The Daring Baker's Challenge: Petits Fours

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 Petits Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”.

This time we were challenged to make Ice Cream Petits Fours. As usually when it comes to the Daring Kitchen, it's something I've never made before. I was quite surprised how fast it had been except for the chocolate glaze. Because I have a very tiny freezer I couldn't make an ice cream so I filled them with fruity ricotta cream. It was divine! I loved this challenge :)

The Daring Bakers' Challenge: Chocolate Pavlova with White Chocolate Strawberry Mascarpone Mousse and Mascarpone Cream

Chocolate Pavlova with White Chocolate Strawberry Mascarpone Mousse and Mascarpone Cream

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.

Another month, another challenge. I was very pleased with this one. We were challenged to make chocolate pavlovas! It was my premiere. I've never made pavlovas before. Everything was quite o.k. except the pavlova "meringue". I followed the recipe step by step, but it kept falling - it wasn't fluffy at all. So I tried another batch with less cocoa powder. The meringue was "tougher", but still quite runny. I didn't have the strength to make yet another batch, because I was afraid of it would not be o.k. again. Plus what would I do with so huge lot of meringue?
So I tried to shape the second batch into hearts. Eventually it wasn't that bad, but they were pretty flat. But nevermind, I'd say mine were much more real meringues than pavlovas, because they were nothing but crunchy.
I made the Creme Anglaise the same day as pavlovas. I liked it pretty much, so I had tough times with making myself not eat it all. Fortunately I had overeaten sooner that day, otherwise there wouldn't be any creme anglaise left :)
Then I continued with the mascarpone cream. At first I wanted it to be strawberry flavoured, but I didn't want to "destroy" its creamy flavour so I let it be.
My mascarpone white chocolate mousse was supposed to be pink in color. To make it happen I used pureed strawberries instead of Grand Marnier. Well, it didn't affected the color at all. Now I'm a little sad I didn't add more of them, but still I'm afraid the mousse would be runny with more strawberries. However, when it's decorated with strawberries all these minus points are lost, because of the freshness and sweetness of them :)

Blackberry Pig Candy Muffins

Hi everyone :) Today I have a very special recipe for you. Muffins with pig candy! And with the addition of blackberries it's simply hilarious! Once again I had a huge lot of frozen blackberries in my freezer. I always try to use all these fruit leftovers :D But I really had plenty of them! However, I was very interested in this recipe. I've never ever combined sweet stuff with candied bacon (aka pig candy), so I was really impressed.

The recipe is slightly adapted from jamesstarmer.com.

The Daring Bakers' Challenge: Piece Montée (Croquembouche)

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.

The Original Recipe Source: The recipes I am using for this month’s challenge come from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and were originally created by famed pastry chef, Nick Malgieri.The recipe for caramel cream filling is adapted from Martha Stewart.

And here it comes - my second challenge in The Daring Bakers group! I liked this one much more than the previous, because I liked the food much more and also the preparation, itself, seemed to me to be more "colourful". However, this French "cake" which name means something like "crunch in the mouth" truly is delightful. I decided to make a caramel cream filling, coffee pastry cream and chocolate pastry cream.

Strawberry Whisky Ice Cream

Here's a very easy summer refreshing recipe or when you want something cold. I had made this ice cream, because my she-friend arrived to visit me. I needed something fast but tasty, too. The ice cream is light and extremely tasty. A perfect sweet night treat!

Banana Cocktail

Hello :) This time I have a very easy recipe for a banana cocktail. Once again I had a huge taste for bananas a not too much time. So I did this minute-thing . This cocktail should be drunk very fast when made, because bananas turns quickly kinda black and in this case there's no difference. You can experiment with spices in this cocktail, which pretty cool. Whatever you add, it'll turn out wonderful. You can't go wrong here. While I was drinking, my pet - a rat - wanted to taste the cocktail, too. I gave it a little and I had to put it back to it's cage, because it'd drink up the whole huge glass :)

The Daring Bakers' Challenge: Traditional British Pudding

 
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.

The required elements of this challenge were:
1) to make a suet pudding using real suet or as close a replacement as we can manage or is acceptable to us; and
2) to cook it by steaming or if we want to be even more traditional by boiling tied up in a cloth.

The Original Recipe Sources:
Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course, The pudding club, Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management and the Dairy Book of Home Cooking and Esther's family’s recipe notes!

So I´m here with this British pudding recipe. It's something special, because it's my first daring bakers' challenge! I´m officially a member, wonderful! However, let's get to the pudding. The pudding is made using suet, which is pretty hard to get here in the Czech Republic. To be honest, you cannot get it almost anywhere. Even though I went to try to get some in local butcher's. In fact I visited all of them, which means six shops. In four of them I was told this: "Oooh, that's something we DO NOT have!" I got really funny answers in the remainig two stores. Once again I asked about the suet and for the first time the answer was positive. I thought I won. At least until she asked me what I wanted it for. When I told her about the British pudding, she looked at me and said: "That must be extra fresh, mustn't it?" I nodded in agreement. And then she replied: "We don't have anythig fresh in here!" So that's absolutely perfect. Well, my question was the same in the last remaining store and the reply? Pretty odd: "We don't have anything like that. We don't sell meat!" So now I know there's no meat at butcher's :D Because of this I had to replace the suet with old ordinary lard.
We had some choices - whether to do a savoury pudding or a sweet one. I chose Sussex Pond Pudding. But I tried to go wild (as Esther suggested) and changed some stuff in filling :)

Blueberry Roll

Today's no.1 is this luscious blueberry roll. This roll is filled with blueberries. I've decided to make a roll because my last one was an absolute disaster. It was all fluid and liquid and not at all thickened. So this is the reason. By the way this was just perfect :) Past tense because it's not any more - it's already eaten :D

Cinnamon Blessings

This is a very old and traditional Czech recipe usually made during carnival which takes place every year in March. However, they can be made during whole year because they are pretty good :) The recipe itself is very easy and fast. I made them in the evening because I felt like eating something sweet yet crispy in the same time. Both the preparation and frying only take a few minutes. Thanks to the frying they become nicely crispy.

Judases (Jidase)

 
Easter is coming and in my country almost everybody bakes these traditional buns - Jidase (transalted to English - Judases). They are baked on Maundy Thursday in the Czech Republic - that's where I live. This sweet pastry is supposed to symbolize the ropes the apostle Judas hanged himself on aftter betraying Jesus. That's the explanation for their name. They are eaten for breakfast, brunch or lunch in czech families. Traditionally they're served with honey and/or butter and, of course, they're the best when still hot and warm.
Well, truth to be said, I made them for the first time today, but they turned out to be just great. Next time I'd add more sugar though, and lemon rind, too - its flavour wasn't too strong.

Strawberry Baked Pancakes

 
Hello everybody :) Today I've got fantastic strawberry pancakes for you.I made them for lunch and it's pretty fast when it comes to preparation. I mean it takes about an hour including baking but it's totally worth it! Once again I had a huge amount of frozen strawberries - like I'm gonna have them forever :) The pancakes are great. You could eat them without any other stuff but well, that's not the best. They are soft but with a strong taste at the same time. And plus strawberries - like the seventh heaven in your mouth.

Tiramisu

 Hi again :) This week's recipe is Italian tiramisu. I used store-bought mascarpone cheese as I had decided to do it in the morning so there wouldn't have been enough time to do homemade mascarpone cheese. Tiramisu was absolutely fabulous! I ate it not even 2 hours after finishing the preparation. Plus it was eaten within 2 days, so good it was.
The ladyfingers (savoiardi) biscuits have to be soaked ONLY for 1 - 2 seconds to avoid making it all too soggy. Fast in, fast out. I recommend you to taste the espresso which is used for soaking the savoiardi biscuits to avoid it being too bitter, because then the savoiardi would be too bitter, too and that wouldn't not be good. So add more suger if needed. When it comes to amaretto liqueur it's not typical for tiramisu (marsala wine is the tradition) but it has a very nice almond flavour and I use it because it's pretty difficult to buy here this marsala wine. Anyway, don't be afraid to sprinkle the biscuits a little bit more with it - it has to have its taste :) The sweetness of the mascarpone cream is again up to you - I prefer it being sweeter 'cause the savoiardi themselves aren't too sweet and whole tiramisu is then sprinkled with pretty bitter cocoa powder and if you don't want it to be one big super bitter square make the cream sweeter. Next time I'd add the liqueur also into the cream to make its flavour more liquorish and well, the flavour of the liqueur wasn't too intense in these savoiardi.

Strawberry Streusel Muffins

Hello everyone!
Today I have a recipe of strawberry muffins for you :) The reason for making them was the huge amount of frozen strawberries in my freezer. There was hardly any free space left, so I wanted to use them.
The muffins were really fantastic. I loved that pink dough (see photos). It happened thanks to these frozen strawberries - all the frozen water was red and mixed with the dough  turned out to be nicely pink. Next time I'd add even more strawberries to make the muffins even more strawberry.
Ou, yeah, this time I needn't have gone to the shop - nothing was missing :) It was without any problems.
I had a lot of fun during the preparation of them. Instead of having the amount of dough for a dozen of muffins it turned out to be for 24 muffins. But nevertheless, we ate them within two days. So good they were!