Joy the Baker

It’s Tuesday and I’m back with Dorie.  She and I had broken up for a few weeks- some misunderstanding with snails and flan, but we’ve got it all sorted out.  A love like ours, afterall, couldn’t be denied for long.  So we’re back and better than ever with a gooey chocolate love to show for it!

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The title to both this post and this dessert is a little hum drum.  Russian Grandmothers’ Apple Pie Cake… it just doesn’t set off fireworks in my head.  And frankly, I always feel a bit off put when apostrophes are in strange places (here I am considering s’ strange).  I was an English major in college, and I still just feel put out with the apostrophe after the s.  I actually have to think about the Pie Cake, and who, and how many Grandmothers it belonges to.  It’s a lot. I know!  Well let’s just clear things up right now and say that this Apple Pie Cake belongs to many Russian Grandmothers.  That’s what the whole s’ was trying to tell us.

I would also like to informally change the name of this recipe to The Apple Pie Cake that belongs to Many Russian Grandmothers.  I don’t think Dorie will mind.

Grammar lesson, over.

Recipe and more cake talk after the big jump.

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These Pecan Sour Cream Biscuits take me back home.  I come from a biscuit loving family.  We take our biscuits rather seriously.  My Dad makes what he calls Mile High Biscuits.  They’re light and buttery, a beautiful golden color, and we always ate them hot with dinner.  We were generally a happy family of 4 sitting around the dinner table, sharing a meal, laughing, and talking about our days.  Biscuit night was always a different story. On biscuit nights, there was, without a doubt, scandal and conflict.

Why?  Well Dad always made a recipe of 12 biscuits.  Now let’s do the math- 12 biscuits for 4 people, that’s 3 each.  The problem is, no one never ended up with three biscuits.  Three words- my little sister.  My sister, the biscuit strategist, would cunningly place the biscuit basket at her side of the table, and with great stealth, gather about 8 biscuits for herself over the course of dinner.  I must admit, the girl is clever.  And with her darling smile and endless charm, she always got away with the lion’s share of biscuits. Always!  I’d stomp my feet, outraged, pleading “But Mom…!  It’s not fair!”  Mom would calmly reply “Joy, who said life was fair?  Now eat your broccoli before it gets cold.”At that point, defeated, I usually just ate my one biscuit slowly, while trying to shoot my sister down with the evil eye.  Mom was right though- life isn’t always fair, sometimes your sister just gets more biscuits than you, and steamed broccoli once it’s cold, is just wretched.

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This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie delight is Almost Fudge Gateau.  Don’t know how to pronounce Gateau?  Luckily that’s not a prerequisite to eat this cake.  The cake is an intensely chocolate, dense yet moist chocolate bomb.  It’s the kind of cake you might serve to your guests after a fancy dinner, and wonder why you didn’t just serve the cake itself for dinner.  Yea… this dark chocolate cake is worthy of being the main course.

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I can’t leave well enough alone. Nothing illustrates this fact better than my adaptation of Dorie Greenspan’s perfectly great recipe for Brown Sugar- Apple Cheesecake. If the recipe says round spring form pan, I want to use a square baking pan. If the recipe calls for apples inside the cheesecake, I want my apples on top. Call me a rebel. So in the world according the Joy, this cheesecake is served in bars, with browned apple and sugar goodness adorning the top. It’s delicious any way you slice it. Oh yes it is.

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