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 >

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Zosia's Reviews

25 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 25Sort by: Title | Date | Rating

The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook: Sweetness in Seattle

By Tom Douglas
William Morrow Cookbooks - 2012

Lovely egg- and butter-rich dough that was quite easy to make in a stand mixer. This recipe calls for bread flour only so the crumb, while still light and airy, was also chewy.

The method was standard, kneading the dough for some time before incorporating the softened butter. The instructions called for medium speed setting (#5 on my machine); the manufacturer of my stand mixer recommends #2 for kneading so that’s what I used. The dough was still done in the allotted time.

I made a double batch to feed a crowd for brunch with these individual monkey breads.

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I wouldn't say that they’re the best – they’re not as good as this version – but they are very good and get bonus points for being easy to make requiring only standard ingredients, and for the convenience of making the batter the night before so you can enjoy freshly baked muffins for breakfast.

My yield was 19, so they were clearly smaller than the recipe intended, and the baking time was only 20 minutes. They were light and moist and not overly sweet with a hint of banana (note that the weight for the banana includes the peel) and spice and they retained their flavour and texture after freezing and reheating.

This will be my go-to recipe from now on.

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The smell of the lemon-thyme-vanilla bean sugar used to flavour the berries was out of this world, and the taste of the baked pie, the same.

I used frozen blackberries (and 100g of blueberries to make up the missing weight) and this whole wheat pastry to make the individual pies. These came together very quickly as the filling took just moments to toss together and the pastry was very easy to roll.

The recipe recommends using starch water (a cornstarch-water slurry) to help hold the pleats of the dough together. I’ve used this “glue” on wonton and egg roll wrappers but never before on pastry dough. It made the dough quite wet and prone to tearing so I reverted to my usual method of squeezing the pleated dough lightly to hold it in place. I didn’t use the recommended Flaky Dough recipe……perhaps it would have held up better.

I made these a few days in advance and baked them from frozen in honour of Pi Day.

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Made on the spur of the moment in an effort to use up the last of my frozen summer blueberries, this is the kind of muffin my family likes – tender, cake-like texture, rich, sweet flavour and bursting with fruit. Which usually means they’ve been made with white flour, lots of white sugar and lots of butter - add some sour cream and a little buttermilk and you have these little cakes. I usually add lemon zest to blueberry muffins, but these had a nice tang without it.

They were delicious as a treat, but not something I’d serve regularly for breakfast!

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Nutty brown butter pecan filling is sandwiched between thin chocolate-y wafers in this cookie.

These are relatively easy to make for a sandwich cookie as both cookie and filling are simple creamed mixtures. There is a little advanced preparation required in browning the butter for the filling and toasting the pecans, and the dough and filling do need to chill briefly, but the chocolate wafers are drop cookies that bake very quickly.

The chocolate cookie is delicious on its own and the filling creamy and sweet with a double dose of nutty flavour from the browned butter and toasted pecans with just a hint of salt. The wafer cookie softened over time but retained its crispy edges even a few days later. It would be great in an ice cream sandwich.

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Sweet, spicy, crunchy….everything you expect from a good crumb topping. Unfortunately, this one was a little too salty.

It came together quickly in a food processor but could be made just as easily by hand. It was used to top these monkey breads so in combination with the caramel sauce, the salt was not quite as pronounced. Next time, I would reduce the salt by half.

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Fantastic! Moist and very lemony with just a hint of rosemary.

3 components are needed to complete this cake but each one is very quick and easy to make. The batter is mixed by hand in a bowl and the syrup and glaze can be made while the cake bakes. I used the same weight of instant polenta as the medium-grind cornmeal called for since not everyone appreciates the grittiness of the latter. The cake dipped a little in the centre upon cooling so I may have under baked it by a few minutes.

The flavour of the cake really benefits from using the entire lemon: grated zest in the cake, juice in the tart syrup and more zest and juice in the glaze. The rosemary is very much in the background and having first been blanched, even the needles in the glaze add only subtle flavour.

Loved it!

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Boldly spiced oatmeal cookies with crispy edges and a nicely chewy centre.

They had great texture and were easy to put together but I found them a little too sweet; the tartness of the cranberry was needed but it was overwhelmed by the other fruit so I would reverse the amounts of apricots and cranberries next time. Also, if you’re not a fan of cloves, you might want to reduce the amount of that spice or omit it altogether to let the cinnamon and ginger shine.

The recipe makes a lot of cookies….my yield was 30 huge cookies.

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Made with mashed potatoes (peel included) and whole wheat flour, these muffins bake up beautifully crisp on the outside with a holey, chewy crumb.

The dough is very wet - like ciabatta dough….so wet, the paddle attachment is used instead of the kneading hook. As with making ciabatta, the method involves stretching and folding the dough at intervals during fermentation before the final shaping and proofing. The recipe stresses the importance of correct ingredient temperatures for optimal results so I relied on my thermapen to take water and kneaded dough temperatures.

I made these muffins over 2 days as suggested in the recipe, allowing the dough to rest in the fridge overnight to be shaped and proofed the following morning. Shaping bread dough is not my forte so forming smooth balls from this wet dough presented quite the challenge. The muffins are baked entirely in the oven….no instructions are given for cooking them on a griddle so I presume that option doesn’t exist for them.

I used them to make this sandwich, but they’re wonderful on their own.

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For me, the texture of granola is as important as the flavour so this recipe fits the bill, producing a tasty combination of super crunchy toasted oats, nuts and seeds, and chewy coconut and dried fruit.

I had all of the ingredients on hand so made the recipe as is. The only change I made was to add the toasted hazelnuts towards the end of the baking time as I didn’t want them to burn.

I thought it a little too sweet but my daughters, the only other granola eaters in the house, disagreed - they thought it was delicious……maybe too delicious since the ½ batch I made to try out the recipe was gone in record time! I’m sure they won’t notice if I omit the maple syrup (which can’t be detected so is a waste of a good ingredient) and the granulated sugar next time ; )

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Very moist, chocolate-y, oil-based cake that relies on cocoa powder and bittersweet chocolate for its intense flavour.

This wasn’t the easiest cake to make in a cold kitchen as all of the ingredients needed to be warm to combine properly. I used a hot water bath ie kitchen sink filled with hot water, to warm ingredients that became too cool. Apart from that particular challenge, the batter came together easily.

I divided the batter between 2 pans instead of baking in one and later splitting the cake into layers; baking time was 30 minutes. I loved the trick of flouring the greased pans with a little cocoa powder mixed with flour…..the cakes released easily and there was no unsightly white flour residue. They baked up very flat without cake strips.

I frosted it with the fluffy chocolate sour cream frosting to make my husband’s birthday cake. He and all of the other chocoholics loved it

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This is a very good, simple caramel that has a much higher proportion of whipping cream than most recipes resulting in an ultra-creamy tasting sauce. It’s also thinner than most but is the perfect consistency for dipping these monkey breads.

The directions were clear but providing a temperature for the caramel mixture would have been very helpful. I made it the day before it was needed and reheated before serving.

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Very easy chocolate frosting that comes together in just a few minutes once the chocolate has been melted and cooled. I used 72% bittersweet chocolate so the flavour was intense without being overly sweet; the sour cream added a nice tang and richness to it.

It had a great consistency – I would call it creamy, not fluffy - and would be easy to pipe but I chose a more rustic approach to frosting my husband’s birthday cake….it may have looked very homey, but the flavour of this frosting with this double chocolate cake was very intense and sophisticated.

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Cornmeal cake might be a more apt description for this sweet, rich quick bread. With its crunchy lemon-thyme topping, it made a nice treat to enjoy with a cup of coffee.

I used quick cook polenta in the cake itself so the crumb was not too gritty, and medium grind cornmeal in the topping for more crunch. The fresh corn niblets took the place of more traditional dried fruits, adding sweet, chewy bits to every bite. The cake didn’t have a particularly distinctive flavour, but acted as a vehicle for the delicious topping.

Not sure if I’ll make this cake again, but I’ll definitely use the crumble topping.

It really should be 3 1/2 stars.

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So simple and so delicious! No cooking involved….just stir the ingredients together, churn, freeze and enjoy.

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Brioche dough, cinnamon streusel topping and a creamy caramel sauce come together to make this delicious treat.

I made all of the components in advance so only assembly, proofing and baking time were required on serving day. The first step was to dip the brioche pieces, which had been rolled ¼” thick, cut into squares and frozen overnight, into sweetened, cinnamon-y sour cream and arrange them in tulip-shaped cupcake liners. Proofing time was quite long as the dough first had to defrost before it started to rise, so one had to allow time for this. With a 6:30 am start on Easter morning, they were ready by 10:30am.

The monkey breads were quite large though not as filling as one might expect; they weren’t very sweet on their own so the caramel sauce was a nice addition. With all the work involved, I had hoped these would be spectacular; they fell a little short of expectations with a too salty streusel topping and too high a baking temperature for my oven.

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These were good but sweeter than I expected for a savoury scone. They also didn’t rise much in the oven – I baked them from frozen but that normally doesn’t interfere with the rise. They were dense but moist and like most scones, best eaten warm from the oven.

Half of a batch was served with potato-leek soup, the second half had a little crisped bacon added to it (pictured) and was used for breakfast egg sandwiches.

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Good, basic recipe for a fruit crisp that calls for simple ingredients and is very quick to put together. The topping deserves an extra star since it was very crisp and remained that way even in hot, humid weather, but there was just too much of it for the amount of fruit. It was much better when I doubled the fruit.

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Overall, I thought these were very good: the sweetness of the vegetables was balanced by the briny olives and tangy goat cheese and all of this goodness was encased in a nutty-flavoured crisp pastry.

A great deal of thought seemed to have gone into the details of this recipe to ensure that both filling and pastry were well-suited to eating out of hand. A portion of the roasted carrots was puréed, acting as a glue to hold the filling ingredients together. The whole wheat pastry, which was relatively low in fat, baked up buttery crisp and flaky but was also quite sturdy.

I would recommend holding back on the salt in the filling and adding most of it to taste only after adding the olives (I used far less than 1 tbsp). The filling was very strongly flavoured so it wasn’t for everyone and though I liked it, I would cut back on the olives. I made the filling the night before and the pastry several days earlier so all I had to do was form and bake the pies today, in honour of Pi day.

These were good eaten warm or at room temperature.

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Easy to make dog treats with crispy fried bacon and peanut butter as the flavouring agents mixed into a wheat germ and flour base. I chose the option of allowing the cookies to dry out in the cooling oven after they were done baking, and transferred them from the cookie sheet to a cooling rack so this step would be more effective.

Judging by my dog’s attempts to gain access to the kitchen while these baked, and the speed with which he scarfed one down during the “tasting”, I’d say these biscuits deserve a 5-star rating!

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Easy enough to mix together with a whisk, but with a very long baking time, this cake was a disappointment. It was far too sweet so I didn’t bother making the honey syrup, and I didn’t care for the texture which was fine-crumbed, very dense, and almost like pudding it was so moist.

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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 and in its savouriness, to the silky filling and sweet topping.

Making the filling, which involved pouring hot pastry cream over chocolate etc in a food processor, caused my machine to overheat in 30sec but that was enough time to blend the ingredients. The filling barely made it into the pie crust taste tasters thought it was so good!

Happy Pi Day!

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At first glance, this may look like a typical breakfast sandwich from a fast food restaurant, but made with this English muffin smeared with Dijon mustard and filled with smoked pork loin, Gruyère cheese and an over easy egg, there's really no comparison!

I used the components listed in the recipe but eliminated the butter used on the muffin and for cooking, and didn’t weigh the ingredients for each sandwich so probably used less filling than the bakery does…… they were still fantastic. I particularly liked the suggestion to keep the yolk slightly runny so it creates a “sauce”…... a great contrast to the crispy, toasted muffin.

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The combination of hazelnut and maple is really delicious, and in this scone, there’s a perfect balance of the two.

The scones themselves have a fantastic nutty flavour and light, crunchy texture and aren’t very sweet….they could easily be served as is with a soup or used in a sandwich.

The sweetness comes from the maple syrup glaze which, though made with confectioners’ sugar (my least favourite type of glaze), is saved from being cloyingly sweet by the addition of melted butter and a pinch of kosher salt. Even applied with a rather heavy hand, there’s too much glaze for the 12 scones – a half recipe would be enough.

A new family favourite.

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This dough comes together easily in a food processor, is very easy to work with despite being quite soft, and bakes up beautifully brown, crispy and flaky with a nutty flavour.

The proportion of fat (butter) to flour is quite low in this recipe, and liquid to flour, quite high, which probably explains why it remains soft – but not sticky – even after refrigeration.

I used a half batch for these savoury hand pies, and the rest for blackberry crostatas. It was delicious in both savoury and sweet applications but it wasn’t particularly tender so it’s ideally suited to hand pies but less appropriate for pies eaten with a fork.

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