Pear Cranberry Roll Up Tart ~ Baking Chez Moi

Per Tricia~

Kitchen shenanigans ensued as I baked this tart. 

 And they added to the fun.

My four legged sous chefs were busily monitoring the blowing leaves 

and saving our home from "intruders"..... when an actual squirrel dared

 to invade the back porch.  I managed to catch the moment on camera 

since I was already taking tart photos. Suffice to say that the scene below 

was the last moment of calm for quite some time after this sighting. 

The seasonal ingredients, wonderful aroma of the added ginger and 

the accepted (but dangerous) devil-may-care attitude to my spilling

 out fruit filling all added for a memorable baking experience. 

This proved a lovely addition to  our Thanksgiving week recipes. 

I can attest to the delicious results personally, but I am 

really looking forward to all of my taste testers being 

home to share their opinions this evening. 

A happy holiday indeed.  

And as to the continued shenanigans, I came back to the kitchen

 after uploading photos to find that the cat helped himself to the 

small bowl of "decorating" cranberries. And proceeded to roll them 

ALL over the kitchen floor.  Oh the things we give thanks for :)  

Happy Thanksgiving all ~

Per Nana~

 This pear and cranberry tart was so easy to make and delicious to eat.  

It's also absolutely wonderful as a leftover. 
We simply reheated it in the microwave for a few seconds. 

I love using Dorie's recipe for Galette dough because it is so easy to work with. 

This time I rolled it out before chilling. I found that easier than trying to 

roll a disk after it has been chilled. The combination of pear and cranberry 

for the filling was so tasty. I added Penzey's "Raspberry Enlightenment" 

spread instead of orange marmalade and it was just perfect. 

This dessert reminds me of a strudel so I am anxious to try it with apples

 and raisins, or as mentioned in the "bonne idée" - with some summer fruits. 

This marks another Tuesday recipe testing as we cook along with the "Tuesdays with Dorie" online group.  Please note that we do not post the recipes, per the group rules, but we do encourage others to RUN out and buy their own copy of Dorie Greenspan's "Baking Chez Moi".  Better yet, buy the book and JOIN THE GROUP ! www.TuesdaysWithDorie.wordpress.com

Chocolate Covered Toffee Breakups - Baking Chez Moi

 Per Nana ~

This week's recipe for Baking Chez Moi was such a delight and would 

make adorable little packages for a Christmas cookie exchange.   

I do have to perfect my technique for spreading the candy mixture as 

well as spreading the chocolate covering because it came out a bit thick.  

However it was still very delicious. 

I used a mix of toasted pecans and almonds with semi sweet chocolate.

Jim raved about these toffee breakups as soon as he tasted them 

- so I would call that a winner.

Definitely a recipe to be repeated as we come into the holiday season, 

with most of the ingredients being staple items in the pantry.

Per Tricia ~

I've seen recipes for various chocolate barks and toffees but had not

 taken the plunge to try one myself. This week changed that.  I am 

almost sorry to find out how easy (could be deadly.....) it was to make 
something this decadent at home.  And out of routine pantry items no less. 

I read through the recipe and knew there were several steps involved, 

plus waiting time, so anticipated a "production".  Instead, I was able 

to knock most of it out during a lunch break and then just applied the

 melted chocolate and garnishing nuts after work.  

This was pretty unexpected.  

And pretty delightful.  

The completed candies did not disappoint and care packages have 

already been made to send to the boys at college. I sent them pictures 

from my iPhone and as expected, they requested mailing ASAP :)

This is such a wonderful recipe to use for holiday gift giving that I 

wanted to share a link to a similar recipe (recall we do not publish 

Dorie's recipes as part of this online group). Turns out that there are 

tons of similar recipes for toffee out on the web. Don't let the estimated

prep times dissuade you, there is a quite of waiting in between steps. 

And it is SO worth it. 

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/chocolate-covered-almond-toffee-bars-recipe.html