November Daring Bakers

I'm still completely bummed that I missed last month's pizza challenge. Its just a tad difficult to bake when your oven is in the living room, next to the dishwasher and refrigerator. sigh...

BUT I do have a shiny, new, awesome tile floor so I suppose I'll survive.

This month's challenge is all about the sugar again. Literally. Brought to us by Dolres of Culinary Curiosity, Alex (Brownie of the Blondie and Brownie duo), and Jenny of Foray into Food.

Caramel Cake from Shuna Fish Lydon of Eggbeater

I was completely intimidated at first reading the problems some people were facing with this recipe - greasy, oil messes, dense, flat cakes. I was pleasantly surprised that I really didn't have any issues at all.

I've made caramels before so I'm familiar with the "carameling" process (is that even a word). I think my biggest issue was that I had no clue how to "brown" butter for the frosting. (*ducks head*). I figured I'd just cook the heck out of it until it browned and whadday-know, that's how you do it ;).

I'm afraid that I overcooked my cupcakes though. I figured 15 minutes would be a good "look and see point" and when I peeked, they were golden...sigh.



My cake is dense, but not horribly so. It reminds me almost a bit more of a cross between a coffee cake and a pound cake, but neither are good examples.

The icing is ridiculously sweet though. I ended up added sea salt to it, to get that nice occasional salt crunch.

All in all this was a pretty easy challenge and I'm happy I gave it a try.

September Daring Bakers Challange

Lavash Crackers!!

I had never made crackers before and was excited to try. Of course life got in the way and I almost didn't complete. I mean seriously, it was my 2nd challenge and I almost bagged out! Shame, shame on me for even considering it.

As a side project we could attempt to make the cracker gluten free and had to create a dip that was gluten free AND vegan. My dip was actually quite nice for its quickly thrown together idea. I wanted to make a black bean salsa. Of course it was only as my crackers were baking that I realized I had no tomatoes. Subbed in stewed and it was still quite nice. The salsa was: stewed tomatoes, onion, green pepper, corn, black beans, some cumin, some salt, some hot shot pepper (mixture of black pepper and cayenne).

Anyway, I managed to make the crackers last night. I took the easy route and went with the chock-full-of-gluten recipe. Recipe itself is very easy - its the rolling that is a killer. And I hate rolling. ANYTHING. I don't do pie crusts (isn't that was those frozen pie shells are for?!), I don't do cut out cookies. I HATE rolling. And I'm pretty sure that was my problem here. The cracker itself had a nice taste, but I definitely didn't roll thin enough. They were chewy and heavy, not at all light and crisp. DH and DD still loved them (even if her days of eating gluten might be numbered - post about that later, when we know more).


Please excuse the suckage photos.

Daring Bakers - August is the Month for...

ECLAIRS!

I'm so excited to showcase my very first Daring Bakers Challenge! August's recipe was Chocolate Eclairs using Pierre Herme's recipe selected by Tony Tahhan and MeetaK. Yum! I've made Pâte à Choux before, but nothing ever this decadent. Diet be damned I just had to have one! YUM!


Please excuse the annoying random drop of chocolate


The recipe (below) itself wasn't as daunting as I was expecting it to be. From start to finish this took me about 3 hours.

Reading the ingredients, I had no clue what Velrhona Guanaja chocolate was, but I was determined to find some. Which I did, at whole foods for $16/lb. Lordy, lordy. Wallet started scream "Back away, back away from the chocolate and we might all live". I had to have it though. Had to see if it made a difference. Oh.Maw.Gawd is that some seriously good chocolate. SOOO worth it. I wanted to bathe in the chocolate sauce and honestly a fair portion of the chocolate pastry cream, alas, never touched the choux pastry. Mmmmmmmm.

Anyway, where was I....Oh ya, pictures. So um, I started off all "I'll take pictures of every step" and about 10 minutes later was all "How the hell do you hold the camera while stirring and NOT drop it into the chocolate and DAMN does this slow everything down". So ya, step by step pictorial - didn't happen.

I've made Pâte à Choux many a times before but always using Alton Brown's recipe. I have to say I prefer Alton's to this one. Maybe its because I'm more familiar with his having made it at least 15 times. I had issues with this pâte à choux. Cooking time seemed to be off, or maybe my oven (I've since bought a new thermometer and oven seems to run fine). My eclairs took almost 20 minutes longer to cook so that they didn't deflate every time I pulled them from the oven.

The only other issue I had was with the glaze. It wasn't quite thick enough for me and never really set right, but was still beyond YUMMO!!

Oh and the left over chocolate sauce makes the most DELISH chocolate milk ever.





Chocolate Éclairs by Pierre Hermé

Éclairs consist of 3 elements:

- Pâte à Choux, also known as Choux Pastry or Cream Puff Dough
- Pastry Cream
- Chocolate glaze

First the modifications:

Under the motto - Culinary Liberty For All, Tony and I thought we should give enough leeway for creativity.


What’s the point in cooking if not to cook what YOU want to eat?


In terms of modifications of this recipe, the possibilities are endless. In order to maintain some sort of cohesiveness throughout the challenge, here are a couple general guidelines for eclair month at the Daring Bakers.


1. The dough used for the eclairs must be a pâte à choux from the recipe given below.
2. Keep one chocolate element in the challenge. The recipe below is for a chocolate glaze and a chocolate pastry cream. You choose which chocolate element you want to keep. Then feel free to mix and match flavors to the base recipe.
3. Everything else is fair game. Enjoy!

Posting Day: August 31st, 2008

Pierre Hermé’s Chocolate Éclairs
Recipe from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé
(makes 20-24 Éclairs)

• Cream Puff Dough (see below for recipe), fresh and still warm

1) Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Divide the oven into thirds by
positioning the racks in the upper and lower half of the oven. Line two baking sheets with
waxed or parchment paper.

2) Fill a large pastry bag fitted with a 2/3 (2cm) plain tip nozzle with the warm cream puff dough.
Pipe the dough onto the baking sheets in long, 4 to 41/2 inches (about 11 cm) chubby fingers.
Leave about 2 inches (5 cm) space in between each dough strip to allow them room to puff.
The dough should give you enough to pipe 20-24 éclairs.

3) Slide both the baking sheets into the oven and bake for 7 minutes. After the 7 minutes, slip the
handle of a wooden spoon into the door to keep in ajar. When the éclairs have been in the
oven for a total of 12 minutes, rotate the sheets top to bottom and front to back. Continue
baking for a further 8 minutes or until the éclairs are puffed, golden and firm. The total baking
time should be approximately 20 minutes.

Notes:
1) The éclairs can be kept in a cool, dry place for several hours before filling.

Assembling the éclairs:

• Chocolate glaze (see below for recipe)
• Chocolate pastry cream (see below for recipe)

1) Slice the éclairs horizontally, using a serrated knife and a gently sawing motion. Set aside the
bottoms and place the tops on a rack over a piece of parchment paper.

2) The glaze should be barely warm to the touch (between 95 – 104 degrees F or 35 – 40
degrees C, as measured on an instant read thermometer). Spread the glaze over the tops of
the éclairs using a metal icing spatula. Allow the tops to set and in the meantime fill the
bottoms with the pastry cream.

3) Pipe or spoon the pastry cream into the bottoms of the éclairs. Make sure you fill the bottoms
with enough cream to mound above the pastry. Place the glazed tops onto the pastry cream
and wriggle gently to settle them.

Notes:
1) If you have chilled your chocolate glaze, reheat by placing it in a bowl over simmering water,
stirring it gently with a wooden spoon. Do not stir too vigorously as you do not want to create
bubbles.

2) The éclairs should be served as soon as they have been filled.

Pierre Hermé’s Cream Puff Dough
Recipe from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé
(makes 20-24 Éclairs)

• ½ cup (125g) whole milk
• ½ cup (125g) water
• 1 stick (4 ounces; 115g) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
• ¼ teaspoon sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (140g) all-purpose flour
• 5 large eggs, at room temperature

1) In a heavy bottomed medium saucepan, bring the milk, water, butter, sugar and salt to the
boil.

2) Once the mixture is at a rolling boil, add all of the flour at once, reduce the heat to medium
and start to stir the mixture vigorously with a wooden spoon. The dough comes together very
quickly. Do not worry if a slight crust forms at the bottom of the pan, it’s supposed to. You
need to carry on stirring for a further 2-3 minutes to dry the dough. After this time the dough
will be very soft and smooth.

3) Transfer the dough into a bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or using your
handmixer or if you still have the energy, continue by hand. Add the eggs one at a time,
beating after each egg has been added to incorporate it into the dough.
You will notice that after you have added the first egg, the dough will separate, once again do
not worry. As you keep working the dough, it will come back all together again by the time you
have added the third egg. In the end the dough should be thick and shiny and when lifted it
should fall back into the bowl in a ribbon.

4) The dough should be still warm. It is now ready to be used for the éclairs as directed above.

Notes:
1) Once the dough is made you need to shape it immediately.

2) You can pipe the dough and the freeze it. Simply pipe the dough onto parchment-lined baking
sheets and slide the sheets into the freezer. Once the dough is completely frozen, transfer the
piped shapes into freezer bags. They can be kept in the freezer for up to a month.

Chocolate Pastry Cream
Recipe from Chocolate Desserts by PierreHermé

• 2 cups (500g) whole milk
• 4 large egg yolks
• 6 tbsp (75g) sugar
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch, sifted
• 7 oz (200g) bittersweet chocolate, preferably Velrhona Guanaja, melted
• 2½ tbsp (1¼ oz: 40g) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1) In a small saucepan, bring the milk to a boil. In the meantime, combine the yolks, sugar and cornstarch together and whisk in a heavy‐bottomed saucepan.

2) Once the milk has reached a boil, temper the yolks by whisking a couple spoonfuls of the hot milk into the yolk mixture.Continue whisking and slowly pour the rest of the milk into the tempered yolk mixture.

3) Strain the mixture back into the saucepan to remove any egg that may have scrambled. Place the pan over medium heat and whisk vigorously (without stop) until the mixture returns to a boil. Keep whisking vigorously for 1 to 2 more minutes (still over medium heat).Stir in the melted chocolate and then remove the pan from the heat.

4) Scrape the pastry cream into a small bowl and set it in an ice‐water bath to stop the cooking process. Make sure to continue stirring the mixture at this point so that it remains smooth.

5) Once the cream has reached a temperature of 140 F remove from the ice‐water bath and stir in the butter in three or four installments. Return the cream to the ice‐water bath to continue cooling, stirring occasionally, until it has completely cooled. The cream is now ready to use or store in the fridge.

[bNotes:[/b]
1) The pastry cream can be made 2‐3 days in advance and stored in the refrigerator.

2) In order to avoid a skin forming on the pastry cream, cover with plastic wrap pressed onto the cream.

3) Tempering the eggs raises the temperature of the eggs slowly so that they do not scramble.

Chocolate Glaze
Recipe from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé
(makes 1 cup or 300g)

• 1/3 cup (80g) heavy cream
• 3½ oz (100g) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 4 tsp (20 g) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces, at room temperature
• 7 tbsp (110 g) Chocolate Sauce (recipe below), warm or at room temperature

1)In a small saucepan, bring the heavy cream to a boil. Remove from the heat and slowly begin to add the chocolate, stirring with a wooden spoon or spatula.

2) Stirring gently, stir in the butter, piece by piece followed by the chocolate sauce.

Notes:
1) If the chocolate glaze is too cool (i.e. not liquid enough) you may heat it briefly
 in the microwave or over a double boiler. A double boiler is basically a bowl sitting over (not touching) simmering water.

2) It is best to glaze the eclairs after the glaze is made, but if you are pressed for time, you can make the glaze a couple days ahead of time, store it in the fridge and bring it up to the proper temperature (95 to 104 F) when ready to glaze.

Chocolate Sauce
Recipe from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé
(makes 1½ cups or 525 g)


• 4½ oz (130 g) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 1 cup (250 g) water
• ½ cup (125 g) crème fraîche, or heavy cream
• 1/3 cup (70 g) sugar

1) Place all the ingredients into a heavy‐bottomed saucepan and bring to a boil, making sure to stir constantly. Then reduce the heat to low and continue stirring with a wooden spoon until the sauce thickens.

2) It may take 10‐15 minutes for the sauce to thicken, but you will know when it is done when it coats the back of your spoon.

Notes:
1) You can make this sauce ahead of time and store it in the refrigerator for two weeks. Reheat the sauce in a microwave oven or a double boiler before using.
2) This sauce is also great for cakes, ice-cream and tarts.