Back to food blogging! TWD: Kugelhopf

I was intrigued when I first read that Kugelhopf would be our recipe this week - sounds really different, doesn't it? Really, it's just a kind of brioche (egg and butter, mildly sweet bread) and, well, to be totally honest, I didn't really think a whole lot of it after the taste test. It was good, but nothing to write home about, especially for all the steps involved in making it. Boy, I feel terrible writing that. It makes me wonder if I didn't do something right - which, after looking at it once it came out of the oven, makes that possibility more likely (note the concave bottom of those slices).

Anyway, here's how it came together:

The dough after the first addition of liquid (warm milk and yeast).

Yeah, that's exactly what I thought: "Huh? What the heck is that?" Dorie describes this look of the dough "shaggy". I've made quite a bit of bread but that was a new one for me, but that's a pretty accurate description.

After the addition of the eggs and butter however, the dough got very smooth and was actually pretty wet.

The boys had fun helping me out with this recipe (well eyeing the potential goodness, anyway), especially my littlest one - he really enjoyed watching my not-so-sturdy old Kitchen Aid work so hard to mix the dough.

Here he is helping to hold that crazy thing down! At any speed above 3, it really starts to wobble and kinda inches its way all over the counter.

My blogging friend Cathy over at The Tortefeasor is asking for kitchen goodies from Santa, I think I need to hop on that bandwagon too! Surely the big guy reads blogs - right Cathy?

I went looking for a Kugelhopf pan at our kitchen store in the mall and they didn't have one. So, not wanting to drag a tired 15 month old over to Bed Bath and Beyond, I just used the standby bundt pan (don't read anything into that Santa - just the new mixer would be great!).

After refrigerating the dough overnight, it actually rose faster than I expected - only two hours, but that was in a slightly warmed oven.

And, ta da - here's how it looked fresh out of the oven. Yeah, not quite right. Not sure what I did wrong, but Dorie says that the dough might rise up over the top of the pan once in the oven, but obviously, that wasn't a problem for my little Kugelhopf.

It looked much better unmolded with a fine dusting of powdered sugar:

So bottom line, if I were to make this again, which is doubtful, I would skip a lot of those middle rises and just do one rise overnight in the fridge, cook it in the morning and serve it at a brunch. You can find the recipe over at The All-Purpose Girl (thanks, Yolanda - I hope yours turned out better than mine!) and you can check out all the other fabulous Tuesdays with Dorie bakers here.

Next week's recipe sounds equally intriguing, but I'm hoping for better results: Black, White (or both) Arborio Rice Pudding

Ahhhhh...the Galette

I saved the best of the meal for last. I am just so pleased at how this dessert turned out and I most definitely will be making it again. A galette is supposedly a rustic, country pie, but it can be lovely just the same, don't you think?

I got the recipe from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. Peaches and raspberries were on sale last week, so trying to decide what fruit to use was easy. Before I joined Tuesday's with Dorie, I had read the group's results with this recipe and had seen that combo somewhere but for the life of me couldn't remember. Thanks to a comment in the first post I made on this meal, I now have the answer! Thanks N.O.E. of The Dogs Eat the Crumbs for the inspiration!

My usual pie dough recipe is Martha Stewart's pâte brisée. I love the all butter crust because, besides being delicious, it's both flaky and super tender. Some say that butter doesn't make for a flaky crust, but mine always came out pretty well. The only problem I've ever found with it is that it's a little more difficult to work with than those using shortening - tends to break after rolled and it must be re-chilled after placing it in the pan because the butter melts really fast and, if not really cold, it'll slide down the sides of your pie pan. Of course, the fat of choice that most professionals agree makes for the best all around crust is lard. I personally haven't tried it yet, I guess because I can't get around the whole cow fat thing, but isn't butter essentially the same thing? I will try it one day...one day. Anyway, for this galette, I used Dorie's pie dough recipe in the book. I have to admit, I really liked this crust - it was the best of both worlds (using mostly butter and a little shortening) and therefore was very easy to work with and tasted fabulous.

A few notes:

• As I've said before, my pie crust rolling skills leave something to be desired so I made one and a half recipes and had plenty. In fact, I increased the diameter of the finished galette from 9 inches to 10 and I think it makes for a really nice presentation being a bit bigger.


• The recipe calls for 8 peaches, but I could only get 5 in mine (and that's using the bigger diameter!) and they fit perfectly. Then I just sprinkled about a half cup of raspberries around. Pretty, huh?

• I forgot to buy graham cracker crumbs, so they were omitted from the recipe. These are used to soak up some of the juices from the cooked fruit and my omission became obvious about halfway through cooking - my beautiful galette was swimming in peach juice. I ended up carefully holding the tray and parchment over the sink (said a quick prayer) and tilted it slightly to let some of the liquid drain off. It turned out okay, but I don't recommend skipping this step.


• Also forgot to buy raspberry jam (which, I think, would have made this great dessert sublime, but oh well!) so I used apricot which was just fine and worked well with the peaches.


• I could only fit about half of the custard mix on top of the fruit and even some of that spilled over onto the parchment. Speaking of which - I highly recommend using that under the galette. With all the juices that came off and the custard issue, this probably saved it from destruction as I would have totally mangled it trying to pry it off a Pam-coated tray. I figured at the very least, I could cut around the darn thing and plop it on a serving plate, parchment paper and all, and peel the paper off each slice.


• Serve with vanilla ice cream. Swoon-worthy I'm tellin' ya!

I can't end this post without giving credit to my darling littlest sous chef (who is 13 months old), whose help I found indispensable, who was a constant grounding presence throughout the whole process, and who quite literally held me up by the apron strings...

What you obviously can't hear is the screaming that was going on when I snapped this. Oh, my little baby love...someday, I know I'll look back on these days and smile and wish I could turn back the clock....but not this day.

Long story short, make this - you will not regret it! You can find the recipe here.

Company's coming

We had some guests come to dinner last night - our parish pastor Father Horton and Father Rogers Byambassa, a missionary priest with the Apostles of Jesus from Uganda, Africa. It was such a pleasure to have them over and really interesting. A great experience for the kids, too. Father Rogers was quite entertained by Katherine (who is quite the conversationalist at 3 years old) and he promised to take her to Africa to see all the animals she kept talking about.

Unfortunately, I haven't had the time or energy for much entertaining (oh for the last 3 years or so) but I really enjoy it. There's something about planning and making a nice meal and dessert for people that really makes me happy!

I tried several new recipes this time (although my mother wisely told me once not to experiment on guests, but luckily it worked out this time). My brother-in-law sent me a great marinade recipe for flank steak (thanks, Dave!), and I found a recipe online for 3 cheese and garlic scalloped potatoes (though, I guess this was more like an au gratin); and another recipe online for chocolate pudding which I turned into a chocolate ice box pie. This latter recipe was found through a network called "Tuesdays with Dorie" where some foodie bloggers are working their way through a cookbook called Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. I am hoping to join them - not sure if I can keep up with that and keep the 4 kids fed and clothed, but I'm going to give it a shot - it sounds like fun! I guess you'll find out soon (check back on Wednesdays :-)

Anyhoo, here's how things went yesterday with the dessert portion of the meal. Of course, nothing goes as planned and of course, I was under a time crunch because I didn't do any prep work the day before (and did I mention I have 4 beautiful, but always-needing-something-when-I'm-really-really-busy, children). First off, I realized I didn't have any whipping cream (and you most certainly can not have chocolate ice box pie without fluffy whipped cream on top!), so now a quick run to the IGA is on my to do list.

I made my crust using Nilla Wafers first thing in the morning and while that was cooling, made the pudding/filling. I had to alter the recipe a little because a) one recipe was not going to fill my deep dish pie pan and b) since it was pie, and presentation value matters when having company over for dinner, I had to make sure it ended up being thick enough to slice.

Here's the recipe (which I made one and half of). It's actually not that difficult (despite my trials) and it did come out very nice - smooth, chocolaty and not too sweet.

Chocolate Pudding
Courtesy of Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

2 ¼ cups whole milk
6 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons cornstarch
¼ teaspoon salt
1 large egg
2 large egg yolks
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted and still warm
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract


Have six ramekins or pudding cups, each holding 4 to 6 ounces (½ to ¾ cup), at hand. Bring 2 cups of the milk and 3 tablespoons of the sugar to a boil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan.

While the milk is heating, put the cocoa, cornstarch and salt into a food processor and whir to blend. Turn them out onto a piece of wax paper, put the remaining 3 tablespoons sugar, the egg and egg yolks into the processor and blend for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the remaining ¼ cup milk and pulse just to mix, then add the dry ingredients and pulse a few times to blend.

With the machine running, very slowly pour in the hot milk mixture. Process for a few seconds, then put everything back into the saucepan. Whisk without stopping over medium heat – making sure to get into the edges of the pan – until the pudding thickens and a couple of bubbles burble up to the surface and pop (about 2 minutes). You want the pudding to thicken, but you don’t want it to boil, so lower the heat if necessary.

Scrape the pudding back into the processor (if there’s a scorched spot, avoid it as you scrape) and pulse a couple of times. Add the chocolate, butter and vanilla and pulse until everything is evenly blended.Pour the pudding into the ramekins.

If you don’t want a skin to form (some people think the skin is the best part), press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface of each pudding to create an airtight seal.

Refrigerate for at least 4 hours.Makes 6 servings


Soooo, I didn't exactly follow the directions.

Apparently, my food processor isn't large enough to hold one and half times this recipe (and I have my doubts about it holding one, so just a warning - make sure your processor holds at least 7 cups). The evidence:




This was after I tried adding all the hot milk mixture into the eggs/cocoa mixture - not happening, I was only able to add about 2/3rds of the milk. I ended up dumping what I managed to fit in the processor bowl back into the pot with the milk and whisking like crazy. To say the least, I was a little irritated at this point and kicking myself for not doing this the day before and thinking I probably should have heeded my Mom's advice (see above). It definitely didn't look right to me (look at how foamy the mixture is),



but I kept whisking like a maniac anyway and praying (as I looked at the clock which read 11am, knowing this pie will need at least 6 hours to chill and dinner was set for 6:30pm....ack!) that it would come together.




Eventually, thankfully, it did.


Oh, for the pie crust (for a 9 inch deep dish pie pan) I used 3 cups of mini Nilla Wafers and 3 tablespoons melted butter - crush wafers in a food processor until fine crumbs form and then add melted butter, pulsing until mixed well. Press crumbs into the pan and bake at 350 for about 10 minutes, or until just starting to get golden brown. I think this pie would be fabulous with a traditional pie crust, but I just didn't have the time yesterday.

My results...not too bad (and a hit with the dinner guests!)


Let me know if you try this - it's definitely a keeper recipe for me. When I lived in Birmingham, Alabama we frequently ate at a BBQ restaurant called Johnny Rays and they had the best Chocolate Ice Box Pie I have ever had. Each slice was, I swear, 4 or 5 inches high, and it had a light consistency with lots of whipped cream on top. Next time I make this, I think I'll try folding in some whipped cream into the pudding and maybe it'll be more like that. If I can come close, I'll be in foodie-heaven - I'll let you know!