Tuesdays with Dorie Number 23: Thanksgiving Twofer Pie

Well, this post is late, but due to the Thanksgiving holiday, TWD posters had an extension on the posting date. Thank goodness! The Thanksgiving Twofer pie is this week's recipe, and it was chosen by Vibi of La casserole carrée. I traveled to my parents this Thanksgiving, so my mom and I made the pie for Thanksgiving dinner (which is why this post is just a bit on the late side).

I managed to locate my missing battery charger, so the pie photos are not the blurry variety from my cell phone. Hoorray!
This pie came together nicely and we had little difficulty preparing it. However, I did learn a lesson. When the recipe tells you to weight the crust when prebaking, do not "shortcut" it and hope that pricking the pie crust all over will be an acceptable substitute. Thankfully, my mom and I were concerned about the 25 minute baking time and pulled the crust out after 10 minutes to check it. The pie crust edges had slid down to the bottom of the pie plate, and the center part of the crust had tripled in volume. It was late Wednesday night and we were not about to remake the pastry, so I pulled another heavy pie plate out and squished the crust as much as I could. The sides did come up a bit and we finished prebaking. The finished product came out much better then expected because the pecan topping covered all the sad spots of crust.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful and restful Thanksgiving!

Tuesdays with Dorie Number 22: Arborio Rice Pudding, White, Black (Or Both)

Well, this week's recipe was very interesting on many levels. I apologize for the picture, but I can't find my battery charger for my camera....so I am stuck with the cell phone pics. **sigh**

This week's recipe was Arborio Rice Pudding, White, Black (Or Both) chosen by Isabelle of Les gourmandises d’Isa. I followed the recipe, and was a little worried when by the end of the cooking time I had milky "rice soup". I put it in the fridge and hoped that it would thicken up over night, but when I checked it the next morning...there was no improvement.

I ended up cheating....I reheated the pudding and stirred in 1 Tablespoon cornstarch and 1 beaten egg. This had the effect of thickening the pudding, but after I let it chill for awhile....the texture was less then desirable. After reading the comments on the TWD page, it seems that there was a typo in the book. The pudding should have cooked for 55 minutes and not the 30 that I gave it (I actually let it cook a little past 30 minutes). I will try this pudding again sometime in the future as the flavor was good, but as noted before....the texture with cornstarch and egg...not so much. This is the first recipe out of all the recipes I have tried with TWD that did not come out. Hopefully next week's pie will go smoothly.

Tuesdays with Dorie Number 21: Kugelhopf

What a busy last couple of weeks it has been! I greatly appreciate all of you who have left comments, and I'm hoping to get back to checking blogs soon. Hopefully things will settle down a bit.

So...

This weeks recipe was Kugelhopf as chosen by Yolanda of The All-purpose Girl.
When I first saw the recipe I had my doubts. However, the recipe came together fairly easily and smelled wonderful as it baked. It wasn't as sweet as I thought it would be.

Mine didn't raise very high, and stuck to the bottom of the pan. It tasted fab though, and I've eaten far too much of it this evening!

Tuesdays with Dorie Post Number 20: Rugelach

This week's recipe was chosen by Piggy of Piggy's Cooking Journal. It is a wonderful choice, and I was very excited about. However, have been baking and cooking like crazy lately, and haven't had time to post anything or write about it. The Rugelach came together as I was busy preparing several brisket dinners, and unfortunately they look it:
I failed to realize that the chocolate chips that I used were somewhat less then "mini", so I think the next time I try this recipe I will pulverize them before adding them to the filling.

The rugelach tasted wonderful, and I will definitely try this recipe again. However, next time I will devote more attention to the cookie.