Bread and Jam

Homemade Tiramisu (with no cheating)

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.

I've made tiramisu before, but never completely from scratch. Usually I purchase the mascarpone cheese and ladyfingers, but the challenge required us to make them both in addition to making the pastry cream, whipped cream and zabaglione! Oh, dear.

Gingersnap Macaroons with Pumpkin Filling

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

This was my first run at making macaroons so I wasn't sure how far to go with experimentation. Aside from staying close to the Gramercy Tavern recipe, Ami's only rule was that we use a filling for the cookies. With it being Fall right now, I decided I wanted to do something with pumpkin and ginger. I'm really happy with the flavors and would definitely make these again, although I lost the volume and texture in the egg white step - they came out pretty thin. Next time around I will stick with granulated sugar for that part. A very easy recipe though - see steps below:

Mix together your almond flour, powdered sugar, cinnamon and ginger. You'll notice the almond flour is pretty coarse.

Bakewell Tart with Rose Petal Jam

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 that was inspired by a baking history dating back to the 1800's in England. Bakewell tarts combine a number of dessert elements but still let you show off your area’s seasonal fruits. Like many regional dishes there’s no “one way” to make a Bakewell Tart, but most of today’s versions fall within one of two types. The first is the “pudding” where a layer of jam is covered by an almond pastry cream and baked in puff pastry. The second is the “tart” where a rich shortcrust pastry holds jam and an almond sponge cake-like filling.

The version we were assigned was a combination of the two: a sweet almond-flavored shortcrust pastry, frangipane and jam.

I've shared the basic steps below and you can view the complete recipe here.

So here we go. After making the sweetcrust pastry, fill the tart shell with homemade preserves or, in my case, store bought. I chose rose petal jam because I wanted to see how it went with the almond flavoring. Delicious by the way...

Next, you add your layer of frangipane...

After that, it goes in the oven with some almonds added near the end of baking time. It's that easy!

Homemade Apple Strudel

Apples, raisins, walnuts and flaky, buttery crust.....delicious!

The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.

This was my first attempt at homemade strudel and I learned a lot throughout the process of what to do and what NOT to do next time around. All in all it was a fun experience AND a team effort. My sister-in-law is a German teacher and she has been wanting to make some authentic German food with her students so she came over to make a test run with some of the recipes first. Her apple strudel recipe was very close to the one Linda and Coco selected, with only a few variations. The one thing we discovered was you really do need a pastry cloth in order to roll the pastry out thin enough. I thought my pie mat would do the trick but it wasn't large enough or as flexible as we needed. The recipe even suggests a tablecloth but a large pastry cloth should work well.

Below are some steps for assembly and you can view the full recipe here. The filling is quite easy: some walnuts, apples, raisins, cinnamon, sugar and orange rind.

Rolling the strudel dough out thin enough is definitely a challenge. Again, I recommend a pastry cloth (not a pastry mat as used below.) The cloth will allow you to stretch the dough paper thin and give you leverage for rolling it into the log shape after filling.

Sealing up the ends....

Be sure to brush with butter throughout the baking process so the outside is lightly browned when removed from the oven.

Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna: Daring Bakers March Challenge

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge. I also want to mention Lis of La Mia Cucina and Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice who are the creators of Daring Bakers and do an amazing job keeping everything (and all of us)together!

This was my first attempt at hand-made pasta and I will be honest and tell you that I had help. My parents were in town and they both love to cook so we did the March challenge together. And one hour into it, I was incredibly grateful this was a community effort! From start to finish, it took us about 6 hours. I've learned lately how important it is to read a recipe in it's entirety before attempting it. I used to spot check that I had the right ingredients and kind of dive in, only to find as I went that something needed to be roasted for 4 hours or simmered for a day. This particular recipe needs to be well-calculated because you need ample time for letting the pasta dough set before rolling and also for letting it dry after rolling. The ragu needs to simmer about 2 hours, and the prep time for the meats and vegetable chopping is a small block in inself. The bechamel doesn't take long at all, but it needs to be timed with the assembly of the lasagne.

So after 6 hours in the kitchen, we were quite eager to taste our creation. It turned out to be absolutely delicious, yet very, very rich so we enjoyed a fresh salad and some nice bread along with it. The spinach noodles were a perfect complement to the flavor-steeped ragu which was offset by the creamy bechamel that was flavored with nutmeg (and a perfect complement to the two previous flavors.)

The verdict: The two sauces in this recipe are amazing and even though the ragu is very time-consuming, it's well worth it. The pasta on the other hand, (even though very delicious), will be purchased from the italian bakery up the street next time unless we attempt it a day or so ahead of time and store it. Or just the same, if we had previously prepared the ragu and only needed to prepare the pasta the day of assembly, that would be fine too. It's just too much work, however, to attempt both of them at the same time.

I encourage you to try the sauces, or the spinach pasta when you have a chance. For the complete step-by-step recipes, click here. As I mentioned, the ragu is a bit bit time-consuming but in an enjoyable way. It is a wonderful mixture of veal, pancetta, proscuitto, italian sausage and beef, simmered with red wine, vegetables, tomatoes and stock. The bechamel sauce is no trouble at all and the noodles are something everyone should attempt at least once.

You start with an egg and flour base which seems quite normal...

And then you add an entire 10-oz bag of spinach, chopped. We weren't sure that this would all fit but it actually incorporated quite nicely. The flavor turned out to be delicious.

After some intense kneading, rolling, cutting and drying, the pasta was boiled for 2 minutes before being assembled with the sauces.

The finished product...