TWD: Baking Powder Biskuits

I don't care for the exact biscuit recipe, I love them all.
Being not american, biscuits, english muffins, scones and thelike are unfamiliar to me. But since baking for almost 5 years with the group, I got to know these breakfast treats very well. I can't really name a favourite recipes. I guess, my perfect biscuit recipe is quick, has not too many ingredients (so I ca decide to do them spontaneously) and lets options for variations of any style.

The Baking Powder Biscuits fullfill all these criteria. They are very simple in the making. The taste is a bit flat - but in a good way so you can make it as the recipe says (my option this time) or include anything you can imagine. And they are so quick in the making (just the usual biscuit steps: flour/salt/baking powder mix - butter crumbled in - some kind of dairy; no electronics needed) so you can do them before breakfast without standing up two hours earlier. Usually I would include some herbs as ramson/bears'garlic when it is in season. This time the only touch I gave the recipe was to use seasoned salt (herbs de provence) and that was just fine.

Baking time was just slightly longer and I had to add some more flour in the end. As I (still) have no biscuit cutter and my biscuit doughs are always very soft, I made them in brioche molds as usual. So, they might not exactly look like what you expect them to look like, but I am very fine with that :-)

For the recipe head over to pp. 211-212 in the book by Dorie Greenspan. And don't forget to pass by the groups link page and see what all the other perfect bakers made out of this recipe! 

TWD: Poppy-Seed Torte

Yay, two weeks of baking in a row! How could I forget how much I like baking?

Poppy-Seed Torte is for sure one of my favourite tortes. Generally I really, really like anything with poppy seed. Icecream, Strudel, pastries, whatever. Nevertheless I never made a Poppy-Seed Torte before.

This recipe was a bit strange for me as I don't really get it why you use cake crumbs for some recipes. Is it because they are lighter than flour and therefore don't spoil the egg-snow so much?

The recipe itself is easy. Cream the butter, add sugar and eggs, fold in beaten egg-whites and the poppy-seed/sugar mix - done.
Baking time was a bit longer than the recipe said and I had to cover the torte with aluminium-foil because after about 30mins the cake was not done but started to brown at the edges.

I think it is interesting to make the torte (I would rather call it a cake) with apricots because in Austria, where I live and where sweets with poppy-seed are very, very common, we would usually rather combine it with plumbs. Or better: with "Powidl" (kind of a plumb-jam used for filling sweet dumplings) or "Zwetschkenröster" - something made of plumbs (or, in Viennese terms: "Zwetschken") that is between jam and compote. But, a famous old Viennese proverb says "Zwetschenkenröster is no compote!", so never try to call it "plumb-compote" when you happen to be in Vienna :-)

But back to the topic: Apricots were a nice different touch. Usually, my desserts taste good but I am not patient enough to also make them good looking. This time, I had some more time and patiences and really WANTED to make it good-looking because I like poopy-seed cake so much. So I glazed it and sprinkled some green sugar on it. I don't know about you, but I am pretty happy with i!

And - the most important: The cake was away more or less the moment I opened the box in the office kitchen. My colleagues loved it. Really. Me too. I rarely had such a moisty, light, fluffy poppy-seed cake. Maybe that's what makes it a torte rather than a cake :-)

So, if you get the chance: Buy the book by Dorie Greenspan, have a look at pp. 258-260 - and bake it! And for sure - have a look at how the other bakers in the group liked it.