On the Drunkard’s Path

My first two Drunkard’s Path blocks. I love them. Two is not enough. I must make more.

Swoon Block #2

Swoon Block #3
Only 6 more swoon blocks to go. These are addictive, too. I may not be able to stop at just one quilt, but what would I do with two? I may just have to join the next round of Quilt Alongs.  Hopscotch is looking good to me.

I think I might be developing a problem.

The Tart I Didn’t Think I Would Like

Happy TWD Day!  Is it just me or does it seem like a really long time since our first post two weeks ago?

This week’s recipe is one that I had never made before.  In fact, I honestly thought that I would not like it.

Chocolate Truffle Tart

I have a hot and cold relationship with chocolate.  Mostly, if I had to choose, I would not make or eat chocolate desserts.  However, there are strange times when I have a hankering for chocolate.  Weird.  All I can say is, I’m a girl and I have a right to change my mind when I want to–about chocolate anyway.  I fully expected this recipe to be too much for me.  Too much chocolate.  Too sweet.  Too rich.  Too over the top.

Boy, was I wrong.

The recipe did give me a little bit of trouble.  It started with the crust.  The recipe says to treat it like a pie crust, but I read that a lot of people were having trouble rolling it out–it was too crumbly.  So, I added an extra tablespoon of water and I tried pressing it, but that was a bit too messy for my taste.

I ended up portioning the dough into equal pieces, giving it a brief rest in the fridge, and then rolling it out between sheets of plastic wrap.  I had no trouble with sticking and it was very easy to transfer to the pans and pat it in.

The filling came together rather easily.  I used my favorite eating chocolate.  If you count the cocoa powder in the crust, there are 4 (yes 4!) different types of chocolate in this recipe plus some chopped up amaretti cookies.

I especially loved the zebra stripy-ness that happened when I started folding the chocolate into the egg mixture.

My second trouble was pan size.  I had smaller tart pans: 3 7/8 inch instead of 4 1/4.  So, I planned to make 7 tarts instead of 6.  I should have done 9 or 10.  I had may more filling than I had tart space.  Not wanting to waste anything, I overfilled.

Of course, they overflowed.  I was a little disappointed because they were not very pretty.  Plus, I was anxious to bake them enough.  With the added height, I baked them for an extra 5 minutes, even though my pans were smaller.  I was worried because after the suggested 20 minute rest and cool down, the first tart I pulled out seemed wet/weepy in the middle.

We did not try them until several hours later.  About 15 minutes before I served them, I popped them into a warm oven.  It was not on, but it had been on 3 hours earlier and was still a little warm.  When I served them, they were just warm, not at all hot.

The tarts were heavenly.  Crusty on the outside.  Soft and fluffy on the inside.  They were not too sweet.  They did not feel heavy or rich at all.  It’s not as light as a souffle, but not as thick or sticky as a pudding.  The texture is really hard to describe, so you just keep eating it to try to figure it out.  Then, before you know it, it’s all gone!

The next day, after an overnight chill, the texture is different.  It becomes denser, but not heavy.  The filling melts in your mouth and the bits of milk and white chocolate in the filling stand out more on the tongue.  I used amaretti cookies and they sort of just melted into the filling.  Except for a hint of flavor here and there, it was hard to tell they were in there.  Maybe biscotti would have stood out more?

I think I may have to make these again–they were That Good.

If you would like to make these, you can find the recipe and lots of links to other bakers who made this tart here.

Out of My Comfort Zone

This weekend I took this pile of fabric scraps and strips and worked on a new project for my curves class.

Last week’s lesson focused on improv curves.  Improvisation is not a strength of mine.  Just ask my friends who have played games with me.  I do not do very well without precise directions.  However, Rachel was great in showing us the essential techniques and guidelines that one needs to do improv curves.  So, here are a few things I learned:

Lesson #1

Reading directions multiple times is always a good idea.  I read them once earlier in the week and then did not really consult them again until halfway through the piecing.  I kinda missed the part where she says to press the seams open.  I pressed all mine to the side and that may have had an effect on how the project came together, though I am not certain.  I used a bunch of tonal solid scraps.  Most of them were 4 inches in length instead of the 5 called for in the instructions.  This meant that my curves were skinner.  I was ok with this, though, because our dining table is narrow and long.

I loved the stained glass effect of the project before the quilting step.  It was tempting to stop here, especially since I had already spent 5 hours on this project that was only supposed to take 3-4.

Lesson #2
Have faith and persevere.  About halfway through this project I really thought I was going to regret it.  The curves were not coming together and I thought maybe it would look really random and bad.  I was regretting using some of my most favorite bits of fabric.  I also spend a couple of hours just fiddling around with the curvy strips and trying to make them fit together, which leads to

Lesson #3
Do not be afraid of the seam ripper.  I used the seam ripper more during this project than in my entire sewing career so far.  Partly this is because my curves were so curvy that I had to take some of it apart and make it less curvy in order to sew them together and also because I wanted to make the runner as long as possible.

Lesson #4

Follow your instincts.  I started quilting this with straight lines in ditch for the sashing and found that any little bit of veering made it look not so great.  Instead of trying to stitch in the ditch of my curves (my original idea), I decided to just quilt curvy lines down the length of the runner, beginning and ending at the edges of the curved strips.

All in all, I am pleased with the way it turned out and happy that I stuck with the project until the end.  The finished runner is about 14″ by 56″.  I did a lot of extra piecing to try to make the center portion as wide and long as possible.  I am especially happy with the back and the binding.  This project has a lot of my favorite fabrics in it and it was scary to cut them up and use them on something I wasn’t sure I would like.  It just goes to show that if you love the materials, chances are you will love the finished product also.

Pamper Your Loved Ones

I’ve been wanting to make some swirly buns for a long time, but other baking always seemed to get in the way. V-Day seemed to be a good time to finally get it done.

I used a recipe for overnight cinnamon buns from this cookbook. Instead of the cinnamon filling, I used a jar of peachy cherry vanilla jam that I made over the summer and a heaping cup of chocolate chips. I also included in the dough some stiff sourdough starter that I might have otherwise thrown away. You can’t even tell it is in there. I made the dough and got it all rolled up in the early afternoon. Then, it had a slow rise in the fridge overnight before I baked it the next morning. For the glaze, I used cherry vanilla syrup in place of the usual milk. It made it a nice pale pink color.

It was a perfect V-Day breakfast treat.

We had a whole day of fun treats and I really enjoyed pampering my family for a day. In a whole lifetime of more mundane and sometimes frustrating moments, it felt good to enjoy something special together. I should try to do this more often. What do you do to pamper those you love?

30 Minute Sourdough Waffles

Monday, I was feeding the monster and trying really hard to decide if I wanted to bake some bread.  Somehow, I wasn’t feeling up to doing a full-on sourdough baking session, so I made a few waffles with the leftover starter.

Ha!  This is what you get when you have more than one starter to feed.  It’s a good thing our boys are growing because there’s no way the husband and I could keep up with this pace.  I think I have finally come up with a sourdough waffle recipe that I really like (recipe below).  It’s kind of a combination of a few recipes.  If you have just one monster, the recipe will make half of what is pictured above.  Or, if you are starter crazy, like I am, you can multiply the recipe very successfully.  I especially love this recipe because you only need a half hour’s notice to make it.  A lot of other sourdough waffle recipes I have seen require an overnight proofing.  I find that this exhausts the natural leavening power of the yeast and the final waffles do not rise much.  With my recipe, they rise and fill the waffle irons nicely.  With some of them, it was hard to tell which was the bottom and which was the top.  See how thick these waffles are?  They are thicker than my usual buttermilk waffle recipe.  This makes me very happy!

Sourdough Waffles

1 cup (8.25 ounces) 100% hydration sourdough starter

3/4 cup (6 ounces) lukewarm milk

1 cup (5 ounces) all-purpose flour (you can sub up to half of this with white wheat or whole wheat flour)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 Tbsp sugar

2 eggs

4 Tbsp melted butter, cooled

• Whisk all ingredients in a large bowl until smooth.  Set aside to rest and rise for 20-30 minutes.  This is a good time to cook your bacon, make the coffee, set the table, take a catnap, etc.
• Heat up your waffle iron until very hot.  Spoon enough batter into each well to just cover the indents.  Cook according to your waffle iron’s specs.
• Serve with your favorite accompaniments.  The waffles can be frozen for up to a month.
• The number of waffles you get will depend on your machine.  I got 22 barnyard shapes out of a double batch.