French Strawberry Cake {TWD-BWJ}

June 19, 2012 at 7:59 am (Baking with Julia, Cake, Dorie Greenspan, Tuesdays with Dorie)
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They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If so, here are four thousand words about the disaster that was my Tuesdays with Dorie French Strawberry Cake:

My cake went from lopsided…

…to flat…

…to ugly…

…to rubbery.

My problems began with overmixing my genoise batter. I accidentally dumped 2/3 of the flour mixture into the batter at once, and it was impossible to get it all mixed in without deflating the batter. I probably should have stopped right there, but I foolishly pressed on, resulting in the hockey puck you see above.

My daughter and I ate the strawberries and whipped cream, then threw out the cake.

I probably would have been upset by this disaster if I hadn’t already found the perfect strawberry cake recipe. Check back tomorrow for the post.

In addition to Tuesdays with Dorie, this post participates in Strawberry Week here at Of Cabbages & King Cakes. Check out the other posts for the week (I promise, this is the only disaster).

Our hosts for this recipe are Allison and Sophia. Be sure to check out their posts.

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Lemon & Almond Tuiles {ModBak}

February 27, 2012 at 7:37 am (Cookies, Family, Modern Baker Challenge, Nick Malgieri, Techniques, The Modern Baker)
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The next recipe in the Cookies, Bars & Biscotti section of the Modern Baker Challenge is a classic French cookie with a bit of classic French fussiness to it. In case you’re wondering, tuile is pronounced “tweel” (rhymes with “feel”).

Or in my case, rhymes with “fail”.

I love my Roul’Pat for so many things. Nothing sticks to it. It’s reusable and prevents wasting parchment paper. It keeps pans clean and wipes right off.

Unfortunately, it also keeps tuiles from spreading when they bake.

The tuiles are supposed to spread paper-thin in the oven. Then when you take them out, you drape them over a cylindrical form so they take on a Pringle-like shape.

As you can see, my tuiles didn’t spread. At all.

So, what did I do with this colossal tuile failure?

I told my family they were lemon almond cookies. And they loved them.

I might try these again someday, this time on buttered parchment instead of Roul’Pat. Although to be honest, the thought of shaping all those cookies when they come of the oven doesn’t thrill me. And my family was right — they tasted fine the way they were.

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Mango & Rice Tart (Pudding) {ModBak}

May 9, 2011 at 9:46 pm (Dessert, Modern Baker Challenge, Nick Malgieri, Press-in cookie crust, Tart Crust, Tarts & Pies, The Modern Baker)
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I’ve been involved with the Modern Baker Challenge for a little over a year now. Some recipes have been bigger hits with my family than others, and I enjoyed the process of baking some of them more than others. But each of the nearly 70 recipes I’ve made so far has come out as expected.

Until now.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have had my first Modern Baker FAIL. Let me say right up front, though, that it was my fault, not that of the recipe. I know exactly what I did wrong, and I’m sure that if I tried baking this recipe again, I could achieve the intended results.

This is actually a rather simple recipe. You cook some rice, make a simple syrup, mix them together with coconut cream, then let the whole thing sit until the rice soaks up all the liquid. This mixture is then scraped into a prebaked cookie tart shell and topped with sliced mangoes.

So, how did I mess this up? On the very first step. I was doing five other things while cooking the rice, and let it scorch a bit. It didn’t burn exactly, but enough of it stuck to the bottom of the pan that there wasn’t sufficient rice to soak up all the liquid. Looking at the filling, I knew there was no way this would hold up as a tart. Picture a fruit pie that doesn’t set up, and you’ll have an idea of what I was facing.

Never one to let a little thing like failure get in my way, I realized the filling was about the texture of Kheer (Indian rice pudding), so I decided to serve it in custard dishes with sliced mangoes on top. My family didn’t know it was supposed to be a tart, and they loved it. And it really did taste like Kheer — sweet, creamy, and oh so coconutty. The mangoes gave the pudding an additional depth of texture and flavor and will be a regular part of my rice pudding and Kheer from now on.

I thought about remaking this recipe, but I feel like I got the true flavors in the pudding. And heaven knows I’ve eaten enough tarts in the past few months.

8 Comments