TWD - Mary Dodd’s Maple-Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies

 This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is Mary Dodd’s Maple-Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies. Mary worked with Dorie, and gave her this cookie recipe.

As the name suggests, these cookies contain chopped crispy bacon, bacon fat (from the pan you use to cook the bacon), lots of chocolate and maple syrup. As you can deduce, these cookies are quite sweet.

They are also huge cookies - I measured out the dough using a full size icecream scoop.  The cookies spread considerably in the oven so you can only bake 3 at a time on a tray.

I liked these cookies, but because they are a little OTT for me, I am unlikely to make them again.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Corn Toasties

 This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is Corn Toasties. These are cornbread made large and flat to be split and enjoyed warm with butter.

I made my batter as muffins instead, as I don’t have a Texas muffin tin. I added paprika to the mix for a hint of spice.

I really enjoyed these, both warm and cold.

To see what everyone else thought of the Corn Toasties, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Candied Almond Tart

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is Candied Almond Tart. It is a Portugese treat of a cinnamon flavoured tartshell, filled with caramel and almonds.

It is not hard to make - the pastry just presses into the tin and is not pre-baked, and as long as you remember to pour in and spread the filling quickly to avoid premature setting, it is also easy to make.

 Here is the finished product - wall to wall almonds and caramel. Yum!

To see what else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Tea and Honey Madeleines

 This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is Tea and Honey Madeleines. Browned butter is infused with earl grey tea, and mixed into the batter with honey. There was also clementine zest in the recipe to flavour the sugar - I ised mandarin zest instead.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Berry Yogurt Cake

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie (Dorie’s Anytime Cakes) recipe is Berry Yogurt Cake. How good is this cake! It’s my definition of an anytime cake.

 This cake is a classic French yoghurt cake, jazzed up with berries - in my case, blueberries and blackberries. There is also lemon zest in the batter, which riffs well with berries.

You could have iced the cake with an icing sugar glaze, but Dorie invited us to glaze it with jam or nothing at all. I like the shine from a jam glaze, so I used a little apricot jam warmed in the microwave with a splosh of water to glaze my cake.

This cake is so good - easy and quick to make (no mixer required), and super juicy and tasty. You can mix it up with different berries and fruits, or leave them out altogether, and ice it, glaze it or not - the ultimate LBD of cakes.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD  website.

TWD - Chocolate-Tipped Cream Puff Pocky Sticks

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is Chocolate-Tipped Cream Puff Pocky Sticks (quite a mouthful!).

As the name suggests, the recipe involves making cream puff (choux) pastry, and piping it into 6” strips before baking:

 Once the pocky sticks are cool, chocolate is drizzled over the end, and they are decorated with sprinkles or sugar. I made the matcha white chocolate glaze fir my pocky sticks and decorated them with pink and white hundreds and thousands.

These pocky sticks are easy to make, albeit a little fiddly. They tasted quite good too.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Olive Oil Brownies

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is Olive Oil Brownies. These brownies contain olive oil instead of butter as the key fat component. They are also flavoured with black pepper, and contain dried fruit. Instead of raisins, I used dried strawberries that I had randomly purchased with no particular use in mind.

The reviews from my fellow bakers on these brownies were mixed, but I liked them. They were not super squidgy, but they were fudgy, which suited me just fine. The dried strawberries baked up well and were a nice contrast to the chocolate.

To see what everyone else baked this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Gemma Cakes

 This week’s Tuesday with Dorie (Dorie’s Everyday Cakes) recipe is Gemma Cakes. The recipe for these little cakes was created by Dorie for her oldest granddaughter’s first birthday, hence the name.

There are chunks of strawberry in the white chocolate, vanilla and rose flavoured batter, as Gemma loves strawberries.

The cakes are decorated by dipping them in melted white chocolate mixed with a little olive oil, and topped with sugar sprinkles. I used tiny little flowers that make the collection of cakes look like a garden, and unicorn sprinkles.

Here’s a peek inside:

These cakes are just so pretty - they epitomise what I love. They also taste good, and you can mix up the choice of berries that you use, or not use them at all.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Twist Loaf

This week’s Tuesday with Dorie (Baking with Dorie) recipe is Twist Loaf. Dorie takes her Daily Bread recipe and makes it fancy, with a cocoa/spice/sugar/cranberry filling and braiding.

 

It looks really complicated to make, but it was actually quite easy with the instructions in the recipe. It turned out very impressive looking.

The loaf was most delicious served warm on day 1. It was fine afterwards toasted, but the magic is on Day 1, so make sure you share it.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Apricot and Pistachio-Olive Oil Cake

This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Apricot and Pistachio-Olive Oil Cake. This cake mixes chopped dried apricots and pistachios through a cake batter flavoured with black tea, orange zest and olive oil.

The cake is cut in half and filled with apricot jam, and topped with more apricot jam and chopped pistachios.

 This cake is delicious served with Greek yoghurt.

To see what everyone else baked this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Maybe This, Maybe That Ham and Cheese Loaf

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie (Dorie’s Anytime Cakes) recipe is Maybe This, Maybe That Ham and Cheese Loaf.

This savoury cake contains ham, three cheeses (mozarella, parmesan and in my case, Gouda), roasted capsicum, thyme and chives.

It is rather tasty. I much preferred it cold to warm.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of  it, visit the LYL section of the  TWD website.

TWD - Meringue Snackers

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is Meringue Snackers. These are big meringues - pretty self-explanatory.

I piped my meringue into nest shapes instead of making big balls, coloured them pink (which is only really visible on the inside) and flavoured them with Queen Flamingo flavouring (rose-like). 

I then filled my baked nests with white chocolate ganache (more transportable than whipped cream), and decorated them with mini chocolate eggs and wine gums. They tasted good to me!

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

No-bake Mango Cheesecake

Tonight’s dessert is a delicious no-bake mango cheesecake. We originally got this recipe from the label of a Nestle condensed milk tin, and have been making it for decades. It is a no- bake cheesecake, which is simple to make and creamy to eat.

To make this cheesecake, you will need:

1/2 of a 250g packet Arnotts Chocolate Ripple Biscuits

50g melted butter

500g cream cheese

395g can condensed milk

425g can mango slices in syrup, drained

Juice of 1 lemon

2 tablespoons gelatine

Hot water

 Line the base and sides of a 9” springform pan with baking paper. Leave the cream cheese out of the fridge to soften. 

Crush the biscuits until fine either in a food processor or using the end of a rolling pin.

Melt the butter, then pour it over the biscuit crumbs and mix well. Press the biscuit crumb mixture over the base of the springform pan and refrigerate while you make the filling. 

Cut the cream cheese into small cubes. Put the cubed cream cheese into a bowl and, using a hand mixer or stand mixer, mix the cream cheese until smooth. 

Pour the condensed milk into the cream cheese and mix until well combined. Puree the mango slices in a blender or food processor, and mix the puree through the cream cheese mixture. Mix the gelatine with just enough hot water to liquify it, then mix it and the lemon juice through the cream cheese mixture. 

Pour the cream cheese mixture over the chilled biscuit base, then return the cheesecake to the fridge to set (4 hours or overnight).

Unclip the springform tin and slice the cheesecake to serve. You can serve the cheesecake with cream or icecream, and you can decorate it with extra fruit.

TWD - Brioche Sticky Buns

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie (Baking with Dorie) recipe is Brioche Sticky Buns.

It starts with making a half recipe of Dorie’s brioche dough. It is then proofed, chilled, rolled, filled, put into a caramel sauce and baked.

And this is the end result:

It is definitely a labour of love requiring a fair amount of time, but the end result is delicious:

 To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Banana Cappuccino Cake

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie (Dorie’s Everyday Cakes) recipe is Banana Cappuccino Cake. Dorie created those cake as a riff on banana bread, combining the flavours of things that grow together -  bananas, coffee and coconut.

When I read the recipe, my initial thoughts were that these ingredients are pretty wild together. Bananas and coconut I could understand, but with coffee? 

My fears were unfounded - this is a beautiful cake. Bananas and coffee is not something I’d be drawn to normally, but it just works in this cake.

To flavour the cream cheese icing, I used coffee essence, as I only had instant coffee rather than espresso powder, and I knew it would not dissolve.

This cake is delicious - if you are not a fan of banana cakes, the other flavours in this one really balance out the banana flavour.

To see what everyone else made this week, visit the LYL section of the TWD website. 

TWD - Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies

 This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies. For me, they were not classic as they contain walnuts as well as chocolate, but you know, tomayto, tomarto.

These cookies didn’t turn out great for me. I made them at my mother’s house using spreadable butter out of a tub (which is all I had), which may have contributed to them spreading like mad in the oven and coming out as flat as pancakes. The round cookies in the photo were cut out of the joined up blobby mess on the baking trays. 

My cookies also did not crisp up - they were quite soft.

Onwards and upwards I say!

To see what everyone else made this week and whether they had better luck than me, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Clam Chowder Pie

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie (Baking with Dorie) recipe is Clam Chowder Pie. Dorie describes this dish as clam chowder soup in pie form.

The recipe contains canned clams, an ingredient that is not readily available in Australia, and oysterette crackers,  which are not a thing here at all. I subbed in frozen cooked clams from an Asian supermarket and Ritz crackers.

I only made a half recipe of pie, which was still sufficient to fill a 9” enamel pie tin.

 Unfortunately this pie was not my thing. I didn’t enjoy the strong sea taste of the clams, and I didn’t love the combination of flavours, including celery, capsicum, worcestershire sauce, tabasco sauce, Old Bay seasoning (also not an Aussie thing - I used paprika) and bacon.

It is definitely an interesting idea to create a pie based on a soup, but this one was just not for me.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Mix-It-Up Citrus Loaf Cake

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie (Dorie’s Anytime Cakes) recipe is Mix-It-Up Citrus Loaf Cake. It is do called because you can use any combination of citrus fruits that takes your fancy.

I used grapefruit and orange, as that is what I had to hand. Both juice and zest are used in this cake. The cake contains olive oil as the fat component, but you can also use a mix of oil and butter. 

The cake can be optionally glazed with marmalade, which I of course did - I love a sticky, shiny cake.

 This cake may not be a looker, but I absolutely loved it. The outside is crisp and caramelised, the inside is soft and moist and citrussy - count me in. Definitely a make again cake.

To see all the other citrus cakes made by this group, visit the LYL section of the TWD website. 

Red Velvet Roll-Out Sugar Cookies

 Recently, I decided to make red velvet roll out sugar cookies to decorate for Valentine’s Day - you know, red for hearts.

A quick online search led me to this recipe for the cookie dough.

The cookies baked up with a nice flat surface and held their shape well with no spreading.

I then decorated the cookies with ready to roll fondant, using a number of different techniques to add the finishing touches:  

These used a cookie stamp highlighted with cachous:

I cut out different colours of fondant and added details with a knife and sprinkles for the icecream cones.

I think they turned out great! And it’s so much easier than decorating with royal icing.

TWD - Trufflish Nuggets

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is Trufflish Nuggets. 

These are gluten free cookies made with a host of store cupboard ingredients, including coconut, cocoa, almonds and chocolate, bound together with egg whites before baking.

They are perfectly fine cookies; not exciting, but a good way to use up odds and sods.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - World Peace Cookies 2.0

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie (Baking with Dorie)  recipe is World Peace Cookies 2.0. I have made Dorie’s original World Peace Cookies before - see here and here and here. This version takes that original chocolate sable slice and bake cookie recipe and adds freeze dried raspberries and cayenne pepper. I didn’t add cocoa nibs as I didn’t have any.

I loved the cayenne pepper add-in - initially you don’t taste it, but it gives the cookies a little kick at the end - absolutely superb.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website. 

ANZAC Biscuits

 On the weekend, I had a yen to make a perennial favourite, ANZAC biscuits. I made this batch from my favourite recipe, sent to me by my mother out of the Australian Woman’s Day from a few years back. They are so good.

You can try the recipe yourself if you like- here it is: