Daring Bakers August: Baked Alaska

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 will be a short post, cause there's simply too much going on right now. Let's just say this was a delicious challenge! I made the Baked Alaska with apple ice cream, the brown butter pound cake as written and then covered the whole thing in vanilla flavored meringue.

Markus is in Beijing at the moment and has the camera with him so this post will be updated with photos when he gets back has now been updated with pictures. Yes, I'm definitely making this one again! Thank you Elissa for a wonderful challenge!

For recipes and to see the other Daring Bakers' creations, head over to the Daring Kitchen!

Brown Butter Pound Cake

19 tablespoons (9.5 oz) (275g) unsalted (sweet) butter
2 cups (200g) sifted cake flour (not self-rising; sift before measuring)*
1 teaspoon (5g) baking powder
1/2 teaspoon (3g) salt
1/2 cup (110g) packed light brown sugar
1/3 (75g) cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

*You can make 1 cup of cake flour by placing 2 tablespoons of corn starch in a 1 cup measure, and filling to the top with all purpose flour.

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F/160°C and put a rack in the center. Butter and flour a 9”x9” (23cmx23cm) square pan.

2. Place the butter in a 10” (25cm) skillet over medium heat. Brown the butter until the milk solids are a dark chocolate brown and the butter smells nutty. (Don’t take your eyes off the butter in case it burns.) Pour into a shallow bowl and chill in the freezer until just congealed, 15-30 minutes.

3. Whisk together cake flour, baking powder, and salt.

4. Beat the brown butter, light brown sugar, and granulated sugar in an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well, and then the vanilla extract.

5. Stir in the flour mixture at low speed until just combined.

6. Scrape the batter into the greased and floured 9”x9” (23cmx23cm) square pan. Smooth the top with a rubber spatula and rap the pan on the counter. Bake until golden brown on top and when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 25 minutes.

7. Cool in the pan 10 minutes. Run a knife along the edge and invert right-side-up onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

Meringue

8 large egg whites
½ teaspoon (3g) cream of tartar
½ teaspoon (3g) salt
1 cup (220g) sugar

Beat the egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt on high speed in an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Beat in the sugar gradually in a slow stream until stiff peaks form.

Assembly Instructions

1. Line four 4” (10cm) diameter tea cups with plastic wrap, so that plastic wrap covers all the sides and hangs over the edge. Fill to the top with ice cream. Cover the top with the overhanging plastic wrap and freeze for several hours, or until solid.

2. Level the top of the brown butter pound cake with a serrated knife or with a cake leveler. Cut out four 4” (10cm) diameter circles from the cake. Discard the scraps or use for another purpose.

3. Make the meringue (see above.)

4. Unwrap the ice cream “cups” and invert on top of a cake round. Trim any extra cake if necessary.

5. Pipe the meringue over the ice cream and cake, or smooth it over with a spatula, so that none of the ice cream or cake is exposed. Freeze for one hour or up to a day.

6. Burn the tips of the meringue with a cooking blow torch. Or, bake the meringue-topped Baked Alaskas on a rimmed baking sheet in a 500°F/260°C oven for 5 minutes until lightly golden. Serve immediately.

Daring Bakers June: Chocolate Pavlova

The June 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. Dawn challenged the Daring Bakers’ to make Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse. The challenge recipe is based on a recipe from the book Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard.

Paired with fresh Swedish strawberries and cherries, this was the perfect dessert for our Midsummer's Eve dinner. Midsummer is a big deal in Sweden and there are a lot of "musts" and traditions and expectations coupled with it, which I really don't like. So we decided to do Midsummer our own way - with a delicious, untraditional dinner consisting of Atlantic catfish poached in beurre montée (recipe to come) and then the Daring Bakers challenge as dessert.

We started a few days early by making mascarpone using the recipe from the February Tiramisu challenge. The actual challenge then had four parts: chocolate meringue, chocolate mascarpone mousse and a Crème Anglaise which was used in a mascarpone cream.

The meringue recipe was really good. Besides flat meringue shells for the Pavlovas, we also made decorative choclate meringue tops. The batter held its shape very well and allowed for some really high piping.



The Crème Anglaise was easy as well. But the chocolate mousse, well that's another story...



What went wrong? We used Lindt chocolate which I believe is decent quality. Can somebody tell us why we got grainy goo and a lot of oil? Into the trash it went and we made a second attempt (good thing we had bought too much chocolate). The second try threatened to end up the same way, but somehow we saved it although it still was a bit grainy.

The mascarpone cream also looked weird to begin with but ended up fluffy and delicious. And bountiful, which means we got to dip strawberries in it today, and there is still enough left for an apple pie tomorrow!

All in all, we really liked this challenge. By themselves, the parts weren't spectacular (especially the chocolate mousse where the flavor didn't seem to match the amount of work it took), but the sum of them can be summed up in the word YUM!

Thank you Dawn! Please visit the Daring Kitchen for recipes, a look at the other Daring Bakers' creations and lots of other good stuff.



Chocolate Pavlovas with Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse

Chocolate Meringue:

3 large egg whites
110 grams white granulated sugar
30 grams confectioner’s (icing) sugar
30 grams cocoa powder

Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 200º F (95º C) degrees. Line two baking sheets with silpat or parchment and set aside.
Put the egg whites in a bowl and whip until soft peaks form. Increase speed to high and gradually add granulated sugar about 1 tbsp at a time until stiff peaks form. (The whites should be firm but moist.)
Sift the confectioner’s sugar and cocoa powder over the egg whites and fold the dry ingredients into the white. (This looks like it will not happen. Fold gently and it will eventually come together.)
Fill a pastry bag with the meringue. Pipe the meringue into whatever shapes you desire. Alternatively, you could just free form your shapes and level them a bit with the back of a spoon.
Bake for 2-3 hours until the meringues become dry and crisp. Cool and store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse:

355 mls heavy cream (cream with a milk fat content of between 36 and 40 percent)
grated zest of 1 average sized lemon
255 grams 72% chocolate, chopped
390 mls mascarpone
pinch of nutmeg
2 tbsp (30 mls) Grand Marnier (or orange juice)

Put 120 mls of the heavy cream and the lemon zest in a saucepan over medium high heat. Once warm, add the chocolate and whisk until melted and smooth. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and let sit at room temperature until cool.
Place the mascarpone, the remaining cup of cream and nutmeg in a bowl. Whip on low for a minute until the mascarpone is loose. Add the Grand Marnier and whip on medium speed until it holds soft peaks. (Do not overbeat as the mascarpone will break!)
Mix about ¼ of the mascarpone mixture into the chocolate to lighten. Fold in the remaining mascarpone until well incorporated. Fill a pastry bag with the mousse. Again, you could just free form mousse on top of the pavlova.

Mascarpone Cream:

1 recipe crème anglaise
120 mls mascarpone
2 tbsp (30 mls) Sambucca (optional)
120 mls heavy cream

Prepare the crème anglaise. Slowly whisk in the mascarpone and the Sambucca and let the mixture cool. Put the cream in a bowl and beat with electric mixer until very soft peaks are formed. Fold the cream into the mascarpone mixture.

Crème Anglaise (a component of the Mascarpone Cream above):

235 mls whole milk
235 mls heavy cream
1 vanilla bean, split or 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
6 large egg yolks
6 tbsp (75 grams) sugar

In a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until the mixture turns pale yellow.
Combine the milk, cream and vanilla in a saucepan over medium high heat, bringing the mixture to a boil. Take off the heat.
Pour about 1 dl of the hot liquid into the yolk mixture, whisking constantly to keep from making scrambled eggs. Pour the yolk mixture into the pan with the remaining cream mixture and put the heat back on medium. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon until the mixture thickens enough to lightly coat the back of a wooden spoon. Do not overcook!
Remove the mixture from the heat and strain it through a fine mesh sieve into a bowl. Cover and refrigerate until the mixture is thoroughly chilled, about 2 hours or overnight.

Assembly:
Pipe the mousse onto the pavlovas and drizzle with the mascarpone cream over the top. Dust with confectioner’s sugar and fresh fruit if desired.

Daring Bakers May: Croquembouche, or Piece Montée

The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

I had never heard of a Croquembouche ("crunch in the mouth") before but when I started reading the recipe that hey, this is essentially a dessert made up of éclairs, and who doesn't love those? At least I do! I hand the mike to our host this month, Cat from Little Miss Cupcake:

The classic piece montée is a high pyramid/cone made of profiteroles (cream-filled puff pastries) sometimes dipped in chocolate, bound with caramel, and usually decorated with threads of caramel, sugared almonds, chocolate, flowers, or ribbons. Modern pastry chefs have taken to assembling this dessert in all manners of shapes and sizes, and you should feel free to express your creativity too!

As (almost) ususal we made this in the very last minute, so being elaborate and creative wasn't really an option. We went traditional: the choux were filled with vanilla pastry cream and we decorated our (not very high and neither cone nor pyramid shaped) piece montée with dark chocolate.

We made a whole batch which, in hindsight (*pats very full belly*) wasn't too smart - these things are rich, people! But oh so so delicious!

The whole thing wasn't very complicated at all - we were a bit worried when our choux was in the oven because they didn't seem to puff up at all at first, but that was an unfounded worry. We didn't have enough pastry cream to fill all the choux (good thing) so we will definitely try some savory experiments with those left over. We tried one filled with the sauce we had with dinner tonight (dinner was oven-poached char with lemon, dill and white wine, served with boiled potatoes, sugar snap peas, and a sauce made of sour cream, dill and red caviar) and it was really nice with a savory flavor as well. That sauce together with some smoked salmon would be really nice for a savory choux, especially if you flavor the dough with some herbs.

Thanks Cat for a cool challenge, we're really glad we made it - with two hours to spare before deadline!



Croquembouche

For the Vanilla Crème Patissiere (Half Batch)
1 cup (225 ml.) whole milk
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
6 Tbsp. (100 g.) sugar
1 large egg
2 large egg yolks
2 Tbsp. (30 g.) unsalted butter
1 Tsp. Vanilla

Dissolve cornstarch in ¼ cup of milk. Combine the remaining milk with the sugar in a saucepan; bring to boil; remove from heat.Beat the whole egg, then the yolks into the cornstarch mixture. Pour 1/3 of boiling milk into the egg mixture, whisking constantly so that the eggs do not begin to cook.Return the remaining milk to boil. Pour in the hot egg mixture in a stream, continuing whisking.Continue whisking (this is important – you do not want the eggs to solidify/cook) until the cream thickens and comes to a boil. Remove from heat and beat in the butter and vanilla. Pour cream into a stainless steel/ceramic bowl. Press plastic wrap firmly against the surface. Chill immediately and until ready to use.

Pate a Choux (Yield: About 28)
¾ cup (175 ml.) water
6 Tbsp. (85 g.) unsalted butter
¼ Tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 cup (125 g.) all-purpose flour
4 large eggs

For Egg Wash: 1 egg and pinch of salt

Pre-heat oven to 425◦F/220◦C degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Preparing batter:
Combine water, butter, salt and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and stir occasionally. At boil, remove from heat and sift in the flour, stirring to combine completely.Return to heat and cook, stirring constantly until the batter dries slightly and begins to pull away from the sides of the pan. Transfer to a bowl and stir with a wooden spoon 1 minute to cool slightly. Add 1 egg. The batter will appear loose and shiny. As you stir, the batter will become dry-looking like lightly buttered mashed potatoes. It is at this point that you will add in the next egg. Repeat until you have incorporated all the eggs.

Piping:
Transfer batter to a pastry bag fitted with a large open tip (I piped directly from the bag opening without a tip). Pipe choux about 1 inch-part in the baking sheets. Choux should be about 1 inch high about 1 inch wide. Using a clean finger dipped in hot water, gently press down on any tips that have formed on the top of choux when piping. You want them to retain their ball shape, but be smoothly curved on top. Brush tops with egg wash (1 egg lightly beaten with pinch of salt).

Baking:
Bake the choux at 425◦F/220◦C degrees until well-puffed and turning lightly golden in color, about 10 minutes. Lower the temperature to 350◦F/180◦C degrees and continue baking until well-colored and dry, about 20 minutes more. Remove to a rack and cool.

Filling:
When you are ready to assemble your piece montée, using a plain pastry tip, pierce the bottom of each choux. Fill the choux with pastry cream using either the same tip or a star tip, and place on a paper-lined sheet. Choux can be refrigerated briefly at this point while you make your glaze.

Chocolate Glaze:
8 ounces/200 g. finely chopped chocolate (use the finest quality you can afford as the taste will be quite pronounced; I recommend semi-sweet). Melt chocolate in microwave or double boiler. Stir at regular intervals to avoid burning. Use the best quality chocolate you can afford. Use immediately.

Assembly of your Piece Montée:
You may want to lay out your unfilled, unglazed choux in a practice design to get a feel for how to assemble the final dessert. For example, if making a conical shape, trace a circle (no bigger than 8 inches) on a piece of parchment to use as a pattern. Then take some of the larger choux and assemble them in the circle for the bottom layer. Practice seeing which pieces fit together best.

Once you are ready to assemble your piece montée, dip the top of each choux in your glaze (careful it may be still hot!), and start assembling on your cake board/plate/sheet. Continue dipping and adding choux in levels using the glaze to hold them together as you build up. When you have finished the design of your piece montée, you may drizzle with remaining glaze or use ribbons, sugar cookie cut-outs, almonds, flowers, etc. to decorate. Have fun and enjoy! Bon appétit!

(In the spirit of) Daring Bakers April: Pudding

I constantly rave about how being a Daring Kitchen member lets you try out things you would never have done before. Maybe that is especially true for this month's challenge.

The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

Suet, I learned through this challenge, is a hard, but flaky fat found in the area around the kidneys of a cow or sheep. I've never seen it anywhere here in Sweden, or even heard about it, but I'm sure it would be possible to get some, given you had the time to shop around. We didn't. The challenge said it could be substituted with hard, white vegetable fat or shortening. I'm sure we could have found something suitable, given we had the time to do some research. We didn't. Instead, we went outside the box, and inside the bone.

We made marrow pudding!

We figured this would count as being “in the spirit of the challenge” – it is a British pudding, made with a somewhat unusual animal product. The only thing that doesn't meet the requirements is that it's baked, not steamed.

The recipe comes from our dessert guru Jan Hedh. I've looked at the picture of the English marrow pudding in his book Deserter many times and thought that “hey, that looks good, but I'll never make it”. Well thanks to the Daring Bakers, we have! And it tasted lovely!

Esther, sorry for not making your challenge recipe, but thank you for giving us this opportunity to try something completely new!

Jan Hedh's English marrow pudding
from the book Desserter

8-10 portions (we halved the recipe)

200 g ox marrow
1½ dl cream
200 g eggs (about 4)
80 g sugar
10 g vanilla sugar
2 ml salt
200 g white bread, crust removed
200 g corinths
4 tbsp dark rum
Butter and sugar for the pan
4 tbsp dark rum for flambéeing
Caramel sauce for serving (recipe below)

Day 1:
Soak the marrow in cold water overnight. Change the water a few times.
Mix cream, eggs. sugar, vanilla sugar and salt. Pour the mixture over the bread. Let it stand overnight to swell.
Soak the corinths in the rum overnight.


It's hard to believe that this soaking goo can turn out so delicious! Thankfully, Sweden is a BSE-free zone, otherwise we wouldn't dare to eat this stuff cooked or not.

Day 2:
Set the oven to 175°C.
Drain the marrow and chop it finely. Mix with the bread mixture and the rum-soaked corinths. Use your hands to combine everything well.
Coat an ovenproof dish (about 1½ liters), preferably one with a lid, with the butter and sugar. Place the pudding mix in the dish and cover with wax paper, cut out to fit the dish. Cover with a lid or with aluminum foil.
Bake for one hour.
Remove from the oven and let the pudding rest for 30 minutes.
Remove it from the pan and place on a heat proof dish.
Heat the rum carefully and pour it over the pudding. Set on fire (be careful, of course!), and serve the pudding in flames together with a caramel sauce.


Fresh out of the oven

Caramel sauce
120 g sugar
1 tsp lemon juice
3 dl cream

Boil sugar and lemon juice, stirring constantly until you have a light brown caramel.
Add the cream, a little at the time, and boil until the caramel is dissolved.
The sauce will keep about 5 days in the fridge.


Marrow pudding flaming in the spirit of Captain Morgan ('s dark rum). Flambeing can really bring out a lot of different colors!

Daring Bakers March: Orange Tian

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.

I had only heard of vegetable tians before, so this challenge was yet again a new discovery on the never ending journey around all things sweet. Alain Ducasse's orange tian consists of a pate sablee with orange marmalade, a flavored whipped cream topped with orange segments and a caramel-orange sauce.

We made this dessert over the course of two days, because it is quite involved even if neither of the steps were too tricky. I opted for blood oranges since they are in season now, and I just love their color. We don't have any round cookie cutters, so we once again turned to the animal kingdom to shape our tians. The tian is supposed to be a very elegant dessert, but I guess this way it's more playful than elegant, even if the taste is still very refined.
I present you with the Bunny Tian and the Fishy Tian!

Thank you Jennifer for a lovely challenge - we will make it again! To see the other Daring Bakers' creations, go to the Daring Kitchen. There you will also find the recipe!

Daring Bakers February: Tiramisu

Updated below!

Finally the deer eaters are back among the Daring Bakers after having missed both December's and January's challenges. This one was far too good to miss (and the rules won't let us anyway, not if we want to remain in the fabulous kitchen posse which is the Daring Bakers), because in February we are making one of our favorite desserts: Tiramisu.

The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession.

As I said, Tiramisu is not a stranger to our table. The one we usually make (from the modern Swedish classic cookbook Nya Annas Mat by Anna Bergenström) can be put together in half an hour, plus some chillin' time. But this being the Daring Bakers, there was of course a much more involved recipe, coming from Baltimore pastry chef Carminantonio Iannaccone. This tiramisu certainly isn't one you make in half an hour, and the challenge also required us to make the savoiardi biscuits and mascarpone cheese ourselves!


Savoiardi biscuits with their snowy dusting of confectioner's sugar.

Markus started the day before with making the mascarpone while I was in Stockholm celebrating my mom's birthday by having dinner at Berns Bistro - delicious breast of duck with puy lentils and truffle sauce - and watching the musical Hairspray - both highly recommended if you happen to be in Stockholm! Markus says that making mascarpone was quite easy; the problem was knowing when it was done - what is "a few clear whey streaks"? It's also important to use quadruple cheesecloths for straining- we only have two and Markus thinks some mascarpone got lost in the process. Apart from that - way (whey!) cool that we now can make our own mascarpone! It looked and tasted just right! I love discovering how you can make cheese on your own - we have mastered ricotta earlier, and next up is either mozzarella or paneer.

So, the next day - and here I have to confess that "next day" means today, as in posting day, as in yes, we waited with the challenge until the very last minute again - we made the savoiardi biscuits, the zabaglione and the pastry cream. No major problems with any of these, we had forgotten to buy marsala and were out of both port and amaretto so we had to substitute coffee in the zabaglione, and vanilla extract is virtually unheard of in Sweden so instead we exchanged some of the sugar in the zabaglione and the pastry cream with homemade vanilla sugar.

After the chilling, it was time to assemble. We decided to skip sweetening the espresso, as we (correctly) assumed that the Tiramisu would be sweet enough without that additional sugar. And rum extract in the coffee? We of course went for the real deal - Captain Morgan! Lacking a suitable dish, we made individual Tiramisus in cocktail glasses. Not very traditional, but quite pretty!



We're sorry, but you have to wait until tomorrow to get the answer to the most important question: how did it taste? It's past midnight here (so really I'm posting this late) and we don't really feel like Tiramisu for a midnight snack today. But we promise to update the post tomorrow with the verdict!

In the meanwhile, go visit the Daring Kitchen to see all the other Daring Bakers' creations! Thank you Aparna and Deeba for a really nice challenge!

Update!
Yes, yes it was good. Very good. Very very good. As in, great that we still have some left in the fridge. As in, too bad I'm going away to work in an other city this week and have to leave Markus with that bowl all to himself. (Yeah, we made some in a bowl as well, besides the two pretty cocktail glass ones which were mainly to get good photos.)
I was worried that the coffee flavour would have been too much, with coffee both in the cream and for dipping the savoiardi (and I like coffee) but it wasn't, it was very balanced. I'm sure it would have been even better with marsala though, and will definitely get a bottle for next time.
But. I don't know if the pastry cream, with the extra work that entailed, really added that much to the end result. Texture-wise it made the tiramisu fluffier, which is nice, but I'm not sure that it made much difference to the flavour.
Homemade mascarpone and savoiardi was definitely worth it though, and neither of those were difficult to make, so we'll do that in the future, but, I think, with our old tiramisu recipe. It uses raw eggs in the zabaglione which isn't a problem here in Sweden (yay for strict rules and salmonella testing) but which I know can be iffy elsewhere so I understand why a cooked zabaglione recipe was chosen for the challenge.
In sum, this was a great. We learned something. We were challenged. We got a really delicious result. We will do it again (at least parts of it). What more can you ask for? Thanks again Deeba and Aparna!

TIRAMISU

(Recipe source: Carminantonio's Tiramisu from The Washington Post, July 11 2007 )
This recipe makes 6 servings

Ingredients:
For the zabaglione:
2 large egg yolks
3 tablespoons sugar (50 g)
60 ml Marsala wine (or port or coffee)
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp finely grated lemon zest

For the vanilla pastry cream:
55 g sugar
1 tbsp all purpose flour (8 g)
½ tsp finely grated lemon zest
½ tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg yolk
175 ml whole milk

For the whipped cream:
235 ml chilled heavy cream
55 g sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract

To assemble the tiramisu:
470 ml brewed espresso, warmed
1 tsp rum extract (optional)
110 g sugar
75 g mascarpone cheese
36 savoiardi/ladyfinger biscuits (you may use less)
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder (30 g)

Method:
For the zabaglione:
Heat water in a double boiler. If you don’t have a double boiler, place a pot with about an inch of water in it on the stove. Place a heat-proof bowl in the pot making sure the bottom does not touch the water.
In a large mixing bowl (or stainless steel mixing bowl), mix together the egg yolks, sugar, the Marsala (or espresso/coffee), vanilla extract and lemon zest. Whisk together until the yolks are fully blended and the mixture looks smooth.
Transfer the mixture to the top of a double boiler or place your bowl over the pan/pot with simmering water. Cook the egg mixture over low heat, stirring constantly, for about 8 minutes or until it resembles thick custard. It may bubble a bit as it reaches that consistency.
Let cool to room temperature and transfer the zabaglione to a bowl. Cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight, until thoroughly chilled.

For the pastry cream:
Mix together the sugar, flour, lemon zest and vanilla extract in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan. To this add the egg yolk and half the milk. Whisk until smooth.
Now place the saucepan over low heat and cook, stirring constantly to prevent the mixture from curdling.
Add the remaining milk a little at a time, still stirring constantly. After about 12 minutes the mixture will be thick, free of lumps and beginning to bubble. (If you have a few lumps, don’t worry. You can push the cream through a fine-mesh strainer.)
Transfer the pastry cream to a bowl and cool to room temperature. Cover with plastic film and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight, until thoroughly chilled.

For the whipped cream:
Combine the cream, sugar and vanilla extract in a mixing bowl. Beat with an electric hand mixer or immersion blender until the mixture holds stiff peaks. Set aside.

To assemble the tiramisu:
Have ready a rectangular serving dish (about 8" by 8" should do) or one of your choice.
Mix together the warm espresso, rum extract and sugar in a shallow dish, whisking to mix well. Set aside to cool.
In a large bowl, beat the mascarpone cheese with a spoon to break down the lumps and make it smooth. This will make it easier to fold. Add the prepared and chilled zabaglione and pastry cream, blending until just combined. Gently fold in the whipped cream. Set this cream mixture aside.

Now to start assembling the tiramisu.
Workings quickly, dip 12 of the ladyfingers in the sweetened espresso, about 1 second per side. They should be moist but not soggy. Immediately transfer each ladyfinger to the platter, placing them side by side in a single row. You may break a lady finger into two, if necessary, to ensure the base of your dish is completely covered.
Spoon one-third of the cream mixture on top of the ladyfingers, then use a rubber spatula or spreading knife to cover the top evenly, all the way to the edges.
Repeat to create 2 more layers, using 12 ladyfingers and the cream mixture for each layer. Clean any spilled cream mixture; cover carefully with plastic wrap and refrigerate the tiramisu overnight.
To serve, carefully remove the plastic wrap and sprinkle the tiramisu with cocoa powder using a fine-mesh strainer or decorate as you please. Cut into individual portions and serve.

MASCARPONE CHEESE

(Source: Vera’s Recipe for Homemade Mascarpone Cheese)
This recipe makes 12oz/ 340gm of mascarpone cheese

Ingredients:
500 ml whipping (36 %) pasteurized (not ultra-pasteurized), preferably organic cream (between 25% to 36% cream will do)
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Method:

Bring 1 inch of water to a boil in a wide skillet. Reduce the heat to medium-low so the water is barely simmering. Pour the cream into a medium heat-resistant bowl, then place the bowl into the skillet. Heat the cream, stirring often, to 190 F. If you do not have a thermometer, wait until small bubbles keep trying to push up to the surface.
It will take about 15 minutes of delicate heating. Add the lemon juice and continue heating the mixture, stirring gently, until the cream curdles. Do not expect the same action as you see during ricotta cheese making. All that the whipping cream will do is become thicker, like a well-done crème anglaise. It will cover a back of your wooden spoon thickly. You will see just a few clear whey streaks when you stir. Remove the bowl from the water and let cool for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, line a sieve with four layers of dampened cheesecloth and set it over a bowl. Transfer the mixture into the lined sieve. Do not squeeze the cheese in the cheesecloth or press on its surface (be patient, it will firm up after refrigeration time). Once cooled completely, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate (in the sieve) overnight or up to 24 hours.
Vera’s notes: The first time I made mascarpone I had all doubts if it’d been cooked enough, because of its custard-like texture. Have no fear, it will firm up beautifully in the fridge, and will yet remain lusciously creamy.
Keep refrigerated and use within 3 to 4 days.

LADYFINGERS/ SAVOIARDI BISCUITS
(Source: Recipe from Cordon Bleu At Home)
This recipe makes approximately 24 big ladyfingers or 45 small (2 1/2" to 3" long) ladyfingers.

Ingredients:
3 eggs, separated
75 g granulated sugar
95 g cake flour, sifted (or all purpose flour with 2 tbsp cornstarch)
50 g confectioner's sugar

Method:

Preheat your oven to 175°C, then lightly brush 2 baking sheets with oil or softened butter and line with parchment paper.
Beat the egg whites using a hand held electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Gradually add granulate sugar and continue beating until the egg whites become stiff again, glossy and smooth.
In a small bowl, beat the egg yolks lightly with a fork and fold them into the meringue, using a wooden spoon. Sift the flour over this mixture and fold gently until just mixed. It is important to fold very gently and not overdo the folding. Otherwise the batter would deflate and lose volume resulting in ladyfingers which are flat and not spongy.
Fit a pastry bag with a plain tip (or just snip the end off; you could also use a Ziploc bag) and fill with the batter. Pipe the batter into 5" long and 3/4" wide strips leaving about 1" space in between the strips.
Sprinkle half the confectioner's sugar over the ladyfingers and wait for 5 minutes. The sugar will pearl or look wet and glisten. Now sprinkle the remaining sugar. This helps to give the ladyfingers their characteristic crispness.
Hold the parchment paper in place with your thumb and lift one side of the baking sheet and gently tap it on the work surface to remove excess sprinkled sugar.
Bake the ladyfingers for 10 minutes, then rotate the sheets and bake for another 5 minutes or so until the puff up, turn lightly golden brown and are still soft.
Allow them to cool slightly on the sheets for about 5 minutes and then remove the ladyfingers from the baking sheet with a metal spatula while still hot, and cool on a rack.
Store them in an airtight container till required. They should keep for 2 to 3 weeks.

The Daring Bakers are not baking in November

...but don't worry, this just means that we deep-fried stuff instead!

The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.

My only contact with cannoli before this month's Daring Bakers challenge has been through the (often unfunny) sitcom "Everybody loves Raymond", where cannoli seems to be a favorite of the dad's. I had no idea how it was made and what was in it. Here's what our host Lisa Michele told us about this dessert:

Cannoli are known as Italian-American pastries, although the origin of cannoli dates back to Sicily, specifically Palermo, where it was prepared during Carnevale season, and according to lore, as a symbol of fertility. The cannoli is a fried, tube-shaped pastry shell (usually containing wine) filled with a creamy amalgamation of sweetened ricotta cheese, chocolate, candied fruit or zest, and sometimes nuts.

The challenge had a lot of leeway: no need to make tube-shaped cannoli, no need for deep-frying, no need for sweetened ricotta filling. At first I had planned to make one batch of traditional cannoli, just to see how it tastes, but as the reveal date crept closer, it became clear that there wasn't enough time for finding cannoli tube substitutes and making ricotta. So we just went completely untraditional and made a sort of Italian-British fusion version: Banoffee Cannolipoleons!

The inspiration is of course the classical Banoffee pie. We made flat, deep fried disks from the cannoli dough (ok, not only disks, we also went a bit crazy and started playing with our animal shaped cookie cutters to make bunnies and elephants!), which were then stacked with the traditional banoffee pie ingredients: bananas, dulce de leche (boiled condensed milk), and whipped cream.

This was extremely rich but very yummy! The flavor of the cannoli reminded us of traditional ice-cream cones/wafers, but it was a bit more crunchy. We have a lot of leftover cannoli, so in the near future we'll probably experiment with different fillings, including traditional cannoli filling but in the cannolipoleon form.

This was a fun and quite easy challenge, although it took some trial runs before the deep-frying yielded perfect results. We chronicle some of our cannoli-making experiences in the recipe below. The full, original recipe can be found at the Daring Kitchen recipe archive. Thank you Lisa Michele for a fun challenge!

Banoffee Cannolipoleons

This recipe yielded us 25 round, flat cannoli (diameter 5 cm), 7 bunnies and 3 elephants!

For the shells:
125 g all-purpose flour
14 g sugar
2,5 g unsweetened baking cocoa powder
0,6 g (1/4 tsp) ground cinnamon
1.5 g salt
21 g vegetable or olive oil
2,5 g white wine vinegar
Approx. 30 grams sweet Marsala or any white or red wine you have on hand*

You can do the dough in a stand mixer/food processor or by hand, we made it by hand.
Combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, cinnamon, and salt. Stir in the oil, vinegar, and enough of the wine to make a soft dough. We had to add a bit more juice (wine) in order to get a soft, uniform dough. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and well blended, about 2 minutes. Shape the dough into a ball. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest in the fridge, from 2 hours to overnight.

*We didn't have any suitable wine at home (we were not cranking open a bottle of Amarone for this), so we followed the suggestions on this page. Instead of grape juice, we used lingonberry juice (keeping it local), and substituted the brandy with cheap whiskey. If you don't want to use alcohol at all, Lisa Michelle suggests cranberry, pomegranate or apple juice. If using only juice, you might need to add a bit more vinegar to make the dough acidic enough to relax the gluten strands.

After letting the dough rest, use either a rolling pin or a pasta machine to make the dough paper thin. We used our pasta machine and it worked really well - see this picture:


Paper thin dough coming out of the pasta machine.

The dough is stubborn at first, but keep working it and it will give in. Use cookie cutters or a knife to cut the dough into the desired shapes. Dock the cannolis lightly, this will keep them from ballooning up in the hot oil.

Heat vegetable oil in a heavy sauce pan (or use your deep fryer if you have one). We used about 4 deciliters of oil. Heat the oil to 175-190°C. Other Daring Bakers' experiences says that it's better to use hotter oil. Deep fry the cannoli, about two at the time. They should be golden brown and blistered. Place the deep-fried cannoli on paper to get rid of excess oil. Let them cool.
To get the cannoli to hold their shape while deep-frying, Markus gave this kind of macabre tip: "Hold them down beneath the surface of the hot oil using the skimmer until there's no more bubbles. It's kind of like drowning someone". So, here's our cannoli bunnies drowned in hot oil:


Maybe an idea for suicidal bunnies?



When you have fried all your cannoli and it has cooled, it's time to make the banoffee cannolipoleons. For this you need:

1 can condensed milk
Bananas, sliced
Whipped cream

Place the can of condensed milk unopened in a pot of water. Bring to a boil, and let it boil for 2-3 hours, refilling the pot with water when necessary. The water should always cover the can. When it has boiled, the condensed milk will have turned in to creamy, caramel-tasting dulce de leche. Let the can cool completely before opening. Since boiling and cooling takes a while, you might want to do this the day before.

Stack banana slices, cannoli disks, dulce de leche and whipped cream to make cannolipoleons. By the way, this was how the above-pictured cannolipoleon looked when we had dug our spoons into it... Yummy!

Daring Bakers October: A tale of two macaron recipes

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

We have made macarons quite a few times before, but were nevertheless excited when learning about this month's Daring Bakers' challenge. I mean, a) macarons are delicious; b) the possibilities for creativity are endless; and c) it's always fun to try out a new recipe.

The first time we made macarons, we used a recipe from Tartelette. The result wasn't bad for first-timers, but they weren't perfect. The next time, we tried the recipe from our guru for all things sweet, Jan Hedh in his book Passion för Desserter (Passion for Desserts). That's the recipe we have used since, and it has yielded some really good results, and we have even been a bit daring with it.

But what's a good macaron like? Before starting to make them ourselves, we had never had a macaron, so in reality we didn't really know how they're supposed to be in order to be perfect. But a few weeks ago, we got the answer, and it was given to us by no other than the famed Pierre Hermé. Markus went to Paris for a work conference, and "skipped class" to go to Hermé's store and pick up a box of assorted macarons. Unfortunately they got a bit compromised by traveling, so they didn't look perfect, but the taste... oh dear god, how delicious! There was 12 different flavors (two of each!), all delicious. Markus liked the champagne one best, I fell in love with the olive oil and vanilla (sounds weird, but the flavor was so delicate), and we both let out a big sigh of pleasure when biting into the fleur de sel caramel. We didn't take any pictures, but if you want to see what Pierre Hermé's macarons are like you can take a look at this post on Nook & Pantry. We had quite a few of the flavors described there.

So now we know what a perfect macaron is like. Would Claudia Fleming's recipe lead us to that holy grail of pastry making?

It's sometimes hard to stop yourself when coming up with macaron flavors but we limited ourselves to two, probably quite original, flavors: Gingerbread & Blue Cheese macarons and Tiramisu macarons.

By coincidence, we started with the gingerbread macarons. We could tell that there was trouble afoot when we were making them - the proportions seemed kind of odd, and the macaronage (the batter) did not behave the expected way when Markus piped it. Also, the temperatures and baking times seemed a bit strange. In the private forum of the Daring Bakers, I found that Clumbsy Cookie shared my apprehensions about temperatures and timings. As Clumbsy is a lady who knows her way around the sweet stuff, I followed her adjustment of times and temp's, and baked for 6-7 minutes at 170°C and then for three more minutes at 150°C.

Aaaaaand... fail!



These aren't macarons, people. They were, however, very tasty - kind of a chewy meringue cookie. Actually, they were so tasty that I forgot to take a picture of them with the filling before eating them all!

We still had the batch of tiramisu macarons to make, and we agreed that we didn't want to waste more ingredients and time on a recipe that could fail us again. You see, we make our own almond flour for macarons, a time-consuming process which involves:

1. blanching almonds
2. peeling them
3. drying the peeled almonds in the oven for about 1 hour at low temperature (100°C)
4. letting them cool
5. grinding them in our very efficient but kind of small almond mill
6. sifting the almond meal to make sure it's very fine
   

Our awesome almond mill. Thanks grandma!

Yes, I realize the truly daring thing would have been to give Claudia Fleming's recipe another go, but instead we decided to use Jan Hedh's recipe for the second kind of macarons, and figure out what the differences between them are.

So, here's the macarons we made using Jan Hedh's recipe. They're not perfect (we think the most perfect macarons we've made are the lavender ones which can be found in this post), but they're like a 1000 percent better than the above pictured fiasco!



So, what's the differences between the two recipes?

1. Proportions of ingredients: See the interactive recipe scaler below. In short, the largest difference is the amount of sugar, where Jan Hedh's recipe calls for much more per egg.
   
2. Drying before baking: Hedh's recipe calls for drying the piped out shells at room temperature for 15-30 minutes before baking them.
3. Baking time and temperature: The official recipe called for 93°C for 5 minutes, followed by 190°C for 7–8 minutes while Jan Hedh called for 7–8 minutes in 170°C.
   

To make the ingredient comparison more clear, Markus made an interactive ingredient scaling Javascripty thingy (fingers crossed, and hope it's working).

The official recipe

5		Egg Whites
225	g	Confectioner's Sugar
190	g	Almond Flour
25	g	Sugar

Jan Hedh's recipe

100	g	Egg White
200	g	Confectioner's Sugar
100	g	Almond Flour
30	g	Sugar
5	g	Lemon Juice

Now, let's talk about flavors!

Gingerbread & Blue Cheese macarons
Gingerbread and blue cheese may sound like a weird combination, but a slice of blue cheese on top of a Swedish gingerbread cookie (pepparkaka) is a very popular treat in Sweden during advent and Christmas, often served with a glass of hot glögg. We flavored the shells with four teaspoons gingerbread spice mix (ginger, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom), which gave a perfect gingerbread taste to the shells, and made a blue cheese cream for filling. These were really tasty, and we'll definitely make them again for the holiday season - actually they were so good that we made a second batch, using the Jan Hedh recipe. After all, we still had some filling left.



Blue cheese filling
140 g firm blue cheese (we use Swedish Kvibille Ädel, similar to Danish blue cheese)
75 g whipped cream

Mix the cheese and the whipped cream. The way to get a uniform, smooth cheese cream is to cut the cheese into smaller pieces and chuck them in the freezer the day before. Then you give the frozen cheese a good whirl in a food processor until you have very fine cheese crumbles. Mix them with the whipped cream. Smear between two gingerbread macaron shells.

Tiramisu macarons
Tiramisu is one of our favorite desserts: savoiardi (ladyfinger) biscuits dipped in coffee and layered with an Amaretto flavored mascarpone zabayone. We made coffee flavored macaron shells, and used the mascarpone zabayone for filling. We were out of Amaretto, but since macarons already are almond flavored, it didn't really matter. However, we added a bit too much coffee powder to the macaron shells - we used 1½ teaspoon, but really one teaspoon would have been enough. Apart from that, these were good. We had planned to dust the shells with some cacao powder before baking them (tiramisu is decorated with a dusting of cacao), but we forgot. Instead, we dusted some cacao over the filling before sandwiching the cookies together.



Mascarpone zabayone
1 egg, divided
2½ tbsp sugar
100 g mascarpone cheese

Whip the egg white to stiff peaks. Whip the sugar and egg yolk until the mixture is light and airy. Stir in the mascarpone. Fold in the egg whites carefully. Place in the fridge so that the mixture sets before filling the macaron shells. If you like, you can dust a little bit of cacao powder over the filling.

Thank you Ami for this challenge! Even though we didn't succeed with the Claudia Fleming recipe, we had fun making this. Make sure to visit the Daring Kitchen for recipes, pictures and lots of other good stuff, and pay a visit to other Daring Bakers through the blogroll!

Daring Bakers August: Twice the Dobos, twice the fun

This has been the most challenging Daring Bakers mission for me so far. Today was a weird day, and not in a good way. I got some pretty bad news, so I was not in a good place to begin with. And I knew I had to make the challenge by myself, because as has been our MO lately, we put off making it to the very last day. Knowing how long it would take to do the challenge, I couldn't wait until Markus got home from work. Thus, I was on my own.

Anticipating a lot of stupid mistakes, eggs and sugar splashing all over the kitchen, and stuff burning to oblivion in the oven, I went baking. But rather than in the company of Murphy, I found myself in a very focused and relaxed place. Things went smoothly, stuff worked the way it was supposed it, there was flow.

Oh, I guess I am supposed to tell you what I was making, huh?

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

I had never heard of a Dobos Torta before, but Angela and Lorraine provided us with a bit of neat background history:

The Dobos Torta is a five-layer sponge cake, filled with a rich chocolate buttercream and topped with thin wedges of caramel. (You may come across recipes which have anywhere between six and 12 layers of cake; there are numerous family variations!) It was invented in 1885 by József C. Dobos, a Hungarian baker, and it rapidly became famous throughout Europe for both its extraordinary taste and its keeping properties. The recipe was a secret until Dobos retired in 1906 and gave the recipe to the Budapest Confectioners' and Gingerbread Makers' Chamber of Industry, providing that every member of the chamber can use it freely.

So, today I was going with the flow of the Dobos. There was no way I was going to make a big buttercream-filled cake just for the two of us, so I decided on miniature cake. And since I was doing this last minute, by myself, and with bad news whirling around my brain, I of course opted for two different kinds of miniature cakes. Can't just make one vesion of this kind of tricky, time-consuming cake you've never heard of before, now can you? Nope, obviously not. So, I made one regular chocolate Dobos, and one white chocolate and rasperry.

I halved the recipe, and got started on the sponge cake. I decided to spread the batter out and, using a glass, cut out little disks for cake layers after it was baked. It worked like a charm, and I got 17 disks - meaning 9 layers for one cake, and 8 for the other.





Then came the buttercream, which also went smoothly (as long as you didn't think about OMG, all that butter!!!). However, the white chocolate one was a lot runnier than the normal one. Maybe that has something to do with the properties of white chocolate (which isn't really chocolate)? I had not planned to mix the raspberries in with the buttercream (the idea was some kind of layering within the cake), but let's just say there was a glitch in the flow.





The finishing touch of a Dobos is the caramel decoration. To see how it should look, you can visit our lovely hosts Angela and Lorraine because they know their stuff. Me, I felt that caramel would be poking the flow to hard, risking its disappearance, so I skipped that, sorry to say. But I did stay within the spirit of the challenge, because I made raspberry caramel (toffee?) to decorate the white chocolate-raspberry Dobos with. I used another recipe which I was more comfortable with (and by this time Markus was home so I got help), and it turned out very yummy. Maybe not too practical to eat together with the cake, because it sticks to your teeth like crazy, but it looks nice. For the chocolate Dobos, we just decorated with some chopped up almonds. To add an extra layer of flavor, we also brushed the chocolate Dobos cake layers with Grand Marnier (triple orange) liqueur.



So, how did it taste? Well, very very rich, but also very delicious! At two o'clock this afternoon, I never thought I would have made two finished miniature Dobos Tortas by the end of the evening. This challenge turned what could have been a lousy and stressful day into something enjoyable and relaxing. Thank you Angela and Lorraine! To see the recipes as well as the other Daring Bakers' creations, visit the Daring Kitchen recipe archive and blogroll!



Raspberry caramel/toffee
(adapted from Godis by Maria Öhrn)

(about 30 pieces)

1 dl pureed raspberries, fresh or frozen and thawed
1 tbsp lemon juice
1½ dl cream
2½ dl sugar
1 tbsp light molasses

Line a small tin, no larger than 20*20 cm, with parchment paper. Run the berries through a fine mesh sieve - we skipped that part which meant caramel and raspberry seeds in the teeth. Mix with the lemon juice, and put together with the other ingredients in a pot. Let it boil slowly, stirring frequently, until it reaches the hard-ball stage (120°C). Pour into the pan and let it cool. Cut into squares. Store in a cool, dry place.

Daring cookie monsters!

This month's Daring Bakers challenge was done in the very last minute - on the day of the reveal (i.e. today). Fortunately, the challenge this month wasn't too time-consuming:

The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

Yum! Both these cookies are versions of store-bought cookies, Mallows and Peppridge Farm's Milano Cookies. I've never had Mallows, but we both like Milanos. The challenge said that we could do both cookies, or chose just one recipe. Due to lack of time time we had to limit ourselves to one of the recipes, and chose the easiest one, the Milans. I was really looking forward to making my own marshallows, but alas, that has to wait for another time.

The Milan cookies were easy to make (and the batter was delicious!). We halved the recipe and omitted the vanilla extract as that is hard to find in Sweden (we get vanilla sugar and whole vanilla pods/beans, but normal grocery stores don't sell extract). We also didn't find any lemon extract, only "lemon aroma" which is oil-based, so we reduced the amount to one teaspoon.

The Milans turned out great - they are light and delicate, and taste very close to the original. Thanks Nicole for a tasty challenge!

Here's the recipe for the Milan cookies - for the recipe for chocolate covered marshmallow cookies, go to the Daring Kitchen recipe archive or to the Food Network.

Milan Cookies
Recipe courtesy Gale Gand, from Food Network website

Prep Time: 20 min
Inactive Prep Time: 0 min
Cook Time: 1 hr 0 min
Serves: about 3 dozen cookies

• 12 tablespoons (170grams/ 6 oz) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 1/2 cups (312.5 grams/ 11.02 oz) powdered sugar
• 7/8 cup egg whites (from about 6 eggs)
• 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons lemon extract
• 1 1/2 cups (187.5grams/ 6.61 oz) all purpose flour
• Cookie filling, recipe follows

Cookie filling:
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 orange, zested

1. In a mixer with paddle attachment cream the butter and the sugar.
2. Add the egg whites gradually and then mix in the vanilla and lemon extracts.
3. Add the flour and mix until just well mixed.
4. With a small (1/4-inch) plain tip, pipe 1-inch sections of batter onto a parchment-lined sheet pan, spacing them 2 inches apart as they spread.
5. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 10 minutes or until light golden brown around the edges. Let cool on the pan.
6. While waiting for the cookies to cool, in a small saucepan over medium flame, scald cream.
7. Pour hot cream over chocolate in a bowl, whisk to melt chocolate, add zest and blend well.
8. Set aside to cool (the mixture will thicken as it cools).
9. Spread a thin amount of the filling onto the flat side of a cookie while the filling is still soft and press the flat side of a second cookie on top.
10. Repeat with the remainder of the cookies.

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Previously completed challenges:
February 2009: Chocolate Valentino
March 2009: Lasagne of Emiglia-Romana
April 2009: Cheesecake
May 2009: Strudel
June 2009: Bakewell Tart...er...pudding

The Daring Bakers bake a Bakewell well

Once again the challenge for the Daring Bakers turned out to be something we never would have encountered otherwise:

The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England.

A Bakewell what? Luckily, Jasmine and Annemarie provided us Daring Bakers with an ample background history in their challenge presentation post:

This tart, like many of the world's great foods has its own mythic beginnings…or several mythic beginnings. Legend has it in 1820 (or was it in the 1860s?) Mrs. Greaves, landlady of The White Horse Inn in Bakewell, Derbyshire (England), asked her cook to produce a pudding for her guests. Either her instructions could have been clearer or he should have paid better attention to what she said because what he made was not what she asked for. The cook spread the jam on top of the frangipane mixture rather than the other way around. Or maybe instead of a sweet rich shortcrust pastry case to hold the jam for a strawberry tart, he made a regular pastry and mixed the eggs and sugar separately and poured that over the jam—it depends upon which legend you follow.

Regardless of what the venerable Mrs. Greaves’ cook did or didn’t do, lore has it that her guests loved it and an ensuing pastry-clad industry was born. The town of Bakewell has since played host to many a sweet tooth in hopes of tasting the tart in its natural setting.

Bakewell tarts are a classic English dessert, abounding in supermarket baking sections and in ready-made, mass-produced forms, some sporting a thick sugary icing and glazed cherry on top for decorative effect.

There are different versions of the Bakewell Tart, er, or pudding. Yes, there's apparently also some confusion as to whether it's a tart or a pudding. Since there is a British habit of calling any desert "pudding", let's just say that this pudding is a tart.

The version of the Bakewell tart we were asked to make had three elements.
1. Sweet shortcrust pastry
2. Jam or curd (what flavour was up to the Daring Bakers to decided themselves)
3. Frangipane

For the recipes, visit the blogs of our lovely hosts, or go to the Daring Kitchen recipe archive.


A Bakewell tartelette, decorated with pastry dough.

Here are a few notes on our experience of making the Bakewell tart:
- The hardest part of the process was probably to transfer the rolled out dough for the crust from the working area to the pie tin. It wanted to break up in way too many pieces, but by carefully rolling it up Markus managed to make it without any serious breakage.
- We ground the almonds for the frangipane ourselves, using our wonderful almond grinder/mill, that I have inherited from my grandmother. It makes great almond meal. We didn't remember/care to blanch and peel the almonds before grinding them, so our frangipane had some dark speckles of almond skins in it. We didn't think it mattered.
-After reading the experiences of some fellow Daring Bakers on the private forums, we decided to blind bake the unfilled shortcrust before chilling and filling it. Some Daring Bakers reported problems with an underbaked crust, but this seemed to solve that problem.
- The options for the jam filling are of course endless. We went with the bounty of the season and used rhubarb from my dad's garden. Recipe for the rhubarb jam below.

We decided to bring the Bakewell tart as a desert to our Midsummer's celebration, held the following day. Since we wanted to make sure it tasted good before serving it to our friends, we also made small sample tartelette that we ate while it was still a bit warm from the oven. It was absolutely lovely - the crust had perfect texture, the frangipane was fluffy and luxurious, and the tangy rhubarb jam went wonderfully with the almond flavour of the frangipane. Our friends really enjoyed it too, and almost the whole thing disappeared. You see, that's very Swedish, leaving the last piece of something. Nobody wants to be the one eating the last piece of cake. Well, I'll usually eat it, but I was just too full after a whole day of gorgeous food.


A slice of Bakewell tart. You can't really see the jam, but you could definitely taste it... Yum!

Unfortunately we didn't get any good pictures of the big Midsummer Bakewell tart. We couldn't really tell our friends to hold their spoons while we ran around looking for good lighting and angles. I just got a quick, and bad, shot of my slice before devouring it.

Thank you Jasmine and Annemarie for a really fun challenge - we are definitely adding this to our regular baking repertoire. I can't wait to try this with plum jam later this summer...!



Rhubarb jam

400 g rhubarb, cut in small pieces (peel the stalks if necessary)
200 g jam sugar (sugar with added pectin)

Put the rhubarb and sugar in a pot. Let it bubble on medium heat, stirring often, until it turns into jam.

This makes enough to fill one big Bakewell tart (our pie tin has a diameter of about 25 cm). You will also get some leftovers - pour it into a jar and keep in the fridge. It is lovely on freshly baked scones...

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Previously completed challenges:
February 2009: Chocolate Valentino
March 2009: Lasagne of Emiglia-Romana
April 2009: Cheesecake
May 2009: Strudel