Biscuit Joconde Imprime Entremet

The January 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Astheroshe of the blog accro. She chose to challenge everyone to make a Biscuit Joconde Imprime to wrap around an Entremets dessert.

My rendition of BISCUIT JOCONDE IMPRIME/ENTREMET! Filled with a light Mint-Chocolate Mousse and Bavarian Cream. Topped with Creme Fraiche and shaved decorative Bittersweet Belgian Chocolate. Yummy!

This was certainly a delightful bakers challenge to tackle! As I was cutting out the cake for the borders I swore I would never make this again! But now after seeing the completed product I am very pleased and would love to try something of its likes again!

I will post the recipe soon!

Christmas Stollen

This last month I was accepted to be a part of the Daring Kitchen! I love spending time i the kitchen. Baking, cooking, experimenting & tasting delicious food. I am now officially a daring baker and a daring cook.

The 2010 December Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie’s Baking. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make Stollen. She adapted a friend’s family recipe and combined it with information from friends, techniques from Peter Reinhart’s book.........and Martha Stewart’s demonstration.

I had a great time making this recipe. I really love baking bread...just not really used to it taking longer than a couple hours! I know that this post is late. We were house sitting for some friends and didn't have any internet access...but better late than never right!? I stuck with the recipe pretty much the way it was listed...just a few variations.

Started by soaking cherries, yellow raisins & blueberries in rum.

After the dough sat in the fridge overnight, I pulled it out and rolled it out.

Pinched the ends together to for a wreath shape.

Cut the edges with my kitchen scissors.

After it was done baking I brushed it with butter.

Then sprinkled with a generous amount of powdered sugar.

The finished product. Yummy!

Getting Serious

Hello to the cyber world...and any friends that might be reading this blog. It has been WAY TO LONG since I have written on this blog. We have another one that I keep up better with and find that with all the time these days I am spending at work and running around that managing 2 blogs become extremely difficult.

I now have reason and motivation to write though...and begin to share my baking excursions with you. I have been excepted as a Daring Baker here and now have monthly challenges to complete! All the more motivation to get on here and get active. Although my project for this month is completed already...I shall not reveal till next week :)

Until then I will keep this updated. Perfect time to start back up again as the Christmas baking season is here!

Have a blessed Sunday

Headaches

Headaches always make my mornings awful. This morning was one of the worst ones I have had in a while. Didn't want to open my eyes and could barely function in the shower. Popped in some meds and wham I feel so much better. A bit tired though, as if I have been hit by a bus...but in that feeling lays my desire to get up and blog this morning :) silly little brain. 

Hubby left early for school again. Getting up at 5am is a bit killer at times. I really find that only 7 hours of sleep just doesn't cut it for me sometimes. Especially during those restless nights. You know the ones where you wake up and feel as if you have been slaying dragons all night...about every 30 minutes or so. sigh. I don't know how he does it day after day after day. He gets up early, hops on his motorcycle and heads to school...to fly an airplane. If you got me in an airplane at 6am the whole city should fear for their safety. You see at this time my brain has not yet exited the 'sleepy' mode it was in all night and my judgment is extremely lacking :)

My girlfriend had her birthday this last week. She is a vegan...and as I love to bake and be creative, when she told me that her favorite cake was a yellow one with chocolate frosting I took on the challenge to make her a special cake. Egg replacements and all that would taste just like a 'normal' cake. Now I am quite familiar with the local organic and health food stores in our area but setting out to find my ingredients proved to be harder than I thought it would be. My quick trip to safeway to get groceries for hubby and I also turned into a very unsuccessful trip to locate the vegan butter and egg replacers. sigh. So it was off to Huckleberry's. What an adventure...and boy how pricey it is to eat all natural and completely vegan. whew! I found the recipe here, she has a lot of great recipes to offer!

Only complaint I had with the whole process was that this box of 4 sticks of earth balance 'butter', that cost me $5,  was supposed to be 2 whole cups. As you can see from this stick here, I was shorted a whole Tablespoon, just in one stick!

The cake was yummy :)