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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This month’s challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

We had several options for how to treat this challenge. We could make a traditional tuile — a French almond cookie shaped over a rolling pin to resemble the roof tile for which it is named. We could also make a chocolate cookie version, or a chocolate version that is more like a candy, made of just melted dark chocolate and ground almonds. We needed to choose one of these batters, shape it, and then serve it with “something light.”

I’ve made one version of tuiles on the site previously, which I shaped as cups to serve ice cream. This month, I ran out of time to try one of the true cookie versions of the tuiles, so I decided to go with the simpler chocolate version — just melt some chocolate, mix in some ground almonds, pipe into the desired shape, and then lay over a rolling pin to curl. Inspired by Karen, I thought I’d make them butterfly shaped. I didn’t have the materials to make a stencil like she did, but I thought a butterfly was simple enough I could freehand it. Boy was that a bad idea! Because of the almonds, the batter is a little thick, making it hard for me to pipe or spread it evenly, and I’m not very well-practiced at piping anyway. My plan was to make a butterfly, then let it cool kind of wedged between two glasses so that it’s wings curled up. Well, the few times I could actually get something shaped sort of like a butterfly, I messed it up while I was trying to curl it. In the end, I decided to just make round tuiles and shape them over a rolling pin. They weren’t as pretty as I hoped, but they still tasted good. Hopefully, soon I’ll have some more time and will get a chance to try making some stencils and trying some of the many elegant ways of shaping tuile cookies.

For my “something light” to serve them with, I combined two recipes from La Tartine Gourmande to make a raspberry mousse. This was delicious with the dark chocolate, and definitely something I will try to make again. (Don’t worry, I used frozen raspberries so as not to pay $10 for a half-pint of out of season, low on flavor berries!) I think it was actually relatively light in fat, and it definitely tasted appropriately light (but still delicious!) for cutting back in January!

Before I share the recipes, I must remind you — check out what the other Daring Bakers have been up to this month. And thanks again to our hosts, Karen and Zorra!

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