well, i've joined the daring bakers: tiramisu from scratch.

because it pushes me to try stuff i'd never consider in different circumstances. i tend to stay in my comfort zone, make a little cake, maybe a tart sometime, but nothing very elaborate and the daring bakers' challenges are nothing but. this is the first challenge, and it was done for the same party as the dobos torte and a bunch of other dishes. i have one pic of the finished dessert and it's post-party slop, but seeing as you get removed if you don't post the challenges... better a sloppy one than none at all.

The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession.

now this is supposed to be a classic tiramisu, with all the components done from scratch. you see what i mean - when would i ever make mascarpone at home?! i wouldn't, i would just sit here and complain it's gotten pricey, and it's so easy to make! and i've always purchased ladyfingers, but i don't think i will again... the homemade, which haven't been sitting on some shelf for decades, are much superior. nothing out of the ordinary with pastry cream and chantilly. this recipe also calls for a marsala zabaglione. now zabaglione - or sabayon - of any kind is simply not one of my faves, but mixed in with the rest i have to say you couldn't really identify it. i didn't want to change anything, i've followed the recipe to the letter, and while it was fine and all my guests seemed to enjoy it, i felt it was a bit lackluster. maybe my espresso wasn't strong enough. it didn't boost me. i would have liked a stronger flavor. i also thought the proportions a little odd, there's very little mascarpone in there... anyhoo, here are the some pictures. i forget: if you want to check out the recipe, please go here, it's really a lot of talk and it feels silly to transcribe it.

perhaps it's all just a matter of personal taste... i just don't like tiramisu especially, i would never order it in a restaurant and for that reason i doubt i'll make it again. but this challenge was great. i loved making the savoiardi. a lot of desserts i truly love have ladyfingers as components and i'm sure now i'll be able to improve them. the cheese making was not without its troubles, as the first time i bought cream i neglected to check it wasn't ultra-pasteurized... but very rewarding when i got it right. all in all, a good experience for me. can't wait to see what's next.

orange vanilla mini brioches

to say i'm not a morning person: the understatement of the week. even after a good night's sleep, first thing in the morning i look like i'm suffering from a collossal hangover, and i feel like a bear too soon awakened from its hibernation. each morning i do a very realistic zombie impersonation nearly crawling from bed to the coffeepot. takes two cups for me to become human. moreover: nothing good ever happened to me on a morning. seriously, ever. all my jump-for-joy stuff occured mid-afternoon, or in the evening. that said, the early morning coffee cup has a completely different allure when paired with these brioches. a robust orange flavored dough, filled with lemon curd or nutella. or homemade strawberry jam. so long, briocheless mornings. i'll remember you all in therapy.

i saw these on fimere's blog, and i had to make them right away. hers turned out much prettier, but with two toddlers undefoot i'd say mine aren't all that bad either. zhara's best friend, genevieve was over here on a playdate and i only had so much time before sesame street was not the greatest thing ever. 

fimere made this orange curd that sounded lovely to me. what's more: you make it in the microwave, in 3 minutes. but my microwave decided to act up, and i got very unappetizing orange omelet, which joined raw eggs and beer from milwaukee on the list of foods not to be consumed. (just kidding: got nothin' against raw eggs.) this was happening late last night, and after that episode i called it in. put the dough in the fridge and went to bed.

which made things great in the morning when all i had to do was fill and bake.
for the dough:
3 3/4 cups/500 gr all purpose flour
1 1/2 ts salt
2 ts dry active yeast
3 tb sugar + 1 ts for the yeast/ 50 gr
zest of one orange, finely grated
1 egg
1/2 cup/120 ml orange juice
7/8 cup/ 1 cup minus 2 tb/ 200 ml heavy cream
vanilla bean, optional

first bring everything to room temp. if you forget to take it out in advance, put the egg in some warm water and leave it a few minutes. the juice you can warm a few seconds in the microwave. steep the cream and infuse with the split, scraped bean. let cool to 115F and dissolve the yeast and 1 ts sugar in it. place flour, salt, sugar and zest in the food processor and pulse once or twice to combine. add the juice and the beaten egg and pulse a few more times. with the processor running slowly stream in the cream. add a tb or two of milk if it's stiff. run it 15 seconds more to knead, then turn it into an oiled bowl, oil the top, cover and set in a warm spot to rise for 1 hour or until doubled in size. (or you can put it in the fridge overnight.)

 preheat oven to 390F. split the dough in half. roll a rectangular 1/4 inch thick sheet. then cut inch wide strips lenghtwise. crosswise cut 2 inch pieces to form rectangles. spread nutella, jam or lemon curd on them and stack three or four on top of each other. fold each stack in half and place in buttered muffin tin. let rise another half hour. brush with egg wash if desired. bake for about 20 minutes, until nicely browned on top.

they taste wonderful, i suspect even plain they would be a great treat, though i'd probably use an extra tb of sugar, and more orange zest. i loved the ones filled with nutella, there's just something about orange and chocolate - and so did zhara. the ones with the lemon curd could have used a bit more of it... i was afraid they'd be too sweet so i smeared it sparingly. the strawberry jam was great cause it had a lot of almost-whole fruit, it went great with the orange flavor. definetely a treat that makes the shortlist. merci fimere!

monkey bread

i saw this over at smitten kitchen. i have instantly fallen somersaulted in love with it. i had never heard of monkey bread before. i looked at the pictures and i felt like a kid who found proof santa is real after all. i simply can't understand how this is not something everybody knows about. [insert choice profanity here.] i think we shouldn't be allowed to graduate from childhood without having had a taste of this.

it's the perfect lazy sunday project. the dough needs to rise twice. we had a grand production tea during the first, me drinking my ubiquitous coffee, zhara her juice, and all her dolls were treated to crakers and dried apricots. when it was time to roll the monkey bread, i set up a playdough station for her so she could work, too. she loved that i kept saying monkey bread and demonstrated very noisily what it'd be like if we had an actual monkey in the kitchen.
as it always seems to happen with me, i started gathering my stuff and realized i didn't have enough all-purpose flour. i also didn't have any desire to change my fluffy fleece for freezing sleet, so i replaced half with whole wheat pastry flour. i only had dark brown sugar, and altough the original recipe advised against it, i decided to take my chances. finally, deb did a cream cheese glaze, but we ate the last of our cheese for breakfast, so i had to improvise and did a simple melted chocolate glaze instead. the rest of the recipe is unchanged.

4 tb/56 gr unsalted butter, 2 tb softened, 2 tb melted
1 cup/250 ml milk, warm
1/3 cup/90 ml water, warm
1/4 cup/55 gr granulated sugar
1 pk/ 2 1/4 ts dry yeast
3 1/4 cups/435 gr all-purpose flour,
2 ts/10 gr salt

for the brown sugar:
1 cup light brown sugar, or dark, it will be equally good
2 ts cinnamon
8 tb unsalted butter, melted

heat oven to 200F/100C. when it's warmed turn it off.
mix flour with salt in the food processor. in a separate bowl, mix milk, water, 2 tb melted butter, sugar and yeast. with the motor running slowly stream in over the flour. if it's too wet sprinkle some 2 tb additional flour, until the dough comes together into a ball, cleaning the sides of the robot. knead 15 seconds then turn into oiled bowl, cover with an oiled wrap and place in the warm oven to rise, about one hour, until doubled in size.
coat a bundt pan with the 2 tb softened butter. set aside. mix brown sugar with cinnamon. melt 8 tb of butter. now flip the dough onto a lightly floured counter and pat into 8 inch square. cut in 64 equal pieces, separating them as soon as they're cut. they'll morph back into a square if you don't. roll each piece to make it round. put each ball through melted butter, then sugar, then place it in the buttered pan. be sure to stagger the balls at the seams where they meet. cover tightly with wrap and put it back in the oven for another 50 to 70 minutes until puffy.

take the pan out and preheat the oven to 350F/177C. bake until the top is deep brown, 30 to 35 minutes. cool in the pan for a couple minutes and invert to a plate - any more and you'll have trouble getting it out. allow to cool for another 10 minutes, then glaze with whatever strikes your fancy. cream cheese is probably a good pairing and i might've tried it had i any cheese... even my chocolate supply was kinda low, so i combined 3 parts butterscotch chips + 1 part white chocolate chips + 1 part bittersweet 70% chocolate. melted those with a glug of milk and poured it all over. i should've probably thought ahead and put it on a rack, but i was already late and it didn't seem like such a big deal that some of it pooled in the inner circle. i ended up piling all of that on the last few pieces. i liked it very much, and i thought the whole wheat imparted a wonderfully subtle nutty background to it. the caramelized exterior would've been enough to convince me, glazed or not. to say it was good would be to trivialize things. so i'm not going to.

smoked white bean soup

lately i've come to rely more and more on the food blogs i read for new ideas and recipes. it used to be my cookbooks reigned supreme. and the occasional cooking shows. but now i have a whole list of favourites and i really trust them to feature tested, tasty recipes. what sends my bloodpressure skyrocketing like nothing else is bloggers who have categories titled 'easy' or 'quick' or both and then include recipes with ingredients that require six hours prep time. even if the final assembly is quick, if it takes you a day to get there, it shouldn't get billed as easy. and dear god, people: nothing with 'confit' in the title is ever going to be quick. [feels good to have gotten that off my chest. pffffuh.]

this soup is easy. like most soups are. in the interest of full disclosure, it may take up to three hours, depending on the beans you use. there. easy. not quick. mighty tasty. so tasty in fact, that the resident princess ate that entire bowl in 5 minutes flat. sans the meat, of course. don't push it, now.

get two smoked pork hocks. wash them in cold water and set them to boil with a bayleaf, a whole peeled onion, a few peppercorns, the stringy part of the celery stalks you'll use in the finished soup, and a parsley root. simmer until the meat is tender and easy to pull apart. strain the broth and discard everything but the hocks. while the stock is simmering boil the beans in a separate pot, or use canned beans and eliminate this step. i've used both and i wish i could stand here and say that the ones you boil are infinitely superior, but they're not. the only difference is, the canned ones have a lot of sodium, so adjust seasoning accordingly. (be sure to give them a rinse before using, you don't want the can juices in the soup.)

in the meantime, chop 3-4 stalks celery, 2-3 carrots, and 1 green bell pepper. when the hocks are cool enough to handle pull the meat from the bone and cube it. add meat and veggies to the strained broth, with the beans and a handful of pasta. pick something small shaped. when they're almost cooked add 6 to 8 oz tomato sauce or juice. sprinkle in some chopped parsley and a squeeze of lemon juice (or a bit of vinegar). correct seasoning and you're done. serve it with sour cream. we like to have onion on the side with this, julienned and then 'kneaded' with salt, pepper and olive oil.

citrus savarins

i always imagined making savarins required twirling magic wands and whispering incantations. as it turns out, you only need a few very ordinary ingredients and lots of syrup. both my husband and i haven't eaten one since we were kids. i have vivid memories of my nose pressed against the showcase at pastry shops, trying to decide, or rather how to convince my mom to get them and the amandines. this was well before the i-hate-whipping-cream-phase. yes, i had one of those. no, i'm not wondering where my daughter gets it. fortunately i'm back to wholeheartedly loving whipped cream, plus the way my husband perked up at the mere mention of this dessert plus the fact you just can't find them anymore, equals this.

i did some research for the recipe. gale gand's results in a dough solid enough to turn on the counter, and i specifically remembered it thin enough to pour. in the end i combined three to get precisely what i wanted. gale gand's, this one and this one.

1 3/4 cups bread flour
1 tb dry yeast
1 cup milk, warm
1 egg, room temp
2 tb butter, softened
1 heaping tb sugar

sift the flour with a pinch of salt. dissolve the yeast and a ts of sugar in the milk. add the beaten egg, butter, remaining sugar to the flour and mix. stream in the milk, mixing all the while. pour immediately into brioche or muffin tins. fill them half way and place in a warm spot to rise for 45 minutes. do not let rise a minute more or they will be though and crumbly and no amount of syrup will make up for the damage. 30 minutes in set your oven to 400F. bake 15-18 minutes, until nicely browned on top and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

while they bake prepare the syrup:

2/3 cups sugar

1 cup water

4 lemon rind strips

1 tb grand marnier

boil water, sugar and lemon until sugar is dissolved and the syrup is golden. take it off the heat and add the grand marnier, or cointreau or limoncello, whatever you have. let cool.

for the whipped cream, beat 1 cup heavy cream until stiff. mix in 2 heaping tb lemon curd. which you can make yourself or you can shell 3 bucks for trader joe's, which is quite decent and keeps in the fridge longer than i've ever needed it to.

when everything is cool, get a large shallow dish. cut the third top off the savarins. put each bottom through the syrup and lay it in the dish. if they absorb it right away, spoon a bit more syrup before topping with whipped cream. do the same for the tops. use all the syrup. if you have even a bit left pour it the dish. go all the way or go home. they will suck it up, don't worry. gale says to let it sit overnight but i don't find that necessary. a good couple hours is enough, just to get them cold all the way through.

traditionally they're topped with a dab of red fruit jelly. or maraschino cherries. i was planning on a bit of mint jelly, but of course when i opened the jar i discovered it had gone bad, so my only alternative was strawberry jam. oh well.

they're very good, although not precisely the same as those devoured when we were kids, a thousand years ago. those had plain whipped cream and rum extract instead of grand marnier, but i was in a lemon mood and these really hit home. i firmly believe: when something tastes this light and airy and citrusy the calories simply don't count. (and if you wolf one down in the middle of the night with your head in the fridge that definetely doesn't count.)

lemon garlic chicken

on this chicken i used my favourite flavours. i use them whenever i crave comfort food. lemon, garlic, bacon. i often have urges to eat them raw, but fortunately these urges never coincide with me being drunk enough to act on them. i imagine it'd be a terrible combination, in the raw version, no? but how wonderful it turns when baked, especially when you add a good glug of white wine.

preheat oven to 375F. wash the chicken and pat it dry. in a shallow baking dish combine two tb olive oil with the juice of half lemon. toss the chicken so it's coated on all sides. season with salt, pepper, paprika and herbs de provence, laying it presentation side down. scatter a few garlic cloves between the chicken pieces. chop some bacon and throw that in, too. cut the lemon you juiced in half and fit it in between. gently pour dry white wine against the side of the dish so you won't wash away the seasoning. bake until it's nicely browned, then turn it so the other side can get its turn. all in all, about 35-40 minutes, less if boneless. the juices will reduce in the most wonderful sauce.

typically i'd make mashed potatoes to fully showcase it. i'd make some ridges on top so the sauce can puddle on top and you can have some with each bite. sometimes i simply spoon it over, but on occasion i'll strain it, add some chicken stock and thicken it with some cornstarch. but that is moot cause the boss doesn't do potatoes, hence the mac and cheese. i had to mop the sauce with the homemade roasted garlic bread. poor me.

garlicky, lemony zucchini white pizza

i know, enough with the zucchini already, right? the thing is, i cook to order. the order of my bratty princess, who's realized all she has to do is ask, and food will just materialize on her plate. last night i had planned to feed her some leftover asparagus risotto. she loves it, except last night she just wouldn't take even a bite of it. so i started to name alternatives, which she shot down one by one. exasperated, i asked, what will you eat?!!! and she told me: pizza.
luckily i had picked up some dough at trader joe's. i was out of canned tomatoes so a red  sauce was out of the equation, but i had some leftover garlic alfredo, just enough to schmear it all over. i grated the zucchini, seasoned it and tossed it with the juice of half a lemon and some olive oil. then i put one gigantic garlic clove through the press and mixed that in. let it sit while i chopped some bacon and crumbled some feta. slapped everything on and baked it 20 minutes at 400F.

zhara ate three bites. i had plumes of smoke coming out of my ears by this point. she had a banana and went to bed. i had a slice. and my husband had the rest of it. in his defense, it was a skinny crust. why, it was almost flatbread.