May 2010 Daring Baker's Challenge: Piece Montée

The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

Although the profiteroles are a very popular dessert here (they're filled with whipped cream and eaten with chocolate sauce), I've never dreamed about making them because they seemed too difficult for my current baking level -_-u Therefore I'm happy that the croquembouche was chosen as this month's challenge.
I was pretty nervous during the whole process (making the crème patissiere, the pate a choux and mounting the finished profiteroles) and surprinsingly I managed somehow to do everything right at first attemp!!! ^^

I chosed the chocolate glacé for 2 reasons: first of all because I'm used to eat the profiteroles with chocolate and secondly because I'm not very fond of the taste of the melted sugar caramel. And because I LOVE CHOCOLATE I thought that it was a good idea to bath the profiteroles in it instead of simply pour some chocolate sauce over them. I also melted a little white chocolate to decorate the Piece Montée.

The recipe:

Ingredients for the vanilla Crème Patissiere (Half Batch):

225 ml whole milk
2 Tbsp cornstarch
100g sugar
1 large egg
2 large egg yolks
30g unsalted butter
1 Tsp vanilla

Method for the vanilla Crème Patissiere:

1. Dissolve cornstarch in 1/4 cup of milk.
2. Combine the remaining milk with the sugar in a saucepan and when it's boiling remove from heat.
3. Beat the whole egg and then the yolks into the cornstarch mixture.
4. Pour 1/3 of boiling milk into the egg mixture, whisking constantly so that the eggs do not begin to cook.
5. Return the remaining milk to boil. Pour in the hot egg mixture in a stream, continuing whisking until the cream thickens and starts to boil.
6. Remove from heat and beat in the butter and vanilla.
7. Pour cream into a stainless steel/ceramic bowl. Press plastic wrap firmly against the surface. Chill immediately and until ready to use.

Ingredients for the Pate a Choux (yield about 28):

175ml water
85g unsalted butter
1/4 Tsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar
125g all-purpose flour
4 large eggs

I used more flour than the stated in the recipe (about 180g) because my mixture was too liquid.

Method for the Pate a Choux:

1. Pre-heat oven to 220ºC. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Combine water, butter, salt and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat.
3. Bring to a boil and stir occasionally. At boil, remove from heat and sift in the flour, stirring to combine completely.
4. Return to heat and cook, stirring constantly until the batter dries slightly and begins to pull away from the sides of the pan.
5. Transfer to a bowl and stir with a wooden spoon 1 minute to cool slightly.
6. Add 1 egg. The batter will appear loose and shiny.
7. As you stir, the batter will become dry-looking. At this point add in the next egg. Repeat until you have incorporated all the eggs.
8. Transfer batter to a pastry bag fitted with a large open tip. Pipe choux about 1 inch-apart in the baking sheets. Choux should be about 1 inch high and about 1 inch wide.
9. Using a clean finger dipped in hot water, gently press down on any tips that have formed on the top of choux when piping. You want them to retain their ball shape, but be smoothly curved on top.
10. Bake the choux at 220ºC until well-puffed and turning lightly golden in color, about 10 minutes.Lower the temperature to 180ºC and continue baking until well-colored and dry, about 20 minutes more. Remove to a rack and cool.

Actually, the original recipe calls for an egg wash before baking the choux, but I omited this step because I was going to cover them completely with chocolate.

Method for assembling the croquembouche:

1. Using a plain pastry tip pierce the bottom of each choux. Fill the choux with pastry cream using either the same tip or a star tip, and place on a paper-lined sheet. Choux can be refrigerated briefly at this point while you make your glaze.
2. Melt 200g chocolate in microwave or double boiler. Stir at regular intervals to avoid burning.
3. Dip each choux in the chocolate (careful it may be still hot!), and start assembling on your cake board/plate/sheet. Continue dipping and adding choux in levels using the glaze to hold them together as you build up.
4. Melt some white chocolate and, using a fork, draw lines over your Piece Montée.

The profiteroles were delicious, though it was kinda messy to pull them appart to eat them ^_^U They were soooooo good that even my boyfriend (who doesn't like dark chocolate) said that he liked them (hurrah!!!).

Coffee meringues

I don't know why I didn't make this delicious meringues sooner! I saw them in dailydelicious the very day that they were posted, but I decided to make other things and so I put this recipe aside. Until yesterday. On friday I went looking for a small bottle of coffee liqueur, as I wasn't sure if I were going to make any other dessert that includes this, and yesterday morning I got into it. It's incredible how easy this recipe is! It only has a few steps and it seems to be foolproof, because I got them right on my first attempt, which isn't usual. The only modification that I dared to do was to use 100 grams of sugar instead of 114 grams of caster sugar.

The meringues are sweet and very "airy". It was a surprise when I put them in the box and lifted them to store them in the cupboard; it seemed that the box was empty! They're sooooo light! ^^ As you're biting them you think that you're eating something dry but they melt as soon as they reach your tongue. They remind me of the cotton candies ^^ And they're so full of coffee flavour! I made them of different sizes to try out which one is the best for me and I have decided on the small, bite-sized, meringue because the coffee + hazelnut taste is incredibly good, so next time I want to have that taste in every bite ^^

April 2010 Daring Baker's Challenge: Traditional British Pudding

The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

And thus the very first thing I did was to check in the nearest supermarket whether they had any suet. You see, suet is widely used in the south-east spanish's kitchens, but here, in the north, we rarely used it. But I was lucky, as they had 2 sticks of it, 300g each.
Next I had to decide if I was going to make a savory or a sweet pudding. Well, my father can't eat too much sweets and my mother prefers savory dishes, so it was an easy choice. Therefore, I decided on the savory pudding, filled with carrots, potatoes and beef. To make it nicer I added some onion and white wine sauce to the filling.
Then I went to search for an alternative to the steamer (I don't own one and I don't intend to), which was resolved quickly by using the pressure cooker with a steamer stand. And I made 2 handles for the pudding bowl with some string.

When the day I had set to make the pudding came, my main worry was to undercook the pudding, so I decided to leave it for 2 and half hours steaming (I made enough for 2 medium-sized puddings), as the host had said that is very difficult to overcook it. Also, at the last moment I decided to add a dash of pimentón (I think that in the english-speaking countries it's called spanish paprika, but I'm not sure) to the crust instead of pepper, that's why the uncooked crust has a yellowish color.

The recipe:

Ingredients for the crust:        

250g self-raising flour (I combined all-purpose flour with baking powder)
175g shredded suet
A pinch of salt
2 dashes of pimentón
Water (I don't know the exact amount that I used)

Ingredients for the filling:        

2 small carrots
1 large potato
200g beef, chopped

I'm sorry but I can't post the ingredients nor the method for making the sauce because I don't use fixed amounts, it a family recipe so we simply add the ingredients and cook it as we please, so it changes from one time to another.

Method:

1. Mix the flour and suet together.
2. Season the flour and suet mixture with salt and pimentón.
3. Add the water, a tablespoonful at a time, as you mix the ingredients together. Make up the pastry to firm an elastic dough that leaves the bowl clean. Don't over handle the pastry or it will be too hard.
4. Reserve a quarter for the lid and roll out the rest and line a well-greased bowl.
5. Add the filling and roll the final piece of pastry out into a circle big enough to cover the top of the basin, dampen the edges and put in position on the pudding, pinching the edges together to seal.
6. Seal well and cover with a double sheet of foil (pleated in the centre to allow room for expansion while cooking). Secure with string, and place it in a steamer over boiling water.
7. Steam for up to 5 hours (mine was steamed for 2 and half hours); you may need to add more boiling water halfway through or possibly more often. It's hard to over steam a pudding so you can leave it bubbling away until you are ready.
8. Take the pudding out of the steamer and serve it while still warm.

The pudding was exactly what you could expect from the British kitchen; it's trully one of the best exponents of the English food. The results that you get with such a simple but savory ingredients are really incredible. And I must say that I believe that the steaming process plays an important part in obtaining it's final cualities.

Condensed milk pound cake

A few weeks ago I was going through Tracey's Culinary Adventures (a blog I had just discovered) looking for some ideas, when I saw this recipe. This cake is great! I only made half of it because I didn't want it to last long (this kind of cakes get dry too easily), but it lasted way less than I thougth! Next day I barely got to eat 2 slices with some choped strawberries on top (yummmmmm!) for breakfast. This combination is one of my favorites ^^ I highly recommend this cake to be eaten warm or cold, because if you eat it right from the oven you might find it too sweet (at least that's what happened to me).

So, the recipe I used is as follows:

Ingredients:        

80g butter at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
80g all-purpose flour
40g sugar
125ml sweetened condensed milk

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 170ºC.
2. Butter a small loaf pan.
3. Sift together the flour and baking powder and set aside.
4. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
5. Add the condensed milk and mix until well incorporated.
6. Add the dry ingredients and mix until no traces of the flour remain.
7. Add the egg and, again, mix until well combined.
8. Spoon the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, about 20-25 minutes
9. Let it cool completely in the loaf pan on a rack before unmoulding.

Saucepan brownies

A friend of mine gave me this recipe two weeks ago telling me that it was really good, so, of course, I had to see it for myself ;-) Well, she was right! These brownies are moist and fudgy and they flew away really fast. Well, to honor the truth I made a mistake with the butter in the first batch of brownies: I don't know why, but I was sure that 6 tablespoons = 1 cup (ouch!), and thus, the brownies were too greasy and once cooled(we weren't going to eat them right then) they had tiny lumps of butter. In the second batch I added the right amount of butter, so they turned out right.

Ingredients:        

6 tblsp/100g of butter
55g of cooking chocolate (I used 100g because I'm a chocolate addict)
1 cup/200g of white sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp of vanilla
3/4 cup/105g of flour (I used 1 cup/140g because of the chocolate)
1/2 tsp of baking powder
1/4 tsp of salt

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 325ºF/170ºC.
2. Grease an 8-inch square baking tin.
3. In a saucepan over low heat, melt the butter and chocolate,stirring constantly.
4. Remove from heat and let cool.
5. With a whisk, beat in the sugar and vanilla.
6. Whisk in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
7. Stir flour, measure into a small bowl, and stir in the baking powder and salt, blending well.
8. With a wooden spoon, stir the flour mixture into the first mixture.
9. Spoon into the prepared tin and spread evenly.
10. Bake in the pre-heated oven at 170ºC for about 25 minutes.

Chocolate-cinnamon bundt cake

This morning I wanted to bake something with chocolate, but I wasn't sure of what I could do because the shops are closed. So it had to be something that required cocoa powder, as I don't have any chocolate at home. Fortunately, after going through a few of my 'to-do' recipes I found this one from The Food Librarian. It calls for a Mocha icing, but I used plain sugar instead because the chocolate chips were the bitter chocolate ones, so the resulting cake is not sweet enough (I used A LOT of chocolate chips XD). Anyways, it's really good! very chocolatey and soft, with a nice coffee aftertaste.

It looks tiny because I only made it with HALF of the amounts, as I don't want the cake to go too dry after 2 days standing in the fridge (my parents are advised to not eat much sugar, sooooo...).

Coffee chiffon cake

I've made before lemon chiffon cakes and I finally managed to get it right, so I was confident enough to try another recipe. I was wondering how a coffe flavoured chiffon would be like, and when I saw in other blogs that the coffe chiffon cake's recipe was very similar to the lemon one that I've all ready made, I decided to adapt my recipe as it has demonstrated to be fool-proof. This time I substituted the lemon juice for freshly brewed coffee, the lemon zest for instant coffee powder and the water for milk. Also, I went back to the original 80gr of white sugar, instead of adding honey.

The resulting chiffon cake is not exactly what I was looking for (I wanted a coffee taste kinda like the one of the tiramisu), but it was still very good. Eating a portion of this leaves you the same after taste as drinking a cup of black coffee, though you can't really feel it while you're eating (it's more like a regusto). Probably next time I'll be adding a tablespoon of cocoa powder to "solve" this ;-)

So, my recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:        

100g cake flour
1 & 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 egg yolks
3 egg whites
80g caster sugar
50ml vegetable oil
50ml milk
30ml coffee
2 tablespoons coffee powder

Method:

1. Preheat the oven at 170ºC.
2. Grease the bottom of the mould with butter.
3. Sieve flour, baking powder and salt together, set aside.
4. Separate egg yolks/whites.
5. Place egg yolks in a mixing bowl, add 40g of sugar in 2 separate additions and whisk till the mixture becomes sticky and turns pale (it doesn't really matter if the wisk is manual or electric).
6. Pour in the oil, whisking at the same time till the mixture is well combined. Repeat the same with the milk, followed by the coffee. Add the flour mixture and whisk until flour mixture is fully incorporated into the batter. Add in the instant coffee powder and mix well.
7. In a clean, dry mixing bowl, beat egg whites with an electric mixer until mixture becomes frothy and foamy. Gradually beat in the rest of the sugar and beat on high speed until stiff peaks form.
8. Add the beaten egg white into the egg yolk batter in 3 separate additions, each time folding gently with a spatula until just blended.
9. Pour batter into the mould. Tap the mould lightly on a table top to get rid of any trapped air bubbles in the batter.
10. Bake in the pre-heated oven at 170ºC for 45 minutes (for me this is the exact time and temperature, but it can vary from one oven to another) or until the cake surface turns golden brown, and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
11. Remove from the oven and let cool completely before unmould (if you're using a metal pan then you should invert it inmediatly after taking it from the oven).