Zosia's Profile

From: Toronto, ON

Joined: October 19th, 2011

Silk Chocolate Cream Pie with Pecan Crust from The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook: Sweetness in Seattle

This is a showstopper of a pie with rather sophisticated flavours - intense chocolate filling with salty, crunchy crust. Can't say I cared much for the crust on its own but it was a great foil, both texturally... read more >

recipe reviews (781)
book reviews (23)
useful review votes (669)

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Zosia's Reviews

21 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 21Sort by: Title | Date | Rating

Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery + Cafe

By Joanne Chang, Christie Matheson
Chronicle Books - 2010

The finished brioche was excellent: light and airy, yet very rich and buttery tasting. I would have given the bread a higher rating except that the cookbook's instructions didn't work for me. The recipe calls for you to use the dough hook on a stand mixer for the entire process. I have a KA pro 5 plus stand mixer and was unable to complete the first 2 steps with the dough hook - it didn't "catch" the ingredients, it merely moved them around. I used my trusty wooden spoon to do the initial mixing and the paddle attachment to incorporate the butter. At that point, I was able to complete the recipe as per the instructions with the dough hook attachment. I found the descriptions of the dough at each stage to be very helpful and accurate. The loaves baked up exactly as described.

useful (3)  

Crispy, golden brown and flecked with black sesame seeds, these make a great accompaniment to a frozen dessert.

The batter has few ingredients and takes no time at all to mix together but must chill for a few hours before baking. I’ve come to appreciate Joanne Chang’s accurate descriptions, so when she says the “batter spreads like crazy”, you can believe her! I made only 6 cookies at a time on a sheet that normally fits 12-15 and some of them still spread into each other. My yield was the same as what the recipe states, but my baking time was slightly less, only 14-15 min.

I expected these cookies to be quite sweet as this type normally is, but these almost crossed the line from lacy cookie to lacy candy. However, they were still really delicious and the sesame seeds cut some of the sweetness. They went very well with a tart lemon curd ice cream and raspberry sauce I made.

useful (1)  

The lowly Rice Krispie Treat taken to new heights. I actually questioned Joanne Chang's wisdom in including a recipe for this in her book....until I tasted it!

It's amazing what a few simple, but key changes can do to a recipe: replace regular butter with browned butter (and use a lot more of it!), use vanilla bean seeds instead of extract and add a pinch of kosher salt.

They take just a few minutes longer to make than the original recipe - basically the time it takes to brown the butter - so they are still a quick and easy snack that happens to taste fabulous.

useful (2)  

Delicious, cheesy, savoury scones with a hint of onion and cumin. I love that the recipe calls for you to cube the cheese instead of grate it....it means that there are lovely pockets of melted cheese when you bite into it!

As with all of the recipes I've tried in this book, the instructions are clear and the descriptions accurate and helpful. This recipe calls for creme fraiche - an ingredient that is used often in this book; it's very considerate of Joanne Chang to provide a recipe for home made (page 28) that's very easy and costs a fraction of store bought.

The recipe is in the breakfast section of the book but its versatility goes beyond that boundary.....it's great in place of bread for a lunch time sandwich or served with a soup and salad for dinner.

useful (0)  

I’m in search of the perfect (or at least my favourite) carrot cake and this recipe has a lot to recommend it. It’s moist, very flavourful, not as sweet as most, and very easy to put together.

As with most carrot cakes, the main effort is in prepping the carrots – a food processor makes short work of this step. After whipping the brown sugar and eggs together, the oil and the dry ingredients are mixed in by hand. The recipe does call for toasted walnuts and raisins but I omitted the raisins.

I made cupcakes, 16 instead of the 12 the recipe states it will make, and I found that they didn’t rise very much, but the cake was by no means dense. They were baked in 27 minutes and even if they had been slightly larger, 50 minutes, the baking time given in the recipe, is far too long – unreported errata perhaps?

The frosting is a blend of cream cheese, butter and powdered sugar. It has a higher proportion of cream cheese and less sugar than most so it’s tangy and not too sweet, though I did miss the vanilla.

I appreciate the twists Joanne Chang adds to her recipes, in this case, the candied carrot strip garnish. I like to include them and, in fact, have borrowed this idea for other carrot cakes I’ve made – they’re easy and fun.

I prefer the flavour of this recipe over the cake I made recently from Rose’s Heavenly Cakes – it’s less sweet and the addition of ginger adds complexity to the flavour – but I prefer the light, airy texture of the other. I’ll have to find a way to combine the best of both!

useful (0)  

This really is the best banana bread recipe I've ever made or eaten....and there have been many over the years. It's moist, not too dense, and it actually tastes like banana!

Apart from whipping the eggs and sugar at the start, it follows the usual muffin/quick bread mixing method of folding wet and dry ingredients together. I've made this recipe successfully a number of times as written so it was time to tweak it to make it a little healthier. It already uses a lot of bananas, oil instead of butter and 2 eggs (which isn't too bad), so I decided to focus on the fibre content and replace half the flour with the same volume of whole wheat pastry flour.

I had excellent results with this substitution....the loaf was still moist and tender and not crumbly as whole wheat pastry flour will often make a cake, and with the predominant flavour being banana, the whole wheat flour flavour wasn't discernible at all.

My son requested that I make this batch with chocolate chips instead of walnuts - so much for making it healthier! I thought it was too sweet but I was clearly in the minority as family and friends devoured it.

useful (0)  

Sugar cookie cutouts are not my favourite cookie, but in my family, the baking of them heralds the official start of the Christmas cookie baking marathon. I've tried several recipes over the years and am not particularly attached to any of them so I had no qualms about trying this one. Once again, placing my trust in a Joanne Chang recipe has paid off.

The recipe has the same basic ingredients as others I've tried but has a higher proportion of eggs than most. Exactly what that does to the final product, I couldn't tell you, but the resulting dough was a dream to work with, easy to roll out with little additional flour, even on the 3rd rolling. The cookies are crispy and delicious and keep their shape during baking - I think I've formed an attachment.

I rolled the dough thinner than required (1/8") so my baking time was only 9 min. My yield was over 5 dozen cookies of assorted shapes and sizes.

The baking session went quickly and easily...a great start to the marathon!

useful (1)  

These are huge crowd pleasers and surprisingly easy to make.

The cookie is basically a slice and bake style and though there is chilling time involved, the dough is very quick and easy to make without any heavy equipment or specialty chocolate requirements. In fact, it comes together much like a saucepan brownie: dry ingredients are stirred into a mixture of melted chocolate chips, butter, sugar and eggs. I find it easier to work with the dough in 2 batches, making logs ~1 ½” in diameter using the cardboard rolls from paper towels to help shape them and also to help them retain their round shape while refrigerated.

The filling is a standard American buttercream of butter, powdered sugar, vanilla and milk.

On their own, the cookie and filling are not fabulous – the cookie is a little bitter and the filling is very sweet - but together, they are fabulous.

With the smaller sized cookie, they bake in 18 minutes and yield 30 sandwiches.

useful (2)  

These were quite delicious. The dough was very easy to work with but I was well on my way to forming the size of rectangle printed in the recipe before I realized that there must be an error. (There was, and the correction was on the Flour website. I think the error has been corrected in subsequent printings of the book). Because I had rolled my dough thinner than the recipe intended, I made 10 tarts. I tried two of the fillings and glazes: raspberry with vanilla glaze and chocolate with chocolate glaze. Both glazes seemed overly sweet to me taken on their own, but balanced nicely with the fillings in the end. The pastry baked up very crisp and flaky. Apart from the printing error, my one complaint is that the pastries were a little greasy for a hand-held treat. Did my over-rolling/working of the dough contribute to this? I guess I'll have to make them again to find out.

useful (2)  

They look like a regular chocolate chip cookie, but they sure don't taste like one......a delicious surprise especially for fans of nutella or ferrero rocher chocolates. The flavour of hazelnuts is present in 2 forms, ground and chopped. Preparing the nuts ie toasting, removing skins etc is a little labour intensive but worth it. Milk chocolate is the perfect complement to this nut.

The baking time is correct for the size of cookie the recipe instructs you to make (yield of 20), but I prefer a much smaller cookie. I used ~1tbsp of dough per cookie; baking time was 12 minutes and the recipe made 5 dozen.

useful (4)  

I was looking for a Valentine's Day dessert that would be loved equally by all members of my family - my husband wished me luck : ) - and I found one....milk chocolate and caramel, how can anyone resist that!

It starts with a pre-baked, crunchy, buttery, cookie crust (pate sucree page 210). The filling is a cloud-like mousse made of melted milk chocolate and whipping cream, whose sweetness is tempered with the addition of instant coffee (I used half the amount of instant espresso powder). The third component is a buttery caramel that's not too cloyingly sweet.

Each of these components is easy to make and can be prepared well in advance of tart assembly. Once assembled, (crust caramel, whipped chocolate mousse) the tart is finished with a caramel drizzle and milk chocolate curls.

When I made this the first time, I found that the filling needed several hours to set - overnight is best. I was pressed for time so added agar agar to stabilize the filling. I used a 9" tart pan (instead of 10") and it worked out well.

This is a fabulous tart that is far more delicious than the candy bar that served as its inspiration.

useful (1)  

This cake was somewhat of a disappointment. It seemed to be a basic vanilla coffee cake with a spiced, nutty streusel topping. As usual, Joanne Chang added her own twist to it: to prevent the streusel topping from sinking, it was folded into some of the cake batter.

It didn't quite work; there was a thin, crunchy layer on the top of the cake, but most of the mixture was swirled throughout, almost like a marble cake. The streusel/batter parts had a coarse, dry, unappealing crumb and the crunchy texture, and buttery, spicy flavour was lost.

The vanilla cake portion had a fine, dense crumb and good flavour but the cake was a little dry...I believe I over baked it though I removed it from the oven 15 min before the baking time was up.

I prefer cakes of this type to have distinct layers of moist cake and crunchy streusel so this recipe just didn't work for me.

useful (1)  

I love whole wheat bread but it appears I don’t feel the same about whole wheat focaccia. This was a nice tasting flat bread with an interesting topping that had a surprisingly light texture despite the high proportion of whole wheat flour in the recipe, but the flavour of all of the beautiful olive oil was lost.

The dough was very easy to make and handle and didn’t require a preferment but it did have a long fermentation time – it took 3 hours to double - so one had to plan accordingly. Mine was over-baked after 25 minutes.

I think there are other recipes out there for whole wheat flatbread that don’t require this amount of oil so I don’t think I’ll be making this one again….but I will certainly borrow the topping idea for other focaccia!

useful (0)  

I’m not that fussy about peanut butter cookies….my 1 criterion is that they taste like peanut butter and these cookies do. They’re not too sweet, they have a good crunchy texture and they allow the main ingredient to shine.

I don’t usually have crunchy peanut butter on hand so I add a few spoons of roasted chopped peanuts to the dough. Using an ice cream scoop to make the larger size, my yield is 32 cookies (baked in 17 min); yield with a small cookie scoop (~1 tbsp) is 5 dozen, baking time 12 min. They turn out well even without refrigerating the dough first.

Definitely a crowd-pleaser.

useful (0)  

Unlike any other potato bread I've had and absolutely delicious! This rosemary-scented loaf is a hybrid of other types of breads: it tastes a little like focaccia as it's flavoured with olive oil and rosemary, and it looks like a chewy artisanal bread, but the texture is mainly airy and tender like a typical white sandwich loaf.

This is a 2-day bread that requires little hands-on effort but needs long fermenting/proofing times. It begins with a sponge (page 287) that rests at room temperature for 4-8 hours before being refrigerated overnight. Next day, the dough comes together quickly but requires 2-3 hours rising time with an additional 2-3 hours for proofing after the dough is shaped.

I made 10 large buns, ~170g each, (instead of 2 loaves), that baked in 18 min. A lot of spreading/rising takes place during baking - I didn't anticipate this and had my buns too close together. Next time, I'll bake them on 2 pans!

Tastes fabulous fresh out of the oven or toasted.

useful (2)  

These muffins are light, moist, mildly spicy with just a hint of orange and a subtle pumpkin flavour and, if made as per the recipe, (which I did the first time), gargantuan and a little too much like dessert.

In my effort to make them a little healthier, I have discovered that this recipe is very forgiving: I have used oil instead of butter, used whole wheat flour and reduced the sugar and have still ended up with a muffin that is moist, tender and delicious.

The candied pepitas are a nice touch if you have time to make them - I usually just sprinkle the raw seeds on top before baking.

There is also no need to pull out the stand mixer to make these; whisking wet ingredients by hand and folding them into the dry - ie typical muffin/quick bread mixing method - works just as well.

The recipe makes 24 more normal-sized muffins (as per the photo) that bake in ~20min.

useful (2)  

An easy and delicious recipe. Joanne Chang adds her own twist to the shortbread base by using part cake flour and adding egg yolks and vanilla, resulting in a tender, flavourful crust that holds together when sliced.

I must admit that I didn't follow the instructions for forming the base: instead of chilling the dough and later rolling it into a 9"x13" rectangle, I pressed the dough into a 9"x13" pan and chilled before baking. This method worked well for me. I did, however, freeze the portion of dough reserved for the crumb topping as per the recipe and grated it, sprinkling the flakes on top of the filling. This allowed for a really even distribution of the topping and ensured that none of it fell off during slicing. I cut 48 -not 9(!)- bars from this recipe.

This is an excellent, basic recipe - one I will return to often.

useful (3)  

I’ve been waiting for the start of the rhubarb season to make these again, having made them for the first time last year. Everyone knows of the pairing of strawberries with rhubarb, and delicious though that is, it doesn’t come close to raspberries and rhubarb. It doesn’t hurt that in this “muffin”, the fruits are suspended in a tender, delicious vanilla cake.

Normally, I take exception to an author calling a dessert a breakfast food and deduct a star from the rating, and with the amount of sugar, butter and crème fraiche in these, breakfast food they are not. But the flavour and texture of these are exceptional so I didn’t do it this time.

I’ve actually tried to make them healthier using oil, low fat yogurt and whole wheat flour but they ended up dense and rubbery. I’ve come to terms with the fact that this recipe is best left alone and served as a special treat.

I made 24 standard sized muffins which baked in 22min. I also used the author's recipe for creme fraiche, p28.

useful (0)  

I haven't made or eaten that many pecan pies in my lifetime and I don't know what characteristics define the perfect pie so won't comment on how closely this recipe approaches the ideal; I will say, however, that this pie is delicious. It offers a good balance between the pecans and the sweet, gooey filling (heavy on the pecans, light on the sweet and gooey), and the pate brisee crust is crispy and flaky. Having said that, I do have a few complaints about the recipe. I appreciate the detailed visual descriptions that the book provides, but when it comes to caramelizing the sugar, I want more...."golden brown" is a little vague....a temperature for the mixture would be helpful. Also, when adding a hot liquid to raw egg, some of the egg inevitably gets cooked and the mixture needs to be sieved. I did this step but the book omits it. Though the pie is good, I found the recipe to be more labour intensive and to produce more dirty dishes than others - that are equally delicious - I've tried.

useful (1)  

These buns are made with the same light, buttery brioche that forms the base of Joanne Chang's throwdown winning Sticky Bun recipe but instead of a coating of sticky caramel, they are coated with a crunchy spiced sugar.

A half batch of the brioche recipe (page 73) is flattened in to a rectangle, cut into strips and the strips, cut into small squares. Each bun is composed with 5 squares of dough. I wasn't quite sure about the best arrangement of the dough bits...it turns out that it doesn't really matter....the finished effect is much like bubble or monkey bread. After baking, the warm buns are first dipped in melted butter and then sugar mixed with nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger and cloves.

A delicious breakfast treat when you want something just a little sweet and spicy.

useful (2)  

Delicious, ethereal, mousse-like filling with pumpkin flavour in the foreground, subtle spicing in the background. If it were up to my family, who prefer my standby recipe which has a creamy custard texture, lots of spices, and barely discernible pumpkin flavour, this pie would rate 4 stars (3 for the filling, 5 for the crust). Everyone did agree that the crispy, flaky pate brisee crust was excellent. The baking instructions ensure that a soggy crust is avoided. The recipe cooking and baking times were accurate.

useful (1)