Scallops with Caramel Orange Sauce

I'm not the biggest fan of french food.  I know, that's almost a travesty in the food realm.  French cheeses,  pastries and market fresh foods, oh heck yeah.  There's nothing quite like a hot baguette, a chunk of some fantastic french cheese and some freshly made tapenade from a street market vendor.  I'm convinced that is a perfectly acceptable meal any and everyday.    My experience with french cooking though usually involved some exotic meaty ingredients  and I'm far from the adventurous type when it comes to meat.   

That being said, I'm not sure what possessed me to pick up Dorie's around my french table cookbook (cookbook #85) aside from the fact that it is Dorie Greenspan, whom I adore.  One of the first recipes I flipped to was for a chicken bisteeya, which I also adore.  Those two factors overrode my initial hesitancy and this cookbook made its way home with me.  It's one of my few cookbooks that elicits a bit of buyers remorse as I see it sitting so forlorn and unused on the shelf.  If you are a lover of exotic meaty type dishes that include beef cheeks, duck or meat on the bone, then I'd think this cookbook would be awesome.

The cookbook is beautiful....truly.  It's as hefty as Dorie's baking cookbook and full of intros that make you want to hop on a flight to France.  The food photography is gorgeous of course, and ultimately that seems to be the seduction that I can't resist. When flip through this cookbook filled with hope and resolve that I will find a recipe to make, I end up closing it without having seen anything that I wanted to eat.  That is aside from the bisteeya of course, but I figured since that's really Morroccan, it was a bit of a cop out for me.  I really wanted to try something more french in the spirit of the cookbook--and then served my choice with risotto.  Go figure.  

These sea scallops were sweet and a little tart from the orange juice--the caramel, orange and wine reduction added a fantastic kick of flavor to the scallops.  I'd absolutely make this again.   

Sea Scallops with Caramel-Orange Sauce
from Around my French Table by Dorie Greenspan

Ingredients

2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup dry white wine
1-2 large oranges or enough for generous 1/3 c juice
1 lb sea scallops
1/2-1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and fresh ground white pepper
1 tablespoon cold butter, cut into 3 pieces

Directions

1. Sprinkle the sugar into a small saucepan. Place the pan over medium-high heat and warm the sugar until it starts to melt and color. As soon as you see it turn brown, begin to gently swirl the pan. 
2. When the sugar has turned a deep caramel color (about 3 minutes), stand back and add the white wine and orange juice. It may bubble and spatter, so watch out. 
3. Turn the heat up to high, stir with a wooden spoon, and boil the sauce until it is reduced by half — you should have about 1/3 cup. Pull the pan from the heat and set it aside. (You can make the sauce up to 2 days ahead and keep it covered in the refrigerator.)
4. Pat the scallops dry between two paper towels. Slice or pull off the little muscle attached to the sides of the scallops. 
5. Put a heavy-bottomed skillet over high heat. When the pan is hot, pour in 1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil and swirl to coat the bottom. 
6. Add the scallops, season them with salt and pepper, add a little more oil if needed, and cook for another 1 to 2 minutes, or until the scallops are firm on the outside and just barely opaque in the center — nick one to test. Transfer the scallops to the serving platter.
7. Check that the caramel sauce is hot. Pull the pan from the heat and toss in the butter, bit by bit, swirling the pan until the butter is melted and the sauce is glistening. Season the sauce with salt and pepper. Drizzle some of the sauce over the scallops and pass the rest at the table.

Chocolate Malted Whopper Cookies

It seems each holiday has its candy fans and debates and Easter is no different. If anything, I think people tend to be more emphatic is voicing their Easter candy opinions.  You of course have your Peep fans, your Cadbury Creme egg fans, Cadbury egg fans and your Robin's Egg fans.  The only camp I've ever belonged to is the Robins Egg fans.  Peeps?  Not so much.  Cadbury Creme eggs?  My teeth actually hurt thinking about them.  Cadbury Eggs?  We had a guy at my last job who swore by them.  He would buy an entire year's supply and fill an enormous plastic tub.  I'm not a milk chocolate fan so that leaves Robin's eggs--a little bit of chocolate and tons of crispy crunchy malty goodness.  I bought the requisite bag for the Easter season and then needed to figure out something to do with the bag since it was sitting around after the first few bites.  Enter Dorie Greenspan's recipe for chocolate malted whopper cookies. 

Despite my shelves of cookbooks upon cookbooks upon cookbooks, I always go back to this baking cookbook by Dorie.  Not only has every recipe been phenomenal, but it's so exhaustive that I always find a recipe that I want to bake.  It's just easy one stop recipe shopping when you don't really want to go through many cookbooks but know you want to find that one recipe that needs to be made.

For some reason I always need to add an additional 1/2 cup flour because my cookies always spread so much and don't fully bake all the way through.  Just that additional flour helps make everything better. 

Overall these cookies are a tried and true favorite with their rich malty chocolate flavor.  They also freeze really well just in case cookies don't go all that quickly in your home. ;)

Chocolate Malted Whopper Cookies
adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking…From My Home to Yours

1 3/4 c. all purpose flour ( I have to use 2 1/4 cups flour else mine always spread too much)
1 c malted milk powder or Ovaltine, regular or chocolate flavored (I used regular)
1/4 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1 stick plus 3 tbsp butter at room temp
2/3 c granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 c milk
1 1/2 c coarsely chopped Robins Eggs (or Whoppers)
1 c chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 
2. Line two cookie sheets with parchment or a Silpat mat. 
3. Put your dry ingredients from flour to salt in a large mixing bowl and whisk together so there are no lumps. 
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar on medium for a minute or two, until it is light and fluffy. 
5. Add eggs and vanilla and mix together on low speed until incorporated.  Mixture may look curdled but this is okay
6. Add 1/2 of dry ingredients to butter mixture and mix on low speed until just combined. 
7. Add the milk and beat in. 
8. Scrape sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula and add the rest of the dry ingredients to the bowl. Mix on low speed. 
9. Add Robins Eggs, chocolate chips and stir together 
10. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto prepared pans leaving a generous inch between cookies  
11. Bake for 10-14 minutes.  Let cool for 2-3 minutes before removing to cooling rack

All-In-One Holiday Bundt Cake

What started out as a plan to cook from a new cookbook, changed to thumbing through Dorie Greenspan's Baking From My Home to Yours....yet again.  It's quickly becoming my go-to baking cookbook.   I'm not sure it's just because Dorie is a genius, or if because it's such a HUGE cookbook, it has every baked good you could possibly want to bake.

I was looking for a new pumpkin bread recipe and while Martha had one that involved molasses, and other cookbooks had some new takes on that fall favorite, Dorie trumped it all by throwing apples and cranberries in hers.  Okay, so it was technically a bundt cake and not a quick bread--but aren't they really the same?

 Are apples or pumpkins the greater baking joy of fall?  I love that Dorie doesn't make you pick. Cinnamon, check.  Nutmeg, check.  Ginger, check.

This was such a moist cake even though I substituted whole wheat pastry flour for half of the all purpose flour--I guess that's what pumpkin, apples and cranberries can do for a cake.  Add those spices and this is very appropriately named the All-In-One Holiday Bundt Cake.

All-In-One Holiday Bundt Cake
Adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home To Yours

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ground ginger
1 1/4 sticks (10 tbsp) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup (packed) light brown sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups canned unsweetened pumpkin puree
1 large apple, peeled, cored and finely chopped
1  cup chopped cranberries

Maple Glaze
6 tbsp powdered sugar
maple syrup

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350F. Butter a 9 to 10 inch (12 cup) Bundt pan. Don't place the pan on a baking sheet - you want the oven's heat to circulate freely through the Bundt's inner tube.

Whisk together the flours, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, salt, and ground ginger.

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter and both sugars together at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, and beat for 1 minute after each addition. Beat int he vanilla. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the pumpkin and chopped apple - don't be concerned if the mixture looks curdled. Still on low speed, add the dry ingredients, mixing only until they are incorporated. With a rubber spatula, stir in the cranberries and pecans. Scrape the batter into the pan and smooth the top with the rubber spatula.

Bake for 60 to 70 minutes, or until a thin knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Transfer the cake to a rack and cool for 10 minutes before unmolding, then cool to room temperature on the rack before glazing.

For Glaze: add two tsp of maple syrup to powdered sugar and stir to blend.  Continue to add maple syrup in half teaspoon increments until glaze is thin enough to drizzle across cake.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Torte

Occasionally you find that recipe that you think you must make someday, but the somewhat dangerous ingredient list keeps putting you off.  Dorie Greenspan has a recipe for a Chocolate Peanut Butter Torte in her cookbook Baking from My Home to Yours that I've been longing to try but with an ingredient list that included cream cheese, PB and heavy cream, this was definitely a "wait for a special occasion" type recipe.  I earmarked it for Dad's b-day and then recipe sat on the back burner for a good 6 months.   Dad's b-day finally arrived--about time.  People need chocolate peanut butter tortes.

As you know, I take no issue with substituting ingredients and mixing recipes up a bit.  But Dorie, bless her heart, threw me for a loop when she specifically called out that the PB could not be natural.  I seriously considered giving natural PB a go since it was all I had at home, but in the end, I figured if she called it out for a reason, I should probably listen.  I envisioned peanut oil separating in the torte and headed out to the store.

Here's a bit of a secret confession about peanut butter....I so prefer the super sugary, mass produced Jif to natural PB any day.  I'll even take the confession a step further here--throw in some white bread and raspberry jelly and I have some happy comfort food.  PB&J is the one sandwich in my mind that requires that super soft white sandwich bread.  And cut the crusts right off please. I'm in 5 year old heaven all over again.  Not sure why I made a torte when I really could have just made PB&Js apparently.

Back to the torte.  Not going to lie to you here--the torte prep is a bit scary at times.  Like when you mix the cream cheese and PB.  Will this glob ever be a light fluffy torte?

Or those moments when you are carefully folding in the whipped cream.  I'm always convinced I will overstir at this point and deflate all of the cream.

But alas, success.  And the result?  Wow, was this rich.  As in, take a tiny sliver rich. The flavors were as wonderful as chocolate and pb are, but you could really be done after only 3 bites.  But then an interesting thing happened.  Because it was so rich and we all ate such small pieces, I had some left over which I carelessly threw into the freezer.  Magic really.  Straight from the freezer, this becomes seemingly less rich and more like ice cream cake.  Makes sense really since you have the same basic ingredients of ice cream here.  And chocolate pb ice cream cake is not to shabby at all.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Torte
from Baking from My House to Yours by Dorie Greenspan


Ingredients:
For the crust:
32 Oreo cookies, finely processed into crumbs
5 1/3 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted and cooled
Small pinch of salt


For the crunch:
1 1/4 cups salted peanuts, finely chopped, divided (for the filling, crunch and topping)
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
2 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. espresso powder
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
Dash of ground nutmeg

For the filling:
2 cups heavy cream
1 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
12 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups creamy peanut butter (not natural)
2 tbsp. whole milk

For the topping:
1/2 cup heavy cream
4 oz. bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

Directions:
To make the crust, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9-inch springform pan and place it on a baking sheet. Combine the Oreo crumbs, melted butter and salt in a small bowl. Toss with a fork to moisten all of the crumbs. Press into a thin layer covering the bottom and sides of the springform pan. Freeze the crust for 10 minutes. Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely before filling.

To make the crunch, in another small bowl combine 1/2 cup of the chopped peanuts, mini chocolate chips, sugar, espresso powder, cinnamon and nutmeg. Toss with a fork to mix and set aside.

To prepare the filling, in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip 2 cups of the cream until it holds medium peaks. Beat in 1/4 cup of confectioners’ sugar and whip until the cream holds medium-firm peaks. Scrape the cream into a separate bowl and refrigerate until needed.

Wipe out (do not wash) the mixer bowl, replace the whisk with the paddle attachment, and beat the cream cheese with the remaining 1 cup of confectioners’ sugar on medium speed until the cream cheese is satiny smooth. Beat in the peanut butter, whole milk, and 1/4 cup of the chopped peanuts until well combined.

Using a large rubber spatula, gently stir in about 1/4 of the whipped cream just to lighten the mousse. Still working with the spatula, stir in the crunchy peanut mixture, then gingerly fold in the remaining whipped cream. Scrape the mousse into the crust, mounding and smoothing the top. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight; cover with plastic wrap as soon as the mousse firms.

To finish the torte, put the chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. Leave the bowl over the water just until the chocolate softens and starts to melt, about 3 minutes; remove the bowl from the saucepan. Bring the 1/2 cup of cream to a full boil. Pour the cream over the chocolate and, working with a rubber spatula, very gently stir together until the ganache is completely blended and smooth.

Pour the ganache over the torte, smoothing with a metal icing spatula. Scatter the remaining peanuts over the top and chill to set the topping, at least 20 minutes. When the ganache is firm, remove the sides of the springform pan. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Always A Tart

A fruit tart is the perfect way to take advantage of super fresh, straight from the bush, raspberries and blueberries. To me, the essential foundation is a crumbly shortbread crust. I still recall the great disappointment I felt when I once chose a flaky pie type tart shell recipe. It’s just not my preference for a fresh fruit tart where the topping flavors are simple and clean and the buttery cookie-like shell is such a huge part of the overall dessert.

Luckily, Dorie Greenspan’s recipe for a Sweet Tart Dough (pâte sablée) is that perfect shell. I used to experiment with different shell recipes but really, you shouldn’t mess with perfection when you’ve found it. Save the experimenting for the toppings… custards and cream cheese fillings, with strawberries, blueberries, raspberries or kiwi. The possibilities are endless. Keep an unbaked shell in the freezer and you can have a dessert ready to go with just a bit of fresh fruit from the market. Easy peasy.

Sweet Tart Dough
From Dorie Greenspan Baking: From My Home to Yours


1 ½ cups flour
½ cup powdered sugar
Pinch of salt
1 stick plus one tablespoon frozen butter cut into small pieces
1 large egg yolk

Place flour, sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse a couple of times to combine. Scatter butter over dry ingredients and pulse until butter is coarsely cut in—you should have some pieces the size of oatmeal and some the size of peas. Stir the yolk to break up and add a little at a time, pulsing after each addition. When all egg is added, pulse in long bursts of about 10 seconds each until dough comes together roughly. Dump onto board and knead lightly and sparingly to incorporate any remaining dry ingredients.

Butter a 9 inch tart pan with removable bottom. Press the dough evenly over the bottom and up the sides of the pan. Freeze for 30 minutes or longer before baking.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Butter the shiny side of aluminum foil and fit the foil buttered side down tightly against the crust(no weights needed). Put the tart on baking sheet and bake for 25 minutes. Carefully remove foil and press down any puffed areas with back of spoon. Bake for additional 8-10 min until golden. Cool to room temp before filling.

Greek Yogurt Filling
1 cup greek yogurt
½ a block of cream cheese softened
3-5 tbsp honey(to taste)
1 tsp vanilla

Combine filling ingredients adjusting honey to personal sweetness preference. Top tart with filling and fruit of choice. Refrigerate for two hours to allow cream cheese to set.