Party Cake!

Well it’s that time of the month again to share my cooking adventures with the Daring Bakers and I’m excited to say I baked my first 4 layered cake! (Please insert applause and golf clap here, haha). This month challenge was a “celebration cake” hosted by Morvan with the recipe coming from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking from my Home. I have baked many a cakes from my good friend Betty Crocker and have covered them with sickening sweet frosting out of a cardboard tub but this was the first cake I have made from scratch from start to finish. This was a perfect time for a celebration cake because everything has been going so well in my life recently and well... I couldn’t be any happier being me at the moment. Okay okay, enough with the sappy stuff, on to why you’re really here!

The only rules for this month’s challenge was to follow the recipe somewhat close and to fill it with something. Simple enough right?! Wrong! Through my many, many conversations with fellow Daring Baker and eating partner Amy, I finally decided to make a vanilla cake filled with lemon curd and blueberry preserves with a whipped cream, marscapone frosting. YES, somehow that all fit into a cake! I wanted the light airiness of the cake to be matched with the puckering tartness of the curd, balanced out with the fruity preserves and then smother it all with something lighter than air.

Because I was stretched for time this week I made the lemon curd earlier in the week and bake and assembled the cake later in the week. I just used my standard lemon curd recipe and went from there. The cake was surprisingly easy and bake up nice and golden brown as seen in the pictures. I let them come completely to room temperature because I tired to move or deal with them.

To assemble the cake, I sliced each layer (very carefully I might add) in two. I then dribbled the lemon curd and blueberry preserves randomly on the between the layers to give a marbled effect. At first I thought of just doing 2 layers of the lemon curd and then a single layer of blueberry but I thought this randomness would be prettier when the cake was sliced.

To finish it all off, I whipped up the cream and then added in the marcapone with a bit of icing sugar. Just delightful! My kitchen was kinda warm so I had some problems with the whipped cream wanting to separate. I should have just stuck it back in the frig to stiffen but my stomach as not willing to wait.

As you can see that once I cut into the cake the layer of lemon curd and blueberry soaked into the cake and gave it a beautiful effect. I have to say it was mightly delicious and I will defiantly have to keep this recipe the next time a friend has a birthday, or heck, I’ll celebrate it’s a Friday, or the first or a month, or just me! With another Daring Bakers Challenge under my belt, I feel a little more confident in my baking abilities so I’m ready to take on the next challenge!

yuuum, french bread

When I found out I would be baking bread this month I was really excited with the thoughts of chewy aromatic bread with a crust that shatters!!! However, I then realized that I had no idea what I was doing(eeek!). Wow what a challenge this was going to be. After reading through the recipe I thought, holy crap this is a lot of steps, but then I turned backed to thought of bread with tapanade, pate, and loads of jam and butter and I was all happy again. Of course I kept putting this one off (life does tend to get in the way) so I decided to suck it up, wake up early before work one day and get to work on the bread so that I could have it for dinner that night.

Following the recipe, I mixed the flour, water, and yeast in the early morning and did a quick knead before I had to leave (this took less then 10 mins). The dough was a tad bit sticky but I was scared of adding too much extra flour so I tried my best to resist adding more than I needed.

During lunch I came home to find a wonderfully risen dough with a pleasing yeasty smell. I puched it down, did a few quick kneads, ran around the kitchen like a mad man making lunch so that I could get back to work. I made it back to work on time too, you would be proud!

When I got back from work I formed my bread into two rounds so let it rise for the final time. Again, the dough was a little tacky but I didn't want to add too much flour to toughen it up. Forming the dough into this shape was pretty easy (I mean it's just round!) and I places it on my pizza peel so it would be easy to slide onto my pizza stone in the oven. Since I have had so much practice, it wasn't too hard to get them into the oven. I didn't have a spray bottle for the water so I just ended up using my fingers to fling it onto the loafs. A few more applications of water and some more baking later, out came two wonderfully formed loafs of bread. I was so tempted to take out the butter knife and honey butter and go after it right then but I decided I should wait (following the instructions of course) before I dug in.

So this was the end product and I have to say it was delicious. It was a little bit of work (more time consuming then anything) but I have to say I was really pleased with the results. Yet another challenge completed, bring it on!

Pucker up!

My first of many Daring Baker’s Challenge – Lemon Meringue Pie, Woohoo!

I have been a fan of Daring Baker’s after my dearest friend and eating buddy introduced me to food blogs. My first thought when my friend sent me links that made my mouth water and made my mind explode was A) How did I live without food blogs for so long?! and B) How do I become part of Daring Bakers? I thoroughly enjoy cooking and my TV usually has a cooking show on (I was so excited when I figured out my DVR let’s me record 2 at the same time!) but I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the most gifted baker but I thought why not, I’ll dive in head first and test my skills. So with all the formalities out of the way let’s break this Lemon Meringue Pie down!

The Crust!

Oh lord, where do I start… this past fall I was in the zone with crusts because I was determined to perfect my tarts – chocolate, curd filled, cream, you name I have probably tried it. I had my crust making down to an art so I could just look at a ball of dough and poof! it would roll out and blind bake itself all nice and golden without cracks and without too much shrinking. When I first read the recipe for the crust I noticed there was a lot more sugar in this dough then I was used to and my first thought was, no biggie, it will be sweeter! However this dough just didn’t want to cooperate.

The first problem I ran into was the counter surface I was using to roll out the dough is over my dishwasher and being the idiot I am, I turned it on about 30 minutes before I rolled out my dough. Yes, as you would have guessed my kitchen counter was warm and butter rich dough started to break apart as I rolled it out! I had problems getting the dough into the pie dish and as you can see my final results weren’t all that impressive. I ended up sticking the whole thing into the refrigerator because the dough wouldn’t come off the parchment paper and was cracking to no end. Not a pretty site. During baking, the crust seemed to puff up after I removed my baking beans and took on an appearance I had never seen before. I’ll account that from the butter melting in the crust on my counter and the sugar rich crust. I think I’ll stick to one of my fool proof crust recipes next time.


The Good Stuff (a.k.a. Filling and Meringue)

Tasty! I have made many lemon curds before (usually with a double boiler) so this was a slightly different technique. The filling was shinny, thick, and had a great lemony tang. Personally I like my curds so tart that it makes my lips pucker so I can almost always add more lemon juice. I have to say it was very tasty and I’ll have to keep this one in my repertoire.
This was my first attempt at meringues and I have to say it went a lot easier then I thought it would. The egg whites whipped up beautifully and as I added the sugar at the end it turned into something so glossy and mouth watering I couldn’t wait to try it.

Putting it all together!
I let the filling and crust cool down before I introduced them to each other. Even though my crust didn’t turn out all that great I was glad I could fill it with all that curd and then top it all off with the meringue to hide all my flaws. I piled the meringue high making some nice peaks and then placed it under my boiler to give it some color. Well… I should have watched it like a hawk because I let it get a little too brown but it was still tasty.

After the first slice was cut I couldn’t wait to stuff my face with lemon meringue pie. Even though my crust has this strange texture (kind of like honeycomb?) the combination of the crisp crust, silky tangy curd, and fluffy meringue was wonderful. I was pretty happy with my first Daring Bakers challenge (even with all the crust problems) and I’m looking forward to next months! Now go forth and bake!