DB: Chocolate Pavlovas

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

DB: Piece Montee

The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

Piece Montee with coffee and vanilla pastry cream fillings, dipped in chocolate and topped with sugar.

DB Cannoli

Cannolipoleon with pumpkin and homemade ricotta chocolate chip filling

DB: Cannoli

The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.

The filling's in the fridge, and the fried cannoli are cooling on a plate. Are you drooling yet? Photos to follow.

DB: Puff pastry

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.

I really wanted to be inspired by puff pastry. But instead, I've been on a sandwich kick. After getting through 5 turns of the puff pastry last Wednesday with Allison, my pastry languished in the fridge while I started turning out sandwiches left and right. Too those who know me best, my sandwich kick is as rare as homemade puff pastry when one can go to the store and pick up a box of Dufour. See, I don't really like sandwiches. Well, I'll take that back, I really, really don't like making sandwhiches with big slices of slimy deli meat. My aforementioned hate of peanut butter makes a quick pb&j less pleasurable too. Now, if others want to make a sandwich for me, I'll assure you that it tastes much better than one I make myself.

So, I started with the Shroomwich. And followed up with a remake of the shroomwhich, 'cause it was THAT good. Then, breaking out Tom Colicchio's Wichcraft, I used my CSA arugula and celery to make Goat Cheese, with Avocado, Celery, Walnut Pesto and, in my case Arugula. I finished up with Onion Fritatta with Roasted Tomatoes and Cheddar for breakfast this morning. In the last two cases, my breads weren't what they should be but the sandwiches still rocked.

So back to the pastry. It's been chilling, and I knew I need to do something with (some of) it. So I made my Vols-au-vent, using the shot glass/juice glass method of cutting. They came out nicely, and, given the quick return of the fall weather, I made a quick simmer of some sliced apples with brown sugar, ginger, butter, cinnamon, black pepper, salt, cloves, allspice and nutmeg. With a side of vanilla ice cream, they were the perfect dessert to a goat cheese and celery sandwich.

And the leftover pastry became palmiers, rolled in the remaining sugar mixture from the apples.

DB: Dobos Torte

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

File this one in the "looks terrible, tastes great" category. Chocolate sponge cake, chocolate frosting that didn't set too well, and a caramel layer that initially wanted to break some teeth. The layering effect inside was pretty cool looking, though!