Daring Bakers make Crostata

 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.

A crostata is an Italian tart or pie. The base of a crostata is pasta frolla (or pastafrolla), sweet short crust pastry (or sweet tart dough) made of flour, sugar, butter and eggs. Pasta frolla is versatile: it provides the base to make crostata with fruit preserves, pastry cream, fresh fruit, ricotta, and other ingredients, and, by itself, it makes very nice cookies.

The pastry was wonderful! It lends itself well to savoury tarts as well so this one's a keeper. We could choose whatever filling we wanted, so I decided to use pastry cream (I love it!). But I realised I had a bottle of great blackberry jam, so i added a layer of that over the cream as well.

 

I'm so glad I could do this challenge because this tart was lovely! My mom is not a dessert person but even she had a second helping! I'm definitely going to try this with other fillings as well, maybe fresh fruits next time? Thank you so much Simona, it was a great challenge :)

Daring Bakers July '10

Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first. ~Ernestine Ulmer

It’s that time again. Time for new challenges and new lessons. And time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. This month again, was a dessert, I had never tried before. I just love the excitement of making something for the first time, I get butterflies in my stomach wondering whether I’ll do a good job with it.


The July 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Sunita of Sunita’s world – life and food. Sunita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that’s then used to make a bombe with hot fudge. Her recipe is based on an ice cream cake recipe from Taste of Home.

All the components were new to me, but it was the Swiss roll that seemed to be the most difficult. I was pretty sure mine would crack, tear, rip or whatever else that was possible with a Swiss roll. But when I did a trial version, it went quite smoothly, way better than I expected. So for the final version I made it with a fudge filling.

I had been toying with the idea of making ice-cream for quite some time. But since I don’t have an ice-cream maker, I didn’t attempt it. This was too good an opportunity to pass, so I started looking around for nice flavors which I could make without a machine. With so many great flavors, it took me days to finally decide to go with David Lebovitz’s Caramel Ice-cream and Chocolate Sherbet. I thought the caramel would be quite rich so I wanted to pair it with a lighter ice-cream.

All the components tasted really good by themselves. The Swiss roll was quite nice and fluffy, I was worried of the eggy flavor and taste, but it wasn't obvious at all. I had also added a bit of vanilla to it since I wasn't doing a chocolate version. The Caramel ice-cream turned out to be my favourite! I had never imagined it would turn out so yumm.. Even the Sherbet was nice, but it turned a little icy. But all the flavors put together were really something!! It all came together very well. My friends had come over to have it, and they all loved it. It's definitely something I would make again. For sure!
Thank you Sunita for a great challenge :)

David Lebovitz's Salted Caramel Ice-cream and Chocolate Sherbet
The entire challenge recipe can be found on Sunita's blog.

Pavlova- Daring Bakers

This time for the Daring Bakers challenge I was introduced to yet another new dessert. 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.

This is an extremely rich dessert and everyone enjoyed it immensely. The crispy meringue and the smooth luscious mousse go so well together! In Australia, the pavlova is traditionally topped with some fruits. So I thought they would be perfect with some cherries on top.

I stuck to the basic recipe and the only change I made was the use of white chocolate in the mousse. It was my first time making meringues and I must admit it gave me some trouble. They turned out a little crisp but tasted great so I went ahead and used them anyways. And the rest of the components were a breeze! The mousse and the cream are to die for!

Daring Bakers March '10- Orange Tian

This month’s Daring Bakers challenge was an Orange Tian. I had never heard of this dessert before and it seemed a little daunting. I am also not a fan of citrus flavored desserts so I wondered whether I should do this one. But boy am I glad I did it! Not that it converted me but I learned so many new techniques that I would never had learned otherwise.


The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.

A tian is made of several layers- pate sable, marmalade, stabilized cream, orange segments and caramel. It is built upside down so you gotta pray really hard that it turns out the way you imagined it. My dessert didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to, but what the heck, I had a whale of a time making it. I made my own marmalade…yayyyy!!!

The marmalade was a breeze! The recipe called for some pectin but I couldn’t find any. Some of the DBs had made it without pectin so I gave it a shot. And it turned out absolutely lovely! Even the pate sable turned out just fine.

I had some trouble with segmenting oranges… actually a lot of trouble and I can’t understand why anyone would wanna do it. They look good of course but they are too much trouble…

And then the whipped cream!! Oh I could kill it if I could...No matter how much I tried it just wouldn’t thicken. Or stabilize...like it was supposed to...I tried everything… even added more gelatin…but nothing.. I was too tired by then to start over again so assembled the dessert anyways. When I finally unmolded my dessert, the cream had seeped into the orange segments but I was happy to see that the cream had set a wee bit.

But finally, when you take your first bite, it makes all this trouble worthwhile. It is fresh, summery and light. The orange segments soaked in caramel, light and fluffy cream and the crunch of the pate sable make all your troubles on a hot sunny day go away… I am now wondering which other fruits I can try this with. Other DBs used all kinds of citrus and berries but I wonder if this would go well with mangoes (its my favorite fruit). The mango season is just coming in and I’ve been thinking of various desserts I could use them in.

This Orange Tian was a series of hits and misses for me but I did enjoy it. I screamed in frustration when something didn’t turn out right and squealed with joy when it did. And I realized that this itself is the reason I chose to be a Daring Baker- To learn from my mistakes and savor the fruits of my labor. And as long as you make it and share it with a loved one, every single minute spent in the kitchen is worth it.

Tiramisu

This month was my first challenge as a Daring Baker. I was super excited and couldn’t wait to see the challenge revealed! And when it was, let me just say, it was quite a challenge!!


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.

Tiramisu has always been one of my favorite desserts but never ever had I thought that I’d make it myself. To be honest I didn’t even know what went into it! There are many different elements that go into a tiramisu- ladyfinger biscuits, mascarpone cheese, zabaglione, vanilla pastry cream and whipped cream. All flavored with coffee or wine of course! And since this was the Daring Bakers challenge, we had to make the ladyfingers (savoiardi biscuits) and mascarpone ourselves.The entire recipe can be found here.

Making the cheese takes a day so this recipe needs a bit of planning. I was nervous since this was my first time making cheese. But it turned out just right! We don’t really get mascarpone cheese here, so I guess I don’t have to worry anymore :)

The savoiardi are nice and crisp outside and very cakelike from within. Yumm yumm yumm……

Zabaglione is an egg custard which can be also eaten by itself. You gotta try it to believe it!

I forgot to take pictures of the vanilla pastry cream and whipped cream before I assembled the Tiramisu :(


It’s a good idea to freeze Tiramisu for a couple of days because the flavors really kick in by then. And with a sprinkling of cocoa powder, its ready to go!!