TWD: French Peach Cake

This week at TWD, we were suppose to make a French Strawberry Cake. Instead of strawberries, I made it with peaches.

We had a bbq last week and had some leftover peaches when we made grilled peaches with rosemary ice cream (from Cooking with Michele). Yum!
Since I couldn't get myself to buy strawberries when I had perfectly yummy fruit at home, I went with peaches.

This was a pretty intimidating recipe. From reading the TWD bakers' failures and successes, I got a little scared. Since it's a genoise cake, the egg/flour folding was the make or break stage of the recipe. I took the advice of a fellow baker and sifted the flour into the batter. This definitely helped decrease the clumps and decrease the folding.
I didn't have a 8" pan, so I used a square pan, which made the cake look like a cute french cake. Yay.

The day I made the cake, I felt it had a very subtle peach flavor and the cake itself was quite dry. I was quite disappointed with it all and was thinking of throwing the whole thing away. But good thing I'm a lazy bum and just stuffed in the fridge, because the next day...man oh man....it was soooooo much better! It seemed the cake just needed a little time to absorb the moisture from the peaches. It turned out to be moist and airy with a beautiful peach flavoring. Very nice.

Since I had some leftover grilled peaches with brown sugar syrup, I drizzled that on top of the cake. It made it even better. It gave the cake a smoky flavor to it.

If you are interested in making this wonderful cake, check out Sophia's blog, Sophia's Sweets, and Allison's blog, Sleep Love Think Dine.

Notes: I used 4 good sized peaches for the filling. Since they were pretty juicy, I cut them a little differently. I cut them in half, twist the halves apart, and then using a paring knife, ran the blade around the seed. I grabbed the tip of the seed and popped it out. If anyone knows a better way to keep a peach intact, please tell me. It took me a few peaches to figure this method out. Hmm..I guess I could’ve googled it. Lesson learned (the hard way).
I didn't have a slotted spoon, so I used a colander with a bowl under it to drain the peach mash liquid.

TWD: Oasis Naan

Who doesn't love a pretzel? That's what it tasted like to me. A really chewy bread with flakes of salt and green onion on it. mMmMmMmm....
I made four round oasis naan to go with our take-out Indian food. We had tikka masala and saag paneer. The naan didn't taste like something I would find at a restaurant, but it was still tasty with the food.
I used a pizza stone to make these, so I made them one by one. Each a little a different. The first one was by the book. It came out super pretzel like. The second, I decreased the borders. The third, I made it thinner and decreased the borders some more. Also, I added the green onions 4 minutes in, because they were burning. By the fourth one, I decided to go even thinner. It made a nice crunchy bottom with a soft layer on top.
Next time I make these (if I'm not too lazy), it would be better if they were even thinner. Also, I would decrease the baking time by 3 minutes.

For the recipe, check out this week's hosts, Maggie of Always Add More Butter and Phyl of Of Cabbages & King Cakes.

TWD: Pecan Sticky Buns

I had a good time making these buns. Especially since I was doing something...something evil in between freeze times. Evil....EVIL I SAY!!!!

I sat on my butt and watched a korean drama for 11 hours straight. MUAHAHAHAHA!!!! 

If you have ever watched a korean drama, you know then, how it has the power to consume you. It's an evil thing. I try to limit myself to one drama a year. If you haven't watched one and want to get a good bawling session out, I highly recommend getting into korean dramas. 

Anyway. 

I was pretty intimidated to make these buns. The process seemed endless! So many pages!!! But once I watched the Julia Child video that a fellow TWD baker, Ckay, recommended, I felt more at ease. 

I made the brioche dough 5 days beforehand and froze it until I felt ready to take on the sticky buns recipe. Once I started the korean drama (mUAHAHAHA!!), I put the dough in the refrigerator to thaw. This was about mid-day. I wanted my husband and I to enjoy warm breakfast treats first thing the next morning, but alas, that didn't work. When I got to the part where it said to rest the buns uncovered at room temperature, it was 11 pm. I put the buns in the refrigerator overnight, hoping they would rise, but they did not. They looked exactly the same the next morning. I should have just left them out. It was cold enough that evening that they probably would have done just fine. 

It took 5 hours at room temp for them to rise. And since I had my final CERT drill that morning, my husband had to finish the rest of the recipe for me (Thank you good sir!).

It smelled so lovely when I came home. Warm and lovely. 

I was really excited to see how they came out. When I reached the plate of yummies, my first thought was, "Miel Pops! Bzz bzzz bzz. Bzzz bzz bzz." They were perfect little honeycomb with three bees gathered together in each cell.
I took them over to a friend's bbq and we all had a taste. The topping was sooo divine!!! I wish I could've dipped each bun in more glaze. The layers were fun to peel away and eat, but the bun itself seemed a little dry. It might have been baked a little too long.

It probably would've been super awesomely perfect if we had them in the morning for breakfast. Slightly warm with a little bit of butter. Yes, more butter.

Butter puts a smile on my face. 

Since we had an extra Tuesday this month, this week was a TWD make-up. I'm really glad I was able to make it. Yay! 

For the recipe, check out Lynn's or Nicole's blog. They were the hosts for that week.

TWD: Hungarian Shortbread

I never knew rhubarb was so awesome. I have always had it with strawberries and I thought the awesomeness came from there. But no. It's the rhubarb. I love the tartness and sourness of it all. I also love the fact it's a vegetable and when one adds some sugar to it, it becomes something wonderful. I'll have to grow some in the garden and make a ton of jam. 

This recipe was interesting to follow. Well, it didn't help that I had a mint julep while I was making it. It was such a nice day. Perfect mint julep weather. There were two things I really liked about this recipe. One was beating the butter. I kept getting wafts of sweet milk essence. mmmMm. And second, grating the dough in a food processor. So easy! It looked like shredded mozzarella afterwards. When I was placing it in the baking pan, I thought (for just a second) I was making some kind of potato gratin. 

The very top and very bottom came out nice and crunchy. You could really taste the butter there. The middle was super moist and soft from all the liquid it absorbed from the rhubarb jam. It melted in your mouth.

This week's TWD hosts were Lynette of 1smallkitchen and Cher of The Not So Exciting Adventures of a Dabbler.... Check out their blogs for the recipe.

Notes: I froze the dough in the shape of a log for easy grating with a food processor. I didn't press down on the dough at all when placing it in the pan. I parbaked the bottom layer for 15 minutes. Next time I would like to either have less dough or more jam.