Daring Bakers: Macarons

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.

Wow – what a deceptively difficult challenge! For a short & sweet recipe, with a mere 4 ingredients, it sure was a doozy. The discussion board was ablaze with chatter about the finer points of baking macarons. Should the egg whites be aged? Double up on baking trays? How best to dry the macarons? And most importantly – just HOW does one achieve the elusive feet?

I guess I should back up. I’ve never eaten a macaron, but I have certainly seen my fair share of them in pastry shops and on other folks’ food blogs. I always assumed I wouldn’t like them because I had the impression they tasted like meringue, which isn’t my cup of tea. But due to their growing popularity, I’d all but decided to give them a try when, bam, this challenge arrived. I knew these little buggers were reputed to be tricky, so I readied myself for a fight. Though I love the really complex Daring Bakers challenges, I also find some of the most valuable ones to be those that require us to hone in on and perfect a particular technique.

The main challenge here was getting the consistency of the macarons just right. They should have crisp outer shells but remain chewy on the inside. Most importantly, they should develop feet – a distinctive puff around the bottom of the shell. I baked 3 trays of macarons and only got about 1/10 of them to turn out as they should. For some reason there were two rows (on two different trays) that developed feet and a shiny, crack-free shell. The rest of them… not so much. Since they were all from the same batch of batter, my theory is as follows: the ones closest to the heat source did the best. Perhaps my oven temperature needs adjusting. Or maybe I shouldn’t have chosen chocolate macarons for my first go-round. If they’d been a lighter color I probably could have gauged doneness better. Also, they seemed to benefit from sitting out on the counter a bit after they’d been piped. I couldn’t fit all three trays in the oven at once, so I baked one, then the other two. The second two trays were the ones that had the” good” macarons. Interesting…

Luckily, the failures are just as delicious as the successes. We shared some with friends last night and have been munching away on them since then. I couldn’t resist making them a little Halloween-themed. I sifted 2 tbsp. cocoa powder in with the almond flour and confectioner’s sugar. A little orange food coloring in the vanilla icing and tada! Halloween macarons.

Daring Bakers: Vols-au-Vent

It’s that time again! The September 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan. There were many, many creative and interesting twists on this recipe out there in Daring Bakersville this month. Check out the blogroll to see some of what was made.

This was such a fun challenge. From what I’ve read in the Daring Bakers forums, many people were as surprised as I was to find out that puff pastry is actually quite easy and not that time-consuming. The process really only takes 10 minutes start to finish, but because there is resting and chilling involved, you have to commit a few hours to being around the house. Luckily, time stuck in the house is easy to come by when you are a full-time student with readings coming out of your ears, half-written papers lying around, and midterms to study for. Student or not,  I will only be buying puff pastry in a pinch from here on out. Making it yourself is much cheaper and you get the added bonus of knowing how your food was made and what was put into it.

I kept it simple with this challenge and went with a very traditional mushroom filling for my vols-au-vent. I can’t think of a better combination and have been drooling all month just thinking about it. My recipe for this filling, made up on the fly, is the last item in the recipe list found below.

The recipe for the puff pastry made what I would imagine is akin to 3 sheets of the storebought stuff. We only needed 1/3 of it for the vols-au-vent. Consequently, I was left with 2 more recipes worth of puff pastry. I’ll post about what I did with the rest of it in the near future, so come on back!

Daring Bakers: Mallow Cookies

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.

This post is dedicated to my Grandpa Z, who loves anything marshmallow, especially Peeps & Mallowmars. I thought our fabulous hostess Nicole had a great idea here – trying a homemade version of one’s favorite storebought things. Though not as big a fan of marshmallow as my grandpa, I decided to make the mallowmars first. The idea of piping marshmallow piqued my interest. I intended to follow up with milanos with a twist- chocolate cookies with a chocolate mint filling. However, I seriously underestimated the number of cookies I would end up with after trying the first recipe. Even after taking at least a dozen to my friend Emily, whose sweet baby Rachel decided to make an appearance 6 weeks early (!), I still had at least 50 cookies left. My next step is to give some to my brother. College students have a way of putting lots of homemade sweets away. In any case, the milanos will have to wait for another time.

I thought these cookies were good but not incredible. The cookie part is rather biscuit-like. I found it a bit too crumbly. The marshmallow was good and even though I thought I’d piped generously, I wished there was more of it on each cookie. I made my glaze with bittersweet chocolate and it came together nicely, though it needed to be refrigerated in order to harden, which the recipe does not mention.

Daring Bakers: Bakewell Tarts

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.

Like most of you, I had no clue what a bakewell tart was before beginning this challenge and had certainly never tasted one before. Basically, it is a tart that consists of 3 layers, a crust, a layer of jam/curd, and a layer of frangipane (spongy almond cake). This challenge came together quite easily and lent itself to lots of experimentation. Like many other Daring Bakers, I made tartlets so I could try many different fillings instead of sticking to one. Jasmine & Annemarie urged us to make our own jam or curd rather than using storebought. So in two tartlets I used blackberry jam left over from the oodles and oodles my mom and I made for the wedding. I also made a berry curd using some past-their-prime berries I had in the fridge.

Daring Bakers Strudel

I can’t believe May is already coming to an end! This month’s Daring Bakers challenge was an apple strudel. I’ve been looking forward to this challenge all month because I like trying new types of pastry and could think of lots of filling ideas. However, I didn’t have the right setup at our house for this kind of project. The dough needs to be rolled out in the shape of a 2×3 rectangle and you need to be able to reach it from at least three sides. Our rectangular table has tiling that would have made the rolling impossible. Our other table has curved edges. Spatially challenged folks (me!) need clear boundary lines if we’re given such specific measurements. We were in the mountains this weekend, where there’s a large wooden table with plenty of space to walk around it. I decided it would make a good lazy afternoon project up there.

Though the kitchen is incredibly well stocked for being no larger than a closet, there is no stand mixer so I kneaded the dough by hand according to Linda’s directions. I tend to underknead and my dough kept sticking so I went longer than the 5 minutes she suggested – more like 8. I filled it with a cream cheese mixture (8 oz. blended with an egg, 1/3 cup sugar, and a splash of vanilla), some sliced almonds, a layer of raspberry jam, and a sprinkling of fresh raspberries. I was afraid too many fresh raspberries would make the pastry soggy and I didn’t have any cornstarch, hence the jam.

Daring Bakers Cheesecake

It’s Daring Bakers time! I missed March’s delicious-looking spinach lasagne, but I’m back in the swing of things for what I hope will be the rest of this year.

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

For this challenge, Jenny gave us tons of culinary creativity. She encouraged us to experiment with a variety of flavors. After sorting through the many ideas floating around in my head  (nilla wafer crust, cassis, fresh raspberry sauce…. or chocolate wafer crust, espresso flavored cheesecake, chocolate sauce… or chocolate wafer crust, nutella swirl, frangelico, chopped hazelnuts…the possibilities were endless) I settled on what, looking back, was a rather surprising choice given my own personal tastes. How could I not have remembered that I really don’t care for caramel? I blame this on the fact that I was still reeling from the completion of my boards and was trying to make this cheesecake for a work gathering scheduled for a date only a few days after the dust had settled.

A Daring Baker’s Valentine

I had to skip the January DB challenge due to intense work-related projects that are still consuming every spare moment of my free time. However, I did manage to squeeze in the February challenge because it was a fairly quick challenge that I made as the dessert in our Valentine’s meal. It was also the perfect opportunity to pull out my 10 lb. bar of Guittard my mom so wisely gifted me at Christmas.

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE’s blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.
We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

I chose to do raspberry champagne sorbet to go with the cake rather than the vanilla ice cream. A few years ago we had a flourless chocolate cake with some champagne sorbet at Bella Monica, a most delicious Italian restaurant tucked into a nondescript shopping center in Raleigh. I followed David Lebovitz’s recipe from The Perfect Scoop and it turned out, well, perfectly. It complemented the cake very well and was quite festive being red and full of champagne.

Below you’ll find the recipes for the cake and the sorbet. For other variations on the ice cream/sorbet component check out the creations of the other Daring Bakers.

New Years Eve A la Daring Bakers

What is this divine looking thing you say? Our December’s Daring Bakers challenge…

This month’s challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux.
They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand. It was a particularly exciting challenge because it involved a lot of elements and looked, well, rather intimidating. The word document for the recipe was a massive 18 pages long. I had never made many of the elements involved and in fact had never heard of a few of them.

Nevertheless, I found all this very exciting and eagerly anticipated the beginning of vacation when I would have the time and patience to tackle this challenge. Given our somewhat hectic holiday traveling schedule, I decided to make the yule log on the 29th, take it on a 4 hour trip to the beach (packed well with ice, of course), and ice/serve it on New Year’s Eve. Though I was a little nervous about how all this would work, it came together quite easily. The log stayed fairly well frozen in the cooler and the texture didn’t seem to suffer in the final product.

The hardest part of something like this is figuring out how to put all the smaller parts together to make the whole. Our hosts did a fantastic job writing the recipe and making it clear and easy to follow. They included all the measuring systems you could ask for and included countless variations. This, however, does make for a long (18 page) recipe. So I’m going to lead you through my approach using only the recipes for the flavors I used. Check out the blogroll for other flavor combinations. Here we go…