Daring Bakers' January 2011 Challenge

Biscuit Jaconde Imprime/Entrement

The January 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Astheroshe of the blog accro. She chose to challenge everyone to make a Biscuit Joconde Imprime to wrap around an Entremets dessert.

This was all very new to me and a challenge - a challenge because at the moment I'm in a really busy phase, we have our house on the market - so it needs to be in a pristine state of tideness and decor perfection most of the time !!! Additionally I'm just starting back at work after a six week summer break, am busy preparing for the new school year and having professional development days. I almost opted out from this challenge but seeing I had last month thought I'd really challenge myself to achieve it.

The filling is a blackforest mousse - chocolate mousse made from scratch with cherries macerated in Grand Marnier, topped with whipped cream, fresh cherries and chocolate shavings - I used left over jaconde to make the base.

Haven't been able to upload other photos but will try again later :(

NOVEMBER 2010 DARING BAKER CHALLENGE: CROSTATA!

The 2010 November Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Simona of briciole. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make pasta frolla for a crostata. She used her own experience as a source, as well as information from Pellegrino Artusi’s Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well.

Short and Sweet

Am a short on time this month but this turned out sweet ! Fortunately the challenge is something I’ve made many of over time. I also watched my Mum make them time and time again – they were only ever called pies or tarts, but came in all flavours, sizes and varieties, with lattices and lids.
My in-house tasters report this was delicious.

OCTOBER DARING BAKERS CHALLENGE:

Let's Go Nuts for Doughnuts

The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge the Daring Bakers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious -recipes here

Wow - this was really good fun. I made the first recipe by Alton Brown and made doughnuts with and without a hole. The dough really rose up as you can see and I took the advice of another experienced Daring Baker and added very little extra flour throughout the rolling and resting process. The dough is certainly silky !

I made sure the oil for deep frying (Alfa One Rice Bran ) was heated to the correct temperature and the doughnuts cooked so quickly - could only manage one in the pan at a time. Some Daring Bakers were concerned about frying and greasiness, I can honestly say that this recipe cooked in Rice Bran Oil is not in the least fatty or greasy - the crust is very thin and light.

I coated the ring doughnuts with cinamon sugar (1/2 cup caster sugar + 1 Tbs cinnamon).

The whole (round) doughnuts were injected with strawberry jam (preserve) and dusted with icing sugar (confectioner's, powdered).

This challenge was great ( thanks Lori)- it's really interesting making something at home that you have only ever tasted the commercial version of. I've been thinking about that a lot lately - of course most things were home baked before they were ever commercially produced but so often your first experiences of a product is the mass produced variety - I'm thinking especially about icecream - how delicious home-made is and doesn't have all those emulsifiers and additives - guess the same goes for doughnuts.

Look for other Daring Bakers' efforts here !

Daring Baker's September 2010

Get Creative!
The September 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mandy of “What the Fruitcake?!” Mandy challenged everyone to make Decorated Sugar Cookies based on recipes from Peggy Porschen and The Joy of Baking.

The theme was “September”. It may have been back to school; the start of Spring or Autumn/Fall depending where we are in the world; September could also be someone special’s birthday or even the beginning of our favourite sporting season. Whatever happens in our life in September, that’s what our cookies had to be about.



September is Springtime in New Zealand, so I purchased a couple of flower cookie cutters and set about making flower themed sugar cookies. Piping is something I’ve not done much of and it is definitely a challenge for me – guess it’s one of those things where practice makes perfect and patience is an asset.

Sugar cookies aren’t really that big of a thing in New Zealand, mostly seen at Christmas time. I think they are starting to be more popular. Early on in the challenge someone posted a link to a site called University of Cookie http://www.universityofcookie.com/ , which is amazing but made me feel pretty overwhelmed! I can see that this is a real big deal in the U.S and when I have more time I will watch the video tutorials on that site, there is also a stream on flickr.com where there are literally thousands of photos of the most amazing decorated sugar cookies – stumbled across it and now can’t find it again.

These are my attempts at decorated sugar cookies – I learned that it is best to tint/colour all the royal icing before thickening or thinning it to get a consistent colour – hence my two tone pink flower cookies.!

SPCA CUPCAKE DAY
Monday 30 August was New Zealand's annual SPCA CUPCKAKE DAY - the day when people in their workplace or school or neighbourhood bake and sell cupcakes to fundraise for the SPCA ( Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals ).
I co-ordinated the day in the school where I work, we had a fantastic day with over 500 cupcakes donated by students and parents - we sold them to the students at morning tea and lunchtime and were able to send off a donation to the SPCA for NZ$541. Here are some of the wondefully decorated cupcakes.

AUGUST 2010 DARING BAKERS CHALLENGE

~ Nutty and toasty meets cool and creamy...

The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”.







This was my first Daring Bakers challenge. I decided to make both the Baked Alaska and the Petit Fours, so after doing the calculations I made one quantity of the Brown Butter Pound Cake and the Vanilla Icecream and was able to make 10 Petit Fours and two Baked Alaskas .

There was quite a lot of process and freezing time required in this recipe so I made the cake (froze it) and icecream one weekend and then did the assembling the next weekend.

As this was my first challenge I stayed with the recipes given by Elissa and they worked out perfectly. It's easy to make icecream without an icecream maker, just requires being around to do the stirring every 30 minutes.

Since reading other daring bakers' blogs for this challenge I've realised that I probably should have taken more photos of the baking process to post with the recipe - next time







The Baked Alaska served






The Petit Fours served




Check out the Daring Bakers site to see some of the other DBs creations and download the recipes.

It's winter down here in New Zealand, just the weather for enjoying the all time favourite comfort food - fruit crumble. I've been making this recipe a lot lately and have also substituted tamarillos for the rhubarb. The recipe is from Al Brown and was in the New Zealand Cuisine magazine - issue 141 July 2010.

Rhubarb & Date CrumbleServes 6-8

For the rhubarb
600g rhubarb, cut in 2cm pieces
3 large apples, peeled, cored and cut in 2cm pieces
½ cup apple juice
1 cup pitted dates, halved
½ cup sugar
½ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground ginger

Place all the ingredients in a large saucepan, mix together and place on medium – high heat. Simmer for about 15 minutes until the fruit just starts to break down. Pour into your favourite ovenproof dish. The fruit should be 3cm – 4cm deep in the base.

For the crumble
¾ cup rolled oats
½ cup soft brown sugar
¾ cup flour
1 cup roasted unsalted macadamias, coarsely chopped
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
100g unsalted butter, cut into 1cm cubes
300 ml cream, whipped to soft peaks

Place all the ingredients except the cream in a large mixing bowl. Rub together by hand until the mixture begins to come together, but is still quite course. There should be no visible chunks of butter. Spoon the crumble evenly over the rhubarb mix then refrigerate until required.

Preheat the oven to 200ºC then bake the crumble for 20 minutes or until the topping is golden and crisp. Dish out the crumble into bowls and serve with lashings of whipped cream.

Enjoy !