events

A Whole New Level of Daring

I am pretty much a one-trick pony in the kitchen. If it has yeast, I’m good. Which is not to say I don’t have my share of failures and faux pas with bread, but I’m not afraid of it.

About a year and a half ago I joined the Daring Bakers, which once a month takes me out of my yeast-bound comfort zone and into the world of cakes, pies, and other foreign objects. Sometimes the results have been quite lovely, sometimes not so much, but I always learn something, and I have to say I have felt pretty damned proud of myself for being so damned Daring twelve times a year.

But at least with Daring Bakers, it’s, well, still baking. Now I have a whole new reason to hyperventilate:

Daring Cooks.

If it’s true that I don’t bake cakes, it’s doubly true that I don’t cook. Therefore, there is only one way to explain my willing membership in this new cadre of Daring, knife-wielding people: I am insane. Either that or I can’t stand the thought of not being part of this action, as fear-inspiring, embarrassing, and painful as it is bound to be.

I really hope our fearless leaders Lis and Ivonne don’t decide to start the Daring Sword Swallowers any time soon.

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Pain d’Épices

The challenge for this month’s BreadBakingDay #18, hosted by Mansi (Fun & Food Blog) and Zorra (1x umrühren bitte), was Quick Breads. When I think of “quick bread” I usually think of a giant loaf-shaped muffin, not really a bread at all. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I wanted a bread. Or as close as you can get to bread without involving some sort of yeast.

I thought of soda bread, but with Saint Patrick’s Day well over by the time I got to doing this, it just didn’t seem right. I scanned my books and settled on Pain d’Épices from Nick Malgieri’s A Baker’s Tour. The recipe contains no fat whatsoever (no eggs, no butter, no oil, no milk) so I knew it would not bear much resemblance to a muffin. What I wasn’t quite prepared for was how much I would love this.

There’s no question that this a very homely looking loaf, but the plain-Jane appearance belies its seductive nature. The flavor derives mainly from anise, complimented by mustard powder and cinnamon, and from honey. I’m going to be living and breathing that anise-mustard-cinnamon-honey combination for quite some time to come. I’m going to be sleeping with it and injecting it into my veins. If I run out, I’m going to be trading my first-born child for it. Really.

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My Spaghetti Lasagna Western

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Lasagna

A Daring Bakers Film
Produced and Directed by Susan
Screenplay by Mary (Beans and Caviar), Melinda (Melbourne Larder),
and Enza (Io Da Grande)
Based on “Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna”
from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper
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.

The Good:

It tasted great. The family loved it. There was not a single sliver left over.
The Béchamel sauce was lump-free.
I tried, I really tried, to roll by hand. I rolled a quarter of the dough by hand. Therefore, I think I was a good, or at least semi-dutiful, Daring Baker.

The Bad:

- My hand-rolling was a complete and total failure. I just could not get that thing to roll without ripping. I think my dough was too wet, because the directions said it should feel sticky. When I make pasta to roll by machine, it doesn’t feel sticky (or maybe my definition of sticky is different), but I thought maybe something about hand-rolling needed the dough to be stickier. In retrospect, I don’t think so.

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Cake and a Cheeseburger

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.”
Disclaimers: I know I’m not quitting my day job. I know my naked flourless chocolate cake with tangerine sorbet is pedestrian compared to many of the brilliantly creative things the other Daring Bakers did with this challenge. I know orange and brown is harsh, and arguably an appropriate color scheme only for a month that contains Halloween.

However: I made it. Nothing went wrong. It was rich and delicious. I will make it again (maybe with raspberry sorbet next time though). Thanks to Wendy (WMPE’s Blog) and Dharm (Dad ~ Baker & Chef) for giving us something I could actually do, thanks to Scharffen Berger for some pretty fine chocolate, thanks to David Lebovitz for the sorbet recipe, and thanks to my benignly neglected tangerine tree for the fruit.

But what’s this, nothing went wrong? No blistered fingers, no attack of the killer caramel, no lazy oven, no earrings baked into the cake? Really, I’ve come to count on these tribulations to give me something fun to say (fun to write if not to read). So what do I say now?

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Roasted Potato Bread, Two Ways

I made a lot of potato bread this weekend.

My intention was to make a simple sourdough bread with the addition of roasted potato nuggets that would stand up to the dough rather than receding into it, lending appreciable color, texture, and potato flavor.

The first time around, that wasn’t exactly how it played out, but I was still pleased with the bread. I roasted the potatoes at 350F so they were soft but not overly brown, with a few cloves of crushed garlic that I removed after roasting. Even having been left unpeeled, the potatoes did disintegrate almost completely into the dough. The result was a beautiful soft crumb with no discernible potato flavor, making it excellent for sandwiches (even PB&J) as well as accompaniment to the fantastic eggplant parmesan I had at the home of old East-coast friends who are now our neighbors (yes!).

As much as I liked the first loaves, I had not achieved what I set out to, so the following day it was more potato bread. This time I roasted the potatoes at a higher temperature (450F) so they developed more of a crust and a deeper flavor. The 3/4-inch pieces stayed semi-intact during mixing, giving the best of both worlds: a soft, mottled tan crumb studded with golden potato chunks and a definite potato flavor throughout. Definitely not a PB&J bread this time.

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When Asbestos Fingers Would Come In Handy

First off, here’s the requisite fine print, so I don’t get kicked off the Daring Bakers’ books, especially after failing to do last month’s challenge:

“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 challenge also ordered us to pair the tuiles with “something light,” leaving the whole thing well open to creativity and interpretation.

Now I realize there may be a few questions at this point:

1. Karen and Zorra are bread bakers extraordinaire. Why didn’t they pick a bread recipe?
  - Karen and Zorra are complex women of many talents. We should all be so gifted.
2. What’s that stuff on top?
  - Crab salsa.
3. You put crab salsa on top of a cookie. What have you been smoking?
  - Actually, we had a secret savory option as well: cornets from Thomas Keller’s French Laundry Cookbook.

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