Daring Bakers: Chocolate Pavlovas

Hi everyone!  Time for another DB Challenge Reveal!  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.

So what is a pavlova?  It's a meringue based dessert that was named Anna Pavlova, a famous Russian ballerina.  It has a crispy crust with a soft interior that is akin to marshmallow.  Australia and New Zealand have been arguing for years over who created the dessert first, but most of the research points to NZ.  Either way, whoever is responsible created one heck of a yummy and elegant dessert!  The version here is chocolate flavored with a chocolate mascarpone mousse on top.  There are technically four components: the pavlova, the mascarpone mousse, the mascarpone to make the mousse, and a creme anglaise (which is a type of vanilla pastry cream).  This is my version:

You know you want some!

Daring Bakers: 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.

May is a very special month for me–not only do I celebrate my birthday every May, but my dad's, my father-in-law's, my husband's grandmother's, as well as several cousins and friends.  What can I say?  September was apparently a busy month!  It is also the month in which I celebrate my wedding anniversary and this month's challenge is especially close to my heart because it was this very same cake that inspired my own wedding cake.  My husband and I both share a love for medieval history and while our wedding appeared very traditional at first glance, everything was influenced and inspired by medieval culture and history.  In fact, here's a little historical tidbit for you: the wedding cake as we know it comes from a medieval tradition in which wedding guests would bring small cakes and stack them up upon arrival.  The bride and groom were then required to kiss over the top of said cakes and it was a good sign if none of the cakes were knocked over.  Eventually, it morphed into the cake we know and love today.  The croquembouche is about as close as you can get to that tradition and they are very common as wedding cakes in France.  Our version were mini cheesecakes for the groom and Italian cream cake for the bride - our favorite flavors!

But I digress.  This blog entry is about the croquembouche, or piece montee as Cat calls it.  In a nutshell, it's a bunch of little cream puffs all stacked up on each other to form a tall mountain of creamy puffy goodness.  Yum!  You start by making a pate a choux (pronounced 'pot ah shoe')which are the puffs.  You then make a cream filling and fill the puffs.  Finally, you use a glaze to glue them all together and voila!  Croquembouche.

Daring Bakers: English Pudding

It's time for another Daring Baker's reveal!

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 goals of the challenge were to 1) make a suet pudding using real suet or as close a replacement as one can manage or is acceptable; and 2) to cook it by steaming or an even more traditional method by boiling tied up in a cloth.  I've been on a quest to lose the remainder of my baby weight, so I opted not to use suet.  In addition, it's actually a bit harder to find here in the US as opposed to places like the UK or Australia.  For those not familiar with suet, it's the back fat of an animal, typically a pig or cow. You can usually substitute lard, shortening, or butter for the suet in most pudding recipes.  Also, pudding in this instance refers not to the yogurty textured stuff made with milk and sugar and flavorings, but a dense moist cake, or a filled pastry.

The closet thing in the States to a traditional savory pudding is a casserole or pot pie, but I prefer the sweeter side of life.  I chose to make the classic Spotted Dick for two reasons: 1) it sounded relatively tame ingredient-wise, and 2) it's a funny name that elicits the best faces from people when you talk about it.  Now before you start taking me to task for my language, "dick" is aparently the traditional colloquial phrase for pudding and the spots of Spotted Dick are from the dried fruits that stud the pudding.  You can draw your own conclusions from the shape of the pudding, you dirty birdie!

Daring Bakers: 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.

Ta da!  My tiramisu charlotte

Our challenges for this month were to make:
A. Tiramisu (includes zabaglione and vanilla pastry cream)
B. Mascarpone Cheese
C. Ladyfinger/Savoiardi Biscuits

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it...

I'm so excited!  Last month I took the plunge and joined the Daring Kitchen as one of the Daring Bakers.  It's an online forum for cooks to try new recipes and challenge themselves.  The Daring Kitchen also reviews cookbooks, provides recipes, and is a great place to find neato food blogs.  DK welcomes foodies of all cuisines, all levels, and all sizes, so long as you meet one criteria: you love food!  Each month, they issue a challenge to all of the Daring Chefs and Bakers and today is the first one I get to participate in!  I already know what they have in mind for us this month, but YOU won't get to know until February 27th, which is the day that we all show off our reveals on our blogs!

Stay tuned later in the month to see what I whipped up!

Happy Baking,
Kelly