Baking With Dorie: Sablés

I love Sablés - especially chocolate ones. But since we're baking World Peace Cookies  next & they're almost Sablés-like (and may I mention they are the best cookies, ever!), I decided not to tinker with this recipe too much and wait to get my chocolate fix next time.

So I went ahead with the spice version suggested by Dorie Greenspan & while I was fumbling around in my kitchen cabinets looking for coarse sugar, I came across a packet of peppermint candy & thought what fun it would be to roll these cookies in crushed candy . . forgetting the fact that the candy would melt in the oven . . . and so 20 minutes later I was scraping all of this from the bottom of the cookies . . 

Just remind me to stick to the recipe next time! 

That said, the cookie dough was slightly tricky. I haven't made this kind of cookie in a while & Dorie's instructions said to not over-mix the dough. So I was over-cautious but then I was using a hand-held mixer so I had to beat just slightly longer than I was supposed to, and my resulting cookie-dough was just a little smoother than it was probably meant to be. 

I divided the dough and used just one half to make cookies this morning. They're really good: buttery (though not very crumbly because I figure I overmixed the dough), sandy, and taste somewhat like a snickerdoodle. But since I'm not very fond of snickerdoodles, I have a feeling I would have loved the lemon version more and intend to try it out some time between now and the next BWD challenge. 

Please do check out the other BWD bakers here. For the recipe, head over to Laurie's blog Cookin' up North, or page 131 of Baking from my home to yours by Dorie Greenspan. 

Next up, we're baking World Peace Cookies, picked by Rebecca. If you'd like to join our baking challenge, please email me at needfulthings at ymail dot com. We'd love to have you bake along with us!

Baking With Dorie: Brown Sugar-Apple Cheesecake

Cheesecake had never been my forte until I discovered Dorie Greenspan. And so I felt pretty confident about tackling this recipe when Jen picked it for this week. Besides, what was not to love about the thought of apples, cinnamon and brown sugar in a cheesecake?

The only thing was - I didn't want to make a big cheesecake, but then I also didn't want to do the math & divide this recipe in half. What's a lazy girl to do? 

I didn't divide the recipe in half but baked 6 mini-cheesecakes in my muffin tin as a trial version & saved the rest of the filling to use later tomorrow. I expected an epic fail once I realized that I was out of sour cream & had to substitute with yogurt. I was sure something would happen to compromise the texture of the cheesecakes & sat around with fingers crossed the entire time they were baking.

I need not have worried because the texture turned out to be everything it promises to be: creamy without being too dense, and  the surprise layer of caramelized apples is deliciously pleasing.

This may not have been one of my prettiest BWD bakes, but whatever it lacked in visual appeal is made up for by its' apple-infused dreamy-creaminess. 

Thanks to Jen for picking this recipe this week! Please head over to Jen's blog for the recipe, or to pages 238-9 of Baking: from my home to yours by Dorie Greenspan. Do head over to the blog roll & check out how the other BWD bakers' did this week. 

Next up, we're baking Sables (picked by Laurie). If you'd like to join our baking challenges, please drop me a line at needfulthings at ymail dot com. We'd love to have you bake along with us! 

Baking With Dorie: Kids' Thumbprints

My daughter and I are the real peanut butter lovers in our house. So my reason behind choosing this recipe was just so I could have some fun making these with her. Halfway into rolling the cookie dough into balls, I realized this had been a bad idea because my daughter insisted she was handling play-doh and soon everything was going to end up all over the kitchen floor. So I took over the dough and allowed her to poke holes into the center of each cookie, using a wooden spoon.  I had to make them  a little larger than teaspoon-sized because my daughter kept smashing them while trying to poke the hole! The end result was a little messy looking cookie, but we did have a lot of fun baking them together. 

These buttery, shortbread-like cookies were a big hit with my toddler, her favorite part being the strawberry jam center.  

Kids' Thumbprints

from Baking: From y home to yours ,by Dorie Greenspan, Page 163.

1.5 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup peanut butter - crunchy (Dorie's choice) or smooth

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 large egg, separated

1 2/3 cups all purpose flour

1 large egg white

1 1/2 cups roasted peanuts (salted or unsalted), finely chopped

about 3/4 cup jam or jelly (cherry, raspberry, strawberry and  blueberry are particularly good)

Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats. 

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter, peanut butter and sugars together on medium speed until very light and fluffy, 3-4 minutes. Add the vanilla and egg yolk and continue to beat until well blended. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour, mixing only until incorporated. 

Put the 2 egg whites in a small bowl and beat them with a fork until slightly frothy. Put the chopped nuts in another bowl. 

Working with a teaspoon of dough at a time, roll the dough between your palms to form balls, turn them in the egg whites till completely coated and then drop them into the nuts and roll to coat. Place the cookies 2 inches apart on baking sheets. Steadying each cookie with the thumb and finger of one hand, use the pinkie of your other hand (or the end of a wooden spoon) to poke a hole in the center of each cookie. Be careful not to go all the way down to the baking sheet. 

Bake for 15 - 18 minutes, rotating sheets from top to bottom and front to back at the midway mark. The cookies will be lightly golder. Using a wide metal spatula, transfer them to a rack. 

Repeat with the remaining dough, cooling the baking sheets before baking a new batch. 

Put the jam or jelly in a small saucepan and bring it to a boil, stirring, over low heat. Using a small spoon, fill each thumbprint with hot jam. Allow the cookies - and especially the jam - to cool to room temperature, at which point the jam will form a shiny , nonsticky finish. 

Thank you to all the BWD bakers for baking along with me this week. Please check out the blogroll here to see everyone elses's thumbprint cookies, and please note that the gluten-free version of these cookies will be up on Elizabeths' blog Gluten-Free Baking 101 tomorrow (Tuesday). We are baking Pumpkin Muffins next, picked by Elizabeth. If you'd like to join our baking challenge, please email me at  needfulthings at ymail dot com. We'd love to have you bake along with us! 

Baking With Dorie: Chocolate Chunkers

Dorie says these cookies are fabulous - and so who am I to argue?

Between you and me, I can't stop snacking on them since I made them yesterday. They're insanely good. Almost like a fabulously fudgey-brownie masquerading as a cookie. With a whopping 19 oz of different kinds of chocolate going into the batter, these are a chocolate-lovers dream come true. 

Want to see what I mean by fudgy? Take a look: 

And there's not just chocolate - there are nuts and dried fruit going in there too. I mistakenly added 1.5 cups of whole peanuts instead of chopped ones, so there were a lot of nuts in my cookies, but I really enjoyed the added toasty-crunch and the saltiness from the peanuts. The only thing I would change next time is that I would use dried cherries instead of raisins because they would add more color and contrast in flavor. 

This was Laurie's first pick - thank you Laurie for picking this recipe! Please head over to Laurie's blog Cookin' Up North for the recipe. You can otherwise find the recipe on pages 70-72 of Baking: From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan. 

Dorie suggests churning crushed bits of these cookies into home-made ice cream. So I made a pint of Dorie's wonderful & creamy Vanilla Ice Cream (Page 428 of BFMHTY) and added in broken bits of these chocolate chunkers for a twist on my husbands' favorite Cookies n' Cream ice cream. I'm saving it for him till he gets back over the weekend, so I have no idea how good it tastes. But by the looks of it, it's a winner.

Please check out the blogroll here to see what all the other wonderful BWD bakers did with this weeks' recipe. 

Next up, we're baking Banana Cream Pie (Pages 342-3, BFMHTY), chosen by Rebecca of Beurrista. If you'd like to join the challenge, please email me at needfulthings at ymail dot com. We'd love to have you bake along with us.

Baking With Dorie: Milk Chocolate Mini-Bundt Cakes

First of all, I am so sorry for the belated post. My blogger account acted up last night and wouldn't let me publish on time.

That said, weeks' recipe was chosen by Jennifer, The Rookie Baker, and I enjoyed it more than I had expected to. I went the cupcake route (since I don't own a mini-bundt pan) and also skipped the swirl altogether. Un-frosted, these turned out to be a perfect treat. 

The chocolate flavor in these cakes is not as overwhelming as I had hoped for it to be, but they are wonderfully moist and have just the right balance of sweetness making the glaze almost unnecessary. I have to stress on 'almost' because I am sure that if I had gotten the glaze right, these cupcakes would have been even more wonderful. 

I tried, honestly I did. But all I got was an un-spreadable blob. Let's call it my first BFMHTY-fail. I'm sure there is a way to get it right, but it just didn't work for me this time. See:

Looks more like a thick frosting than glaze :(

But my daughter loved it

For the recipe, please head over to pages 188-9 of Baking: From My Home To Yours, by Dorie Greenspan, or Jennifers' blog and take a look at the BWD blogroll to see how the BWD bakers did this week.

Next up, we're baking Chocolate Chunkers (Page 70, BFMHTY) chosen by Laurie of Cookin' Up North. If you'd like to join us, please drop me an email at needfulthings at ymail dot com. We'd love to have you bake with us!

Baking With Dorie: Brown Sugar Bundt Cake

Chaya saved me the effort of making myself a birthday cake tomorrow by choosing this recipe for the BWD challenge this week. It's just what I wanted: simple, non-fussy and, judging by the deliciously caramel-sweet aroma of brown sugar and apples infusing my house, deeply comforting and flavorful. 

I'm afraid I can't say much about the flavors because I haven't sliced into it as yet - I'm doing what Dorie suggests and keeping it on the kitchen counter, tightly-wrapped. Till tomorrow. So that I can have myself a birthday cake. And I'm so sure it's a winner, like every recipe of Dories' that I've baked so far. 

You can find the recipe on Chaya's blog or on Page 179 of Baking: From My Home To Yours, by Dorie Greenspan. Be sure to check out the other BWD bakers here and here. This week we were joined by two new bakers - welcome Laurie & Rebecca! 

Our next challenge, coming up on August 30th, is Milk Chocolate Mini-Bundt Cakes on pages 188-9 of Baking: From My Home To Yours and has been chosen by Jennifer. If you'd like to join us, please drop me an email at needfulthings at ymail dot com. We'd love to have  you bake along with us!

Baking With Dorie: Mango Crumb Cake

I'm back. The hiatus is over. And I've discovered yet another delicious way to incorporate mangoes into a BWD challenge. This week Tina of My Domestic Bliss chose the Blueberry Crumb Cake and I had no choice but to play around with the recipe.

I have to admit that I didn't plan this one. It happened quite simply because I'm back home after days, had no time for grocery shopping and mangoes and pecans were what I had on hand. I love mangoes. I love streusel toppings. And I love pecans. It couldn't go wrong.

And I was right. This cake is light and super-moist; the buttery, sugary, streusel adds a nice crunch. The flavors from the mango in the cake and the cinnamon in the crust came together to form a complex flavor instead of overpowering each other. For me - the streusel is the super star in this recipe. There is nothing I didn't love about this bake!

Thank you for choosing this recipe, Tina! You can find the recipe on Tina's blog, My Domestic Bliss, or on Pages 192-3 of Baking: From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan.

Please check out the blogroll here to check out the other BWD bakers. Our next challenge will be posted on August 16, and it is the Brown Sugar Bundt Cake, chosen by Chaya of Chaya's Comfy Cook Blog. If you'd like to join us, please drop me an email at needfulthings at ymail dot com. We'd love to have you bake along with us!

Baking With Dorie: Creamiest Lime Cream Meringue Pie

I'm speechless. Really. 'Sublime' doesn't quite cut it. 

This cheek-puckering, silky lime cream with its' hint of ginger surpasses the velvety deliciousness of the lemon cream we made for the Extraordinary French Lemon Cream Tart.

One of my favorite things about baking is the element of surprise - nothing really matches the fun of trying out a new recipe and then being bowled over by how much you love it. And so I have to admit that the lime cream was a delicious surprise. Combined with Dorie's sweet & flaky pie crust and the cloudy meringue, that does nothing to fight the zingy flavors at play, this pie is awesome. Awe-some. I played around with Dorie's suggestions (but you already knew I would) and added a layer of ginger and lime-infused mango cubes underneath the lime cream, but the flavor from the mango was barely discernible. I didn't mind. Didn't I already explain how the lime cream makes this a sublime pie?

A *huge* thanks to Elizabeth of Gluten-Free Baking 101 for picking the recipe this week. For gluten-free versions of this pie, please head over to Gluten-Free Baking 101. And please take a look at the BWD blogroll to check out everyone else's scrumptious pies. 

Our challenge for 2nd August is the Blueberry Crumb Cake and has been picked by Tina of My Domestic Bliss. If  you'd like to join us, please email me at needfulthings at ymail dot com. We'd love to have you bake along with us!

You can find the recipe for the Creamiest Lime Cream Meringue Pie on pages 337-339 of Baking: From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan, or right here after the jump: 

Baking With Dorie: Caramel-Peanut-Topped Brownie Cake

It is impossible to look through Baking: From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan and not stop to drool over the photos of this cake. A brownie base with salted peanuts and sticky, gooey, dripping caramel . . . it had my name all over it & so I was very happy to be able to pick the recipe for this weeks' Baking With Dorie challenge. 

It takes hardly any time to make the cake and it came out looking perfect, but it was cakier than the  super-moist, fudgy brownie I had been envisioning all along. It caved in while cooling, but Dorie already tells us to expect that it will. So, no surprises or panic attacks there.

Next up was the tricky part: making the Caramel. Needless to say, I've never made it from scratch before. Since I made this cake in a frightful hurry, at the eleventh hour, I completely forgot that I could have referred to David Lebovitz's post on how to make Caramel. And Elizabeth of Gluten-Free Baking 101 has added a wonderful step-by-step tutorial within her post this week - just in case you want to get some great visual tips on how to get it right.

Otherwise, Dorie's directions are very clear and guide you right through the process. The only thing was, my caramel took longer to cook than the 10 minutes she said it would. But that has mostly to do with the size of saucepan I used and how much heat I gave it. I really didn't want to burn the caramel since I had very little time to start from scratch all over again, so I watched it like a hawk for maybe 20 minutes. Meanwhile, I had fun doing the 'white plate test' every couple of minutes:

The fun part came next - mixing in the nuts and then pouring everything over the cake. Dorie recommends waiting till the caramel is completely cool before releasing the sides of the springform pan. But I just couldn't wait, because: 

a) I'm highly impatient

b) my kids were hovering around me like flies, wanting to poke their fingers into the cake that they just couldn't wait to eat (now I wonder where they get that from?)

c) I'm highly impatient. 

And this is what happens to impatient people who not only remove their cake from the pan but also slice it right away: 

Yup. Caramel Explosion. Never mind that it looks mouthwatering. 

Next time I'm going to have to listen to the wiser, saner Dorie and let things be. The wisdom in that would have been that the caramel would have set up a little, and some of it would have soaked through and made the cake very moist - almost fudgy. The next morning, this tasted somewhat like a chocolate-peanut version of a sticky-toffee pudding. Do I really need to say it was scrumptious!

One tip: Dorie suggests we don't dump the entire quantity of caramel over the cake and that we should be left with a lot more than we actually need. As usual she's spot on, so, don't be tempted. Less is definitely more as it will make your cake exceedingly sweet.

To check out what the other bakers did with this weeks' recipe, please check the blogroll here and here. Our next challenge, coming up on July 19, is the Creamiest Lime Cream Meringue Pie, chosen by Elizabeth of Gluten-Free Baking 101. If you'd like to join the challenge, please drop me an email. We'd love to have you bake along with us!

You can find the recipe for this cake on pages 264-5 of Baking: From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan. Or you can find it right here after the jump:

Baking With Dorie: Summer Fruit Galette

Ever since Elizabeth picked the recipe for this weeks' challenge, I've been constantly dreaming about this galette. I felt it was another very versatile recipe that could be varied in many ways. I dreamed up, in elaborate length, what I would do with it & was meant to bake the galette before I left for our short holiday. But with so many things to do before we left, the galette took a back seat and I had to bake it in a hurry this morning. 

I had already decided, before I left, that I would make it with pineapples. The other recommended fruits are in season (apricots, plums, peaches), but I found the freshly cut rings of pineapples so appealing when I was out grocery shopping one day that I decided right then I'd have to use them in the galette. 

For the jam, I used a thin layer of homemade mandarin marmalade and topped it with a generous amount of crushed Speculoos (my current addiction) & spooned over just a little custard before baking it for the second time.  For those who don't know what Speculoos are: they are traditional Belgian bisuits that are crisp, caramelized and slightly spicy. After eating my way through many, many Speculoos-flavored gelatos and ice creams, I have still not had enough and I felt the slight gingery-spiciness would go really well with the pineapple.

And now I wish I had some ice cream to go along with this galette that is so delicious, warm from the oven. So delicious, in fact, that you'll wish you had made enough dough for a 9" double crust. It made me wish, also, that I had enough time to make the ice cream I had originally planned to go along with it. A summer gallette does seem kind of lonely without ice cream. 

Thanks for choosing this recipe Elizabeth! For a gluten-free version of this dessert, please go over to Elizabeths' blog Gluten-Free Baking 101. 

Check out what the other BWD bakers have done with this weeks' challenge by checking out the blogroll here or here. For the recipe, please go over to Tina's blog My Domestic Bliss, or pages 366-7 of Baking: From my home to yours by Dorie Greenspan.

If youd' like to join us for our next BWD challenge on July 5 (Caramel-Peanut-Topped Brownie Cake, pages 264-5), please drop me an email. We'd love to have you bake along with us. 

Baking With Dorie: Lemon Cup Custard

If you've read my previous blog posts about BWD challenges, you'll know that I try to play around with these recipes - taking my cues from the alternative suggestions in the book. So, even though I chose the recipe for this weeks' challenge, I already knew I'd end up making anything but the Lemon Cup custard. 

And how glad I am that I tried other variations. In fact, I tried two: the espresso-cinnamon cup custard and the orange-star anise version. I'll eat anything with cinnamon in it (I even eat fruit with a generous sprinkle of cinnamon), so I knew I was going to love the espresso custard. And I did. 

The most enjoyable part of this challenge was baking these custards. I used espresso cups to bake my espresso-cinnamon custard and halved the recipe because I wanted to try more versions. The custard came out slightly jiggly after 20 minutes and I felt I might have under-baked it just a little.

I had plenty of custard left over but own only 3 espresso cups (don't ask me why). Since I was obsessed with the idea of making it in small cups, I baked the remaining amount in my daughters' tea cups (from Ikea). I loved how cute they looked:

This time I baked for 20 minutes again and it seemed just right. I cooled the custards overnight and dusted with cocoa powder right before taking these photos. I know it looks like specks of chocolate here but it's actually cocoa powder that just turned strangely solid, speck-like as soon as it came in contact with the very cold custard. 

Regardless of how strange it looked, the espresso custard was lovely - the texture was that of a classic baked custard but there was no eggy taste because of the strong flavors from the espresso and cinnamon (I think I may have used a lot of cinnamon - but I did say I love cinnamon, didn't I?)

Since I'd made the Espresso Custard a week back, I still had plenty of time to do another version but it was hard to decide which one. I almost discarded the idea, but then Tina sparked my curiosity by talking about the 'egginess' of the custard and how bakers from TWD had been generally unhappy with this custard because of the eggy factor and the lack of strong lemon flavor. 

I knew then that I had to do another version and find out for myself. I'd been partial towards the idea of Orange and Star Anise quite simply because I've never had a dessert flavored with star anise. Where I come from, star anise is used primarily in meat dishes, and then also, sparingly. The closest I've come to having it in something non-savory is green tea. So I was skeptical but too curious not to try it out. 

Again, I halved the recipe and used the zest of 2 oranges instead of 1. I had a star anise with just 3 points so I threw the whole bud into the milk instead of removing 3 points from it. After the milk came to a boil, I removed it from the heat and then let everything infuse for about 45 minutes (or a little more) instead of 30.

This time, I baked the custard in a bowl instead of ramekins so I wasn't sure about the baking time and may have over-baked it just a little because the center jiggled only slightly. The custard smelled slightly eggy & I couldn't be sure the orange flavor had really come through because once again, I refrigerated the custard overnight before finally tasting it the next morning. 

Let's just say it was simply wonderful! It took a few minutes for my taste-buds to adjust to the idea of star anise in a dessert, and then there was no looking back! It was slightly over-baked, but still very flan-like in texture with a wonderful burst of citrus flavor and the surprising warm undertone from the star anise. This recipe was, for me, a winner in every way and I may never go back to making custard with short-cut instant mixes when it is so simple to make it from scratch, and that too, with so many variations.

Do check out the BWD blogroll here and here to see the other versions of this dessert by my fellow BWD bakers. If you'd like to join us for our next BWD challenge on June 21 (Summer Fruit Galette, chosen by Elizabeth of Gluten-Free Baking 101), drop me an email - we'd love to have you bake along with us.

You can get the recipe right here, after the jump: