Daring Bakers~September Challenge~Vols-au- Vent

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.

These are my mini vols-au-vents filled with lemon curd (Chou's recipe), topped with fresh raspberries.
The initial butter block. Glad "Press n Seal" wrap worked well while I pounded/pressed the butter into a solid block.

One of the first folds of the puff pastry dough. The final dough.
Look at all those layers.
My vols-au-vents all stacked up and ready to be placed in the oven.

Puff pastry "slugs." By the time I was ready to bake the puff pastry, I was super tired and did not read the instructions as carefully as I should have. So I did not place a piece of parchment paper on top of the dough prior to placing them in the oven. BIG MISTAKE!
These are the Vols-au-Vent I made the next morning...with a sheet of parchment paper on top.

Grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese.
With the leftover scraps of puff pastry, I made cheese twists. Mmmmm....yummy.

Daring Bakers~July Challenge~Milano Cookies

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 chose to only make the Milan Cookies this month.
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.

I did tweak the recipe a bit, but it was due to shear panic. I had printed out the recipe and while I was following the recipe, I thought, "FOUR TABLESPOONS OF EXTRACT???" I don't remember ever using four tablespoons of extract in a recipe before, so I quickly cut down the recipe to 4 teaspoons of extract. Even then, 4 teaspoons as extract seemed like a lot for a recipe only containing 1.5 cups of flour.
The cookies ended up coming out okay, so if I make the recipe again, I might try to incorporate 4 tablespoons of extract and I might try to use cake flour to make a lighter cookies.
My first batch of misshapen and burnt cookies.
My next attempt.
The filling that I chose to use were Wilton's pink candy melts and Giradelli chocolate. Mmmmm....the finished products. Milan cookies. The cookies were not as professional looking as Pepperidge Farms cookies, but they still were yummy!

Daring Bakers~June Challenge~Bakewell Tart

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.
Prior to the challenge, I had no idea what a bakewell tart was. According to Wikipedia, a pastry with an almond filling. I did not want to attempt the challenge this month, partially due to the pictures and the description of the tart (I knew it was not going to be my favorite kind of dessert), and the other reason being laziness.

Well, I decided to make the tart...and since I was in a rush while making it, it didn't come out that well. I was trying to make it to a Cocktail Party at Aaron's house and misjudged the timing of preparing and baking the tart. I also used ingredients that I had in the house....

Unfortunately, that meant that my jam filling between the pastry crust and almond cake consisted of grape jelly (the cause of the oozing syrup in the picture) and some frozen blueberries. I don't know what I was thinking....I don't even eat grape jelly in the first place, but we had it in the fridge because Mike likes jelly. After I made the tart and Mike came home, he said, "That's a really runny grape jelly, I don't think you should have baked with it. Did you add any thickeners?"
FYI, Mike is the non-food scientist in the house. Arg...Let me reiterate, I WASN'T THINKING STRAIGHT. I was even wishing, "Man I wish I could double the baking temperature so I can shorten the baking time." My friends were really nice as they tried to conjure up positive comments about the tart, but overall the tart was one of my disasters in the kitchen. My lesson learned through this experience, baking should be fun and not rushed.

If you would like to check out other Daring Bakers attempts at this month's challenge, check out the blog roll.

Daring Bakers~April Challenge~Cheesecake

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

Here's the recipe:
Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake:

crust:
2 cups / 180 g graham cracker crumbs
1 stick / 4 oz butter, melted
2 tbsp. / 24 g sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

cheesecake:
3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each (total of 24 oz) room temperature
1 cup / 210 g sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup / 8 oz heavy cream
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)
1 tbsp liqueur, optional, but choose what will work well with your cheesecake

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. Set crust aside.

3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.

Pan note: The creator of this recipe used to use a springform pan, but no matter how well she wrapped the thing in tin foil, water would always seep in and make the crust soggy. Now she uses one of those 1-use foil "casserole" shaped pans from the grocery store. They're 8 or 9 inches wide and really deep, and best of all, water-tight. When it comes time to serve, just cut the foil away.

Prep notes: While the actual making of this cheesecake is a minimal time commitment, it does need to bake for almost an hour, cool in the oven for an hour, and chill overnight before it is served. Please plan accordingly!

My substitutions:
I used a premade oreo crust because I didn't have the time (hence the lack of blog posts this month).
I used 1/3 less fat Philadelphia cream cheese instead of the full-fat version. It still came out great.

Look at these beautiful strawberries! The other week, strawberries were $1/lb at County Market, and I couldn't resist purchasing them and these strawberries tasted great! They were my inspiration for my DB challenge this month.
I ended up making a vanilla cheesecake (yes pretty ordinary) with an oreo cookie crust topped with strawberries.
I actually enjoyed the taste of the cheesecake and the recipe is a keeper (even though I am a NY style cheesecake fan).

Daring Bakers ChallengeMarch 2009~Lasagne

Spinach Egg Pasta. My first attempt at making pasta from scratch. And since I am refraining from buying any kitchen gadgets at the moment, I rolled all the pasta by hand! It was a trying night. I think I started mixing the dough together at 8pm and did not finish rolling the dough until 1am.
I chose to make my own pasta sauce because I was not feeling in the mood for a meat dish, and opted to make a vegetarian sauce.
Recipe:
1.5 T olive oil
1/2 c. chopped onions
3 cloves garlic (chopped)
1/2 t. chili flakes
1 t. italian seasoning
1-16 oz bottle pre-made spaghetti sauce
1-6 oz can of tomato paste
1-4oz can of mushrooms
4 oz frozen spinach (the remainder from making the pasta)
1 medium sized bell pepper chopped
Salt and pepper to taste.
Fry onions in olive oil, add garlic and fry. Toss in the chili flakes and italian seasoning into the pan. Add and fry the bell pepper. Add the spaghetti sauce and simmer for 10 minutes. Mix in the tomato paste. Mix in the mushrooms and spinach.

I did make a substitution to the lasagne recipe, and instead of using Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, I just used what I had in my fridge which was Kraft shredded mozarella.

The final result tasted fine to me. I never order lasagne at restaurants, so I'm not the best person to judge this dish. I thought it tasted good, but it could be due to the fact that it took me hours to make.

If you're really interested in the recipes, they are from "The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia-Romagna, the Heartland of Northern Italian Food" by Lynne Rossetto Kasper (published by William Morrow and Company Inc., 1992)

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.

Daring ~February 2009 Challenge~Chocolate Valentino Cake

I've always wanted to make a flourless chocolate cake. It's on my list of baked goods that I want to try. That list also contains things like Portuguese sweet bread, an pan, and a 16-layer cake.

So even though February is my most swamped month of this semester, I decided to go for the challenge. Plus I had almost all the ingredients in my house and have to start using up all my food before I graduate. I decided to use my Trader Joe's bittersweet chocolate "pound plus" bar, and a handful of Dove dark chocolate Promises. Mike and I are trying to be healthier this year, so my lucky panelists and lab group got to partake in the Valentino cake.
I was planning on just making a flavored whipped topping, but when Mike decided that he wanted us to make ice cream in a bag for one of our "date nights" I said, hmmmm...why don't we do a joint long-distance Daring Bakers date night. I'll make the cake and he'll make the ice cream.
But really, Mike wanted me to make ice cream in a bag, while he could use a gadget to make ice cream at his house. Mike's ice cream adventure with the "ice cream making ball". A couple of years ago one of my friends gave me this gadget that you can make ice cream in by tossing the ball and rolling it around. You fill the inner core with the ice cream mixture, and the outer layer with ice.
So here's the pictures from the date:
Valentino cake (a.k.a. chocolate flourless cake, since I did not make it in the shape of a heart).Mike's ice creamMy labmates all liked the chocolate cake and thought that they had the texture of a heavy brownie. I thought it was a bit too rich and chocolately. I LOVE dark chocolate, but I think that the cake would have been better if I had mixed milk chocolate with the bittersweet chocolate. Maybe 1/4 milk chocolate, and 3/4 bittersweet chocolate. I guess I should have paid more attention to the recipe when it said that the cake will taste "exactly like the chocolate you use."

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.

If you want the recipe, here's a link to it.

Daring Bakers~January 2009-Tuiles

I've always wanted to make tuiles. I love how they taste, I love the delicate texture, and I love the fact that you can eat a lot of them and not feel full. Tuiles always look so pretty as they adorn cakes and desserts. As you can see in all the pictures of the post, my cooking style is not "pretty." I'd like to think that my strategy is to make food taste good, but that is not always the case. Here's a picture of my thin dough circles. The next picture is of the cooked product.
Okay, so my final product did not turn out very pretty. They were so delicate that I just couldn't handle them. Once I touched the tuiles, they broke apart. mmm...that means that there was a LOT of butter and sugar in the recipe. I am not sure if I made them correctly because they kind of look like potato chips.
After trying some of the tuiles, I realized that I liked the taste of the thinner tuiles that were slightly burnt. So, I ended up baking large thin sheets of batter on parchment paper to make thin wafers. Mmm...they were so yummy that I ate all the pieces you see below. My husband liked it, so ended up eating up all of them. I think he was hungry because he had just come back from playing basketball for a couple of hours.


This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen aka Baking Soda and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf.
The recipe I used is " Tuiles" from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

Daring Bakers~December Challenge~Yule Log (Skipping It)

No time to make this cake, especially during this busy season of the year. This is my first skip since I joined the Daring Bakers this past May.
I cannot wait to see all the french yule logs everyone else made!

In case anyone else wants to try the challenge, here's the information:

NAME OF THE COOKBOOK or the WEBSITE LINK: http://plaisirgourmand.perso.cegetel.net/index.html.
NAME OF THE AUTHOR: Flore.
DECEMBER'S HOSTS: Hilda of Saffron & Blueberry and Marion of Il en faut peu pour etre heureux

Daring Bakers-November 2008 Challenge~Caramel Cake

November's challenge was Shuna Fish Lydon's Caramel Cake. I was planning to skip the challenge because 1)I am not a fan of caramel and 2) I did not think that I would have enough time to bake a cake. But one night I really wanted to bake something, so I checked out the recipe and it seemed simpler than I thought, so I gave it a shot.

Oh my goodness, this cake is AMAZING! I'm glad that I did this challenge. I've never made a cake that tasted this good! The texture was light and soft, and it was not a sickly caramel which I expected. I am not sure if I made it correctly, but it had a hint of salt to it.

Here's the picture of the caramel syrup. The instructions were correct...when adding the water to stop the process, where long sleeves or quickly move away from the hot bubbling syrup! Making the dough. The recipe called for "milk" and since we only drink skim milk, I ended up using it instead. Even without the extra fat of 2% or whole milk, the texture of the cake was wonderful!
I decided to make cupcakes instead of a large round cake. Cupcakes are so much cuter (and easier to share). Here's a picture of the frosted cupcakes. I brought them into lab to share with my labmates, but I think Mike ended up eating about 4 of them.

NAME OF COOKBOOK (OR WHERE RECIPE CAME FROM): http://blogs.kqed.org/bayareabites/2006/12/24/caramel-cake-the-recipe/
AUTHOR OF ORIGINAL RECIPE: Shuna Fish Lydon
HOSTESS'/HOSTS FOR THE MONTH: Dolores from "Chronicles of Culinary Curiosity", Alex from "Blondie and Brownie", and Jenny of "Foray into Food." For all those gluten-free bakers out there, thanks to Natalie of "Gluten-a-Go-Go" for the gluten-free adaptation.