TWD Rewind: Chocolate Pudding

Sorry for the late Tuesday post & for a short recap!

I originally made the chocolate pudding back in July with disastrous results for my 7 cup food processor. The very last step- where you pour all the liquid back into the processor for a final pulse killed it. Too much liquid & it poured out all over the machine. So I promptly purchased a 14 cup machine determined to let that never happen again! And then I left for vacation.

Fast forward a few weeks and it's time to go back to school down here in Georgia. Time to give that pudding another shot! I used mini-tupperwares so that I could bring the pudding back to school with me. I do think this was the most rich-chocolate pudding I have ever had- I also can't remember the last time I wanted to lick the blade from the food processor. I'm glad I was able to hold off. :-)

TWD: Black & White Banana Loaf

Thanks to Ashlee of A Year in the Kitchen for choosing this week's recipe!

I was so excited to give this recipe a run for its money- I really like both chocolate & bananas and was looking forward to this marriage! I was additionally excited because I had brand new mini-loaf pans that I received for my bridal shower last year and was dying to break them in (or at least I could have sworn I had these pans). Seriously, I tore through all of the remaining boxes that we hadn't unpacked looking for them. No luck. The sad thing is my husband has no recollection of seeing them in our other apartment. Basically, I've concluded that it's possible I'm losing my mind! What a random item to swear up and down that you own though. I suppose if indeed we do own them, I'll find them 2 days before we move again whenever that is.

Anyway..... I had a regular size loaf pan so that saved the day. Additionally exciting was getting to use this Cruzan dark rum which I picked up in the duty free store at the St. Thomas airport:

gratuitous reference to St. John:Ok, so back to the cake. Like many posters on the P's & Q's, I had runny batter. The chocolate batter was very thick- almost pudding-like so the marbling was a little interesting. After 30 minutes I tented the cake and let it continue baking and boy oh boy did this cake smell good! After an hour & half, all signs showed the cake was done & even the knife turned out clean: 

I was so excited to try it and was all set to have it with a nice cup of coffee for an afternoon snack. Then I saw the slice {insert price is right music after the contestant loses}:

Not sure what ended up happening, or how the cake ended up being only partially baked. It was such a disappointment considering how wonderful it smelled! I full intended to make the cake again to give it another shot but ran out of time. 

TWD: Cherry Rhubarb Cobbler

Much thanks to Amanda from Like Sprinkles on a Cupcake for selecting this week's dessert, Cherry Rhubarb Cobbler. This recipe provided me with a few more firsts since I have never:

• pitted cherries
• touched rhubarb
• & even baked with whole wheat flour!

Just a few more milestones met & crossed in my short baking career!

I was lucky and was able to find rhubarb in 2 different stores since it is going out of season very quickly. Whole Foods was charging $4.99/lb(!!!), almost as much as a gallon of gas and the Dekalb Farmers Market was charging 89 cents/lb & the rhubarb came from Washington State. See if you can figure out which store I purchased it from! :-)

We had fresh ginger at home so we used less ginger than Dorie called for because it was so potent, and omitted it from the biscuit topping. The cobbler was done in about 40 minutes and we all dug in literally 20 minutes later.

I absolutely loved it- all the flavors just tasted so perfect together for me, and topping it off with Breyer's vanilla just threw it over the top because it was still so warm. My husband wasn't as crazy about it, he's not much of a ginger fan and my mom also liked it. So 2 votes yes, 1 vote no. I would make this again just to eat all by myself! Can't wait till next June for the first arrivals of local rhubarb!

TWD: Double Crusted Blueberry Pie

Before I forget- lots of thanks to all the well-wishers for our move! We're almost unfinished unpacking- just a few more boxes and then lots of pictures to hang!

This post is a bit of a downer for me. I have no pictures of a delicious looking pie to share and I also wish I could start this post by writing something along the lines of "BEST PIE EVER!" But I can't because I never got to try it.

I am hitting a wall making pie crusts. I made Martha's 4th of July Blueberry Pie a few weeks ago with some success but the crust wasn't as perfect as it could have been. I was really excited about making Dorie's because I figured being my 2nd pie, it would be a little easier! (eh, instead I went backwards!)

So here's how it all went down:

I have a regular size food processor so I made 2 separate pie crusts and refrigerated them both for over an hour. I made sure that the butter and shortening were cold/frozen just like Dorie said. I used ice water and gave the crust 3 tablespoons each. I think I probably messed things up with the water. The dough pulled together nicely and then I wrapped them with plastic wrap, flattened them and refrigerated them.

When I took the first crust out to roll it, I tried rolling it between two sheets of plastic wrap. Turned disastrous as the crust completely stuck to the plastic wrap as I tried to remove it. That ended up being tossed. Thinking the plastic wrap was the problem, I tried rolling the second crust in between sheets of wax paper (with a little extra flour just in case). Same problem, as I removed the wax paper, the crust stuck to it and split apart. So then I was left with no pie crust :-( I just took all those blueberries that I had and made a blueberry cobbler (at least I knew how to do that already!)

I'm looking forward to hearing your ideas of what went wrong here. What would make the pie crust get so sticky? Would adding more water in the processor make it less sticky? 

My Mom is coming to visit in 2 weeks and I'm really excited because among other things, she's going to bake a pie with me so I can see what the consistency of the crust should really be like before refrigerating it. This "learning experience" also made me with I spent a couple more minutes with Mom in the kitchen on Thanksgiving making pie instead of always being glued to the tv with Dad watching football! :-)