The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.
I love doing Daring Bakers.  It forces me to challenge myself in ways I would not normally challenge myself.  It forces me to think outside of the box, and it allows me to be part of a group that includes the premier pastry chefs, bakers, and bloggers in the world.   I don’t know how you imagine my life to be, maybe blithely moving from mixer to oven to computer and back again, but that ain’t it!  Anyway, Daring Bakers gives me …read more

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.

O.k..with that said.. I only check the Daring Kitchen about once a month.  Sometimes I get there twice but not too often.  So when the date got changed from the 29 to the 27 I didn’t know.  You can bet I totally freaked on Friday when I saw daring lasagnes popping up all over the internet.
I was reassured that for this month …read more

I made it just in underthe wire once again.  I finished this cake during a birthday party for Shiloh last night!
First of all the required verbage:
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.

For November the Daring Bakers assignment was a caramel cake with caramel frosting.  The catch was the perfect, homemade caramel syrup.

Yep.  Pizzaria style.  Hand tossed.
The thing is I always make hand tossed pizza.  I have been doing it for years..I can even get it spinning.  I thought..aha! This will be a piece of….cake pizza.

 
I can’t believe how quickly the months go by..It seems like I live from Daring Bakers Reveal  to Daring Bakers Reveal with no time in between.  It sort of feels like the movie, Groundhog Day.
This months’ challenge was unusual in both the recipe and the freedom that we had to flavor the challenge item any way we wanted.  We made Lavash, either gluten free or not, and a vegan spread..our choice of ingredients and flavors.

 
I am running late today as far as posting but I will have it up in all of it’s glory (??)  by this afternoon!
Wait until the last minute? Me? NEVER!
Image:Morguefile

If anyone could have tried to pick a challenge that would send me running for valerian and st. john’s wort they couldn’t have picked a better one than this.  I have spent 28 years of marriage trying to compete with my mother-in-law’s eclairs and have failed miserably over and over and over….
But..that is what Daring Bakers is all about, right?  Any since both my parents and my in-laws have passed on …well…the pressure should be lessened anyway…sort of…Right?  Right?

 
This one was a challenge!
First, I have to say how much I appreciate being part of the Daring Bakers.  I definitely get out of my comfort zone a lot and bake things I would not normally bake.  The ingredients can sometimes be pricey (this challenge cost me over $20.00) but I can usually plan ahead to pull a few dollars here and there from other places.
Do I stress? Yes! 

When I saw this challenge I swore that I was not going to wait until the very last minute to do it. Guess what? Yeah. I did.  I waited until friday, knowing that I had to chill this overnight in the fridge…Friday at 3:00, to be exact.
Was it worth the fuss and bother?
Oh YEAH!

Danish pastry, like croissant pastry is made with a block of butter rolled into a yeast dough. In principle it is quite simple; in practice not so much. The problem is that in Texas in summer butter melts. Quick. It oozes from the …read more