I like it very much! Mostly uncomplicated recipes with multiple variations on a theme! I gave one to a granddaughter who promptly made the Normand Apple clafloutis and it turned out beautifully. What I don’t care for is the mix of volume and weights in the recipe write up. Upthread I posted the Lemon Verbena yogurt cake which we liked very much, fine crumbed and tender. I also just made the plain yogurt version to which I added raspberries…very nice! Nothing too earth shattering in the book , just a nice compilation of mostly old favorites. One of the recipes is David Lebovitz’s chocolate yogurt muffins which I will probably get to making in the near future. I think Smitten might have it on her website. The book is available in paperback as well as hardback…and I wish the print was a little larger!
I just made Kelley’s bouchons. Not a success. Prob shouldn’t have used the little fluted tins - they didn’t release. In the end I didn’t care for the texture so there won’t be a repeat. Yours look great.
Ohhh…hate when that happens! All three have been a hit, I frequently make the two bite brownies for my munchkins . Halloween I did chocolate Jimmie’s and orange nonpareils, Christmas, Jimmie’s and green sparkling sugar. These last batches have all been made in sprayed silicone molds, I’ve also used mini cupcake molds and petit popover molds …all sprayed with flour/ oil combo.
Thank you
I love Kelley’s bouchons - there was a branch of Bouchon in nyc that sold them in 4-packs, what a lovely treat they used to be! Yours look exactly like them!
If you had to pick one of the 3 recipes, which would it be?
That’s what I was wondering too! They all look beautiful.
Soooo….I think my first choice might be the one from Gateau. It has a strong chocolate presence and it also has a syrup of cocoa, espresso and rum incorporated in it. I think I would submerge two of the chocolate pieces into the mold next time and leave just the one on top.TJ used to carry shredded chocolate chunks which I think work better than the little squares. ( I “think” I saw the recipe on the web a couple weeks ago, possibly a newspaper in California.) But…if you are interested in a quickie… no doubt the two bite brownie fits the bill.I add a pinch of salt and a pinch of baking powder to the flour and sometimes a squirt of chocolate syrup, large chocolate chips or pieces work best. I prefer the Nocciolata by Rigoni di Asiago (dark) as it does not have palm oil in it. They do not have the intensity of a true bouchon but 3/4 minutes mixing and 8/9 minutes in the oven can’t be beat . lastly we come to Thomas Keller’s…I’ve had the ones from his bakery at Times Warner and they are wonderful. There seems to be more than one of his recipes for the bouchons floating around, these are good but hard to justify the amount of butter. I’ve saved the best for last…the bouchons from the Standard Bakery in Portland, Me. They are my benchmark. I had them more than ten years ago and still remember them. I also have their cookbook but just never got around to making them…next on the list!
Thanks for the very thorough review!
(Btw - TJs has chocolate chunks back in stock, I guess they are now “seasonal” though they’ve been back for a couple of months)
I just got the chunks and they are little squares…a pink wrapper instead of the transparent one 
. By the way, I failed to mention that the bouchons from Standard Bakery have more butter and chocolate than the Keller bouchons!
Raw Apple Cake. This is a recipe for a 12" camp oven so I always use my 4 qt Staub Cast Iron, just cuz. The kitchen smells of apples and cinnamon right now, it’s definitely autumn.
Bite-sized “impossible” quiches as a dry run for next week. Idea and recipe courtesy @heidicooksandbakes (a couple of years ago, but I finally got around to it, lol).
1 egg, some homemade bisquick replacement (flour, BP, butter, salt), milk, plus Boursin and cheddar needing to be used up
Slightly over-baked for me today, but timing can be adjusted next week.
Tasty!
(@MunchkinRedux it struck me that these are very similar to Dorie’s puffers)
Sweet potato flan with some yellow sweet potatoes I got my hands on recently. Flavor is great but I’m not satisfied with the texture. Pumpkin/squash is less starchy than sweet potato, so it blends in better with the custard. Sweet potato makes it much thicker. The texture ends up too soft from all the sweet potato solids. The solution is to pass it through my very fine cheesecloth, as the sweet potato goes through even my very fine sieve that typically catches everything. I’ll also be using the blender rather than my hand blender.
I made one in a Bundt pan yesterday, but no cinnamon in the recipe. Maple syrup, brown sugar and Granny Smith apples cut in dice and quick apple sauce made with more apples. Really tasty with maple whipped cream (whipped cream and maple powder). Perfect warmed, on a cold night such as these we’re having.
Those are always a fave in my house, and you can tweak them with whatever fillings you want!
One time I faked the family out by using SPAM I crisped up and they were none the wiser. Of course after I told them, they were horrified, but they really liked them!!
Made mini cheesecakes mostly with cherry compote, but a couple with strawberries for garnish. I tried out a CI recipe for mini cheesecakes made with condensed milk and cream cheese just to see what they’re like. It’s not a repeat for me. I’m in the minority, but I just don’t find condensed milk and cream cheese to be very compelling flavor-wise. I added vanilla and lime juice to boost the acidity and I had a small container of Greek yogurt open and threw it in there to give it some more tartness and interest. Not bad, especially with modifications, but not as good as any other cheesecake I make.
Apple recipes in the fall are necessary! Home made applesauce is so good, I’m jealous! My family loves that Apple Cake but it doesn’t keep well with all the apples. I always freeze whatever is left over the first day, if any, and warm it up later. A little Blue Bunny Vanilla Bean ice cream on the side doesn’t hurt either. Happy Autumn!
Lemon tart from “Standard Baking Co.Pastries” pg.66. This tart uses the entire lemon, peel and all. I used a thin skinned Meyer lemon and pulverized it with the sugar until perfectly smooth. Did I mention sugar…a whole lot of sugar, 1 1/2c. which is a similar ratio to Dorie’s in the NYT.
My DH found it to his liking, I found it tooth achingly sweet. The crème fraîche was not enough for me to offset the sweetness. The crust, also from the book, was excellent. It had almond meal and confectionery sugar in the mix and is a delightful “sweet tart dough” pg.161. Crisp but tender, it cut easily and I would definitely make the crust again . This tart needs to be served in small slivers! We had it at room temperature, I’m going to chill it.
My brother and family are here and will be here for the next 10 days. They flew out yesterday, which was my SIL’s birthday, so I thought I’d make a cake for her. This is 12-layer malted chocolate mousse cake. It should have a gorgeous bunch of white chocolate curls, but my white chocolate is out of temper and it doesn’t melt smoothly if attempting the method with the tray, and was only faring a bit better with the peeler over a frozen tray to catch the curls. Still, I’m sure this will be delicious.
That’s a masterpiece! Do you have a form you build that with to keep the edges so straight? Really impressive, she must have been thrilled!
Thank you! And yes I used a mold for this. She still doesn’t know as my brother made sure to mention that we’d have to go buy a cake later and my mom said that I’d been busy baking yesterday to sell so couldn’t make a cake. 
