Orange Tian Daring Bakers March 2010

A quick post here as I’m late, I did make the challenge in time, but didn’t manage to post yesterday.

Sablee and marmalade
This months Daring Baker choice came from Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. A dessert that she first made while she was at the Alain Ducasse Cooking School in Paris. It is a baked pate sablee, home-made marmalade, set gelatine cream and orange-caramel soaked orange segments and some more of the sauce on the side. It’s moulded upside down and turned out, I made it family style in one bid (8") cake tin as that suited how I was serving it best. Individuals moulds would be lovely too though.

Orange segment lined cake tin
It’s a dessert with numerous stages, but well worth it we thought, it was a gorgeous, creamy, fruity, treaty dessert. The gelatine set cream is one of the very best I’ve come across, a member of the Daring Bakers, Heidi (who doesn’t have a blog) did it with strawberries in heart shaped moulds, they were absolutely gerogeous! Will give that a go in the Summer-time, I just know it’d be delicious.

Ready for the set cream to be mae and the whole dessert assembled
With thanks to Jennifer for choosing a fabulous dessert. Recipe and blogroll here on the Daring Kitchen website.

Daring Baker February 2010

This months Daring Baker is Tiramisu. It was chosen by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate about Baking, thank you both for hosting. Now I love tiramisu and have made probably about 10 versions over the years, but last year I found one of Gino D’Acampo’s that everyone that tried it just swooned for. Now, maybe that put this months challenge at a big disadvantage from the outset, and I wouldn’t have tried another after Gino’s had it not been the chosen challenge.

The challenge was in three parts: mascarpone, saviordi biscuits and the tiramisu, including pastry cream and zabaglione. I started with the mascarpone, which came out like a brick, I’m sure I could have broken something with it had I dropped it, ice puck anyone?! The taste, well it was vile sour cream and lemon. Here is the picture of it out of the fridge, but it was too awful to put in a dessert even if I’d managed to get it to soften a bit, so in the end although I tried it I bought the mascarpone that went into the tiramisu.

The sponges were lovely, would make them again, as was the zabaglione and lemony pastry cream. I duly assembled the tiramisu and set it in the fridge overnight. It tasted good, not light as I was expecting, but still respectable. Gino has not lost his Tiramisu crown though!

More Daring Baker posts through the blogroll. Recipe here.

Daring Bakers Nanaimo Bars January 2010

This months Daring Baker recipe was chosen by Lauren of Celiac Teen. She chose home-made graham crackers, to be transformed into Nanaimo bars, a special Canadian bar.

I should come clean and tell you that I’ve not tasted a graham cracker out of a package before, so I don’t know if mine were in any way realistic! (in either looks or taste). We liked them though, crispy and good, really delicious warm from the oven. I halved the recipe for the crackers, but we would have eaten the rest, so maybe I shouldn’t have, next time I’ll know.

I have always substituted our UK Digestive biscuits for graham cracker crumbs when I’ve seen them in US or Canadian recipes, but our Digestives have a different taste. The crackers were easy to make, the dough was a bit sticky, but not badly so.

The Nanaimo bars themselves were lovely. I’ve made them before from a Marcy Goldman recipe, so I knew we’d be in for a treat! Lauren had suggested doing them a s a gluten free treat, I used wheat flour, but only because I was determined to do this months challenge and it was really snowy and icy, so I just did them with the flour I had in the cupboard, I didn’t fancy a white knuckle ride on the icy roads that day!

Anyhow, they are a chocolate-y coconut biscuit base, a custard flavoured a butter cream middle and a chocolate top.
Thanks to Lauren for choosing a lovely bar, and click here for the recipe for the graham crackers and here for the for the Nanaimo bars. Finally click here for more Daring Bakers sites to visit.

Cannoli – November 2009 Daring Bakers

It’s with much pleasure that I can tell you I’ve re-joined the Daring Bakers group! I have missed taking part in their monthly baking events, and am happy that my timetable hopefully now means that I can take part once again.

This months event was chosen by by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry Cannolo (or cannoli if there is more than one). I have heard of them before in some of my Italian and American cookbooks. They are a deep fried dough shell filled with something creamy. I couldn’t help thinking of brandy snaps when I saw the pictures, or even my own when they were made. They are nothing like brandy snaps though, the dough being flavoured with cinnamon and Marsala wine.

The dough is pretty hard to work with, horrible to knead and getting it through the pasta machine the first few times was not east at all! If you persevere though it does become something more pliant and manageable, that can indeed be formed into cannoli. There was several stages to the making of this months challenge, the dough, rolling and shaping the dough, deep frying the shells, chocolate and nut dipping the ends, then the filling of the otherwise ready shells before being ready to eat them.

Lisa Michelle gave up the options of forming them into the traditional cylinder shells by using forms or just cutting out shapes from the dough. Not one to pass up the opportunity to buy a little bit of kitchen kit I purchased a couple of forms online =) So here you have then Cannoli. I filled mine with whipped cream flavoured with Amaretto liqueur and a little icing (confectioners) sugar, which reflected the chopped almonds in the chocolate shells. I did like them, they were very pretty, I’m not sure I’d make them again though, as I hardly ever deep fry anything, last time I used my machine would be about 10 years ago! I’m glad I did give them a go though, once the naughty dough was behaving it was a fun challenge. Thanks to Lisa Michelle for choosing. Please click here for the recipe if you fancy giving them a go.

Filbert Gateau with Praline Buttercream – July 2008 Daring Baker

I used some of the leftover praline to decorate the plate
It’s that time of month again - Daring Baker time. This month sees a challenge set by the lovely Chris of Melle Cote. It’s a mutli layered cake with seven different parts, making up the one big gateau. It hails from Great Cakes by Carol Walter, a book full of, well great cakes!
The cakes
The various elements of the hazelnut gateau were a Filbert Genoise – light and airy hazelnut sponge, a Sugar Syrup for soaking the sponge, Praline Buttercream for which you needed to combine a Swiss Buttercream and a Praline Paste, finally there was an Apricot Glaze and a Ganache Glaze to finish it all off.

Hazelnuts and caramel, ready to be ground
I usually multi task quite efficiently, but this time blips were coming at me think and fast. I take full responsibility, I guess it’s possible my brain might just be in overload currently.

The cake in it's dinner jacket of chocolate
First there was the sugar syrup, which I didn’t read correctly and instead of ¼ cup of sugar and 1 cup of water I used 1 cup sugar and ¼ cup water. It was close to being soft ball in consistency, and I melted my favourite plastic measuring spoon. I would add that I moulded it back the best I could, seeing as it was so floppy, and it’s worked a bit, but it will never be quite the same again, what a silly goose I am. Never mind I made a new batch with the correct measurements. Next I layered the cakes with the praline buttercream and when I got to the top realise that the sugar syrup with rum added was still in the fridge. I remedied it the best I could by placing the cake on a serving stand with a lip and dousing the top then placing spoonfulls of the syrup on the stand and tilting it until the syrup disappeared into the sponge. The third and final mishap was when I was piping the buttercream onto the top of the cake, when my piping bag burst on top of the shiny chocolate! I thought well the top won’t be quite what it was but I get a plastic food bag and use that, it burst too, so I just blobbed on little dollops and also round the base of the cake. When I cleaned the nozzle I found a bit a praline the bad been to big, blocked to nozzle and had therefore made the bag burst.
I’m actually feeling quite lucky that it turned out even halfway decent, I guess the moral of this story is don’t attempt too much if you are overloaded already! It was fun though, and the cake was good, even better with some double cream on the side.

A really messy cake! I just couldn't recover the spodged on top!!
Thanks Chris for a great challenge. Visit the Daring Baker Blogroll to see some more great filbert cakes.

May 2008 Daring Bakers - Opéra Cake

Opéra Cake

It’s that time of the month again, Daring Baker time! My first year as a Daring Baker!! This months challenge was chosen by the co-founders Lis at La Mia Cusina and Ivonne at Cream Puffs In Venice together with two new members Fran at Apples Peaches Pumpkin Pie and Shea at Whiskful. They chose a cake that any keen baker would have on their list of to-makes – Opera Cake, oh la la! The recipe is a mix of different layers and recipes from two fabulous cookbooks - Dorie Greenspan’s Paris Sweets and Tish Boyle and Timothy Moriarty’s Chocolate Passion. I own both, but up until now had not cooked from either.

The syrup soaked sponge layers and buttercream.

Opéra Cake is a cake of many acts, and is indeed a bit of a performance, but this is not a negative comment, as I enjoyed making and then assembling the parts to make a big, rich and decadent pastry shop cake. The layers are joconde (almond sponge), syrup, butter cream, white chocolate mousse and white chocolate ganache. The flavouring was up to the individual baker, but the colours were to be pale and Springtime like. I chose a French liqueur to flavour mine, Framboise (raspberry). I forgot to put the melted butter on the joconde, but it still seemed fine without it - I was very relieved =)

In the process of being cut into slices. The glitter was really over the top - just the yellow sugar was more elegant!

I decorated with pink edible glitter to reflect the Frambroise and yellow sugar crystals so that it would be yellow as well in keeping with the suggested dedication of this post to Barbara, who has worked so hard with her Taste of Yellow (in support of) LiveSTRONG Foundation cancer events. Here’s to you Barbara!

Yum yum!

Thanks to Lis, Ivonne, Fran and Shea for a fun challenge. As always if you’d like to see more Daring Baker Opéra Cake posts click to blogroll link here – I will be!

Cheesecake Pops - Daring Bakers April 2008

This months challenge is Cheesecake Pops. I was quite relieved when I saw this months challenge, not because it was straight forward, but that I had the book that this months challenge came from, otherwise I would have had to click the button and buy it! It hails from Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey (Desserts for the Serious Sweet Tooth) by Jill O’Connor -what a title! It’s a pretty girl-y book with lots of rich and yummy sounding recipes, and lots of sweet and treaty pictures too.

Now to the cheesecake pops. I haven’t had so much fun pottering in the kitchen for ages! Before I had my little one I used to spend hours faffing about with icings and decorations for cakes. I even ventured into the world of dipping chocolates, and that skill came in useful here. When I was coating the cheesecake balls with chocolate I didn’t even remember the chocolates I’d tried before, but it was as if my hands remembered and started doing what they should have, and ta-dah it was done in the twirl of a wrist.

Before the balls were coated a pan of New York style cheesecake was made, baked, chilled overnight, formed into balls (this was a little tricky, but fine by the third one - a rotating and constant gripping movement with the scoop seemed to work). Next they were frozen for a couple of hours and then coated with the chocolate and decorated. Finally, left in the fridge until ready to eat.

They tasted really good, I think they would make a fabulous dessert for a barbecue, I can just imagine friends faces as the sight of a tray of these pops =)

Thank you for such an enjoyable challenge to Elle of Feeding my Enthusiasms and Deborah of Taste and Tell, you did us proud! To see more pops go here to the Daring Bakers blogroll and click away, I’m going to!

Red Velvet cake

Little hands enjoyed decorating with some sprinkles =)

This is a cake that has long been on my list of must-make-soons. Soon can be days or years it seems, so many recipes for good things to try and not enough hours in the day. Some recipes stand the year in year out to do list though, and this is one of them. I first came across red velvet cake in some of my American cook books, and they looked like nothing I had ever seen before, then a couple of months before I joined the Daring Bakers they covered this cake (choose whichever Red Velvet recipe you like), and I wanted to make it more that ever!

Hubby said this looks very much like quattro red paint!

Last week a new cookbook arrived, I ordered it after hearing Maria raving about it, and here are three recipes from the same book from Maria, Rosie and Margaret. The book today is Cakes Galore by Valerie Barrett. A paperback book with, well, you know cakes galore! I saw the red velvet cake and I knew its time had come, so I ordered some red food colouring paste, and here it is.

I’m not shy of using colouring in icings, but it did feel a little bit over the top using so much, my little one loved the redness of it, and it tasted good, it was just a bit odd eating something so red! I’m glad I made it though, and now I have crossed something off my to make list.

I’ve been tagged three times this week, and thank you to Elle, Vi, Sandy and Anna. I’m a bit embarrassed that I have not done three I received last year, so I’ll work backwards and hopefully get them all done over the next few posts!
Vi’s and Sandy's tag is to describe yourself in six words, following on from Brenda’s lead I asked Hubby and this is what he said:

Trustworthy
Beautiful
Caring
Intelligent
Emotional
Gentle
I’m passing this one onto anyone on my Places I Like to Visit who would like to do this =)

Daring Baker March 2008 - Perfect Party Cake

Tall and Proud.

A sea of coconut...

This month I’m back as a Daring Baker, with a tall, fluffy, creamy, fruity, delicious cake from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking From My Home to Yours.

Mmmm.

This is the first four layer cake I’ve made, so far one and two layers reigning supreme. It was a fun cake to make, and a beauty to look at – I even managed to leave it as is, not a sugar flower or sprinkle to be seen! Cakes, raspberry jam, icing, coconut, done! I’m going to keep the text of this post to a minimum, as I know so many of us like to see what everyone else has done.

Yum, and it'd be really good with fresh raspberries too I think.

Thanks to Morven of Food Art and Random Thoughts for choosing this months enjoyable challenge and click Daring Bakers to see more cakes. For any UKers, like me, I used plain flour for the cake flour in the recipe.

A bite?

Pretty cake, and see all my markers sticking out of Baking!

Daring Baker November - Tender Potato Bread

This months challenge was chosen by one of the Daring Bakers' Queens of bread making - Tanna of My Kitchen In Halfcups.

This month celebrates the first Birthday of the Daring Bakers group, and my how Lis and Yvonne’s baby has grown wings and started to fly around the world. It has appealed to so many of us, who have wanted to push our own boundries and participate in a shared baking experience, the good and the bad, along the way!

Back to this month though, this months challenge is tender potato bread from Home Baking: The Artful Mix of Flour and Tradition Around the World by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid. I’ve mentioned before that bread making is not my comfort zone, but one of the reasons I wanted to be a Daring Baker was to break past my faltering bread making attempts.

At this time of year (along with just about everybody else…) I have really very little spare time, so it was only yesterday that I managed to fit in this bread, and I was never a student who did her best work under last minute coursework stress! However, it was either give it a go and hope for the best or duck out completely: so here it is.

I’ve baked with potatoes before; I once made potato scones, and they were the most light and tender little scone / biscuits, memorable even though it was so long ago. I remembered the very soft almost light dough. So I was expecting the potato bread dough to be light as well, and it was compared to regular bread. The instructions said it would be a sticky dough – well they weren’t wrong there, I added the uper amount of flour in the recipe and had to use a spatula in one had to ‘knead’ it at it was extremely determined to stick to the work top! I persevered though, and it looked sort of normal, if still very sticky at the end of kneading. I proofed it, knocked it back and tried to shape it. It was more a splodge job than a shape it job! So I splodged (ahem, rustically shaped….) my bread into a round and some rolls, what we would call buns or softies here.

Upon second proofing the ‘formed’ bread was keen to go sideways, and only a little upwards. I am not a confident bread baker (cakes are more my thing!) so I am assuming it was me who did something wrong. I baked them and ended up with definitely European breads, they had the taste and texture of ciabatta, but as this isn’t what they were supposed to be something must have gone amiss somewhere. The buns would make great sandwiches, and the big bread a stuffed bread sandwich, and although they weren’t looking looking, I won’t hold that against them, as the taste was good, crispy outside and nutty with a little wholemeal flour and tender – sweet and savoury with the potatoes inside.

I do like to try things that are not in my normal baking range, as the more I do it the more I learn, it is a real challenge! Thank you to Tanna for choosing this months challenge and if you would like the recipe look here. More Tender Potato Breads on the sites of the Daring Bakers, just click away. Find the recipe here. Thanks you Tanna for a great challenge!