Bakewell Tarts - the short version...

Let's get to it:

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.

Once they were pruned a bit they looked quite presentable - and eatable for sure - not the last time I'm going to make these babies.

Cheesecake deconstructed...

This month the challenge from The Daring Bakers was to make a cheesecake and get creative about the presentation of it. Now here in Denmark cheesecake is 124known, of course, but it's not a big thing, where we have contests about the best recipe or where the magazines are filled with different styles of cheesecake fillings and such.

Personally I looove cheesecake and this recipe was simple and yet gave a really great outcome (applause). I tried to deconstruct the cheesecake. Turned it upside down and played with the idea of crust being a heavy dough bit of grahamcrackers and butter. I played it lowkey ith the usual top - my buttom - and made my own crust to put on top. I added a bit of lemon juice to the cheesecake filling but otherwise left it minimalistic.

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

I made the filling according to the recipe given by Jenny. The crust cookies were made using this recipe:

70 g. sugar
70 g. brown sugar
100 g. butter, softened
70 g. flour
100 g. graham flour
50 g. rolled oats
1 egg
½ ts. baking powder
1 ts. vanilla extract
1/4 ts. salt
A handful of almonds, finely chopped

Turn on oven to 175 C.

Mix sugars and butter, then add the egg and vanilla extract. Whisk until smooth. Add flours, oats, salt, almonds and baking powder. When well integrated make a bigg ball of the dough and leave it in your fridge for a couple of hours covered with plastic wrap. Roll out half the dough at a time and use small cookie cutters (choose your own favorites or use a small glass even) and cut cookies to put on the baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake in oven for about 10 - 15 minutes depending on size.

This recipe yields about 100 small cookies but I assure you that no matter the size you choose, they'll be a great snack to go in your lunch box or with a good cup of coffee after a day's work.

This leaves us only to thinly slice a few strawberries and decorate the plate. Place the cheesecake on top and finish off with the crust cookies.

Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna - Daring Bakers March 2009 Challenge

I made it! Erhhmm, no, dear, not quite. So I wrote in my calender; posting date the 29th and then last night I saw that my fellow Daring Bakers had their post up on the 27th. And just when you think you're ready and up to speed - WAM! But I'm a posten' anyway:-)

I’ve made homemade ravioli before but never lasagne - and the whole experience has been a real pleasure. This isn’t difficult. Sure it takes time, there are stages and decisions to make along the way but all in all even though I’m a first-time lasagne maker it won’t be the last.

Here's the deal:

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.



I made a vegetarian version of lasagne and used only half of everything (of the original recipe). I threw the rest of the lasagne noodles in the freezer for another time. I ended up with 9 layers of pasta sheets, which is okay, I think - I read somewhere that there should be al least 6 layers for it to be a real lasagne.

Spinach pasta - Pasta Verde - 1 pound - what I used

2 large eggs (65g)
190 g. frozen chopped spinach, defrosted and squeezed dry
350 g. all purpose unbleached (plain) flour

I left it in the fridge for two days, it was fine and easier than you'd think to roll the sheets thin with a rolling pin - no, I don't have a pastamaker-thingy. And it worked out fine.

Since it’s still wintery here in Denmark and definitely not tomato season I bought plum tomatoes (more flavour) and made a tomato sauce with a lot of orange juice. This is perfect, if you haven’t reached tomato season yet. This is a chunky version - if you wanted you could pass it through a sieve.

Tomato sauce 500 g.

500 g. fresh plum tomatoes, skinned, seeds removed and diced
2 cloves of garlic, sliced
Juice from two oranges
A big handful of fresh basil, chopped
A little sugar, a little salt, a little pepper

Let it simmer for 20-30 minutes.

Béchamel - (I didn’t use all of it)

40 g. unsalted butter
40 g. all purpose unbleached (plain) flour
400 ml. milk
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Freshly grated nutmeg to taste

Using a medium-sized saucepan, melt the butter over low to medium heat. Sift over the flour, whisk until smooth, and then stir (without stopping) for about 3 minutes. Whisk in the milk a little at a time and keep the mixture smooth. Bring to a slow simmer, and stir 3 to 4 minutes, or until the sauce thickens. Cook, stirring, for about 5 minutes, until the sauce thickens. Season with salt, pepper, and a hint of nutmeg.

Bring the salted water to a boil. Drop about four pieces of pasta in the water at a time. Cook about 1-2 minutes. The pasta will continue cooking during baking, so make sure it is only barely tender. Lift the lasagne from the water with a skimmer, drain, and then slip into the bowl of cold water with a little olive oil (so it doesn't stick) to stop cooking. When cool, lift out and dry on a towel or paper towel. Repeat until all the pasta is cooked.

Spread a thin layer of béchamel over the bottom of the baking dish. Arrange a layer of sheets of pasta over the béchamel. Spread a thin layer of béchamel (about 2 tablespoonful) over the pasta, and then an equally thin layer of the tomato sauce. Sprinkle with about 1&1/2 tablespoons of the béchamel. Repeat the layers until all ingredients are used, finishing with béchamel sauce and topping with a generous dusting of cheese.

Cover the baking dish lightly with foil, taking care not to let it touch the top of the lasagne. Bake 40 minutes, or until almost heated through. Remove the foil and bake another 10 minutes, or until hot in the center. Take care not to brown the cheese topping. It should be melted, creamy looking and barely tinged with a little gold. Turn off the oven, leave the door ajar and let the lasagne rest for about 10 minutes. Then serve. This is not a very solid lasagne, but a moist one that slips a bit when it is cut and served.

A Daring Bakers Challenge - Flourless Valentino Cake with Raspberry Ice Cream

Another great challenge from the Daring Bakers Community, Thanks for the oppotunity! Who would have known a flourless chocolate cake could taste so wonderful? To go with the chocolate challenge, I added raspberries to David Lebovitz gorgeous Vanilla Ice Cream (I made a few other alternations as well) - (I hope he'll forgive me) making this a chocolate & raspberries experience.

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.

The Chocolate Valentino recipe - by Chef Wan

454 grams of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped

146 grams of unsalted butter (use a few spoonsfuls to butter the form)

5 large eggs separated

Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often.

While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.

Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.

Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).

With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.

Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.

Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter.

Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C. Bake for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C. Note – If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.

Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.

Vanilla Raspberry Ice Cream - adapted from David Lebovitz

250 ml whole milk
A pinch of salt
150 g. sugar
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise

500ml heavy cream
5 large egg yolks
600 g. raspberries (half was strained, half was mashed - I added a couple of tbsp of sugar to the raspberries)

Heat milk, salt, and sugar in a saucepan. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into the milk and add the pod to the milk. Let it cool.

Pour the cream into a bowl (David Lebivitz uses a larger bowl filled with ice and water to put the bowl with the cream into - I skipped that part)

In a separate bowl, stir together the egg yolks. Rewarm the milk then gradually pour some of the milk into the yolks, whisking constantly as you pour. Scrape the warmed yolks and milk back into the saucepan.

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until the custard thickens then strain the custard into the heavy cream. Stir until cool, and add the mashed and strained raspberries.

Use an ice cream maker to freeze or put the mixture in the freezer and stir occasionally to make the ice cream nice and creamy.

This makes about a liter of superb Vanilla Raspberry Ice Cream.

Sticks n Ice creme

I was ever so excited about my first challenge as a Daring Baker and was thrilled about the prospect of making tuiles. I wanted to make something that would stress the crispy sweetness of the tuiles while giving them something to lean against and as you can see below I ended up doing wriggly sticks to go with ice creme. An ordinary vanilla ice crème in which I added pear pure, enough to taste- too little to make the ice creme icy in texture.

This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

The recipe I chose:

Preparation time batter 10 minutes, waiting time 30 minutes, baking time: 5-10 minutes per batch

65 grams softened butter (not melted but soft)
60 grams sifted confectioner’s sugar
1 sachet vanilla sugar
2 large egg whites (slightly whisked with a fork)
65 grams sifted all purpose flour

Oven: 180C

Use a hand whisk or a mixer and cream butter, sugar and vanilla to a paste. Keep stirring while you gradually add the egg whites. Continue to add the flour in small batches and stir to achieve a homogeneous and smooth batter/paste. Be careful to not overmix. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to firm up. (This batter will keep in the fridge for up to a week, take it out 30 minutes before you plan to use it).

Put some of the batter in an icing bag and make wriggly sticks on a baking sheet with parchment paper. The batter spreads easily so be sure not to make your sticks too thick.

Be sure to watch your oven while baking the stick tuiles, so they get just the right amount of time.