I’ll get the mandatory text out of the way first this time: 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’ve posted a chocolate bakewell tart once before on this site, but I have never had the “regular” version.  A traditional bakewell tart contains a shortcrust pastry, filled with some kind of fruit, and topped with frangipane.  The frangipane filling is light and spongy, flavored mostly from the almonds.  For the Daring Bakers challenge, we had to include the shortcrust pastry and frangipane but could use whatever fruit filling we wanted.

I decided to make a rhubarb compote to fill my tarts.  We were watering some plants for some friends that are out of town and noticed that they had a meyer lemon tree.  Since there happened to be a ripe one, and I already knew I liked the combination of Meyer lemon and rhubarb, I brought it home and added its juice and zest to the rhubarb.  I also ended up flavoring the rhubarb with lavender by adding a few stems while it stewed.

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The Daring Bakers recipe this month, hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks was strudel, and while the original recipe was apple, we were allowed to fill it however we wanted.  I decided to do a savory version, based on a filling from a mushroom barley pie from Smitten Kitchen.  It turned out pretty well, although the filling could use a little more oomph.  Matt suggested it needed sausage, which I think would be a good idea.

The strudel dough was actually easier to make than I was expecting.  You just mix flour and salt, water, oil, and a bit of vinegar.  The dough has a very nice feel and is easy to knead — not sticky at all.  However, stretching it was a little harder.  I pretty easily got it out to about a foot by a foot.  But, as I continued to stretch it, it started to get holes, especially on the edges, and I never was able to get it as big as the 2 foot by 3 foot recommendation.  This may partly have been because the directions suggest stretching it on a floured tablecloth, but I don’t have any tablecloths, so I just used my kitchen counter.  At any rate, it was still tasty, but I think it would’ve been better if it had been thinner.

I’m not sure it’s quite worth the trouble of making the dough again, but I did like the concept and the filling, so I think I might try it again sometime, but take the easy way out and just use pre-made phyllo dough or even puff pastry.

It was definitely a fun challenge, and thanks again to Linda and Courtney for hosting!

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. (more…)

For this month’s Daring Baker’s post, the theme was cheesecake, and we could modify the basic recipe as much as we wanted.  Oh, the freedom!  I wanted to make something special for Easter, after having given up sweets for Lent, and I found this brownie mosaic cheesecake from Smitten Kitchen — regular cheesecake with chunks of brownies mixed in, and a chocolate graham cracker crust.  I planned to use the base recipe from Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake, chosen by Jenny Bakes, our host this month, but mix in some matcha green tea powder, which I’ve been wanting to try, and chunks of brownies as in Deb’s version.  I ended up using a base recipe more like Deb’s — when I got ready to make the cheesecake, I realized I’d forgotten to buy heavy cream, but if you want to try Abbey’s cheesecake, you can get that version from Jenny’s site.

Matcha is a very finely ground ground green tea used in the Japanese tea ceremony.  Lately, it’s been popular in baked goods for its vibrant green color.  As it turns out though, it’s incredibly expensive (if anyone knows a cheaper place to buy matcha online, please let us know in the comments!).  Instead, I ended up buying Double Green Matcha Tea from the Republic of Tea.  It’s in individual tea bags and is a combination of matcha tea and regular green tea.  I then ground it up more finely in our coffee grinder, but I still couldn’t get it as fine as real matcha, which I think is why the final cheesecake has visible flecks of tea in it and is only slightly green.  The tea only subtly flavors the cheesecake, but I think the bitter note helps to cut the richness of the cheesecake, and I really liked the addition.  For the brownies, I just used a mix, since they were only a small part of the final product, I didn’t think it was worth making them from scratch.

And finally, thanks of course to Jenny for hosting, and be sure to visit the blogroll on the new Daring Bakers’ site, to see what everyone else whipped up!

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

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I’ve been wanting to try my hand at making pasta, so I was excited when I found out that Enza, Melinda, and Mary had chosen a spinach lasagne dish from The Splendid Table as the challenge for the month.  In fact, I think Mom and I got to work on this one the weekend after the challenge was posted, though of course I’m not writing it up until late at night on the posting date…

This was a pretty elaborate meal — not only did we make the pasta, it was layered with a Bechamel sauce and “Country Style Ragu.”  This made a creamy, rich, meaty lasagne, without much tomato.  It was definitely different from what I think of as a traditional lasagane, but it was absolutely delicious.  It was an awful lot of trouble, but it was so good, I just might make it again.  If you want the recipes you can find them here.

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Well, I’m a day late and a dollar short, but here’s my best effort at this month’s challenge.  Wendy at wmplesblog and Dharm at Dad – Baker and Chef hosted this month’s challenge, the Chocolate Valentino from Chef Wan.  This was an unusually simple challenge with only three ingredients — eggs, butter, and chocolate.  It makes a dense, fudgy, brownie-like but crumbly, rich cake, and as we were warned, it tastes just like the chocolate you use to make it.  We were also supposed to make homemade ice cream to go with the cake, and I had it all planned out to make this almond cherry chocolate ice cream.  I had bought the ingredients and everything, but I ended up at work all day on Valentine’s Day, and I had time to make the cake but not the ice cream.  In the end, it was so rich on its own, I don’t think it suffered too much from not having ice cream to go with it, although I do still want to try that ice cream sometime.

I added a couple extra ingredients to my cake — flaky sea salt and Kahlua.  I thought the coffee flavoring would be tasty with the chocolate, although if I did it again I’d either add more or leave it out, as I couldn’t really taste it. However, I did think the salt really added to the flavor of the cake. (After discovering World Peace Cookies, I’m pretty much in love with the salty-sweet combination.)

Thanks to Wendy and Dharm for a delicious Valentine’s day treat!  Finally, here’s the fine print for the blog-checkers:

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE’s blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.
We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

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