THE DARING BAKERS OCTOBER CHALLENGE: 

Layering Up: Mille-feuille/Napoleon

Our October 2012 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Suz of Serenely Full. Suz challenged us to not only to tackle buttery and flaky puff pastry, but then take it step further and create a sinfully delicious Mille Feuille dessert with it!

This is just the reason I joined the Daring Bakers, to make this kind of thing, the things I've looked at (and eaten) and always fancied making but thought they were really complicated.
These delicious slices are also known as Napoleons, and in New Zealand and Australia as custard squares, vanilla slices or pastry cream slices.
Here was my chance to make Mille-feuille ( say Meel Foy), starting off with making the puff pastry. Mille-feuille means a thousand leaves - all the layers of the pastry. Quite confusing really and nobody had the answer - because in Mille-feuille the pastry is compressed during cooking to prevent the layers from puffing up too much - so you don't see the layers ???
Making the pastry was time consuming  but not difficult and it had a 
wonderfully smooth texture - I'm going to make it again and use in a recipe where it puffs up, I'm expecting a good result.

Creme patisserie is spread between the pastry layers and topped with icing.

Melted chocolate is next and piped in lines along the top - this didn't have to be too precise, which suited me just fine.

The next part was just magic - I'd never researched making Mille - Feuille so always thought those swirly  arrows were amazingly intricate piping work - but all was to be revealed!

By simply lightly drawing a knife up and down alternately through the lines of chocolate those swirly arrows appear - this was my best part :) I never knew.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable challenge for me - Suz was a great host giving feedback to every one who shared their results during the month - thanks Suz for a great challenge.

Recipe and step by step instructions can be found here .

The Daring Bakers

August 2012 Challenge: 

FILLED PATE A CHOUX SWANS

Kat of The Bobwhites was our August 2012 Daring Baker hostess who inspired us to have fun in creating pate a choux shapes, filled with crème patisserie or Chantilly cream. We were encouraged to create swans or any shape we wanted and to go crazy with filling flavors allowing our creativity to go wild! 
Recipe here

Since I was about 10 years old I've always wanted to make choux swans. I 

first saw them in a recipe book that belonged to my older sister. They looked so special, I hardly believed it was possible to make them at home. the recipe book was called Cooking Better all the Time - Katie Stewart 1966 London - I used to love looking through the pages - although the food styling and photos are now 46 years old - the pictures were very enticing.

So I was delighted when I saw this month's challenge for the Daring Bakers. I hadn't made  choux pastry for years but remembered from years ago when I made a lot of it - that you kind of get a feel for it and know the correct texture and consistency of the mixture.

This mixture was quite thin - it probably didn't need so much egg. I read in another recipe book to add the eggs 1 at a time when making choux, look at the mixture after each addition - sometimes it doesn't take all the eggs. Alternatively  if the mixture is too thick it can be thinned with an egg white or two - added one at a time.

I filled my swans with the Vanilla Creme Patissiere (in the recipes given) and Chantilly Cream.

This was a fun challenge ! I must make choux pastry more often :)