Traditional English "Pudding" and an Announcement

The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet. Thank God we were allowed to wimp out and use butter if we couldn't find suet and/or couldn't stomach it. I think I would have been okay with it, had I decided on making a savory pudding, but I've had this horrible gnawing chocolate craving lately that I just couldn't deny a minute longer. So I went with the Very Chocolate Pudding that lots of other members were going crazy over, and it used butter instead of suet. I'm torn. I absolutely LOVED learning how to steam cake.. something I'd never even thought of doing before. I would love to do this again since the only dishes I dirtied were the Kitchenaid bowl, a spatula and 4 ramekins. I didn't even bother with measuring cups since the recipe was in grams, I just measured everything on a styrofoam plate on top of my scale, then and dumped it all in. Other than for my photos, I'm not even going to have to dirty a plate, as we'll just dig right into the ramekins. Nice. So why am I torn? The flavor was great.. but I over steamed. I figured for the large single pudding directions in the recipe, quartered into the ramekins, that my steam time would drop by 45 minutes. Well.. they were probably done in 30 minutes. They weren't completely dry, but they were definitely on the side of a "cakey brownie" which I don't like. I like fudgey brownies and airy cake.. so the texture didn't thrill me. But that's my fault, I should have checked them in 30 minutes. Since I don't make cake often (Lord knows I'd like to) I'm not sure the next one will be steamed or traditionally baked.. although I've seen some flavor combos and photos in the private DB forums that have absolutely made my heart flutter in envy (check out the photos in the slider!). Regardless though, I truly am thankful for a great lesson in steaming something other than broccoli. :D Thanks so much, Esther!!! xoxo I don't know why I feel the need to even announce this as most of the readers of this blog have figured it out by now, but food blogging is no longer a passion of mine. I still love LOVE LOVE to cook and occasionally bake.. but to go through the motions of taking horribly lit and out of focus photos, and then trying to come up with a witty post, when frankly, most times in ,my kitchen don't merit a giggle. A lot of my time is taken working on The Daring Kitchen website and working with all the wonderful people who have helped to make it the success that it is. And kids? It's fakkin exhausting to work that hard on one project and find the inspiration to work on another project that just doesn't trip your trigger any more, yanno? So I've decided to kinda cut some stress and concentrate on the DK and finally stop stressing over not updating this blog much anymore. You'll find an occasional post regarding a DB or DC challenge here (I've already completed my May DC challenge so it'll be up in a couple weeks), but truthfully, I'm not even really participating all that much anymore. I've decided to focus on the "behind the scenes" duties of the website, hoping to keep present and future members happy and interested in learning how to cook and bake better. One day the passion to create new recipes to share with ya'll might come back.. who knows.. but for now.. my mojo has pretty much dried up. ;) I am happy to say that I've not lost the passion to make a total ass of myself on the internet and have started a new non-foodie blog where I can just update whenever I want and talk about whatever I want.. once I'm comfortable with the direction it's going, I'll post a link and maybe ya'll can check it out for a giggle or two. Hugs! xoxoxo

I Baked For Shaun White!

Okay not really.. but he's the only winter Olympian that I know of. And frankly, I'm not even sure he's in the Olympics this year.. is he? What I do know is I like his long wavy red hair. But I probably shouldn't say that out loud as I'm most likely old enough to be his Aunt. *cough* Anyhoo.. as per usual, I'm a day late and a dollar short. And once again I feel foolish because of it. This month's Daring Baker challenge was a breeze and the results were muy deliciouso! Wait, that's Spanish.. what would the Canadians say? Uhmm.. 'kay.. well.. the results were KICK ASS! (that's more of what I'd say because I don't know what a Canuck would say. Canuck.. is that PC?) The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca. Lauren is from Canada and these Nanaimo bars are her tribute to the 2010 Winter Olympics held in Vancouver, Canada. Here's a funny.. and he's probably going to kill me.. but I received an email this morning from my friend John who had to tell me that while he was making his dough for the graham crackers he noticed that it smelled like graham crackers. And then he said, "Really?? You think??." Yes Gorgeous, the dough DOES smell like graham crackers and after baked, they taste better than any graham cracker I've ever had. Addicting is the word. More like Graham Crack. I kept hearing, er, reading in the forums that other members couldn't stop eating the graham crackers and my friend Michele said the same thing - but I had NO. IDEA. HOW. GOOD. they really are. I was almost sad to have to crumble a bunch of them for the Nanaimo bars. Seriously. But I did.. and then I kinda veered off the traditional route and went down my own road. I've made Nanaimo bars before and they were delish, you'll get no argument from me there. But they were a leeetle sweet so this time I wanted to make all of the components but in different flavors - specifically flavors that aren't as sweet. I started with the graham cracker crust, and omitted the nuts as we can't eat them. I also ground the coconut to almost a powder because I had to hide it as Hubbs hates coconut with a passion. He'll eat stuff flavored with coconut but hates real coconut. Go figger. And I added a generous peench of cinnamon. What I didn't do was add the cocoa. This was entirely an accident. I was so intent on grinding down that coconut and getting it into the crust before he came back into the kitchen that I completely forgot the damn cocoa. I really did want a chocolate crust. Then I moved on to the filling, which is what I found too sweet in the traditional bars. I decided I wanted a blast of coffee with the tang of cheese. Ideally I was going to do mascarpone/butter cream frosting flavored with espresso powder. But I never got the chance to get the mascarpone, so I had to do with cream cheese. Basically I made cream cheese frosting sans most of the sugar - I probably used 1/3 of what a basic cream cheese frosting would call for, then thinned it a bit with a boat load of espresso powder stirred into a small amount of hot heavy whipping cream. I can't find the words to express how fakking good it turned out and I really can't wait to use it on a cake! For the topping, ya'll know me, right? I don't say no to any kind of chocolate unless it's white - which is not chocolate anyways. BUT just a few weeks ago, I made a pan of what is essentially buckeyes (the lil round gobs of delicious sweetened peanut butter dipped in chocolate), but instead of rolling out the peanut butter into balls, because I'm a lazy mofo, I just spread it into an 8 x 8 pan and poured the chocolate over it. After refrigerating the chocolate became hard (duh) and well.. after forcing myself to eat 3/4 of the pan myself, I was kinda over hard chocolate with something mooshey underneath. :P So I went with a basic ganache over the top of my coffee/cream cheese filling. As you can see in this picture, there is a bite taken. That is the one and only taste of these that I've had (so far) and it took every fiber of restraint in this chubby body of mine to stop there to rush into my office to write this post a day late. And keep in mind, I don't own very many restraint fibers. :P Holy mother of a chinless baboon, these bars are FANFARKINGTASTIC. They aren't nearly as sweet as the traditional Nanaimo bars, but they are definitely rich, and I'm confident that I can get over that. :P The cinnamon & coconut in the crust paired with the coffee and chocolate and the tang of the cream cheese is nothing if not heavenly. Lauren, thank you so much for choosing these recipes and for allowing us the creativity to choose different flavors. I just hope I can restrain myself until Saturday evening as I've promised these bars as dessert for friends who are coming over.. but then again if I just whip up another batch, who will be the wiser? ;) Pop on over HERE for the recipes for the grahams (gluten free and made with wheat flour versions) and the traditional Nanaimo bar recipes! xoxo

Dobos Torta

Well.. I'm at a loss. This cake had promise.. I was excited about it. First thing I thought about was strawberries. I wanted a strawberry cake with dark chocolate buttercream. And after a chat with a certain French lady I happen to know, I was even more excited because she came up with the solution of how to incorporate strawberries into the cake.. by pulverizing the freeze-dried strawberries I had into a fine power and adding it instead of pureed strawberries because not only would the powder flavor the cake it would color it and not cause it to turn out gray.. works for me, the Queen of Run-On Sentences. And then I read the recipe and it all went straight to hell. BUT FIRST! A word from our sponsors... hehe 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. You see the Baking Gods weren't smiling upon me. Imagine that. I even think they are tired of laughing and pointing at me.. now they just turn their Godly backs towards me. I've bored them with my total lack of improvement in the "folding" arts. I know how to fold. I was taught IN PERSON by MY GURU. I was taught WELL. But when I am faced with a recipe that is all about fakkin folding, my palms start to sweat. My mouth goes dry. I frown. I know before the spatula touches the batter that I'm going to FAIL. Ohhh and when I read that you have to fold the wet stuff.. AND THEN fold the dry stuff well I about lost the contents of my bladder. I just can't stop folding.. it's those fakkin white whispy streaks.. I HATE THEM. They MUST BLEND IN DAMMIT. I fear they'll show up in my baked product and ewww who wants white trails through their cake? Not I, my friends. Not I. So I keep folding.. and folding.. and soon I've got a consistent color with absolutely no fluff. And I look at it, every single time amazed at what I had just done. Like I'm surprised or something. WTF? I can't stop myself. So my batter ended up being about 1/2 of what I believe I should have ended up with. I went with 3/4 cup for each layer.. and each layer turned out like.. well.. pita bread. Lavash. Rubbery and flaccid. And yet they were also dry as the Mojave. Oh and I only had enough batter for 5 droopy layers. But what the hell, the buttercream will make it all better! Right? Mmm hmm.. I went with my go-to buttercream recipe.. Jacques Torres' to be exact. Italian Meringue Buttercream. It's to die for. I've made it several times and each time it's come out perfectly. I had no worries. I knew this buttercream was going to save this cake, just like it did the infamous crepe cake of long ago.. *shudder* Yeah. No. Apparently, my eggs got too hot. I must have drizzled the sugar syrup in too quickly. I admit I wasn't concentrating on it, since I was full of so much OC (over confidence) - and I know better than that. You'll never make your shot if you've got the OC going on. I learned that in the poolhalls and bars of my younger days.. good times. Good times. Anyhoo.. so I overheated the eggs, so says My Guru. And when you overheat your eggs, your buttercream doesn't stay fluffy after you add the butter.. instead it turns into a thick glaze. Horse Pucky!! I threw it in the fridge overnight.. and THANK THE BABY JEBUS it didn't separate or deflate even more.. it turned out okay.. other than it melts the second room temperature air hits it. But that's okay, it tastes so good that I could eat it on a cake or drink it through a straw.. makes no nevermind to me. Keep in mind, I haven't had buttercream or any kind of cake for 3 months now. I could bathe in the stuff and be a happy woman. So I frosted (HAR!) my strawberry flatbread cake layers after I brushed them with strawberry syrup and called it DONE. No caramel. Oohh hells no. There just wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that I was going to f*ck with the Baking Gods a third time. Sorry, kids. Lissee knows when to scream UNCLE. The cake was excellent if you like chocolate buttercream covered crackers. There was no strawberry taste whatsoever. The texture was so far off that I really can't even call this a cake. It was more like a molded hunk of buttercream with cracker-like separators. I ended up peeling the "cake" off the buttercream and yes, I ate all of the buttercream. ALL OF IT. And my slice was sliverish (not like the hunk I cut for my horrible photos), yet I'll wager it weighed 3 pounds. You just have to appreciate the miracle of butter, sugar and chocolate. There were way too many amazed and happy Daring Bakers for me to think this was just a bad cake. No, I know it's a damn good recipe, I just blew it. Again. Gah. Many thanks to both Angela and Lorraine, they were fabulous hostesses and this was a great challenge! Not one I'll repeat, thankyouverymuch. :P But it really was a great challenge, we learned techniques and were still given enough leeway for creativity to make these cakes our own. Well done, girls! :) So do yourselves a favor and leave this blog now.. run far, far away from it and check out the Daring Baker blogroll to find hundreds of gorgeous and tasty cakes to drool over!

Woe is a Fluffy Marshmallow...

Of which the pan I can no longer eat in one sitting... Well by now, most of you are probably sick and tired of looking at marshmallow cookies and Milan(o) cookies. Or you could be like me - not exactly sick of looking at them, but getting to the point that the photos are driving you f'n crazy and soon will cause you to say "Fakkk the diet" as you dive into the freezer head first, in search of the box of cookies you made last week. Gah. Now I'm not blaming anyone here but myself. I made my bed by abusing my body for 40 some years. So this is entirely my fault. But DAMN people. Couldn't the Daring Bakers hostess picked baked carrot sticks?? Sugar-free Jello Trifle?? Dog biscuits? ANYTHING but crispy and delicate lemon scented cookies stuffed with chocolate or melt in your mouth fluffy marshmallow dipped in chocolate?? c'mon! Speaking of hostesses... The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network. Incredibly, I didn't have many problems this month. I KNOW! That's rare for me! :P I started with the Milan(o)s - the batter was so easy to put together I was kinda shocked once it was done and reread the recipe to make sure I didn't forget an ingredient or step. I decided to not pipe them out because seriously, my piping skillz are about equal to my mad frosting skillz. I really need to make another cake so I have something else to reference to. hahahaa! Anyhoo.. instead of piping, I decided to make a template. Problem was, I didn't have anything thin enough to cut the shape of a milan(o) cookie out of. It was getting close to lunch time, so I decided to think about what to use while perusing the fridge and pantry for something to munch on when I happened upon an old box of Kraft Mac & Cheese. Even though this box of tiny elbow macaroni and package of orange dyed salt is a comfort food to me, I didn't think about eating it.. I thought about sacrificing it to the Baking Gods. So I poured the contents out, cut the box so it would lay flat and proceeded to draw a 3" x 1" template of my cookies. Worked like a charm! Course after they baked they didn't exactly stay in the perfect shape I had worked so hard on, but they weren't too bad and I liked the "rustic" look of them. Now when it came to the chocolate.. well.. that's where I had a problem. I didn't melt the chocolate over a double boiler, because the last couple times I've done that, my chocolate broke. Some steam had caused it and I didn't want to take that chance this time. So I nuked the chocolate & cream.. at first it came out great but soon it got clumpy and greasy looking. I have no fakking idea how or why this happened unless there was a water molecule on the spoon I used to stir it? Fakk me. Of course I didn't care toooooo much as I figured it was going to be sandwiched and the look of the chocolate didn't matter as much as the taste. So I filled up ohhh eleventy billion cookies. Uhh Gale? You don't know how to count. This recipe made quadrupal the amount of what your recipe said it would. I ended up with lots of cookies left over without filling, but that was okay because Hubbs had cookies to munch on while driving to work and didn't have to worry about getting chocolate all over his truck. ;) As I'm sure you've guessed, I did sample a cookie or two. Please, I have next to zero willpower when it comes to chocolate anything. They were good - I actually prefered the cookie plain for munching. But they weren't Milanos. A Milano isn't lemon flavored. And I didn't particularly like the vanilla/lemon flavors. I wish I had cut down on the vanilla.. but you'll have that. Will I make these cookies again? Nah.. but it was really fun going through the process. :) Now the chocolate covered marshmallow cookies (Mallows) - they were delicious. I couldn't get over how easy making marshmallow was. And to think, I've made that frosting a 1000 times and didn't realize that by just adding some gelatin, I could have had homemade marshmallows years ago. Doh. The cookie base was also as easy as the Milan(o)s. Instead of shaping into a disk and refrigerating, I decided to take a tip from one of our wonderful Daring Baker members and cut the dough in half, rolled each half into a log and I froze it for a couple hours to make cutting easier. That also worked like a charm and I got some nice round 1.5" - 2" cookies in the end. I went bigger than what the recipe called for because by now, I'd already invested like 3 hours into the Milan(o)s and didn't want to be up til midnight with the Mallows. I'm glad I did.. they make an impressive larger cookie! Originally, I wanted my marshmallow to be swirled. Like this one. I was going to make two flavors.. strawberry swirled and mocha swirled. I was also going to spread homemade strawberry preserves, that were given to us last week, over the cookie before I piped the strawberry marshmallow and this wonderful super thick hot fudge over the cookie before I piped the mocha marshmallow. But again, I'd been at this baking without eating 1/2 the end product before I was done thing for many hours and I just couldn't be bothered. So I went with mocha only, no fudge. Unforch, my folding skillz leave much to be desired.. so by the time I stopped folding, my mocha mix (2 TBS. water, 1 tsp. instant espresso powder & 1 tsp. Starbucks' Mocha Mix) was completely incorporated into the marshmallow - no swirls. Boo. Didn't matter though - the mocha flavored marshmallow was fakking heavenly. OHMYGOD. It's a wonder I had enough to top 1/2 a batch of the cookies (still have a log in the freezer.. wtf am I going to do with it??).. yeah, my diet went straight to hell once I tasted that marshmallow. Gah. I let them set over night and dipped them the next morning.. they started to set up immediately and that happened because I went with Crisco instead of cocoa butter or oil. I was very, VERY pleased especially since I'd read about so many members' cookies not setting up for them. I've just always used Crisco in my Buckeyes candies, so it wasn't even a conscious decision to do so with these cookies. Right now, I've got about 20 cookies in my fridge that I still haven't had a chance (or good lighting) to take a photo of, but will upload them as soon as I do. Once they are photographed they are also going into the deep freeze and along with the Milan(o)s, will be a gift to my girlie-friends who are coming for a slumber party this weekend. Thanks, Nicole! Even though I cheated some this past weekend.. it was worth it to know I can make marshmallows now! I can't wait for winter and Christmas present making! :) Check out the blogroll for BILLIONS of other amazing cookies! PS - Mom is doing well.. a few problems with leg cramping (from the Lasix) and exhaustion from being poked and prodded.. but I am confident she'll be like brand new once they are done draining the excess fluid. Thanks for the many concerned emails.. ya'll have no idea how uplifting they were. Hugs! xoxo

Beans Beans the Magical Fruit...

So yeah. Beans and I have never had a good relationship. Frankly, I loathe them. I hate the pasty texture of beans and the flavor certainly doesn't make up for texture, IMHO. I realize that I am in the minority and that I'm the weird one and I'm okay with this. :P No, seriously, I've been trying to get over my bean thing, especially this past year. My sister turned me on to a bean dip at a Mexican restaurant we like and I fell in love with it. Course it comes with 4 inches of the creamiest most delectible melted cheese on top so I can barely taste the beans, but nevertheless, I am now eating refried beans! Woot! Also, I've bought cans and bags of different types of beans. I even have "beluga" lentils sitting in my pantry! I WANT to like beans, dammit! Problem is.. I've overcome my dislike enough to PURCHASE beans, but they are all pretty much still sitting in my pantry. boo. So one day I get a email from a lovely gal named Lauren. She had a question about recipe archiving and although I couldn't help her (my recipe archive is archaic, and that's putting it nicely), her email was an introduction to her blog, Healthy Indulgences. Actually, I've mentioned her before in the Shrimp Fried "Rice" post of a few weeks back. Well the most recent recipe she had posted was this amazing looking flourless chocolate cake. Please.. go look right now. Seriously. When you are done drooling, come on back.. we'll wait for you. Didn't I tell you? Ah-mazing. AND it's gluten free. AND it's sugarless. AND it only has 5.7 grams net carbs per 1/10th of the cake.. that's a pretty decent sized slice! So other than substituting the sugar, what makes it so different from other flourless cakes? One of the main ingredients is BLACK BEANS. Yes, you read me right.. BEANS. WTF? I'm still unsure what place the beans take, other than ensuring a very moist cake. Does someone else know? Lauren? :) But you can't taste bean in the cake AT ALL. All you taste is deep, rich chocolate. So rich, in fact, that 1/10 of a cake is actually too big of a portion. Especially when you slather it with Lauren's low-carb chocolate buttercream frosting. *swoon* So all of this sounds fabulous doesn't it? I mean, LOOK AT THAT PHOTO on her blog. Now look at THIS photo: BAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA! Mmmm hmmm.. mine turned out to be the height of ONE of Lauren's layers. teeeee! GO ME! AGAIN! I swear to the baby Jebus, the fuckin' baking Gods just have it in for me. They NEVER cut me any slack. In fact, I'm sure they'd rather munch on LIVE BEES than make ANY baking project go perfectly for me. Fakk me, I'm not even asking for perfect, just you know.. correctly?? Gah. So here's what happened. I normally have just about any kind of cocoa you can imagine in my pantry. But I'll be dipped in turtle shit, if this time.. this ONE time that I needed regular old cocoa powder, I didn't have any. I have like TWENTY containers of Hershey's Special Dark dutch process cocoa and 15 containers of Scharffen Berger DUTCH PROCESS cocoa, but no regular old cocoa. Can you even imagine? Okay.. so there's the first "tweak" - using DP cocoa. The 2nd tweak was omitting the baking powder because of the DP cocoa. Ya'll might remember The Mothership and her twin brains? Well the "brain" reaction was due to the fact that I used baking powder with the DP cocoa and I didn't want that to happen with this cake, so I omitted the baking powder and used baking soda only. You'd think with 5 eggs the cake would still rise quite a bit more than it did, but my baking soda must be super old or this cake really needs the baking powder too? Fakk if I know, I can barely butter toast without some kind of chaos ensuing, let alone figure out the science behind what reactions are caused by what ingredients for crissakes. Everything else stayed true to the recipe. I used both Stevia and Erythritol. My cake was just sweet enough, actually a little less sweet than other flourless chocolate cakes, and that was perfect for me. I prefer less sweet when it comes to my chocolate. I even wrapped this cake up after it cooled and stored it in the fridge over night before frosting the next day, to ensure no beaniness. The frosting turned out wonderfully.. wasn't too sweet and had a great creamy texture. Slightly on the "cool" side, which I read is a characteristic of Erythritol.. it imparts a minty coolness into whatever you make with it, unless you add Xantham gum, which in this instance wasn't necessary. But even the coolness didn't take away from the deep chocolate flavor of the frosting. Two things I didn't like about the cake. Apparently Erythritol doesn't like to be refrigerated. It forms crystals that really take away from the texture of the cake.. it makes it feel like the cake is stale directly under the frosting. Another textural problem was that mine ended up being almost "solid" compared to Lauren's cake which was fluffy and full of air bubbles. The texture was a little on the spongy side. I took the cake into work, even though I could have eaten the whole damn thing without much guilt or bad side effects to my blood sugar. (I just don't want to get in the habit of having any kind of sweets in the house for more than a day or two) Two of the guys tried it the day I brought it in. One will eat anything that's chocolate and can't form an opinion other than it's good or bad. To him it was "good" - but I can assure you, had I dipped a dog turd in chocolate, he most likely would have said it was "good" because there was chocolate involved. The other guy always gives me good opinions on what I bring in.. not just good or bad, but why so good or why so bad.. and he said the flavor was really amazing, but the texture was off. Then I told them both it was sugar free and made with beans and neither could believe it. hehee! So two of us both thought the texture was off. Before writing this post, I left a comment on Lauren's blog with my opinion of the cake and what I did and didn't like.. she's already answered my questions! You just have to lurve her ;) I'll make this cake again, it's too damn good for someone like me who can't have a boat load of carbs at one sitting anymore. I'll use REGULAR cocoa powder, baking soda (which I will make sure is fresh) AND baking powder. A tip Lauren just gave me was to make sure I dust the pan with cocoa powder all the way up the sides so that the cake can climb. I didn't realize that. I'm unsure how far up I went last time, but next time I'll make sure the sides are dusted completely. And the last change will be, I won't refrigerate. My goodness, I'm hesitant to say it, but maybe with Lauren's advice and my making sure I've got the correct ingredients.. the next cake will turn out.. correctly? I'm unsure how I'd react? Myocardial infarction? Pee-Pee in my pants? Call Guiness?? Stay tuned my friends.. this could get interesting. ;) xoxo

The Chocolate Valentino

*ahem* 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. Holy son of a motherless goat.. what a fakkin day! It's a quarter of midnight on Daring Baker Challenge Reveal day and I'm just now writing up my post. And no, smarty farties, I didn't just finish my challenge! We had guests over today and they JUST LEFT. Jebus. Anyhoo.. short and sweet.. which is basically a great description for my lil mini Chocolate Valentinos! I made the full recipe and ended up with 4 mini cakes made in ramekins and 2 heart shaped mini cakes made in these lil silicone heart shaped pans that came with some spring form pans I purchased years ago. I think I must of over-baked a bit because my cakes didn't turn out as fudgy as a lot of other Daring Bakers' cakes turned out.. they weren't dry though, just not as fudgy. The taste was okay. I used 71% bittersweet Callebaut chocolate which I adore for it's rich chocolate flavor. Unfortunately, this didn't carry over into the cake for me. My cake was almost bland. I got a good hit of the chocolate as an after taste, but it didn't send the usual POW to my brain when I first took a bite. I've made two other flourless chocolate cakes before and I'd still have to say that the Chocolate Intensity Cake found in Tish Boyle's The Cake Book is the most awesome-est in true orgasmic chocolate decadence out there. Not saying this cake was bad.. far from it. Just not exactly what I had expected.. it was more like a rich brownie than what I think of as a flourless cake. I paired my cake with Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream that I found in my new "bible" The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz. This ice cream was knock your socks off good. So much better than just your average coffee ice cream, the flavor was like a PUNCH of coffee goodness. I will so be making this ice cream again. *slurp* Many, many thanks to Dharm and Wendy for such a fantastic challenge.. I used my ice cream maker to make the ice cream, but I've read so many wonderful posts about those that made it without a machine and how delighted they were that it turned out so well. :) Oh and well.. I can't help myself, I'm sooooooooo excited - HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT! We're scheduled to launch the new website on March 7th - that's one week from today and for those of you who are saying, "yeah, we've heard this before" and rolling your eyes, just stop it. Didn't your mom tell you they could stick that way?? But yes, seriously, come hell or high water, the website is launching in one week and it's fakking gorgeous. OHMYGOD! Huge, huge, giant enormous thanks to the GENIUS we call Scott Blitstein of ESeMBe Technical Services and Patricia Furtado, one of our own Daring Bakers and an AMAZING web designer. They busted heineys to put together what Ivonne and I think is the most exciting, fun, chic, whimsical, fun, entertaining, awesome website for our Daring Bakers AND our Daring Cooks (to be announced soon!) EVER!! So no one make plans for next Saturday.. ya'll are going to kick yourselves squarely in your own heineys if you miss the grand "opening"! :) xoxo

Not Tho Daring When Thee's Got a Stuffed Node, Ith Thee?

Many, many apologies to The Daring Bakers, Hilda, and Marion for not getting my French Yule Log up by the designated reveal date! I am so sorry! Hubbs thought he was being funny.. har dee har har. This was a fantastic challenge - in every sense of the word. And I have to say, Hilda and Marion did an amazing job as hostesses for the month of December - as the questions were flying left and right. And what a great group of bakers we have! The logs I've seen this past week have just blown me away with all the different flavor combinations, creativity in decorating and just pure awesomeness! Congratulations to all who participated! :) So a little introduction.. This month's challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux. They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand Once again, my mad frosting skillz are top notch! The rest of this post is going to be short and sweet (for me).. I'm pretty sure by now ya'll have gotten the gist of the challenge this month, yes? :) I went with a caramel mousse, lemon creme brulee, dark chocolate crisp (I used rice krispies), dark chocolate ganache and then a dark chocolate icing. Ya'll might notice the base of my log is a wee bit different from everyone else's.. well *blush* my almond daquoise kind of started smoking and then full on burned in the oven as the "chef" might have been on the phone and not paying attention. *sigh* Unfortunately, I didn't have another nut in the house - other than moi - so I had to improvise.. I chose to do a graham cracker crust because, well.. that's all I had in the pantry that was uhmmm.. crusty. :P So the big thing with this challenge was time.. it's time consuming to put something so magnificent together. But all 6 of the components? Easy as pie. I had no problems whatsoever with anything other than the aforementioned "casualty". It's too bad you can't really see the creme brulee insert.. and I took the advice from other DBer's and broke up the crisp layer for easier cutting - I don't think I broke it up small enough though because cutting through that layer was pretty difficult. The taste? OHMYGOD, I have never before had a frozen treat that tasted so amazing. The tart lemon brulee is exactly what the caramel mousse needed to keep this dessert from being overly sweet. Going with dark chocolate for all of the chocolate components also helped with the problem of being too sweet. Caramel, citrus and dark chocolate are truly an amazing combination. And the different textures were just fabulous as well.. the mousse and brulee were very creamy, yet different as the creme brulee was more dense. The ganache was probably my favorite texture wise as it reminded me of the ONLY part of those Dairy Queen ice cream cakes that I enjoy. hee! And well.. the crumbly graham cracker crust was perfect in adding something different to the mix. Oh Look! It's levitating! :D truly loved this challenge and will definitely make this again next Christmas - and I might even get it done IN TIME for Christmas! ;) Thanks so much Hilda and Marion for a truly "Daring" challenge! And HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone! :) xoxo

Eggie Does It, Monsieur Hermé!

Well what a delight to have such a sweet gal hosting this month.. a long-time fellow blogger and someone I like to call my friend, Meeta of What's for Lunch Honey? and her equally delightful co-host, Tony of Olive Juice brought to us Daring Baker type people a recipe from the sugar daddy of all sugar daddies, Pierre Hermé! Meeta and Tony chose Chocolate Éclairs by Pierre Hermé from the book Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé, written by one of my all-time favorite bakers, Dorie Greenspan. To say that the crowd was excited upon hearing what our challenge for August was, is definitely an understatement. This was a fun month to watch comments on the Daring Baker forums. Many of us had problems with our éclairs deflating and there was much excellent advice on how to prevent that from happening.. advice, I happily admit, that steered me in the right direction as my éclair shells puffed beautifully with only 4 deflated shells out of 28. I went the mini route this time since I prefer éclairs small.. they are just one of those desserts that are too much for me if given a large one. I KNOW! Can you believe there is a dessert out there that's just too much for me? :P We had the choice of making them as they were originally intended.. chocolate pastry cream filled with a chocolate glaze on top.. or we could switch one of those components to something else, as long as we kept the other. Another shocker for me, I decided to stick with the chocolate glaze and go with a lemon pastry cream for the filling. A little zest and a little lemon juice in place of the vanilla did me just fine and before I knew it, I had one of the best pastry creams I've ever tasted! ;) I made 1/2 the way we were required.. by slicing each shell in half, filling one side with the pastry cream and topping with the other half of the shell then glazing with the chocolate goodness. The rest I decided to just fill by puncturing an end with a pastry tip and loading them up with luscious lemony pastry cream. I also decided that at the end, with just a few left and some fantastic toffee sauce in my freezer waiting to be used.. that I'd glaze those with the toffee sauce and then drizzle a little milk chocolate over. DELISH! The only complaint I had with this recipe was that the shells were very eggy. I took the advice of many and beat the living shite out of my choux after each egg addition (5 - FIVE - eggs) and I allowed my shells to bake a little longer than what was called for, then opened the oven door and pulled the shelf out half way so that they still had some warmth to dry properly. So the only thing I can say here is that I don't really believe that many of us had eggy éclairs due to not beating long enough or baking long enough.. I just think that there were maybe 1 to 2 eggs not needed. But, who the hell am I to disagree with the pastry king of France? Now, of course, I'd KILL - yes! KILL! to try one of his éclairs.. my guess is that you'd never know there was an egg in the recipe. :) Would I make this recipe again? No. I have another éclair recipe that I made last summer and it was not eggy at all.. they all deflated of course, but that was before I knew to bake them a tad longer and not to take them away from the heat completely until they've had time to dry. At least this is what I'm contributing my success to puffy shells this time. Would I make ANY éclair again? Probably, but not very often.. yes, I'm a dork and I actually prefer the donut type - you know, the kind that are called "cream sticks" *gasp* Was that blasphemy??? Sorry Monsieur Hermé! ;) Nevertheless, I learned some great lessons this month on how to keep my choux nice and puffy and how to make a delicious pastry cream that I WILL use over and over again. ;) Thanks so much Meeta and Tony!!! You have both done a stellar job this month and we appreciate it so very muchly! :) Ya'll can find the recipe on both Meeta's and Tony's blogs. xoxo

July and Buttercream.. Two Bitter Lovers

Chris from Mele Cotte was our hostess this month - and a lovely hostess at that! Chris chose Filbert Gateau with Praline Buttercream as our Daring Baker challenge for the month of July. I had mixed feelings.. I won't lie. Since my "lifestyle change" is still in effect, when I saw the cake included buttercream and chocolate, well I could feel my adrenaline start pumping and there seemed to be an instant bounce in my step.. CHOCOLATE. OHMYGOD HOW I MISS THEE SO MUCH. On the other hand, as much as I love the buttercream, ugh.. I've had enough of it to last me a good long while AND the temps in NE Ohio are pretty high with the mugginess at about 593% - just a smidge uncomfortable in these parts. ;) I'm a lucky gal as we've got central air but I wondered if it'd be enough to keep my buttercream thick and workable.. Mmmm hmmm.. I present to you the answer to that question: Allow me to fill ya'll in on the July Kitchen Disaster of 2008. I was on vacation the week I decided to make the cake - it was the perfect time because we were going to a sleep over at 2 of my bestest friends' house and I knew I could unload the fat/calorie laden cake on them.. so I started on Monday and made the pistachio (Bless Chris' heart, she gave us lots of room to personalize this cake.. changing the nut being one of them) flour and pistachio praline. Both went off without a hitch. I got back to the cake on Friday.. making the cake was, again, no problem.. my 2 layers puffed up nicely and were quite pretty in an green kind of way. hee! I decided to go with my go-to buttercream recipe from Jacques Torres because I'm confident in my ability to make that frosting without problems and wasn't really up to trying yet another buttercream recipe in the heat and humidity of my kitchen. Well, I guess it didn't matter what recipe I went with.. my house was just too warm and sticky even with the A/C BLASTING at Antarctic temperatures. I couldn't get this stuff to thicken up for the life of me. So I threw it in the freezer - and by that I mean, I literally threw the KA mixing bowl full of delicious buttercream soup into our chest freezer. :D Saturday morning.. I OF COURSE get side tracked on DB stuff and email catch up duties.. so I've got about 2 hours to crank this cake out and make the 3 snackers I had planned on bringing. You know, I've been in this position more times than I can count.. actually every time. I am late for everything - the quintessential procrastinator extraordinare. Seriously. And it doesn't matter how many times I rush to finish something before the deadline - it doesn't matter that I'm a heaping sack of nerves, angst and perspiration as I bolt out the door to get where I'm suppose to be within an hour (or two) of when I was suppose to initially be there. It doesn't matter how I call myself names and then give myself the silent treatment for being such an ASSHOLE every single time. I conveniently forget all of that the next time I'm procrastinating about something.. GAH. So this shouldn't come as a shock, but the very second I stepped foot in my kitchen that morning, the sky started to cloud over, I could smell the smoke from the firey depths of hell tickle my nostrils, I could sense pending disaster in the air.. yet I actually ignored it all and sliced my two layers into 4 layers. I added the praline to my barely thawed buttercream that barely thickened up after the deep freeze. I made a so-good-you-could-drink-with-a-straw soaking syrup of sugar, orange juice and Grand Marnier. I got out my brush, my offset spatula and my plastic lazy susan thingie that cake decorators use and I bravely began assembly. First layer of cake and buttercream looked good! I had hope! Second layer.. not so much.. buttercream started to thin again.. but that's okay because my plan was to throw it in the fridge the very second I had all 4 layers together so it could set up while I started my antipasto salsa (mmm mmm good, btw!) and brie/strawberry jam filled phyllo cups (swoon).. third layer? Well.. the leaning Tower of Pisa came to mind.. and I started looking for my bamboo skewers.. fakk it, it won't take but a second to get that fourth and final layer on! Instructions said to soak the cut side of that final layer with the syrup and then flip it over so the even side was on top.. at least that's what I thought I read - to this day I'm not really sure if I was imagining that step or not. Anyhoo.. soaked she be.. carefully flip her over on the top of the lean-to and then.. and then I'm holding a piece of the layer in each hand and the rest of it kinda just flooped onto the top of the cake. FAKK ME. It took a few seconds for me to get over the shock of the breakage. I mean, I know I shouldn't have been surprised - this is par for the course when I'm baking - but I was like.. "You've got to be fucking kidding me. WHY NOW?? DEAR GOD, WHY NOW???" And then I started laughing. Kinda like Tom Hanks in The Money Pit when he poured the last bucket of hot water into the tub, causing the tub to go crashing through the floor.. that kind of laugh where you are pretty damn sure you have just lost the very last semblance of your fucking mind and are also expecting Candid Camera personnel to pop out from behind the Frigidaire, pointing and laughing at you? Only no one came popping out and apparently I had partial control of my mind because the panic started to set in.. I had less than an hour to finish all this AND get my butt into the shower so I didn't smell like buttercream and goat. I simply turned my palms over and let the two pieces fall where they may.. I kinda nudged the part that flooped out on the cake over and like a puzzle, tried to put the pieces together. I probably would have had more success if I had chosen to move the pieces with the Vulcan Mind Meld technique than adding the heat from my hands to the buttercream.. but again, there wasn't much of my mind left at this point. I finally cried UNCLE! And realized this cake wasn't going anywhere.. so the cake, complete with plastic lazy susan cake decorator thingie was thrown into the upright freezer in my kitchen. Course that would be after I opened it's door and half the contents came flying out at me - frozen blocks of tuna, bag of hard lil meatballs, 3 pound sack of sharp strawberry chunks, various ice cubes and I think there was a package of chicken sausage that came at me like a torpedo. So yeah, once I dodged all of that, the cake went in, I slammed the door and decided to stop thinking about it.. LALALALALALALALAALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU! YOU DON'T EXIST FUCKING SPLOOGEY MELTY BROKEN CAKE LALALALALALALALALAAAA I didn't think about the cake the rest of the night and managed to at least accomplish the goal of getting completely hammered. I was suckin' down jello shots through a turkey injector, people! YEEE HAW!!! I have no recollection of saying good night to my fine hosts.. I have no recollection of finding the guest room.. getting into bed.. nothing. All I know is that I woke up the next morning and WANTED TO DIE. My hairs hurt. My clothes hurt. I hadn't been that hung over since way back in my drinking days say.. oh.. 10-15 years ago? Holy mother of a hairless Chin. I thought for sure I was going to meet my maker at any second. So as you might imagine, the thought of that cake didn't enter my mind AT ALL on Sunday either. Monday night rolled around and I was still hung-over, I shit you not. But now I was hungry again and nothing was going to cure what ailed me other than chocolate and buttercream, so I took that frozen bitch out of the freezer and whipped up a delectable ganache. I sliced the uneven (to say the least) sides off and poured that sweet sweet nectar over the top.. I even salvaged a lil buttercream from the other freezer and made a pretty decoration... HEE! Okay, horror stories aside, ultimately I'd like to make out with Chris for chosing such an amazing cake.. the taste was phenomenal. I'm not sure if it was the flavors I chose (pistachio, orange, chocolate and raspberry [the preserves I slathered all over it before pouring the ganache]) or if it was because I truly SOAKED the layers in that syrup.. but it was sooooo moist and the orange/choc/raspberry together was just over the top. Did I mention that I SOAKED the cake in the syrup? NOM NOM NOM *slurp* I did NOT take this cake in to share with the co-workers. NO. I. DID. NOT. I sliced her up and froze the slices :D Oh yes my friends.. Lissee will not share this cake with anyone, cellulite be damned. As of today, there are 8 slices left.. let's see if I can make it through the entire summer before depleting my supply. HAR! Excellent challenge! Loved it! Will most likely NEVER make it again! At least not in the summer months.. hehee Ya'll know the drill.. start clickin' on that blogroll and commence with the droolage! xoxo

Everything is Better on a Stick!

So I'm on this diet lifestyle change.. I recently hit 40 and well.. I think it's starting to hit me that I'm no longer on the uphill climb, but rather on my way downhill. Not that it's a bad thing, just makes me realize that if I don't really get serious, the next 40 years are going to be miserable. I don't like miserable. Yanno? The diet lifestyle change has been going okay.. lil iffy in spots, but rather well - surprisingly well in other areas. Such as cutting out all sugar. I KNOW. I can't believe I'm saying this let alone living it. But it's a true story.. no sugar, no chocolate.. and.. okay well.. some of you might want to look away for a minute, what I'm about to say next is not going to be pretty.       No butter. ***crickets***     Tell me. I've most assuredly lost my everfluffin' mind. I'm now all about low-fat cheeses and reduced fat mayo, olive and canola oil in place of my beloved butter.. fish and ground turkey - salads and fresh fruit.. dear sweet jebus somebody hold me. So knowing myself as well as I do, I knew there'd be no fakkin way I could make this challenge without inhaling half of it. I mean c'mon.. it's cheesecake on a freakin' stick. Covered in chocolate. It's Brilliance in the form of a lollipop is what it is. I'm weak and only human.. and as a co-founder of this amazing group, well I knew I had to take one for the team and get all of my cream cheese bricks and chopped chocolates in a row, if yanno what I mean. And I think that you do. I threw on an apron so that my thighs, hips and ass wouldn't see what I was about to do and got to it. This started as a New York style cheesecake.. no crust. It's just creamy heavenly cheesecake baked until just set - frankly, one of THE BEST cheesecakes I've ever had. And the recipe was really easy.. this is a time consuming and kinda messy recipe, but all in all, no problems and I really enjoyed making them. I kept 90% of them at 2 ounces.. but after counting 35 of them and still having a boatload of cheesecake left, I took out my big star cookie cutter and made a few big whammer jammers.. those I used for quality control. Because our Daring Bakers mean the world to me and I'd do anything to protect them, including eating a giant star shaped cheesecake lollipop double dipped in first peanut butter coating and then dark chocolate to make sure they were NOT poisonous. Well I am here today to tell my story, so I guess we can all assume the cheesecake is safe for consumption! (Actually, they are more than just safe... they are BIG DEE - lil licious) :D These cute lollies were brought to our attention by two of the sweetest and most kind hearted women that I've had the pleasure of meeting, Elle from Feeding My Enthusiasms and Deborah of Taste and Tell. Excellent choice, gals! Thank you so much! Elle and Deborah found the recipe in Jill O'Connor's Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey: Desserts for the Serious Sweet Tooth. By this recipe alone, this book has got to be good! Ya'll must give the blogroll a good clickin' this month, the creativity used in making these pops - both in flavoring and decorating - is going to blow ya'll away! Bake on Daring Bakers! Bake on! :D xoxo

Tiramisu - Creampuff Style :)

Hello! It's been a week again.. I promised to post more often and I put nothing up for a week. Go me. *sigh* I just finished up the week from hell. Seriously. I couldn't have posted if I wanted to as I was no where near my PC for most of that time. Instead, I was following ambulances to the hospital. Now that's a lot of fun.. they ask you to not follow close behind, so you make a conscious effort to stay back yet you are soiling your shorts because you want to get there the second the ambulance does. I mean, how the hell would the ER docs know what to do if I weren't there?? Yeah, I'm one of those people.. I gotta know everything that's going on and I gotta be there for it all. How freakin annoying am I? I actually just got done writing out the whole fakkin story about my mom and her 3 trips, 2 of which were via ambulance, to the ER (the first of those trips happened 1.5 hours after we brought her home from her first 4 day stay in the hospital.. the 2nd ambulance ride was after she was home for roughly 15 hours.) and realized that ya'll don't wanna sit at your PCs/lap tops for HOURS reading about my grief. Suffice to say.. after 2 unblocked arteries and stent placements, severe lower back spasms and COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) with a dash of pneumonia, she's home now. She is back on oxygen 24/7, but that's okay. Now we wait a month. Why? Because if all of that just wasn't enough to deal with all at once, they also found a "nodule" on her left lung. A biopsy was scheduled for last Friday, but it was found that the "nodule" is to small for even a needle biopsy. Therefore we wait a month for a new CAT scan to see if it's grown and then either a possible PET scan and/or biopsy. I refuse to get frazzled/panicked over this. It could be one of a 1,000 things. It's on the very lower tip of her left lung, suggesting this could be a case of collapsed lung. It could also be a bruise brought on by the pneumonia - or even from her fall back in February. So ya'll keep your fingers and toes crossed.. and a few prayers couldn't hurt either, right? =) Now enough. Let's move on to something so much more happier, shall we? About a month ago, I got it into my head that I needed to make Tiramisu. I've never made it before, because I'm not a huge fan. I've only ever had it from a bakery and once at a restaurant and never did it thrill me. Go figure. But I saw these adorable Lady Fingers at the Trader Joe's while last minute shopping while Helene was still here and just had to buy them. I mentioned to my sweet Ivonne that I wanted to make it and her response was to send me her family's recipe for it. How damn lucky am I?? :D Talk about having the perfect recipe for my first go at it! Once I had all my ingredients out and at room temp, I started the recipe.. which was to mix the sugar and eggs together until they were pale and thick. No problem (I love you, my sexy KitchenAid!).. next, add the mascarpone & cream all at once and beat until smooth and thick. Uhhh.. she's not smooth. And she ain't thick neither. Uhhh.. *panic* "Yes, operator? Get me the Creampuff in Canada STAT" ring ring ring.. ring ring ringgggggggg "Hi! You've reached the Creampuff! I'm not home! So sorry about your luck and your coagulated eggs & cheese!! MUAHAHAHAA!" *sob* "Yes, operator? Get me my Guru in S. Carolina STAT STAT!" ring ring ring.. ring ring ringgggggggg "Hi, You've reached your Guru! I'm not home! So sorry about your luck and your icky eggie cheesy disaster! MUAHAHAHAHAAA!" ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I uncracked the bottle of Jack and had myself a couple fingers worth. ;) By that time my phone rings and HALLEY-LOO-YA it was my Guru, bless her cotton socks! She advised me that I should keep beating it until it starts to smooth out and then put it through a fine sieve and I should be fine. It wouldn't end up completely smooth, but it also wouldn't have the consistency of spoiled milk. *buuickkk* And so I did, although I did change from the paddle to the whisk attachment, and sure enough, after 10 min. or so, it did start to come together and by the time I pushed it through the sieve, I had a semi-smooth mascarpone mixture. Phew! Disaster avoided once again thanks to my Guru. :D After that, it was a cinch to put together, pretty much.. I did read the instructions wrong (surprise!) and only used 2 c. of espresso (recipe called for 4) to 1 TBS. sugar and 2 TBS. of Marsala - so my lil lady fingers were ROCKIN' if'n ya'll know what I mean? Zinggggg! Now for the life of me I can not remember why I did not take any photos of the whole thing, quite possibly they came out all blurry? I dunno.. but anyhoo, it was gorgeous. Of course I had to make it even more sinfully delicious by adding 2 GENEROUS layers of grated dark chocolate. ;) Where the photos make it look like it was grainy, it wasn't. It was very smooth and silky. This tiramisu wasn't too sweet, so the added chocolate was a match made in heaven. And the espresso/booze soaked cookies were good enough to eat by themselves. Which I might have done with the 5 left over cookies.. maybe. *blush* The true test would be 2 nights later when I had some friends over for my 40th (gag) birthday party. One of my guests is a Tiramisu connoisseur and he promised to tell me the truth. He took a bite, his eyes rolled back into his head and I swear he started pulsating. Orgasmically like.. I shite you not. Yep! This Tiramisu made him a very happy camper. Yay! Thank you SO MUCH, Ivonne! Not only have I learned what to do when my eggs and mascarpone curdle, but I am now a huge lover of Tiramisu. I've already got my mascarpone in the fridge and can not wait to get my hands on those lady fingers again.. soon.. oh yesss... soon. I think the Tiramisu would look lovely sitting next to Gracie's Croissant Bread Pudding on our Christmas dessert table, don't you? squeeeeee!!! This is a Creampuff recipe and not mine to share. So I guess ya'll are going to have to come to my house this Xmas for a slice, yes? =) Not only did My Sweet Creampuff give me this awesome recipe, but she also sent me the gorgeous napkins you see in the photo as part of my birthday present. =) xoxo