Carrie over at Carrie's Kitchen Creations gave me a "Blogging with a Purpose" award, and I'm so flattered and honored! Thank you so much, Carrie! Carrie has a great Tips section on her blog, beautiful pictures of food, and is a fellow member of the Tuesdays with Dorie baking group. Now, I get to pass on the blog love.

1. Nominate 5 blogs which haven’t had this award before.
2. Each of the blogs must have a purpose.
3. The nominated blogs must make a link back to this page.
4. The logo from the award must be put on their blog and it must link back to this blog.

Here are some of my favorite blogs and a blurb about how they blog with purpose:

a whisk and a spoon - To show us how beautiful food can be
Cakespy - To inform and entertain
Ezra Pound Cake - To share a smile and some delicious cake
Kitchen Wench - To share her family's Korean recipes and other tasty treats
Playing with Fire and Water - To experiment and teach

Check them out! Thanks again, Carrie!

I always thought demi-glace (pronounced DEHM-ee glahs) was stock reduced by half. If only it were that simple and "basic" as the title suggests!

A simple stock reduction refers to glace de viande (pronounced glahs duh vee-AHND). Traditional demi-glace is much more involved, literally means half glaze, and requires even more hours in the kitchen babysitting stock. It is half stock and half Espagnole (pronounced ehs-pah-NYOHL) sauce that are then reduced by half. This traditional method is a little passé according to an article on StyleForum, which suggests that reductions are hot and roux is not. But some believe that the time spent on making demi-glace the traditional way using both brown stock and Espagnole sauce is well worth it.

Espagnole Sauce
So, what is Espagnole sauce? Espagnole sauce is the most basic brown stock in French cuisine, has the distinction of being one of the five mother sauces, and has a Spanish name. You can credit the Spanish cooks at Louis XIII’s wedding who added Spanish tomatoes to the brown sauce and everyone loved it. I'm sure these cooks would have given the Iron Chefs a run for their money with their Spanish tomatoes!

Espagnole sauce is made with brown roux and brown stock. Bacon, the usual aromatics (onions, celery, carrots, a Bouquet garni), and tomatoes are added. Also, Madeira or sherry is sometimes added, although the recipe I used didn’t call for it.

Process for Demi-glace
So, here’s the process to make classical demi-glace:

1. Make brown stock.
2. Make Espagnole sauce.
3. Make demi-glace.

Since I have a freezer full of stock, I just had to prepare the Espagnole sauce to get to step 3.

Thomas Keller’s Veal Stock (affiliate link) and Demi-glace

When I made veal stock, I made several versions. To make the demi-glace, I used one of the veal stocks that I roasted with tomato sauce. As I was working through this recipe, it occurred to me that Thomas Keller’s veal stock (affiliate link) involved a similar 2-step plus reduction process. His doesn't have a whiff of flour in it nor does it have bacon, but other than that I wonder if you might be able to classify it as demi-glace.

So, you can try the following three ways to get yourself to demi-glace status:

• You can reduce veal stock. This is more common these days since roux is passé and reductions save time in the kitchen. But, for the purist, this is not the path to flavor nirvana.

• You can follow the Keller way, which is to make a "veal stock #1", and then make a "veal stock #2". Then you can reduce that down to make a demi. (Keller’s stock has a more tomato-y flavor, and if you want the smoky flavor that an Espagnole sauce has, you could add the bacon in the last step.)

• You can follow the traditional method and make a stock, make an Espagnole sauce, and then make a demi.

Recipe: Espagnole Sauce

Adapted from La Varenne Pratique (affiliate link)

Makes: 1½ cups

Brownies were “Born in the USA” but no one quite knows who can take credit for this treat.

• Was it Fannie Merritt Farmer who published a recipe for the brownie in her 1906 edition of The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book?

• Was it Fannie’s protégé Maria Willet Howard who published a recipe for brownies in 1907 in Lowney’s Cook Book that contained an egg?

• Was it a housewife in Bangor, Maine who forgot to add baking powder to her chocolate cake who can take credit for the brownie we know today?

What we do know is that it is a favorite and well-loved treat.

Cake or Fudge?
Dorie’s version is more on the fudge side of the brownie scale than the cake side. More butter and chocolate and less flour means a more fudgey brownie.

The chocolate you use is important so use one you like. The better the chocolate, the better the brownie. I used semi-sweet Callebaut Callebaut(“approved by Belgian chocolate makers” and Ottawa foodies alike), and it was delicious. If you want to use a bittersweet chocolate, you may want to use half bittersweet and half milk chocolate.

Links
I found a great article about the brownie written by Cookwise author Shirley O. Corriher.

The Nibble has an article that talks about the origin of the brownie.
Playing Around
I was inspired by the Daring Bakers’ cheesecake pops to give brownie popsicles a go. I used this popsicle pan once before for my daughter’s birthday party, so it was time to dust it off and try brownies in it. Although they look cute for the photo op, I wouldn’t recommend it. This recipe was too delicate for the popsicle angle. A more cakey one would be better suited to it.

Recipe: French Chocolate Brownies

You can find the recipe for French Chocolate Brownies at this blog Di’s Kitchen Notebook or in the book Baking: From My Home to Yours (affiliate link) by Dorie Greenspan. To see how the rest of the TWD group fared with this week's recipe, click here and then click on each blogger!

Fannie Merritt Farmer’s original 1906 version of brownies
I have a favorite brownie recipe that is more like cake that I usually make, but I was curious about Fannie Merritt Farmer’s (affiliate link) original 1906 version of brownies. Although I have a little cookbook by Fannie, it didn’t have the brownie recipe in it. Thanks to the internet, I found the recipe and baked up a batch for comparison. I used the same Callebaut chocolate that I used in Dorie’s version. I also cut the brownies into “shapely” pieces as recommended by the recipe! These brownies were good, but more chewy, fudge-y, and had a crisp top. But, it wasn’t as chocolate-y as Dorie’s version.


Tasting Notes
Dorie’s French Chocolate Brownie is a delicious fudgey treat that melts in your mouth. Personally, I loved the rum-soaked raisins in these bars. They added a richness to the chocolate, but some of my tasters threw a tantrum upon tasting it, begging me, through their tears, to make a new batch sans raisins. Kids these days! I will definitely be making these again (both with and without raisins).

Recipe for Next Week (June 10)
La Palette’s Strawberry Tart on page 374.

More to Explore:

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Click to enlarge image
Joconde
The cake part of Opéra Cake is made up of a sponge cake called a joconde, named for the Mona Lisa (La Joconde in French). Some spell joconde as “jaconde”, but joconde is the proper way to spell it. The married name of Lisa Gherardini, who is believed to be the subject of da Vinci's portrait, is Giocondo, which means cheerful and full of good humor in Italian, as does “jocund” in English. Perhaps it's the lightness of the sponge cake that gives joconde its name.

Divide the oven into thirds by positioning a rack in the upper third of the oven and the lower third of the oven.

Preheat the oven to 425˚F (220˚C).

Line two 12½ x 15½- inch (31 x 39-cm) jelly-roll pans with parchment paper and brush with melted butter.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment (or using a handheld mixer), beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Add the granulated sugar and beat until the peaks are stiff and glossy. If you do not have another mixer bowl, gently scrape the meringue into another bowl and set aside.

In another bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or using a handheld mixer), beat the almond flour (or chestnut flour), icing sugar, and eggs on medium speed until light and voluminous, about 3 minutes.

To make almond flour, you mix 50% ground almonds with 50% icing sugar. This is called "Tant pour Tant" ("that much for that much"). You can do this with chestnuts too, but I was able to find both almond and chestnut flour at a specialty grocery store. I tried joconde twice: once with almond flour and once with chestnut flour. Although both sponge cakes were delicious, the almond played a better supporting role for the other layers.Add the all-purpose flour and beat on low speed until the flour is just combined (be very careful not to overmix here!).

Using a rubber spatula, gently fold the meringue into the almond mixture and then fold in the melted butter. Divide the batter between the pans and spread it evenly to cover the entire surface of each pan. A tip I read was to run your thumb against all sides of the pan to prevent over-baking at the edges.

Place one jelly-roll pan in the middle of the oven and the second jelly-roll pan in the bottom third of the oven. Bake the cake layers until they are lightly browned and just springy to the touch. This could take anywhere from 5 to 9 minutes depending on your oven. Do not over-bake. It should only take a little color.

Put the pans on a heatproof counter and run a sharp knife along the edges of the cake to loosen it from the pan. Cover each with a sheet of parchment or wax paper, turn the pans over, and unmold.

Carefully peel away the parchment, then turn the parchment over and use it to cover the cakes. Let the cakes cool to room temperature.

Note: The joconde can be made up to 1 day in advance and kept wrapped at room temperature.

Syrup
Stir all the syrup ingredients together in the saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and let cool to room temperature.

Note: The syrup can be made up to 1 week in advance and kept covered in the refrigerator.

Buttercream
Combine the sugar, water and vanilla bean seeds or extract in a small saucepan and warm over medium heat just until the sugar dissolves.

Continue to cook, without stirring, until the syrup reaches 225˚F (107˚C) on a candy or instant-read thermometer. Once it reaches that temperature, remove the syrup from the heat.

According to Joe Pastry, the baking guru I like to consult, “eggs must be warm before you begin. Why? The answer is that a cake batter is an emulsion, which is to say, a matrix of tiny fat blobs dispersed in a watery medium. That emulsion plays a critical role in leavening the cake, and in maintaining its soft, creamy texture.” So, warm those eggs before starting this buttercream.

While the syrup is heating, begin whisking the egg and egg yolk at high speed in the bowl of your mixer using the whisk attachment. Whisk them until they are pale and foamy.

When the sugar syrup reaches the correct temperature and you remove it from the heat, reduce the mixer speed to low speed and begin slowly (very slowly) pouring the syrup down the side of the bowl being very careful not to splatter the syrup into the path of the whisk attachment. Some of the syrup will spin onto the sides of the bowl but don’t worry about this and don’t try to stir it into the mixture as it will harden!

Raise the speed to medium-high and continue beating until the eggs are thick and satiny and the mixture is cool to the touch (about 5 minutes or so).

While the egg mixture is beating, place the softened butter in a bowl and mash it with a spatula until you have a soft creamy mass.

With the mixer on medium speed, begin adding in two-tablespoon chunks. When all the butter has been incorporated, raise the mixer speed to high and beat until the buttercream is thick and shiny.

At this point add in your flavoring and beat for an additional minute or so.

Refrigerate the buttercream, stirring it often, until it’s set enough (firm enough) to spread when topped with a layer of cake (about 20 minutes).

Note: The buttercream can be made up to 1 month in advance and packed in an airtight container. If made way in advance, you can freeze the buttercream. Alternatively you can refrigerate it for up to 4 days after making it. To use the buttercream, simply bring it to room temperature and then beat it briefly to restore its consistency, if needed.

Mousse
Melt the white chocolate and the 3 tablespoons of heavy cream in a small saucepan. Stir to ensure that it’s smooth and that the chocolate is melted. Add the tablespoon of liqueur to the chocolate and stir. Set aside to cool completely.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, whip the remaining 1 cup of heavy cream until soft peaks form. Gently fold the whipped cream into the cooled chocolate to form a mousse.

If it’s too thin, refrigerate it for a bit until it’s spreadable. If you’re not going to use it right away, refrigerate until you’re ready to use.

Note: The mousse can be made ahead and refrigerated until you’re ready to use it.

Glaze (ganache)
Note: Make the glaze when you’re ready to finish the cake.

Melt the white chocolate with the heavy cream. Whisk the mixture gently until smooth. Let cool for 10 minutes and then spread over the chilled cake. Using a long metal cake spatula, smooth out into an even layer.

Place the cake into the refrigerator for 30 minutes to set.

Assembling
Note: The finished cake should be served slightly chilled. It can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 1 day (but I stored it for more than a week, and we still enjoyed every crumb!).

Line a baking sheet with parchment or wax paper.

Working with one sheet of cake at a time, cut and trim each sheet so that you have two pieces (from each cake so you’ll have four pieces in total): one 10-inch (25-cm) square and one 10 x 5-inch (25 x 12½-cm) rectangle.

Place one square of cake on the baking sheet and moisten it gently with the flavored syrup.

Spread about three-quarters of the buttercream over this layer.

Top with the two rectangular pieces of cake, placing them side by side to form a square. Moisten these pieces with the flavored syrup.

Spread the remaining buttercream on the cake and then top with the third square of joconde. Use the remaining syrup to wet the joconde and then refrigerate until very firm (at least half an hour).

Prepare the mousse (if you haven’t already) and then spread it on the top of the last layer of the joconde. Refrigerate for at least two to three hours to give the mousse the opportunity to firm up.

Make the glaze and after it has cooled, spread it over the top of the chilled cake. Refrigerate the cake again to set the glaze.

Serve the cake slightly chilled.

Makes approximately 20 servings.

Tasting Notes
We enjoyed both the almond and chestnut Opéra Cakes, but preferred the almond one just slightly. One of my daughters even wanted this for her birthday cake! Each part was delicious: the syrup, the sponge cake, the buttercream, the mousse, and the ganache. So together, how could it go wrong? I kept stealing tastes as I was assembling it. I think one of the tricks to making a perfect layer cake is to put a ton of buttercream in-between each layer, which might level it out better. I’m going to have to make this over and over again to improve my layering skills, but I don’t think anyone will mind!

Someday, maybe mine will look more like these:

• A perfect Opéra Cake from Bonbini
• Dalloyau's (pronounced doll-why-oh) in Paris, considered by pastry chefs in the know to be the best according to Paris Breakfasts
• Green Tea Opéra Cake from Nordljus

I’m looking forward to seeing the variety of Opéra Cakes from the Daring Bakers this month!

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• Index of Recipes
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Pecan Honey Sticky Buns are a delicious brioche version of cinnamon buns. I made brioche for the first time earlier this year and wrapped it around sausage. But I think this cross between a pastry and a bread is much better suited to cinnamon buns and breakfast treats!

A good cinnamon bun is hard to come by in these parts. They're often covered in a too-sweet icing, have an artificial, almost tinny taste, usually don't have any raisins, and taste more like biscuits with cinnamon sprinkled here and there.

I used to love coming home after school, opening the door, and smelling the sweet scent of homemade cinnamon buns. My mom's (and my aunt's) cinnamon buns are still one of my favorite treats. For awhile, there were cinnamon bun cafés popping up everywhere (Cinnamon Inn and DJ Cinnamon are two places I remember going to on Sundays after church) where the cinnamon buns tasted almost as good as homemade. Now, they’ve been replaced with Starbucks or other trendy coffee shops.

Variations
I followed Dorie's instructions and made a full batch of brioche dough using my stand mixer. And, even though Dorie recommends not cutting the brioche dough in half, I did and threw it in my bread maker on the sweet dough setting to see what would happen. I also wanted to compare this version of cinnamon buns to the ones I usually make using my family's cinnamon bun recipe.

The results?

• Brioche with the stand mixer: This sticky bun turned out perfectly. The crumb was tender and rich. They were tall and bursting with sticky goodness. These were one taster's favorite, and commented how they melt in your mouth. It must be all the butter!

• Brioche with the bread maker: These buns didn't rise as much, and the dough was more chewy, but I liked them a little better than the ones with the stand mixer. They were closer in texture to the cinnamon buns I'm more familiar with. One taster couldn't tell the difference between this bun and the one made with the stand mixer. And how easy it is to just throw it in the bread maker on the dough setting!

• My family's cinnamon bun recipe: Guess what. This was my favorite. I think this is because it's what I grew up with. Brioche wasn't on the menu at my house in my formative years.

More Playing Around
I also tried smearing Dulce de Leche instead of butter on some of the sticky buns. And on another batch I spread both Dulce de Leche and melted chocolate for a real decadent treat. Both turned out to be a nice variation, although the Dulce de Leche didn't taste significantly different from regular cinnamon buns.

Recipe
You can find the recipe for Pecan Honey Sticky Buns at this blog Madam Chow’s Kitchen or in the book Baking: From My Home to Yours (affiliate link) by Dorie Greenspan. To see how the rest of the TWD group fared with this week's recipe, click here and then click on each blogger!

Recipe: Aunt Joyce's Recipe for Buns, Bread, or Cinnamon Buns

Makes: 4 loaves or 80 small buns

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From a Florida state pie to a cookie that could be France’s national cookie, we’re globetrotting with Tuesdays with Dorie. A Madeleine is a cake-like cookie that can be flavored with almost anything, shaped like a shell, has a definitive bump, and was made famous by Proust.

I had never tasted Madeleines before, but I definitely ate a lifetime’s worth after they came out of the oven! I even made some tea to dip my famous Madeleine in, and oh, how delicious. My memories of those Madeleines will last a lifetime.

History
So much has been written about Proust and the history of the Madeleine. I don’t want to repeat it all here, but I’ll send you to some of the best links I found on the subject:
• An article in search of the original Proustian Madeleine recipe
• A bit of history about Madeleines
• A famous food blogger blogs about Madeleines
• An interesting podcast with Jonah Lehrer about his book Proust Was a Neuroscientist

Mishaps
I decided to try making both the Earl Grey Madeleines and the Traditional Madeleines for comparison. Since I’m new to this Madeleine world, I needed the traditional as a baseline of what a true Madeleine is. But the Earl Grey ones sounded too delicious to pass up.

Things didn’t go smoothly for my first batch of Earl Grey Madeleines. At first, things were going along swimmingly. I had steeped the tea leaves in the butter, as the recipe says. I prepared the dry ingredients, mixed up the sugar, zest, and eggs, and vanilla. Then, I carefully added the dry ingredients. Finally, I added the butter steeped with tea leaves, BUT I forgot to strain the tea leaves! I didn’t feel confident that so many tea leaves would be pleasant to eat, so I had to start over.

The second time, I questioned whether I had enough melted butter after straining the tea leaves. I only had about 2 tablespoons of butter and the recipe called for 5, so 3 tablespoons were attached to the tea leaves. I went ahead with the recipe, and they thankfully turned out. I maybe should have left mine in the oven longer to get the beautiful brown hue, but they tasted fine and were cooked through.

Variations
Earlier in the week, I’d made some Lemon Cream for the Sugar High Fridays event, and Madeleines dipped in Lemon Cream were delicious.

Also, Nutella or Dulce de Leche sandwiched between two traditional Madeleines is a treat too.

Pound Cake versus Madeleines
In my reading, I found out that pound cake ingredients are a lot like Madeleines. I have a tried and true recipe for lemon pound cake that I love to make. Comparing the two recipes, the pound cake has ¼ cup more sugar, ¾ tablespoons more butter, and 2 tablespoons each of milk and lemon juice. I tried making this pound cake recipe as Madeleines, including chilling the batter for 3 hours.
For the most part, they worked. They overflowed and exploded a bit in the oven, some had holes in them, but some looked good, and they were tasty. The recipe is more lemony and sweeter than the traditional Madeleines. They had more of a crunch around the edges too. The pound cake also has a lemon glaze which would be nice on the Madeleines. If I were doing this again, I would use lemon zest instead of juice and reduce the amount of milk to eliminate the oven cleaning required (or put the Madeleine pan on a baking sheet-duh!). I can see getting more use out of my newly purchased Madeleine pan by trying different recipes like this with it.

Recipe: Madeleines

You can find the recipe for Madeleines at Tara's blog called Smells Like Home or in the book Baking: From My Home to Yours (affiliate link) by Dorie Greenspan. To see how the rest of the TWD group fared with this week's recipe, click here and then click on each blogger!

Tasting Notes
These cake-like cookies are going to be a favorite around here, I can tell. I left the bowl of Madeleines out with the icing sugar sprinkler next to it, and in no time, the Madeleines disappeared. I’ve read you can refresh them in the oven, but who has time for that!

I enjoyed the Earl Grey ones more and my daughter enjoyed the traditional ones more, so we were a good team. I hope she has fond memories of Madeleines when she’s older, and I plan on making these often. I’m looking forward to trying the chocolate and marshmallow fluff versions in Dorie’s cookbook someday.

Recipe for Next Week (May 27)
Pecan Honey Sticky Buns on pages 51-53 chosen by Madam Chow of Madam Chow’s Kitchen.

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Citrus. Crunch. Coconut. Pecans. Cream. These are some of my favorite flavors combined into one dessert.

For the crunch part of this dessert, I baked a meringue mixture filled with toasted coconut and toasted, ground pecans and baked it like a pavlova. I’m lucky I had enough meringue to bake since I kept sneaking some taste tests. I’d made this coconut meringue another time, but this time added pecans for extra crunch and nuttiness.

For the citrus part of this dessert, I made some lemon curd and folded it into flavored whipping cream. One of my favorite desserts is lemon meringue pie, and instead of the meringue on top, it’s on the bottom in this one.

This is for Sugar High Friday #43 (started by Jennifer of The Domestic Goddess), which is being hosted by Helen of Tartlette this month.

Recipe: Citrus: Pecan Coconut Pavlova with Lemon Cream

Ingredients:

For the Pavlova
1½ cups sweetened flaked coconut, toasted
6 large egg whites
1½ teaspoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon vinegar
½ teaspoon vanilla
¼ teaspoon salt
1½ cups sugar
¼ cup boiling water
4½ ounces (¾ cup) hazelnuts, browned and ground

For the Lemon Cream
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
6 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons lemon zest
Pinch of salt
1 cup whipping cream
3 tablespoons icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Instructions:

For Pavlova
Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat it to 350°F. Spread 1 cup coconut on large baking sheet. Spread hazelnuts on another baking sheet. Toast until golden, stirring twice, about 15 minutes. Cool. Maintain oven temperature. Ground the hazelnuts in a blender or food processor.

Line another large baking sheet with foil. Whisk egg whites, cornstarch, vinegar, vanilla, and salt in large bowl until foamy. Gradually add sugar and beat until stiff peaks form. Beat in boiling water slowly (so the eggs don’t curdle), beating until whites are stiff and glossy. Fold in toasted coconut and hazelnuts. Spoon meringue onto center of prepared baking sheet and spread to 9-inch-diameter circle (or several smaller ones) with slightly raised edges. Sprinkle with ½ cup untoasted coconut.

Bake meringue 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 200°F and bake until dry and crisp outside and just cooked through inside, about 1 hour. Turn off oven. Let meringue stand in oven 1 hour. Remove from oven and cool completely.

For Lemon Cream
In a bowl, whisk eggs and egg yolks. Melt butter on the top of a double boiler. Whisk in sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest, and salt. Slowly whisk in egg mixture. Whisk until thick and thermometer inserted into mixture registers 178°F to 180°F, about 8 minutes. Transfer to small bowl. Press plastic wrap on top and chill 4 hours. You can make this 2 days ahead and keep it chilled.

In a chilled bowl, whip the cream with the icing sugar and vanilla. Fold the chilled lemon mixture into the whipping cream.

To Assemble
Place the meringue on the bottom. Top with lemon cream. Optionally, place another meringue on top. Dust with icing sugar.

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Sauce suprême. Sounds hard. It’s not. It’s basically a velouté with cream. I already learned about velouté when I made Sole Dieppoise. All I needed now was cream.
After 40+ cups of stock lately, I feel like a pro, and that’s basically how this recipe starts. I put a whole chicken in a pot to poach, along with the regular aromatics (carrots, onion studded with clove, and a Bouquet Garni). The stock from the poaching is used in the sauce.

To start the sauce for the chicken, you make a blond roux, which is a butter and flour mixture cooked just long enough to eliminate the taste of raw flour without coloring the mixture. Then, the stock is added and cooked until smooth and flavorful. Finally, the cream is added and brought to a simmer. A bit of salt and pepper round out the sauce. Some Suprême sauces also have mushrooms, which I think would be a great addition.

Recipe: Poulet poché sauce Suprême (Whole poached chicken served with a white creamy sauce)

from Le Cordon Bleu at Home (affiliate link)

Ingredients:

Florida is famous for its key lime pie, and in 2006 it became the official state pie. Key limes were grown in Florida before a hurricane in 1926 wiped out the crop. Now, key limes come from Mexico and a more hardy Persian lime is grown in Florida.

Key limes are smaller and more tart than regular limes. They have lighter and thinner green skin (yellow when ripe) than the more common lime. Here’s a link to a picture of a ripe key lime with two Persian limes.

Since key limes are so small, they don’t have much juice. This means you have to squeeze a lot of key limes to get 1 cup of juice! Thankfully, I have a food processor!


Bottom
Although some key lime pies use a pastry crust, Dorie’s recipe calls for a graham cracker one. What could be simpler? She even suggests buying one, but since they’re so simple to make, I wanted to make a homemade version.

On top of the crust is a layer of coconut and cream that’s been reduced to a delicious syrup. I’m a coconut fan, so the more coconut in a dessert, the better! A long time ago, I travelled to Papua New Guinea and visited a small island off the coast of Madang where a young school boy shimmied up a tall coconut tree in his barefeet to retrieve a fresh coconut as a snack for us to enjoy. It was the best tasting coconut I’ve ever had.

Middle
Three ingredients make up the key lime part of this dessert: sweetened condensed milk, lime juice, and egg yolks.

History says that there were no cows in Key West in the good ol’ days, so canned milk was the only dairy product available. Evaporated milk is not the same as sweetened condensed milk‑the key word being “sweet”. In both, water is removed from the milk. But, about 40% of sweetened condensed milk is sugar. It is a thick, yellowish color often used in caramel, toffee, and fudge (and Dulce de Leche).

Top
A Swiss meringue with coconut folded in converts this tart into a pie (a tart is topless!). Sometimes whipped cream is used instead, and is so much easier than the fickle meringue.

This Swiss type of meringue is characterized by heating the egg whites and sugar on the stove to melt the sugar and then whisking with a mixer until cool and doubled in volume. When you heat the eggs on the stove, you must constantly whisk them so that you don’t get sugary, scrambled eggs (as I did in attempt #1). Also, you should take the eggs off the heat when they reach 130˚F (or as Dorie says “hot to the touch”). Meringue is best put on your pie as soon as the pie is cool. Meringue waits for no one and will separate if ignored (as I found out with attempt #2).

After finally getting some meringue on these mini pies, I threw them into the freezer, melted some chocolate, and then dipped the frozen pies into the chocolate (à la Dairy Queen). Adding more sweetness to this already sweet dessert seemed like a good idea and one that might make it more like the Mounds bar Dorie talks about in her introduction to the recipe! You could also brush the bottom of the crust with chocolate instead, but you’d miss out on the photo opportunity!

Playing around: Dulce de Leche
In my reading, I found out that the popular Dulce de Leche that keeps popping up in posts from food bloggers is actually sweetened condensed milk that’s been cooked for hours to form an even sweeter milk that’s caramel-like. I was able to find a jar of Dulce de Leche at my local grocery store, but I also wanted to try making it. It didn’t sound hard. Just put an unopened can of sweetened condensed milk into a pot of water, cover the can with 3-4 inches so that it’s completely submerged, and boil for 4 hours, making sure the water always covers it so that it doesn’t explode! Then, cool on a rack. Sounds easy enough.

The homemade version was thicker and not as sticky as the store-bought one. It had a nicer, nuttier, full flavor. I then tried replacing the sweetened condensed milk with the Dulce de Leche in this Florida Pie, and it turned out great. Tart and sweet all at once.

I also crushed chocolate-covered wafers for the crust instead of using a graham cracker crust.


Topped with whipped cream (because I wasn’t about to attempt meringue #4) and some flaked, toasted coconut, and it was ready to be served to the sweetest tooth in town.

Recipe: Florida Pie

You can find the recipe for Florida Pie in the book Baking: From My Home to Yours (affiliate link) by Dorie Greenspan. To see how the rest of the TWD group fared with this week's recipe, click here and then click on each blogger!

Tasting Notes
This is another sweet dessert, but the tartness of the key limes is a welcome reprieve. The Dulce de Leche version was good too--sweeter and more tangy. Another winning recipe from Dorie.

Recipe for Next Week (May 20)
Traditional Madeleines on pages 166-168 chosen by Tara of Smells Like Home.

More to Explore:

• Index of Recipes
• Visual Recipe Index

Weekends are a time to kick back, sit on the deck, and sip some lemonade or limeade with friends and family.
The only hard part about this drink is squeezing the juice from the limes. This time, I used key limes which have about a teaspoon of juice in each, so I was squeezing for awhile. You could also use lemons or regular Persian limes.


Key limes are smaller than regular limes. They are a lighter green (yellow when ripe), thinner-skinned, and more tart than a regular lime.

Key lime, Meyer lemon, Regular lemon tower

Recipe for The Most Extraordinary Fresh Limeade

2 cups water
1 cup sugar
1 cup lime juice (or lemon juice), freshly squeezed

Melt water and sugar until it boils. Remove from heat and cool. Stir in the freshly squeezed lime juice. Chill.

In a glass, pour 1 cup lime juice mixture and 1 cup water. Serve with ice.