Wild Yeast

During the baking and serving of this Filbert Gateau, the July Daring Bakers challenge hosted by Chris of Mele Cotte, it seems there were a few concepts I was a little unclear on:

Concept #1: Your husband is allergic to hazelnuts so don’t count on him to help you eat this cake. How did I not know this? Have I really not made anything with hazelnuts in the more-than-half-my-life we’ve been together? Oh well, I suppose it’s discoveries like this that keep a marriage alive.

Concept #2: Do not bake jewelry into the genoise. Especially earring studs that have potential to do serious bodily injury. Luckily I discovered it before our dining room turned into an ad hoc piercing parlor.
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Today is the one-year birthday of Wild Yeast. Holy crow, time flies! I’m not one for elaborate birthday bashes, so let me just say this: Thank you to all of you who read here, and to all of you who share your fabulous blogs with the world. A year ago, I never could have imagined that I would ever meet so many extremely cool people from every corner of the earth, let alone count you among my friends. You’ve made my year!

Now, about that Danish:

The Danish pastries I made last month were good, but not as flaky and crisp as I like them, because the dough wasn’t laminated. I had planned to try again, with lamination; little did I know that Kelly (Sass & Veracity) and Ben (What’s Cooking?) were plotting to force my hand by choosing Danish Braid for this month’s Daring Baker’s challenge.

When I read the recipe (from Sherry Yard’s The Secrets of Baking), I was a little surprised to see that the roll-in butter for the Danish dough was to be softened by beating it (plus a bit of flour) in a mixer to give it a spreadable consistency. The lamination in my (admittedly short) past has involved whacking a block of chilled butter with a rolling pin to shape it into a still-firm rectangle around which the dough is wrapped.

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The Daring Bakers Light Opera Cake Company

presents

L’Opéra, A Cake in Five Acts

__________

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

__________

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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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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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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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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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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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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Cast of characters:

• Me
• Me

Act I, Scene 1

Hey, this month’s Daring Bakers challenge is bread, woohoo! Tanna has chosen Tender Potato Bread from Home Baking by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid. And she’s authorized us to make the recipe our own by seasoning and/or shaping it as we please. I’ve always wanted to make a fougasse. Now’s the perfect time! Let’s get started.

Hold on! Look, you’re used to working with ingredients by weight, and these measurements are given by volume. And, you’re used to using water to adjust the dough consistency, and the directions here say to do it with flour. You know you’re morally obligated as a Daring Baker to follow the directions, except where the host explicitly says you can use your creativity. Plus, you’ve never made bread with potatoes before, sweet potatoes don’t count. You don’t know how this dough will behave. Maybe the first time through you should just follow the original recipe and bake it in loaf pans, or as focaccia. Wasn’t it you who said you don’t tweak a recipe the first time you make it?

I changed my mind. I want to be creative! I want to be daring! How hard can it be? Bring it on!

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When I joined the Daring Bakers, this was exactly what I was afraid of, and exactly what I was hoping for.

I’ll come right out and admit it, I’m afraid of cake, my number one baking nemesis! Although the name of this month’s challenge is Bostini Cream Pie, it’s cake alright, individual orange chiffon cakes no less, atop creamy vanilla custard and drizzled with smooth chocolate glaze. I’m quite sure Mary (Alpineberry) didn’t mean to freak me out on my very first challenge, but goodness, did it have to be cake? With me and cake, it’s always something: it sticks to the pan, it falls, it cracks, it’s too wet, it’s too dry. It’s always something with cake.

But as much as I was dreading cake, I was also hoping to learn some things and have fun exploring new baking territory. And this challenge did not disappoint in those departments. Who better than a cadre of Daring Bakers to help me face my cake phobia and come out with something that was lovely and delicious? (See the recipe here.)

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