April 2011 Daring Baker's Challenge: Maple Mousse served in an edible container

The April 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Evelyne of the blog Cheap Ethnic Eatz. Evelyne chose to challenge everyone to make a maple mousse in an edible container. Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 27th to May 27th at http://thedaringkitchen.com!

First of all, things keep going as I mentioned last February, wich means that my job is still like hell T_T At least it looks like this situation is coming to an end (because so does the project). Thus I'm leaving the chatting till then and I'm making this post in a hurry -_-U

I admit that I didn't embrace this challege as much as I should, partly because the maple syrup is very expensive in here and partly because I'm quite tired when I get home to be in the mood for making mousse.
I made the edible containers with chocolate, following the instructions of this web. They were kind of a mess because some of the balloons were so glued to the chocolate that I almost broke the vessels.

Here come the recipe of the Maple Mousse:

Ingredients:

240ml pure maple syrup
4 large egg yolks
1 tablespoon unflavoured gelatine
360ml whipping cream

Method:

1. Bring maple syrup to a boil and then remove from heat.
   
2. In a large bowl, whisk egg yolks and pour a little bit of the maple syrup in while whisking (this is to temper your egg yolks so they don’t curdle).
3. Add warmed egg yolks to hot maple syrup until well mixed.
4. Measure 1/4 cup of whipping cream in a bowl and sprinkle it with the gelatine. Let it rest for 5 minutes. Place the bowl in a pan of barely simmering water, and stir to ensure the gelatine has completely dissolved.
5. Whisk the gelatine/whipping cream mixture into the maple syrup mixture and set aside.
6. Whisk occasionally for approximately an hour or until the mixture has the consistency of an unbeaten raw egg white.
7. Whip the remaining cream. Stir 1/4 of the whipped cream into the maple syrup mixture. Fold in the remaining cream and refrigerate for at least an hour.
8. Remove from the fridge and divide equally among your edible containers.

February 2011 Daring Baker's Challenge: Panna Cotta with Orange Gelée and Nestle Florentine Cookies

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.

Well, this month I managed somehow to complete the challenge just in time. It's not like I'm gonna start complaining about my job now (yes, it is XD), but these past weeks have been hell for me and the pleople I'm working with in my current project. There are just too many last-minute-super-urgent-changes to be able to cope with and finish in time.

While preparing for this month's challenge I had to face some problems regarding the ingredients needed for the florentine's cookies: as far as I'm aware you can't find in any regular (spanish) supermarket neither dark (or light) corn syrup or quick oats. And I didn't had time to go browsing specialized stores in search for some ingredients that I'm not likely to use again in a loooong time. So I substituted the dark corn syrup with honey and the quick oats with all-bran cereals :-)

As for the fruit gelée, I chosed an orange gelée because I had some at home and I think that the orange flavour is a great counterpart to the honey-ish flavour of the panna cotta.

Here come the recipes I used:

Ingredients for the Orange Gelée:

1 big orange
60g granulated sugar
45ml water
1 and 1/2 teaspoons unflavored powdered gelatin

Method for the Orange Gelée:

1. Sprinkle gelatin over water.
2. Peel the orange and cut it in small pieces. Place the orange and sugar in a small saucepan and simmer until sugar has dissolved.
3. Now mix the gelatin into the orange mixture and stir until gelatin has dissolved.
4. Remove from heat and allow to cool (close to room temp). Put it in the bottom of a glass (or reserve for layering it into or above the Panna Cotta).

Ingredients for the Panna Cotta (I made half of the recipe):

120ml whole milk
1/2 tablespoon unflavored powdered gelatin
A pinch of salt
360ml whipping cream
40ml honey
1/2 tablespoon granulated sugar

Method for the Panna Cotta:

1. Pour the milk into a pot and sprinkle gelatin evenly and thinly over the milk (make sure the pot is cold by placing it in the refrigerator for a few minutes before you start making the Panna Cotta). Let stand for 5 minutes to soften the gelatin.
2. Place the pot over medium heat on the stove. Heat this mixture until it is hot, but not boiling, about five minutes (I whisk it a few times at this stage).
3. Next, add the cream, honey, sugar, and pinch of salt. Making sure the mixture doesn't boil, continue to heat and stir occasionally until the sugar and honey have dissolved 5-7 minutes.
4. Remove from heat, allow it to sit for a few minutes to cool slightly. Then pour into a glass.
5. Refrigerate for at least 6 hours or overnight.

Ingredients for the Florentine Cookies (this is my adaptation):

100g unsalted butter
160g all-bran cereals
150g granulated sugar
95g all purpose flour
60ml honey
60ml whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
A pinch of salt

Method for the Florentine Cookies:

1. Preheat oven to 190°C. Prepare the baking sheet with silpat or parchment paper.
2. Melt butter in a medium saucepan, then remove from the heat..
3. To the melted butter add the all-bran, sugar, flour, honey, milk, vanilla, and salt. Mix well.
4. Drop a tablespoon full, 75mm apart, onto your prepared baking sheet. Flatten slightly with the back of your tablespoon, or use a spatula.

5. Bake in preheated oven for 6-8 minutes, until cookies are set. Cool completely on the baking sheets.

I'm happy with the Panna Cotta even though it didn't set completely, but still it had some consistency, which is not that bad taking into account that this was my first attempt! ^^

The florentine cookies were a nice surprise despite all the things that could have go wrong! Looks like my substitutions didn't mess anything up. On the contrary, they're delicious! Really crunchy and with a nice honey scent that matches with the Panna Cotta ^o^

Roscón de Reyes

The roscón de reyes is the typical spanish cake eaten the Epiphany day, which marks the end of the Christmas celebrations. It's eaten for breakfast with a cup of hot cocoa and whoever finds the bean or figurine hidden inside of it must pay for the next year's roscón.
The roscón is aromatized with orange flower water and citrus zest (usually orange and lemon zest) and decorated with candied fruits.

Every year on the 5th and 6th of January there are long queues in front of the bakeries in order to get freshly baked roscones and thus, when one of my friends told me that she was trying to bake her own cake but was having some trouble with the raising, I suggested her to come to muy home and give it a try together :-)
I love baking, that's obvious, but I've never baked before along with somebody else and I'm happy that I finally did it! It's waaaaay more fun!
So, my friend came home on the 5th in the afternoon and we finished by the evening-early nigth ^^ It looks like her problem had something to do with the way the recipe indicated how to deal with the yeast, but it's solved now. The resulting cake was fluffy and tasted nicely even though we didn't add much orange flower water.
We made 2 cakes out of the recipe, one for her, one for me, but the original recipe is meant to be for making a cake enough for four people.

Ok then, here's the recipe for a four-people roscón (or 2 smaller ones):

Ingredients:

20ml lukewarm water
4g active dry yeast
40g melted unsalted butter (you can use salted butter)
a pinch of salt (skip this if you're using salted butter)
50ml milk
250g all-purpose flour (and 50g more for kneading)
40g sugar
1/4 teaspoon orange flower water
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Grated zest of 1/2 lemon and 1/2 orange
1 bean

For decoration:

Candied fruits
40g sugar
Water (the ammount depends on how you want the sugar to be on the roscón)
1 large egg, lightly beaten

Method:

1. In a small bowl, pour the warm water and sprinkle it with yeast and let stand for 5 minutes. Stir to dissolve yeast completely.
2. In another bowl mix together the egg and the sugar until well combined.
3. Then add the milk and the orange flower water to the eggs and mix until well combined.
4. Add the melted butter to the egg mixture and, again, mix until well combined.
5. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, salt and orange and lemon zests.
6. Then stir in the yeast and the egg-milk-butter mixture. The dough should be very soft but don't worry, we're going to incorporate more flour while kneading.
7. Dust the counter with the rest of the flour, transfer the dough to the counter and knead the dough for 5 minutes to form a soft and sighly sticky ball. When the dough comes together, put it back in the bowl and cover it with plastic or a tea cloth and let it raise for 1 hour in a warm place.

8. After the raising the dough will stick to the bowl. Punch the dough down and roll it to form a ball. Then push your thumb through the middle of the ball to make a hole. After this begin to roll the dough around your wrist to widden the hole (like a hula hoop) and get the traditional look of the roscón (something like a huge doughnut). Transfer the dough to an oven rack.
9. Hide inside the dough a bean or a ceramic figurine. Brush the dough with the egg and decorate with the candied fruits and the sugar-water mixture.

10. Proof for approximately 1 hour at room temperature, or until about 1 and 1/2 times its original size.
11. Preheat oven to 180°C.
12. Bake the roscón for 20-30 minutes or until golden brown with the oven rack on the middle shelf.

13. Transfer to a cooling rack. Wait until cooled before serving.

This picture was taken on the Epiphany breakfast, see how fluffy came out the cake? ^^

December 2010 Daring Baker's Challenge: Christmas Stollen

The 2010 December Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie’s Baking. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make Stollen. She adapted a friend’s family recipe and combined it with information from friends, techniques from Peter Reinhart’s book.........and Martha Stewart’s demonstration.

Well, it's time for excuses! -_-U

First of all I'll tell you about the stollen. I baked it on Christmas Eve because I intended to give it away to my boyfriend (and because I didn't have anymore time left if I wanted to make it on time). There's only three of us at home and the loaves of stollen were too much, but my boyfriend's home is filled with people on Christmas thus the decision was taken: he recieved his Christmas presents + the big loaf of stollen ^^
One more thing: I hate raisins but my parents and boyfriend love them. This means that when I ate my share of the small loaf I had a hard time avoiding them ^^U

It was pretty easy to make, there aren't any major complaints apart from being a little time-consuming (as any other kind of bread). I didn't have any trouble with the raising time or the kneading so I was really happy!

And, ¿what about the flavour of the loaves? I'm sorry but it was pretty bland. The stollen tasted super with some jam, though. It was my fault because I didn't add enough zest and raisins, apart from not adding any other dried fruits or marzipan.
Oh! and it also tasted good dipped in hot cocoa!

Finally, the excuses for not updating the blog before:
I spent the first 2 weeks of December abroad, concretely I went to New York!!!
And when I came back I found a big pile of work waiting for me! T_T
After that the Cristmas craze came and dragged me along...
And that's all folks!

I wish you a very happy New Year 2011!!!

The recipe:

Ingredients:

60ml lukewarm water (43ºC)
14g active dry yeast
a pinch of salt
240ml milk
140g unsalted butter (you can use salted butter)
770g all-purpose flour
115g sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
Grated zest of 1 lemon and 1 orange
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
170g firmly packed raisins
3 tablespoons rum
Melted unsalted butter for coating the wreath
Icing sugar for dusting wreath (optional)

Method:

1. In a small bowl, soak the raisins in the rum.
2. Pour the warm water into a small bowl, sprinkle with yeast and let stand 5 minutes. Stir to dissolve yeast completely.
3. In a small saucepan, combine the milk and the butter over medium-low heat until butter is melted. Let it stand until lukewarm (about 5 minutes).
4. Lightly beat eggs in a small bowl and add the vanilla extract.
5. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon, orange and lemon zests.
6. Then stir in the yeast, eggs and the lukewarm milk mixture. It should be a soft, but not sticky, ball. When the dough comes together, cover the bowl with plastic or a tea cloth and let it rest for 10 minutes.
7. Add in the raisins and mix them with your hands to incorporate.
8. Sprinkle the counter with flour, then transfer the dough to the counter and begin kneading to distribute the fruit evenly, adding additional flour if needed (the dough should be soft and satiny, tacky but not sticky). Knead for approximately 8 minutes (when the dough is kneaded enough a few raisins will start to fall off).
9. Lightly oil a LARGE bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling around to coat it with the oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge overnight.
10. Let the dough rest for 2 hours after taking out of the fridge in order to warm slightly. Then punch dough down and roll it sightly to make it larger than wider (this is to make a traditional shaped loaf). Fold the dough nearly in half.
11. Proof for approximately 2 hours at room temperature, or until about 1 and 1/2 times its original size.
12. Preheat oven to 180°C with the oven rack on the middle shelf.
13. Bake the stollen for 20 minutes, then rotate the pan 180 degrees for even baking and continue to bake for 20 to 30 minutes.
14. Transfer to a cooling rack and brush the top with melted butter while still hot. Immediately tap a layer of powdered sugar over the top through a sieve or sifter. Wait for 1 minute, then tap another layer over the first.

November 2010 Daring Baker's Challenge: Crostata

The 2010 November Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Simona of briciole. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make pasta frolla for a crostata. She used her own experience as a source, as well as information from Pellegrino Artusi’s Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well.

This month I went all crazy and, instead of going for one challenge, I made TWO challenges: tiramisu and crostata.
As I joined the DB on April this year I missed the tiramisu challenge, so I wanted to give it a try and thus, I browsed the Internet to see if it was possible to combine both the crostata and the tiramisu. As you can see, I was succesful ^^
I found the recipe for the tiramisú filling here, and for the pasta frolla I used the 1st version provided by Simona.

The recipes:

Ingredients for the pasta frolla:

100g superfine sugar
235g unbleached all-purpose flour
a pinch of salt
115g cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg and 1 large egg yolk, lightly beaten in a small bowl
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method for the pasta frolla:

1. Whisk together sugar, flour and salt in a bowl.
2. Rub or cut the butter into the flour until the mixture has the consistency of coarse crumbs. You can do this in the bowl or on your work surface, using your fingertips or an implement of choice.
3. Make a well in the center of the mounded flour and butter mixture and pour the beaten eggs into it.
4. Add the vanilla extract to your flour/butter/egg mixture.
5. Use a fork to incorporate the liquid into the solid ingredients, and then use your fingertips. Knead lightly just until the dough comes together into a ball.
6. Shape the dough into a flat disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Place the dough in the refrigerator and chill for at least two hours. You can refrigerate the dough overnight.
7. Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
8. Roll out a batch of the pasta frolla and cover the base of the tart pan.
9. Cut a piece of parchment paper or aluminum foil large enough to cover the bottom of the crust and extend out a bit over the edges of the pan.
10. You can use pie weights or dry beans to blind bake. Place whatever weight you’re using directly on the parchment paper or aluminum foil in an even layer.
11. Place the crostata shell in the oven and bake for 20 minutes.
12. Remove the weights and parchment paper and continue baking the crostata shell until the border is light golden, about 5 minutes (watch carefully to avoid over-baking, which results in a hard shell). In the absence of weight, the crust may rise in the middle: if that occurs, gently push it back down with the back of a spoon.
13. Remove from the oven and let the crostata shell cool completely before proceeding. If you use a tart pan with removable bottom, release the base from the fluted tart ring, then slide the cooled crostata shell on a serving plate for filling.

Ingredients for the mascarpone cream for the tiramisú:

250g mascarpone cheese
25g icing sugar
1 tablespoon coffee
2 egg yolks
60g caster sugar
2 tablespoons coffee liquor
75g whipped cream

Method for the mascarpone cream for the tiramisú:

1. Mix the mascarpone with the icing sugar with a spoon after adding the tablespoon of coffee.
2. In another bowl, beat the egg yolks with the caster sugar and the coffee liquor.
3. Add the egg yolks to the mascarpone and mix until well combined.
4. Add the whipped cream and mix well.

Method for the assembling:

1. Spread some nutella over the bottom of the crostata shell.

2. Set in this way some coffee soaked savoiardi.

3. Now pour the mascarpone mixture over the savoiardi.

4. Spread the mascarpone mixture until it covers all the inside of the crostata. Decorate with some dusted cocoa powder.

The crostata looks ugly but I swear that it is delicious! It's like eating tiramisú with butter cookies!!!

Vanilla and nutella swirl cookies

Well, first of all, sorry for the poor quality of the photo and the (more than usual) lousy presentation of the cookies -_-U
I meant to give away some of the cookies to friends (and to boyfriend) and to store the very few that were left in a cookie box but, unfortunately, my parents found them and ate them before I had time to take a more decent picture of them T_T
Indeed, this picture was taken with my mobile phone after I packed the cookies that I were going to be given away and before I remembered to store the leftovers. Well, I suppose that's good because it means that they liked them (but I liked them too and I wished I had some more T_T).

This is another recipe (yes, again) from the book Chocolate Galore (in Spanish is Chocolate a gogó). The original recipe from the book calls for 2 teaspoons of nutella, but I used 1 tablespoon in order to get more flavour. And I changed again the amount of sugar that the recipe states, using 50g instead of 75g. Also, I don't know if it's because I used more nutella thant I was told to, but I had to increase the temperature of the oven and the baking time: the original recipe says that 160º degrees Celsius and 10-12 minutes are enough, but I needed 180ºC and 15 minutes to get my cookies done.

So, the recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:        

175g butter (at room temperature)
1 large egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
50g confectioners sugar
1 tablespoon nutella
225g all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cocoa powder

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180ºC.
2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Mix in the vanilla extract until well combined. Then add the flour and work the mixture until you have an elastic dough.
4. Divide the dough into two parts and add to one of the parts the cocoa powder and the nutella. Mix until well combined.
5. Extend, with a rolling pin, each dough in a floured surface until you get two rectangles, about 15x20 cm each. If the doughs are not hard enough let them rest in the fridge for 10-15 minutes.
6. Put the nutella dough on the plain dough and press lightly. Trim the edges and fold it, just like a swiss roll.
7. Let the roll rest in the fridge for half an hour. Then cut it in slices of about 6cm each and put them well separated in the baking pan.
8. Bake in the preheated oven for 12-15 minutes until they sighly brown.
9. Take the cookies out from the oven and let them cool for 2-3 minutes in the tray before transfering them to a wire rack. You can keep them for a week in an air-tight container.

October 2010 Daring Baker's Challenge: Doughnuts!

The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.

First of all I must say that I LOVE doughnuts. They're really delicious by themselves and with a chocolate glazing they're just heavenly! So, you can imagine my delight when I saw which was this month's challenge ^^

As it was my first time making them I decided to keep it simple and dip the doughnuts in a simple sugar glaze, to imitate the ones sold in every bakery.

The recipes:

Ingredients for doughnuts:

360 ml whole milk
70g butter
14g active dry yeast
80 ml warm water
1.5 tsp salt
55g white sugar
650g all purpose flour + extra for dusting surface
2 large eggs, beaten
Olive oil (depends on the size of the vessel you are frying in).

Method for the doughnuts:

1. Place the milk in a medium saucepan and heat over medium heat just until warm enough to melt the butter.
2. Place the butter in a bowl and pour warmed milk over (make sure that the butter is melted). Set aside.
3. In a small bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the warm water and let dissolve for 5 minutes (it should get foamy). After 5 minutes, pour the yeast mixture into a large bowl and add the milk and butter mixture, first making sure the milk and butter mixture has cooled to lukewarm.
4. Add the eggs, sugar, salt, and the flour. The dough will be to sticky to knead by hand without adding a lot of extra flour and it will be very messy so just roughly combine the dough ingredients using a plastic scraper or wooden spoon. No need to knead too much; a longer resting/rising time is equivalent to kneading that is if you only roughly knead for one minute or so and let the dough rise for a longer time this is equivalent to kneading for a longer time (many thanks to Audax for the kneading instructions).
5. "Pour" (the dough won't be firm at this point, but don't panic, it's normal) to a well-oiled bowl, cover, and let rise for 1 and 1/2 hours or until doubled in size.

6. On a well-floured surface, roll out dough to 9 mm thick (make sure the surface really is well-floured otherwise your doughnuts will stick to the counter).
7. Cut out dough using a 65 mm doughnut cutter or pastry ring or drinking glass (I used a water glass) and using a 22 mm ring for the center whole (I used one of my piping tips). Set on floured baking sheet, cover lightly with a tea towel, and let rise for 30 minutes.
8. Preheat the oil in a deep fryer or Dutch oven to 185°C.
9. Gently place the doughnuts into the oil, 3 to 4 at a time. Cook for 1 minute per side or until golden brown (my doughnuts only took about 30 seconds on each side at this temperature).
10. Transfer to a cooling rack placed in baking pan. Allow to cool for 15 to 20 minutes prior to glazing, if desired.
    

Ingredients for the simple sugar glaze:

450 ml whole milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
440g confectioner's sugar

Method for the simple sugar glaze:

1. Combine the milk and vanilla over a medium saucepan and heat over low heat until warm.
2. Sift the sugar into the mixture. Whisk slowly until well combined
3. Remove the the glaze from the heat and set over a bowl of warm water (I left it over the heat, set at the minimum).
4. Dip the doughnuts into the glaze and let it drain.

The doughnut were great...the first day. Unfortunately the next day they were dry and not so good. The bright side is that there were only FOUR DOUGHNUTS LEFT! So most of the doughnut were eaten at their best ^^ I suppose that this means that people did like them, doesn't it?