TWD: Cocoa Almond Meringues

Meringue is something Iusually only make as a side product. I got to admit, normally they are not my favourite treat. But I like doing icecream, and I particularily like doing it French style, but this involves leftover eggwhites. In general, I guess there are more recipes calling for eggyolks than eggwhites, so from time to time I try to make some meringue or some cookies popular in Austria especially around Christmas, called "Kokusbusserl" or "Nussbussserl" which literally means "coconut / nut peck", which are similar to meringue.

This time it was the other way round - I was in need for a recipe to use up the left over eggyolks. So I made icecream. Toasted Coconut Icecream, with folded in sauted sour cherries, again a David Lebovitz recipe from "The perfect Scoop". (increadible good!!!)

But lets get back to the main topic: The meringue went all fine. Iopted for the "playing around" variation and used shredded toasted coconut instead of chocolate. It was easy done, got firm but still chwy in the middle and tastes surprisingly good. I don't know where I lost the coconut shreds. They have a slight taste of it, but not very much. But you know what? I guess I am happy with this little idea of coconut. As overall, I am happy with these. They turned out so much better than expected!

When I see a recipe on the TWD schedule I surely will like, I am eager to do it and can't wait for the week to come. But when I see a recipe that does not sound so appealing to me, I am happy someone has chosen it, because I would have never tried it on my own. And I definitely like experiences that I would not have taken if it was not for someone else.
So - this week props go out to Mike of Ugly Food for an Ugly Dude. Turn to his page for the fast and easy recipe or have a look into Dorie's book on page 155.

TWD: Gingered Carrot Cookies (and TWD-catch-up: Chewy Chunky Blondies)

It's the last day of my holidays. I spent some days in Riga and some in Frankfurt, visiting a friend, and today I had a final day off back in Vienna, which I love, because it gives you the possibility to come back, wash your cloths, have a final day of relaxation. And to do your baking "duties".

So I am going to make it short and simple, what is even the easier, as the Gingered Carrot Cookies, chosen by Natalia of gatti fili e farina where really easy to make (find the recipe at her page in case you don't have Dorie's book). They came together faster than fast, they baked much faster than the recipe said (about 10 mins for the first rack and the later batches even faster). And they are oh-my-gosh-good!


Natalia is one of the few Europeans partcipating in TWD and I got some helpful and great tips and hints from her about how to adapt the recipes to European conditions - thanks a lot! I am always wondering how other Europeans made it their way to TWD and I am always curipus to see what my "fellows" are choosing.

Carrots and ginger might not sound like a summer recipe, but they are indeed! Now that I tasted them I even think they are a pretty good pick for summer, because they have no chocolate and are a mix between sweet and savory.
Love them!

I will make an even quicker catch up for last week's recipe, the Chewy Chunky Blondies. I was on the road last week but I pre-made them, not at least because I adore Blondies - I even like them more than Brownies. Can you believe that you can't get Blondies round here? I have so far never seen them in Austria, Germany or France where I spent most of the last years. And I ate my first Blondie in February in NYC. Really. Not kidding.

Those were just great and I will have do re-do and re-do and re-do them again and again. My collleagues loved them. I adored them. So, thanks a lot to Nicole of Cookies on Friday for chosing them - I didn't post them in time, but I baked along with you!

TWD: Banana Coconut Ice Cream Pie

The second icecream-recipe this month!
I took the easy way and combined them. Instead of chocolate icecream, as in the original recipe, I used the Burnt Sugar Icecream (and some Dulche de Leche Icecream) - Bananas and Caramel go together well in my opinion, so I also decorated the pie with some caramel sauce (what is hard to see in the pictures due to the similar coclours).

I am the coconut-lover type, be it in savory dishes or sweets, shredded, toasted or as milk and juice.
But, to make it short: I liked this icecream pie, but it is not going to become an all-time-favourite. The crust was to buttery and fat, and there was not as much flavour on the whole as there should be. Maybe my bananas where not ripe enough. Or maybe the caramel icecream was not such a good idea in the end. Who knows.

Additionally, I always, always, always tend to make the "crust" too thick, be it for a tart or as here the pie. The relation between crust and filling was not appropriate, even though I really love the "crust" and can imagine to also use it with other recipes.

On the plus-side: It is easy to be made (especially with store-bought icecream), and can be assembled way ahead and stored for a longer time. I even re-fridged a part of it with the banana-topping on it and have the feeling it was alright.

For the recipe, go to Spike's homepage, who selected the Banana Coconut Ice Cream Pie, or have a look on page 350 in Dorie's book.

P.S.: One of my friends said: "Uh, yummy, this muesli is not all too bad!" - but for some people everything that involves anything slightly healthy (as nuts - and coconutflakes do count in this book) is muesli....

TWD: Chockablock Cookies

This last TWD-month was a month of incredible simpliness and fastness. All the recipe where to be completed in less time than the one the week before. "Comes together in a snap" must have been one of the most often cited phrases by TWD'ers. Some even reported that their ovens had not even finished preheating by the time the dough was ready to be baked. But when I learnt anything about baking in the last months since I stepped into the big gloomy world of pastry, cakes and brownies, it is that the simpliest things never are that simple. Easiness also shows your limits, as with these recipes it is not so much the mere procedure itself that is challenging, but perfecting it.

And I'm lousy when it comes to perfection. Maybe that's one reason why I have "chosen" baking as a new hobby - I need this challenge. I need a task that is a bit demanding.

In this respect, the Chockablock Cookies, chosen by Mary of Popsicles and Sandy Feet where you can also find the recipe (or, even better, buy the book and have a look at page 86) are a perfect April-recipe.
The real question for these cookies is: What did you use? It is not exactly like with Composte/Amnesty Cookies, that are made of almost anything you can find in your kitchen. But even though mostly more than 100 people are participating in TWD weekly, I guess we won't see many identical cookies. There is the nut-question (you are free to use any sort - me, I took the easy way with a nut mix), and the dried-fruit-question (again: anything possible; I decided on dried apricots). I thought about including raisins and figues, because I ADORE figues, but ended up with the decision that it's better not to overload them in taste.
 
But: I heavily doubted the amount of chocolate. I used less (100g/3 ounces of 86% chocolate and 30g/1 ounce milk chocolate - instead of 180 g/6 ounces in total, as I made only half the recipe). And I'm glad I did, because there was much too much chocolate even with the cut back .

I don't know what went wrong. I read and re-read the recipe, but the chocolate amount was rigth. My cookies just ran out. They didn't really firm. The chocolate ran to the bottom of the cookies, where it almost burnt. Transferring them to a cooling rack was a complete mess.

Sure, taste beats looks. And my colleagues didn't seem to mind at all. But they didn't look a tad as cookies should.

I am obviously physically not able to produce proper specimens of cookies. Project Perfection goes on...
Sigh.




(And now - up to a new TWD-month full of less-fast recipes, where my unableness to perfection doesn't stand out that much ;o])

Amnesty Cookies a.k.a. Compost Cookies

There are these projects, I am sure everybody knows them, that pend above your head since ages. This is one of mine. The idea sounds too tempting not to make them:

Take 1,5 cups of all the baking rest that did amass over time in your cupboard. If you have more (I bet you do!), just take your favourites.
Then, take 1,5 cups of savory snacks, preferably also rests and leftovers you want to get rid of.
Mix a very simple cookie dough (butter, sugar, eggs - the classics), chop the mentioned leftovers  in. Cool the dough, put them in the oven and that's it.
The recipe can be found here. Originally, they are Momofuku's Compost Cookies. David L. calls them Amnesty Cookies - and idea I find hilarious.

I halfed the recipe, and found out that I had to limit myself indeed. 3/4 leftovers are not that much at all. In the end, I mixed up some chocolates (a very small piece milk chocolate, a very small piece white lemon chocolate, some pure white chocolate, some mini milk-chocolate-nougat easter eggs, a bit of dark ginger chocolate), mascarpone nougat, shredded coconut, and a little piece of merengue that was left from icecream-making last week. I didn't really have savory snacks at home, so I tricked a bit and took cookie crumbles from various projects (at least I can claim that some of them came from vary salty batches...), which I filled up with pumkin seeds and sesame, and I was very liberal with the amount of salt.

TWD: Coconut Tea Cake

After many, many weeks, Lenten season has come to an end and so here comes an almost-in-time "Tuesdays with Dorie"-post! (Actually, this tea cake was due last week, but we were allowed to switch weeks.)

I had a coconut in my bio-basket the other week, so I decided to use it. Mary of Mary Mary Culinary gave me some hints how to transfer it into something I could bake with. And she was caring enough to take the time to have a look how it turned out. Thanks so much! (Btw.: What a great blog name! Is it just me or are there also other people who love blogs just for their name? Don't get me wrong - Mary's blog is also a delight for her pictures and all the wonderful stuff she creates in the kitchen. But I like words (does this sound odd?) and playing with language. So this is one of my absolute favourite TWD-blogs!)


I am not 100% convinced that that's what the shredded, toasted coconut should look like. Turning from white to brown just went in a second, so I missed the point when I should have taken them out. But they still didn't taste bad, so I used them nevertheless.

I opted for including some lime juice. The bio farmers at the market didn't have lime or lemons so I only used the juice from a store-bought, don't-use-the-zest-lime. I decided to take a bit more, to guarantee for the taste, because other bloggers wrote about a not very strong taste. And I decided to frost the cake with some white lime chocolate. I also opted for the rum, took a bit less sugar, and included a bit more of the shredded coconuts, not at least because my batter seemed to be very, very liquid. The recipe calls for 3/4 cups, and although I made only half the batter, I used the whole amount of coconut.
I made a small bundt and six minis. It would not have mattered to have a bit more batter, but it was ok like that, too.