TWD: Chocolate-Crunched Caramel Tart

I was telling my Tweetie about this tart the other day when she said, "honey, I don't know how you have the time to bake!" and it got me thinking. You see, I don't have the time to bake. I have to make the time. As cliché as it might sound, baking and cooking keep me sane. I stay at home all day long and care for my darling daughters, I clean the house, I do dozens of loads of laundry, I do all of the grocery (and other) shopping, but baking is something I can always squeeze into my schedule because I can do it any time of day, it's (mostly) inexpensive, and I don't have to leave the house to get it done. I love being in the kitchen and I love feeding people. The time I spend in the kitchen is my creative time. Oh, and of course, I love eating what I've made too!
Well this tart was definitely worth my time! Carla of Chocolate Moosey chose this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe (recipe is on Carla's blog). I've said it before, but I'll say it again: I love Dorie's Sweet Tart Dough- I love it, I love it, I love it! The crust always turns out delicious and beautiful and it is made in the food processor! But the crust is not the greatest part of this tart. The really special part of the tart is a thin layer of soft caramel studded with honey-roasted peanuts. The caramel is very easy to make and tasted divine- I could have eaten it with a spoon. Anyway, the caramel is hidden under a thick layer of chocolate ganache. For some reason, my ganache was a little too soft- I think I might have measured out the chocolate incorrectly- but it still tasted great. Dorie says that the tart should set in the refrigerator for no longer than 30 minutes but I actually kept mine in the refrigerator and had no problems with the crust getting soggy or the caramel getting hard. I didn't really think about it at first, but this was kind of like a very dressy snickers pie. I think I'm going to bring this tart to Thanksgiving this year.

TWD: Flaky Apple Turnovers

I can't believe that I started this blog over a year ago! I have done a lot of baking in the last year and most of it I owe to Tuesdays with Dorie. This group has forced me to really stretch out of my baking comfort zone and learn how to do things I always wanted to know how to do but never made time for. These apple turnovers are a perfect example: I've made tons of apple pies, in fact I LOVE apple pie, but I've never done individual turnovers. First of all there's no pie plate or tart pan to shape the crust, and then there's the fact that you have to make a bunch of tiny individual turnovers instead of one big pie. Basically, I would have never taken the time to make these if Julie of Someone's in the Kitchen had not picked them. Thank goodness she did!


These are terribly labor intensive but also very delicious. The dough consists of three sticks of butter cut into flour and then mixed with sour cream and a little sugar. You wrap the dough in saran wrap, stick it in the fridge for a few hours, roll it out and then fold it like a business letter, stick it back in the fridge for a couple hours, roll it out again and cut it, fill it, and bake the turnovers. I made mine into triangles even though Dorie instructs the baker to make them into little half circles. I think I would do these as crescents next time because I think I'd be able to fit more apple into them. The only change I made to the recipe was increasing the 1/4 tsp of cinnamon to 1/2 tsp and honestly I might even increase that a bit more next time- but I'm sort of a cinnamon freak.
One of the greatest things about this recipe is that it makes around 16 large turnovers and you can freeze the turnovers unbaked for up to two months and take them directly out of the freezer and pop them in the over anytime! I have about 12 in the freezer right now, just waiting for a dessert rainy day!