Baking With Dorie: Cherry Rhubarb Cobbler

Last month all of us in the BWD baking group mutually decided that we needed to adopt a slower pace and bake only once a month instead of every other Monday. For those of us who are trying to cut back on desserts, this is a welcome change! 

I made changes to our baking schedule but I forgot to fix a typing error I'd made when listing this months' recipe. This resulted in a little confusion since I had typed 'strawberry rhubarb crisp' and everyone else in the group either baked the strawberry rhubarb double crisp, or planned for it. So this week we have two different recipes, depending on who baked what. 

I baked the cherry cobbler, replacing rhubarb with granny smith apples since I can't find rhubarb where I live. I made it in advance & we were travelling the next day so I did the math and made just 1/4th of the recipe. This was perfect because it made only two servings. And the cobbler was wonderful - as usual I loved the note of flavor that the addition of ginger lent to this dessert. The tartness of the apples married well with & was subdued by the sweetness from the cherries and both were cooked to flawless deliciousness under the little balls of whole wheat biscuit dough. 

Please head here to find links to what all the other BWD bakers made this week. For the recipe, go over to Ryans' blog The Behr Necessities, or Page 415 of Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. 

Next up we're baking Creme Brulee. 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! 

Nutella-Cherry Sandwich

Were you beginning to think I forgot that I have a food blog? I did get a bit carried away there with the travel photos, didn't I? Sigh... I might go back there... but right now it's time to present you with a serious sugar rush in the form of this sandwich. This isn't really a recipe, but just inspiration to play around with that jar of Nutella you have sitting on your kitchen counter.

Remember that cherry frozen yogurt I made? Remember I strained the cooked cherries? Well, I didn't throw them away. Here's what I did with them: 

I spread two slices of whole-wheat bread with Nutella. Spooned the cherries over one half.

Spread the outsides lightly with margarine, sprayed a non-stick frying pan with cooking spray & grilled lightly on both sides (around 3 mins each).

Nutella has a way of making everything dreamy, doesn't it?

Cherry Frozen Yogurt

So I've been on a bit of a frozen-yogurt and sorbet kick lately.

With temperatures at 109F, can you blame me? It's hard to think about eating anything that isn't cool and refreshing. And once I got started, there was no stopping me: I now have a couple of kinds of frozen yogurts and sorbets stocked up in the freezer and am constantly dreaming up new ways to whizz fruit with simple syrup. 

This recipe is actually a spin off from the strawberry frozen yogurt that I made some time back. I had on hand a box of cherries that turned out too sour for consumption and I figured I could not really go wrong if I used David Lebovitz's recipe with cherries instead of strawberries. 

The only thing I did differently was that I cooked the cherries with the sugar prior to adding them to the yogurt and also used far more sugar than the other recipe had asked for. I may have added a little too much sugar, but you can change that when you try this out for yourself - for you must: because this frozen yogurt was, in one word, awesome. 

Cherry Frozen Yogurt

slightly adapted from David Lebovitz's Strawberry Frozen Yogurt

450g cherries, pitted

1/2 - 3/4 cup sugar (I used somewhere between 3/4 -1 cup sugar and it was just a tiny bit too sweet for my taste)

1 cup low-fat yogurt

1 tsp lemon juice 

Add the cherries and sugar together in a small pan and cook over medium heat for approx. 10 mins. There's no need to add water because the sugar helps to release the cherry juices and helps soften them. 

Once the cherries are cooked, remove from heat and cool before adding to the yogurt and lemon juice in a blender. Whizz everything together until well-combined. There will be lots of un-blended cherry bits that you can either leave in (if you like the texture) or strain the yogurt mixture if  you'd prefer a smoother frozen yogurt. 

Cover and cool the yogurt mixture in the refrigerator for 1 hour and then freeze according to the manufacturers' instructions on your ice cream maker. 

If like me, you don't have an ice cream maker , cover and freeze for 1 hour. Remove from freezer and either use a fork to break up the frozen edges and mix everything up. Or whisk again (I used a hand blender this time to blend everything up and felt I had a creamier texture this way). 

Repeat this process 2 more times and then finally freeze for 4-5 hours before digging right in. 

Baking With Dorie: Hidden Berry Cream Cheese Torte

Dorie Greenspan: where were you my entire life? 

My husband and I love a good cheesecake & so I've attempted to make it a couple of times in past years and always found it to be one of those elusive things that I just can't quite get right. Either I would burn the crust, under-bake the filling or the filling would split in the middle - making a very messy looking cake. In fact, I've never been able to make a cheesecake with a filling that didn't crack. And I've always found the recipes I've tried to be too sweet, too heavy.

When Elizabeth of Gluten Free Baking 101 chose this recipe for this weeks' Baking With Dorie challenge, I was prepared for cheesecake-fail. But then I thought: so far Dorie hasn't let me down & so maybe this time I would finally succeed in making a good & smooth-looking cheesecake!

The ingredient list called for cottage cheese which isn't available locally where I live & Ricotta is prohibitively expensive, so I told my baking partners Susi and Elizabeth that I would be making my own cottage cheese. 

That is easy enough. But then I couldn't come up with cherry jam and decided to make my own jam as well. I used David Lebovitz's directions for making cherry jam using two pounds of cherries; half fresh sour cherries and half frozen, dark & sweet ones. The directions are available here. Since I wanted a very thick jam, I used only enough water to cover the cherries, added the zest of two whole lemons and followed the rest of David's directions. The jam was ready in around half an hour & I've had a very, very hard time restraining myself from eating any of it before I could use it for the baking challenge today. It is so good & I like it even better than my homemade strawberry jam. 

Susi joked that I've turned this week's challenge into a Daring Bakers challenge by making all the ingredients by scratch. It's been a bit of work in that sense & I've stretched it over a couple of days like I did with the lemon tart we made for the last challenge, but I enjoyed it so much. 

I finally got around to baking the torte this morning. Dorie's instructions are easy to follow, and I thought I got everything right. . . 

But: my cake split again :( 

I got past my disappointment, waited for the cake to cool slightly and dusted with icing sugar. 

I released the sides of the pan but didn't try to remove the base of the spring-form pan that I baked in - just in case I broke the bottom of the crust and I didn't want to deal with that kind of disaster at this point.

Then I cut myself a slice of not quite-as-yet-cold-cheesecake. Pure heaven. I can only imagine how much better it will taste when completely chilled.

I think I finally succeeded in making the perfect cheesecake: perfect crust, smooth filling (except for the cracks) that wasn't too sweet. or too heavy Simple to make. Thank you Dorie! I've gotta tell you: I really love you!

For the recipe, check out Susi's page & do go over to Elizabeth's blog and see how she made a Gluten-Free version of this torte. 

Our next challenge is Tender Shortcakes on Pages 423-424, picked by Susi. If you would like to join the challenge, please drop me an email.