Chocolate Pavlovas with Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse (Daring Bakers Challenge, Jun 2010)
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.
I’m a little late posting my challenge this month. I had my Meringue done on time and I was pleased with how easy making meringue can be. The second part of this challenge was to make Mascarpone cheese, I have made that before in past challenges so that was easy for me. And lastly to make the Mousse was really simple and really tasty.
Full Recipe
Piece Montée – Croquembouche (Daring Bakers Challenge May, 2010)
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.
After making Pâte à choux for the first time I feel pretty impressed with myself. Learning how to work with the dough and cook the flour prior to adding the eggs is truly the hard part of making Pâte à choux. If you don’t cook the dough long enough in the sauce pan you will end up with round jelly dounut looking Pâte à choux rather then big puffy clouds that are begging to be filled with tasty delights.
Full RecipeSteak and Kidney Pudding (Daring Bakers Challenge Apr, 2010)
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.
For this challenge I drew inspiration from Esther, Audax and from this video. I went whole hog in and found suet from a butcher shop in Los Gatos, Ca. I had to render the fat down and turn it into a lard type substance, I did not post any of those photos because I don’t think people really want to see that part. If I make this again I will just use vegetable shorting or butter. I am glad I had a chance to cook with suet; however, it is just not healthy, or a practical ingredient for me to use again. I also chose to do a savory pudding instead of a sweet pudding.
Full RecipeOrange Tian (Daring Bakers Challenge Mar, 2010)
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 made a Blood Orange and Pink Navel Tian. I included the recipe for the caramel; however my caramel did not come out. I made two batches and I was not satisfied with it’s flavor or texture so I omitted it from this dessert. In the end the winner was the homemade blood orange pink navel marmalade. I am already planning other savory uses for this tasty treat. Overall this was a good challenge. However, I was disappointed in my caramel.
Full RecipeTiramisu (Daring Bakers Challenge Feb, 2010)
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.
So, for the February Darling Bakers’ challenge was to make Tiramisu. Let me clear this up from the start, I just did not make Tiramisu, I made everything from scratch. The challenge was to make Mascarpone cheese, Salvoiardi biscuits (ladyfingers), and Zabagline. At first the part that scared me the most about this challenge was making the cheese. I had never made cheese before, and the unknown is scary I suppose. So this blog post is going to take you though my journey. My ups and downs of my first Tiramisu. First I will explain the Mascarpone, then biscuits, then Zabaglione and finally how to assemble the darn thing. Please keep in mind that this is a three to four day process. I would recommend making the cheese and the biscuits on the first day. The next day make the pastry cream and the Zabaglione. Assemble it the following day, and eat on the fourth day.
Full RecipeKeep in Touch!
