June 2010 DB Challenge

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.

This was very cool to make because of all the different personalization's of this dessert. My 5 year old decorated his own Pavlova (Bottom Left), I was so proud of him and impressed.

One warning with this is beware of a chocolate overdose. This is a very very rich chocolaty dessert.


This chocolate explosion consisted of four different recipes.

1. Chocolate Meringue: This is the chocolate Pavlova. Very very easy to make. As you can see in the photos I was able to pipe some nice looking shapes even flowers that held up very well while drying in the oven. They were very crispy melt in your mouth however if you let it sit to long in the mousse cream combo it will soften but still stay yummy.

2. Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse: Very easy to make as well. You just need to make sure that the chocolate you use is of high quality. Because it is not too sweet the chocolate really comes through.

3. Mascarpone Cream: Delicious! This is the one component that I will make again in the future. I actually am using the leftover for ice cream that I will make later tonight :) This component relied on me making #4.

4. Creme Anglaise: So The components here are simple. Whole milk, heavy cream, vanilla, egg yolks and sugar. The one thing about it is you can't leave it while it is on the stove thickening. If it boils it will curdle. I learned this the hard way when my little one was asking me to help him with his video games. I of course got distracted and before you know it I had scrambled creme. I had to do it again luckily I wasn't as easily distracted and it came out wonderfully.

Bakers Challenge Dec 2009, Gingerbread House

The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes.

This was of course great to complete because it brought me back to the days in elementary school when we used to make gingerbread houses out of graham crackers. The house held up very well. I was sure to bake it a few minutes longer so it could harden a bit more. I used caramel to bond the pieces together which I think is a better choice then royal icing. The actual taste of the gingerbread is not spectacular because it's not the sweet taste we are all accustomed to in a cookie. I think however with a nice cup of tea it would make a nice accompaniment. Of cousr decorating it was purly fun and I had the chance to go to a candy store and pick out different kinds of candy which I NEVER do.

For the gingerbread I used Y's recipi. Click here for more details.

Daring Bakers Challeng #1

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.

Today I had my first attempt at a wonderful pastry. Vols-au-Vent is a puff pastry very similar to a croissant or danish. I think the difference here is that the Vols-au-vent does not use any yeast. I could be wrong since the only croissants I have dished out from my oven are the ones that come in metal cylinders :)

This was absolutely delicious and heavenly. I don't think I can buy the frozen stuff again from the supermarket after tasting this. There is no turning back at this point. Due to the versatility of the "Puff" I also incorporated a savory dish because I'm not all about sweets all the time.

My first puff was a classic lightly sweetened fresh whipped cream with strawberry's. I added some powdered sugar over the puff to give sweetness to it. The puff alone is not sweet.


For my savory Vols-au-vent I have a braised lamb roast sliced thinly with a Moroccan inspired sauce consisting of dried apricots and prunes that were slow cooked with the lamb.