Daring Bakers: Crostata (better late than never!)

November has come and gone, but I didn't forget about the Daring Bakers' challenge. The 2010 November Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Simona of briciole. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make pasta frolla for a crostata. She used her own experience as a source, as well as information from Pellegrino Artusi’s Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well. I only got a chance to make this tonight, so here is my take on November's challenge.

The pasta frolla was easy to make and absolutely delicious. It tastes like a sugar cookie that mated with shortbread! (In fact, instead of using the excess to create a pretty decoration on the crostata, I baked them up as cookies then inhaled them.) It's such a great base to any kind of tart or crostata or pie. I was thinking about doing a fruit preserve crostata, but I've already made some fruit pies this year (see here and here), so this time around I needed to try something entirely not me: chocolate.

I used the pasta frolla recipe per the challenge, but pulled the chocolate filling from Rachel Eats and added about a teaspoon of orange zest, so thanks to everyone for making this possible!

This is decadent. It's like fudge in a cookie in tart form.

October Daring Bakers: Donuts

The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.

Given how much I LOVE Alton Brown, I made his yeast donut recipe. I woulda made more, but 1) that's a LOT of donuts for 1 person and 2) I actually had a donut baking night with Jenn The Cookin Cutie where she made the pumpkin kind, so I got to try different type. We cut and fried away, dipped and decorated. The yeast donuts were light and fluffy with a greaet crust. They're best fresh, but I froze a bunch the same day I made themand have been defrosting as I want them. Still pretty good, though a bit more chewy. Again, just make sure to eat them the same day. It was a great challenge this month!

I guess I used a small cutter because mine made over 4 dozen donuts:

The first set I made had a maple glaze, which was essentially powdered sugar, a bit of vanilla, and pure maple syrup. Look how cute the sprinkles are:

Here are a few I defrosted a few days later. I coated one in cinnamon sugar, and the rest have a plain vanilla icing, which is powdered sugar, vanilla, and a bit of milk. After the donuts defrost and the icing sets, zap them in the microwave for 5 seconds. They taste like new (minus the crisp crust, lol)!

daring bakers: decorated sugar cookies

The September 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mandy of “What the Fruitcake?!” Mandy challenged everyone to make Decorated Sugar Cookies based on recipes from Peggy Porschen and The Joy of Baking. You can find the recipe on Mandy's blog. I followed the cookie recipe almost exactly - I just added a tsp or two of cinnamon to spice it up a touch!

We were supposed to decorate these cookies with a "September" theme. And while most of the American population starts thinking about football come September, I think of the same thing I think of for 3/4 of the year: softball. September is the beginning of the last season of the year - that last 8 weeks before the cold kicks in and I trade in the glove and ball for, well, different kind of gloves and balls (ski gloves and dodgeballs, but not at the same time!) I currently play on 3 teams, and because of the timing of when I got to bake, these cookies are dedicated to my Sunday night team, the Coconut Banger's Ball Club:

Super cute, right!

So I made cinnamon sugar cookies, and topped them with vanilla icing. We weren't required to make royal icing from scratch, so the first round of cookies I used a store bought cookie decorating icing. That's what I used on the stars. But I wanted to try the royal icing, too, so I whipped up a batch using meringue powder and used it to make the softballs. I have no idea if it turned out the way it was supposed to... but the icing dried well enough so I assume I got it right. I used a decorating writing icing tube thing for the red, blue, and yellow writing/outlines.

Piece Montee

I'm a Daring Baker! This is officially my first post for their challenges, and boy am I thrilled to be part of this. The May Daring Baker's challenge (yup I'm a couple days late, my bad) was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged us to make a piece montee, or croquembouche, based on the recipes from Peter Kump's Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri. I first saw a croquembouche on some Food Network holiday special years ago, so at least I was familiar with this tower o' cream puffs. It's the first time I have heard it called a piece montee (one of these days I'm going to learn how to make the little accent marks over the e's). Piece montee literally means "mounted piece," which explains the stacking of creme filled puffs into this little cone shape. There are many ways to create this form - use an actual cone as a base, use toothpicks to keep them together, or... just stack them, like I did, using the chocolate as a glue. You can also use molten sugar to get that crunch (croquembouche = "crunch in the mouth"), but it was raining today and humidity and spun sugar don't really mesh well.

The croquembouche is made up of 3 components - the puffs (pate a choux), pastry creme filling, and the glaze. I followed the recipe for the choux and chocolate glaze exactly. I used the vanilla creme recipe and folded in some diced candied ginger. That addition was simply awesome if I do say so myself... it makes the filling's texture and flavor more interesting. I also happen to think vanilla and ginger are a match made in heaven, so I may be biased :-) I think I either didn't cook the choux long enough or added the egg too early because it was a little liquidier than I'd have liked (see next picture), but they puffed up nice and golden (see picture after that). After they cooled, I filled, glazed, then stacked them. Viola, piece montee!

One of these days I'd love to try it with the hard caramel glaze and maybe a different flavored filling, but it won't anytime soon. NoVA's summers are hot and very humid, so maybe I'll do it sometime for Christmas as a special occasion treat.