Cottage Cheese Pufflets; TWD

Or as we called them, just "Pufflets" (so cute). I knew that my family would not like them (probably not even try them) if I called them anything with cottage cheese in the title. Jaques, of Daisy Lane Cakes, picked this interesting recipe, found on pages 148 and 149 of Baking, From My Home to Yours.

The cottage cheese is pureed in the dough, giving it a nice tanginess. I wish I had strained the cottage cheese, due to the stickiness of the dough. I know problems could have been overcome by repeated chilling, but I was too impatient and just kind of scooped and mangled some when I needed to. I also wish I had put more preserves in the middles. I think I will make these again soon. My family really liked them and I know I can do them better.

Flaky Apple Turnovers: TWD

Apples mean fall. Fall means back to school. Back to school means I am super busy, especially this year. I have just started substitute teaching. For so many years,my main job has been caring for my kids and my grandma. I have worked slinging drinks a few nights a week. It feels so weird to have a real job.

I am excited and loving it though. My grandma's sister is helping me take care of her. This is a huge help, but it is also a huge stress because her sister isn't as able to care for her as I had hoped. My life is a whirlwind right now.

This week, I did make the apple turnovers. The dough gave me fits. I don't know what I did but it was a big crumbly mess. Well, I do know one thing I did, not cut the butter fine enough. I was afraid of overworking it I guess. But when it came to rolling it out, I may have overworked it a bit as I tortured it (and myself) with a marble rolling pin. I hated working with this dough. When the option came in the recipe to gather the scraps to re-chill and re-roll to make more, I quickly and emphatically gathered the scraps and threw them in the trash.

All in all though, I guess it was kind of like childbirth; the pain was forgotten once I had that delicious little turnover. I think I undercooked mine a bit (unlike childbirth with my late, 10 and 11 lb. babies). They turned out tasting better than I thought they would after fighting with the dough.



Thanks to Julie of Someone's in the Kitchen for picking this recipe which can be found on pages 317 and 317 of Baking, From My Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan.

Espresso Cheesecake Brownies

I don't even know what to say. It is Monday night and I am writing last week's post. I shouldn't even post at all probably. But once again, I *did* make the TWD project. I just didn't post about it. So nothing like the last last minute, I wanted to say I did it; I loved them, and here they are:




Melissa of Life in a Peanut Shell chose Espresso Cheesecake Brownies, pages 104 and 105 of Baking From My Home To Yours.

Up for tomorrow: Find a suitable souffle pan or substitute, take Grandma to aqua aerobics class, bake souffle, shampoo carpet in three bedrooms, take Little E to music lesson, Chaperone Big E's evening marching band practice for 3 hours, and write a post about the souffle, assuming it even turns out. Right.