Later today, I’ll (finally) be posting my Daring Bakers Yule Log, and one of two Recipes to Rival appetizers (I hope; if not, I’ll have both appetizers up tomorrow).

Thanks to all of you fellow food bloggers out there, who keep me inspired and motivated to push that culinary envelope – my cooking has improved thanks to you!  May the New Year be happy, healthy, prosperous, and peaceful for all of you.

I’ll have to take a pass this time – between Thanksgiving and an out of town guest, time just got away from me!

This month, Rosa of Rosa’s Yummy Yums chose Peter Reinhart’s pizza recipe from his fabulous book, The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread, as our challenge, and all I can say is, Rosa, thank you from the bottom of my heart.  First, a savory recipe, involving no butter, buttercream, whipped cream, or chocolate.  Second, I now have a new favorite pizza recipe that I’ll be using a lot.

We could use any topping that we wanted, but we were required to use the dough recipe, and we had to toss the dough.  I don’t know about all you other Daring Bakers out there, but my dough was so soft that the simple act of picking it up just to get ready to toss it stretched it so thin that I had to set it back down immediately.  If you look closely at the picture on the left, the stuff in the middle that looks like a blob of cheese is actually the white cutting board – when I took the pizza of the parchment, it was so thin that it ripped.  The recipe called for portioning the dough out into six pieces, and next time I’m going to split it into four and see if the dough is sturdier.  After that first pizza, I didn’t attempt any more tossing, and had much better luck.

My toppings were simple:  for Master Chow, I had tomato sauce, mozzarella, tomatoes, parmigiano reggiano, kalamata olives, and salami.  For my pizza, I just eliminated the salami.  The crust was fantastic- not so crisp that it was brittle, but enough to stand up to the toppings.  The edge of the crust was wonderful (my favorite part), too.

Check out Rosa’s blog for the recipe, and the Daring Bakers blogroll to see how everyone else did!  Thanks again, Rosa, for a fantastic choice.

This month, Shellyfish of Musings From The Fishbowl and Natalie from Gluten A Go Go picked lavash crackers as our challenge (you can find the recipe with great instructions on their blogs).  Boy, was I relieved.  I’ve been so busy, that I haven’t had the time to tackle anything too labor intensive, and these delightful crackers were perfect:  easy to make, healthy, and NO SUGAR.  Or butter.  Or heavy cream.  Or chocolate.  Thank heavens.

The source for the recipe is the book that should be on every baker’s shelf: The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread.   Specifically, the challenge was to make Lavash Crackers and create a vegan dip/spread/salsa/relish to accompany them.  I used honey in the dough (instead of agave nectar or sugar), and rolled it out right on the parchment so that no tricky transfer of the dough was necessary.  I cut it with a rotary cutter, and topped it with kosher salt, garlic powder, and sesame seeds.  These crackers were out of this world – delicious, and flavorful.  I rolled mine a tad too thick, but that only meant that they held up well under the weight of hummus, my dip of choice!

To see how everyone else did, be sure to check out the Daring Bakers blogroll, and every Friday, be sure to check out Susan’s WildYeast Blog for her roundup of yeasty goodness from all over the blogsphere!

I was thrilled when Meeta and Tony picked Pierre Herme’s chocolate eclairs for the lastest Daring Baker’s challenge (you can find the recipe on their blogs, or in his book Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme.)  I have been out of town, and have just found the time to get this post up today – please pardon the photos, too, as I’ve been so busy, that staging has been far down on my list of priorities!

I didn’t have any problem making the pate a choux, but I did have to bake them for about 30 minutes, instead of the 20 minutes stated in the recipe.  When I pulled them out of the oven, I cut a small slit in the side of the puffs to help steam escape.  I decided to make Pierre Herme’s chocolate pastry cream, which tasted great but was sadly lacking in the texture department.  I don’t blame Pierre, though, just my technique.  Because we had the option of using either the chocolate pastry cream or a chocolate glaze, I went with the pastry cream and a light dusting of powdered sugar. I also decided to fill a few of the shells with whipped cream, and those were very tasty, too.

My favorite part of the whole thing?  The empty choux shells!  I could eat those with nothing in them, I thought they were that good!    The eggy flavor that some bakers discuss did not bother me one bit in this recipe, so it’s something that I plan to make again.  Perhaps a filling of homemade vanilla ice cream?  Drizzled in fudge sauce?  Definitely something to think about.

To see what the more than 1000 Daring Bakers have been up to, be sure to check out the blogroll.

I’m out of town for the next few days, and won’t have access to my photos, but I’ll be back soon and will post my TWD cookies and my Daring Bakers challenge by Friday. Thanks for sticking around – I’ve been swamped the past few weeks, but things are getting back to “normal,” whatever that is! I’m looking forward to getting back to all of your wonderful blogs to see what you’ve been up to.  I’m leaving you with a picture of sweet little Gus, because that’s all I’ve got at the moment!

You know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men. I actually made the buttercream, then I discovered that my new container of whipping cream was . . . sour. Argh! Another grocery store run was out of the question.

Thank you for visiting my humble blog, and please be sure to go check everyone else’s creations at Daring Bakers Blogroll – there are some awesome cakes out there!

Yes, passionfruit, again. I love the stuff!

This month’s selection came to us courtesy of Kelly of Sass and Veracity and Ben of What’s Cookin’?, who chose Danish Pastry from Sherry Yard’s fantastic book, The Secrets of Baking: Simple Techniques for Sophisticated Desserts. Be sure to check out their blogs for the recipe, as well as the Daring Bakers Blogroll for links to the creations of over 700 bakers, worldwide.

I love Danish pastry, but I never eat it. Why? Because, because . . . . Now, what is the word I’m searching for? Ah, yes, because most of it in America is cr*p. That’s the word! It’s not worth the calories. They don’t use enough butter, if they use real butter at all. So when Ben and Kelly chose Danish pastry as this month’s challenge, I was overjoyed. I like working with pastry, but my one concern was the weather. You see folks, in the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S., we have entered the time of year where heat + humidity = poor pastry baking conditions.

I used my marble rolling pin (inherited from my mum), and refrigerated the dough a lot. By that I mean, instead of 30 minutes in the refrigerator between turns, it was in there for 40 to 45 minutes. And much to my surprise, I was able to roll my pastry out straight! Here it is:

For my filling, I used the passionfruit curd recipe in Sherry Yard’s book, but used a technique that I’d been wanting to try via Rose Levy Beranbaum: “if you beat the butter into the eggs and sugar before adding the juice it protects the yolks from curdling at all so you get 0 residue!” Rose is right – I ended up with virtually no residue, and the silkiest curd that I’ve ever made. Here’s a picture of the sieve after straining:

As you can see, there’s hardly anything in there. I plan to use that technique again. For another passionfruit curd recipe, see here.

After using 2 eggs in the dough, and 7 for the curd, I decided not to paint the egg wash on the braid before baking. I figured 9 eggs was enough.

The pastry was flavorful and flaky, and the flavor improved as it sat. I really liked the filling, but it could have used some cream cheese or pastry cream, I think. What’s a few hundred more calories among friends?

Will I make this again? Yes! I’ve been wanting to make this for years, and the Daring Bakers finally gave me the incentive to do so. It’s not hard, but it is time-consuming, and you need to be patient as you roll things out. In the fall, I think I will try it with the apple filling in Yard’s book, or maybe with some pears? The possibilities are endless!

Post will be up later today!

**Update 7/20/08 – this cake got a whole lot better in the freezer – the flavors really blended and developed! **

I can’t tell you how many times I pulled the eggs and butter out of the refrigerator, only to put them back a bit later, because life got in the way and I didn’t have time to bake May’s DB challenge, Opera Cake, brought to us by Daring Baker founders, Lis and Ivonne, and co-hosted this month with Fran of Apples Peaches Pumpkin Pie and Shea of Whiskful.

Finally, I was able to tackle the Opera Cake, a multi-tiered confection of joconde (an almond cake), syrup, buttercream, a glaze, and a mousse (optional in our challenge). I halved the recipe, and decided on two primary flavors: passionfruit and vanilla, rounded out by a bit of lemon.

I love passionfruit. If I were on a desert island (or do I mean dessert island?), and someone offered me chocolate or passionfruit, I would take the latter.

But back to my cake. Since you’re probably like me and have 700 + challenges to read, I’m going to give you the abridged notes of my baking adventure.

The joconde:
I made the almond joconde, and put a couple drops of lemon oil in the batter. Of course, in my harried state, I added the flour too early and over-developed the gluten, so the cake was slightly tough, but it was still tasty. I also had one too many layers of cake, as you can tell from the pictures! Even though I brushed on a lot of syrup, the cake was still a bit on the dry side – good lessons for next time.

The syrup: I reduced 12 oz. of frozen passionfruit pulp by half, and used that as my flavoring element throughout the cake. I made the syrup as directed, with vanilla bean, and flavored it with an additional 3 Tbsp. of the reduced passionfruit. I brushed each layer of cake with the syrup and with pure reduced passionfruit juice.

The buttercream: I am not a cake person (except for Bundt and pound cakes). I don’t remember having buttercream until 1998, when Master Chow made me a cake for my birthday, covered with orange buttercream. It was sooo good! I used the original recipe in the challenge, but I was rather nervous about making this type of buttercream, because so many people have trouble with it. I didn’t have any problems at all. To flavor it, I added 1/4 cup of the reduced passionfruit – my liquid gold!

The mousse: I melted the white chocolate over a bain marie, and was very careful not to let it get to hot. In the end, the whole thing turned into a grainy mess, and I had to toss it. I had one square of chocolate left, so I melted that and mixed it into the whipped cream, along with a couple tablespoons of the reduced passionfruit, and a drop of lemon oil. This was my hands-down, most favorite part of the cake. Please pass the whipped cream, folks, hold the cake!

The glaze: Since I was out of white chocolate, I re-read the directions and realized I could make any glaze, as long as it was light-colored. I turned to The Professional Pastry Chef: Fundamentals of Baking and Pastry, 4th Edition, and adapted the recipe to make my own glaze:

1 Tbsp. powdered gelatin
1/2 cup reduced passionfruit pulp
1/2 cup passionfruit-vanilla simple syrup

In a bowl that can fit over a double boiler (bain marie), sprinkle the gelatin on the reduced passionfruit and let sit until softened. Heat gently until dissolved – do not overheat, or the gelatin will lose its ability to gel. Remove from the heat and stir in the simple syrup. Let cool, and when it starts to thicken just a bit, pour over your very cold, well-refrigerated cake. Don’t try this unless the cake has been cooled for a good three hours.

The glaze was fantastic. I learned a few things about working with it. First, it’s like a ganache coating, in that once you start to pour it on the cake, don’t stop, just keep going, or you’ll end up with the lumpy look that I have. Second, do not cover with plastic! I did that, and when I took it off, the entire glaze came off with it. I had to piece together the topping on the cake!

Putting the cake together: No problems here, but I have a construction tip to share with you. If you want to use both buttercream and jam (or curd) in between a layer of cake, this is how you do it – put the buttercream on the top of a layer, and the jam on the bottom of the layer that you will place above it. I did this with one layer of my cake, and used passionfruit jam:

In the picture, the top piece of cake is my bottom layer. I spread it with buttercream. The layer at the bottom of the picture has jam on it. I will sandwich these fillings together by laying the jam side on top of the buttercream. One more thing: refrigerate the cake as you construct each layer. That will keep the layers from sliding all over the place.

Bottom line: great challenge – I tried new techniques, learned a lot, and confirmed what I already knew (do not over beat the flour!) Thank you Ivonne and Lis, for a great challenge. Check Ivonne’s blog for the original recipe.

Check out the Daring Bakers blogroll to see what everyone else did! And along with many other DBs this month, I’d like to dedicate this to Barbara of winosandfoodies.com. Barbara is food blogger and strong supporter of LiveSTRONG, the Lance Armstrong Foundation. As part of her efforts for LiveSTRONG Day, Barbara hosts A Taste of Yellow, which is an event that unites food bloggers everywhere in the fight against cancer. Thank you, Barbara!