pick me up

The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession.

Mmm. Tiramisu. I've been making tiramisu for a long time now. Ever since my sister hunted up this recipe to make at home, after my brother spent most of his time at the sushi buffet eating the little tiramisu squares at the dessert bar. At least, I think that's approximately when it started. Everyone thinks tiramisu is difficult and impressive- let me tell you, it's really not. It does take a little patience, and the knowledge of how to use a double broiler (or a pot of hot water with a heat-proof pan on top), but seriously, not difficult. A little time consuming, because it's the kind of dessert that gets better as it sits. But anyway, I digress. I love tiramisu, and I made it twice in the span of two weeks.

Anyway. This time, the challenge included making the marscapone cheese and making the lady fingers. So this one was a little more time-consuming, requiring some planning ahead.

I've tried this marscapone cheese recipe several times (who knew marscapone cheese was just heated cream? Why does heating the cream and adding some acid- lemon juice- then separating out a little bit of water turn it into cheese? It's like magic!) but it never seems to work quite right. I think I need more space between my sieve and the bottom of the bowl I let it sit in, because it took way longer than overnight for it to set, and that was after dumping out the residual water (whey?) twice. I had to use a smaller bowl in order to fit it in the fridge. And I gave up on trying to use cheesecloth- after I poured the curdled cheese into the cheesecloth, nearly all of it filtered through into the bowl, which didn't seem right at all to me. I used two coffee filters instead- maybe that's why it took so long to set, but at any rate, it worked.

I also don't think my ladyfingers rose quite as much as they were supposed to- not sure if the temperature was off in the oven, or what. But they still tasted good. I should have dipped them fully in the coffee mixture the first time, I was a little worried about them crumbling after reading other DB's comments in the forums, so I only dipped them halfway, but then the tiramisu was a little too cakey for my liking.

I've never made it with a pastry cream, so that was fun. And I don't usually put lemon zest in my zabaglione, so that was interesting. (I really need a zester.) But I really liked the slight lemon kick to it.

Assembled tiramisu

Mini tiramisu

Tiramisu take 2: this one I should have put in a 8x8 pan instead of a 9x13, and made 3-4 layers instead of just 2. I also left out the pastry cream and used the amount of zabaglione that I normally use, and it was lovely.

I am not very creative. I thought about doing a green tea version, with a dusting of green tea powder on top, but I wasn't sure that the tea would be enough oomph to dip the cookies into. And I'd love to try passionfruit, but nowhere seems to sell it. I'm also a stickler for following directions. ;)

Anyway. I could get into the habit of making my own marscapone cheese (so much cheaper than buying it), but I dunno if I want to take the effort to make my own lady fingers unless I have something special in mind. Different shaped tiramisu would definitely benefit from homemade ladyfingers.

gingerbread house!

The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes.

I finally got around to baking/making this today. Kevin and I were originally going to do some post-Christmas shopping, but then it was snowing and didn't stop. So I baked instead.

Okay. So I tried the recipe from the Scandinavian Baking Book first, but it was way too dry, and then I made the mistake of leaving it in the fridge for way too long and not wrapping it so that it was airtight. So that batch of dough went in the trash (sad). I wasn't feeling like trying that recipe again, and I didn't have the ingredients for the other recipe (I don't keep heavy cream on hand, though maybe I should), and since it was snowing (still) and the snowplows had not come by after they did at about 10:30 am, I used Google and found a recipe by Chris Broberg. This was simple, I had everything I needed, and the cookies tasted great fresh out of the oven. After a few hours, they had hardened up- good for gingerbread house-making, not so good for eating. But still, yummy. Kevin was dipping his gingerbread men in milk (I think it might work better in hot cocoa, since he soaked them for a while to get them soft).

Anyway.

I used a (very rough) hand-drawn template for my house:

Baked gingerbread house pieces:

Next step was the royal icing. I obviously didn't use enough egg whites, because the icing was way too stiff to pipe (at least out of a plastic bag- I'm working on getting some pastry bags and tips- as in, I asked for them for Christmas, but we haven't taken the effort to go out and get them yet. And yes, I realize it's past Christmas at this point). After it started flinging out of the bowl and covered my brother's sweater, I decided we were done. Since it wouldn't pipe, I used my hands. This was definitely a two-person job: I got my fingers sticky with icing as I slathered it all over the joints of the house, and my brother was useful and held the walls together until they could stand up on their own. As far as I know, the thing hasn't fallen apart (but I left it in the kitchen about an hour and a half ago, so who knows what may have happened by now).

Here's a slideshow of (part of) putting the house together. We used Skittles and Starbursts for decorations, mostly because I didn't have the forethought to get any holiday-related candy or food coloring (I keep forgetting we have no food coloring in the house). The Skittles and Starbursts are leftovers from Halloween. Halloween 2008. But Skittles and Starbursts are pretty generic, and it's not like I was planning on eating this house later anyway (I think my brother may have other plans).

What Kevin plans on doing with the gingerbread house when I'm not looking:

And here, for your viewing pleasure, is a rotating view of the house. I tried setting it to music, but it was way to large to upload (since I looped the video 11 times to make it last as long as the song), sadness.

This was a lot of fun. Maybe I'll do it again next year (possibly with icing that pipes properly). :)

french kissing

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.

I've never made macarons before. Not to get them confused with macaroons, which are the American version made with coconut. These however, were fantastic. They're made with almond flour or meal (recipe here). And apparently they're really hard. Well- I didn't find them really hard to make yummy, but I did find it difficult to make them pretty. These are delicious- chewy, sweet, and almond. I do think that you have to think carefully about the flavors and filling, because I can easily imagine this becoming sickeningly sweet and therefore not as yummy.

Take 1: Plain almond macarons with an orange dark chocolate ganache filling. Okay, except bumpy and cracked.

Take 2, part 1: Green tea macarons with plain dark chocolate ganache filling. Better, but not as much rise, and still many were cracked. But these are definitely my favorite- not too sweet, and I love the green tea/chocolate/almond combination.

Take 2, part 2: cinnamon apple macarons with plain dark chocolate ganache filling. Almost complete failure. Some of them burned, almost all of them cracked- if not while baking, then while trying to remove them from the sheet. And they were a little on the sweet side.

Someone made a bacon macaron with cream cheese/cheddar filling. I don't know how I feel about that, because the cookie base is mostly egg whites and sugar. But it's intriguing. The one I really really want to try is a pumpkin pie macaron, but the grocery store was out of pumpkin. (I KNOW, right??)

vol au vents

The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

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I've done homemade puff pastry before, but the cheater version where you grate frozen butter and mix it with flour and a little bit of water, and roll it out like usual. It's easier to incorporate the butter and the rise was pretty similar to the real thing. This one was much harder, and took much longer. I think it was worth the try once, but if I want homemade puff pastry again, I'll probably do the cheater version. Though I probably have about a pound of this stuff sitting in the freezer waiting for inspiration.

I really like puff pastry, but my main issue with it is that very few things you make with puff pastry last more than a day. And I much prefer sweets to not (because who in my house is going to eat not-sweets that I make?), but it was hard to think of anything terribly creative.

So the shells turned out nicely, and I filled them with a simple chocolate cream (really simple- instant pudding mix + milk + heavy cream) and fresh fruit. They were pretty, and yummy, but a lot of work for not very much. I dunno. Maybe someday if I get extremely creative, it will be something to experiment more with.

Vague thoughts about using the rest of the pastry for palmiers or similar cookies, since those last (and are delicious). But only vague thoughts.

I hope next month's challenge is more appealing to me. I guess the problem with this one was- who was going to eat it? I couldn't really transport it because then the pastry would get soggy and gross. I couldn't make a bunch and leave it for a week for my dad to snack on. It had to be consumed within a few hours of assembly, and that just isn't happening with my current schedule.

Anyway. Que sera sera.

dobos torte

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

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This sounded fantastic- chocolate buttercream, thin layers of sponge cake, and hazelnuts. Though it turned out I didn't use that many hazelnuts (12, to be exact), since I didn't put any on the side of the cake.

I went for a square cake. It didn't turn out as prettily as I had envisioned- it never does. :P But it still tasted pretty good.

This was the first time I made a cake where you beat the egg whites and yolks separately, but it was a beautiful, light cake batter.

The cake was baked in layers- thin layers. I got a workout wrestling with the oven door, but I can get it to work with two heavy-duty oven mitts on and a bit of elbow grease.

Mmmm, chocolate buttercream.

The caramel topping was the hardest part, and I probably put way too much caramel on the cake (a cake layer, cut in pieces, with caramel poured over it.) I kept watching it boil, thinking "dontnucleatedontnucleatedontnucleate"- and it didn't. Perhaps the first time I've made a wet caramel where it didn't nucleate or burn. But this one had lemon juice in with the water and sugar, perhaps that helped? And I'm sure using superfine sugar helps too.

Anyway. I put it together, and added some raspberry jam, because who doesn't like chocolate and raspberries? cake-chocolate buttercream-jam-repeat.

I was not very happy with how the caramel pieces looked on top, I should have done triangles and put them around the edge of the cake but didn't think about it until too late. And the caramel was too thick on the cake, so it was difficult to eat. We have a stack of caramel pieces sitting in the fridge (the cake is gone).

I got 8 layers of cake out of the recipe, I think my layers were probably thinner than the recipe intended, but I think it worked pretty well. So my cake was 7 layers, plus the layer that was used for the topping.

On my baking wish-list is a piping bag with a set of pastry tips. I had a little buttercream left, where I could have done some pretty decorations but I don't have the tools. Also on that list is a stand mixer, but I think the piping bag + tips is considerably cheaper.

My torte did taste pretty good, but it wasn't stunning. Maybe the disappointing presentation detracted from the taste for me. Still, my dad liked it a lot (maybe he does have a sweet tooth after all).

cookies and cupcakes

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.

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So, I'm at home. And so is my brother. This is the brother who said to me the other day "I'm so glad you love to bake!" And when I asked him why, he replied "because I LOVE to eat!!"

So when time came for this month's baking challenge, I asked him what he wanted, marshmallow cookies or milano cookies. He voted for the marshmallow first. (Then he realized that this would take a while, since the cookies had to bake, the marshmallow had to set, and the glaze had to set. He was mildly annoyed, being one for instant gratification. But he got all the cookies he could eat and then some, so y'know, sometimes patience is its own reward.)

Apparently, homemade marshmallows are little more than an Italian meringue with some gelatin in them. Who knew?

Anyway, these cookies are a not-so-sweet cookie topped with a dollop (that's such a nice word, "dollop", hehe) of marshmallow, dipped in a chocolate glaze. They were pretty good. Real marshmallows stay sticky though, who knew?

Pre-dipping:

a tray of extra marshmallow:

Dipped cookies:

I really wanted some white chocolate or something to drizzle over these, but alas, we had nothing I could think of to use at home. Que sera, they were good anyway.

So, at home, I'm dealing with my mother's oven, which is broken (the oven works fine, it's the door that requires two people to shut it after you open it), so I made these cookies in the toaster oven. It's a nice toaster oven, and fairly large as toaster ovens go, but it's still just a toaster oven (I have to be careful, I might hurt the toaster oven's feelings). And so I only baked about a third of the cookie dough for the first round. Then I got lazy, and made squares instead of circles (easier to cut) and made s'mores. I just cut up the tray of leftover marshmallow and sandwiched them between cookies and orange chocolate ganache (leftover from the milano cookies). They were pretty good, except the cookie part was too thick. I'll have to go thinner next time.

s'mores:

I did eventually make the Milano cookies as well. I love Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies. And now I know how to make them. This time I had my brother help me wrestle with the oven, so the cookie baking went much faster, but since the oven door doesn't open well and the glass window needs serious cleaning, I ended up burning a lot of these, how sad. However, they were delicious and tasted pretty similar to the pepperidge farm cookies. My sister was home last week and tried some and was like "huh. this actually tastes like a milano cookie. good job." Actually, I got the same response from everyone in my family. Let's be fair, they don't actually know what I mean when I say "I like to bake" because I got really into baking in grad school. And I don't bake at home as much, mainly because the oven's broken.

A tray of milano cookies:

My brother decided that this would be a good arrangement for the cookies. Hardy-har-har.

And then, I had 8 egg yolks left over (plus a good deal of orange chocolate ganache). So what did I do? I made sponge cake. Or more accurately, sponge cupcakes.

vanilla sponge cake with an orange chocolate ganache topping.

Even my dad likes the cupcakes. And my dad isn't a big sweets fan.

fin.

bakewell tarts

The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England. Recipes are on the host blogs.

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Alrighty. I think I mentioned that I joined The Daring Kitchen, which has monthly baking challenges and monthly cooking challenges. This was this past month's Daring Baker's Challenge (which I think I was supposed to post yesterday, which was the reveal date, but I totally forgot).

I made mini bakewell tarts. Mostly because things in miniature are awesome (in my opinion). These appear to be pretty similar to the baked tarts they sell at Sarah's, where I was working (my last day was last Thursday, how sad), in terms of pastry crust + fruit (jam here) + almond cream (frangipane). I made these for Bible study snacks for GCF, they disappeared pretty quickly.

I stood in the jam aisle at Wegman's to figure out what to use. I wasn't quite in the mood to make my own jam (though I did do that this past weekend with the roomies, we made strawberry freezer jam but that's another story). I decided for blackberry, plus some canned pears, and some chocolate (not all together, as you'll see in the pictures below). Emily has rubbed off on me, I couldn't just use pear jam (though pear + almond is a pretty delicious combination), because then the whole thing would've been beige.

So, pre-filling:

blackberry jam

blackberry jam + canned pear slices

chocolate chips

Coming out of the oven:

I put an almond slice on the plain blackberry ones- I think this caused some confusion at bible study, cause these were the most that were left.

And a little pear slice on top of the blackberry-pear:

And a little chocolate chip on top of the chocolate ones:

They were, suffice to say, delicious. I will have to make these again sometime. Perhaps a larger tart next time, but I love bite-sized things. They're just that much cuter.

And so pretty inside!

I had a lot of dough but only a little bit of frangipane (the almond cream filling) left, so I made this free-form "large" tart- by large I mean it was probably about 5 inches in diameter. A layer of jam, some pear, and almond filling. Mmm.

I made 1 batch of frangipane but 2 batches of the shortcrust pastry dough, to make 48 mini-tarts. (This makes sense, since when you reduce size, for the same volume [frangipane filling] you'll increase the surface area [pastry crust]. See, some of my education is occasionally useful. Only occasionally.)