Having passed on last month's challenge, last night I suddenly realized it was time to post this month's Daring Bakers' challenge. Problem was, I didn't have a pound of butter in the house. I have been making some Indonesian dishes in the last week, and didn't have any filling that I felt was really appropriate for vols-au-vent. My wife has recently joined a knitting group she meets with on Sunday mornings, and they were hoping I'd make something for them. So I had to get cracking.
Making the puff pastry was not difficult at all. I had two sticks of butter in, so I just halved the recipe. The real key as others have remarked is keeping the butter cool and contained within the dough. Working quickly is the key and then chilling the dough between alternate turns.
Making the vols-au-vents was more problematic. Again, the dough needs to be kept chilled. Our refrigerator seems to be stuffed with all manner of left-overs, so finding room for a baking sheet with the cut disks of dough was impossible. Also, when I put the slipat on the disks to inhibit rising, the vols-au-vents ended up sticking to the slipat. As a result, my first batch came out less than ideal. I then decided to make a second batch, which I cooled on a small piece of parchment paper that I was able to fit into the meat drawer. I baked the second batch in a jelly-roll pan with a piece of parchment paper laid over the top and the slipat on top of that. The edges of the pan kept the slipat from weighing down on the disks and the sticking was minimal.
I filled the baked vols-au-vent with a simple smoked salmon salad of quartered cherry tomatoes, diced red onion, avocado, homemade smoked sockeye salmon, alfalfa sprouts, salt, olive oil, dill and lemon juice. I thought the lightness of the salad was a nice balance to the richness of the vols-au-vent.
I guess I'm more a chicken and dumplings person, than a vols-au-vent filled with creamed chicken guy. I like puff pastry when used with a dish like Beef Wellington, but don't know that I would go to the trouble of making it for vols-au-vent unless I really wanted to impress someone. It's essentially a container for the dish you are presenting, and I think it runs the risk of drawing the focus away from your main dish.
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.
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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.
One of the first things I learned to bake was cookies. I never cared for Oreos, Chips Ahoy, or other such cookies one could purchase in the typical American supermarket. They tasted of too much sugar and too many chemicals and the chocolate in them seemed to have trace amounts of heavy metal. I never bought into the Twinkie defense, but I could see how a steady diet of mass produced factory baked goods might sink one into depression. So I learned to bake my own, mostly chocolate chip and peanut butter. As much as I still enjoy a good chocolate chip or peanut butter cookie, I rarely bake them any more because I don't need to have a dozen or more cookies tempting me to eat them. I'd much rather fix something I can have a drink with than something sweet. It's all a matter of priorities.
So of course this month's challenge was cookies. And not just one recipe, but two, and each with its own chocolate covering or filling. Marshmallow cookies have never appealed to me. Even as a kid, I thought these were too sweet, too much an insidious attempt to disguise sugar in just another form. Milanos, however, were a different story. These were a factory baked cookie that I liked. Indeed, I think I have liked all the Pepperidge Farm cookies I have tried. Crisp thin buttery wafers sandwiching a thin layer of chocolate, Milanos go very nicely with a cup of coffee. Of course, one cookie provides something like half the recommended caloric intake for an active teenager for a day--and I am neither a teenager nor particularly active, so I have done my best to stay away from these cookies.
I halved the recipes for the cookies and ganache for the Milans, but wish I had halved the ganache recipe again. While it is very tasty, it makes far more ganache than is needed to fill the cookies. My recollection of the Pepperidge Farm Milanos is of a very thin layer of chocolate. The Gale Gand Milans were delicious, but make sure your gym membership is up to date or you have a horde of children to devour them unless you want to gain a quick five pounds.
The Mallows, a cookie base topped with homemade marshmallow and dipped in chocolate, resemble s'mores in taste. The cookie base is not too sweet and complements the marshmallow and chocolate. Although the process of making these cookies is quite involved, they were not terribly difficult.
One of the problems I have with the Daring Bakers challenge is that I would not normally post a recipe that I had tried just once. I think I really need to try almost any recipe several times before I am comfortable with it. However, I am not about to make eight dozen cookies to get all the details right. I think the marshmallow topping would have been better if the instructions had suggested letting the sugar/corn syrup mixture cool for twenty minutes or so before whipping with the egg whites, or else letting the whipped mixture set for some time before topping the cookies. Also, although I made just a half recipe of the cookies, I had 3 dozen cookies. The full recipe states it makes about two dozen cookies--something is wrong here.
Of the two cookies, I definitely preferred the mallows. I don't know that I would make them again anytime soon, but they were a tasty cookie. The Milans were ok, but truthfully, Pepperidge Farms makes a superior cookie.
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.
I put off doing this month's challenge until the last minute. I had just made a pear topped frangipane tart for our bookclub last month, so I didn't feel very enthusiastic when I learned what this month's challenge would be. It just didn't seem like much of a challenge. Which is not to say that it wasn't delicious; it was.
The recipe itself is simple and straightforward. Make a tart shell, layer it with a jam (traditionally cherry it seems), cover the jam with a layer of frangipane and bake it. Obviously, there are countless variations you can make by altering any or all of those three elements--using a chocolate crust, strawberry jam, or substituting walnuts for almonds in the frangipane. Maybe it's because I am by nature conservative (as Steve Earle sings "conservatively passionate, or passionately conservative" --a reference that perhaps only Americans will get), but I stuck to pretty much the traditional recipe. I did blind bake the shell, and the jam I used had cacao nibs in it, but everything else pretty much was by the book. Bakewell Tart…er…pudding
Makes one 23cm (9” tart) Prep time: less than 10 minutes (plus time for the individual elements) Resting time: 15 minutes Baking time: 30 minutes Equipment needed: 23cm (9”) tart pan or pie tin (preferably with ridged edges), rolling pin
One quantity sweet shortcrust pastry (recipe follows) Bench flour 250ml (1cup (8 US fl. oz)) jam or curd, warmed for spreadability One quantity frangipane (recipe follows) One handful blanched, flaked almonds
Assembling the tart Place the chilled dough disc on a lightly floured surface. If it's overly cold, you will need to let it become acclimatised for about 15 minutes before you roll it out. Flour the rolling pin and roll the pastry to 5mm (1/4”) thickness, by rolling in one direction only (start from the centre and roll away from you), and turning the disc a quarter turn after each roll. When the pastry is to the desired size and thickness, transfer it to the tart pan, press in and trim the excess dough. Patch any holes, fissures or tears with trimmed bits. Chill in the freezer for 15 minutes.
Preheat oven to 200C/400F.
Remove shell from freezer, spread as even a layer as you can of jam onto the pastry base. Top with frangipane, spreading to cover the entire surface of the tart. Smooth the top and pop into the oven for 30 minutes. Five minutes before the tart is done, the top will be poofy and brownish. Remove from oven and strew flaked almonds on top and return to the heat for the last five minutes of baking.
The finished tart will have a golden crust and the frangipane will be tanned, poofy and a bit spongy-looking. Remove from the oven and cool on the counter. Serve warm, with crème fraîche, whipped cream or custard sauce if you wish.
When you slice into the tart, the almond paste will be firm, but slightly squidgy and the crust should be crisp but not tough.
Jasmine’s notes: • If you cannot have nuts, you can try substituting Victoria sponge for the frangipane. It's a pretty popular popular cake, so you shouldn't have any troubles finding one in one of your cookbooks or through a Google search. That said, our dear Natalie at Gluten a Go Go has sourced some recipes and linked to them in the related alt.db thread. • You can use whichever jam you wish, but if you choose something with a lot of seeds, such as raspberry or blackberry, you should sieve them out. • The jam quantity can be anywhere from 60ml (1/4 cup) to 250ml (1cup), depending upon how “damp” and strongly flavoured your preserves are. I made it with the lesser quantity of home made strawberry jam, while Annemarie made it with the greater quantity of cherry jam; we both had fabulous results. If in doubt, just split the difference and spread 150ml (2/3cup) on the crust. Annemarie’s notes: • The excess shortcrust can be rolled out and cut into cookie-shapes (heck, it’s pretty darned close to a shortbread dough). Sweet shortcrust pastry
225g (8oz) all purpose flour 30g (1oz) sugar 2.5ml (½ tsp) salt 110g (4oz) unsalted butter, cold (frozen is better) 2 (2) egg yolks 2.5ml (½ tsp) almond extract (optional) 15-30ml (1-2 Tbsp) cold water
Sift together flour, sugar and salt. Grate butter into the flour mixture, using the large hole-side of a box grater. Using your finger tips only, and working very quickly, rub the fat into the flour until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Set aside.
Lightly beat the egg yolks with the almond extract (if using) and quickly mix into the flour mixture. Keep mixing while dribbling in the water, only adding enough to form a cohesive and slightly sticky dough.
Form the dough into a disc, wrap in cling and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes
Jasmine’s notes: • I make this using vanilla salt and vanilla sugar. • If you wish, you can substitute the seeds of one vanilla bean, one teaspoon of vanilla paste or one teaspoon of vanilla extract for the almond extract Frangipane
Cream butter and sugar together for about a minute or until the mixture is primrose in colour and very fluffy. Scrape down the side of the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. The batter may appear to curdle. In the words of Douglas Adams: Don’t panic. Really. It’ll be fine. After all three are in, pour in the almond extract and mix for about another 30 seconds and scrape down the sides again. With the beaters on, spoon in the ground nuts and the flour. Mix well. The mixture will be soft, keep its slightly curdled look (mostly from the almonds) and retain its pallid yellow colour.
Thanks to Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar for hosting this month's challenge.
I'm sure I would have never seriously contemplated starting a blog if it hadn't been for the Daring Baker's Challenge. I came across some photos from some previous challenge one day while skimming through some blogs and decided I'd like to try my hand at that. In reading the lengthy guidelines for joining The Daring Bakers, I discovered it was preferred that members have a blog. Ok, I thought, I'll just start a blog. Easy, right? Ha!
While I knew that putting a blog together took a lot more work than a casual reader might expect, I didn't realize how much pressure I would feel to update the blog. I thought a few posts a month would be fine. Once the blog was up though, I felt an almost immediate need for new content--the old "nature abhors a vacuum" phenomenon. And there's the pressure (self-imposed as it is) to come up with something fresh and photogenic. Indeed, I find the photography to be the greatest challenge to the blog, trying to think when I might make something to take greatest advantage of the natural light, looking for an appropriate background, and imagining how best to present it.
All of which brings us to the challenge, my first. Although I would say I'm a competent baker, I rarely bake. My wife, who grew up in Indonesia, doesn't really have a taste for the same baked goods that I enjoy. Her idea of a good loaf of bread is Wonderbread; she doesn't care for a really good crust or toothsome crumb. She also has no real affinity for pies, cakes, or cookies. All of which is probably good, for I would be even fatter than I am now were I to bake more often. Her disdain for apple pie is perhaps the one qualm the rest of my family has about her, so I knew the apple strudel was not going to be a hit with her. Still, the challenge has rules and I was determined to follow them.
The dough for the strudel was incredibly easy to work with. I don't have a stand mixer, so simply mixed it by hand and had no problems whatsoever. Stretching the dough took some patience, and I found it easier to use a rolling pin to aid the process; ideally, this would probably best be done with a partner. The rest of the strudel making process was really straightforward. Spread, sprinkle, fill, roll, and then bake. I prefer Mom's apple pie, but the strudel seemed to be a hit with the office staff at school.
The savory strudel was more to my wife's liking. For this I used a filling of spinach, olives, sun dried tomatoes, and cotija cheese (a Mexican cheese that is similar to ricotta salata). I added walnuts to the bread crumbs that are spread atop the dough before encasing the filling and used olive oil instead of butter. It turned out quite well, enough so that I would definitely make it again.
I would like to thank Linda and Courtney for presenting such an interesting challenge.
The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.
15-20 min to make dough 30-90 min to let dough rest/to prepare the filling 20-30 min to roll out and stretch dough 10 min to fill and roll dough 30 min to bake 30 min to cool
Apple strudel from “Kaffeehaus – Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague” by Rick Rodgers
2 tablespoons (30 ml) golden rum 3 tablespoons (45 ml) raisins 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon (80 g) sugar 1/2 cup (1 stick / 115 g) unsalted butter, melted, divided 1 1/2 cups (350 ml) fresh bread crumbs strudel dough (recipe below) 1/2 cup (120 ml, about 60 g) coarsely chopped walnuts 2 pounds (900 g) tart cooking apples, peeled, cored and cut into ¼ inch-thick slices (use apples that hold their shape during baking)
1. Mix the rum and raisins in a bowl. Mix the cinnamon and sugar in another bowl.
2. Heat 3 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet over medium-high. Add the breadcrumbs and cook whilst stirring until golden and toasted. This will take about 3 minutes. Let it cool completely.
3. Put the rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Line a large baking sheet with baking paper (parchment paper). Make the strudel dough as described below. Spread about 3 tablespoons of the remaining melted butter over the dough using your hands (a bristle brush could tear the dough, you could use a special feather pastry brush instead of your hands). Sprinkle the buttered dough with the bread crumbs. Spread the walnuts about 3 inches (8 cm) from the short edge of the dough in a 6-inch-(15cm)-wide strip. Mix the apples with the raisins (including the rum), and the cinnamon sugar. Spread the mixture over the walnuts.
4. Fold the short end of the dough onto the filling. Lift the tablecloth at the short end of the dough so that the strudel rolls onto itself. Transfer the strudel to the prepared baking sheet by lifting it. Curve it into a horseshoe to fit. Tuck the ends under the strudel. Brush the top with the remaining melted butter.
5. Bake the strudel for about 30 minutes or until it is deep golden brown. Cool for at least 30 minutes before slicing. Use a serrated knife and serve either warm or at room temperature. It is best on the day it is baked.
Strudel dough from “Kaffeehaus – Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague” by Rick Rodgers
1 1/3 cups (200 g) unbleached flour 1/8 teaspoon salt 7 tablespoons (105 ml) water, plus more if needed 2 tablespoons (30 ml) vegetable oil, plus additional for coating the dough 1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar
1. Combine the flour and salt in a stand-mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix the water, oil and vinegar in a measuring cup. Add the water/oil mixture to the flour with the mixer on low speed. You will get a soft dough. Make sure it is not too dry, add a little more water if necessary. Take the dough out of the mixer. Change to the dough hook. Put the dough ball back in the mixer. Let the dough knead on medium until you get a soft dough ball with a somewhat rough surface.
2. Take the dough out of the mixer and continue kneading by hand on an unfloured work surface. Knead for about 2 minutes. Pick up the dough and throw it down hard onto your working surface occasionally. Shape the dough into a ball and transfer it to a plate. Oil the top of the dough ball lightly. Cover the ball tightly with plastic wrap. Allow to stand for 30-90 minutes (longer is better).
3. It would be best if you have a work area that you can walk around on all sides like a 36 inch (90 cm) round table or a work surface of 23 x 38 inches (60 x 100 cm). Cover your working area with table cloth, dust it with flour and rub it into the fabric. Put your dough ball in the middle and roll it out as much as you can. Pick the dough up by holding it by an edge. This way the weight of the dough and gravity can help stretching it as it hangs. Using the back of your hands to gently stretch and pull the dough. You can use your forearms to support it.
4. The dough will become too large to hold. Put it on your work surface. Leave the thicker edge of the dough to hang over the edge of the table. Place your hands underneath the dough and stretch and pull the dough thinner using the backs of your hands. Stretch and pull the dough until it's about 2 feet (60 cm) wide and 3 feet (90 cm) long, it will be tissue-thin by this time. Cut away the thick dough around the edges with scissors. The dough is now ready to be filled.
Having passed on last month's challenge, last night I suddenly realized it was time to post this month's Daring Bakers' challenge. Problem was, I didn't have a pound of butter in the house. I have been making some Indonesian dishes in the last week, and didn't have any filling that I felt was really appropriate for vols-au-vent. My wife has recently joined a knitting group she meets with on Sunday mornings, and they were hoping I'd make something for them. So I had to get cracking.
