Daring Bakers

L’Opéra

The Daring Bakers Light Opera Cake Company

presents

L’Opéra, A Cake in Five Acts

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Composed by Louis Clichy

Original Libretto by Dorie Greenspan, Tish Boyle and Timothy Moriarty

Libretto Adaptation by Ivonne and Lis

Conducted and Directed by Susan

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This evening’s performance is dedicated to cancer survivor and honorary Daring Baker Barbara, creator of LiveSTRONG With A Taste of Yellow, in recognition of her inspiring strength and love of life. The performance is also dedicated to Susan’s dad, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2002, and among whose favorite things were opera and cake.

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A Good Cheesecake Spoiled (But Not Really)

Well, it just figures. The one time — the one and only time in my ever-hopeful-but-never-successful cheesecake-attempting career — that I manage to bake a cheesecake that doesn’t crack, I can’t show it off. I can’t carry it triumphantly to the table to admiring “ooh”s and “aah”s and “look, no Grand Canyon in that cake”s and “she’s such a cheesecake star”s. Nope, I’m obligated to transmogrify this one beyond all recognition. Not only that, but I didn’t even have the brains to take a photo of it in its pristine, glorious smoothness.

I had to get that off my chest, but I’m really not all that broken up, because the mutation was in service of a good cause. Elle (Feeding My Enthusiasms) and Deborah (Taste and Tell) gave us Daring Bakers an excellent challenge this month: Cheesecake Pops. It’s a recipe from Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O’Connor.

The idea is that you bake a cheesecake (and it doesn’t even have to be a lovely, crack-free, perfect cheesecake) and scoop it out into little balls which you then impale on sticks, freeze, and dip into chocolate plus any other coatings your heart desires.

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A Piece of Cake

Birthday cake

Yes, this is a cake. And on this blog, a cake can only mean one thing: it’s Daring Bakers challenge time again.

Morven (Food Art and Random Thoughts) selected Dorie’s (as in baker/author extraordinaire D. Greenspan) Perfect Party Cake for this month.

I made the cake for my own birthday party. This got me slightly in trouble with my family, who have a notion that one should never make one’s own birthday cake. But this is Birthday Rule #2. Rule #1, which always trumps Rule #2, is that the birthday girl gets to do what she wants. They knew I had them there, and they were just going to have to get over it. As you can see if you count the candles carefully, this was my 20th birthday. Sure it was.

I wish I had an amusing tale to tell about something going horribly wrong but salvaged in the end by my brilliant ingenuity and intrepid Daring Baker spirit. But no. This was, in fact, a piece of cake from beginning to end. This is a testament not to my mad cake-baking skills (ha! not!) but to the true perfection of Dorie Greenspan’s recipe, from her book Baking From My Home to Yours.

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Julia’s French Bread, by the Book

Julia Child’s French Bread - crumb

Do I really need to tell you I was ecstatic when Mary (The Sour Dough) and Sara (I Like to Cook) chose Julia Child’s Pain Français (French bread) as this month’s Daring Bakers challenge?

Probably not. But you may be surprised (or not) to know that, as iconic as both French bread and Julia Child are, and as much as I love to bake bread, I have never attempted this particular rendition of French bread before.

And I have to say that reading through the recipe gave me some pause. It wasn’t the 17+ pages of instructions, which include some very helpful notes from Mary and Sara. No, it was that this recipe has a few differences from French baguettes I’ve done before.

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Adventures in Last-Minute Lemon Meringue Pie

lemon meringue pie

In her Christmas stocking this year, my daughter found a post-it note pad that says “If it weren’t for the last minute, I’d never get anything done.” She feigned offense, but she grudgingly admits it’s true. The rest of that truth is that she inherited the procrastination gene from her parents.

With my three previous Daring Bakers challenges, I’ve fought it off successfully. I’m on shaky ground with most non-yeast baking, so the threat of public humiliation has been enough to stir me to action plenty early in the month. I had time to re-make the Bostini Cream Pie when the chiffon cake didn’t cooperate. Made the Potato Bread three times. And although I had some decent beginner’s luck with the Yule Log, I made darn sure my schedule could accommodate a take-two before the deadline, if needed.

Well, my true nature was bound to catch up with me sooner or later. I waited until the last possible (for me) day to bake the lemon meringue pie that is the January challenge, hosted by Canadian Baker Jen. And it was a day we had company for dinner, proving that, in addition to the procrastination gene, the stupid gene was also at work here. (In my defense, it was an old friend, a good sport not likely to be easily fazed by scary pie. Also, I did have some nice pistachio gelato on standby, just in case.)
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Warmth and Light, Daring Baker Style

December is a month for lists, so here we go:

What this is:

A Yule Log, or Bûche de Noël.
The December Daring Bakers challenge, hosted by Lis (La Mia Cucina) and Ivonne (Cream Puffs in Venice), who are also the illustrious founders of the DBs.
My interpretation of the recipe Lis and Ivonne adapted from Perfect Cakes by Nick Malgieri and The Williams-Sonoma Collection: Dessert. (The recipe should be up on their blogs soon.)
A genoise cake rolled with coffee buttercream filling and frosted with mocha buttercream, garnished with meringue mushrooms and other embellishments.

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