Thank you Dorie (@DorieGreenspan) for mentioning my variation on your cake as one of your favorites to the people at O (Oprah!) magazine. What an honor. Dorie is an inspiration who takes the time to respond and encourage people to follow their passion. I have several of Dorie's cookbooks, and 

Top 15 Treats from Tuesdays with Dorie

Here are my top 15 favorite recipes from the Tuesdays with Dorie treats I made:


French Yogurt Cake


Lemon Cup Custard


Chocolate Armagnac Cake


Floating Islands


World Peace Cookies


Arborio Rice Pudding


Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes


Lenox Almond Biscotti


Dimply Plum Cake


Double-Crusted Blueberry Pie


Peppermint Cream Puff Ring


French Chocolate Brownies


The Most Extraordinary French Lemon Cream Tart


Gooey Chocolate Cake


Caramel-Topped Flan

To see all the treats I baked for Tuesdays with Dorie, click here.

You should really buy Dorie’s cookbook Baking: From My Home to Yours (affiliate link). There are so many wonderful recipes between its covers.

It begins with a cow. And then a chicken. Followed by some fruit, bees and sugar cane. Whoever thought to put all these ingredients together and freeze them was brilliant.

We've been making lots of {smartie and kit kat} ice cream since buying a deluxe model ice cream maker, the Cuisinart Supreme Commercial Quality Ice Cream Maker - ICE-50BC, earlier this year and haven't purchased a tub from the grocery store since.

According to MakeIceCream.com, vanilla is the most popular flavor of ice cream at 29% followed by chocolate at 8.9%. Honey-peach wasn't in the top 15, but it was tasty.

Recipe: Honey-Peach Ice Cream

Makes: about 1 quart (4 cups)

Ingredients:

I was skeptical about the Cinnamon Squares this week. I love coffee cake and I enjoy chocolate, but I had never considered putting the two together. I've never been a fan of pain au chocolat and prefer my chocolate treats after dinner. However, I've been convinced this week that cinnamon, coffee, and chocolate play well together. To prove the point, I made some of my squares without chocolate and some with. The chocolate ones were perfect and the plain version lacked this extra flavor boost.

I made some unintentional modifications when making this cake. I forgot to put the cinnamon/sugar/espresso powder in the middle so I sprinkled it on top. It would have been much tastier blended into the cake. I also lost track of time and didn't make the frosting.

Recipe: Cinnamon Squares

Makes: 9 servings

Ingredients:

This recipe is brilliant. It combines the best of both worlds by putting chocolate chip cookie dough on top of brownie batter and baking them together. The cookie forms a crust that hides the soft, moist brownie underneath.

Recipe: Chipster-Topped Brownies

Makes: 24 brownies (I made 48 minis and one 8x8 pan.)

Ingredients:

What's better than banana bread? Fresh mango bread. I used the champagne of mangoes: Ataulfo mangoes. As well, I ground up ginger and cinnamon from Montreal's Philippe de Vienne’s line of épices de cru (small-production "estate" spices). The difference between using freshly dried ginger and cinnamon and the one that's expired on your shelf is incredible. To top it off, I used farm fresh eggs from a local farmer.

Recipe: Fresh Mango Brea

Makes: 12 servings (I halved the recipe.)

Ingredients:

Tartest Lemon Tart is definitely the tartest, most pucker-worthy, and bitter tart I've tasted. But it's perfect. A spoonful of lemon with a chaser of homemade vanilla ice cream was sour, sweet, and bitter all in one bite.

You need a blender or food processor to make this dessert. After removing the seeds from the lemons, all the ingredients are whizzed to a smooth consistency.

I baked some of the mixture in hollowed-out half-lemons at a lower temperature of 300°F for 30 to 35 minutes (because my first batch of minis exploded). I also baked some in little antique tin molds for about the same length of time.

To serve, I spooned some vanilla ice cream on the side and placed an amaretti cookie in each.

Recipe: Tartest Lemon Tart

Makes: 8 servings

Ingredients:

What makes tirami-su?
Tiramisu usually contains lady finger biscuits, mascarpone cheese, a coffee-flavored liqueur, and is dusted with cocoa. My version doesn't contain any of these ingredients. Dorie's riff on tiramisu uses a sponge cake instead of lady finger biscuits. I was forced to do a couple of riffs myself. Since I didn't have mascarpone, I used some long-neglected cream cheese that was soon going to expire. As well, I didn't have the recommended Kahlúa or brandy so I used crème de cacao. Finally, I forgot to put the chopped chocolate in between the layers so I sprinkled it on top which meant my cake wasn't dusted with cocoa. Whatever you call it, it's a treat in the middle of the afternoon guaranteed to pick you up and get you to the 5 o'clock whistle.

Recipe: Tiramisu Cake

Makes: 10 servings (I halved the recipe.)

Ingredients:

Homemade chocolate pudding spooned onto a chocolate cookie crust with a dollop of whipped cream. My kids were in heaven. As were our neighbor's kids. One of mine licked off just the pudding and whipped cream and handed the cookie part back to me to finish!

I was at a popular dessert spot in Ottawa the other day called Memories. Situated downtown in the bustling Byward Market, it's a dessert-focused café I've been visiting since moving to Ottawa. At one time, all the desserts were listed on a big whiteboard tempting us with cheesecakes, chocolate oblivions, and pies. I had my first ever café au lait there served in a bowl. I awkwardly figured out the best way to hold the bowl without burning my fingers and tried to confidently display l'air de Paris without spilling any coffee down my chin.

As I was looking over the dessert menu at Memories this weekend, nothing was tempting me. On a menu, I'm always looking for the banana foster, molten chocolate cakes, toffee pudding, bread pudding or even floating islands! I like to eat something I don't make at home, or at least something I don't make often. Now that I'm baking so much, it's getting more difficult to enjoy a dessert at a café.

I liked what I ordered at Memories, which was a thin meringue on top of a lemon tart on top of an almond cake on top of a crust with a raspberry swirl. I'm just getting spoiled, and rounder in the process.

Recipe: Chocolate Cream Tart

Makes: 8 servings (I halved the recipe.)

Ingredients:

This chocolate bread pudding could be renamed "Susan Boyle" pudding in honor of her amazing talent. If you haven't seen the video yet, check it out and come on back. Last I looked, 34 million plus people had viewed it, and it still gives me shivers every time I watch it.

Like Susan Boyle, this pudding is an old-fashioned dessert that "transcends its homey origins." I love the custard-y, delicately flavored middle with a tinge of crustiness on the outside in each bite. Since my favorite bread pudding is plain old vanilla, I divided my recipe in half and added the chocolate to one pan and vanilla to the other.

The pudding is baked in a water bath to avoid the custard from curdling or drying out. Next time, I want to try making this pudding with a more interesting bread, like brioche.

Recipe: Four-Star Chocolate Bread Pudding

Makes: 12 servings

Ingredients:

This almond-y chocolate treat claims to be ready for the oven in 15 minutes. I tested this assertion and set my timer (after getting the ingredients prepped and taking the required mise en place photos, of course).

Because I baked individual tortes, they were ready after only 15 minutes in the oven.

A little while ago, I took a foodie field trip downtown to one of my favorite kitchen stores in Ottawa called Domus where I found the individual paper liners that I used for these mini tortes at Domus and am looking forward to trying the vanilla paste.

Recipe: Chocolate Amaretti Torte

Makes: 8 servings

Ingredients:

1 or 2 amaretti or amarettini, crumbled, or a few spoonfuls of toasted sliced almonds, for decoration

To me, cream pies are synonymous with the pies you get at Denny's or Perkin's. The ones that sit for days on end in their smudged display cases waiting for senior's day at the diner. I honestly don't think I've ever had homemade banana cream pie before this week. Dorie's cinnamon-spiced pastry cream that enrobes the banana slices is creamy and velvety before hitting the crunch from the crust.

Instead of a pastry crust, I made a crumb crust using some leftover Coconut Butter Thins from last week by pulsing them in the food processor with some melted butter. I baked the crust at 350˚F for about 10 minutes. I also tried baking the crust in a parfait glass, and that worked too.

I had some sweet Ataulfo mangoes that I had picked up at Costco and decided to try making one mini pie crust with this "champagne" of fruit instead of bananas. It turned out to be a favorite. I also used up some frozen egg yolks I had stored in the freezer.

Recipe: Banana Cream Pie

Makes: 8 servings

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons sour cream

Coconut, butter, and nuts make up this delicious shortbread-like cookie. And they're so easy to make. I made half the batter with chopped macadamia nuts and half with pistachios (salmonella-free ones). After rolling the dough out in a gallon-size zipper-lock bag, I let it rest in the refrigerator for 2 hours. Then, after cutting them out, I put them back in the refrigerator to firm up a bit before baking.

Recipe: Coconut Butter Thins

Makes: 32 cookies

Ingredients:

You can find the recipe for Coconut Butter Thins in the book Baking: From My Home to Yours (affiliate link) by Dorie Greenspan or here. To see how the rest of the TWD group fared with this week's recipe, click here and then click on each blogger! Thanks to Jayne from Barefoot Kitchen Witch who chose the recipe for this week.

Tasting Notes
These cookies melt in your mouth at first and then you're left with a bit of a chew from the coconut and nuts. I couldn't decide which version I liked better. The pistachio cookies were slightly chewier, and I love their green flecks. Either way, we'll have crumbs left in the cookie jar.

Recipe for Next Week (April 7)
Banana Cream Pie on pages 342 and 343 chosen by Amy of Sing for Your Supper.

More to Explore:

• Index of Recipes
• Visual Recipe Index