It did not arrive at the party this way.

There are some desserts that you make to please, and there are some desserts you make to impress. Lately, I’ve been wanting to make the latter kind. It’s finally the holiday season, the time for fancy desserts – in fact, given my current baking inclinations, holiday desserts are going to be my December baking project. But last weekend my desire to impress was thwarted by my general clumsiness – well, that and some new jeans that are a little too long, and a pair of stilettos.

So there it is, above – a double chocolate mint tart. A chocolate cookie crust, filled with chocolate ganache, topped with a layer of white chocolate mint mousse, and drizzled with chocolate sauce. It was my own creation, which I was taking to one of the many pre-Thanksgiving parties I attended this year.

Too bad I tripped on my walk to the metro carrying this tart – in classic Jenna fashion, I fell flat on my face, arms and legs akimbo (I trip like this at least twice a year, if not more). My tupperware container flew from my hands and landed upside down, several feet away. One passer by stopped his bike, exclaiming in a worried tone “Oh my god – are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m okay,” I replied. “But I don’t think my dessert is okay.” After all, bruised knees will heal. I could not say the same for my tart.

Most of the tart ended up on the roof of the tupperware container, and I was able to scrape the filling back into the tart shell when I got to the party. But folks, it was not the same. Instead of lovely layers of cookie, ganache and mousse, everything was mixed together – more like a trifle scraped into a tart pan.

It wasn’t all bad – even in its uncomposed state, the tart was pretty delicious – in fact, it a hit at the party. Part of my problem with a lot of chocolate desserts is that they’re too heavy, so intensely chocolatey that I can only eat a couple bites. But this is a chocolate dessert that doesn’t overwhelm – the intense chocolate ganache layer and the rich chocolate sauce is offset by the creamy, minty, white chocolate mousse. The crunchy chocolate cookie crumb crust is the perfect foil to filling – in fact, every time I make a crumb crust, I fall a little more in love with them.

I guess that’s another point in this dessert’s favor – it was suprisingly resilient, even in the face of klutziness. But I really want someone else to make this for a holiday party – so it can be served in its proper, impressive fashion.

And if you do, I suggest you save your stilettos for another night.

It arrived this way.

Double Chocolate Mint Pie
Adapted from The Cake Bible, by Rose Levy Beranbaum, and Epicurious

Notes:

• You’ll need to start this the day before you intend to serve it, to let everything set up.
• I am actually a milk chocolate fan (sacrilege, I know), and I like to use half milk and half bittersweet chocolate in my ganache. If you’re a dark chocolate fan then by all means use all bittersweet chocolate.
• Yes, I realize the mousse contains uncooked egg whites. No, I do not think that they will kill me. But if you think they will kill you, then this tart is not for you.

For the crust:
2 cups chocolate cookie crumbs
5 tbs melted unsalted butter
1 tbs sugar

For the chocolate ganache:
3 oz bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
3 oz milk chocolate, finely chopped
3/4 cup + 1 tbs heavy cream
2 tbs butter, softened

For the mint white chocolate mousse:
6 ounces white chocolate, chopped
1 1/4 cups chilled whipping cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 and 1/4 tsp peppermint extract
2 large egg whites
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar

For the chocolate drizzle:
1.5 oz bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 tbs butter
3 tbs heavy cream

Directions:

1. Make crust:
Preheat oven to 350°F.

Combine cookie crumbs, melted butter and sugar in a small bowl. Pat mixture into a tart pan, so that it evenly covers the bottom and sides of the pan. Bake crust in the oven until toasted – approximately 15 minutes. Let cool.

2. Make ganache:
Place chopped milk and bittersweet chocolate in a medium bowl. In a small sauce pan, heat cream over moderate heat to the boiling point. Whisk cream into chocolate until smooth. Let cool completely, then stir in the butter. Transfer to the refrigerator to set (around 6 hours, or overnight).

3. Make mousse:
Combine white chocolate and 1/4 cup whipping cream in large bowl. Heat mixture in the microwave (use a low power setting) until chocolate is melted and smooth. Let mixture cool until lukewarm, about 15 minutes.

Beat remaining 1 cup whipping cream, vanilla and peppermint extract in large bowl until peaks form. In another medium bowl, using clean dry beaters, beat egg whites with cream of tartar until stiff but not dry. Fold whites into chocolate mixture, then fold in whipped cream. Chill overnight.

4. Assemble tart:
Remove ganache and mousse from the refrigerator. Both will be slightly stiff, so stir each with a whisk or spatula a couple times, until they loosen slightly. Pour ganache over crust, smoothing with a spatula so that it covers the entire bottom. Pour mousse over ganache, smoothing the top with a spatula.

5. Prepare drizzle and decorate tart:
Place chocolate in a small bowl and melt in microwave (use a low power setting). Place cream in another small bowl and heat until hot (but not boiling). Whisk cream into chocolate. Whisk in the butter. Let cool. Dip a fork into the mixture and flick over the tart in appealingly messy patterns.

Place assembled tart in the fridge for another hour or so, to firm up, before serving.

I'm really only good for pie questions. Although those of you with my cell phone number are welcome to call.

Good luck to all the cooks out there embarking on their Thanksgiving meal for the first time tomorrow. I have to say – I envy you a little. I’ve only cooked the meal once, and it took me about ten hours. But man, they were a great ten hours. Even though the timing is hard, nothing about the meal is technically difficult – besides having the turkey, a naturally dry meat, turn out juicy and flavorful (my bird was neither, by the way). And doing that much cooking, coordinating all the little elements – it was tremendous fun.

If you’re looking for a good dessert recipe from the ModernDomestic archives, here are my best bets:

• Caramel pumpkin pie
• Classic pumpkin pie
• Apple, ginger and cranberry turnovers
• Caramel walnut apple pie
• Vanilla ice cream (for serving your pie a la mode)
• Pumpkin cupcakes with maple cream cheese frosting
• Pumpkin beer ice cream

If you’re looking for more hands-on help before and during the big day, then never fear- there’s help out there. Professional help. As I did last year, I’ve compiled a list of Thanksgiving hotlines to answer all your questions. For those of you who don’t have my direct line, that is (not that I’m much help in anything but the pie department. But I can try).

For all your general cooking questions:

• The Splendid Table, Lynne Rossetto Kasper’s  wonderful NPR cooking show, will be having a two hour live call-in show starting at 11:00 am (eastern) on Thanksgiving day. Give Lynne a call at (800) 537-5252. You can also submit questions online at the show’s web site.

For turkey troubles

• The Butterball Turkey Talk-Line is all turkey, all the time. Call 1-800-BUTTERBALL or email them at talkline@butterball.com. You can also ask them a question via Twitter.

• If you’re anti-Butterball, Reynolds has a Turkey Tips Hotline at 1-800-745-4000.

• You can also call Purdue’s hotline with your turkey questions at 1-800-4PERDUE® (1-800-473-7383).

• If your Turkey question is specific to brining, call the Spice Hunter hotline at 888-334-8977.

For a pie crisis

• The Crisco Pie Hotline will answer your basic and advanced pie baking questions. Call them at -877-FOR PIE TIPS (1-877-367-7438). Granted, I hope they can answer questions about more than just shorting, since I dearly hope you’re using some butter in your pie crust (actually, I hope you’re using a ratio of six tbs butter and 2 tbs shortening to 1 cup of flour).

For general baking questions:

• Call the King Arther Flour’s Baker’s Hotline at 802-649-3717 (M-F, 8am-9pm EST, Sat-Sun, 9am-5pm, EST). If their hotline is as good as their flour, then you’ll be set.

• The Fleischmann’s Yeast Baker’s Help Line can talk you through yeast-baking questions and issues; call them at 1-800-777-4959.

Cranberry queries:

• Problems with the cranberry sauce? Ocean Spray can answer cranberry questions at 1-800-662-3263.

Good luck!

Pumpkin pie - the shy wallflower of the pie set.

It looks pretty homely, doesn’t it? Pumpkin pie always looks like the plain Jane standing in the corner to me. It’s not like apple pie, which can tower over the pie plate, or sport a decorative lattice. And it’s not like cherry pie, whose bright red fruit can be shockingly beautiful. No, pumpkin pie is . . . well, it’s just too brown and flat to be impressive.

And I can’t say that this pumpkin pie is really any less plain – at least on the outside. But you’ll just have to trust me when I say that it really has been spiffed up – a shot of homemade caramel gives the pumpkin a boost of sweetness, with just a hint of that bitter, burnt sugar flavor. Oftentimes I don’t like pumpkin pie because the squash tastes too healthy to me, but this tasted much more like dessert.

The verdict on this pie was mixed – I took it to kittyhagan’s pre-Thanksgiving party and, while it was well received, a full three quarters of it remained by the time I left. Granted, I gave it some pretty stiff competition, in the form of a double chocolate mint pie (more on that next week)—maybe the shy wall flower can never really compete with the beautiful cheerleader, you know?

Well, in any event, if you’re looking for a way to spice up pumpkin pie for Thursday, I definitely suggest this recipe. The caramel gives an extra boost and depth to the pumpkin filling, the crust was gloriously flaky, and, for a homely pie, it certainly packed an impressive punch of flavor. Just make sure you make it the star of the Thanksgiving dessert table, which is certainly what it deserves.

Party photo of the pie. No, I'm not telling you how much wine I had when I took this photo. Not happening.

Caramel Pumpkin Pie
Adapted from Mastering The Art of French Cooking (crust), by Julia Child, and Baking: From My Home To Yours, by Dorie Greenspan

For the pie crust
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
6 tbs unsalted butter, chilled and cut into 1/4 inch cubes
2 tbs shortening, chilled and cut into 1/4 inch cubes
1/4 cup ice water, plus a little bit more (just in case you need it).

For the caramel
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup heavy cream
2 tbs rum, cognac, or apple cider (or, if you are out of these ingredients and are in a pinch, 1 tbs of vanilla extract)
2 tbs unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces

For the filling
1 cup canned unsweetened pumpkin puree
1/2 cup sugar
1 and 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp nutmeg
Pinch of salt
1 and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs

For the glaze:
1 beaten egg mixed with 1 tbs of water

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and sugar. Place the bowl in the freezer for 15 minutes to chill. Remove bowl from freezer and add the chilled shortening and butter; cut the fat into the flour mixture using your fingers or a pastry cutter, until the fat is the size of small peas. Slowly add the cold water and stir together using a wooden spoon or spatula, until the dough just comes together. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured work surface, flatten into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill in the refrigerator for at least one hour.

Alternately, if you have a food processor: In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and sugar. Freeze the flour mixture, butter, shortening, and the processor blade for 1/2 hour before using. Fit the blade on the processor, and then add the flour mixture, butter, and shortening to the bowl. Pulse a couple of time, in five second bursts – until the butter and shortening are the size of small peas. Add the ice water through the feeder tube – and pulse until the dough just comes together. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured work surface, flatten into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill in the refrigerator for at least one hour.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

On a lightly floured work surface, roll out one disk of the dough until it is approximately 1/8 inches thick and 1.5 inches larger than your pie pan. Transfer to pie dish and trim off excess overhanging dough with a pair of kitchen shears – leaving a 1 inch overhang. Fold over the excess dough, tucking it under itself. Crimp edge with a fork, or your fingers. Place in the refrigerator while making the filling.

In a heavy-bottomed, medium sized sauce pan, spread the 1/2 cup sugar in an even layer and heat over moderate heat (I had the most success with medium-low heat). Cook sugar until it is melted and begins to brown. Gently swirl the caramel so that it colors evenly. Continue to cook until the caramel is a deep, dark brown – this will happen quickly, so watch closely. Lower heat, stand back, and add cream – it will hiss and spatter dramatically and bits of the caramel may harden, but continue to cook until the sugar melts and the mixture is smooth. Remove from heat and add the butter and vanilla, stirring until smooth. Pour into a heatproof container and let cool for 15 minutes.

In a large bowl, whisk the pumpkin to smooth it out. Add the sugar and beat to blend. Whisk in spices, salt, vanilla, and eggs, until the mixture is smooth. Whisk in the caramel. Rap the bowl against the counter to de-bubble the filling.

Lightly brush the crimped sections of the crust with the glaze, then pour in the filling. Place in the oven for 45-50 minutes, until the filling is puffed and set. Let cool on a rack before serving. Serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

The Swedish Embassy, decked out for the holidays. We're in the thick of the holiday season.

I’ve loved reading the Thanksgiving posts and articles that have gone up this week. It seems like everyone is preparing for the big day. Except me, of course – I’ll be attending the Thanksgiving celebration of a friend from my bookclub, and I’ll leave all the difficult turkey-cooking to her. I’m a little sad that I won’t be cooking the meal myself, but I’m excited to share the holiday with my friends in DC. And it gives me more time to concentrate on pie – my true obsession this month.

Recipes I want to try, as found on the Internet this week:

• Yogurt panna cotta with maple and pears at Cannelle et Vanille

• Pumpkin ice cream at David Liebovitz.

• Stuffing muffins (brilliant) with chanterelle and pears from the New York Times

• A fabulous butternut squash cheesecake, from Adventures in Shaw.

• Homemade vanilla extract, from Mango and Tomato. I’ve been meaning to do this forever – I go through vanilla extract like water.

And in other pre-Thanksgiving news;

• The Washington Post taste-tests frozen pie crusts. The verdict? They suck.

• Find out which  Starbucks baked good is worth buying at The Tipsy Baker.

• I’ve been having a ton of fun watching the tweets from DC’s first Cupcake Cart, Curbside Cupcake. Now if they’d only come up to Tenlytown.

• Gradually Greener issues a warning on sunchokes.

• The Arugula Files experiments with kale chips, and finds them wanting.

• 6th and I is holding a potato cookoff. Mango and Tomato is already signed up as a contestant!

• Crumbs Bake Shop is coming to DC! Actually, I’m pretty happy with our current cupcake offerings. Do we really need another? Via Metrocurean.

Happy Friday!

It’s that time again! Mark your calendars for the next food blogger happy hour, Wednesday, December 2 at 6:00 pm. This time we’re meeting at Churchkey, the very cool new beer-centric bar on 14th street. Don’t like beer? I talked with their pastry chef Tiffany MacIssac recently, and there’s lots to enjoy on the dessert menu too.

If you’re planning on attending, please leave a comment on Orr’s post over at Young and Hungry so we can get a headcount. And many thanks to our planning committee for putting this together -We Love DC, Capital Spice,  Dining in DC,  Gradually Greener, Capital Cooking, and Orr from Young and Hungry.

December Food Blogger Happy Hour
Wednesday, December 2, 6:00 pm
Churchkey
1337 14th st NW
Washington DC, 20005
www.churchkeydc.com

PS – Thanks to Metrocurean, for letting us use her fabulous photo!

Santanna Salas, the new pastry chef at Bourbon Steak, DC.

Desserts can present a challenge at a place like Bourbon Steak, the fancy steakhouse located in Georgetown’s Four Seasons hotel. After a dinner of rib eye or filet mignon, “it’s hard to have the guests want dessert,” says Santanna Salas, the restaurant’s new pastry chef.

At 23, Salas brings five years of experience working with pastry and a keen palate to the kitchen at Bourbon Steak. For Salas, palate is the most important quality for any chef to have – “to make sure your standard is going out, you have to taste everything,” she says.

Salas got her start competing in cooking competitions in high school, and worked at Michael Mina Bellagio as a baker and assistant pastry chef during college. “I wanted to be a sports nutritionist,” Salas says of her college days. “It was a way to incorporate food into my work. But I fell in love with being in a kitchen.” She graduated from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas with a Bachelors in food and nutrition, but has continued to pursue her passion for pastry.

Salas overcomes the challenge of luring diners to the dessert menu after heavy dinners by keeping things light – she creates refreshing desserts that play on old favorites. “Classics, with a twist” is how she describes her approach to pastry, and it shows.

Tiramisu, deconstructed.

Her butterscotch pot de creme is brought down to earth with Macallan 18 Whisky, and paired with pumpkin spice cake and pepitas. Her favorite dessert on the menu is also on the lighter side – the passionfruit panna cotta, flavored with lemongrass from the restaurant’s kitchen garden, and served with a coconut sorbet.

Salas’ tiramisu has the flavors of the original with a lighter touch: she forgoes the ladyfingers for an espresso sponge cake, and serves it with mascarpone mousse and cocoa sorbet. “When I think of tiramisu, I think of something heavy,” Salas says, “but this is really light and refreshing. For a steakhouse, that’s what you have to do.”

Bitter chocolate cake, artfully arranged.

Other desserts on the menu include a coconut candy bar – a high-class reinterpretation of an almond joy – which layers milk chocolate, praline caramel, and almonds. A caramel apple is served with cinnamon ice cream, and a bitter chocolate cake is served with hazelnut ice cream, and milk and honey ganache. As for the upcoming winter dessert menu? Salas would like to do a dessert with carrots, and experiment with holiday spices, like eggnog.

Right now, Salas is still settling into life in DC, where, she says, the smaller restaurant community and cold weather is a big change from Vegas. “I eventually want to open up my own bakery,” Salas says of her future plans, but right now she’s keeping an open mind and seeing where opportunity leads her.  After all, “I never thought five years ago I’d be working at one of the best restaurants in DC as a pastry chef.”

They're back! And they want to be part of your Thanksgiving!

Do not be alarmed. You are not traveled back in time to September. You have, indeed, seen these turnovers before.

But, you see, I was remiss in my reporting from the apple deluge. During my apple turnover project I made not one, but three kinds of apple turnovers. One type, with ginger and cranberry, you’ve already read about, and the other type (my attempt to make a savory, chutney-like apple filling) is not worth writing about here.

But the third type was actually my favorite – apple turnovers with a cheddar crust – and it would be a mighty shame if I didn’t post the recipe here. It was only last week, when my friend Alice and I were discussing the virtues of cheddar pie crust that I realized I had completely forgotten to put it up.

Perhaps this timing is fortuitous – after all, we’re in the thick of holiday season, and these would be really perfect for a light after-Thanksgiving dessert. If you’ve already committed to pumpkin pie, never fear – these would do very nicely at brunch during your leisurely four day weekend.

Even if you don’t make these turnovers, I hope this recipe inspires others to try cheddar pie crust in their holiday baking, because it truly is an amazing thing. It takes what we usually associate with a cheese plate – cheddar served with a slice of apple – and puts it in a pie plate. Crispy and flaky, the crust gets a mellow bite from the cheddar cheese that makes it much more interesting that normal pie crust. Use it in your next apple pie – you may just not go back your old apple pie crust.

Turnovers, pre turn-over.

Note: as with apple cranberry and ginger turnovers, the filling recipe is a bit of an approximation (the crust is quite precise). You may have some filling left over – and you should definitely taste the filling to see if any of the spices need adjusting.

Apple Turnovers With A Cheddar Crust
Makes approximately 32 turnovers

Crust Ingredients
Adapted From Martha Stewart
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
14 tablespoons (1 3/4 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
4 ounces white cheddar cheese, coarsely grated (about 1 1/2 cups)
1/2 cup ice water

Filling Ingredients
Four medium sized tart apples (I used Sun Crisps. At least, I think that’s what they were. But Granny Smiths or Galas would work nicely as well), peeled, cored, and cut int a 1/4 inch dice – around 3 cups
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice

Glaze Ingredients
2 tbs cream mixed with 2 tbs water

For the crust: toss the cheese with a little flour – this will make it easier to incorporate with the dry ingredients. Whisk together flour, salt and sugar in a large bowl. Mix in the cheese with a spoon or your fingers, until the individual bits of cheese are coated in the flour mixture and everything is combined. Place the flour and cheese mixture in the freezer for 15 minutes. Place the butter in the freezer for 15 minutes as well – you want all your crust ingredients to be very cold.

Remove flour mixture and butter from the freezer. Cut the butter into the flour mixture using a pastry cutter, a fork, or your fingers, until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in the ice water with a wooden spoon or spatula until a rough dough is formed. You don’t want to overwork the dough – handle it as little as possible. Turn out into a lightly floured work surface and divide in two with a knife or bench scraper. Flatten into disks and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate at least one hour.

Preheat oven to 350F.

While the dough is chilling, mix together the filling ingredients in a small bowl.

Remove one disk of dough from refrigerator. Unwrap dough and place on a cleanly floured work surface. Roll dough into a large circle, until dough is 1/8 inch thick. Using a four-inch biscuit cutter (or, in my case, tart pan) cut out circles of dough. Gather scraps into a ball, re-roll to 1/8 thickness, and cut out more circles of dough.

Place a little filling (1 to 2 teaspoons) in each disk of the dough – place it off center, but leave a 1/2 inch border. Fold the other side of dough over the filling and line up edges. Crimp edges of the turnover with a fork. Remove to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Repeat with other dough circles. When finished with the first disk of dough, remove the second disk from the refrigerator and repeat the rolling/filling/folding/crimping process.

Before baking, lightly brush turnovers with glaze. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes, until lightly browned.

Nothing healthful about this little baby.

I’ve had very little cream pie in my life.

The pies of my childhood were mainly of the fruit variety – and when I say fruit I mean apples. My mother was cursed with children who were very picky eaters, and the only pie we would tolerate was the apple kind. On the whole, we are not a pie family.

But I wonder what would have happened if my mother had offered us a piece of the chocolate cream pie I made this weekend. Unlike apple pie, whose fruit filling has a veneer of healthfulness (at least, if you’re a kid), everything about this pie screams “dessert:” a chocolate crumb crust, filled with a silky chocolate pudding filling, and adorned with mounds of whipped cream and chocolate curls.

I was ambitious with this pie – I actually made my own chocolate wafer cookies from this Smitten Kitchen recipe, and then ground them into crumbs for the crumb crust. The wafers may have been more trouble than they were worth – about a third of them burnt, and, while they tasted fine, they lacked that intense, chocolatey, slightly salty flavor of Nabisco’s Famous Chocolate Wafers, which I usually use for a crumb crust. For those of you who want to try to make your own wafers, my one piece of advice is to freeze the dough log before you slice it into cookies – I chilled mine in the refrigerator for the recommended one hour, but the dough was still way too soft to slice cleanly.

I ended up making the crust slightly too thick, but it was still satisfyingly crunchy. It was the perfect foil to the creamy, chocolate pudding filling, which had a rich chocolate flavor without being too sweet. The pudding is thickened with cornstarch, giving it a silky, light texture. The whole thing is topped with a layer of whipped cream, which I spiced up with a little Grand Marnier and cinnamon.

Now, you’ll notice this pie looks a little, shall we say, un-pie like. That is because I made this pie in a tart tin, rather than a pie pan. This was not my intention, but I broke my pie pan in the process of making this pie – let’s just say that balancing a glass pan on top of my coffee maker is not the most secure situation.

So, technically, you could call this a tart. But I think you should still think of it as a pie. Its simple, unpretentious, messy soul is much more pie like.

And whatever you call it, it’s delicious. I took this to a pre-Thanksgiving party, where it was promptly devoured.

Many thanks to my taste testers!

Recipe: Chocolate Cream Pie

Ingredients for crust:
2 cups chocolate wafer crumbs
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
3 tbs sugar

For filling
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 large egg yolks
3 cups whole milk
5 oz fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), melted
2 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla

For topping
1 cup chilled heavy cream
2 tbs powdered sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp grand mariner

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Combine cookie crumbs, melted butter and sugar in a small bowl. Pat mixture into a pie or tart pan, so that they evenly cover the bottom and sides of the pan. Bake crust in the oven until toasted – approximately 15 minutes. Let cool.

In a medium, non-reactive saucepan, whisk together sugar, cornstarch, salt and egg yolks. Slowly add the milk, whisking until everything is combined. Heat to a boil over moderate heat, whisking constantly. Cook for 1 minute at a boil – the custard will thicken rapidly.

Strain custard through a fine mesh sieve into a clean bowl. Whisk in the chocolate, butter and vanilla. Cover pudding with a piece of buttered parchment or wax paper and let cool completely – about 2 hours.

Spoon filling into pie crust. Let chill in the refrigerator, loosely covered with plastic wrap, until set – around six hours.

Place a mixing bowl and whisk (or the bowl of an electric mixer and the whisk attachment) in the freezer for 15 minutes to chill. Remove from freezer; place cream, cinnamon, Grand Marnier, and sugar in bowl. Whisk to combine, then whisk until the cream hold soft peaks. Just before serving, spoon cream over filling. Garnish with chocolate curls or cocoa powder, if desired.

You haunt my dreams.

I can’t stop thinking about pie. All day I’m distracted by the the thoughts of the pie I’m going to make this weekend. Will it use a pastry crust? A crumb crust? A cheddar crust? Will it be a fruit pie? Or a pudding pie? I don’t know why I didn’t start baking pies months ago – they’re just so fascinating.

Maybe this means I need more hobbies. Or, um, friends.

Recipes I want to try:

• Parmesan popovers from Adventures in Shaw. Popovers are an excellent holiday feast food – they’re easy, tasty, and impressive.

• Veal ricotta meatballs at Sassy Radish. God, I love really good, light, flavorful meatballs.

• Fried bacon wrapped dates from Jaleo, sleuthed out by Best Bites.

• Pumpkin whole wheat muffins from Pete Bakes!

• “Faux” pho with tofu, from Mango and Tomato. This awful, rainy weather is perfect for pho.

And in other news:

• The Arugula Files reviews the bar menu at Bourbon Steak, which is both decadent and reasonably priced.

• Lemmonex reviews Masa 14, the hot new tapas restaurant on 14th Street. She is tired of tapas.

• NPR has a good primer on quinces, which I’ve been wanting to try. I looked for them at the farmer’s market last weekend, but didn’t find any – anyone know if they’re available in this area?

• The Tipsy Baker, aka writer Jennifer Reese, has a thoughtful, tough, review of Jonathan Safran Foer’s new book, Eating Animals over at Double XX.

• Gradually Greener previews a promising new social networking site for foodies, Smörgie.

• The Internet Food Association is tired of cupcakes. I, personally, am tired of people who are tired of cupcakes. You’ll notice I tried to defend them in the comments, but, alas, the majority of comments are firmly in the anti-cupcake camp.

• Capital Spice has google-mapped out all the restaurants on Tom Sietsema’s Fall Dining Guide (from the Post), Tim Carman’s 50 Best Restaurants (from the Washington City Paper), and the Washingtonian magazine’s 100 Best Restaurants. Now if only I could read maps.

Happy Friday!

I still haven't drunk all that Guinness . . .

I still have a lot of beer left over from last month’s beer baking binge, and I haven’t really been in the mood to drink lately. I think I’m too busy with all these various baking projects, blogger get togethers, and early morning choir performances. Or maybe it’s that I’m watching too much Mad Men – watching people who are always drunk, or hungover, makes sobriety much more attractive.

This weather has also put me in the mood to bake, so I put two and two together and made some Guinness bread this weekend. I was also inspired by my chat with Tiffany MacIssac, the Pastry Chef at Birch and Barley, who’s been incorporating beer into their breads and desserts. I decided to use the basic hearth bread recipe from The Bread Bible, which Rose Beranbaum suggests as a good basic recipe to use for adaptations.

The beer in this bread is a subtle flavoring – it gives it a slightly more bitter, darker flavor, and a honey-colored crumb. To counteract the smoky, bitter flavor of the Guinness, I upped the amount of honey in the dough, which gave the bread a mellow sweetness. You can’t really tell that the bread uses Guinness, but the beer definitely gives the bread a subtle depth of flavor that I liked quite a bit. Because this loaf uses bread flour, which has a higher protein content than regular flour, the bread is satisfyingly chewy, with a crisp crust and light texture.

This bread is good toasted in thick slices with a good slathering of butter and a sprinkling of sea salt. Or top it with goat cheese, arugula, and Prosciutto for a quick open-faced sandwich. And it’s refined enough that you can enjoy a slice with some cheese and a glass of wine. Or your favorite craft brew. Or even a Bud Light, if that’s what you prefer. I don’t judge.

My favorite way to eat this bread is toasted and topped with a fried egg. I'm classy like that.

Rustic Guinness Bread
Adapted from The Bread Bible, By Rose Levy Beranbaum

For the dough starter
1 and 1/4 cup bread flour
3/8 tsp instant (i.e., “rapid rise”) yeast
2 tbs honey
3/4 cup Guinness, at room temperature
1/3 cup + 4 tbs water, at room temperature

For the flour mixture
1 3/4 + 2 tbs bread flour
1/2 tsp instant yeast (i.e., “rapid rise”)

For the dough
1 + 1/2 tsp salt
Cornmeal, for sprinkling

Make the dough starter: in a mixer bowl, whisk together the bread flour, yeast, honey, Guinness, and water for two minutes, to incorporate air. Scrape down sides of bowl.

Make the flour mixture: in a medium bowl, whisk together the bread flour and yeast. Gently scoop the flour mixture onto the sponge, covering it completely. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place in a warm place to rise, 1-4 hours at room temperature. Do not worry if the starter bubbles through the flour mixture – this is fine.

Make the dough: Place mixer bowl on the elecric mixter and fit with a dough hook attachment. Mix on low speed until a rough dough is formed (about 1 minute). Scrape down any stray bits of dough. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and rest dough for 20 minutes.

Sprinkle the salt over the dough and knead on medium speed for about 7 minutes. The dough should be elastic and smooth, and just sticky enough to cling to your fingers. If it is too sticky, knead in a little flour; if it is not at all sticky, add a little water.

Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and let rise until doubled – around 1 hour.

Remove dough from bowl to a lightly floured work surface and give it a business letter fold. Gently round dough and return to oiled bowl. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled – 45 minutes to an hour.

Place dough on a lightly floured work surface and shape into a round ball, approximately 6 inches by 2.5 inches high. Line a baking sheet with a piece of parchment paper, lightly sprinkled with cornmeal. Place dough on prepared baking sheet. Cover with a bowl or oiled plastic wrap and let rise until almost doubled, 45 minutes to 1 hour and 15 minutes.

One hour before baking, preheat oven to 475°F. Place one rack in the middle of the oven, and one in the lower portion of the oven. Place a baking stone or baking pan on middle rack, and a cast iron pan in lower rack.

Just before baking, slash the top of the bread with a razor or sharp knife, and gently mist with water. Gently set baking sheet on hot baking sheet in the center of the oven. Toss 1/2 cup of ice cubes into the cast iron pan below and quickly shut the oven door. After 10 minutes, lower heat to 425°F. Bake 20-30 minutes more, until bread is golden brown and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Remove dough from oven and let cool on a rack.