The Daring Bakers Do Dorie

As I recently wrote, I'm a new Dorie Greenspan cult follower, so I was pretty psyched to see that this month's Daring Bakers recipe was to be Dorie's own Perfect Party Cake. If Dorie Greenspan herself is calling something "perfect," you know it's going to be good. When Joe was here visiting a couple weeks ago, we set off on this baking adventure with great relish.

The Perfect Party Cake is a layer cake lightly scented with lemon, and between each set of layers it's got both raspberry preserves as well as buttercream frosting. More buttercream frosting finishes the outside of the cake, along with some shredded coconut for good measure.


Everything went perfectly this time around, and the flavor combination of lemon, raspberry, and coconut was truly sublime. However, I've come to realize that I simply don't care for buttercream frosting. It's just...too much. Too rich, too much butter. Nonetheless, Joe and I had a great time baking the cake, and an even better time eating it. I would definitely make this again with another, lighter kind of frosting.

To see hundreds of other takes on Dorie's Perfect Party Cake, head on over to the Daring Bakers Blog Roll. While the host doesn't appear to have the recipe on her site, many of the other Daring Bakers have posted it.

When Life Gives You Lemons...

I realize I'm about a week late on this -- shame on me! -- but I decided to go ahead and post my January Daring Bakers challenge anyway. Better late than never, right? This month the DB were assigned the challenge of a Lemon Meringue Pie, which my Mom was quite happy about because it's one of her favorites and I had planned to cook it while I was home visiting. My boyfriend Joe also did me the honor of being my talented and attentive sous-chef.


The recipe we were assigned was a bit challenging. The dough was the difficult part for me -- it didn't hold together very well, and it ended up being a bit too thick (and, in my opinion, too sweet). If I were to make lemon meringue pie again, I'd definitely use my own pie crust recipe, which always serves me well. The lemon custard part was easy, except that Joe and I got to the part where you're supposed to add the lemon juice and realized that we had forgotten to pick the lemons off the lemon tree. So I had Joe stand over the stove stirring the custard, to make sure it stayed smooth, while I sprinted out back and picked a half a dozen lemons from our tree. In the end, no harm done, and the custard was delicious with the fresh juice. The meringue itself was super easy and turned a pretty golden brown in the oven.


The recipe warned that the pie should be eaten within 6 hours, but we ignored that advice and kept it in the refrigerator for leftovers. In fact, the pie was even better (we thought) chilled the next day. (Oh, and sorry for the poor picture quality -- I took these pics in my Mom's kitchen, which has the worst lighting ever.)


To see hundreds of other takes on this Lemon Meringue Pie, head on over to the Daring Bakers Blog Roll. If you're feeling particularly daring, you can find the recipe over at this month's host's site, The Canadian Baker.

The Daring Bakers Do X-Mas

This month was Round 3 for me in the Daring Bakers challenge, and it was by far the hardest one yet, involving not one but multiple snafus and do-overs. The Daring Bakers are a group of over 300 food bloggers who prepare the same elaborate recipe each month and post about it on the same day. This month, our recipe was holiday-themed: a beautiful Bûche de Noël, or Yule Log. A Yule Log is a genoise sheet cake rolled up with a buttercream frosting filling into the shape of a log. I baked mine this afternoon in preparation for a little holiday gathering I'm hosting later tonight.


The Yule Log involves three steps. First, you bake a thin sheet genoise cake, whose batter has lots of eggs and is made fluffy by beating air into it. Second, you make a coffee buttercream frosting (potentially the most difficult step - at least for me). Third, after assembling the cake, you make little "mushrooms" out of marzipan to decorate the log.


The cake was easy (dare I say - it was a piece of cake). The hard part was the frosting. This frosting is not the healthiest thing in the world. I'll be straight with you and tell you that it involves three sticks of butter. The first time I attempted to make it, I got a little overzealous with the "softening" of the butter that the recipe calls for. I wasn't thinking, and I didn't realize that if I softened it too much, the frosting would be too liquidy. That first batch had to go down the drain. The second batch I didn't soften the butter at all, and it was solid enough, but it kind of ... curdled. Like, the butter just was kind of lumpy and not incorporating fully into the frosting. Fortunately, I kept beating it until it started to look like normal frosting, and all was well. The marzipan mushrooms were a breeze to make.


To see hundreds of other takes on this Buche de Noel, mosey on over to the Daring Bakers Blog Roll starting today. Some of them probably have the recipe posted, which I'm too lazy to do ;) Happy holidays, everybody!

Tender Potato Bread

This month was Round 2 for me of the Daring Bakers challenge, in which over 300 food bloggers prepare the same elaborate recipe and post about it on the same day. This month, our chosen baked good was savory, not sweet: a Tender Potato Bread with mashed potatoes mixed right into the dough. I decided to make this as my contribution to my family's Thanksgiving dinner (fortunately my Mom took care of a good bit of the rest).


Before setting out to bake this delicious bread, I perused the Daring Bakers internal blog to see if anyone had any tips or suggestions. Fortunately, in this manner I was warned that the dough was incredibly sticky due to the mashed potatoes. In fact, sticky would be an understatement. While I was kneading the dough, I had to get my Mom to gradually add in the flour for me, since my hands were literally stuck to the ball of mush. It didn't take too much flour to wrangle it into control, though, and even though it was incredibly soft (I didn't want to add too much flour for fear of making the bread tough) I decided to shape it into rolls to go with Thanksgiving dinner. Well, the dough was so soft that it couldn't hold the roll shape. When I put the balls of dough onto the baking sheet, they just flattened out into one big...sheet of bread. It was odd. But when I tore it apart into pieces to put into the bread basket and carried the hot-from-the-oven mini-loaves to the table, no one was complaining. The bread had a nice crusty top and was chewy and moist on the inside. Definitely well worth the effort.


To see hundreds of other takes on this Tender Potato Bread, formed into all sorts of shapes and topped with yummy extras, cruise on over to the Daring Bakers blog roll starting today. If you're feeling particularly daring, check out the recipe over at My Kitchen in Half Cups, whose creator, Tanna, selected this tasty treat. (Don't let the recipe's length scare you; it just contains a lot of variations.)

Sweet Like Victory

Welcome to my first entry in the monthly Daring Bakers challenge, in which hundreds of food bloggers prepare the same elaborate recipe and post about it on the same day. It's mighty coincidental that the selected posting day this month is the day after the Boston Red Sox won the World Series - and that the chosen recipe is for a dessert modeled after Boston Cream Pie.


Meet the Bostini Cream Pie. Whereas the traditional Boston Cream has two layers of vanilla sponge cake filled with vanilla custard and topped with chocolate ganache, the Bostini begins with a thick vanilla custard in a bowl, throws a mini orange chiffon cake on top and drizzles the whole thing with warm chocolate glaze. Needless to say, it's delicious, although so rich that I'm pretty sure it took at least a week off of my life - the custard alone called for 10 egg yolks, not to mention the rest of the heavy cream, butter, sugar, and chocolate that went into the entire production.


Although the Daring Bakers are instructed to follow the recipe to the letter, we were allowed to reduce the recipe this time because of the massive portions of dessert it was designed to produce. I halved mine, and it still turned out beautifully. I made it while Joe was here visiting earlier this month, and he was the best sous-chef any girl could ask for. (I hope he forgives my baseball-related gloating; he's not exactly a Sox fan.)

To see hundreds of other Bostini Cream Pies, presented and plated in all kinds of creative ways, visit the Daring Bakers blog roll starting today. If you're feeling daring yourself, you can check out the recipe over at Alpineberry, whose creator, Mary, is this month's host and selected our delicious recipe.