Daring Bakers: Challah

May’s Daring Bakers’ Challenge was pretty twisted – Ruth from The Crafts of Mommyhood challenged us to make challah! Using recipes from all over, and tips from “A Taste of Challah,” by Tamar Ansh, she encouraged us to bake beautifully braided breads.

I actually made this bread almost on time, but never got around to posting it. I think yeast hates me because my breads never seem to rise correctly. I blame this on my cold kitchen, so I am going to try again now that it is warmer.

Inside of my Challah loaf

The braid disappeared during the second rise

Daring Bakers: Dutch Crunch Bread

Sara and Erica of Baking JDs were our March 2012 Daring Baker hostesses! Sara & Erica challenged us to make Dutch Crunch bread, a delicious sandwich bread with a unique, crunchy topping. Sara and Erica also challenged us to create a one of a kind sandwich with our bread.

Living in the Bay Area, I've grown to love Dutch Crunch bread and I order it my sandwiches on it regularly. A good Dutch Crunch roll is the best bread for a sandwich. It was interesting to learn that many people haven't heard of Dutch Crunch except for around San Francisco and some places in Europe where it is often referred to as "giraffe bread" or "tiger bread."

Seeing this month's challenge was exciting, but also scary because yeast and I don't get along. My sourdough bread challenge was a failure, which didn't even make it to my blog. So while I was excited to make Dutch Crunch I was worried it wouldn't turn out. Fortunately, my rolls came out decently and were good enough to make pastrami sandwiches. I would have liked the topping to be more cracked, but this is a huge improvement over my last bread endeavor.

Dutch Crunch Rolls

Pastrami Sandwich

Daring Bakers': Quick Bread

The Daring Bakers’ February 2012 host was – Lis! Lisa stepped in last minute and challenged us to create a quick bread we could call our own. She supplied us with a base recipe and shared some recipes she loves from various websites and encouraged us to build upon them and create new flavor profiles.

I made banana bread for my quick bread. I used a recipe from Cooking For Seven, but omitted the nuts.

White Whole Wheat Banana Bread

Daring Bakers: Scones aka Biscuits

Audax Artifex was our January 2012 Daring Bakers’ host.. Aud worked tirelessly to master light and fluffy scones (a/k/a biscuits) to help us create delicious and perfect batches in our own kitchens!

I shouldn't have waited so long to do the challenge. My first batch I accidentally used baking soda (oops!) instead of powder so while those came out pretty they tasted really, really gross.

My second batch did not come out as puffed or as pretty as I would have liked. But I'm already late on the challenge so I'll have to try some other time. Here are my ugly biscuits in a horrible picture...totally not in focus =(

Biscuits Made with Half and Half

Daring Bakers: Sans Rival

Catherine of Munchie Musings was our November Daring Bakers’ host and she challenged us to make a traditional Filipino dessert – the delicious Sans Rival cake! And for those of us who wanted to try an additional Filipino dessert, Catherine also gave us a bonus recipe for Bibingka which comes from her friend Jun of Jun-blog.

I chose to make my Sans Rival cake with almonds instead of cashews because I had almonds on hand and also I don't like cashews as much. I used almond meal for the ground nuts in the batter, which made it simpler to make. To flavor the buttercream with almond flavor I used Disaronno instead of almond extract because I didn't have any. 

I thought this recipe was fun to make, but I wasn't sure I was going to like the cake. After it sat for a night in the fridge the layers softened and it was a lot easier to cut than I expected. Even though the cake was really sweet from all the frosting it had an interesting texture and good flavor. If I ever made it again I would try to make the buttercream less sweet and perhaps make the dacquoise layers thicker.

Almond Sans Rival Cake with Disaronno Buttercream

Daring Baker's Challenge: Povitica

The Daring Baker’s October 2011 challenge was Povitica, hosted by Jenni of The Gingered Whisk. Povitica is a traditional Eastern European Dessert Bread that is as lovely to look at as it is to eat!

I'm disappointed that my Povitica did not come out as beautiful as I would of liked =( The loaf pan I used for the traditional walnut filling was  too big and therefore the design wasn't right plus you can't see the contrast between the dough and the filling. At least it tastes good.

I made a half batch, which yielded 2 loafs. One I filled with the traditional walnut filling and the second I filled with a frangipane-esque type filling. It was based on regular frangipane paste plus I added some cocoa (in hopes to get the contrast) and some milk to thin it out. The second loaf I baked in a smaller pan and thankfully it came out a lot better!

I've enjoyed the Daring Baker's challenges I've done so far. It has been fun learning about new recipes, especially ones like Povitica, which I would never have known existed. Maybe I'll try making Povitica again because some of the other Daring Baker's had such great results.

Povitica with Chocolate "Frangipane" Filling

I Love Croissants!

The Daring Bakers go retro this month! Thanks to one of our very talented non-blogging members, Sarah, the Daring Bakers were challenged to make Croissants using a recipe from the Queen of French Cooking, none other than Julia Child!

My second Daring Bakers challenge...CROISSANTS! It's definitely a challenge to make croissants for the first time. We don't have a lot of counter space I had to clear away the appliances so I had enough room to roll out my croissants.

I love croissants, and I was happy mine turned out pretty tasty! Not big and fluffy, like bakery croissants, but they tasted right and were the right texture. I made a few plain croissants, some almond filled, and a couple chocolate. I love, love, love almond croissants so those were my favorites.

Here's a picture of how they turned out:

My First Daring Bakers' Challenge

The August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drive and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!. These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies! This was a special challenge for the Daring Bakers because the good folks at http://www.chocoley.com offered an amazing prize for the winner of the most creative and delicious candy!

This was my first Daring Bakers' challenge and I was excited. I would have rather baked something, but making chocolates was fun, too. For my two candies I did two different types of truffles. Both were dipped truffles, one is a Hazelnut Coffee Truffle (Frangelico liqueur and instant espresso on the inside, and rolled in crushed chocolate covered coffee beans) and the other is an Amaretto Truffle (Amaretto liqueur and rolled in toasted, chopped almonds). 

The main challenge of the challenge was tempering chocolate. This ended up being difficult for me because I didn't have an appropriate thermometer. I'm sure my tempering technique wasn't perfect, but after dipping the truffles in the tempered chocolate I rolled them in the toppings so any imperfections were hidden =) Here's how they turned out:

I like the Amaretto Truffles the most because I really like the Amaretto and almond flavor. Also, with the Hazelnut Coffee Truffles I used instant espresso, which I think made the chocolate bitter (and I wasn't using a very sweet chocolate to begin with).

Overall, I liked doing this challenge and I'm looking forward to having something new to try every month.