Daring Bakers: Tres Leches Cake

Inma of la Galletika was our Sept. 2013 Daring Bakers’ hostess and WOW did she bring us something decadent and delicious! Pastel de Tres Leches or Three Milk Cake, creamy yet airy, super moist but not soggy.. just plain delish!

Tres Leches cake is something I have had many times, usually at a fancy restaurant, but I have never seen one that looks as incredible as Inma's version.  Any time I have had it, it is a fairly plain affair (not that it is not good plain), but Inma version adds fruit and hers was beautifully decorated.

Inma had a chocolate coconut version of this recipe which sounded incredible, unfortunately I am the only coconut lover in the family so I decided to go for the standard version.  The cake is very easy to make.  The cake is a standard sponge cake, which I sometimes have a little trouble with, but this one came together perfectly.  The tres leche ( or three milk ) sauce was just as easy.  You wouldn't think canned milk could taste so good but combined with a little cream it made a very tasty sauce for the cake.

I have never tres leche with fruit but thought it might go nice with some mango, and I was right.  The cake was really good - as good as any I have had in a restaurant.  I like the cake plain but the mango was a wonderful addition.  The whole family loved the cake as you can see from the picture below :)

Daring Bakers: Polvitica

In a "celebration" of past Daring Baker and Daring Cook challenges, Lisa (CEO of The Daring Kitchen) challenged all of us to search through the Daring Kitchen archives and pick any one we'd like! The REAL challenge was picking which delicious recipe(s) to try!

Even if it is kind of a non-challenge - what a great challenge.  I almost went back to last months pie challenge that I missed since I really like pie and I really did not want to miss that one.  Looking back though, I found many challenges that I missed or were before I was a member that I wanted to try.  I have no idea why I didn't do this one the first time around but the Povitica from back in October 2011 really caught my eye. The original challenge was from Jenni of The Gingered Whisk.   Povitica is an Eastern European nut bread with many names depending on what country it came from.  It is a sweet bread and usually served around the holidays.

It is not the holidays now but we had a picnic potluck to go to with a bunch of other international adoption parents.  I thought, what better than an international dessert.  While making the dessert I figured out I was out of white flour.  I ended up using  a "white" whole wheat flout and I don't think it hurt it one bit.  Delicious sweet bread with lots of swirly nut goodness.  It was well received at the potluck and the whole family liked it too.

Thanks to Lisa for the challenge and to Jenni for the original challenge.  Check out the challenge recipe and all the other challenges in the Daring Kitchen archives.

Daring Bakers: Gevulde Speculaas

Francijn of Koken in de Brouwerij was our January 2013 Daring Bakers’ Hostess and she challenged us to make the traditional Dutch pastry, Gevulde Speculaas from scratch! That includes making our own spice mix, almond paste and dough! Delicious!

I have worked with several people from the Netherlands and have even gone to a Dutch themed tulip festival in nearby Pella, Iowa and one thing I have learned is that the Dutch know their treats.  If you don't believe me just try a stroopwafel if you ever get the chance.

In this months challenge Francijn (from the Netherlands) starts out teaching us some Dutch history and all about the spice trade.  The bakers guilds in the Netherlands would create secret spice mixtures and one still used today is known as Speculaas.  It seems like everyone makes it differently (similar to a curry mix) but Francijn gave us some good guidelines to create our very own Speculaas mix.

We also created our own Almond paste and put it all together to make Gevulde Speculaas (or stuffed Speculaas).  When I put this together it did not go together quite as nice as in Francijn's pictures.  There was no way I could get the rolled dough into a pan in one piece.  The good news is that it didn't really seem to matter - I was able to kind of press it together in the pan and after it baked no one would ever know.

The combination of scents  and flavors was amazing.  Lucky this even made it until it was fully baked because it smelled so good in the oven.  I did taste it before it got too cool and it was delicious warm.  Nice and soft with the warm flavors of the spices and the nice sweet almond filling.  Definitely a recipe I will keep for the future - might be something nice to make at Christmas time.  If you would like to try out this recipe you can find it in the Daring Kitchen Archives - join us!

I normally send a bunch of the treats I make to my wife's work so I don't end up eating the entire pan (not that I couldn't do that).  Well this time was a little different.  I live in MN and for those of you that don't know MN gets pretty cold (a few days I woke to -17F or -27C).  One of the crazy things people do here is called the Polar Bear Plunge and this year I decided to do it.  In about two weeks they will be cutting a hole in the ice at a local lake and I will be jumping into it.  It is all for a good cause - we are taking pledges to support Special Olympics MN.  Well I turned my Gevulde Speculaas into a bit of a mini bake sale at my wife's work and took donations for my polar plunge.  I ended up getting $36 in donations.

If you are interested click on the link below.  If it is before Feb 9 it will let you pledge to support Special Olympics MN in my name.  After that date I think it is going to show a picture of how I look after jumping into freezing water - should be interesting.

Daring Bakers: Mille-feuille

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

You know when you can't pronounce the name of a dessert then it is going to be good.  This Mille-feuille is no exception.  These are also known as Napoleons.

The dessert takes a little while to make but it is not very hard to make and looks very elegant.  The first step is making the puff pastry.  I have made puff pastry before so this was not very different.  The key to puff pastry is all the layers of dough and butter.  It sounds difficult - but isn't.  It does take at least several hours though as there is lots of time in the refrigerator.

The next step is making the pastry cream.  A little stirring but easy to make.  I don't think mine quite thickened enough but not sure.  It oozed a little more than I expected but hard to know - it could be right.  It was good either way.

The pastry and pastry cream get layered together - then comes the tricky part.  You make a royal icing and melt some chocolate for the top and then you need to work quickly.  You quick put the royal icing on, then a thin stream of chocolate, then you use a knife to make the pattern in the top.  You need to do this all in kind of one step since the icing and chocolate both start to set up.  Mine went pretty well.  I used a plastic bag to stream the chocolate on and I cut the hole in the bag a little big so the chocolate was a little wider than desired - but it still looked ok to me.

The hardest part of the whole thing was cutting it after everything had set-up.  The chocolate doesn't really want to cut and the pastry cream wants to ooze.  It came out nice though and tasted delicious.  Nice and flakey pastry and the pastry cream was yummy.  I only wish this was next months recipe since it would work great for the progressive dinner I need to make dessert for.  I'm sure there will be something equally yummy though :)

Daring Bakers: Armenian Nazook

The Daring Bakers’ April 2012 challenge, hosted by Jason at Daily Candor, were two Armenian standards: nazook and nutmeg cake. Nazook is a layered yeasted dough pastry with a sweet filling, and nutmeg cake is a fragrant, nutty coffee-style cake.

I am not sure if I have ever even had Armenian food but for this challenge we got to choose to make one or both of these Armenian sweets.  I would have loved to do both but I have been a little busy lately so I chose to go with the Nazook - it looked good and had a cool name!  The recipe is Jason's Aunt Aida's recipe and he even shared a video of her demonstrating how to prepare the Nazook.

This was real easy to put together.  It is a yeast dough but it never really needs to rise much.  You can put the dough together the night before then it is a snap to put it all together the next day.  The recipe says almost anything goes for fillings - but I chose to just stick with the vanilla filling in the recipe.

I made this for a little appetizer for my Easter dinner.  Kind of a strange appetizer but it was a big hit - everyone loved it.  Kind of crunchy and soft at the same time, and just the right amount of sweet.  Would definitely make this again and maybe be adventurous and try something different for the filling next time.

If you would like to try out the Nazook or the Nutmeg Cake come check out the recipes in the Daring Kitchen Recipe Archive.

Daring Bakers: Pineapple Upside-down Quick Bread

This month on the Daring Bakers our host was our wonderful leader - Lis.  Lisa stepped in last minute and challenged us to create a quick bread we could call our own. She supplied us with a base recipe and shared some recipes she loves from various websites and encouraged us to build upon them and create new flavor profiles.

So it turns out this is going to be another fairly simple challenge like the last few challenges.  I do like these - seeing all the creativity from the other Daring Bakers and Cooks but I have not really been very daring myself - I have just cooked one of the recipes given in the challenge.  It was hard not to do the same this month since Lis gave us some wonderful recipes to try - Pumpkin Bread with Maple Cream Cheese filling sounds especially good to me.  Well - not this time - I decided I was actually going to try to be at least a little daring myself.

I had a few thoughts but finally decided to turn one (or two ) of my favorite cakes into a quickbread.  I have always loved Pineapple upside-down cake and it seemed like a natural.  For a little twist I also added a bunch of toasted coconut to a fairly standard Pineapple upside-down base (or top).  I then used the basic quick bread recipe that Lis gave us - only I added a bunch of chopped pineapple to it.

I have to say I loved it - the cake was nice and soft and moist.  The topping worked great - just like a pineapple upside-down cake - but the addition of the coconut was very good - I love the texture and flavor it added.

Pineapple Upside-Down Quick Bread
Makes one 9" x 5" loaf
Recipe from A Cooking Dad

Ingredients

• 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1/4 cup coconut, toasted*
• 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
• 3 slices canned pineapple
• 3 maraschino cherries
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup granulated sugar,
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup buttermilk or soured milk*
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped pineapple (approx 3 slices)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°
2. Pour melted butter into non-stick 9"x5" loaf pan.  Brush onto sides of pan and allow extra to coat the bottom of the pan.
3. Sprinkle toasted coconut evenly across the bottom of the loaf pan.  Next sprinkle the brown sugar evenly across the bottom of the pan.  On top of this arrange 3 pineapple slices and place 3 maraschino cherries in the center of the slices. Set pan aside.
4. Sift flour, salt, sugar, and baking soda into a large bowl.  Make a well in the center and set aside.
5. Lightly whisk buttermilk or soured milk, egg, oil, and vanilla to combine.  Pour into well and mix into a batter.  Before totally combined add chopped pineapple and mix until just combined.  Batter will still be lumpy and may show a few streaks of flour.
6. Pour batter into prepared pan.  Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean.  Cool in pan for 5 minutes, then turn onto plate and remove pan.

Note: To toast coconut - place raw coconut into skillet over medium heat.  Stir frequently until browned (about 3-5 minutes).
Note: To make soured milk, combine 1 cup milk with 1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice and let sit for 10 minutes.

Recipe adapted from Sara Schewe - Basic Quick Bread

Daring Bakers: Filipino Deserts

This months Daring Bakers challenge is Filipino desserts.  The challenge listed two desserts from the Philippines - a cake called Sans Rival and a dessert called Bibingka.  The idea of making a Filipino dessert did appeal to me.  I went to the Philippines several years ago and loved it.   The people there are great and it was one of the best "food" countries I have been too.  They have a wonderful mix of different cultures foods along with their own.  I had a bunch of desserts their but I do not remember seeing either of these.  I wasn't too excited about the Sans Rival since it didn't really look like something I would like and I was thinking of making just the Bibingka - but the challenge said the Sans Rival was the mandatory part of the challenge.  November 14th was my wife's Birthday and the Sans Rival looked better to her that the Bibingka so I decided to go ahead and try it.

I think Sans Rival means without rival in French - kind of a big claim to make.  It is basically just a frosted cake, only layers of meringue are used instead of cake.  I made half a recipe and I also left the nuts out of the filling for my wife.  Other than the fact that it is a little tricky to frost half a round cake - the cake came together very easily.  I wasn't really expecting much from the Sans Rival but it was much better than I thought it would be.  The meringue cake held up well and provided a nice light contrast to the rich buttercream frosting.

I was really looking forward to trying the second dessert, the Bibingka.  As much as I was looking forward to it, I think my wife was the opposite - cheese in  dessert like this did not sound good to her.  The recipe had a few different choices for the topping of the dessert.  The salted egg (an egg left in saltwater at room temperature for several weeks) sounded interesting but I didn't really have time to make it and I was pretty sure if my wife didn't want the cheese there was zero percent chance of getting her to eat salted egg on top.  This was another easy dessert - only a couple of ingredients mixed together and cooked in a ramekin lined with a banana leaf.  The Bibingka was delicious and even my wife agreed.  I would describe it as a cake/custard.  It could be made without the banana leaf but the leaf does give it some flavor and makes for an elegant presentation.

Thanks to Catherine of Munchie Musings for this months Daring Bakers challenge.  If you are interested in either of these recipes you can find them at the Daring Bakers Recipe Archive.

Daring Cooks: Appam and Curry (Indian Dinner)

Wow - no posts since June - it has been a busy summer. I feel so guilty for missing the last few months with The Daring Kitchen and I almost missed this one too but this month was a challenge I really wanted to try. The challenge was to make Appams and a South Indian/Sri Lankan dish to go with them. I decided to take it a little further and do a whole Indian meal. Most Indian food that I have eaten has been at Indian restaurant buffets and I have never attempted to cook it myself so I thought this would be a fun challenge. I knew my wife might not enjoy all of this food herself so I gave her the task of finding someone who would. She thought she was going to get an Indian couple from work to come but the schedule did not work. Then she texted me from church all excited because she found out someone there had been to India and were available for a dinner - good - we have two more people willing to test out my Indian cooking.

Since I decided to do a whole meal I had a lot of planning to do. I had just been to a local Indian restaurant so I kind of had an idea of what goes into a meal but was still a little clueless. I sent off an email to an Indian buddy of mine and let him know my requirements and what my ideas were. He was a great help telling me what I was doing that didn't seem right and gave me a few other ideas for what goes together and what to have for a proper Indian dinner. He even offered me some of his Mom's recipes.

I made my first trip to an Indian grocery for this challenge. Going to foreign groceries is always something I love to do and this was no exception. I love seeing all the vegetables and spices and other ingredients that I have never seen before. I picked up some okra, curry leaves, and a few spices that I would need.

Anyway here is the dinner - I won't include any of the recipes because - well because that would be a lot of work for all this stuff - but if you are interested in anything please ask and I will get you the recipe or the link to my source. I will start with the two requirements for The Daring Kitchen challenge. You can find the recipes for the first two items here in the Daring Kitchen recipe archives.

The first item is the Appams. I have had several kinds of Indian bread but don't think I have ever had these. They are a little strange to put together - soaking and grinding raw rice, then add yeast and a very small amount of cooked rice, then 8+ hours of fermenting on the counter. The dough rises and falls all by itself overnight since it is fairly thin. Then when you are ready to cook you thin it out with some coconut milk and cook them one at a time. I figured since they looked kind of like crepes I would cook them in my crepe pan and it worked perfect. They are thin on the edges and more puffy and "bready" in the middle. They were great with the curry and tasted very mild with the texture of a bread. One of our guests just rolled up the curry like a taco - probably not very Indian but it worked.

To go with the Appams I decided to fix one of the dishes included with the challenge - the Malabar Chicken. I did tone down the heat a lot so my wife would at least try it but did leave all the other flavor in. This dish had a lot of herbs and spices that I don't normally cook with but it smelled very good to me. It had a lot of flavors I recognized from Indian food but the dish was different from any curry that I have had before - I think just because it had a lot of tomato. It also had coconut milk but it was not as predominant of a flavor as in a Thai curry.

Now that the Daring Cooks items are out of the way here is the rest of the meal I did. I started the meal with some Eggplant and Onion Pakoras. I actually just went on a food tour of Minneapolis yesterday and part of the food tour was pakoras at an Indian restaurant and they were great. I had an eggplant in the fridge from my CSA and thought it would work for pakoras - I did a quick web search and apparently eggplant pakoras are a thing so I went with it. I also did some onion and cilantro pakoras and they were both very good - I especially liked the onion ones that were kind of a fritter style. They batter is very flavorful with some spices in it and it fried up nice. I also made a Cilantro and mint Chutney - I did add a little heat to the chutney and it was very tasty on the pakoras.

Anyone that has been to an Indian restaurant probably knows this one - a Mango Lassi. Very easy to make and very refreshing on a hot day.


This is a Cucumber Raita. This a very nice summer salad - very similar to some typical American cucumber salads - but with a few extra spices in there.

This is Bhindi Masala ( I think that translates to Okra mixture). I knew okra was African and I knew it was Southern US but I didn't know it was Indian. I am not sure if I have ever had it when it wasn't deep fried but I did enjoy this preparation. It was just onions fried with the okra and a bunch on Indian spices.

For dessert I decided to go with Gajar (Carrot) Halwa. This is just shredded carrot cooked for a long time in milk - then a little bit of sugar and cardamom added. I don't think it is typical but I saw several pictures of it molded like this and I think it made it a nice looking dessert. It was definitely not a typical American dessert - not very sweet or rich but it was kind of nice for a change - mild spice and just a little sweet.

Thanks to Mary from Mary Mary Culinary for this months challenge. It was great fun cooking all this.

Daring Bakers: Edible Containers

Wow! What a month. April has been a big, busy month for me - both food-releated and otherwise. We just got done with a fantastic Easter and now I am working on preparing food and a cake for 100 people for a retirement party for my father-in-law - Congrats to him. As you can see from the title the Daring Bakers are doing an edible container just like the Daring Cooks last month. If you haven't already - check out my last post. It was the first I (I think ) Daring Cooks that was kind of a contest, and to my surprise, I am one of the finalists. There was a lot of good competition so it is a big honor for me. If you haven't already, and if it is before May 17, go to The Daring Kitchen and vote at the top of the page.

Now on to this months challenge. This month Evelyne of Cheap Ethnic Eatz challenged us to make an edible container for a maple mousse. Evelyne is from Quebec and gives a very good description of how maple syrup is part of the culture on her blog. Well again I wanted to try to be unique. There are lots of things that go with maple - bacon, nuts, pancakes, squash, sweet potatoes, chocolate - the possibilities are endless. That is part of the reason I am posting this on the last day possible - too many ideas.

The idea I finally settled on was something from my childhood. I grew up in NY and now live in MN - two of the top three maple syrup producers in the US and one of my favorite things as a child was maple sugar candy. If you have never had it - it is just maple syrup and maybe some butter and it is very soft and creamy - just melts in your mouth. I wanted to do the same thing only as a bowl. Easier said than done. I think it took me five tries. The recipes on the internet said to heat to softball stage but I could not get it out of the container without cracking it. I finally ended up using a small silicone measuring bowl for the mold and heating the syrup up close to hard ball stage - it worked like a charm then.

Even though I am crazy about all things maple I thought maybe I needed something else with my maple mousse in a maple bowl. I decided to put small chocolate bowl (not easy either) in the maple bowl and I am using two kinds of mousse. Every month I see someone in the Daring Bakers use Nutella in their challenge so I decided it was now my turn. I thought it would go perfect with the maple.

The results were really good. The maple mousse was really good - a nice maple / buttery taste and smooth texture. I think the texture was much nicer than most mousse I have had. I think the nutella mousse was great too - I am sure my wife liked it better. It had that great nutella flavor and it went very nice with the maple from the mousse and the bowl.

While the maple bowl was not quite as I imagined it - it didn't have that creamy texture of the candies I remember - it still was easy to eat and lots of great maple flavor. I assume the difference in texture was because of having to take it to the higher temperature since my first attempts were much softer.

I'll post my recipe for the Nutella mousse here but if you would like to check out the maple mousse you can find that recipe in the challenge posted here.

Nutella Mousse

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon gelatin
• 1/4-1/2 cup nutella
• 1 cup heavy cream

Directions

1. Put 2 tablespoons of cream in a small bowl and sprinkle gelatin over the top. Set aside to soften gelatin.
2. Whip the remaining cream.
3. Add nutella a few tablespoons at a time and beat to combine. You can use 1/4-1/2 cup nutella to suit your taste.
4. Add the cream/gelatin mixture and combine.
5. Put the mousse into serving bowls and chill until set (about 1-2 hours).

Daring Bakers: Panna Cotta and Florentine Cookies

For this months Daring Bakers we were challenged to make a two part dessert. The first part was a panna cotta. If you don't know what panna cotta is - it is a creamy dessert with just three main ingredients:

• milk / cream
• sugar
• gelatin

There may be a couple of other ingredients but it is basically just a milk jello - but we don't call it that since it doesn't sound as good as panna cotta. I have made panna cotta before so I decided to take the recommendation in the challenge and add a fruit gelee. This was going to be used for my Valentine's day dessert so I needed a red fruit and for some reason I decide to go with the $5.00 for 7oz raspberries.

The panna cotta came out like it should - nice and creamy. I think the honey was a nice touch for a little flavor. After last months dessert where I used gelatin three times without much of a recipe to go on you would think making a little gelee would not be much of a problem. It was. I followed the recipe (only using raspberries) but my gelee thickened way to much and was pretty much inedible. Kind of ashame to waste most of those raspberries.

The cookies were my favorite part of the challenge. These were from a Nestle recipe and also very easy to make. I just got a silpat and I was excited to try that out on this recipe. I did have a little trouble with the first batch. It turns out when the recipe says to use 1 Tablespoon of the dough on the cookie sheet you should not make them a little bigger. I probably put 4 teaspoons and I put nine of them on my first sheet. The cookies are very thin after they are cooked and they all ran together. On my next batch when I went to an even tablespoon and only cooking six at a time it worked perfect. I am a big fan of oatmeal cookies. These are not really like a normal oatmeal cookie but still very good. They are thin and they get a little caramelized when cooking. Even though they are thin they are still soft and chewy. I don't normally like chocolate chips in my oatmeal cookies but when these are sandwiched with the chocolate it adds just the right amount of chocolate.

Thanks to Mallory of A Sofa in the Kitchen for this months challenge. Nice and simple but a perfect Valentine's day dessert. This months challenge with all the recipes used can be downloaded here.

Make sure to check out my next post on March 14. I have decided to join the other half of the Daring Kitchen - the Daring Cooks. I am sure I will have a lot of fun with the cooking challenges - hopefully Lara will be able to eat some of the more exotic things I will probably end up making.

Daring Bakers: Biscuit Joconde Imprime/Entremet

When you look at the title of this blog post you probably had the same thought as me - what the heck is a Biscuit Joconde Imprime/Entremet? Since I am not a pastry chef and I am not French I will just post the definitions given to me.

A joconde imprime (French Baking term) is a decorative design baked into a light sponge cake providing an elegant finish to desserts/torts/entremets/ formed in ring molds.

Entremets (French baking term)- an ornate dessert with many different layers of cake and pastry creams in a mold, usually served cold.

This was probably one of the most stressful desserts I have made. I think part of the reason for that is the lack of direction. All of the daring bakers challenges have a lot of room for you to make creative decisions but this one left it totally open on what you put in it. The second thing that makes it a little stressful is the fact that it is one of those desserts that you have no idea if it came out until you un-mold it in front of your guests.

After seeing some of the other bakers completed challenges I finally decided what I would do. I was going to have a dinner with a few kids so I decided it would be fun to make individual desserts and put everyones initial as part of the design. My three year old is really into seeing the first letter of his name (and was even a little upset that his letter is not being used in this post). I used some 2 1/2 PVC pipe as the mold for the dessert to make kind of a narrow/high dessert.

For fillings I did the following (in order):

1. daquoise - a kind of meringue cookie
2. pomegranate bavarian mixed with a little cream cheese to make a kind of "cheesecake" layer
3. lemon curd lightened with a little whipped cream
4. pomegranate gelee

On the side is one of the daquoise along with some whipped cream, pomegranate reduction, and some pomegranate seeds.

I'm not going to give my recipes since they were kind of improvised and I am not really sure I could reproduce them. If anyone really wants more info on any of the layers let me know and I will do my best. I do have recipes for some of the layers.

I was actually surprised at how good these turned out. I liked all of the layers and the flavors went well with each other. My cake was about 1/4 inch thick - which I think was a little thick for such a small diameter dessert but I still managed to get it to work. The three year old girl who got the "M" dessert in the above picture absolutely loved hers and gobbled up the whole thing. At the end she thanked me for making a dessert with her initial on it. The honesty of children is so nice (when they like it).

Here is the challenge that contains the recipes for the cake along with different ideas for the fillings. Thanks to Astheroshe at accro for this months challenge. Astheroshe graduated from Culinary school as a pastry chef (just for fun) a few years ago and you can definitely tell by looking at her blog - so many good looking desserts.

One other note - I decided to finally join Daring Cooks. Daring Cooks is the sister site to Daring Bakers so it is the same time of thing - just with non-dessert items. So far I have just been doing the baking part. Since Barefoot Bloggers changed their format I have not really participated in that so I decided it was time to try something new. It should be a nice challenge.

Daring Bakers: Christmas Stollen

On the Daring Baker's website there was a lot of discussion about what the December recipe would be this year. It is always something for the Christmas season and a lot of people seem to fear the possibility that someone would pick fruitcake. It turns out there are a lot of fruitcake haters out there. Well this year they did - sort of. They pick stollen. Stollen is a traditional German fruitcake - but it is more of a bread than a cake since it is made with yeast. Traditionally stollen is shaped more like a loaf (supposed to represent the baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes) but we were to make ours in the wreath form you see above.

Well I am not a fruitcake hater. When I grew up my grandmother would make fruitcake every Christmas. I think it was pretty much a traditional southern fruitcake and I still enjoy it when I can get it. I have never made one myself though so I was excited at the thought of making the Stollen this month. The Stollen can be pretty easy to make if you use all store-bought ingredients but I decided to make a few of them.

I have not got out the candy thermometer in a while but I needed it twice for this recipe. The first thing I made was the candied citrus peels. These taste a lot better than anything you would buy and I used this recipe to make them.

The second thing I made was some marzipan. Marzipan is a traditional filling for a stollen and it was something I wanted to experiment with so I decided to make some. My father doesn't like the almonds that are in a traditional marzipan so I decided to experiment and use pecans in place of the almonds. I have never heard of anyone making pecan marzipan but I figured it was worth a try. I used this recipe - http://candy.about.com/od/nougatmarzipancandy/r/Basicmarzipan.htm as a starting point. Instead of grounding the pecans I just processed them in the food processor. I think that left them a little course and it ended up not being quite as much of a paste as a normal marzipan but it worked great in the stollen.

The only other modification I made to the recipe was that I used raisins, blueberries, cherries, and cranberries instead of just raisins and I also used a mix of cherries and pineapple in place of the glace cherries. I also substituted some course chopped pecans for the almonds.

The resulting stollen was fantastic. It looked beautiful in the wreath shape. It is a nice deep brown color and with all the powdered sugar on top it looked and tasted fantastic. I really liked the pecan marzipan - I like almonds but I think the pecans were really good in this. It is a heavy bread but nowhere near as heavy as a traditional fruitcake.

I thought it tasted pretty good but a week or so after I made it I made the discovery that elevates this above a traditional fruitcake for me. Like any fruitcake this is supposed to store well. Like a normal bread it does start to get a little dry after a while. Well many people had posted that it was normal to eat it toasted and normal to put butter on it. Well toasted with butter was incredible - like a good cinnamon raisin toast - only better. I was going to be saving some for Christmas to share with the family but I have finished off half the loaf (the other half went to a pot luck) myself. I still enough of the citrus peels and marzipan for another so I think I will try making a smaller loaf - maybe in the traditional shape so I can bring it to Christmas dinner at my mom's.

Thanks to Penny at Sweet Sadie's Baking for this months challenge. It was good to get everyone to try out a fruitcake - some found they liked it (an some found out they really didn't). Also thanks to Audax at Audax Artifex - He provided a lot of hints and I used recipes he provided for the citrus and marzipan. If you have not checked out his blog - do it - he takes all of the daring kitchen challenges to a whole new level. I think he has made at least 4 completely different stollen for this challenge.

Here is a pdf with the recipe used for the challenge.

Snow Cream

This is a little bit of a departure from most of the posts I do but it it something I have been wanting to do for a long time. The name of the blog is A Cooking Dad and most of the posts focus on the cooking - this one focuses on being a dad (but still a little cooking thrown in).

One good food memory I have from my childhood is snow cream. This is probably

a foreign concept to most of you - I have never heard of anyone else making it. I found three main variations on the Internet. One version is made with eggs, milk, sugar, and snow. The second is sweetened condensed milk and snow. In the third you actually make a custard and mix it with the snow. I don't really know how my grandmother made it. I think she may have actually made a custard and mixed it with the snow. I'll have to try to figure out what the official family recipe is, but for now, I just made the version with the sweetened condensed milk.

Before I describe how it tastes let me say this recipe is more about fun than tasting good. This is not going to taste like Hagen Daz if that is what you are expecting. It is not as creamy as ice cream but the texture is not bad. The taste is pretty much the taste of sweetened condensed milk. In the future I think I will try some of the other version as I think they may taste better - but the project was a success. My son had a ton of fun gathering the snow to make ice cream and it tasted great to him.

Snow Cream

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 1/2 can (7 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• Snow - I used about 6-8 cups of fresh, light and fluffy snow

Directions

1. Mix the sweetened condensed milk and vanilla.
2. Gather the fresh snow. Pour the condensed milk mixture over the snow and stir until well combined.

Note: Watch out for the yellow snow!

Daring Bakers: Chocolate Crostata

This month for Daring Bakers the challenge was to make a crostata. A crostata is basically just the Italian version of pie. It can be made in a tart pan or made free-form. The filling was up to us but the host showed versions filled with jam and with pastry cream. Well for me either of those sound fantastic - especially the pastry cream version. Problem was the timing meant this would be a perfect dessert to make for my wife's birthday and she has pretty much the opposite taste of me when it comes to dessert.

I decided to compromise. I would attempt to make a chocolate and pastry cream version. I

made half of the pastry cream recipe in the challange and poured it in the bottom and poured some chocolate ganache on the top. I made the crust, ganache, and

pastry cream all with a little bit of orange zest added since I think orange goes well with chocolate. I wasn't really sure how it would work baking the ganache but it turned out incredibly. The chocolate was just the right consistency and the pastry cream helped offset the strong chocolate flavor just enough. My wife and I both loved it.

This months challenge was hosted by Simona at briciole. Simona has an Italian cooking blog ( she is an Italian woman living in California) that looks fantastic. An interesting thing that I have not seen before - her blog posts all include an MP3 of her pronouncing all the Italian words in the blog. Cool idea for people trying to learn Italian or just if you want

to sound better ordering Italian food.

If you want to try your own crostata here is the challange we used with the recipe for the crust and the pastry cream -Daring Bakers' Crostata Challange.

Daring Bakers: Apple Doughnuts

I have been looking forward to this one. In fact I was thinking if I was to ever take a turn creating a Daring Baker challenge it would be doughnuts. Unfortunately I had scheduled myself to do this towards the end of October and my son and myself ended up getting sick so I missed the deadline for this recipe. I thought about it and decided - who cares about the deadline - I've wanted to make them so I went ahead and made them a week late.

The challenge was doughnuts - any kind you can imagine. You could make cake or yeast doughnuts - they could be plain, decorated, filled... I can't really say there is a doughnut that I don't like but I have always liked a good fried cake. I used to buy one every week at the end of doing my summer paper route - they were still warm when I got it. I did decide to dress it up a little. It is currently apple season here in the US so I thought I would see what I could do by adding some apples. They were really good - little pieces of apple in every bite. They weren't too sweet or too greasy. Being a cake doughnut they are a little heavier than a yeast doughnut but I thought these turned out pretty nice and fluffy for a cake doughnut. My dough was very wet but the recipe said it would be. It was hard to pick them up to fry - I think the key is a lot of flour when rolling out the dough. My only question about the recipe - how do you flip a doughnut hole??? They do not want to turn over.

Thanks to Lori at Butter Me Up for this challenge. I envy her getting to make three different types of doughnuts for the challenge.

Apple Doughnuts

Source: Adapted from Nancy Silverton's Buttermilk Cake Doughnuts

Makes about 15 doughnuts and doughnut holes

Ingredients

• 2 Apples, peeled, cored, and chopped coarsely
• 1/4 cup Apple Cider + more for glaze
• All Purpose Flour 3 ¼ cup / 780 ml / 455 gm / 16 oz + extra for dusting surface
• White Granulated Sugar ¾ cup / 180 ml / 170 gm / 6 oz
• Baking Soda ½ teaspoon / 2.5 ml / 3 gm / .1 oz
• Baking Powder 1 teaspoon / 5 ml / 6 gm / .2 oz
• Kosher (Flaked) Salt 1 teaspoon / 5 ml / 6 gm / .2 oz (If using table salt, only use ½ teaspoon)
• Nutmeg, grated 1.5 teaspoon / 7.5 ml / 9 gm / .3 oz
• Active Dry Yeast 1 1/8 teaspoon / 5.6 ml / 3.5 gm / .125 oz
• Buttermilk ¾ cup + 2 Tablespoon / 210 ml / 225 gm / 7 ¾ oz
• Egg, Large 1
• Egg Yolk, Large 2
• Pure Vanilla Extract 1 Tablespoon / 15 ml
• Powdered (Icing) Sugar 1 cup / 120 ml / 65 gm / 2.3 oz (Used for decorating and is optional)
• Sugar and Cinnamon for topping

Directions

1. In a small sauce pan heat the chopped apples and cider until apples are starting to get soft ( about 10 minutes). Allow to cool.
2. Heat the oil to 375°F/190°C.
3. Over a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, nutmeg; make a large well in the center. Place the yeast in the well; pour the cooked apples over it. Allow it to soften (if using packed fresh yeast), about 1 minute.
4. Pour the buttermilk, whole egg, egg yolks, and vanilla extract into the well. Using one hand, gradually draw in the dry ingredients. The mixture should be fairly smooth before you draw in more flour. Mix until it is completely incorporated. The dough will be very sticky. Wash and dry your hands and dust them with flour.
5. Sift an even layer of flour onto a work surface. Don’t be afraid to use a lot of flour. You don’t want the doughnuts sticking to your counter. Scrape dough out of bowl onto the surface; sift another layer of flour over dough. Working quickly, pat dough into an even 1/2-inch (12.5 mm) thickness. Dip cutter in flour and, cutting as closely together as possible, cut out the doughnuts and holes. Place holes and doughnuts on a floured surface. Working quickly, gather scraps of dough together, pat into 1/2-inch (12.5 mm) thickness, and cut out remaining doughnuts and holes.
6. Drop three to four doughnuts at a time into the hot oil. Once they turn golden brown, turn them and cook the other side. Cooking times may vary, but with my oil at 375 °F/190°C, I found they only took about 20 to 30 seconds per side.
7. Once cooked, place on a baking sheet covered with paper towels to drain.
8. If desired place doughnuts in a cinnamon sugar mixture and toss to coat.
9. You can make a glaze with 1 cup of powdered sugar and a few tablespoons of milk, water, or apple cider. The glaze should be fairly thick but line drawn in it with a spoon will smooth out in a few seconds. You can spread the glaze on with a knife or simply dip half of the doughnut in the glaze.

Flancocho

I was never very good at Spanish in high school but I decided to give it another go and have been taking a community ed class in Spanish. It is still just as hard as I remember. Time will tell if I manage to learn enough Spanish to be valuable but I am having some fun in the class. Last week we had a lot of fun since we had a pot luck to celebrate Spanish heritage month.

I was one of the last ones to get to pick an item to bring so I was thrilled when desert was still available. I signed right up but was not sure what I was going to bring. My first thought was Tres Leches. The only deserts I really knew were tres leches and flan. After doing some research on the internet I found something called Flancocho which is a layer of cake and a layer of flan with the caramelized sugar on top. It said it was a Puerto Rican desert so I thought that it might be kind of cool to make since my teacher is from Puerto Rico.

The hard part turned out to be finding a good recipe. Most recipes were in Spanish and they varied a lot. Seems the traditional way to make it is on the stove in a double boiler, but there were also recipes that bake it using a water bath. Some recipes put a cooked cake in the raw flan then cook it, some crumble a cake into the flan and then cook it, and some put the raw cake batter on the raw flan and cook it. I saw cooking times anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours. Anyway, I combined what I thought would work with the equipment I had and I think it came out pretty good.

The cake was super moist and the flan was good and creamy with the caramel sugar on top. The teacher went back for seconds and I got a few compliments in class so I was not the only one who thought it was good. The teacher said she was not used to the flan with the cake so it must just be from certain regions or something.

Here is what I came up with:

Flancocho

Serves 12-15

Ingredients

For the caramel

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup water

For the flan layer

• 1 12 ounce can evaporated milk
• 1 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk
• 5 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 8 oz cream cheese, softened

For the cake layer

• 1 yellow cake mix and ingredients for mix

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees and place rack in middle of oven.
2. Heat some water (about 8-10 cups) to boiling to use for the water bath.
3. Mix the sugar and water together in a small microwave safe bowl. Heat in microwave on high until a light golden color (5-6 minutes). Do not allow it to get to dark or it will taste bitter. You can also heat on the stove. If you heat on the stove do not add the water. As soon as the caramel is cook pour it into a bundt pan and tip to coat all the sides as much as possible. It will start to harden immediately.
4. In a medium bowl or standing mixer, mix all of the ingredients for the flan until well mixed, about 2 minutes.
5. In another medium bowl prepare the cake mix as directed on the box.
6. Pour the flan mixture into the bundt pan on top of the caramel. Pour the cake batter on top of the flan mixture (Don't worry - it will float).
7. Place the bundt pan into a roasting pan or cake pan to use for the water bath - use the smallest tall sided pan you have that will fit the bundt pan. Pour the boiling water into the outer pan to go up the side of the bundt pan several inches.
8. Place in the oven and cooking until a toothpick inserted in the cake layer comes out clean (60-70 minutes).
9. Allow the cake to cool on the stove for about 15 minutes. Loosen the sides of the cake with a knife and allow to cool to room temperature. Flip the cake onto a deep serving platter. Cool in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours or overnight.

Daring Bakers: Decorated Sugar Cookies

This months Daring Bakers challenge is probably something I should have tried in the past but never have -Decorated sugar cookies using royal icing. If you have never used royal icing it is basically just sugar and water and you can mix it to a consistency so that it kind of flows onto the cookie. When it sits for a little while it become hard. It normally has a glossy look and can make some very professional looking cookies if done right.

Part of the challenge this month was the theme. We were supposed make cookies in the theme of September - that is whatever September means to us. Well I chose motorcycles both because in my opinion Septemeber is one of the most beautiful times for riding (unfortunately also one of the last months here in Minnesota) and it is also the month of our CMA State Rally. I just got back from the rally last month and had a wonderful time.

I pictured these in my head as looking a lot better but I can say it is not as easy as it might seem. When I made the first set of colors (red/yellow/blue) I had issues with my icing and it never got hard - it would also separate when it sat. I did some searching on the web and people suggested that it was because of some contamination with oil - I didn't think that was the issue. I also saw that it was maybe too much water. When I made it I did have to add almost twice as much water as the recipe said and it was still stiffer than the recipe said. I happened across one article that suggested not beating it for as long as most recipes say - just until combined. I tried another batch doing that (Black and White) and it turned out great.

I still have no idea how some people get it them to be so perfect - maybe it would help to be able to draw - but at least I learned something and will hopefully do better next time. It was a good skill to learn with a three year old.

Thanks to Mandy at What the Fruitcake?! for this months challenge. Go take a look at her beautiful cookies.

Download the PDF of this months challenge here.

Ice Cream Petit Fours with Brown Butter Pound Cake

This months Daring Bakers Challenge was to make either Ice Cream Petit Fours or Baked Alaska. I wanted to make both and I was just discussing Baked Alaska with someone but I decided the Petit Fours would be much more practical. It is kind of hard to transport a Baked Alaska and I wanted to bring them to someone else's house for a dinner.

After seeing all the creativity in the Daring Bakers group last month I wanted to do at least something different. It is fun to see the different flavor combinations or other things (Baked Alaska on a Stick anyone?) that everyone does. I decided to keep it pretty simple and make a mint ice cream for mine. I just followed the same recipe except I steeped a few springs of mint leaves in the hot cream instead of the vanilla beans.

I think they turned out super. I have never had it before but turns out that brown butter pound cake is fantastic. I could have just eaten all the batter without cooking it - it tasted like butterscotch candy. The mint ice cream was good. My wife didn't like it even though she likes mint chocolate chip - but she is not a big fan of spearmint. Next time I should maybe try just adding some peppermint oil or something. Also if you want it to look like a store-bought mint you will need to add some coloring - it turned out very light green - I think it looked nice though.

These make a nice looking dessert. I decorated mine with Wilton Candy Melts (kinda like a white chocolate). I just stuck twenty or so of them in a piping bag and put them in the microwave for about 30 seconds. My three year old loved prying the decorations off the top of the petit fours and eating them. These are a fairly low-guilt dessert - not that they are healthy but they are small enough you don't have to feel too bad about eating one.

This months challenge was provided by Elissa at 17 and Baking. Check out her blog - fantastic cook, writer, and photographer and she is just 18 years old.

Download the pdf containing the original challenge here.

Barefoot Bloggers: Mixed Berry Cheesecake

If I had to pick my perfect desert it would probably be cheesecake. I have made a few cheesecakes in my day and haven't really had one I haven't liked (just keep the chocolate and caramel away from my cheesecake).

Looking at this cheesecake it seemed pretty normal to me. It didn't have cream like most others I have made. It also didn't need a water bath - I am all for that if it works. The other thing that seemed a little unusual was that they have you put the graham cracker crust 1 inch up - I kind of like the way it the crust looks this way.

This was definitely not the time of year for the berry topping - I think about a month late. The berries were all expensive and the strawberries needed a lot of picking through. I would say the cake was a good to average cheesecake. That is not a bad thing - even an average cheesecake is a very good desert - just not sure it was the best cheesecake I have ever had. It looked great and didn't even crack.

Thanks to Nathalie of Snowbell Jewelry for this month's pick.

Mixed Berry Cheesecake

(Source: Barefoot Contessa Food Network)

Servers 12-15

Ingredients

For the crust:

• 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (10 crackers)
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, melted

For the filling:

• 2 1/2 pounds cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 5 whole extra-large eggs, at room temperature
• 2 extra-large egg yolks, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1 tablespoon grated lemon zest (2 lemons)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

For the topping:

• 1 cup red jelly (not jam) such as currant, raspberry, or strawberry
• 1/2 pint sliced strawberries
• 1/2 pint fresh raspberries
• 1/2 pint fresh blueberries

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. To make the crust, combine the graham crackers, sugar, and melted butter until moistened. Pour into a 9-inch springform pan. With your hands, press the crumbs into the bottom of the pan and about 1-inch up the sides. Bake for 8 minutes. Cool to room temperature.
3. Raise the oven temperature to 450 degrees F.
4. To make the filling, cream the cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Reduce the speed of the mixer to medium and add the eggs and egg yolks, 2 at a time, mixing well. Scrape down the bowl and beater, as necessary. With the mixer on low, add the sour cream, lemon zest, and vanilla. Mix thoroughly and pour into the cooled crust.
5. Bake for 15 minutes. Turn the oven temperature down to 225 degrees and bake for another 1 hour and 15 minutes. Turn the oven off and open the door wide. The cake will not be completely set in the center. Allow the cake to sit in the oven with the door open for 30 minutes. Take the cake out of the oven and allow it to sit at room temperature for another 2 to 3 hours, until completely cooled. Wrap and refrigerate overnight.
6. Remove the cake from the springform pan by carefully running a hot knife around the outside of the cake. Leave the cake on the bottom of the springform pan for serving.
7. To make the topping, melt the jelly in a small pan over low heat. In a bowl, toss berries and the warm jelly gently until well mixed. Arrange the berries on top of the cake. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Blueberry Streusel Muffins

A little something different this month for the Barefoot Bloggers. We got to pick between two different Barefoot Contessa Blueberry Muffin recipes. We could either make her Blueberry Coffee Cake muffins or her Blueberry Struesel muffins. I decided to go for the struesel version because - well because there is struesel on them.

I had a bunch of blueberries in the freezer and almost used them but it is blueberry season and they were on sale very cheap so I decided to go for the fresh ones. I kind of doubt it makes much of a difference in muffins but might as well. The recipe went together very easily and the muffins were delicious. I could have used more struesel but maybe that is just me. The copy of the recipe I was using didn't say how many it made and I started it late at night so I currently have half the batter in the freezer and will probably attempt to make that in a day or two. I'll post a comment on how that goes.

Thanks to Maria of Close to Home for this pick. Looks like she one upped me by picking her own berries. I'll have to do that soon since I know my 3 year old would enjoy it. I'm hoping for less desert this month - as you can see from this months posts I have been eating too much of it.

Blueberry Streusel Muffins

(Source: Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics, page 244)

Makes about 24 muffins

Ingredients

• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 4 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp Kosher salt
• 2 cups buttermilk, shaken
• 1/4 lb (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 1 1/2 tsp grated lemon zest
• 2 extra-large eggs
• 2 cups fresh blueberries (2 half-pints)

For the Streusel Topping

• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp Kosher salt
• 4 tbsp (1/2 stick) cold unsalted butter, diced

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line muffin tins with paper liners.
2. Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in to a large bowl and blend with your hands. In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, butter, lemon zest, and eggs. Stir the buttermilk mixture into the flour mixture with a fork, mixing just until blended. Fold the blueberries into the batter. Don’t overmix! With a standard (2 1/4″) ice cream scoop or large spoon, scoop the batter into the prepared cups, filling them almost full.
3. For the topping, place all the ingredients in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade and pulse until the butter is in very small pieces. Pour into a bowl and rub with your fingers until crumbly. Spoon about 1 tbsp of the streusel on top of each muffin. Bake the muffins for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden brown.