TWD: All-American, All-Delicious Apple Pie

I could say something about my absence the last several months but I'm sure I probably don't have any readers left. I'm sure you all have busy lives and don't want to hear about mine. Life happens.

While life is happening, sometimes I am baking and sometimes I am not. For the things have made and not blogged about, I am planning to post. I find the hardest part is not finding the time to bake but finding the time and words in which to blog. I am not a writer, never have been and never will be and most days I don't have any interesting stories. But, I do love baking!

I recently got the chance to meet Dorie Greenspan, the author of this amazing book we are baking through and without whom, this group wouldn't exist. She was even more wonderful in person than I imagined her to be. What struck me as the most inspirational that night was when she said that Baking: From My Home to Yours and Around My French Table are what she considers to be her autobiographies. I am going to remind myself of her dedication every time I want to be a slacker.

That said, I have actually made this pie 3 times! The first pie, seen below, I made with apples from last year. I had peeled, cored, sliced and frozen them and needed to clear them out of my freezer. I made it for the first day of school for the teachers my husband works with. They all loved it. I was not impressed. The problem was with the apples, they tasted fine but had a mushy texture that I did not enjoy. Two days later, my husband came home and said one of his fellow teachers had dreamed about my pie.

The second time, I made the pie, I forgot to take a picture. I am so disappointed because in my opinion, it came out the best. One of the most beautiful apple pies, I've ever seen. I took the pie to the cast party for my husband's show. Again, I received rave reviews. Not only did I not get a picture, I never even got a bite. They inhaled it.

The third time, pictured at the top, I made as a thank you gift. The reviews were just as amazing as the first 2 pies. She has also requested more baked goods as soon as possible.

In the end, I only got a sliver of the first pie, which I didn't like! But The reviews speak for themselves, the pie is amazing!


The only change I really made was that I used flour as the thickener instead of tapioca. I didn't have tapioca and the flour substitute turned out great.

Thank you to our hostess this week, Emily of Sandmuffin. The recipe can be found on her blog.

TWD: Sweet Cream Biscuits

I bring FABULOUS news! As of yesterday afternoon, my oven has been fixed. Since only the glass shattered, they were able to just replace the glass (and my landlords don't have to buy me a new stove). Putting the door back on proved to be quite a challenge for both our handyman and my husband who was helping. Apparently we have an older stove and the door is heavy and the hinges are old so the heavy door on the old hinges was a bad combination. But after a few adjustments, I am back in business!

Since, my oven wasn't finally repaired until yesterday afternoon and last week was so successful, I decided to go back to my trusty toaster oven this past weekend. We had a house guest on Saturday morning so I decided to whip up a batch of biscuits for our brunch. And when I say whip up, I mean it! A few dry ingredients, pour in some cream and roll out the biscuits. These were so much easier than using a pastry cutter to cut cold butter into flour.

First Batch, 1/2" thickness

I followed Dorie's instructions and roll them to 1/2" thickness. I used a square cookie cutter and got about 10 biscuits. They didn't rise as much as I wanted them to but they weren't flat hockey pucks either. While the first batch was cooking (I could only fit 4 on my toaster oven stoneware pan) I went to the P&Q for this week and found many people mentioning Alton Brown's instructions to be very helpful. I hadn't seen the episode and couldn't find it online so I read the instructions of his recipe hoping for a couple hints. He mentions placing the biscuits close together on the baking sheet. Of course, I thought this way odd. When I make cookies, I always space them out for spreading. I decided to give it a try. When the second batch of biscuits went into the toaster oven, I placed them close together, expecting them not to rise very much since these were also the biscuits I rolled out second so they were worked a little more. And to my surprise, they rose! They didn't rise a ton but again I didn't have flat hockey pucks.

Second Batch, 1" thickness

I sent the extra biscuits from brunch home with our friend. And later that night I remembered I had bought strawberries that were on sale and had wanted to have strawberry shortcakes. Since the biscuits whip so fast and I still had 1 cup left of heavy cream. I decided to make another batch.

I had also noticed in Alton Brown's instructions that he said to only roll out to 1" thickness to prevent from overworking the dough. Since we were having strawberry shortcakes I thought thicker biscuits would be better. I only got a total of 7 out of the second recipe but the rose very nicely.

I know the key to making biscuits is not the overwork the dough and I definitely saw a difference. These were delicious and easy and will most likely be my go to recipe for biscuits.

Our hostess this week was Melissa of Love At First Bite. You will find the recipe on her blog.

TWD: Parisian Apple Tartlet

I think this is by far the easiest TWD I have ever made! I'm sure it helped that the recipe called for store bought puff pastry dough (props to those who made their own puff pastry!) I don't think it gets much easier than this. I will definitely be keeping this one in my back pocket for last minute guests.

The only change I made was to add some additional brown sugar right after they came out of the oven for an added sugar crust. We served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Amazing!

Our Hostess: Jessica of My Baking Heart

TWD: Summer Fruit Galette

If you are a faithful follower of Tuesdays with Dorie then I'm sure you have already seen a ton of galettes this week. My reasons are legitimate and I do apologize for being late. It is really hard to get settled again after moving. Of course, life doesn't ever slow down enough for you to make a major move without feeling some stress. I have dealt with too much stress recently and though I wish I could say life is going to slow down it just isn't going to slow down right now.

I did manage to make this delicious treat on time. I had a lot of trouble with my crust this time. I was rushing and just didn't take the time to let it rest enough. Thankfully, this is supposed to be rustic and not pretty so all worked out in the end.

I had a rough time blanching the peaches. I think they may have been a little too ripe. But no worries, Dorie's 8 peaches is more than enough to fill the galette. I paired the peaches with some homemade red raspberry jam. It was amazing!

Thank you to Michelle of Michelle in Colorado Springs for selecting such a fabulous treat for a very stressful week!


And as promised...pictures of my new kitchen!

TWD: Peppermint Cream Puff Ring

To say that I was nervous about this week's recipe is an understatement. I was terrified! Pate a choux??? I couldn't even pronounce it. However, Caroline of A Consuming Passion chose this recipe with that very thought in mind. Trying something new.


Putting my best foot forward I started this week's recipe. I chose to make 1/4 of the recipe just in case I did manage to pull it off I didn't want dozens of cream puffs around for me to eat. I actually didn't have any trouble with the pastry. It cooked nicely. I followed other recommendations to let it cool a bit before adding the egg and that worked great. I piped out 7 little éclairs and a mini cream puff. I didn't think about the baking time before I put them in so I ended up cooking mine at 425 for 15 minutes and they were done. They did come out slightly lopsided though.


My vanilla pastry cream did not come together quite so easily. I am still not exactly sure what went wrong. I tempered the eggs, I'm pretty sure I brought it to a boil and cooked it a bit longer. It looked like a pastry cream at this point. Then, I let it cool for 5 minutes before adding the butter like Dorie says and that's when it turned into scrambled eggs. It didn't taste bad but the texture was not creamy at all. I think I must have overcooked the cream. I'm not one to be defeated so I will try this again but I ran out of time for this week.

I didn't use Dorie's chocolate glaze recipe. I was going to but tried to take a shortcut by putting it in the microwave and I burned it. I just melted some milk chocolate chips with a little milk and then dipped the éclairs in.

My husband enjoyed the éclairs and I'm glad I attempted this recipe. To see much more fabulous looking cream puffs and the original cream puff ring, please visit our TWD blogroll.