DB Challenge: Tiramisu

I liked this challenge for many reasons. I haven’t made tiramisu all from scratch before (as far as I know, most of the other Daring Bakers liked this challenge for the same reason.) It was quite a challenge, especially with all of the components.

I have made lady fingers and pastry cream before, but I haven’t made them since school, so that was a good way to practice. Also, I have never made cheese before, so that was a fun experience to see the whipped cream thicken up to a smooth marscopne cheese in only 24 hours. I was worried (like the challenger) that I had not cooked the cream enough, but sure enough, once cooled, you could definitely tell it was going to be okay.

Overall, I think this challenge was easy because all of the ingredients were easily accessed and the components necessary were easy to make, but to make a plan and know what components have to be made in advance was a challenge that I never really thought that way while making a dessert before.

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.

links for the last week of February

Can you believe that this month is over already?

Here are links to some articles that I read this past week (Feb 22-26):

NYC’s secret steak on NYPOST.com

The Great Ice Cream Robberies on theatlantic.com

Whoopie pies: A down-home classic goes upscale – baltimoresun.com

Better Bread With Less Kneading – nytimes.com

From Contracts to Cupcakes: A Wall Street Career Change -WSJ.com

Learn to bake like a pro, slopeside -burlingtonfreepress.com

I went coco-nuts!

Is that title cheesy, or what?! This post (or rather, this dessert) is chock-full of coconut. As you know, I am looking for ways to use up my left over ingredients from the past couple of months. I already used the graham crackers in the Chocolate Cream Pie, and now the coconut is gone with these Black-Bottom Coconut Bars.

These bars were found on another blog, called Bake or Break. I had most of a 14-ounce bag of coconut, and the recipe called for 7 ounces, so I used some coconut in the brownie part and I sprinkled a lot on top. I haven’t tasted them yet, I tried them, and but hopefully the coconut is not over powering. The brownie part really comes through. (Sorry to those of you who are not coconut fans, maybe you’ll like my next dessert better!) Also, these were rather easy to make. I know, I say that for EVERYTHING, But this time I really mean it. No special equipment. No electric mixers necessary. It is really just whisk everything together and pour/press into the baking dish. Okay, so you have to melt the butter-in the MICROWAVE. Seriously, I think this is the quickest, easiest dessert I’ve made in a while.

links this week (Feb. 15-19)

The headlines that caught my eye this week:

(2/15) Move Over, Cupcake: Make Way For The Macaroon

(2/16) Drink what the Mayans drank

(2/17) Wedding cakes, and the people who make them, relish spotlight

(2/18) Park Slope baker will bake 100 cakes from ’30s and ’40s era and chronicle efforts in blog

(2/19) Passion of the crust: How to make the perfect pie

Chocolate Cream Pie

I needed to start using the leftovers from, oh, about a month ago, so I used up the leftover graham cracker crumbs for the crust in this pie. It was a really rich chocolate-y pie, and I think I would’ve liked just eating the filling by itself, because it was basically just homemade pudding, some might even say it is ganache-like. I have to start finding recipes that use up the other ingredients I have left, but luckily, those don’t really go bad. Also, I have a few cookbooks and recipes saved that I am sure I will find one that works for me.

This recipe is saved from Gourmet and is called Chocolate Cinnamon Cream Pie, but really, the only cinnamon in it is from the crust and the whipped cream that you may or may not dollop on top. So, really, it is just a chocolate pie, with a graham cracker crust. But nonetheless, it was simple and good.