Jan.
29

Another month comes to a close and that means it’s time to reveal the Daring Baker Challenge. This month’s challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.  These are not something considered “everyday” or “ordinary” but I was really surprised at how easy they are to make… which means they might just become more everyday in our household :) {continued}

Traditionally, tuiles are thin, crisp almond cookies that are gently molded over a rolling pin or arched form while they are still warm. Once set, their shape resembles the curved French roofing tiles for which they’re named. They can be savory or sweet, topped with seeds or flavored with extracts, made into various shapes or curved into somewhat functional bowls.  

The ingredients are simple and these are very easy to make. The difficult part is timing the baking so the tuiles are just starting to brown around the edges but not so brown that it’s hard to shape them.  It’s important to make only 2-3 at a time since when they come out of the oven they start to cool immediately and the only way to properly shape them is when they’re very hot and malleable. Tuiles can be used as decorative elements on a plated dessert or shaped into scalloped-edge bowls and filled with sorbets, gelatos, fresh fruit, salsas… or berry yogurt and chocolate pudding as I did here :)

If you’d like the recipes, please head over to the blogs of either hostess Karen or hostess Zorra.  Also please check out the tuiles made by the other Daring Bakers – there are some incredible creations!

Have a delicious day :)

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Dec.
31

It’s the end of another month which means it’s time to reveal the Daring Bakers recipe for December. And the Challenge this month is…

                                           A French Yule Log!!!

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

 

For me, I think this was the most complex of challenges since I joined the Daring Bakers last spring. It’s my understanding the recipes for the 6 different elements were originally written in French and then translated to English.  The ingredients for each were given in metric and US measurements and this proved quite daunting since two different ingredients may have had the same metric value but completely different US values.

The 6 individual element requirements for this challenge were the following:

  1. Dacquoise biscuit (my choice… almond)
  2. Mousse (my choice… dark chocolate)
  3. Ganache insert (my choice… dark chocolate)
  4. Feuillete insert (crisp) (my choice… white chocolate coconut)
  5. Creme Bruleé insert (my choice… vanilla)
  6. Icing (my choice… dark chocolate)

Since I do not have a yule log pan or even a half-round pan, I made this in a standard loaf pan and because I had quite a bit of the dacquoise biscuit I used it to “book-end” the remaining elements. 

In the photo above, from the top down we have buttercream icing as decoration, the required icing layer, the almond dacquoise layer, the dark chocolate mousse layer, the vanilla creme brulee layer, another layer of dark chocolate mousse, the white chocolate coconut crisp layer, another very thin layer of dark chocolate mousse, the dark chocolate ganache layer and finally another almond dacquoise layer.  Apologetically I will say my layers look awful.  I truly struggled with getting them into the pan properly and this shows quite sadly in the finished product.

The first layer I made was the white chocolate coconut crisp. Instead of making a praline gavotte (lace-thin crepe) to use for the crunch, I decided to use the optional puffed rice.  I found the directions to be less than optimal for this and ended up making a mistake.  After completing this layer I realized i should have ground up my puffed rice (rice krispies w/o sugar) and added it to the melted white chocolate and toasted coconut instead of using the puffed rice whole.  After the layer had spent a few hours in the freezer, I ran it thru the food processor so it ended up that I sprinkled it into the final assembly.  This might have been a wise move considering I read quite a few comments from early finishers who stated their crisp layer was difficult to cut.  I just wish my crisp layer was more aesthetically pleasing (though it tasted amazing and I will make that again!).

When I first read the recipe I was completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of pages.  I counted a total of 19 pages in the full .doc version and almost gave up right there!  Then I realized most of the pages were dedicated to variations and options – whew!  Breaking it down into the separate elements, they really weren’t all that difficult but they did require thought, planning and most of all serious preparation.  I made my flavor choices so that the end result would be no sweeter than necessary since all that chocolate could be completely over-the-top and cloyingly sweet.

In the final analysis, the individual components were very tasty and my family enjoyed this dessert.  My two favorite layers were the creme brulee and the white chocolate coconut crisp.  I think the majority of the component recipes were more complex than necessary and as a result this is not a recipe I would make again. I think the concept is fantastic however and in the off-chance I were to make this again I would do so using my own go-to recipes for most of the components.  

This month’s Daring Bakers challenge was not for the faint of heart.  If you, yourself, are feeling rather daring, the full recipe can be found here on hostess Hilda’s website.

Have a delicious day!

src="http://signatures.mylivesignature.com/54486/313/2F9B6626815A7DEDA50FC96
E870F3868.png" style="border: none; background: transparent;"/>

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Oct.
29

We’re nearing the end of the month and that can only mean one thing… no no no, not “time to pay the mortgage/rent” (though it’s probably time for that too! LOL)… it’s time to reveal the Daring Bakers challenge!!! This one was certainly a little different since people usually associate cakes and pastries with “baking”.  But think about it… all sorts of things are baked, cakes, cookies, pies, bread, crackers, potatoes, chicken… the list goes on and on.  Savory or sweet we Daring Bakers are up for anything!!  Our challenge for October? Pizza and toppings – in a word… yum!

The host for this month was Rosa of the blog Rosa’s Yummy Yums and the recipe choice was pizza dough.  I’ve made pizza many times at home and it’s always a big hit with the family so I was really looking forward to making this recipe.  This being a Daring Bakers challenge, I knew the stakes were going to be high.  Gourmet foodies abound in this group and I wanted to create pizzas worthy of such standards… toppings that were unusual or noteworthy.  But… reality came back to into play when I recalled my family isn’t into high-end, unusual, noteworthy pizza toppings.  My family likes it best when the pizza is topped with pepperoni and cheese – lots and lots of cheese.  So that’s what I made – a traditional pepperoni and cheese pizza cuz, well, yanno, sometimes ya gotta let go of lofty aspirations and just be who ya are ;-)

We were supposed to toss the pizza… like real pizzaiolas in Italy… and get pictures of it.  But, try as I might, it was not about to happen for me.  You see, making the dough from this recipe is a two day process and when day #2 rolled around, DH and the kids were out and about doing their thing.  I planned it that way so I’d have some peace and quiet and not have people underfoot trying to distract me (laugh at me?) trying to toss my pizza dough.  I thought that was a fantastic plan.  The only problem was… d’oh!… I had no one to snap the photos! LOL.  But it was actually a good thing because I’m sure I looked rather ridiculous doing it :)  But no worries, the crust came out fine.  I didn’t want a cracker-thin, crispy crust so I tried to leave the dough as thick as I could… and on the edges I made a very concerted effort to fold / roll the crust over sufficiently so that it would be more like having something to hold on to.  I stacked and rolled and folded that dough over and over again to get it how I wanted it… and I think I succeeded!   My family came home and smelled a delicious home made pizza baking in the oven and boy were they excited.  But then again, it was pizza and that’s all it takes :)

If you’d like the recipe, it can be found on Rosa’s blog.  Please take a moment and check out the pizza’s created by the rest of the Daring Bakers - while I can’t guarantee it, I bet they have pictures of successful dough tossing :)

 

Have a delicious day!

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Sep.
27


It’s nearing the end of the month which means it’s time to reveal the Daring Bakers Challenge. This month I stepped completely outside of my usual world of cookies, cakes and all things sweet and back into the realm of breads and yeast. The challenge for September was to make these crispy, crunchy, tasty Armenian-style crackers. Savory or sweet, these crackers are quite the versatile treat!

The hosts for September were Natalie and Shel and they chose a gluten-free recipe… with options for non gluten-free. I chose to go the gluten route :) Making the dough is not difficult at all… flour, salt, yeast, sugar, vegetable oil and water – mix it up, roll it out and let it bake. You can make these in the afternoon to go with your favorite dip or spread that night.

The trick to getting crackers instead of flatbread is to roll out the dough thin… very thin… very very *very* thin… to the point where you can almost read the newspaper through it ;-) Without a doubt the hardest part for me was getting the toppings to stick. The recipe instructed us to mist the rolled-out dough with a bit of water before applying the spices/seeds/etc… and advised that a little seasoning goes a long way. I regret that I didn’t use more because I would have liked a more intense flavor. No problem, it’s a lesson-learned for next time :)

I made a single sheet-pan and used four different kinds of flavorings…
onion
garlic, sesame -&-poppy seed
rosemary, paprika, black pepper, oregano
cinnamon sugar

As for toppings… to be honest, dips and spreads don’t go over well in our household but I still came up with something extremely tasty…

Yup… that’s right… peanut butter and jelly… cranberry-spice jelly to be more precise :)

Say whatcha want, but pb&j on these crackers is M’mmm M’mmm Good!!

Please drop by and visit the other daring bakers and see how they did with this month’s challenge as well. I’m sure they made some fabulous combinations!!! If you’d like the recipe, visit the site of either of our hosts Natalie and Shel

Have a delicious day :)

Posted in daring bakers, food, recipes | 30 Comments »

Aug.
31


The end of another month means it’s time to reveal the Daring Bakers Challenge. For August it was Chocolate Éclairs by Pierre Hermé and what a delicious choice this was! The hosts for this month were Tony and MeetaK and what fun I had with this.

Sure, I’ve made this before but never using Pierre’s recipe (which can be found on either Tony or Meeta’s blog) so this was a change. The basic elements are the pate-a-choux (puff pastry), the cream filling and the chocolate on top. Sounds easy, huh? :)

Having made pate-a-choux a few times before, I thought this would be a rather easy task. Although, yes, I had learned a few things from my previous experiences it didn’t stop me from having problems this time around! LOL! The first thing is to make the pate-a-choux dough and get it to the proper consistency… you want this beautiful “V” shape coming off your paddle attachment… when you’ve got that, you know you’re on the right track :)

Pipe out the dough approximately 4-5″ long… and bake at the correct temp for the correct time and you’re supposed to have beautiful puffed pastry. I say “supposed to” because if they’re not really all the way done on the **inside** they’ll deflate as they cool… just as my first batch did here (with the exception of the one that actually came out fine… eh, go figure)
(pay no attention to the oddly shaped ones on the right side… we-won’t-even-go-there! LOL)

Now, if you bake them thoroughly, they don’t deflate as they cool… as you can see with this batch here. These I actually baked on Sil-Pat and not parchment… and I thought I’d cooked them waaaaaaay too long because of how brown they got. But you can see they didn’t deflate. So… lesson here is to actually cook them longer than you think since just because the outside looks done, the innards might not be. In addition to the éclair shapes, I also piped a bunch of cream puff shapes too. Hey, same dough, same filling, same process… same fantaaaaaabulous taste!

Speaking of the filling… I made a few different kinds of filling… vanilla pastry cream… chocolate pastry cream (adding chocolate to the vanilla pastry cream)… and diplomat cream (which is a bit lighter than pastry cream but not as light as whipped cream)

For some reason I forgot to take a photograph of the chocolate pastry cream. Totally slipped my mind. But you know I made it and you know I used it, otherwise how else would I have this gorgeous baby right here

To fill, you can either slice in half or just stick the pastry bag tip right into the end of the eclair and squeeze it in. The innards of the baked pate-a-choux is relatively hollow. Then give it a dousing of the chocolate glaze and voilá you’ve just made chocolate éclairs!

Please drop by and visit the other daring bakers and see how they did with this month’s challenge as well.

Have a delicious day!

Posted in Chocolate, daring bakers, recipes, vanilla | 12 Comments »

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