To each their own.

Caroline and Claire of Bake With Us chose this week's Tuesday's With Dorie selection of Chocolate Oatmeal Drops. This was one of those no-appliance-necessary recipes that we can all appreciate, and minimal bowl usage used too! It brought me back to those early baking days when the only recipes I would attempt required a bowl and a wooden spoon or whisk, sometimes they were from a box, and they more often than not turned out well! Techniques have gotten a little more complicated since then, and bowls, spatulas, measuring cups, sieves, cutting boards, and serrated knives really add to the dish load, so every once in awhile it's a breath of fresh air to throw everything in a bowl and stir.

This recipe was so simple and straightforward, and Dorie's warning that the butter would separate from the other melted ingredients when the mixture got too hot was absolutely necessary. I simply took the bowl off the heat for a little bit, continued stirring, and the parts became one once more.

The final batter was quite soft after just being mixed, but when scooping each subsequent batch, the batter got firmer and firmer. I feel like the firmer batter made for a cookie that held its shape better in the oven even if the actual composition of the cookie was no different from the softer batter. My drops didn't spread in the oven like those of other bakers in the P&Q link, and though delicate, the individual cookies were actually pretty easy to transfer to a rack straight out of the oven. I can only assume this was due to having the batter sit out longer before baking.

The finished product was not as thrilling as I had hoped. Normally, I love the addition of rolled oats to cookies, but the oats just seemed to make for an undesirable texture this time. Too much chewing for a crumbly, brownie-type cookie. I enjoyed the deep chocolate flavor and hint of cinnamon though. The cookies do taste better with age. It's been two days and I think it's a tastier cookie than when I first took it out of the oven (which is often the case with chocolate desserts, don't you think??) Other people are loving this cookie, so I'm not quite sure why it doesn't have the same allure for me, but to each their own. I'll go hang out with Dorie's rugelach!

A breakthrough.

Bundt cakes were among the very first things I attempted when I was still testing the waters with baking. My cousin, seven years my senior, had joined a sorority when she started at UCLA -- one that had reputation for always offering good food at their events and, appropriately enough, had their own sorority cookbook, economically bound with those black plastic spirals. This was their arsenal, the recipes that would make beer-guzzling men weak in the knees. Some time into her first year, my sister tried the leftovers of one of the Kahlua cakes from an event and could not stop gushing about how much she loved that cake. Turns out, at its heart was a box of yellow cake mix, but with a few bells and whistles (i.e. the addition of vanilla pudding mix, a generous cup of Kahlua, etc.), it became a pretty special and crowd-pleasing bundt cake (as can be expected with a sufficiently boozy pastries). You'd get a kick just from sniffing the finished product. This recipe made the rounds to my own events countless times while I was in high school, and eventually, we outgrew that cake and started making cakes without boxed mixes!

No one really turns down a bundt cake, but this style of cake just doesn't excite me like it used to. They're almost always universally appealing, which isn't at all a bad thing to be, but it has been starting to feel like if I've made one bundt cake, then I've made them all. It was with this attitude that I baked this week's Tuesdays With Dorie choice of Nutty, Chocolaty, Swirly Sour Cream Bundt Cake by Jennifer of Cooking for Comfort, and expected to have a perfectly decent bite for dessert. I was completely, and pleasantly, surprised.

Rugelach are among my favorite baked goods in the world (and one of my favorite Dorie recipes) and this cake, predictably buttery like a pound cake, also has a tang from sour cream, creating this base with a taste that is completely reminiscent to rugelach dough. I left out the orange zest and raisins because I knew the other people helping me eat the cake would object, but the cinnamon, chocolate, and walnut ribbon throughout the batter re-created all the flavors I love about rugelach. (The addition of orange zest and raisins would still conjure up the same sentiment, I'm sure.) Warmed up in the toaster oven, the crust of the cake becomes a crisp, wafer like shell, and irresistible. Sour cream bundt cakes may not ever be en vogue again, and they rarely disappoint, but, everyone, I have found my new favorite bundt cake/coffee cake, and I know it as Rugelach Cake.

Swoon.

An honest muffin.

Growing up in a household of four children, shopping trips to Costco were a given and an occasion to which my siblings and I always anticipated with excitement. My dad wouldn't always let us tag along, for fear we'd load the cart up with cookies, candy, and pastries galore, I'm sure, but the opportunities arose every once in awhile, and usually with only one kid at a time. We stocked up on such quality products as Kirkland Signature toilet paper, Nature's Valley granola bars, pallets of Yoplait yogurt, gallons of Minute Maid orange juice, and, of course, mens' briefs. Sometimes a tray of croissants would show up on the kitchen table when we came home from school (Costco croissants -- my, how far we've come...), but other times, it would be an assortment of mini-muffins. You know the ones -- chocolate chip, double chocolate, bran, blueberry, and my favorite, lemon poppy seed, packaged in fives with clear cellophane. They were perfect for throwing in our sack lunches, and we did. I can only hope I didn't devour them all myself, or in one sitting, though I wouldn't put it past my fifth grade self (kids must burn a lot of calories in P.E., right??)

I can't recall having been as big a fan of lemon poppy seed than when they came five to a pack. Given today's normal varieties of muffins, I feel a magnetic pull towards sour cream coffee cake muffins or the spiced options and lemon poppy seed is often shafted. This week, however, our Tuesdays With Dorie assignment was for my beloved mini variety, only in full size form and with the optional additional of jam that I took full advantage of, as chosen by Betsy of A Cup Of Sweetness.

Despite my early fondness for the lightly scented lemon muffin with poppy seeds suspended throughout, this was my first attempt at baking them. The two-bowl wonder of a recipe really could not be any more simple. I threw the dry ingredients together, then the wet, combined, and off into the oven they went in less than ten minutes. Half of them got the star treatment with a belly of raspberry jam, but that additional dimension wasn't all that necessary. It's an honest muffin. Straight-forward. Despite the raspberry jam and lemon glaze, you know that at its heart, it's just a lemony muffin with the perfect proportion of poppy seeds. And I love Bonne Maman raspberry jam, but I don't need to search for it in every bite -- the cake is just so good alone. With or without the bells and whistles, if I were to wake up to it every morning, life couldn't possibly be so bad.

Dreary skies and coffee cake.

I love a good coffee cake. It's such a simple baked good, but when confronted with a slice, I know few people that would refuse it -- especially with a cup of coffee.
It doesn't matter whats mixed into the batter. Exotic fruits, fragrant spices, a chocolate swirl -- as long as it has some buttery streusel on top, I'm all over it.

This week's Tuesday's With Dorie choice of Cardamom Crumb Cake by Jill of Jill's Blog was one that I especially couldn't pass up. It wasn't until the last few years that I really tasted what cardamom was like, and I've loved it ever since. Nearly anytime a recipe calls for cinnamon, I always try to add a tiny bit of cardamom and freshly grated nutmeg. It's such a distinct taste, and relatively accessible in my opinion, but it appears on menus and in baked goods so rarely!

I didn't have orange on hand so I ended up using lemon, but I think it was still appropriate. Despite the butter content of this cake, the citrus made it so light. And combined with the sugary streusel, I didn't quite want to have just one piece.

So I didn't.

Quite the pair.

Here we are in Los Angeles, enjoying warm weather and blue skies with a little over a week until Thanksgiving. I was in New York just a couple weeks ago enjoying the biting breezes and investing in a earmuff-headband thing from Uniqlo because, well, it was necessary (and adorable), and it was beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. I was lucky enough to have missed the 90+ degree heat wave, but aside from some decorations up at the Grove, one would have no idea that the holidays are just around the corner.

I purposely drive on Third Street through Hancock Park sometimes just to admire the turning leaves on trees lining the street of homes reminiscent of what I'd see in a romantic comedy set during the holidays. Sixth Street is an even better drive -- those colorful leaves even blow up and trail behind cars as you make the turns on the windy stretch. when I lived on the west side, my journey to work always included a segment on Barrington before it turned into McLaughlin, and it always felt like a suburban East Coast fall in those few moments.

Thankfully, I also have desserts to bring about the warmth and fuzziness of the season, so this week's pick by the sisters (and sister-in-law) Celestial Confections was especially welcome. I've never actually baked anything with cranberry before, and only made cranberry sauce from the fresh berries for the first time last year, but there really is no better time than now to test out a recipe.

A galette is a crostata is a free-form pie, so it comes with Dorie's buttery, flaky, amazingly delicious dough that I rave about time and time again. Just that would be enough (my co-worker could probably make a dinner with the crust cookies I make with the scraps), but the cranberry-ginger-lime filling has a brightness that makes you forget the gloom and doom of the season and rings in the holidays, too. The cranberry could have been a fine filling to the galette by itself (albeit one-dimensional), but the addition of the ginger and lime zest/juice provided a kick that suddenly made the pastry more interesting. My one minor grip with the final product is that it expanded much more than I expected -- though I didn't keep it out of the fridge long before I sent it to the oven, perhaps a post-assembly chill or freeze would be good to maintain the cute, compact shape of the galette after it having been baked.

The galette was undoubtedly a rustic looking thing, but it was met with rave reviews all around. Cranberry and lime have been known to be good friends with vodka, but with a hint of ginger in a rich crust, I think I'll stick with bourbon and devour this instead.

An old friend.

There wasn't any question that I would be making this week's pick for Tuesday's With Dorie by by Emily of Sandmuffin. Dorie's All-American, All-Delicious Apple Pie is just that -- delicious. This wouldn't be my first time making it (it made an appearance at Thanksgiving a couple years back, and another time just because), but an excuse to fill my kitchen with the aroma of fall and loved ones' stomachs with toothsome apples and flaky pie crust was very much welcome. Yes, I was an "old hand" at this one, and then I realized I may have blogged about this recipe before, too, back when I was a more diligently keeping this up.

And here it was. Nearly two years ago I had experienced the revelation that apple pie can, indeed, be fantastic, and today, I'm still maintaining that position. This time, I chose Mutsus, Granny Smith, and a few Arkansas black apples. I hadn't baked with the Arkansas black before, and because they're so small, I can't imagine making an entire pie from them (the peeling and coring would be endless!), but they are such a distinct variety from the mealy ones that color the produce section of your conventional grocery store. And they're gorgeous -- it's the apple I imagine Snow White to have been been poisoned by, unable to resist the allure of its oxblood, semi-matte finish.

I've had a couple more years of pie dough rolling under my belt now, and the crust definitely draped over the mound of raw apples in a more attractive way (though as the volume of the apples decreased as they were baked, the crust caved a bit too), but there were also some less-than-sweet apples in the mix. I think next time I'll reintroduce the tsugaru apples and omit the Granny Smith standby.

I can't wait for apple pie leftovers. If I recall correctly, the flavor was even better on the second day. I may even lay some cheddar over that slice. Dessert for breakfast? Absolutely.

Back in the saddle.

I've missed you. Heat waves and overwhelming commitments shouldn't be an excuse, but it's the truth. I admit, I did make time to bake birthday cakes and birthday treats, but I might as well be chained to those at this point -- there's no way around it. But, the weather has turned rainy and chilly, if only for this half of the week, and it's enough to be the kick in the pants I need to start baking for Tuesdays With Dorie again, and what could be more seasonal than a variation on pumpkin pie?? Things have finally settled down, and with Janell of Mortensen Family Memoirs choosing Caramel Pumpkin Pie, I have a feeling it's going to be a spectacular holiday season.

It's been awhile since I've made a pie, and was over the moon that this was my welcome-back recipe, but it's been so long that I was almost unsure when making the dough for the crust -- Was it wet enough? Too wet? What happened last time it was too dry? Everything worked out in the end with enough pinching and kneading (not the most ideal method, but it came together), and luckily holidays beget pies so I look forward to crust-making becoming second nature once again.

The crust was baked and cooled, and then came the tricky part -- making the caramel. Sugar was cooked in a skillet on the stove until it took on a mahogany color (difficult to gauge with a black-bottomed, non-stick skillet) and smoking, with heavy cream and butter then added to it. I got the mahogany color and the melted sugar was smoking ever so slightly, but it seems it had just gone over the edge and there became a hint burnt caramel flavor.

After it cooled, it was mixed into the pumpkin and spice mixture (no appliances necessary - hurrah!), poured into the pan. I realized at this point that perhaps a deep dish pie plate wasn't the way to go for this recipe. My love of crust runs deeps, so a deep dish pie with it's greater crust-to-filling ratio has my heart and it's a reflex to grab that pie plate every time. When I poured the filling into the par-baked crust, however, it only barely hit halfway up the pan. There was nothing I could do at this point, so off into the oven it went, spending about 10 minutes longer in there than projected.

I refrigerated the pie overnight, and in the morning, upon examining my sleigh bed of a pie with its large sloping headboard, I decided a whipped cream topping would be the way to go. I added some Maker's Mark to the cream as I hadn't added any rum to the filling as suggested, and covered the surface with the fluffy, white blanket, letting it reach the rim of the crust. Its secondary purpose was mellowing the burnt caramel flavor of the pumpkin, which wasn't bad at all, in my opinion, and did add a certain depth to the delicious (but sometimes one-note)taste of pumpkin. I'd be interested in making the pie again and taking the caramel off before it turns mahogany and seeing which pie I prefer.


So here begins another holiday baking season. I'm hoping it won't be completely overwhelming and leave me no time to blog, but it will surely be infinitely satisfying.