Disturbance in the Force...

 Have you ever heard news that was so completely heartbreakingly shocking that it shook you? Hard? That was Tuesday for me.

I was driving home from work through the rural Ohio landscape. Running into my standard delays.

I was crawling along slow enough that I don't think I endangered anyone taking this photo.

And I know I wasn't even close to danger in this one. The only way to take a non-blurry photo of a train at a crossing is if that train happens not to be moving.

So there I was, taking forever to get home, and I decided (as I sometimes do when stuck at substantial delays on my commute) to check Facebook on my phone. I was surprised to discover that I had a message and there had been 17 updates to it. I wasn't panicky because I figured it was one of those messages from my friends or family that someone was participating in a Team in Training event, or someone was looking for a tutor, or something like that. But when I opened the message thread it seemed like for a brief moment the world stopped.

To quote Obi-Wan, "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened."

Lisa had died. It is still so hard to process that someone so vivacious, so full of life, so encouraging, and so friendly was gone. A great big HUGE empty hole is left in the universe. Lisa affected so many people with her wit and her charm and her unbelievable sense of humor. Just like literally thousands of other food bloggers, I would have never started blogging if it hadn't been for her. If you read my very first blog post, I was already following the Daring Bakers, a group that Lisa and a friend co-founded. I felt so happy to be in the first 300 to sign on. It was the idea (she never did post the recipe) of her calamari sauce that I drooled over. I was lucky enough that I got to meet Lisa and her friends. Even though I was nervous, uncomfortable and completely lost, Lisa accepted me with open arms. She became the little voice in my head cheering me on. Just last week, when I asked my Facebook friends if any of them had ever made yogurt (I'm trying to get away from chemicals). Lisa encouraged me. She told me that the Daring Cooks had just done it.

I did make that yogurt Lisa. Gah! Well I attempted to make that yogurt. It totally failed. Completely liquid. It made me think of some of those Daring Baker challenges that just didn't work out. And that made me smile to remember how hard those challenges were and just how rewarding. Wednesday, I went into work determined. I borrowed the yogurt maker machine from the Home Ec teacher. I exactly followed the manufacturer's directions. And today I did it. There is yogurt in my fridge. 

And a hole in the force that can never be filled.

(I don't actually think Lisa was a Star Wars geek, but it's part of the culture of people our age. I think it would have made her smile.) 

Two Houses

Well hello there!

Remember me? You may think that I've fallen off the planet, but in reality life just got a little too busy and I had to let something go for a while. So what's been going on? Well, I just finished another observation class where I was teaching 11th and 12th graders at a rural school. That was interesting and demanding. So yeah, I had some lesson plans and papers to write and I managed to keep the 4.0 GPA going after a successful final evaluation. (I realize grade point averages in graduate school are pretty unimportant, but I've never been a good student before and I'm pretty stoked about it.)

Also, I got a part time job at an Ostermann Jeweler's in the mall. It's got your standard baloney that goes along with a part time retail job in the mall, but for the most part I'm really enjoying it. There's some big honking blingy rings that it's fairly interesting to see who will buy them.

SO school and work, that's not too bad right? Well then we moved. This is one of the really cool things about living in a small town. We moved to the other, much nicer side of town and the only thing in our address that changed was the street name! We definitely upgraded too! I've got the library painted a lovely indigo and am still contemplating color choices for the guest room...

Yeah, that's what's been happening here. It's been pretty fun. And when I saw this month's Daring Baker challenge I decided that perhaps I'd give it a shot. After last time's disastrous results, I was curious to see if the new house had a humidity problem...

It didn't. (Sorry about the photos, my camera is in Michigan.)

Here's the fine print:

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.

Except I used my own gingerbread recipe. And my house is not free standing. I am a firm believer in gluing the heck out of the house with royal icing. It is definitely all edible though. Even my naughty dog got a taste of the fence. I used the gingerbread house plans from Bob Villa too. I figure he knows how to build houses.

Daring Bakers' Dobos Torte!

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonfulof Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular DobosTorte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: ExquisiteDesserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

This torte turned out to be pretty tasty. As usual, I cannot be trusted with an entire chocolate cake in the fridge, so I took some to the Brain's office, took some into the jewelry store (did I mention I got a job? I work in a jewelry store! I like it.) and I have a chunk to give to my friend A if she ever gets back from vacation! The general consensus however, is that the caramel layer is too lemony. The ladies at the jewelry store think that a salted caramel would have been much tastier. They really liked the chocolate buttercream though.

There are thousands of Dobos Tortes floating around the internet today. Go check out the rest of the Daring Bakers! Also take a peek at the Daring Store!

Daring Bakers' Mallows and Milanos

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.

I did the challenge with my sister. And I'm glad I did. The Milan cookies were really easy to make and the batter went together in a snap. But apparently, I'm super bad at sticking them together with chocolate. I personally prefer the smaller and crunchier cookies, but I ate the bigger chewier cookies too because they were also delicious.

Then we did the Mallows. The recipe said 10 minutes of prep time, 5 minutes of inactive prep time, and 10 minutes baking time yields 2 dozen. I think that's wrong. We spent the entire day making these cookies. Trying to roll the cookies out was like trying to roll out chocolate chip cookie dough. We solved the problem by splitting the dough in thirds and continuously rotating pieces we weren't using into the freezer. And I think you can see we got a LOT more than 2 dozen. We got 2 gross. Super G and I are math geeks and when we finally counted the cookies we had 200 and we had been sampling cookies all day. So we figured 244 was probably not a bad estimate. I think if the base cookie had been tastier these would have been excellent cookies. But to me, the base cookie just tasted like pie crust. blech.

Photos curtesy of Super G. I forgot my camera.

You can find the recipes here and check out the rest of the Daring Bakers and see what they did!

Daring Bakers Blackwell Tart

So, yes, it's posting day for the Daring Bakers and after I spent the whole day with the Brain and made a super yummy dinner which I'll be posting on later, I decided I better get to it and make the Blackwell Tart. The hesitation comes in because the base of the tart is pie crust. They can make it sound all fancy and call it a shortcrust pastry and put egg yolks and sugar in it, but it's still a pie crust. And frankly, pie crust makes me nervous. So does the price of almond meal. But I really don't have a good excuse for missing the challenge and I already had some of this yummy plum-ginger jam in the pantry, so I rolled up my sleeves (or really changed into a tank top- turning on the oven in the summer turns our cozy little house into a sauna) and got down to it.

This was not a difficult challenge. I did have to grind up some almonds, but that wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I have been reminded of how yummy my jam is. I also made an emergency substitution of vanilla extract for almond extract. The almond extract seems to be on vacation from my pantry. Grating frozen butter into a flour mixture in a really warm kitchen was a bit trying. Unfortunately, I blindly followed the instructions for the baking portion. The recipe says to pop it in the oven for 30 minutes and to add 5 minutes if you ground your own nuts. So that's what I did. And as you can see, my tart is a little teeny bit on the well done side of life.

So what's the verdict? This tart is delicious! And I'm totally going to make it again!

Here's the fine print! 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. Make sure you check out the rest of the Daring Bakers. If you haven't already.

Daring Bakers do Strudel!

I gotta tell you I loved this month's challenge. Surprising as that might be for a person who doesn't like fruit or pie. And the whole time I was making it I imagined various grandmothers and great grandmothers in my family making it exactly the same way. But let's get the fine print out of the way...

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.

This strudel was really not hard to make. I cut the recipe in half and it went together as easily as some people throw together a pie. And I have to tell you. The walnuts make the apple filling just that much better. I think they were my favorite part! Although I think the pastry was lovely and flaky and I really enjoyed the Cinnamon and sugar and rum traditional apple raisin filling too!

Thanks Courtney and Linda for such a fun challenge!
Please check out the rest of the Daring Bakers.

Sorry, no cheesecake.

Well, yet again I have become overwhelmed and did not participate in the Daring Bakers challenge. The cheesecakes that are springing up all over the net are lovely, but there won't be one here. Go check out all those people who did participate.

The good news is that this is my last week of classes for grad school. I am doing another full-time substitute teaching gig, but I'm pretty sure after this week my schedule will lighten up considerably!

Daring Bakers Bake Lasagna?

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

This was a difficult assignment for me. Partly because I had to add an egg and some extra water to make a coherant pasta dough. Partly because I have really very little time. A lot because I just don't like a bechamel sauce and we have a lactose intollerance problem. (Yes, I probably could have figured out how to make a bechamel with soy milk, except there's an even bigger soy intollerance problem). And I let more curse words fly in the hand rolling of the dough than I have all year. At one point I was ready to give up and quit the Daring Bakers. But then I decided that the purpose of the Daring Bakers was to stretch myself and that I was being a sissy for lack of a better word.

I also think the person who wrote the recipe didn't have this hungry little helper watching her every move. Otherwise the suggestion of draping the rolled out pasta over the back of chairs would have never been encouraged. I skipped that step. That's why there was some for me and the Brain to eat.

And I didn't use the three meat Country Ragu recipe either. I used this. The busy woman's fairly good pasta sauce.

I had such a rough time making the lasagna that I cooked it and left it on the counter to cool and drove through the Taco Bell drive through for dinner. (To be fair, I was on my way to school.) When I got home the Brain had had a hefty portion. And I decided to have a nibble.

Oh it's good. Really good. I'm not sure if I'll make it again because lasagna is a very rare treat in our house.

Go check out the rest of the Daring Bakers. And make sure you check out the new Daring Kitchen website!

Daring Bakers Flourless Chocolate Hearts with Rose Ice Cream

Fortunately for me, and for my family, I made these tasty little cakes before I came down with the cold from Hell. Which then turned into bronchitis. You really don't want to know much more of the details.

But these little cakes were delicious! They were easy to make and super tasty. I made them in individual heart shaped silicon cupcake holders and got 15. The only problem was that I only had 12 little heart shaped cups. The last three ended up in my silicon cups with feet. I know. I should have taken a photo. But I was busy eating them.

I made Wendy's vanilla ice cream recipe, mostly because I got a little lazy and didn't feel like dealing with eggs. As a last minute addition I added a tablespoon of rosewater that I picked up last time I visited my mom. If you like the taste of eating roses this makes a pretty good ice cream too! I didn't want the ice cream to overpower the chocolate cakes so I molded little tiny ice cream hearts.

This was a fun one!

and here's the fine print!
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.

Now go check out the other Daring Bakers!

A Year of Daring Baker Challenges!

Perhaps I'm a complete dork, but sometimes marking special anniversaries make me a little loony. Okay, I am definitely a complete dork, but that may have more to do with telling every single family relative I've encountered over the holiday that my terrific husband bought me a Super Peel. It's a seriously cool thing.

So yes, anyway, I find anniversaries to be pretty cool. And this month will mark my one year anniversary of being a Daring Baker. My mom even made me this cute little cupcake pincushion. 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

Yeah, I had no idea what that was either. I thought we did it last December. But apparently the French have two logs and this one is more of a frozen dessert. Actually this one was WAY more complicated than the first one. There were six elements to my "log": A coconut daquoise, a dark chocolate ganache, a dark chocolate mousse, a white chocolate coconut crisp layer (that there was a teensy error in the recipe resulting in what is best described as white chocolate and coconut coated Special K), a vanilla creme brulee, and a dark chocolate glaze. Make sure you check out the rest of the Daring Bakers to see what flavors they came up with. Everything went really well except that I'm a rebel and just made the whole thing in a 9 inch springform pan. The glaze then didn't really cover the whole cake.

And I have to say, we taste tested today after spending the day celebrating Christmas with my dad and stepmom. So there we were. My sister M., Super G and the Tummy, me and the Brain, my mom and my stepdad. And really by this point in the holiday celebrations (I've already had 3 separate, but equal, Christmases) none of us really wanted to eat yet another sweet thing. So we were kind of dreading the cake. But it was REALLY REALLY tasty! I did leave it up at my mom's, but all of us tasted it and not one of us had anything negative to say about it. It was rich and chocolaty and the coconut was subtle. I will definitely make this one again. But probably not after a week of feasting on approximately 9 million Christmas cookies.

I'm not emotionally stable enough to get on the scale after the past week and a half.

Daring Bakers Caramel Cake

This month the Daring Bakers were hosted by Delores of Culinary Curiosity, Alex of The Blondie and the Brownie, Jenny of Foray into Food, and the lovely Natalie of Gluten a Go Go helped with the alternative Daring Baker side of things. We made a Caramel Cake created by Shuna Fish Lydon. Her recipe can be found here.

I wanted to like this cake. I mean brown butter and caramel sounds amazing. I was excited to make this cake and it's been done for weeks. But as reports from other Daring Bakers trickled in about it being mighty sweet, I got worried. Then I started thinking that maybe if I made tiny little bite sized petit fours I could handle the sweetness. Unfortunately no. These were far too sweet for me of the Brain and eventually most of it went trashward bound. The frosting was simple, and the salt made it excellent, but it was super sweet and on top of a sweet cake it was a bit of overkill. I even tried pouring some very dark chocolate over the top to cut how sweet they are a bit. But that only made them seem sweeter in contrast.

I think I would make the cake again. And I probably would make the frosting again, but I wouldn't make them together.

Make sure you check out the rest of the Daring Bakers!

Daring Bakers do Pizza!

This month our lovely Daring Baker Challenge was hosted by Rosa of Rosa's Yummy Yums. Rosa picked Peter Reinhart's Pizza Dough. Go check out Rosa's Yummy Yums for the recipe and the story behind why she picked it. I found this recipe to be not too difficult. Of course finding instant yeast is just not happening here in rural Ohio. You'd have a better chance of spitting and hitting a political candidate. Not that I'm advocating spitting on political candidates. But I digress, I substituted active dry yeast instead of the instant and proofed it in 2 oz of the water (which I'd heated to 100°F.). It worked out just lovely. Oh yeah, and I cut the recipe in half because we simply don't need that much pizza floating around our happy little family of 2.

And I did try tossing it. (look an action shot!)

But I had a hard time with the catching it part.

And taking a photo of it. This would be my kitchen after some pizza dough went flying through the air.

And because I wanted something a little upscale and I figured the Brain (and his secretary) would like "normal" pizza, I decided that mini pizzas would be best. The Brain (and his secretary) got sausage, green pepper, and mozzarella with roasted tomato sauce.

I got a Parmesan, olive oil, kosher salt, and cracked pepper pizza that was supposed to get a salad on top, but I ate it in the car on the way to school instead. Just a little itsy bitsy note though, Parmesan doesn't need more salt. But overall it was tasty.

And I also made myself this pizza, with Trader Joe's goat brie, honeycrisp apple slices, and a sprinkling of Kraft caramel bits. It was super good! I may make this pizza dough recipe again just to make this particular pizza!

Overall I would say the pizza was tasty. But I am more of a thick crust than a thin crust kind of pizza gal. I like my pizza to have some chew and bread to it. Although I can see that this thin crust has it's advantages in some types of pizza and judging from the Brain's lackluster response to it, we'll be making my regular thick crust pizza dough more often.

Make sure you check out all the other Daring Bakers to see what kind of pizza they made!

Vegan Lavash Crackers and Herbal Oil dip

I tend to shy away from vegan recipes for a couple reasons. I am completely in love with butter. I try to eat it only in moderation, but I do eat it. Happily. I love the stuff. Another reason I shy away from vegan recipes is the usual abundance of soy recipes. While soy is a lovely food for most people, it makes me violently ill. It's not life threatening or anything, just gross. And painfull. And finally, those vegan recipes can be hard to find. I admire people who stick to the vegan lifestyle. I couldn't do it.

But the Daring Baker's Challenge this month was Lavash crackers that we made vegan. Some people even went the gluten free route, but I'm afraid I just went with vegan. Then we had to come up with a vegan dip. I went with a lovely herbal oil. It's almost like a tangy pesto. Overall these crackers were damass delicious and I'll be making them again.

That way the Brain can have some too.

I may have inhaled most of them.

Herbal Oil Dip

1 cup assorted herbs (I used parsley, marjoram, thyme, lemon thyme, oregano, mint, rosemary)

1 Tbsp capers

2 garlic cloves

1/4 cup olive oil

Throw everything in the food processor and pulse until desired consistency.

Don't forget to check out all the other Daring Baker's and this month's challenge is hosted by Natalie of Gluten a Go Go and Shel of Musings from the Fishbowl.

Where's the Eclair?

I have no eclair to post today. I got the chocolate sauce done. But then I had a small meltdown because I was out of butter. OK, maybe it wasn't small. It wasn't really about butter. Although that's incredibly rare that I'm out of butter. I'm just doing too much this month. Don't worry, Super G talked me out of it. And her eclairs look beautiful. I should be back to normal for next month's Daring Baker Challenge. Please go look at all of their eclairs. I know I will.

Walnut Gateau with Praline Buttercream

The Daring Bakers are at it again! (This time starring the lovely addition of my little sister Super G. Go check hers out. We talked on the phone the whole day we made it and her sounds amazing.)

This month, Chris over at Mele Cotte picked Filbert Gateau with Praline Buttercream, from Great Cakes by Carol Walter. I wasn't worried at first. I thought, actually, whew. A layer cake. This won't be so hard. I had to go and get cocky about it. I had some problems. The cake stuck to the pan. Bad.

See? So I had to bake the cake part again, the second time using a sheet of parchment paper to line the bottom of the pan. But that was the only real problem. Otherwise it just took forever and my kitchen was really hot.

Let me tell you how I made mine different. Instead of the hazelnuts in the original recipe, which can be found on Mele Cotte, I used walnuts. I had a giant bag of them in the freezer, so it wouldn't cost me anything and I'm not sure I can get hazelnuts here without traveling some distance to get to the big city. Then instead of the rum or orange flavored liquor, I used Crown Royal. We're whiskey people here and we were fresh out of bourbon. We had two bottles of Crown and believe me, the Brain was not too happy I was cooking with the good whiskey. And finally, instead of the apricot glaze I used blackberry.

After that white chocolate opera cake that was far too sweet for my taste buds, I was excited to see how this would taste. It was fantastic! I cut a small sliver after I let it chill and brought it to the Brain with two forks. We both sat there worried that I had spent the entire day baking this beautiful thing only to find out we didn't like it. In fact when the Brain came home and I was still working on it he said, "This isn't going to be like that cake you made we couldn't eat is it? Hey! Are you cooking with the Crown!?!?" But fortunately we loved it. It was light, it wasn't too sweet. It was rich, but not overpowering. The Brain ate the whole piece. The next morning when I had a slice for breakfast, I knew I was in trouble and gave it away before lunch. Whew! That could have been disastrous for my hips!

Make sure to check out all the other Daring Bakers and how they all made theirs different. And especially check out Super G's. Hers looks great too! And thank you Chris for such a memorably delicious challenge!

Multicultural Danish Braid

In case you haven't noticed the Danish Braids taking over the Internet, today is post day for the latest Daring Baker's Challenge, Danish Braid. This month's challenge is hosted by Kelly of Sass and Veracity and Ben of What's Cooking. The definitely challenging part of this challenge was learning how to make a laminated dough. This is the same type of dough as croissants are made of. I saw Jacques Pepin make this dough on PBS years ago and have been afraid of it ever since. In fact, I procrastinated so bad on making it that I just finished at 12:45 this morning.

I should not have been so afraid. The dough was nowhere near as hard as I thought it would be. I followed the directions (posted on the host blogs) carefully and ended up with a nice flaky and delicious dough. But why do I call it multicultural? Because my filling was inspired by the Orange Chocolate Baklava in the book Essence of Chocolate: Recipes for Baking and Cooking with Fine Chocolate by Robert Steinberg and John Scharffenberger. The orange flavoring really comes out. I used Lindt 70% chocolate only because I didn't have time, or the forethought, to drive to the next county to get some yummy Scharffenberger chocolate.

And oh yeah I'll be making this again.

Make sure to check out the rest of the Daring Bakers and their yummy braids!

Orange Chocolate Filling

1 cup unblanched whole almonds, lightly toasted

1 cup walnuts lightly toasted

6 oz. 70% bittersweet chocolate

4 oz. chopped dates

zest of 1 orange

Place nuts in food processor and pulse to chop very small. Add orange zest, chocolate, and dates and process until crumbly in texture.

This makes enough filling for 2 Danish Braids.

Pink Butterfly Guavaberry Opera Cake!

When I discovered that the Daring Bakers would be doing an Opera Cake for our May challenge (hosted by Lis of La Mia Cucina, Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice, Fran of Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie, and Shea of Whiskful you know the drill, go check them out) I was ridiculously excited. I had seen these elegant cakes before and always wondered how they tasted and how such elegant and lovely cakes were created. I had never made one because a)I was too chicken to attempt making one and b) I knew that if I made one that I would eat it and my thighs would expand exponentially. I knew that now was the time for me to make it. See, now I have a husband, and in-laws who gather on a frequent basis and I had season tickets to the opera. You can't bring an opera cake to the opera, but when I go to the opera I see my best friend T and my family so I can always drop off goodies there.

The biggest rule of all was that we had to make a light opera cake. It had to be light in color and flavor. This meant massive amounts of white chocolate. Call me crazy, but I'm a dark chocolate girl. White chocolate really isn't my thing. But I was game so I thought and thought and thought (by this time half the DBers were done with their cakes). And I had a terrible time figuring out what flavor to pick. Well, until I was sort of reorganizing my cupcake supplies, sprinkles, liners, et al. and I saw my tiny jar of guavaberry honey tucked away.
So my flavor for the cake was guavaberry. Don't confuse guavas with guavaberry. Guavaberry is indigenous to the Carribean and the Brain and I picked up our guavaberry honey and liquor (and a big fat bottle of guavaberry rum) from this great shop that we were drinking in as soon as we docked. Well, we were "sampling" in. Guavaberries are a sort of tart tasting fruit that almost reminds me of a cranberry, but much much sweeter. The berries have a very large stone and a thin layer of pulp. It is also very labor intensive to pick these fruits. That's why they are so rare and if you get the chance to go to Sint Maartin, go to the Guavaberry Emporium and pick up the honey and the liquor and the rum. Oh heck, everything there is super delicious.

So I made the cake and it was delicious. And I made the buttercream and flavored it with guavaberry honey and it was such a lovely blush pink color. And I made the syrup for soaking the cake with guavaberry liquor. And I melted the white chocolate with no problems and made the mousse flavored with guavaberry liquor and it turned out a little darker of that beautiful blush color. And I assembled the cake and stuck it in the fridge while I made the white chocolate glaze flavored with guavaberry liquor and again with the lovely pink. And then I sprinkled my brand new butterfly sprinkles on top and I was happy. I mean please, it was a pink cake with butterflies, what's not to be happy about?

I had actually made half the cake into a rectangle to share with the Brain's family for the bi-monthly birthday celebration. The rest of the cake I cut into "individual" sized round cakes about 2 inches in diameter. Not wanting to waste the delicious cake scraps I made one tiny little heart shaped pink butterfly opera cake for me to taste.

Wow. That's some rich cake. The heart shaped cake was just the right size for me. I took the round "individual" cakes up to my Mom's and it was decided that one whole cake was far too rich. I shared one with my mom and felt like my teeth were rotting. I took the rectangular cake to the in-laws and the Brain and I both had tiny pieces. The Brain liked the guavaberry flavor, but agreed it was too rich. His sister had one bite of hers and was done. And his mom didn't eat the frosting and declared the cake part to be delicious. I think if I make this again, I would do it with a dark chocolate. I can handle rich, but this cake was far too sweet. It might be lovely if it were cut up like a petit four. I would have to wait until I had some elegant event to take them to.

If anyone has managed to get their hands on some guavaberry honey and guavaberry liquor and wants to know how I flavored it, shoot me an email. Otherwise the recipe is here or here or here or here. And don't forget to check out all the other beautiful and far more delicious opera cakes that are currently posting all over the internet!

Barbara of Winos and Foodies had to leave our Daring Baker group for health reasons and so I dedicate this very pretty pink butterfly opera cake to her. Barbara, I hope you are winning the battle and come back to join us when you can!

Cheesecake on a Stick!

It's Daring Baker Challenge time again! This month it was Cheesecake Pops from Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O'Connor. Now I happen to love cheesecake, but the Brain and a significant portion of his family are lactose intolerant so I knew that I needed to find a place to give these babies away or I would really become Jaba the Butt. As it so happens, last Wednesday I was cleared by the physical therapist to be able to drive up to Michigan to go to the opera. My best friend T. and I have season tickets and La Rondine by Puccini was playing and it hasn't been performed in 37 years. It was I think my favorite opera so far and the people at the Michigan Opera Theater were really great about moving my balcony seat to a box seat and letting us have a primo parking space. They were really terrific about the challenges I faced on crutches.

Conveniently my friend T's son, my godson, is turning 2 on Tuesday (yes, this is an old photo) and he had a big birthday party yesterday. So I merely transported these babies up to her (and about 10 to my family) and minimized the risk of me eating the entire batch of cheesecake pops by myself. And trust me it was a real danger. They were delicious! And my track record for sampling as I was making them was pretty sad.

The batter went together super easy. Although I sort of shuddered at the 5 8oz packages of cream cheese, I figured that there's no butter in it and if you only eat one pop it wouldn't be so bad for you. That's one pop. Not 4 pops that you run out of chocolate coating for. I licked the beater so I knew the cheesecake was going to be good, the batter is good. And for the first time I actually put the cheesecake in the water bath. My cheesecake baked in about 55 minutes and was nice and solid.

The recipe says to scoop the cheesecake into 2oz balls. So I got out my little scooper. I'm sure it has a fancy name, its a little ice cream scoop that I use for portioning out cookie dough or frosting. Anyhow, I was scooping away and eating the scraps of cheesecake, which turned out about as yummy as I imagined, when I decided to stick one of the little buggers on a scale. It was 3/8 oz. Crap. They looked good though. Just a nice bite. But I am a direction follower so I got out the big ice cream scooper that I use for portioning out cupcakes. And I scooped one and weighed it. It was 1 1/4 oz and they looked pretty big. I started thinking that 2 oz was about the size of a softball and the cheesecake was far to rich for that.

So once I had all my little 3/8 oz balls rolled and scooped out and my tummy was seriously hurting from eating too much cheesecake ("What did you have for dinner?" "cheesecake"). And I somehow managed to rearrange my freezer to be able to have all these cute little balls on sticks fit, I froze them. I should mention here that lollipop sticks can be found at Walmart. I just happened to conveniently have some bright orange candy melts in my pantry. Don't laugh, my sister Super G discovered she had a can of Jamaican sardines in her cupboard this week. It happens. So I melted those up and coated my little cheesecake lollipops. And it was a kitchen of orange. I have an orange Kitchenaid and orange plastic mixing bowls and my favorite spatula is orange. And somehow these candy melts were the exact color of orange. Which thrilled me. I am easily thrilled. Even when my stomach is hurting from eating far too much cheesecake.

I did have a little trouble getting them to stay on the stick when they were thawed out so I did have to keep sticking them in the freezer. My sister M when she tried hers at home fell of the stick too. I think they'd be almost as fun just without the stick. As like tiny little bon bons. This was definitely a challenge for me. I'm not sure if it was just complicated for me to scoop them out and roll them into a ball and then dip them in chocolate or if I was just at the point in the day where standing becomes uncomfortable and I'm pretty much done. I don't think I'd make this again for a weekend dessert or a casual birthday party, but probably if I was going to a bridal shower or baby shower I would. They're a lot of work, but they're really impressive.

Thanks to the wonderful Deborah at Taste and Tell and Elle of Feeding My Enthusiasms for picking a recipe that I probably wouldn't have picked myself. It was a good challenge. Also make sure to check out all the other talented Daring Bakers. And if you'd like the recipe, you can either buy the book, or check out Deborah's blog. And I'm headed back to the couch.

Perfect Party Cake!

It's that time of the month again. Daring Baker Challenge time! Hoooray! This month's Daring Baker Challenge was Dorie Greenspan's Perfect Party Cake and was picked out by Morven at Food Art and Random Thoughts. When I first saw the recipe I thought, well this isn't very challenging. I can make a cake. I'm actually pretty good at buttercream frosting. And I can deal with the amount of fruit in jam. But then I noticed that I would have to cut the cakes in half. So AHA! It was going to be a challenge after all.

I remembered a photo from an old Betty Crocker cookbook of my mother's that had toothpicks along the outside of the cake and they used the toothpicks as a guide to cutting the cake. I was pretty impressed. That worked out pretty good. Well it worked pretty good for about 1 1/2 cakes. The last half cake wasn't so hot. I also realized it was a challenge to spread frosting on top of jam. I will have to experiment more to get this just right. But overall this wasn't too difficult.

So what did it taste like? Well I was expecting a pretty boring cake to be perfectly honest. But this is no ordinary boring cake. This was a light fluffy super lemony cake! We gobbled it up after Easter dinner. Even the leftovers were fantastic. This was indeed a perfect party cake.

Make sure you check out the other Daring Bakers here.

For the Cake:

2 1/4 cups cake flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 ¼ cups buttermilk

4 large egg whites

1 ½ cups sugar

grated lemon zest from 1 whole lemon

1 stick (8 tablespoons or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature

½ teaspoon pure lemon extract

For the Buttercream:

1 cup sugar

4 large egg whites

3 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature

¼ cup fresh lemon juice (from 2 large lemons)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For Finishing:

2/3 cup seedless raspberry preserves stirred vigorously or warmed gently until spreadable

Getting Ready

Centre a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter two 9 x 2 inch round cake pans and line the bottom of each pan with a round of buttered parchment or wax paper. Put the pans on a baking sheet.

To Make the Cake

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.Whisk together the milk and egg whites in a medium bowl.Put the sugar and lemon zest in a mixer bowl or another large bowl and rub them together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and fragrant. Add the butter and working with the paddle or whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat at medium speed for a full 3 minutes, until the butter and sugar are very light.Beat in the extract, then add one third of the flour mixture, still beating on medium speed. Beat in half of the milk-egg mixture, then beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients until incorporated. Add the rest of the milk and eggs beating until the batter is homogeneous, then add the last of the dry ingredients. Finally, give the batter a good 2- minute beating to ensure that it is thoroughly mixed and well aerated. Divide the batter between the two pans and smooth the tops with a rubber spatula.Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the cakes are well risen and springy to the touch – a thin knife inserted into the centers should come out cleanTransfer the cakes to cooling racks and cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes, unfold them and peel off the paper liners.Invert and cool to room temperature, right side up (the cooled cake layers can be wrapped airtight and stored at room temperature overnight or frozen for up to two months).

To Make the Buttercream

Put the sugar and egg whites in a mixer bowl or another large heatproof bowl, fit the bowl over a plan of simmering water and whisk constantly, keeping the mixture over the heat, until it feels hot to the touch, about 3 minutes. The sugar should be dissolved, and the mixture will look like shiny marshmallow cream.Remove the bowl from the heat.Working with the whisk attachment or with a hand mixer, beat the meringue on medium speed until it is cool, about 5 minutes.Switch to the paddle attachment if you have one, and add the butter a stick at a time, beating until smooth.Once all the butter is in, beat in the buttercream on medium-high speed until it is thick and very smooth, 6-10 minutes.During this time the buttercream may curdle or separate – just keep beating and it will come together again.On medium speed, gradually beat in the lemon juice, waiting until each addition is absorbed before adding more, and then the vanilla. You should have a shiny smooth, velvety, pristine white buttercream. Press a piece of plastic against the surface of the buttercream and set aside briefly.

To Assemble the Cake

Using a sharp serrated knife and a gentle sawing motion, slice each layer horizontally in half. Put one layer cut side up on a cardboard cake round or a cake plate protected by strips of wax or parchment paper.Spread it with one third of the preserves.Cover the jam evenly with about one quarter of the buttercream.Top with another layer, spread with preserves and buttercream and then do the same with a third layer (you’ll have used all the jam and have buttercream leftover).Place the last layer cut side down on top of the cake and use the remaining buttercream to frost the sides and top.

Serving

The cake is ready to serve as soon as it is assembled, but I think it’s best to let it sit and set for a couple of hours in a cool room – not the refrigerator. Whether you wait or slice and enjoy it immediately, the cake should be served at room temperature; it loses all its subtlety when it’s cold. Depending on your audience you can serve the cake with just about anything from milk to sweet or bubbly wine.

Storing

The cake is best the day it is made, but you can refrigerate it, well covered, for up to two days. Bring it to room temperature before serving. If you want to freeze the cake, slide it into the freezer to set, then wrap it really well – it will keep for up to 2 months in the freezer; defrost it, still wrapped overnight in the refrigerator.

One Crazy Day of Bread and Tears

When the Daring Baker's challenge for this month was revealed to be Julia Child's 18 page French Bread recipe, picked by Mary the Breadchick and Sara of I like to cook, I have to admit I was scared. Scared like I was the first time I went on a date with the Brain. Scared in the I want to do this, but it's going to change my life. And what do I do if I put all this work into it and it turns out to be nothing? (call me kooky, but I was really nervous and excited about the first date with the Brain.) This whole Julia Child and french bread thing was the same way.

I had to make sure I had a lot of time set aside for this bread. Julia herself says that the whole making of the bread takes at least 6 1/2 to 7 hours before baking it. And I almost made it while I was at my mom's, but she's got a convection oven and frankly that scares me. So finally I decided on last Sunday. It was going to be the day for bread baking. We were house and dog sitting, so I almost did it in my mother-in-law's oven, because mine is a throwback to the era of non-digital clocks and rough estimates on dials. But in the spirit of Julia, who never seemed to mind making a mistake and fixing it, I decided to bake at home so I could reproduce the bread again if I wanted. (Without waiting for the Brain's parents to go on a trip.)

The problems actually started on Saturday when I asked the Brain if he wouldn't mind sometime when his shoulder felt better, fixing the leaky kitchen faucet. So on Sunday, after I'd started making my bread and it was snug in it's first 4 1/2 hour rise (it's cold here so the rises took longer) we went to Home Depot to get a new faucet. We picked out this gorgeous one that goes straight up and curves back down so that I could fit bigger pots under it. Incidentally it's great for filling up my circulating ice cooler, but I'm jumping ahead of myself here. I also checked with the Home Depot people about those unglazed terra cotta tiles and completely confused them. Well, until one finally figured it out and said I should just get a pampered chef baking stone 'cause that's what he had.

Back home again, we set about to changing the faucet. I was underneath just a screwing and unscrewing away. Of course I learned that it is important to shut off the water to the faucet before unscrewing the pipe, but no problemo, this was kind of fun. But then we realized we didn't have the part that went from the faucet handle parts to the water pipes. So Brain went and got some parts while I did the deflating and prepped the dough for the second 3 hour rise. The Brain came back and the part was about an inch to short, so out he went again.

When he came back he quickly went to work screwing these last two pipes in. I sat there kneeling with my feet on my but watching. (This is important you understand. I was just sitting there on my heels watching him finish.) When he finished we applauded and I stood up careful not to knock over the drip bucket. All of the sudden, HOLY JESUS! There was shooting pain going down from my knee into my calf. White hot pain that had me doing my fake Lamaze breathing (really what would I know about Lamaze breathing besides what I've seen on TV, but that's what I imagine in my head.) So there I was forcibly exhaling and the Brain asking "what the hell did you do?" What did I do? I started to cry. I hopped in our 120 year old house over to the couch (with visions of breaking through the floorboard into the dug out basement. Pleasantly plump girls do not hop in 120 year old houses unless they have to.)

According to the doctor who is an Ohio State fan (will the horribleness never end?) I have an angry medial compartment. Well the compartment matches the rest of me. How ridiculous to hurt myself standing up. I mean really I've exerted myself much more in the past and this is something I've done literally thousands of times before. Sooooo now I get to go through an MRI, if they can't do an open one, he's assured me I will be nicely drugged up. I'm a touch claustrophobic. And then probably surgery. All because I stood up.

But back to the bread. By the time I was back to breathing normally I was wondering what to do with this bread and my inability to walk really. The Brain told me I could throw it out, but I had several hours invested in it and really at that point I needed to bake. Baking is soothing for me. So I scooted the spare computer chair into the kitchen. At this point the Brain went to let the doggies out who were probably crossing their legs and dancing it had been so long. Standing on one leg, I managed to shape them into fairly decent looking boules. I slashed two of them straight down the center and I tried to get fancy on one and cut it in a crescent.

Then I somehow managed to get a pan of water into the oven without spilling any. And in the bread went. I couldn't find my squirt bottle to mist the bread, but to be honest I wasn't really in the mood to tear the house apart looking. I went with the whole basting the bread with water bit. I set the timer and went back to the couch. After a bit, I became aware of a burning smell. It turns out that one side of my oven is hotter than the other and the crescent cut boule was far more toasty shall we say than the others. The Brain tasted the bread the next morning and came up with the oh so explicit critique of "It tastes like bread."

I am a little more verbose than my handsome other half. I thought it was tasty. It was really really really tasty. It had a real nice crust. The crumb was chewy and there were some nice air pockets to it. It was exactly the kind of bread that I wish I could buy here in North Central Ohio, but I haven't found. It's all gone and I want more. I'll definitely be making it again. Whether I need surgery or not.

For the recipe go here. It's a big long one, but Julia made it really easy, I thought. If you're lucky like me and actually have Volume Two of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" it starts on page 57. And for more fabulous breads, go here.