November Daring Bakers Challenge 5

This month's challenge is Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting by Shuna Lydon. I had made a caramel cake once, but the cake itself is not Caramel. It was a hot milk cake that I just frosted with some caramel. I told myself back then that I would make a real caramel cake one day, and I just totally forgot about it.


The challenge had 3 components - the cake, the frosting and the caramel syrup.





The caramel syrup was a combination of cooked sugar and water, brought to a boil with amber color, then later on poured with a cup of water to stop the caramelization. It was quite tricky, and scary because of the spatter from the smoking caramel. This caramel syrup once cooled will be a common ingredient that will be used for both the cake and the frosting.

We were free to decide what size of cake to make for the caramel cake and I decided to make it using a 6x2 inch pan. With the full recipe, I was able to make 3 layers of cake. Making the cake was fairly easy, starting with creaming the butter and sugar, then adding the caramel syrup, eggs. Then the flour was added 3 parts with milk added in between. The cakes cooked for 30 minutes.

The frosting is new for me, in that it uses cooked butter. I had to cook the butter until it was brown, then add the confectioner's sugar, heavy cream, caramel syrup, vanilla and kosher salt.


To assemble the cake, I just stacked it one after the other with a thin layer of frosting in between. I crumb coated the cake, and then added rope weaves all over the cake. I then decorated it with a few pieces of leftover gumpaste flowers and butterflies that I had.


I had quite a few expectations about the cake because I made it later on when I had read comments about it being too sweet from fellow DBers. I even made a concious effort in adding a little more salt to the frosting to cut back on the sweetness.

So how was the final cake?

First of all to note, the smell of the final caramel cake was just divine. I felt like a kid in a candy store. I sliced a small piece of it to try and yes, the frosting was really a little sweet to my liking. Or maybe I'm not just used to frostings using confectioner's sugar. The cake, however, was very good. It was moist and the texture was fine. And the caramel flavor was wonderfully infused in the cake. Overall, it was a tasty cake and the challenge had been fun.



Special Thanks to:

• November's Challenge, Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting, is by Shuna Fish Lydon of http://eggbeater.typepad.com/
• Host for this month is Dolores (http://culinarycuriosity.blogspot.com), co-hosts are Alex (Brownie of the Blondie and Brownie duo: http://blondieandbrownie.blogspot.com/), Jenny of Foray into Food (http://forayintofood.blogspot.com/) and Natalie of Gluten-a-Go-Go (http://glutenagogo.blogspot.com/)

October Daring Bakers Challenge 4

This month's Daring Bakers' challenge is Pizza and Toppings. The Pizza recipe is Peter Reinhart's Pizza Napoletana which I had made a few times in the past and then a combination of sauce and toppings on top.

I was pleasantly surprised that this is this month's challenge. I love this pizza recipe, in fact this is the only pizza recipe that I bake. It is very easy to work with and the resulting pizza is just divine! It is perfectly crunchy and chewy, and it does not get soggy with the sauce and the toppings.

Making the dough, I started with combining the dry ingredients together and then slowly adding the cold wet ingredients. Having the water cold is a key factor. I then mixed the dough until everything is combined and starts to form a ball. Afterwhich, I kneaded it with the dough hook attachment until it is smooth but still sticky. Then I kneaded it for 2 minutes with hand. Cold hands for kneading is also important. When my hand started to get warm, I run it with cold water. At this point, I divided the dough into 6 pieces, lightly spraying each with oil before wrapping with plastic and then I made it rest in the fridge overnight.

The next day before using it, I took it out of the fridge 2 hours before baking to let it rise. Once the dough has risen, I attempted a toss but ended up rolling the dough. LOL! I rolled the dough in a sheet pan and baked it at almost 500F. After 5 minutes, I took it out and then I placed my sauce and toppings. For the sauce, I used a tomato sauce. I mixed a few teaspoons of lemon juice, spices like oregano, thyme and parsley, dash of garlic salt and pepper. For the toppings, I added some ground beef, green bell pepper, onions, mushrooms, grilled tomatoes and lots of mozzarella cheese. It was so delicious!

Here's how the pizza looked like.


And here's a fuzzy picture of me attempting a toss!

September Daring Bakers Challenge 3

Lavash Crackers by Peter Reinhart with Toppings are this month's Daring Bakers challenge. Aside from the Lavash Cracker recipe, the toppings that will go together with the crackers should be vegan. It's a first for me, first time baking crackers and first time making anything vegan (or at least consciously). My staple pizza recipe is Peter Reinhart's so I know that the Lavash Cracker recipe will be just as good. Reference for the full recipe is Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker Apprentice (pp 178-180).

I started working on the crackers by mixing the flour, salt, sugar, yeast and oil with water to form a ball. I used up all the 1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp water for the recipe, because for some reason, my dough was quite dry. Once the dough was mixed and formed a ball, I kneaded the dough for about 10 minutes. After kneading, I coated the dough with a little oil, wrapped it with plastic and then refrigerated it overnight. When I was ready to make the crackers that next day, I took out the dough from the fridge and then let it rise at room temperature until it doubled its size. It took around 2 hours to let the dough rise enough. I rolled the dough in a sheet pan as thin as I could and cut it up into small squares with a pizza roller. I topped all of the squares with Kosher Salt, and then I made a variety of spice toppings on each row, with each row topped with additional Thyme, Oregano, Parsley, Sesame Seeds, Garlic Salt and Rosemary. I wanted to find out which combination will be the best one. I let the toppings settle for 3 minutes on the dough and then I baked it at 350F.

While the crackers were baking, I prepared the Salsa sauce. It's just a tomato sauce and I added some salt, lemon juice and pepper to it. The crackers were done after 15 minutes and I took it out to cool for 5 minutes. I tried each of the combination that I made and it was all so good! My favorite though would be the one with Oregano and Garlic Salt.

Here's how the final Lavash Crackers with the Salsa looked like.

August Daring Bakers Challenge 2

The challenge for this month is Chocolate Eclairs by Pierre Herme. I have not made eclairs before and the August challenge is my first time making some. The challenge consists of 3 elements, the Pate a Choux or the Cream Puff Dough, Pastry Cream and Chocolate Glaze.

Having no prior experience to making eclairs or cream puffs, I was actually scared of making the eclairs especially after seeing that making it requires boiling the liquid ingredients first then adding the dry ingredients. I don't know when to add the dry ingredients, I don't know how the dough will look like afterwards and such concerns. I kept reading notes before attempting on making the eclairs but I guess experience is the best way to learn it. Also because of having no eclair experience, I followed the recipe to the tee.

I started boiling the milk, butter and water together on medium heat and once it got to a rolling boil, I added the dry ingredients consisting of flour, sugar and salt. Then I mixed it until smooth for 3 minutes while still on medium heat. Then I took it out of the heat onto the mixing bowl and beat it with paddle for 3 minutes until it was cool enough. I then added 5 eggs, one at a time, adding the next one only after the previous was well combined. Then that's it, that's my dough. I now piped the dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, about 3 inches long, 2 inches apart. I baked the eclairs at 375F for 7 minutes, and then after 7 minutes, I slipped a wooden spoon in the oven to keep it ajar, then rotated the pan when it was already in the oven for 12 minutes. I took it out after a total of 20 minutes in the oven.

Once taken out, my first batch lost its fluff, flattened out and got soggy in the middle. I was disheartened. I had never had such a baking disaster in the recent past. Nevertheless, the soggy eclairs were still very tasty. I was planning on leaving the eclairs for the day and give it a try some other time, but I can't get it out of my head. After an hour of reading about possible mishaps and thinking of what could have gone wrong, I was back in the kitchen for my second eclair attempt. I did everything all over again but baked it all throughout with the oven door closed all the time. It was at 375F for the first 7 minutes, and then I lowered it to 350F for the rest of the 20 minutes. Once baked, I turned off the oven, opened the door and let the eclairs cool there for 20 minutes. All the while, I kept checking if the eclairs will sink again to see where it will start to flatten again just in case I fail again. It didn't. I took it out after 20 minutes, transferred to a cake rack and cooled it completely. Here's how it looked like:

While the eclairs were cooling down, I prepared some mocha cream filling and chocolate glaze. Preparing these two went uneventful. I then filled the eclairs with the mocha cream filling and glazed the topped with the chocolate glaze. Once prepared, Manny and I sampled it and it was so delicious! Good thing it was at an odd hour that we ate it, or else we'll be skipping dinner again.

What's not to like? Eclair, good. Chocolate glaze, good. Mocha cream filing, good. :)

Useful notes:

• In Baking911, Sarah Philips has a very informative page on eclairs (and pastries in general). See her Pastry101 page.



• Pate a Choux, as I found out from Wiki, is "a light pastry dough used to make profiteroles, croquembouches, eclairs, French crullers, beignets, Indonesian kue sus, and gougères. It contains only butter, water, flour, and eggs. Its raising agent is the high moisture content, which creates steam during cooking, puffing out the pastry".

July Daring Bakers Challenge 1

The challenge for this month is Filbert Gateau with Praline Buttercream. It's my first ever Daring Baker's challenge and I was both ecstatic and nervous at the same time. Then I saw the challenge, and I was like - Filbert? Gateau? English please? :) After going over the challenge for the month, I found out that Filbert is Hazelnuts and Gateau is French for cake made with almond flour. After scouting my kitchen for what I have, the only ones I'm missing were actually the hazelnuts. I had almonds over but I still attempted to find some hazelnuts in the supermarket, to no avail. I just made some Almond Gateau with Almond Praline Buttercream instead.

I was back home in the Philippines when I read about the challenge, and in the middle of vacation, I was actually thinking of the cake and looking forward to actually making it. The recipe requires a lot of work, and it probably is not something that I will make spontaneously on a lazy Saturday afternoon. But of course, I'm up for the challenge (I think. :D).

I needed to prepare the Gateau, 1 recipe of sugar syrup, 1 recipe of Praline Buttercream, Whipped Heavy Cream (which I skipped eventually because the Buttercream was already very rich), 1 recipe of Strawberry Glaze, 1 recipe of Chocolate Ganache and some toasted nuts. I am pretty much familiar with the components of the recipe, except for the Gateau, so I had to re-read the recipe a few times before starting. The Gateau is made of processed almond nuts combined with cake flour. After preparing the batter for the Gateau, I baked it for 30 minutes and when it was almost done, the smell of the baking nutty cake filled the kitchen and I swear it was one of the best scents you'd ever smell! While the cake was in the oven, I started making a plain sugar syrup. Once the cake was cooled, I torted it and brushed the layers with sugar syrup.


Leaving the cake a while, I started to make the Almond Praline Buttercream. To make Almond Paste, I caramelized some sugar and added the Almond on it. This becomes some candied pieces and after it had totally cooled, I broke it down into manageable pieces and processed it until it was first powdery and then like paste. And then I had to make the Swiss Buttercream and once done, I slowly incorporated the Almond Paste. The buttercream turned out to be smooth and delicious!

I then filled the cake layers with Buttercream in between and once stacked, I brushed the top and sides with a pre-made Strawberry Glaze and I let it chill for about an hour.

While the cake was being chilled, I made the Chocolate Ganache (which I very often use for my cupcakes so it was a breeze!) and I had it also cooled afterwards. Once the cake was out of the fridge, I glazed it with the Chocolate Ganache and I made the top with mirror finish but the sides were ugly! I cannot smoothen the sides! But anyway, I still managed to cover the sides with the Ganache. Once the Chocolate had settled on the cake, I started to pipe it on top with the remaining buttercream. It took me half a day to finish the cake!

Cutting the cake was another story. I had never been able to cut any of my cakes perfectly! :P I loved the nutty taste of the cake even if I'm not crazy about nuts! Here's how the first slice looked like.


So there goes my first challenge, on to August!