(Unofficial) FFwD: Hashis Parmentier and Apple Cake

Many of the bloggers whom I've met through the BBA Challenge, the Mellow Bakers, and the Modern Baker Challenge also participate in Tuesdays with Dorie, a group dedicated to baking Dorie Greenspan's recipes each week. Although I've never owned one of Dorie's cookbooks, I enjoy reading what they bake up each week. And a few weeks ago, when a new group formed (French Fridays with Dorie) to cook through Dorie's new cookbook: Around My French Table, I was very tempted to join. But given how busy life is with the new job, coaching, two little ones, and two other baking challenges, I just couldn't commit.

And then posts about Dorie's Hashis Parmentier started popping up a couple of weeks ago and I knew I just had to try it. And then the next week, posts about Marie-Helene's Apple Cake gave nothing but rave reviews. I don't have Dorie's cookbook (yet!), but she was nice enough to both choose the recipes for the first month and also to post a little starter packet for people who don't have the book yet (although now I can't find that link...).

So, even though I am not an official member, today we had a Dorie Greenspan dinner with both Hashis Parmentier and Apple Cake.

The hashis parmentier (like a really fancy shephard's pie) was time consuming but not difficult. It starts with making beef bullion (which tasted amazing on its own, by the way), then cooking up some meat (sausage and cube steak), and then making some mashed potatoes and grating some cheese. Put it all together, bake it for thirty minutes until the potatoes and cheese are brown and bubbly . . . and then find yourself unable to have any conversation around the dinner table because it tastes so incredible.

The apple cake was easy, and because I'd read about how good it was, I baked two: one for our dinner and one to take to work. I used honeycrisps and harrelsons from our trip to the orchard yesterday, and then a couple of red delicious apples and jonagolds.

I didn't have an 8" springform, so I used my 9" cake pans with parchment paper on the bottom. I knew that Di's cake ended up under-baked, so I baked mine for a really long time. I'm not sure how long; I just kept adding five more minutes, five more minutes, five more minutes, until the tops were nice and dark brown. Then I flipped them over onto the cooling rack. The cake was as delicious as promised. I really wanted to try it with ice cream, but with all of my little "just a taste"s, I figured I'd already eaten way more than my share.

Both of these are bake-agains and the cookbook is a must-buy!