Daring Bakers November Challenge: Caramel Cake

Another month has past and another challenge to be had. This month was brought to us by Dolores (http://culinarycuriosity.blogspot.com/) with Co-hosts Alex (Brownie of the Blondie and Brownie duo: http://blondieandbrownie.blogspot.com/), Jenny of Foray into Food (http://forayintofood.blogspot.com/), and alternative baking help came from Natalie of Gluten-a-Go-Go (http://glutenagogo.blogspot.com/). Our challenge was to bake a caramel cake with caramelized butter frosting in which we had to make our own caramel. The recipe is the author's, Shuna Fish Lydon (http://eggbeater.typepad.com/), signature cake and it was published on Bay Area Bites (http://blogs.kqed.org/bayareabites/).

I had don't have much experience with making caramel or any candy for that matter. I wasn't really sure what to look for when the caramel starting coming together so I tried to go by looks and test the mixture for stickiness as instructed in the recipe. When I thought the time was right I removed the sauce from the stove to let cool and it got a bit thick but not solid as it came to room temperature. So, when I went to make the cake the caramel was a bit goopy to handle but it still worked in nicely to the batter and the icing.

I really liked the texture and stability of the icing. The taste was a bit on the sweet side. It takes a lot for me to say something is too sweet and this mixture was definitely right up there. I toasted some coconut and pecans to sprinkle on top to help cut some of the sweetness. The icing called for browned butter also and I thought it added a nice depth to the taste of the icing as well.

Overall, I think my cake turend out well. I was really pleased with my pictures this month. Trying to get my creative juices flowing for the photo shoots. I'm happy to have done this challenge and to not be so scared of trying new things. We also got a recipe for homemade caramel candies that I may try closer to Christmas and I'm thinking of attempting fudge also.

Thanks to the host this month and I look forward to the next challenge.

Pizza Pizza Pizza oh And Pizza

This month's Daring Baker's challenge was pizza dough. It was very timely that this recipe was our challenge. After the crackers last month I thought I could take on pizza dough...and I got my wish...I had to do it now. The dough came together easily enough, but it was very soft and tacky. I was afraid of over working the dough so I left it as soft as possible. I must admit that I'm not that experienced working with bread doughs so I get a little impatient with getting goo all over my hands. But I must say the outcome was worth the effort. Thanks to Rosa of Rosa's Yummy Yums for hosting this month's challenge and honoring the wish and memory of Sher from What Did You Eat.


Pepperoni, sausage, mushroom and onion with red sauce.My first attempts at tossing...

BBQ Chicken Pizza

Another day's attempt at tossing...last night actually...

Ricotta cheese, minced garlic, spinach and canadian bacon...

...mushroom, onion, sausage, pepperoni with a sprinkle of gorgonzola and mozzarella

This might have been the best one...fig preserves, prosciutto, and blue cheese. YUM!

For dessert...cinnamon apples with crispy topping and a drizzle of cream cheese icing.

Cookie Obsessed

It seems I am a little behind in seeing the throwdown episode with Lavain Bakery. I caught it last weekend and like many others I had to find a copycat recipe. I first tried Judy's at http://judyskitchen.blogspot.com/ . They were very good. I haven't had one from the Levain Bakery so I can't do a true comparison, but I liked the concept of having a thick and chewy cookie.

I also tried Bobby's recipe from the show. Although still good, it looked sad in comparison, so flat and more crispy. I also made smaller versions of the Levain recipe...

So, then I thougth I could beef up Bobby's recipe to get a thicker cookie and make it look more like the Levain. It turned out all right. It had a more crackly top. I did change his in respect to the sugars. I switched the amounts of white sugar to brown sugar. I also added about 1/2 cup more flour to thicken the dough.

So over this past week I did more searching regarding the Lavain recipe. I came upon Su Good Sweets blog...http://www.sugoodsweets.com/blog/2006/04/levain/ . There has been much discussion going on on her site since February when I believe the show Throwdown show first aired. One contributor in particular took the lead on discovery as close of a copycat as possible. Her name is Lisa and she now has her own blog at http://lisamichele.wordpress.com/ . Here you can find the next two recipes I tried, the basic chocolate chip cookie and the dark chocolate peanut butter chip cookie. I did not use walnuts in any of my attempts, but I did use pecans in some of the cookies. I really enjoy the toasted pecans with the chocolate. Also, instead of peanut butter chips in the chocolate cookies I used mini Reese's peanut butter cups (chips).

I actually weighed the dough out to 6 oz to see what a true Levain cookie would look like and it is huge! But it looks awesome. I made smaller ones again (1 tablespoon size) to try. I want to take the bigger ones to work to show everyone and then maybe we can split them.

I just couldn't stop there though. I decided I needed to make about 4 or 5 other recipes, I've lost count now... I had made two of them before but I wanted to do a tast comparison against the Levain copy's. Also, I wanted to mention that I love how the Lavaib Bakery has embraced everyone trying to figure out their recipe that they have linked to the blogs I have mentioned on their own website. http://www.levainbakery.com/cookies/recipes.aspx

One of the ones I had made before was the Neiman Marcus cookies. This is the recipe that they posted on their website after an urban myth went around about how a lady bought the recipe for $200 and then spread it to everyone. It's a good basic recipe which has a little espresso powder in it. I added some cappacino chips to some of the dough, which turned out some very sweet cookies.
I also tried Bake or Breaks favorite chocolate chip cookie that uses ground oatmeal. This turned out a nice crispy and chewy cookie that didn't scream oatmeal. It also combines milk and dark chocolate chips. I'm sure it will be most excellent with some milk later. http://www.bakeorbreak.com/2008/07/09/my-favorite-chocolate-chip-cookies/


The other recipe I made again is from All Recipes and it's called the Best Big Fat Chewy Cookie . http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Best-Big-Fat-Chewy-Chocolate-Chip-Cookie/Detail.aspx These turned out as big as the Levain cookies. I admit that I inadvertantly used baking powder and then realized what I had done so I added a little soda too. This might have made a difference in the puffiness. I don't recall them getting this big the last time I made them. I haven't tried them again yet. Sadly, I've almost made myself sick from sampling cookie dough and the baked cookies.
I also made oatmeal, pecan chocolate chip cookies. These have cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves added to the dough. Awesome!!! Makes me believe it is fall, even if the weather hasn't changed much yet. I got this recipe from Smitten Kitchen. Her recipe calls for orange zest, which I left out, but these cookies are still great. http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/11/oatmeal-chocolate-chip-and-pecan-cookies/
These are the smaller versions of the Lavain cookies. I also made Dori Greenspan's Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops. I believe the Tuesdays with Dori group made these a few weeks ago. They were met with mixed reviews from the blogs I saw. I still had to try them. I think they have a wonderful chocolate taste and the malt is not overwhelming. I didn't get a close up shot but they are the other chocolate cookies in the plated picture of all my cookies at the top of the post.

I think I've decided I don't have to have a favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe. I just love cookies and will enjoy trying recipes and different takes on this favorite treat of mine.

I've also included this one picture of my second attempt at the pate choux recipe from the daring bakers August challenge. This time I think turned out a little bette than my first. Most of them stayed nice and puffed up. I made Dori's pastry cream again and added a 1/4 teaspoon of almond extract to it, which I think made them even better. I made my chocolate sauce a little thicker this time too.

September Daring Bakers: Lavash

It looks like I've become lax in my postings lately. I have still been baking but not so much blogging... I will continue to at least do my Daring Bakers challenges... This month we were challenged to make lavash crackers by some of our alternative bakers, Natalie from Gluten A Go Go, and co-host Shel, of Musings From the Fishbowl. We could either make the crackers with All Purpose wheat flour or go for gluten free. And we needed to provide a dip/ sauce that was gluten free and vegan.

I'm afraid I put this one off until the last minute. I didn't purposely do that but life has a way of interfering in the best laid plans. So, last night I was making crackers while the debate went on in the background. I used the AP flour and sprinkled a little cayenne pepper and paprika on some of my crackers and salt on the others. I didn't find the recipe particularly difficult to put together, but wasn't sure about how thin to roll out the dough. I had some crackers very thin and crisp and some more dough like. I did a little taste test last night and they seemed good. I think I was just not really wanting to eat anything last night once they were done so I don't have a clear opinion of them yet. I made guacamole to go with them.

I will eat them today as a snack. I wanted to get my post up but I didn't want onion in my mouth before eating my waffles this morning. :-) So, I can't really speak on how anything tastes too well yet.

I'm glad a I had a reason to try this type of recipe. I need the practice with making yeast breads. I think this challenge gave me the confidence to try pizza dough sometime. Thanks to Natalie and Shel and the Daring Bakers for helping me to step outside my comfort zone.

Chocolate Eclairs

I made my eclairs last weekend for this month's Daring Baker's challenge. I made the glaze the day before and then the pastry and cream the next day. I was going to try a different filling other than pastry cream. I was thinking more along the lines of the white cream that is found in the Long John's donuts. Only my attempt at that filling didn't work out so well. I used some clear vanilla extact that had to over powering of alcohol taste that I couldn't serve it to anyone. I ended up makeing Dorie Greenspan's vanilla pastry cream. I did keep the chocolate glaze per the recipe given. I thought this challenge was relatively easy compared to other pastries. I'm glad it was chosen though so I could find out that I could make them. I think I would have been intimidated otherwise.

My dough rose well in most of the eclairs and puffs. I did have some in each batch deflate a little. I think had I had the proper size piping tip they would have been fine. I just used the coupler without a tip since it was the largest opening I had. I didn't want to chance using the ziploc bad method since I read others haven't had such luck with that way. So, mine were small but cute. You'll see in my pictures that I had nice spaces in some that I was able to put my pastry filling tip in and fill that sucker up. That was pretty cool to do. I thought they tasted fine. My co-workers seemed to enjoy them. I think I decided that it's just not the type of pastry I would choose first.

Thanks to Tony of .antoniotahhan.com/ and Meeta of whatsforlunchhoney.blogspot.com for hosting this month's challenge. I'm glad I have another French pastry conquered (somewhat).

I Did It! Challenge #2 Down

Again, I am proud of myself for rising to the challenge of this month's Daring Bakers recipe. The recipe this month was Filbert Gateau with Praline Buttercream by Carol Walter. I have to say that this thing pretty much kicked my butt. It was not particularly difficult, just time consuming. I thought I was ahead of the game by doing some of the smaller parts days ahead of time... the praline one night, the glaze another, taking the skins off the hazelnuts another. In any case it still took me another 5-6 hours on Sunday a few weeks ago. Some of that time was inactive waiting for the cake to cool and set up after layering. In any case it turned out great in the end.

This was my second attempt at a genoise and this time worked out much better than the first. I took some things I learned from that first experience and wasn't as afraid this time. My second attempt at a ganache and again with better results. Although I don't think I perfected the technique so I look forward to trying again. I did have issues with the praline paste getting stuck in my decorating tips, but I suppose I could have ground the paste a bit more in the food processor.

I also want to mention that I did not set out to make 4 cakes. I purchased 3 four inch pans thinking this would suffice being that I wanted to half the recipe. But when I filled those pans with batter I still had some left and when ahead and poured it into am 8 inch round. I also ended up torting the small cakes when I decided that stacking them on top of each other might result in too tall of a cake. So, I sliced the small ones for the three layers but the 8 inch only got split once as it was a bit flatter.

In conclusion, I stuck pretty close to the recipe. I used hazlenuts for the nuts, frangelico for my liquor, and blackberry jam for the glaze. I used a different buttercream. Once I got off the Wilton message boards. I was not familiar with the method but after reading more blogs discovered that it was a mousseline (sp?) buttercream. I liked it a lot. Not too buttery and very creamy. I'm not sure if I'd make this cake again. Maybe if I could streamline the process a bit. I did get good feedback from those who tried it. Thanks to Chris at http://melecotte.blogspot.com/ for hosting this month's challenge.

Gosh, there are a few other things I wanted to mention that just came to me while looking at other's masterpieces. I did not use clarified butter as the recipe called for but I didn't seem to have any trouble with that. And I had reserved a cup of plain buttercream (without the added praline) for piping in case I had the problems with the clogged tips (as I did). Oh, and I realize my piping skills could use some help and I did sign up for a Wilton class that starts on Monday. I figured it would help with future challenges and a good way just to learn.

Lacking

Okay, I'm being a slacker as far as blogging goes. But on the other hand I haven't really baked anything since my last post. Except I did make cupcakes from a box mix. I had it on hand and after a particular busy weekend otherwise I just wanted something easy and cupcakes sounded really good. It was a butter pecan cake mix with canned cream cheese icing. Neither of the two tasted like you'd expect them to but somehow still tasted pretty good together. Add a little ice cream with it and it tastes even better. :-)

Last weekend I went to visit a friend in Tallahassee who I hadn't seen in over 3 years. I couldn't believe that much time had past, but we picked right up. It's great to have friends like that and I've been blessed to have quite a few who are now scattered all over and I don't get to see or talk to as often as I'd like but life has a way of passing by. Anyway, I'm getting off track. What I was going to say is that she indulged my sweet tooth and took me to a few bakeries around town. One of them I worked at part time while in college and remembered they had the best petit fours, so I had to get those again. I'm happy to say that they were as good as I remember they were. Those came from Tasty Pastry Bakery. We also tried out Heidi's Bakery and Au Peche Mignon. We tried a few things from each and I'll sadly admit that I don't remember the names of them all at this point. Terrible of me, I know...probably shouldn't even mention it but I was at least trying new things. I do know we got a slice of opera cake and a daquaise from Au Peche Mignon and they were good. I've only had opera cake once before from a bakery in Hollywood, Florida but I enjoy the flavors of the coffee, chocolate and almond together. Of course I really love amaretto coffee so why shouldn't I enjoy this cake? Looks like if I plan to talk about something on here then I need to remember to take notes so I can remember details. :-)

We also went to the farmer's markets, bought some vegetables to grill and I had fresh figs for the first time. Overall, it was a very enjoyable time and I hope it's not another 3 years before she and I get together again.