Daring Bakers: Danish Braid

One summer afternoon, Sara-Piperita goes to her usual Support Group: Anonymous Daring Bakers Challenged With Some Basic Preparation, ADBCWSBP (meetings every end of the month, day vary).
As usually, she meets with her fellow companions (some very skilled!!!), but this time is her turn to step in front of everybody and speak about the dreadful challenge of all...
"Hi, my name is Piperita and I'm puff pastry (and similar) challenged..."
A cheerful "Hi Piperita" comes from the audience...
Then she begin, tears dropping form her eyes, to tell her story...
"My problems with puff pastry began many years ago. Everybody love to make puff pastry. And many people told me that it is so simple that even a child can do it... I never could... I was always too hasty, or too afraid, or the room was too hot, or the pastry simply wouldn't puff...
I tried many recipes, work it in many ways, but nothing: I simply couldn't... It has always been one of the big flaws of my life..."
When she finishes, everybody stand up and begin to hug her... She feels sightly relived...
Then Kelly and Ben come up to the group and they begin to explain that they have the perfect recipe for Danish puff pastry. [Danish is slightly different form "normal" puff pastry, as it uses yeast to boost puffness...]
Piperita begins to cry again, mummling: "No, no, I possibly cannot... I even tried Nigella Lawson's recipe for Danish, where she allegedly says it's possible to make it with a mixer, with not so many turns and time, but even with that easy peasy recipe, I couldn't!"
Kelly and Ben try to comfort her, to convince her to give a try...
She finnaly surronder...
Sara- Piperita gave a try to Kelly and Ben Danish pastry...
Sara-Piperita isn't anymore afraid of Danish pastry or puff pastry!
Sara-Piperita succeded!!!
Now she can concentrate on the rest of her unberable flaws...

Daring Bakers: Opera

Opera is a dessert I always wanted to try, but never found the courage! It is one of those dessert so complicate dan with so many different passages and layers, that, honestly, if it wasn't for the Daring Bakers, I would probably be still here wondering about it!
Funny thing is that before to make it, I wanted to compare the given recipes, a mix of Dorie Greenspan and Tish Boyle and Timothy Moriarty's recipes, with the French recipes, but I couldn't find it!
Among my cook book collection, I have to French desserts bibles: Ph10, by Pierre Hermè and Larousse de desserts. None has the recipe for Opera. And that looked strange, given the fact that both books are filled with monstrous recipes, so difficult that sometimes I read them, I think about them I dream them, but I do not dare making them (and I'm not revealing which one is the most dreaded, because it will be my choice for the Daring bakers challenge I'm going to host in 2009!)! I wanted to have a look at the French recipe not because I wanted to change the recipe of the challenge, but just for comparison. Has it never occurred to you to have in front of you a recipes, especially desserts, and want a "second opinion", just to be sure, just to have a different view? To me it happens all the time!!! :)
So my only reference for this traditional French dessert were American recipes! Perfect! I mean, my French husband wasn't so sure about it, but I mean, is HE the daring baker??? No, he's not, he's just French! :P
And as the recipe turn out PERFECT, he could say nothing!!!!

The only problem I had was the fault of the white chocolate: I like the taste (even if sometimes it tastes too much of vanilla!) but I hate working it! It spoils in a matter of seconds!

I did a big rounded cake (jelly rolls are rare and difficult to find in Italy), and bakes the joconde in 3 different pan: 2 of the same size and one tinier, as I had only 2 pan of the same size.
But I solved the discrepancy among the 2 different size with blueberries!
My layers, from bottom to up:
- joconde, big size (wet with syrup)
- buttercream
- joconde, little one (wet with syrup), with a round of blueberries on the side
- buttercream, covered with blueberries
- joconde, big size (wet with syrup)
- chocolate mousse
- chocolate glaze

As it was made of different joconde size, I had to restrain the cake in a ring, so I could fill it in a easier way.
Of course, as usually, I unmoulded to fast, and the chocolate glaze went on the side... After this challenge I can say with no doubt that I'm not cut for good and perfect looking desserts: I just cannot! I'm a pasticciona!!! (that in italian means kind of goofy but that makes mess all the time!)

Daring Bakers: Perfect Party Cake

[Update: the pictures were added Monday, 31 March 2008, at 8.56, Italy Time for the reasons explained below]

Oh gosh, it's today! I though it was for tomorrow!
I was freely going around the net this morning, when I hit my FaceBook page and saw a random status message from Jean Aw, Tastespotting founder, saying "... it's that time of month ~ the Daring Bakers have struck again..." (I think on the daring baker day she receives hundreds of picture of the same cake: must be real fun for her! ;) and I thought: oh my, is it TODAY?
Then I saw that Ivonne poked me (always on FaceBook), as to wake me up, and then it struck me: IT IS TODAY!!! and my pictures are on the other computer! F@#§*!!!
For pictures you should wait the early morning of tomorrow, which means that in some part of the eastern world will be still sunday, so I should be "safe"! :)
And if you do not believe me I made it, you can ask to my friend Sara: she ate it at the beginning of March, when I made it, and she loved it! Although she asked me repeatedly for the recipe and I was oblige to tell her that it was a secret! :P
This cake was honestly AMAZING!!!
As everybody else experienced, this cake was marvellous!
At the beginning I was a bit concerned about the fact that no yolk are used in cake base, but this trick turned out to be so clever! I had a wonderfully light and fluffy base!
And for once I turned off the fan in my oven and baked the cake with heat coming from below and the upper part, and it came out perfectly flat, not in a dome shape like all the other time I baked a fluffy base!
I was relieved I wasn't obliged to make the buttercream: I'm in a low sugar kind of diet, so buttercream will be so wrong for me! So I decided to go for whipped cream, with little sugar.
I used blackberries jam (without sugar) for the filling and raspberries for the final touch, that as usually with me, turned out to be fairly simple, although right now I'm carving in front of Ivonne and Tartellete pictures, just to name two! :) And you can check out all the others here!
I promise, tomorrow first thing in the morning, the pictures! Wait for them!

P.S. I forgot that a shot of the cake was already on-line, in a Nigella Lawson style, with a friend holding it! :D



[note to self: it's not the first time FaceBook saves my butt, so stop saying bad thing about it, ok?]

Daring Bakers: Julia Child's French Bread

I love Julia Child! Love, love, love her! Last summer I read her biography and I was just startled by her voice: clear, gentle, friendly...
So, when I saw this month challenge I thought: "GREAT! A dream comes true!!!"
I knew that when Mary and Sara chose this particular recipe they were going in the right direction toward the true spirit of the Daring Bakers!
Never, in the whole of my life, I would ever dared to make a bread that needs an entire day to be made!!!
And by an entire, I mean it: I began around 10am last Sunday and I end up with the bread ready to be cut for dinner, around 8 pm!
An overall 6 hours of rising it was a mystic experience!
Ad the rules were allowing me to use a stand mixer, I bail out, and I used my beloved one... But the time you have to wait, the fact that you have to be patient and careful while your gluten is forming to the right consistent, and the fact that you have to wait other 2 to 3 hours to let it cool before to eat... Well, it was a mystic experience!
Of course the bread didn't come out like the one you buy in France, even if I used French flour to make it!
As Julia, Mary and Sara say the problem is the home oven!
But I NEVER made a bread with that kind of breadcrumb!!! It was amazing! And I was so pleased!
Expecially beacuse, remember, I married a French! And he was very pleased to!!!
To celebrate we ate it with a nice Fois Gras aux pruneaux we bought last time we were in France! A glorious dinner!

Thanks Daring bakers to make me dare!!!!
Here the recipe by Breadchick Mary.

P.S. I know, I know: the windows in my home have horrible dirty glass! I hate to clean windows! Every time I do it, it rains the very next day! Let's just hope my mum do not see this picture!!!

Daring Bakers: Tender Potato Bread

Warm focaccia filled with Parma Prosciutto: to die for!!!

Last time I’ve seen Annemarie in London, we just ended the Bostoni Cream Pie challenge, and we were a bit disappointed about our Chiffon cake turned out…
Then we moved to one quite corner, and whispering, we spoke about the new challenge. She already had the time to look it up, so she revealed to me what was about. At first we thought: “oh, that’s it?”
But then I remembered that once, the mother of one of my former boyfriends, told me that she was adding a boiled potato to the normal pizza dough, to make it fluffier… And her pizza was one of the best home made pizza I’ve ever tried!!!
So, here we are with this amazing potato bread!
Flour: the recipe was calling for all-purpose flour, suggesting to use an organic one, so I did. Not any fancy big name organic flour, just the Esselunga (the most widespread supermarket chain in northern Italy) organic all-purpose flour. And then for the whole-grain, yet again Esselunga organic whole-grain flour.
Potatoes: recently we’ve been to France, and shopped at the supermarket (I love to shop in French supermarket: you can find so many amazing stuff!!!). So I bought French potatoes and, honestly, they are very good potatoes: in Italy is difficult to find potatoes as good! Quite floury, good for baking, wonderful for boiling, and I would use them for Italian gnocchi too…
Yeast: I’ve used fresh yeast, 25 g. I rarely use active dry yeast, only when I don’t have fresh yeast at home and I have the urge for pizza…
Of course I knead the entire loaf by hand, and, as usually, it was a wonderful moment, very liberating, as if I was detoxifying from the whole working week and free my mind to reach higher level of relaxations…
Of course if “normal people” would read this last sentence they would rather think I’m completely crazy, but all my fellow Daring Bakers would absolutely agree with me: kneading is good for mind and soul!

And I have to say that this recipe, especially the quantities, are just perfect! I haven’t use a single gram more of the indicated flour!

And as the dough was quite a lot, I made:



A small loaf



Rolls



Simple focaccia with coarse salt

Daring Bakers: Bostoni Cream Pie (OH, MY!)

I’m late, I know!
I mean, in Italy is still the 29th October, so technically, I’m ok… But I wanted to publish it sooner, but, honestly, I was too lazy to make it before today, so, here I am, in the rush to use the last glimpses of day light!

Well, I was too lazy, that’s for sure, but other factor combine to my laziness:
1- I wasn’t attracted by the recipe (sorry Alpineberry!!! Nothing to do with you, absolutely: it’s me that is wrong!), not because it didn’t seem good or doable… But just because those kind of cakes doesn’t really make me scream in joy… I had to take EVERYTHING back!
2- I actually had not a lot of time this month (and all the months coming by), but at one point this morning, looking at all the wonderful recipes from all the other dear Daring Bakers from all over the world, I felt SAD! I want to be part of this wonderful and growing group, and if I wasn’t going to complete this task I had to leave, as I already jumped two!!! And, anyway, what’s the use of being a part of a community if you don’t participate to community events???
3- The whole point of this group is to challenge our skills, learning from errors and from tasks that seems too difficult or too easy! This time, the task seemed too easy to me, way to easy! BUT, even if easy, I’ve learned few things, like how to make a very good custard with not a lot of sugar, or that what in Italy is called Pan di Spagna, somewhere else is called chiffon cake… Only one problem: as I’m Pan di Spagna challenge, so I am even Chiffon cake challenge… It was so thin I had to put 2 disk in each serving…

All this to say that the cake was, as in the title, OH MY!!!
WONDERFUL!
So good!!!
So light, so simple, so quick (the overall process didn’t take me more then 45 minutes, not counting the cooling time!) and yet so rewarding!

Another Daring Baker task completed! Another challenge done! Another happy day spent baking!!!

Daring Bakers rock!!!