(The August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drive and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!. These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies! This was a special challenge for the Daring Bakers because the good folks at http://www.chocoley.com offered an amazing prize for the winner of the most creative and delicious candy!)

This month was candy.  I make a lot of candy, but I don’t usually try it in August in Houston.

I made three different types this month – the first one was a batch of sponge candy.  Well, actually, it was two batches, but the first batch flopped so badly I had to toss it.  The idea is to cook the sugar to 285F or so, then take it off the heat, and add baking soda.  The baking soda reacts with the sugar mixture, and creates lots of little bubbles in the candy as it cools. 

The first batch I burned badly, and it had to be tossed.  The second batch came out much better:

I didn’t really want to dip it in chocolate – I was afraid the holes would fill up and it would be a mess.  So I just drizzled some dark chocolate on top.  It turned out very good – next time I’ll mix it a bit more and hopefully the bubbles will be a bit smaller.

Then I did a batch of Nutella balls.  I have a recipe for peanut butter cups that takes one cup of good peanut butter and half a cup of confectioner’s sugar.  I substituted Nutella for the peanut butter, and got these:

I put them in the fridge to set up a bit while I made peppermint patties.  I’ve made these before, and they’re also very simple – a little confectioner’s sugar, some peppermint extract, some butter for richness, and a bit of cream to bring it all together.  Everything gets mixed and shaped:

And then those went in the fridge.  They’re sitting on powdered sugar so they don’t stick to the plate. 

An hour later, I tempered some chocolate to dip them in.  There are no intermediate pictures, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that melted chocolate and a good camera should never be on the kitchen counter at the same time. 

But I gently melted 3/4 of the chocolate in the microwave, then added the other 1/4 as seed chocolate to temper it.  Then the peppermint patties and nutella truffles got dipped.  Unfortunately, I was an idiot and sat them down on a cold plate, where they stuck.  A few of the chocolate shells broke when I tried to get them off the plate.  Usually, when I do a big batch of chocolates, I put them on parchment paper, which can be peeled off easily.

This was the final result:

It was a fun challenge!  Looking forward to next month!

( see the recipes )

(Jana of Cherry Tea Cakes was our July Daring Bakers’ host and she challenges us to make Fresh Frasiers inspired by recipes written by Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson in the beautiful cookbook Tartine.)

Another fun month!  Every time I do one of these pretty desserts, I wish I entertained more. This would have made a perfect dinner party dessert.

I didn’t take a million assembly pictures this time – none of the sub-recipes was particularly hard or particularly photogenic, so I didn’t drag out the lights for them.  Someday, I’ll have a kitchen with beautiful, natural light, but not this month.

The top and bottom are a basic chiffon cake. I was worried about mine – I get eggs from my CSA, but they’re not very consistent.  They’re always fresh, but they’re never quite large enough to be large or small enough to justify adding an extra one to a recipe, so I worry about baking with them.  The chiffon cake involved beating 5 egg whites to firm peaks, while mixing the rest of the batter (oil, egg yolks, flour, a bit of lemon zest), then carefully folding everything together. 

I’m getting better at folding, so mine came together without a hitch, and baked up beautifully. 

While the cake was baking, I made the pastry cream.  It was also a reasonably standard recipe – heat the milk, temper in an egg, cook until thick, then cool.  One it’s cool, fold into whipped cream to lighten it.  Did I mention how good I’m getting at folding things into other things?

I should have added some sugar to the whipped cream – I like mine pastry cream a little sweeter then this turned out to be, but it was still good.  I saved a bit of whipped cream and colored it pink, to decorate with later.

Assembly was straightforward.  There’s a Good Eats episode where Alton Brown shows you how to precisely split a cake with a hacksaw blade, but I never remember to get an extra one when I go to Home Depot, so mine came out a bit crooked. 

The bottom gets soaked with a simple syrup, then the fruit goes on top.  I put some around the edges and the rest in the middle.  The pastry cream goes on top, then the top layer of cake.  I left it in the fridge overnight at this point to make sure it was entirely set up before trying to cut it.

When I took it out the next day, I dusted it with powdered sugar, added some accents of pink whipped cream, and served.

It turned out great!  There weren’t a lot of strong flavors besides the strawberries, so they really stood out.  I’d have liked the pastry cream to be a bit sweeter, but next time I’ll just use a different recipe or add a bit more sugar.  I’m thinking next time I’ll try a chocolate chiffon cake, with fresh cherries in the middle.  Or maybe a banana pastry cream with bananas.  Or…

( see the recipe )

(Erica of Erica’s Edibles was our host for the Daring Baker’s June challenge. Erica challenged us to be truly DARING by making homemade phyllo dough and then to use that homemade dough to make Baklava.)

This month was definitely a challenge.  I’ve never made baklava before, and it certainly never occurred to me to roll out my own phyllo dough.  Like so many of the challenges, it wasn’t so much "difficult" as it was "time-consuming". 

Start with a basic dough of water, flour, salt, oil, and a bit of vinegar (to adjust the PH).  I mixed it up in my stand mixer, then kneaded it (in the stand mixer!), then wrapped it in saran wrap for just over two hours to relax.  It didn’t rise, because it has no leavening, but if the gluten doesn’t relax after kneading, it can be nearly impossible to roll out.

I was supposed to end up with 20 layers, but I miscounted somewhere and only ended up with 18.  Even 18 was a lot of rolling – it took me close to an hour to do them all. I couldn’t take pictures while holding them up, but every layer came out nearly thin enough to read through.  I use a silicone map with ruler markings, so I could be sure to get the size close to right.

I never understood how to roll things out square – the closest I can ever get is "rounded rectangles".  But it was close enough.

One they were all rolled out, I trimmed them to fit my pan.  I tossed the scraps in a bag in the fridge – I haven’t ruled out doing something with them.   Then they got layered in the pan.  Every sheet of dough gets brushed with butter before laying down the next one.  I ended up with 4 sheets on the bottom two layers, and 5 on the top two.

In between each set of layers, I put a layer of nuts and spices. The recipe called for almonds, pistachios, and walnuts. But I had a big bag of pecans, and it is Texas, so I used the pecans. Because doesn’t everyone love Texas-Greek fusion?

The recipe also called for whole allspice, but my food processor destroyed the nuts before it even touched the allspice, so I picked out all the remaining berries and sprinkled in some ground allspice.

One it was assembled, it went in the oven for an hour, with a quick check at 30 minutes to make sure I’d sliced all the way through the layers.  While it was baking, I made the sauce from honey, water, sugar, and a cinnamon stick.

The sauce smelled amazing.  One they came out of the oven, I poured the sauce over the top, and let the pan sit in the fridge overnight.  I have about half the sauce left – it would be amazing over vanilla ice cream!

Next time, I’d be tempted to add some flavoring to the dough.  Phyllo is usually just structural, but if I’m going to make it from scratch, I’d like to try adding flavors to it.  Maybe some sort of pocket pie, with spicy phyllo on the outside and ground meat inside?

All in all, a fun challenge!  I look forward to next month!

( see the recipe )

(The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.)

Another month of yeast!  I’m getting pretty good with yeast breads now.  It’s been quite a while since I had one flop, so I make them more often, and practice makes me better.  It’s a delicious cycle.

This was a basic sweet dough – mix the dry ingredients, then melt a stick of butter in warm milk, add it to the dry ingredients, add some eggs, mix, and knead.  The recipe called for 10 minutes of kneading by hand, but I just used my stand mixer.

I found these great containers for letting bread rise:  6-Quart Round Food-Storage Container with Lid.  They come in a pack of two – I gave one to my sister for Christmas with a no-knead bread book, and kept the other. The marks on the side make it easy to tell when dough has doubled.  It went from this:

To this, in just over an hour:

I didn’t take any meringue pictures, but it was just a very basic meringue – beat (room-temperature) eggs until foamy, then slowly add sugar and beat until shiny, stiff peaks.  The dough is supposed to be rolled out into a rectangle, but I always fail at this, because my doughs never want to roll into rectangles.  Vaguely rectangular blobs, yes, but never rectangles.  I want my superpower to be the ability to point at a blob of dough and say “You!  20×10 rectangle!  Now!” and just have it happen.

Once I got the dough as rectangular as it was going to be, I spread the meringue on top.   There wasn’t enough to spread it very thick – it mostly just acted as glue to hold the rest of the filling.

This was the rest of the filling – a cup of pecans and a cup of good chocolate chips:

Yes, I was short some pecans and made up for it with some extra chocolate.

The dough gets rolled up, jelly-roll style, and formed into a round.  Mine isn’t even because my dough wasn’t perfectly rectangular, so I had more in the middle then I did on the ends.

Let it rise for another hour.  I left it on the counter and went out to dinner.  When it’s done, brush with an egg wash and, bake at 350 for half an hour.

Let cool.  Slice and eat, preferably with coffee.

It was good.  I didn’t think the meringue added much, but I loved the chocolate and the nuts.  It had just the right sweetness to go with coffee.  I’d probably make it again, maybe with a cinnamon filling and some cinnamon chips instead of the chocolate.

Overall, a fun recipe!  I look forward to next month.

( see the recipe )

(The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.)

Another fun challenge!  Panna Cotta has been on my list of things to try for a while, so I was excited about making it.  I decided on the vanilla option, with peach gelée on top.

The panna cotta comes together easily – it’s not as complicated and finicky as a custard or pudding.  You start by adding some unflavored gelatin to a cup of milk.  Let it bloom for a few minutes, then warm it up on the stove.  The goal is to get it hot but not boiling – you’re effectively scalding it to break down the proteins a bit and make it thicken up better.  Once it’s hot, add heavy cream, honey, and a bit of sugar.  I also added in some vanilla bean paste, but the vanilla bean particles didn’t stay suspended very well – I’d skip this next time.

After it all warms up again, let it cool, pour into dishes, and let it cool overnight.  Mine came out a bit puckered on top, but set up nicely:

I wanted something to put on top, and I had some frozen peaches sitting around.  I went looking for a gelée recipe, and didn’t find anything I liked.  I started with an idea from myRecipes and used it as a springboard.  I tossed the (thawed) peaches in the blender to puree them while I bloomed another package of unflavored gelatin in a cup of club soda.  I added half a cup of the peach puree and a box of peach jello, then a cup of boiling water to dissolve it all.  I tried pouring the hot jello on top, but it broke up the panna cotta.  Spooning it carefully on top worked much better.

Next came the cookies.  This was a really quick and easy cookie recipe – add oats, flout, sugar, dark corn syrup (I didn’t have any, so I used half molasses and half light corn syrup), milk, and vanilla to a mixing bowl, melt some butter, and mix it all.  The result is a rather wet and sticky dough, which flattens out very thin when you bake it.

When I went to put the milk back in the fridge after making the cookies, I tipped over one of my panna cotta bowls, and it fell out of the fridge:

Luckily, the mess took less time to clean up then the cookies took to bake.  The recipe said to let the cookies cool completely, then stick pairs of them together with melted dark chocolate.  I did that, but the cookies were far better warm, just as they were, right out of the oven.  The insides were gooey, the outside was crunchy, and they were rich and oat-y. 

In the end, it all came together well.  The peach gelée worked well to add some fruitiness. The panna cotta was rich and creamy, and the cookies were crunchy.  I’m looking forward to making it again, with some different flavors – chocolate panna cotta, maybe, with cherry gelée on top?

( see the recipe )