For this month’s Daring Bakers challenge, our hosts Deborah of Taste and Tell and Elle of Feeding My Enthusiasms picked Cheesecake Pops from the book Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O’Connor and Leigh Beisch. This was a dessert I’d never seen or heard of before, but when it came down to it, the method was quite straightforward: bake a cheesecake, chill, scoop it into balls, freeze, then dip balls into chocolate and whatever else strikes your fancy. The end result is pretty cute and the recipe makes a tremendous amount of pops - definitely party food. The full recipe was actually said to yield 30-40 pops, but I still got about 30 pops out of only a half recipe! That’s ok, though - I’ll be taking them all to work tomorrow. :)

I baked the cheesecake in an 8-inch square Pyrex pan set inside a larger rectangular Pyrex for the water bath. There was no browning and the cheesecake set smoothly after about 45 minutes. I left it in the oven for about 5 more minutes, though, since others had encountered some issues with it not setting properly. I didn’t have much trouble scooping them out and rolling them into balls, although after rolling the first time, I froze the balls for about 15 minutes and rolled them lightly a second time to get somewhat more uniform spheres…just as one might do for soft truffle centers.

Since I didn’t have time to get to the craft store, I cut “sticks” from colored straws. Although not as strong as lollipop sticks, the straws did a pretty good job of holding up the wee pops (I made the balls about the size of a heaping rounded tablespoon). Also, I went through much more chocolate than suggested in the recipe - about a pound for dipping a half-recipe’s worth of pops. I didn’t make the coating particularly thick - I just think the chocolate estimate was on the conservative side.

I think these cheesecake pops would be something children would like quite a bit; they could easily help with rolling and dipping, and would have fun picking out different toppings to use. My little niece and nephew would probably get a big kick out of them. For me, though…well, they really weren’t to my taste, unfortunately. They’re a little too sweet for me, and I just don’t like the taste of cheesecake and chocolate together (maybe I’m just a freak). That said, I’m not writing these off completely. UPDATE: People at work really liked them, so I think I’ll definitely make them again, and maybe try some flavor variations - raspberry, cheesecake, and chocolate is sounding good right now… I think they’d be a big hit at parties and with kids, and I wouldn’t mind trying to make them look a little more elegant - although maybe I’m missing the point of this messy, sticky, all-American dessert: too much fussing just doesn’t seem right.

Thanks to hosts Deborah of Taste and Tell and Elle of Feeding My Enthusiasms for the challenge!

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Baking, Daring Bakers | 26 Comments »

This month’s challenge for the Daring Bakers baking club was Dorie Greenspan’s Perfect Party Cake. The recipe is from Baking: From My Home to Yours, a book that has been in heavy rotation on the food blog circuit lately for its classic recipes and straightforward techniques. Since this month was my mother’s birthday, I made the cake for this occasion, and thankfully our host Morven gave us a lot of room for personalization - we has pretty much free rein apart from the basic cake recipe and buttercream or whipped cream frosting options.

Although I’ll be first to admit that my layer cake skills could use some work, I took my time with this one and I think it turned out reasonably well. I prefer dense chocolate monstrosities or fruit desserts for my own birthday or special occasions, so could really use some slicing, piping, and decorating practice - and I’ve recently been scoping for a local cake class to help remedy this. For this cake, though, I liked the simplicity of whipped cream, and for some visual interest added a little polka-dot pattern with inverted chocolate chips.

As for the interior, Mom had some very clear ideas about what she wanted in her cake. :) She was hoping for something that would combine all her favorite flavors in one: mini chocolate chips, raspberry, banana, and whipped cream. This part was nearly as much of a challenge as the Daring Bakers recipe itself(!), but I managed to hit all the elements and it ended up being quite good. I do think the mini chips may have weighed the batter down a bit and prevented it from rising as much as it could have (my layers were barely taller than an inch), but the cake was still fluffy and delicate-tasting.

My final changes to Dorie’s basic recipe were as follows: I skipped the lemon flavorings and added 1/4 cup mini chocolate chips to the cake batter. Instead of the buttercream, I used 1 pint of cream whipped with 2 tablespoons sugar for filling and finishing. I also left out the coconut. The layers were filled with alternating raspberry curd and banana pastry cream.

Overall, everyone was very pleased with the cake. I would probably make a thicker raspberry filling next time, and also maybe reduce the baking time to 25 minutes - the cake edges were getting a bit too dark at 30 minutes. This sort of cake is a great addition to my repertoire, though, and I’ll very likely make it again since it’s so easy to vary the filling and flavorings to suit nearly anyone’s wishes. Check out the other Perfect Party Cakes by visiting the Daring Bakers Blogroll, which keeps track of our ever-expanding numbers. Many thanks to Morven of Food Art and Random Thoughts, who hosted this month’s challenge!

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Baking, Daring Bakers | 29 Comments »

Yeah, I know…I’m about the 931,834,762 person to make the batard joke. I just can’t help it, folks. Anyway, this month’s Daring Bakers challenge was an incredibly intimidating recipe for French Bread from Julia Child. Go ahead and look; it’s pretty scary (11 pages!). Like several others, I grumbled at the length of time it would take to make the bread…most reports back were marking the total time to be on the order of 8-10 hours. Yikes! I put it off for weeks, and finally ended up using a trick to cut the time down by about 5 hours.

Although I have very little experience baking bread, I’d heard about retarding dough overnight in the fridge, so the fermentation occurs slowly. The literature I’d seen, however, seemed divided on whether it was okay to retard after the loaves had been shaped, or on the very first rise. Not having anyone of authority to ask, I decided to throw caution to the wind and let the dough ferment overnight on its first rise, mainly because that was the longest one at 3-5 hours. I started making the dough around 10:00 or 10:30pm and took it out of the fridge around 9:30am the next day, letting it warm up a bit on a radiator that was covered with a towel. I then proceeded with the second and third fermentations as usual.

Resting the dough before shaping

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Baking, Daring Bakers | 22 Comments »

Alas, I’m few days late, but did manage to squeeze in a Lemon Meringue Pie for this month’s Daring Bakers challenge. Some unexpected car problems pushed baking out of my mind the past few days, and I must admit, not being the biggest fan of Lemon Meringue Pie, my heart wasn’t completely in this challenge. Distractions and ambivalence are a fell combination for baking, so it’s no wonder my results (and photos thereof) turned out a little funky.

My feelings about lemon meringue pie are mostly due to a slight distaste for meringue, but also probably because I’ve never had a homemade one. The words Lemon Meringue conjure up memories of factory-made pies eaten at diners and places like Eat ‘n Park rather than someone’s own special recipe. Still, I was curious about the challenge pie, as the recipe for the curd filling is made with water, a technique I’d never seen before. Reports from other Daring Bakers also claimed that this filling was very tart, which piqued my interest right away. There’s nothing I love more in a lemon dessert than a nice puckery tang.

I decided to make a few small tartlets shaped in mini-muffin tins as well as “free-style” tartlets: flat discs of dough decorated lemon-meringue style. I liked the way these looked the best. Since I avoid gelatine, I was pleased to see that the filling is thickened with cornstarch, and while it didn’t strike me as particularly tart while warm, an overnight rest in the refrigerator proved me wrong: the chilled filling did indeed have a subtle but pleasant tang. Not as strong a typical lemon curd, but nice all the same (and let’s face it, not everyone loves flavors that are super-sour). I will probably use this filling again for other tarts or pies, or maybe even to fill cakes. I had no problems whatsoever with the it being runny; it was quite firm and would have sliced well in a full-sized pie.

The crust was tender and did not shrink much, which was encouraging. I may also use this again, but will cut the sugar down a couple tablespoons (the combo of sweet crust, sweet filling, and sweet meringue was overkill for me). The meringue itself…eh. I still don’t care for meringue pies, but of course that’s not the recipe’s fault. I piped the topping in what was supposed to be a somewhat whimsical configuration, but didn’t foresee that the cute little turrets of meringue would break apart very easily from their brethren and be extremely difficult to press back on, since they also stick to fingers and everything else. But I liked the look of it, and might try this piping method again if I can be confident that no one will touch the final products except to eat them.

In conclusion, I can now say that homemade lemon meringue pies are definitely superior to assembly-line versions, but I probably won’t experiment much further on this front. I was glad to find the crust and filling recipes are good enough to reuse, and could imagine them pairing up again in a meringueless pie. Meanwhile, I await the next challenge! Thanks to Jen of The Canadian Baker for this one.

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Baking, Daring Bakers | 28 Comments »

This month I decided to do something I’d been wanting to do for a few months now…join the Daring Bakers! If you’re not familiar, the Daring Bakers are an ever-expanding group of bloggers who pick a recipe each month for everyone to make and write about. The main attraction for me is that the monthly recipes are not contests but challenges, and there is a great community for help and inspiration. Everyone makes the same recipe as written, and the only deviations allowed are specified by that month’s host. This may sounds restrictive, but it’s actually extremely interesting to see the differences and personalizations that pop up. From professionals to amateurs, there is a wealth of creativity out there!

This month’s recipe and my first challenge was chosen by Tanna of My Kitchen in Half Cups. She picked Tender Potato Bread, from the book Home Baking: The Artful Mix of Flour & Tradition Around the World, by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid. This was indeed a challenge for me, as I have very little experience baking yeast breads. I’ve only done so a couple of times in the past (apart from pizza dough, which I make regularly), and those tries…well, they left something to be desired. Some of the rules for this challenge were that it had to be kneaded by hand, and the result had to be savory, but the final shaping and topping options were up to us. This left plenty of room for variation, but since I was already a bit apprehensive about the bread-making process, I kept things fairly conservative.

I followed the recipe carefully, and used about 5 cups of flour (the maximum was 8 1/2) and about 12 oz of potato (max for this was 16oz). I then divided the whole yeasty bundle into a foccacia and 11 rolls, topping the foccacia with chopped fresh rosemary, sliced olives, and a small amount of black Hawaiian sea salt. In retrospect, it probably didn’t need the extra salt, but it was still pretty tasty.

As an aside, I think Santa might be bringing me something to help my losing fight against the shifting of the Earth and frantic attempts to coax November light.

For the rolls, I experimented a little with different shapes: spirals (or cinnamon-roll shape), S-shapes, and knots (not pictured). Some I left plain and others were topped with shredded Gruyère. The Gruyère ones got eaten first.

I’m pleased to say that everything turned out pretty well. Although it was somewhat chewier than other potato breads I’ve had, there were some nice, small holes in the crumb and the crust was pleasantly crisp, especially after being toasted the next day. I might have done the rolls on a baking sheet instead of the baking stone, as the bottoms of some of them were on the verge of being a bit too crisp. Still, I can make bread! And boy, hot bread fresh from the oven…soooo good.

I am totally looking forward to next month’s challenge.

The recipe for this is a bit long, so I’ve moved it to after the jump.

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Baking, Daring Bakers | 30 Comments »