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 the chance to leave my daily stuff and imagine that I am a 5 star pastry chef once a month.

This month was cheesecake.  Once again, something that i have lots of experience with.  I used to create cheesecakes for Dallas area restaurants in the 80s as a little income.  I make cheesecakes the way some people make chocolate chip cookies.

You see, basically all good cheesecakes have the same basic ingredients in the same basic proportions.  You want to keep the fat content high and the air content low.  It is really quite simple.  Once you have the formula for a good cheesecake down it is just a matter of changing flavorings and textures.  So, I was not surprised when the recipe for this months Daring Bakers Challenge was very very similar to my own standby recipe.  I did not want to make something I had made before, again like last month I wanted to be stretched and challenged.  So…I present to you my Triple Layer *Oh Yes I Did* Cheesecake.

This is the cheesecake before the ganache is spread on it.

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 the 29th was acceptable but that in the future the post date will be the 27th.  Whew. I have made homemade lasagne before numerous times..In fact I have made homemade lasagne from homemade pasta to homemade ricotta to homemade sauce…so this challenge seemed to me as if I would be cheating by doing a regular lasagne.  I thought about chicken and artichoke Parmesan lasagne…I thought about prosciutto, pear, and bleu cheese lasagne…I thought and I thought..How could I be different and challenge myself?

Dessert lasagne..only rule I gave myself was..No chipotle.  This is what I came up with:

Cannoli Dessert Lasagne with Ganache

Yeah.  Cardamom pasta cooked in orange juice, star anise, and sugar, wrapped around a sweet cannoli filling, drizzled with bittersweet chocolate ganache, topped with whipped cream and garnished with pistachios.

So…here’s how I did it.  Ready?

Cannoli Filling

1 pound of whole milk ricotta, drained in a cheesecloth for 30 minutes

4 oz cream cheese

4 oz bittersweet chocolate chopped

1/2 cup chopped pistachios

3/4 cup sugar

pinch of cinnamon

1 tablespoon vanilla

Whip the cream cheese and the ricotta together until well blended.  Add the sugar, cinnamon and vanilla, and beat well.  Stir in the pistachios and chocolate and set in the refrigerator to thicken.  This is best made one day ahead if possible.

Cardamom Pasta

2 tablespoons very fresh cardamom

2 cups flour

2 Eggs

2 tablespoons walnut oil (not toasted walnut oil..just plain walnut oil)

Pinch of salt

1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest

couple of tablespoons of orange juice if needed to acheive the proper consistency

Mix dry ingredients.  Beat eggs and stir in to flour mixture with walnut oil.  Form into a ball.  Knead for about 10 minutes until the dough is very supple and elastic.  Cover and set aside until ready to roll or at least 1 hour.

Unless the dough is sufficiently relaxed you will not be able to roll it thin enough.  The main cause of pasta dishes that are just bland or mediocre is the pasta being too thick.  A thin pasta is delicate and adds a whisper of texture and flavor.

On a counter dusted with flour roll the dough as thinly as possible.  You will want to be able to almost read a newspaper through it.  Cut it in long strips about 2 1/2 inches wide.

Mix 2 quarts of orange juice, 1/2 cup of sugar, four whole star anise, a pinch of salt, and about 4 cracked cardamom pods (or a few teaspoons of cardamom) in a pan.  Add enough water to make it deep enough to cook the lasagne noodles.

Bring to a boil and then carefully add the noodles while stirring.  Cook until done.  You do not want these to be al dente..you want them to be cooked well but not mushy.

Drain well and pat dry.

Ganache

8 ozs of chopped bittersweet chocolate

1 cup heavy cream

Bring cream just to a boil.  Remove from heat and add chocolate, stirring until smooth and melted.  Keep warm.

Assemble

Take a noodle and lay it flat on the counter.  Spread it with a thin layer of the cannoli filling.  Carefully and gently roll it up.  Drizzle some of the ganache on a serving plate, carefully lay the lasagne on the plate at an angle.  Drizzle with more ganache.  Garnish with a dollop of whipped cream and a sprinkling of pistachios.

Makes 8

Once again, thanks to the Daring Bakers for helping me to push myself to be a little more creative than I would normally be

images (c)Marye Audet 2009, all rights reserved

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.

Read more

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

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. Read more

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. Read more

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? Read more

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!  Read more

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 dough as you roll. Read more