A Return to the Daring Bakers- Doughnuts

I have an unhealthy obsession with doughnuts. I love them, well and truly. Although I avoid most fried foods as I don't think they're worth the calories, doughnuts will get me every time. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I'll eat any doughnut that crosses my path. As a rule, I prefer cake style over yeast, especially if those yeast doughnuts come from Krispy Kreme. A certain college roommate of mine loved Krispy Kremes, particularly the way they 'melted in your mouth'. Her words, not mine; I like to masticate my baked goods, thank you.

The only other time I attempted doughnuts was in my 10th grade foods class in high school. I remember the special cookie cutter we had (with center hole removal device) and covertly snacking from a brown bag of doughnuts for the rest of the day. Needless to say, I was pleased with the first challenge to bring me back in to the DB fold.

The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.

I chose the Pumpkin Doughnut recipe from Bon Appetit Magazine, by way of Epicurious, as it was a cake-style doughnut, and I had half a can of pumpkin in the fridge from another recipe. I didn't get creative with this one, besides cutting the recipe in half (as there was absolutely no reason for me to have 24 freshly fried tempting treats in my kitchen), so you can follow the link to get to the recipe. This time around, I didn't have a special device for cutting out the center hole so I improvised and used a rolled up piece of paper. Not the best, but it worked, especially once I started dipping it in flour between cuts. The only word of advice I have on the recipe-- make just half the amount of spice sugar to roll the doughnuts in. I made the amount the recipe called for and had tons left over.

A Tuesday with Dorie

I just spent a Tuesday with Dorie, and not just in cookbook form, in real, live, reading from Around My French Table, telling stories about Madame Saucisson form. This was my first book signing, and I was utterly charmed. Dorie is, as they always say, much smaller than the slim woman you expect from pictures. So small, you wonder how she could really be the author of so many books about food, but then she starts talking and you immediately think that yes, this is someone who knows food and loves to share it, both in cookbooks, and in person for those lucky enough to be guests in her home.

As I was waiting in line to have my book signed, I started chatting with some fellow Dorie-admirers, who happen to be food bloggers as well. Strange as this may sound, it was the first time I had ever met other food bloggers in person. Three out of the four of us had been Daring Bakers at one point, and I was reminded again how easy it can be to talk to complete strangers when food is the common denominator. Meeting them, and talking with one of my food idols has inspired me to give Real Good Taste another go, so you will be hearing from me again in the near future. Until then, I'll leave you with a few links to my favorite Dorie Greenspan recipes.

Perfect Party Cake (the name really does say it all)
Dorie's Macarons Parisiens (I'm still working on perfecting this one)
Florida Pie (you'll never go back to plain Key Lime again)
Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes (you can see the recipe if you search in Baking: From My Home to Yours on Google books
And finally, Dorie's own website, where she often posts recipes and stories about her fabulous life.

Pumpkin Spice Macarons

This month was supposed to be my triumphant return to the Daring Bakers but it began with a baking disaster and is ending with me typing up this post at 10pm on posting day. I have seen macarons online for a while now and have always been more intrigued by their looks than what I thought they would taste like. While the sandwich cookies look so cute, meringue has never been my thing, so I'd never gotten around to trying them, until this month that is.

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

For my first attempt, I carefully separated the eggs and let the whites come to room temperature. Then I proceeded to overbeat them. I knew it but decided to continue on with the cookies anyway, thinking that everything would be all right. Oh no, it was not. The cookies ended up flattened sticky messes and even though I'm usually a one picture per post type of person, I'm sticking in an extra picture of my overbeated egg whites- just in case you aren't sure what they look like (I wasn't). So here they are= if your egg whites look like this, toss them out and start again.


For my next attempt, I whipped the white much more carefully and things turned out pretty well. I couldn't find my piping tips when it came time to pipe out the cookies though, so I ended up make them much thinner than I should have. They turned out a little flat, but still have a hint of the 'foot' they are famous for.

For flavoring I decided to go fall, and mixed nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger and allspice into the macaron batter and made an unsweetened pumpkin cream cheese frosting. I find pumpkin quite bitter on its own, but it worked out really well against the incredibly sweet macarons.

One last confession before I end my post. Since my first macaron attempt failed, I switched recipes for the second. The DB challenge recipe is below, but for my successful attempt, I used Helene's recipe. I'm sure both will work, as long as you're careful with the egg whites.


Macarons


Actual baking time: 12 minutes total, plus a few minutes to get your oven from 200°F to 375°F.

Equipment required:
• Electric mixer, preferably a stand mixer with a whisk attachment
• Rubber spatula
• Baking sheets
• Parchment paper or nonstick liners
• Pastry bag (can be disposable)
• Plain half-inch pastry bag tip
• Sifter or sieve
• If you don’t have a pastry bag and/or tips, you can use a Ziploc bag with the corner snipped off
• Oven
• Cooling rack
• Thin-bladed spatula for removing the macaroons from the baking sheets
• Food processor or nut grinder, if grinding your own nuts (ouch!)

Ingredients
2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.) Confectioners’ sugar
2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.) Almond flour
2T (25g, 88 oz.)Granulated sugar
5 Egg whites (Have at room temperature)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C). Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.
2. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.
3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.
4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (Ateco #806). You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.
5. Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper).
6. Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.
7. Cool on a rack before filling.

Yield: 10 dozen. Ami's note: My yield was much smaller than this. I produced about two dozen filled macaroons.

Milanos

Milano cookies are one of my favorite commercial (as opposed to homemade) cookies so I was pretty stoked to see that one of the two recipes for this month's Daring Bakers Challenge was for a homemade Milano style cookie by Gail Gand. I knew I would be traveling so resolved to make these cookies early in the month and give them to a professor of mine as a thank you gift.

The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

I set to making the cookies, making a few modifications (bad Daring Baker, I know, but I couldn't help myself). Not everyone loves citrus with chocolate and as as the cookies were a gift, I decided to leave out the lemon extract. Without the lemon to balance out the 2T of vanilla extract, I thought 1T would be more than enough to flavor the cookies. The batter came together quickly but looked much to thin to make cookies and then I (figuratively) smacked myself on the head as I realized I forgot to add the flour. Disaster averted, at least for the time being.

Pastry bag improvised, cookies piped and in the oven. 7 minutes later, one gigantic burnt cookie mess comes out of the oven. The cookies had completely run together and burnt. Crud. Scrape trays and start over. Next go, about half of the cookies came out useable. Third go and a few lessons learned. Pipe very small dots, not lines of batter, and leave 3 inches between the dots. Watch them carefully and pull out as soon as the edges get golden. Use parchment or tin foil and pull off the hot sheets immediately, then remove while still a little warm. Ok- method down, several rounds later I have dozens of wafer thin cookies in varying shapes and sizes.

Ganache made without problems and then the fun begins. I spread out a layer of cookies and played a matching game, trying to put them in relatively equally spaced pairs, held together with the ganache.

Finally, I finished making all the cookie sandwiches and rewarding myself by eating the remaining ganache with a spoon. The finished cookies looked pretty, if a bit rustic in their uneveness. The vanilla taste was a bit too strong for me, even though I had halved it, but overall they were good but perhaps not quite worth the trouble when it's so easy to buy a bag...

Milan Cookies
Recipe courtesy Gale Gand, from Food Network website

Prep Time: 20 min
Inactive Prep Time: 0 min
Cook Time: 1 hr 0 min
Serves: about 3 dozen cookies

• 12 tablespoons (170grams/ 6 oz) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 1/2 cups (312.5 grams/ 11.02 oz) powdered sugar
• 7/8 cup egg whites (from about 6 eggs)
• 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons lemon extract
• 1 1/2 cups (187.5grams/ 6.61 oz) all purpose flour
• Cookie filling, recipe follows

Cookie filling:
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 orange, zested

1. In a mixer with paddle attachment cream the butter and the sugar.
2. Add the egg whites gradually and then mix in the vanilla and lemon extracts.
3. Add the flour and mix until just well mixed.
4. With a small (1/4-inch) plain tip, pipe 1-inch sections of batter onto a parchment-lined sheet pan, spacing them 2 inches apart as they spread.
5. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 10 minutes or until light golden brown around the edges. Let cool on the pan.
6. While waiting for the cookies to cool, in a small saucepan over medium flame, scald cream.
7. Pour hot cream over chocolate in a bowl, whisk to melt chocolate, add zest and blend well.
8. Set aside to cool (the mixture will thicken as it cools).
9. Spread a thin amount of the filling onto the flat side of a cookie while the filling is still soft and press the flat side of a second cookie on top.
10. Repeat with the remainder of the cookies.

Apple Strudel

This was a last minute challenge if I've ever done one. Zach and I got back from a weekend in New York on Monday night and when I logged in to the Daring Kitchen yesterday, just to check on the ingredients needed for this months challenge, I was startled to see that I had just one night for the challenge. Luckily, this month's apple strudel seemed manageable so I made a grocery list and got to work.

The strudel dough came together so quickly I almost wanted to laugh- really, this easy? I prepped the apples while the dough rested and then met a friend at the gym. When we got back, I spread an old sheet over half of the dining room table and while K* and Zach looked on, proceeded to roll and stretch out the dough. Once I floured both side of the dough, it rolled out easily. I tried to be as delicate as possible when picking it up to stretch out, but I still got a few holes, which I patched up with a little water. The dough didn't quite make it to 2'x3' but it was tissue thin in most parts so I cut off the edges, put in the filling and rolled the whole thing up, using the sheet as a sling.

After 30 minutes in the oven, the strudel came out golden brown and with a buttery, tangy apple smell filling the house. I attempted to wait patiently for the required 30 minutes, then K* and I tried a piece. I was shocked at how well the dough came out- crisp, lightly buttery in contrast to the soft apples and raisins. This one is a definite keeper.

The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.

Apple Strudel

(Tips and notes from our hosts at the bottom)

Preparation time
Total: 2 hours 15 minutes – 3 hours 30 minutes

15-20 min to make dough
30-90 min to let dough rest/to prepare the filling
20-30 min to roll out and stretch dough
10 min to fill and roll dough
30 min to bake
30 min to cool

Apple strudel
from “Kaffeehaus – Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague” by Rick Rodgers

2 tablespoons (30 ml) golden rum
3 tablespoons (45 ml) raisins
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon (80 g) sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick / 115 g) unsalted butter, melted, divided
1 1/2 cups (350 ml) fresh bread crumbs
strudel dough (recipe below)
1/2 cup (120 ml, about 60 g) coarsely chopped walnuts
2 pounds (900 g) tart cooking apples, peeled, cored and cut into ¼ inch-thick slices (use apples that hold their shape during baking)

1. Mix the rum and raisins in a bowl. Mix the cinnamon and sugar in another bowl.

2. Heat 3 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet over medium-high. Add the breadcrumbs and cook whilst stirring until golden and toasted. This will take about 3 minutes. Let it cool completely.

3. Put the rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Line a large baking sheet with baking paper (parchment paper). Make the strudel dough as described below. Spread about 3 tablespoons of the remaining melted butter over the dough using your hands (a bristle brush could tear the dough, you could use a special feather pastry brush instead of your hands). Sprinkle the buttered dough with the bread crumbs. Spread the walnuts about 3 inches (8 cm) from the short edge of the dough in a 6-inch-(15cm)-wide strip. Mix the apples with the raisins (including the rum), and the cinnamon sugar. Spread the mixture over the walnuts.

4. Fold the short end of the dough onto the filling. Lift the tablecloth at the short end of the dough so that the strudel rolls onto itself. Transfer the strudel to the prepared baking sheet by lifting it. Curve it into a horseshoe to fit. Tuck the ends under the strudel. Brush the top with the remaining melted butter.

5. Bake the strudel for about 30 minutes or until it is deep golden brown. Cool for at least 30 minutes before slicing. Use a serrated knife and serve either warm or at room temperature. It is best on the day it is baked.
Strudel dough
from “Kaffeehaus – Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague” by Rick Rodgers

1 1/3 cups (200 g) unbleached flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons (105 ml) water, plus more if needed
2 tablespoons (30 ml) vegetable oil, plus additional for coating the dough
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar

1. Combine the flour and salt in a stand-mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix the water, oil and vinegar in a measuring cup. Add the water/oil mixture to the flour with the mixer on low speed. You will get a soft dough. Make sure it is not too dry, add a little more water if necessary.
Take the dough out of the mixer. Change to the dough hook. Put the dough ball back in the mixer. Let the dough knead on medium until you get a soft dough ball with a somewhat rough surface.

2. Take the dough out of the mixer and continue kneading by hand on an unfloured work surface. Knead for about 2 minutes. Pick up the dough and throw it down hard onto your working surface occasionally.
Shape the dough into a ball and transfer it to a plate. Oil the top of the dough ball lightly. Cover the ball tightly with plastic wrap. Allow to stand for 30-90 minutes (longer is better).

3. It would be best if you have a work area that you can walk around on all sides like a 36 inch (90 cm) round table or a work surface of 23 x 38 inches (60 x 100 cm). Cover your working area with table cloth, dust it with flour and rub it into the fabric. Put your dough ball in the middle and roll it out as much as you can.
Pick the dough up by holding it by an edge. This way the weight of the dough and gravity can help stretching it as it hangs. Using the back of your hands to gently stretch and pull the dough. You can use your forearms to support it.

4. The dough will become too large to hold. Put it on your work surface. Leave the thicker edge of the dough to hang over the edge of the table. Place your hands underneath the dough and stretch and pull the dough thinner using the backs of your hands. Stretch and pull the dough until it's about 2 feet (60 cm) wide and 3 feet (90 cm) long, it will be tissue-thin by this time. Cut away the thick dough around the edges with scissors. The dough is now ready to be filled.

Tips
- Ingredients are cheap so we would recommend making a double batch of the dough, that way you can practice the pulling and stretching of the dough with the first batch and if it doesn't come out like it should you can use the second batch to give it another try;
- The tablecloth can be cotton or polyster;
- Before pulling and stretching the dough, remove your jewelry from hands and wrists, and wear short-sleeves;
- To make it easier to pull the dough, you can use your hip to secure the dough against the edge of the table;
- Few small holes in the dough is not a problem as the dough will be rolled, making (most of) the holes invisible.

Homemade Lasagna, Daring Bakers Style

I'm back from the longest holiday Real Good Taste has ever had with the DB challenge I made on time but didn't post.  Thank you all for your patience.  New posts will be up shortly and you will see me on your blogs soon.

I was really shocked when I saw that this month's Daring Baker's Challenge was a lasagna. I've pretty much only made sweets since I joined the group and even when we had a savory option, like with the lavash crackers, I still added a sweet topping. My purpose in joining the group was to be challenged in the kitchen though, so pretty soon I was thinking how delicious a lasagna with homemade pasta would be, a definite indication of how long it had been since I last made pasta by hand.

As regular readers of Real Good Taste know, I had a huge exam mid-month that kept me out of the kitchen for far too long. I decided my reintroduction to real cooking would be with this lasagna. Nothing looked too hard, but I thought it would be a good idea to split up the cooking and made the béchamel sauce the day before hand. Lasagna day was a beautiful and warm day here so I thought I would take an hour or two to get the meat sauce and pasta done and then go out and help Zach with some yardwork. Well- I started cooking a 11am and ended at 4pm with few breaks in between.

I used Marchella Hazan's recipe for bolognese meat sauce, as it had far fewer ingredients than the DB version, and while it didn't need much prep, I had to be around to add the milk, wine and tomatoes one by one, allowing for full evaporation in between.

Once the bolognese was gently bubbling away, I turned to the pasta. I assembled everything and decided that my floor would thank me if I beat the eggs and spinach together in a bowl, instead of attempted to do in on the narrow counter and ending up with a Niagara Falls of green eggs cascading onto the slate tile that is impossible to clean. I began to work the flour into the egg mixture and everything seemed to be going well except for one tiny problem- the dough was the right consistency but half the flour was left on the counter. Worried that I wouldn't have enough pasta for the lasagna, I added another egg and kept going but still had about a cup of flour left over. Four eggs seemed like going overboard so I wrapped the pasta dough in plastic and let it rest. Then came the real fun.

Since the move I haven't been able to locate some of my favorite kitchen supplies, including my 2 foot long french rolling pin, so I had to work with was a 10in. american pin. What this means it that I had to divide the dough into quarters and go through the three step rolling process 4 times.  By the end of it my arms were burning like they did the time that I did a strength class at the gym with 5lb. weights only to realize at the end of the class they were 5kg.  While I had hoped to be done with the pasta several hours earlier my arms did get a chance to rest before the assembly.

I cooked the pasta briefly in heavily salted boiling water and started on assembly.  Our instructions called for thin layers of béchamel and bolognese but said that we should use the full amounts of both when putting the lasagna together.  I ended up using 4 layers of pasta, which was only half of what I had made.  I would recommend using two eggs for the pasta and just working in as much flour as you can.   That will make plenty of pasta for the recipe.

By the time dinner was finally ready I was dead tired from the day of lasagna making.  The finished product was good, but I'm not sure it was worth all the effort.  That said, Zach loved it and said he'd like to have it again and I could see everything going a lot better with the right rolling pin and amount of dough.  I did like making pasta by hand and would like to experiment with ravioli or other filled pasta.

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna
adapted from from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper
serves 8 as a first course, 4-6 as a main course

Preparation Time: 15 minutes to assemble and 40 minutes cooking time

10 quarts (9 litres) salted water
1 recipe Spinach Pasta cut for lasagna (recipe follows)#1
1 recipe Bechamel Sauce (recipe follows)#2
1 recipe Bolognese Sauce (recipe follows)#3
1 cup (4 ounces/125g) freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

Method
Working Ahead:
The ragu and the béchamel sauce can be made up to three days ahead. The ragu can also be frozen for up to one month. The pasta can be rolled out, cut and dried up to 24 hours before cooking. The assembled lasagne can wait at room temperature (20 degrees Celsius/68 degrees Fahrenheit) about 1 hour before baking. Do not refrigerate it before baking, as the topping of béchamel and cheese will overcook by the time the center is hot.

Assembling the Ingredients:
Have all the sauces, rewarmed gently over a medium heat, and the pasta at hand. Have a large perforated skimmer and a large bowl of cold water next to the stove. Spread a double thickness of paper towels over a large counter space. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (180 degrees Celsius). Oil or butter a 3 quart (approx 3 litre) shallow baking dish.

Cooking the Pasta:
Bring the salted water to a boil. Drop about four pieces of pasta in the water at a time. Cook about 2 minutes. If you are using dried pasta, cook about 4 minutes, taste, and cook longer if necessary. The pasta will continue cooking during baking, so make sure it is only barely tender. Lift the lasagne from the water with a skimmer, drain, and then slip into the bowl of cold water to stop cooking. When cool, lift out and dry on the paper towels. Repeat until all the pasta is cooked.

Assembling the Lasagne:
Spread a thin layer of béchamel over the bottom of the baking dish. Arrange a layer of about four overlapping sheets of pasta over the béchamel. Spread a thin layer of béchamel (about 3 or 4 spoonfuls) over the pasta, and then an equally thin layer of the ragu. Sprinkle with about 1&1/2 tablespoons of the béchamel and about 1/3 cup of the cheese. Repeat the layers until all ingredients are used, finishing with béchamel sauce and topping with a generous dusting of cheese.

Baking and Serving the Lasagne:
Cover the baking dish lightly with foil, taking care not to let it touch the top of the lasagne. Bake 40 minutes, or until almost heated through. Remove the foil and bake another 10 minutes, or until hot in the center (test by inserting a knife – if it comes out very warm, the dish is ready). Take care not to brown the cheese topping. It should be melted, creamy looking and barely tinged with a little gold. Turn off the oven, leave the door ajar and let the lasagne rest for about 10 minutes. Then serve. This is not a solid lasagne, but a moist one that slips a bit when it is cut and served.

#1 Spinach Egg Pasta (Pasta Verde)

Preparation: 45 minutes

Makes enough for 6 to 8 first course servings or 4 to 6 main course servings, equivalent to 1 pound (450g) dried boxed pasta.

2 jumbo eggs (2 ounces/60g or more)
6 ounces (170g) frozen chopped spinach, defrosted and squeezed dry
2 C. (240g) all purpose unbleached (plain) flour [I updated this to reflect the right amount of flour for the number of eggs)

Working by Hand:

Equipment

A roomy work surface, 24 to 30 inches deep by 30 to 36 inches (60cm to 77cm deep by 60cm to 92cm). Any smooth surface will do, but marble cools dough slightly, making it less flexible than desired.

A pastry scraper and a small wooden spoon for blending the dough.

A wooden dowel-style rolling pin. In Italy, pasta makers use one about 35 inches long and 2 inches thick (89cm long and 5cm thick). The shorter American-style pin with handles at either end can be used, but the longer it is, the easier it is to roll the pasta.
Note: although it is not traditional, Enza has successfully made pasta with a marble rolling pin, and this can be substituted for the wooden pin, if you have one.

Plastic wrap to wrap the resting dough and to cover rolled-out pasta waiting to be filled. It protects the pasta from drying out too quickly.

A sharp chef’s knife for cutting pasta sheets.

Cloth-covered chair backs, broom handles, or specially designed pasta racks found in cookware shops for draping the pasta.

Mixing the dough:
Mound the flour in the center of your work surface and make a well in the middle. Add the eggs and spinach. Use a wooden spoon to beat together the eggs and spinach. Then gradually start incorporating shallow scrapings of flour from the sides of the well into the liquid. As you work more and more flour into the liquid, the well’s sides may collapse. Use a pastry scraper to keep the liquids from running off and to incorporate the last bits of flour into the dough. Don’t worry if it looks like a hopelessly rough and messy lump.

Kneading:
With the aid of the scraper to scoop up unruly pieces, start kneading the dough. Once it becomes a cohesive mass, use the scraper to remove any bits of hard flour on the work surface – these will make the dough lumpy. Knead the dough for about 3 minutes. Its consistency should be elastic and a little sticky. If it is too sticky to move easily, knead in a few more tablespoons of flour. Continue kneading about 10 minutes, or until the dough has become satiny, smooth, and very elastic. It will feel alive under your hands. Do not shortcut this step. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap, and let it relax at room temperature 30 minutes to 3 hours.

Stretching and Thinning:
If using an extra-long rolling pin work with half the dough at a time. With a regular-length rolling pin, roll out a quarter of the dough at a time and keep the rest of the dough wrapped. Lightly sprinkle a large work surface with flour. The idea is to stretch the dough rather than press down and push it. Shape it into a ball and begin rolling out to form a circle, frequently turning the disc of dough a quarter turn. As it thins outs, start rolling the disc back on the pin a quarter of the way toward the center and stretching it gently sideways by running the palms of your hands over the rolled-up dough from the center of the pin outward. Unroll, turn the disc a quarter turn, and repeat. Do twice more.

Stretch and even out the center of the disc by rolling the dough a quarter of the way back on the pin. Then gently push the rolling pin away from you with one hand while holding the sheet in place on the work surface with the other hand. Repeat three more times, turning the dough a quarter turn each time.

Repeat the two processes as the disc becomes larger and thinner. The goal is a sheet of even thickness. For lasagne, the sheet should be so thin that you can clearly see your hand through it and see colours. Cut into rectangles about 4 by 8 inches (10 x 20 cm). 

Dry the pasta at room temperature and store in a sealed container or bag.

#2 Bechamel

Preparation Time: 15 minutes

4 tablespoons (2 ounces/60g) unsalted butter
4 tablespoons (2 ounces/60g) all purpose unbleached (plain) flour, organic stone ground preferred
2&2/3 cups (approx 570ml) milk
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Freshly grated nutmeg to taste

Using a medium-sized saucepan, melt the butter over low to medium heat. Sift over the flour, whisk until smooth, and then stir (without stopping) for about 3 minutes. Whisk in the milk a little at a time and keep the mixture smooth. Bring to a slow simmer, and stir 3 to 4 minutes, or until the sauce thickens. Cook, stirring, for about 5 minutes, until the sauce thickens. Season with salt, pepper, and a hint of nutmeg.

# 3 Bolognese Sauce
Recipe from The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan

1 T. vegetable oil
3 T. butter
1/2 C. chopped onion
2/3 C. chopped celery
2/3 C. chopped carrot
3/4 lb. (340g) ground beef (it will be tastier if you use 80 or 85% lean)
salt
pepper
1 C. whole milk
a little ground nutmeg
1 C. white wine (dry if you have it)
1 & 1/2C. plum tomatoes with the juice

- Add oil, onion and butter to pot. Cook on medium until the onion becomes translucent (3-4 minutes) then add the celery and carrot. Cook for another two minutes and stir to coat them in the butter and oil.

- Add the ground beef, a fat pinch of salt and some pepper. Break up the meat with a spoon and cook till it's not red.

- Add the milk and let it simmer over very low heat until it has completely evaporated. Grate in a little bit of nutmeg (less than 1/8t.) and stir.

- Add wine and let simmer over very low heat until it has completely evaporated. Add the tomatoes and and stir to coat the sauce. Use your spoon to break the tomatoes up into pieces. Cook at a very, very low simmer (just a few bubbles popping up every minute) for 3-4 hours. Stir it every one in a while and if it looks really dry, add a 1/2 C. water. In the end you don't want to have any water or obvious liquid left. The sauce should be very thick, more like pieces of beef and veg slightly coated in tomato. It should smell amazing. Give it a taste for salt and use in the lasagna or on your favorite pasta.

Chef Wan's Flourless Chocolate Valentino

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef. We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.*

My first thought when I saw this monthly challenge was relief. Relief that I wasn't going to have to go to three grocery stores trying to find ingredients and spend two days in the kitchen dirtying every bowl and utensil we have. Not that I don't love the challenges that really test my skill in the kitchen- I would have never known how much I love a Swiss Meringue buttercream without the Praline Cake or that cracker can be made at home without the Lavash, but with my comprehensive exam rapidly approaching, I didn't think I could handle such an intense challenge so I was pleased to see a (fairly) simple flourless chocolate cake on the list for this month.

The recipe comes from Chef Wan, a Malaysian super-star chef, but it very unfussy. Wendy and Dharm warned us that with so few ingredients (chocolate, butter and eggs), the flavor of the chocolate really matters, so I immediately though of buying the chunks of Ghiradelli chocolate that Trader Joe's sells in the baskets near the register. We made a trip out only to find out that TJ's no longer sells them since Ghiradelli doesn't sell them the huge chocolate bars anymore. I really didn't want to go to another store to look for chocolate (and wasn't sure I could even find anything better for a reasonable price) so I got two TJ's pound plus chocolate bars, one semi-sweet and one 72% and came home to bake.

The cake comes together remarkably quickly. Melt chocolate and butter, whip egg whites, mix yolks into the chocolate, stir it all and bake. That's it. I let the simplicity guest the best of me and attempted to do a little kitchen multitasking while I was whipping the egg whites and when I came back to them, they were just, just on the far side of stiff peaks. I didn't want to use a whole extra 5 eggs though, decided it would be fine and kept going. I baked the cake, let it cool and then, at the appointment time attempted to release it from the springform pan.

I should mention that almost all of my baking supplies were my grandmothers and are from the 1960s, so my springform has been around a while. Its age means that the pin sticks, sometimes a lot. As I was yanking on the pin while trying to keep the whole cake from falling on the floor, the pin suddenly shot free and my thumb, which had been on the rim of the pan to keep it steady, slipped loose and plunged down into the cake, making a huge crater along one side of the cake. I attempted some emergency repairs but the nature of the cake (while warm it's very light and almost foamy) prevented it.

The next day, I took a few pictures, trying to keep the crater out of the shot, then cut the cake to take it to a party. I expected the cake to cut like a big block of fudge, but it sort of crumbled all of the place and kept braking apart. I sampled one of the broken pieces and while it had a very deep, rich chocolate flavor, it was a bit dry and had an almost mealy texture. I'm pretty sure this was due to my over-beating the egg whites but am really curious to see what other bakers thought of the cake.

*You'll notice I don't talk about making ice-cream in this post because I didn't. As much as I would love to make it, I don't have an ice-cream machine and without it, I was pretty sure I'd end up with a frozen block of sweetened cream, which just doesn't appeal to me.


Chocolate Valentino
Recipe from Chef Wan
Preparation Time: 20 minutes

1lb. (454 g.) of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
10T (1 stick plus 2T or 146g. ) unsalted butter
5 large eggs, separated

- Preheat oven to 375F/190C

- Melt the chocolate and butter in a small bowl in the microwave, stirring often. Set aside to cool.

- While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan (8in. springform please) and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.

- Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites.

- Whip the egg whites in a medium/large metal or glass bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).

- With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.

- Stir the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.

- Stir 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture. Then carefully fold in the remaining egg whites until no white remains. You want to do this as gently as possible so you don't deflate the batter.

- Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C.
Note – If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.

- Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold and cool completely. Serve plain or with berry sauce, whipped cream or ice cream.

No DB For me

Time just seemed to get away from me this month and all of a sudden its posting day and I have nothing to show for it...

Luckily, my fellow Daring Bakers are much more organized that I am and have have a great job with this month's challenge. Please check out the the link below to see some of their creations.

The Daring Bakers January Challenge

Bouche de noel

This month's challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux. They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand.

This recipe had so many components and steps I'm not quite sure where to start. I made it a few weeks ago the night before my last paper was due. I started the bouche de noel and the editing at around 7pm and wrapped up at 12:30am...but had about another 45 minutes of prep on the cake in the morning before I headed to school to turn in the paper.

Wow... this post sounds really boring. I think it's because I don't really have much good to say about this month's challenge. I normally don't mind when a Daring Bakers' challenge takes forever as I feel like I am learning along the way. This time though, I think something got lost in the translation/conversion of the recipe from French and Metric into English and Customary. I was confused about pretty much everything, how long to cook each component, what consistency it should be and don't even get me started on using gelatin (suffice to say - never again). Luckily the bouche came out pretty well in the end (despite a disastrous creme brulee layer that wouldn't set at all) . Everyone enjoyed it but I think it's safe to say... I'll never make it again.

I hate to be so negative, espcially when I know how much work everyone put into this so thinking my hardest, I've come up with a few things I've learned from this recipe:

1) Gelatin is disgusting and I feel completely vindicated in my refusal to eat or use it for the past 12 years. Next time I'll use a vegetarian alternative.

2) If caffeine after 5pm keeps you up at night, eating a mocha bouche de noel at 10:30pm is not a good idea.

3) I am really spoiled as so many blogs, recipes and cookbooks are in my native language and units of measure. I have a newfound respect for those of you who translate languages and measures to work on Daring Baker's challenges or other recipes.

Sweet and Salty Bacon Carmel Cupcakes

When I saw the Shuna Fish Lydon recipe that Dolores, Alex and Jenny picked out for this month's challenge I wasn't that excited. Carmel Cake with Brown Butter Icing just didn't sound like my thing and as my fellow Daring Bakers kept talking about how overwhelmingly sweet the cake turned out, I realized I would have to try to get creative on this one. It's not that I don't like carmel or browned butter but sweet has never been my preferred flavor and that seemed to be what this cake was about. I like my chocolate dark, fruits tart and sugary icing kept to a minimum. I was trying to decide what I could do to keep to the original recipe yet provide a counterbalance to the sweet carmel and icing when I hit upon bacon. Now I am not the first one to put bacon into a dessert or even a cupcake but I will admit I felt pretty daring doing it.

I decided to mix crumbled bacon directly into the cupcake batter so Zach cooked up a pile of bacon on baking day then it was time for me to get to work. First off, I made the carmel. A lot of bakers posted about the problems they had with this step, so I read over some helpful instructions and got to work. I stood over the boiling sugar keeping a close watch (and had bucket'o ice water handy in case of emergency) but brought the carmel to the smoking point without problem. It was sort of scary to pour the water into the boiling carmel, but a strainer perched on top of the pot prevented any spillover or splashing.

Next I put together the batter which was relatively simple compared to past challenges- cream butter and sugar, add dry wet dry and done. I spooned some plain batter into the prepared tins and then crumbled in the bacon. I did have some last minute hesitation, worried that I was going to wreck a whole recipe but went ahead with it anyway. As the cupcakes baked, I browned the butter and made the frosting. I had a little taste of the frosting before I iced the cupcakes and I'm very glad I did. It had a nice consistency but I couldn't really get over the browned butter flavor. It was so strong I found it almost offensive and just piped a tiny bit onto each cake and topped each with a sliver of bacon.

For the moment of truth I invited M&S over (you remember M--, he gave me the romanesco). They were a bit leery of the bacon in the cupcakes but we all pulled off the wrappers and had a bite. Success. Everyone liked the bacon cupcakes. The smoky, salty flavor of the bacon balanced out the overwhelming sweetness of the carmel cake. The cake itself turned out a beautiful golden texture and was really moist, thanks to all of the sugar. S-- and Zach liked the frosting much more than I did and piped some extra onto their cakes.

Will I make this one again? No, I don't think so but I will be trying bacon in other desserts in the future.

Another Perfect Party Cake

I ended up baking a birthday cake on short notice this weekend and returned to what is now and old favorite, Dorie Greenspan's perfect party cake, the one that I made as my first Daring Bakers Challenge. This time I made the full four layers and it came out so well that I thought I'd share the picture with you. 

If you're looking for a cake to make for a group- this one is it. Lemon, berries and coconut look beautiful and are a great alternative to the typical vanilla and chocolate combos plus the cake is pretty easy to make and the full cake serves about 20.

One quick tip-- less is really more when it comes to the jam filling.  I sort of overdid it on this one.

Daring Bakers- I Love You or How I Made the Best Pizza Ever

Well the title pretty much said it all. I had given up hope of ever making a decent pizza at home but thanks to Rosa from Rosa's Yummy Yums, host of this month's challenge that's all changed. This was the easiest dough to put together-- the recipe even calls for cold water so there's no chance of accidentally killing the yeast. The overnight rise in the fridge allowed the flavor of the dough to develop but I think the secret was patting the dough (in pizza size balls) out into disks before the second, room-temperature rise. That made it so much easier to toss the dough into a the pizza form. I say toss the dough like I'm a piazzola or something but the truth is that my first attempt at tossing the disk on my knuckles to stretch it out went a bit too well too quickly resulting is a torn mess that was paper thin in some parts and an inch thick in others.

I was a bit disheartened but just mashed it back into a ball and started on the second dough. This time I treated the dough very carefully as I realized how light and delicate it was. I floured my hand and very gingerly picked up the dough disk and set it on top of my folded knuckles and started using a gentle outward and upward motion of my hands to stretch and rotate the dough. Once it was thin enough (which for me is pretty much paper thin) I set it down on a floured cookie sheet and topped it with olive oil, fresh chopped tomato, torn fresh basil and mozzarella cheese, all in very small quantities.

The pizza stone was fired up in the oven and I attempted to transfer the pizza from the sheet to the stone. That attempt was quickly thwarted as the pan was too big for the oven (ah the joys of my old kitchen). I didn't know what to do but felt I had to make a quick decision before I let all the heat out of the oven so I stepped back and sort of threw the pizza off pan and onto the stone. It made it about 2/3 of the way on the stone and the rest was on the floor of the oven and hanging out the door. There was no way I could move the pizza at that point, so I just folding over the part that was hanging out and left it to cook.

After about 5 minutes the toppings were bubly and more importantly, the crust had achieved the much vaunted state of crispy blackness**- you know, the one where the crust is crispy and golden-brown except for a few spots that have gotten black and crisp? Not burnt-- just so crisp I never thought I could achieve them in my home oven.

Well-- to sum up this long story-- this dough is amazing and you must make it at home. Also-- do yourself a favor, get a pizza stone.* My cost about $15 at Target and now I'm planning to bake all sorts of yeast breads on it.

*Well, after my incident, you may want to invest in a pizza peel too.

** I was so impressed by the crispy blackness I though it should be the picture for this post. Oh- my kitchen table is not usually so messy but I made the pizza a few days before we moved...


Pizza Dough
Original recipe taken from “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice” by Peter Reinhart.

Makes 6 pizza crusts (about 9-12 inches/23-30 cm in diameter)

Ingredients:
4 1/2 C. (607.5 g) bread flour or all purpose flour
1 3/4 t. Salt
1 t. Instant yeast
1/4 Cup (60g) Olive oil
1 3/4 Cups (420ml) ice water
1 Tb sugar
Semolina/durum flour or cornmeal for dusting (I just used AP flour)

DAY ONE

Method:
1. Mix together the flour, salt and instant yeast in a big bowl.

2. Add the oil, sugar and cold water and mix well in order to form a sticky ball of dough. On a clean surface, knead for about 5-7 minutes, until the dough is smooth and the ingredients are homogeneously distributed. If it is too wet, add a little flour (not too much, though) and if it is too dry add 1 or 2 teaspoons extra water.

The finished dough should be springy, elastic, and sticky, not just tacky.

3. Cut the dough into 6 equal pieces (or larger if you want to make larger pizzas).

4. Make sure your hands are dry and then flour them. Gently round each piece into a ball.

5. You need to refrigerate the dough overnight. Your options are to place the dough on a oiled baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap or to put each dough ball into an oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. The point is that the dough must be separated into individual balls and shouldn't touch each other.

6. Put the dough into the refrigerator and let the dough rest overnight or for up to thee days.

NOTE: You can store the dough balls in a zippered freezer bag if you want to save some of the dough for any future baking. In that case, pour some oil(a few tablespooons only) in a medium bowl and dip each dough ball into the oil, so that it is completely covered in oil. Then put each ball into a separate bag. Store the bags in the freezer for no longer than 3 months. The day before you plan to make pizza, remember to transfer the dough balls from the freezer to the refrigerator.

DAY TWO

7. 2 hours before you make it the pizza, remove the desired number of dough balls from the refrigerator. Dust the counter with flour and spray lightly with oil. Place the dough balls on a floured surface and sprinkle them with flour. Dust your hands with flour and delicately press the dough into disks about 1/2 inch/1.3 cm thick and 5 inches/12.7 cm in diameter. Sprinkle with flour and mist with oil. Loosely cover the dough rounds with plastic wrap and then allow to rest for 2 hours.

8. At least 45 minutes before making the pizza, place a baking stone on the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven as hot as possible (500° F/260° C).

NOTE: If you do not have a baking stone, then use the back of a jelly pan. Do not preheat the pan.

9. Generously sprinkle the back of a jelly pan with semolina/durum flour or cornmeal. Flour your hands (palms, backs and knuckles). Take 1 piece of dough by lifting it with a pastry scraper. Lay the dough across your fists in a very delicate way and carefully stretch it by bouncing it in a circular motion on your hands, and by giving it a little stretch with each bounce. Once the dough has expanded outward, move to a full toss.


NOTE: Make only one pizza at a time.
During the tossing process, if the dough tends to stick to your hands, lay it down on the floured counter and reflour your hands, then continue the tossing and shaping.
In case you would be having trouble tossing the dough or if the dough never wants to expand and always springs back, let it rest for approximately 5-20 minutes in order for the gluten to relax fully,then try again.
You can also resort to using a rolling pin, although it isn’t as effective as the toss method.

10. When the dough has the shape you want (about 9-12 inches/23-30 cm in diameter - for a 6 ounces/180g piece of dough), place it on the back of the jelly pan, making sure there is enough semolina/durum flour or cornmeal to allow it to slide and not stick to the pan.

11. Lightly top it with sweet or savory toppings of your choice.


NOTE: Your crust is very thin-- it can't support a 'pizza hut' set of toppings. Less really is more here.

12. Slide the garnished pizza onto the stone in the oven or bake directly on the jelly pan. Close the door and bake for abour 5-8 minutes or until toppings are bubbling and the bottom is brown and crisp.

13. Remove from oven and eat!

Better late...

Yes, I am a few days late with this month's Daring Bakers challenge but I am so glad I did it. This was the first savory challenge I've done and also the first that didn't require me to buy any special ingredients, or take half a day. Not that I'm complaining- I like to spend time in the kitchen, but with the way this month has been going I had given up hope of completing the challenge until I actually took the time to read the recipe.

This month we made lavosh crackers. As the challenge was hosted by two of our alternative bakers, Natalie from Gluten A Go Go and Shel of Musings From the Fishbowl the idea was for all of us to try our hand at gluten-free baking and a vegan dip but our hosts kindly gave us instructions for wheat based crackers as well. I chose to do the wheat option since I had everything for it already in the house and I didn't get around to the dip quite yet...

I was shocked at how quickly and easily the crackers came together. Basically mix, stir, knead. Then let it rise for an hour and a half and roll out as thinly as you possibly can top and bake. That's it. I decided to top my crackers with sesame seeds (on one half) and molasses sugar (on the other) to have both savory and sweet crackers. The sesame seeds didn't adhere to the crackers as nicely as I would have liked them too but that was my only and admittedly very minor issue with the whole recipe.

The crackers are crisp, delicious and totally satisfying, not to mention way cheaper than store-bought. I'm going to try to make a batch every week for Zach and I to take with our lunches so I'll keep you posted if I come up with any really good flavors.

One note: I did use a mix of white and whole wheat flour instead of the straight white called for in the recipe. I thought it came the crackers extra flavor, and fiber, yet didn't overpower the delicate nature of the crisps. Feel free to use all white flour if you want

Lavosh Crackers
Adapted from The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering The Art of Extraordinary Bread
Makes 1 sheet pan of crackers

1 C. (4 oz.) white flour
1/2 C. (2.75 oz.) whole wheat flour
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. yeast
1 T. sugar
1 T. vegetable oil
1/2 C. warm water
1 T. sesame seeds for topping
2 T. dark brown sugar for topping

- Stir the first 5 ingredients together in a medium bowl. Add the oil and about half of the water. Stir together. Keep stirring and adding water until the dough forms a ball.

- Turn the dough out on a lightly floured work surface and knead for about 10-15 minutes. Add more flour if the dough starts sticking to your hands. The dough should be shiny and sort of springy when you're done kneading. To test if it's ready you can pinch off a piece, flatten it into a disk and gently pull on the edges. It should stretch into a very thin membrane. If it rips immediately, keep kneading.

- Put the dough in a lightly greased bowl and cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Allow to rise for about 90 minutes or until doubled in bulk. (About 30 minutes before your dough is ready heat your oven to 350F)

- Divide dough in half (with a sharp knife). Lightly grease your work surface and set the dough down. Pat in to a rough square shape and lightly flour the top. Roll out as thinly as you possible can (we're talking paper-thin). You might need to give the dough a few breaks while rolling to allow the gluten to relax. Transfer to a cookie sheet. Repeat with the other dough.

- Brush the top of the dough with a little bit of water and sprinkle on your topping.

- Bake for 15-25 minutes or until golden brown. Baking time really depends on how thick your dough is. Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes in the pan then break apart and serve or store in an airtight container.

Eclairs

I was good this month and actually made my challenge early instead of waiting until the last minute like I usually do. This month the challenge was eclairs, hosted by Meeta of What's for Lunch Honey? and Tony. When I saw what the challenge was I felt sort of ambivalent. I had a vague feeling that I didn't actually like eclairs but could not remember if I'd even ever had one so, like any Daring Baker, I decided to give it the old college try.

A few things did intrigue me about the recipe before I got started. One was that the eclairs are made using a pate a choux, a type of French style dough that involves dumping flour into boiling mixture of milk, water and butter and 2) that the eclairs were to be both filled and topped with chocolate. I love chocolate, but would topping and filling be too much of a good thing?

I started with the pate a choux, which proved remarkably easy to make. Simply boil, dump and stir, and stir and stir and then make Zach take a turn stirring when my arm gets tired and then stir again. Once the eggs had been incorporated into dough, I spooned it into a ziploc bag (still no piping set in my kitchen) and piped out the eclairs, then baked them. I had read that eclairs tend to go soggy, so in an attempt to circumvent sogginess, I immediately made a small hole in the side of each eclair when they were done baking to let out the steam and set them back into the warm oven to cool. This didn't help at all as when the eclairs cooled, the air inside condensed, sucking the eclair with it, forming flat little logs that were rather tricky to cut apart.

With step one done, I proceeded to the filling and topping. The filling was a chocolate pastry cream, and while I had never made a pastry cream before, the recipe was clear and it proceeded with no problems. The cream used cornstarch as a thickener and it did indeed do the job, producing a very firm cream somewhere in the consistency range of a jello pudding.

The chocolate glaze was a bit more complicated. It called for first making a chocolate sauce, which would then be used in the finished glazed. It seemed rather fussy to me, but I had the time so I made it and then had a little taste. Good, but not outstanding and not worth the time to make it again. But then on to the glaze. Made like a traditional ganache by melting chocolate into heavy cream, it called for the chocolate sauce and additional butter to be stirred in. Again good, but I just don't think the additional steps of adding the butter and chocolate sauce did anything for the finished product. Well, I take that back. It did seem to make the glaze a bit softer and shinier than a traditional ganache but not by very much.

I assembled the eclairs right before serving, as directed in the recipe and we all had a taste. They were chocolaty. Very chocolaty. Almost too chocolaty. And this is from someone who loves chocolate. One eclair was more than enough, but that was actually a good thing. One small portion of dessert that is very rich and satisfying is much healthier than eating a bigger quantity of lower quality sweets. I did have some extras that I refrigerated overnight and everyone agreed that we liked the taste better chilled, rather than at room temperature.

Bottom line- I did not love these eclairs. I think that I might have liked them better if the eclair shells were slightly crispy (how they are supposed to be) than the soft flat pancakes mine because and if I had used a different flavor pastry cream for the filling. I am really happy that I got to try making pate a choux for the first time and might be trying desserts with it in the future.

If you would like the recipe you can visit Meeta or Tony at the links above.

Praline Cake

This month's Daring Bakers Challenge was hosted by Chris at Melecotte. Chris was the best host every and so supportive when I emailed her (multiple times) about the recipe so I really want to say thank you to her for helping me get through this one. At first I had a mini panic attack about all the components (jaconde, syrup, buttercream, praline cream, whipped cream, glaze and ganache- my heart rate is rising just typing it out again) but once I realized that most of the components are very similar to those of the Opera Cake I calmed down a bit and the cake actually started to sound good. Plus, it would give me a chance to use the Shrubb orange liqueur that my friend C- recently brought us from Martinique.

The base flavors of the cake are hazelnut and chocolate, with a hit of citrus with some lemon zest and the Shrubb, along with a tart apricot glaze. The directions Chris gave are really detailed (another reason for my worries- if a recipe goes on for more than a page, I have doubts about my abilities to follow it) but my breaking the cake down into it's component parts and taking two days to put it together it wasn't so bad at all (although Zach might disagree since I dirtied nearly every pan/bowl/dish in the kitchen in the process). I did make a few minor substitutions, like using lime zest (3 for a dollar) instead of lemon ($1.25 each) and Nutella in place of the praline cream. Although Chris gave directions for making praline cream, it was one thing I didn't think my blender could handle and since the only item even resembling praline cream in the grocery store was marzipan I decided to use Nutella to flavor the buttercream since it's a least made with hazelnuts.

For the glaze, I added a tablespoon of lime juice to the apricot preserves instead of water since everything I had made up to that point (the cake, buttercream and whipped cream) was so rich, I thought they really needed a strong and slightly sour fruit flavor to balance them out. Once I had put together the cake with the cream fillings and the apricot glaze, I let it chill for a day before topping it with a rich bittersweet chocolate ganache and attempting to decorate it. I say attempting since you all can see the strange hydra-like creature that is inhabiting the top of my cake. In my defense, I will only say that I don't own any piping tips so it was all done with a ziploc bag with one of the corners cut off.

Well, after piping both the cake and I needed a bit of a break, so it spent another day in the fridge before we gave it a try. This is, by far, my favorite Daring Bakers challenge so far. The chocolate and hazelnut are really the dominant flavors in this cake but the citrus and apricot provide a background fruitiness that keep it from being boring. The jaconde stands up really well to the both the sugar syrup and the creams and remains moist without becoming mushy.

Will I make this cake again? I think so, but only after I get in a bit of practice with piping tips!

I haven't posted a recipe here since Chris's explains everything so well but I did halve the recipe so if you would like a copy of the halved recipe with my substitutions send me and email and I can send you a copy.

Matcha Raspberry Opera Cake

Another month and another Daring Bakers Challenge. This month it was Opera Cake, selected by the founders of DB, Lis and Ivonne of La Mia Cucina and Cream Puffs in Venice respectively and Fran and Shea, two newer members of the group. I knew vaguely what Opera cake was when I read the recipe but I wasn't (and still am not) sure that I've ever had it. The twist to this month's challenge was that we couldn't use any of the traditional opera cake flavors. I will admit, I was the tiniest bit annoyed, since chocolate and mocha are two of my favorite dessert flavors but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is exactly why I signed up to DB in the first place- to force me to try new things and become a better baker.

The flavors for the cake had to be light, and since Opera cake is traditionally composed of several layers (cake, buttercream, ganache and glaze) I needed to come up with more than one 'light' flavor. Having already done lemon and berry for my first DB challenge I was stumped- until I remembered how much I liked green tea flavored sweets on my visit to Japan a few years ago. I wanted a slightly tart flavor to contrast with the green tea and had initially decided on apricot, which I thought would provide the tartness I was looking for while not being too dark in color.

Unfortunately, the grocery store did not want to cooperate on either account. No fresh or frozen apricots in sight and after spending a good 5 minutes staring at the tea section (black, red, oolong, decaf, berry, zen, weight loss, weight gain and green but all of the leaf in bag variety) I found a small box of individual packets of sweetened green tea, meant to be used in ice tea. At that point I couldn't even think of trying to figure out a new flavor combo while in the store so I tossed the tea into the cart and bought a bag of frozen raspberry while channeling Tim Gun and his "Make it work" mantra.

I got home and set to work on the cake itself. The joconde (sponge cake layer) was a first in many ways for me- the first cake I've made that based on nut flour, the first leavened only with egg whites and the first cake recipe that had absolutely no salt in it. I had hoped that with the addition of two green tea packets the joconde would turn out green and tea flavored but sadly it did not. That led me to attempt to flavor the buttercream with green tea. That worked out a bit better and the buttercream ended up a very pale green with a distinct green tea flavor. I decided to skip the ganache (since I really don't like white chocolate) and just make a glaze for the top out of pureed, strained raspberries and confectioners sugar. For some reason, I really thought that it would turn out a pale pink, not the dark red like it did (so I apologize for breaking the rule and having a dark color in my cake).

I brought the cake over to a friend's and cut it into little slices. The green tea flavor seemed to take people by surprise but went over well. The almond meal in the cake gave the finished Opera a slightly rough texture (I'm not sure if store bought almond meal would, but since I made mine in the blender it ended up a rather coarse texture) and the raspberry glaze was fresh, tart and delicious and (for me at least) prevent the cake from being overly sweet. Will I try to make Opera cake again? Yes, but probably with the traditional flavors next time. If you'd like to try your hand at Opera Cake, you can find the recipe at any of the blogs listed above.

Cheesecake Pops

Daring Bakers challenge #2- completed!  This month's challenge was hosted by Deborah at Taste and Tell and Elle at Feeding My Enthusiasms , who chose cheescake pops as our recipe.  I went through a phase a couple of years ago when I tried (for a few weeks) to make a good cheesecake at home and ended up giving up in frustration and haven't thought about attempting one again so I was a little bit nervous about this month's challenge.  It turns out that I really didn't need to be as the batter for the cake comes together really simply and then bakes at one temperature (previous recipes I've used have called for starting at a higher temp and then dropping the oven) and didn't have a complicated cooling process.  The most complicated thing  was wrapping my springform pan with aluminum foil to make it watertight.*

So- the cake batter only took about 10 minutes to make and it went into the oven for about 55 minutes until the cake was set (but it had not turned golden brown but remained a sort of ghostly white).  I took the cake out, let it cool on the counter for an hour and then popped it in the fridge.  After chilling the cake, I formed it into little balls of 1.5oz (45g) as I thought the 2oz. balls the recipe called for were just a bit too big and then skewered them with cut up straws for the pops to add some color (and because I had no idea where I could by lollypop sticks).  I did have some issues when I tried to dip the frozen pops in the chocolate as my chocolate just wouldn't get thin enough. It was the consistency of a thick pudding and therefore coated the pops a bit too thickly for my taste. I rolled some of the pops in crushed graham crackers with a bit of sugar and coconut, as the crust is one of my favorite parts of the cheesecake and I was a bit sad not to have one.

The pops turned out really prettily but I have to say I didn't love them. They were good- perfectly adequate but not fabulous. The cheesecake had a great smooth texture but seemed to lack depth of flavor and the thick chocolate coating overpowered the cheesecake on the first bite. I don't think that I will make this recipe again, but I am really glad that I tried it and I now know cheesecake is not beyond by power, but maybe something I should leave to the pros nonetheless. If you'd like the recipe check out Elle or Deborah's blogs.

Update: I just ate one of the leftover cheesecake pops (I made them Friday and now it's Sunday) and I have to say that they have improved with time.  On Friday I thought they were missing part of that essential cheesecake flavor but it seems like two days in the fridge helped it to develop.  Maybe my problem was serving them the day they were made instead of giving the cake some time to chill- have any of my fellow Daring Bakers experienced this?

* I decided to only make half a recipe as I had no idea who I would feed 40 cheesecake pops too. I took Elle's advice and decided to measure a smaller pan by the amount of water it would hold but the water immediately started pouring (I was using a springform pan). Before baking the cheesecake, I double wrapped the pan in aluminum foil till about 3/4 way up the sides which worked out fine- just be really careful when you take the pan out of the water bath if you do this, as some water may accumulate in the bottom of the aluminum and could pour out and burn you.

Perfect Party Cake

My first Daring Bakers Challenge- completed! I signed up with the Daring Bakers because it seemed like a great way to get back into baking with a challenge every month. This month we had the Perfect Party Cake recipe by Dorrie Greenspan. It's not the kind of cake that I would usually make (its baked in two pans and then split into layers)* as I generally think it's too much work but the cake was suprisingly simple and really delicious. The cake was a lemon sponge (flavored with the zest of two lemons, as I didn't have lemon extract and only realized it half way through the cake making process). The entire cake had only 1 stick of butter so it was relatively light, both in taste and fat content. I filled it with mixed berry jam and whipped cream and topped it with more whipped cream and coconut- the result was a happy mix of fruit and cream flavors and went over really well with everyone who tried it. So- Kudos to our hostess Morven who picked out this recipe for us (and who has the recipe up on her blog). I'll leave you with a few tips for when you try this one (not to be too cliche- but it really is a great party cake).

1) If you don't have cake flour, use AP flour but for each cup of flour take out 2T flour and add 2T cornstarch.
2) Your baking soda should be relatively new- if you remember celebrating the turn of the millenium with your can, it's time to get a new one.
3) The cake doesn't rise all that much. This is ok- you'll still be able to carefully slice it into layers.
4) Experiment with the flavors- you don't have to add the lemon, you can change up the jam flavors or add lemon curd, use buttercream of any flavor in place of the whipped cream, and add toasted nuts in place of the coconut.
5) If you're topping the cake with whipped cream- 1 pint heavy cream is more than enough for the entire cake, 1 C if you're only making half the cake.

*You may be asking- why does the picture show a two layer cake instead of the 4 layers you said you made? Well- I wanted to bring the cake to a friend's dinner party for dessert. I brought a bag with everything to put the cake together but forgot my camera. I really wanted to have a picture for my first Daring Bakers Challenge so I only made half the cake that night, and the second half that you see about the night after. It actually worked out really well- each half is enough for about 8 people.