May Daring Bakers Challenge Revealed

This month was my first Daring Bakers challenge, and lets just say that challenge was a good word to use. The assignment was to make an Opera Cake. I didn't even know that there was an opera cake before this challenge so if that gives you an idea about my baking this cake - what you are imaging is correct. I was clueless and it was challenging. But hey, that's why I joined the daring bakers right? To try these new great things.

So the recipe had several parts and steps and layers. All of which are included and will be explained below. I can say this, there is a TRUE art to making butter cream frosting, a TRUE art to ganache, a TRUE art to the glaze. I've been checking out some of the pictures of other daring bakers and wow! there are some pros out there.

The rules were specific in the fact that the cake had to be light in color and flavor for spring. Due to all of the steps and my desire to keep the ingredient list short I used what I had on hand. The butter cream was vanilla flavored, the syrup was brandy flavored, and the ganache was white chocolate with citrus liqueur. In my head (and with Andy's help) I was thinking it would be a vanilla citrus flavor - but it was overpowered by lots of white chocolate. So it ended up as a white chocolate almond cake. Good, but too white chocolaty for me. If I ever try this cake again (and I say "if" only because there were SO many steps and it was a long process) it will be with dark chocolate and coffee flavors. Mmmmm....that sounds worth trying already.

OK enough about all that...here's the cake info and pictures...the recipe is very very involved and if anyone is inerested in it email me and I'll happily share. However in interests of keeping this post a normal length the full version has been left out. Trust me when I say it was a lot!!!

The Elements of an Opéra Cake:

Joconde: The base of an Opéra Cake is a thin sponge cake that is made using nut meal, traditionally almond meal (finely ground blanched almonds).

Syrup: The joconde is flavoured with a sugar syrup that can be flavoured to suit your tastes.

Buttercream: The first two layers of the joconde are covered in a rich buttercream. This particular buttercream is made with a syrup, eggs and butter.

Ganache/Mousse (optional): In some recipes, the final layer of the joconde is covered in a ganache or mousse. While not hard to make, this makes the recipe quite involved. We are giving Daring Bakers the option of either using the buttercream to cover the final layer or, if they’re feeling up to it, to go ahead and make the ganache/mousse.

Glaze: The final step to an Opéra Cake is the glaze that gives the cake a very finished and elegant appearance.

Assembling the Opéra Cake:

-Place one square of cake on the baking sheet and moisten it gently with the flavoured syrup.

-Spread about three-quarters of the buttercream over this layer.

-Top with the two rectangular pieces of cake, placing them side by side to form a square. Moisten these pieces with the flavoured syrup.

-Spread the remaining buttercream on the cake and then top with the third square of joconde. Use the remaining syrup to wet the joconde and then refrigerate until very firm (at least half an hour).

-Prepare the ganache/mousse (if you haven’t already) and then spread it on the top of the last layer of the joconde. Refrigerate for at least two to three hours to give the ganache/mousse the opportunity to firm up.

-Make the glaze and after it has cooled, pour/spread it over the top of the chilled cake. Refrigerate the cake again to set the glaze. Serve the cake slightly chilled.

That should give you the general idea behind the challenge. That and knowing that Andy and I worked on it all of Memorial Day. Granted there were a couple breaks while the cake was chilling in the fridge, but yes it did take that long :)

It's an adventure, and a challenge, but the folks at the office LOVED the cake. Eat it with a big glass of milk - you'll need it. It was good, but it will be better the next time. This was definitely a successful trial run, but a trial run none the less. Good Luck!

Double Sweet Treats to Celebrate My Mom :) - Part 2

So breakfast was a hit, muffins are an easy sweet treat. Dessert was a new challenge all together. My mom has always raved about a good bread pudding. I had never even heard of bread pudding until one day I was being told how great it was by my mom. Since then, Andy and I have tried the bread pudding at claim jumper and jumped (no pun intended) on the bread pudding band wagon. The stuff is good! So my decision was easy - chocolate bread pudding for my mom. She loves chocolate and we all like the bread pudding. Choosing what to make was easy - finding the best recipe was challenging.

I did a food blog search (see link on the right), I Google'd, I tastespotted, and then I combined. :) I found a good recipe on Food Network that said to use Italian bread, but then found a few more that said to use croissants. When I started this blog I vowed never to use an exact recipe that I found, but rather to tweak it in some sort or fashion to make it my own. This situation seemed no different and I had to do some combining of the recipes. The result looked rather interesting (that is baking blogger correct for gross) but tasted delicious. I ended up with a chocolate Kahlua bread pudding. It was rich, tasty, and well liked by all. Here's the recipe I used:

Chocolate Kahlua Bread Pudding

1 (1-pound) Croissants broken into small pieces
3 cups milk
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup Kahlua
1 cup sugar
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons almond extract
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
6 eggs, lightly beaten
8 ounces semisweet chocolate, grated
Whipped cream for serving (optional)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Lightly grease a 13 by 9-inch baking dish and place the bread in the dish. In a large bowl, whisk together the milk, cream, and Kahlua. Using another bowl, combine the sugar, brown sugar, and cocoa powder and mix well. Add the sugar mixture to the milk mixture and mix well. Add the vanilla and almond extract, and cinnamon to the beaten eggs. Combine the egg mixture to the milk mixture and mix well.
Stir the grated chocolate into the mixture. Pour the mixture over the cubed bread in the pan. Let the mixture stand, stirring occasionally for approximately 20 minutes or until bread absorbs most of the milk mixture. Bake pudding for 1 hour or until set. Check pudding by inserting a knife through the middle and it should come out clean.

Serve the pudding warm, or refrigerate and serve chilled with whipped cream if desired.

Initially everyone looked twice at the croissants with hesitation about the outcome, but in the end it was agreed that this bread pudding was delicious. Next time I'm ready to add some raisins, nuts, or other goodies to the mixture to give the bread pudding additional texture and flavor. For a first attempt - and a super mom - it was great! It made a sweet ending to the great day celebrating my mom and being home with the family.

Double Sweet Treats to Celebrate My Mom :) - Part 1

Every year I make sure to make it home to spend Mother's Day with my mom. So far, in the five years I have been in the OC, I haven't missed one. This year was no exception. It was a busy weekend but I made it! And had a blast with my family eating great food and just being together - and of course having new sweet treats!

Because my mom is the greatest I couldn't just make any ordinary sweet treat, I couldn't just make one for that matter either. So I made a breakfast sweet treat and a dessert sweet treat. Both are worth repeating...and both were loved by my mom. I even got a good nod from my dad (an EXCELLENT cook) and to me that made it even better!! When you make anything for someone who knows what they are doing it's always nice to get a good seal of approval.

By now you have to be wondering what exactly I made...so here goes :) For breakfast I made fresh strawberry muffins with a toasted pecan strudel and a strawberry butter. They were very easy and very good. (You know me and strawberries - there is no way that I could think this recipe wasn't good.) The only thing I would change - and did omit from the recipe below - was that it originally said to add powered sugar to the strawberry butter. This was overkill on the sweetness. The muffins on their own had the perfect amount of sweet - the sugar in the butter almost killed it. Here's the recipe:

Fresh Strawberry Muffins

Ingredients:
muffin batter-
1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 eggs (beaten)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup milk
½ cup butter (melted)
1 cup fresh strawberries (chopped and light tossed in 2 tablespoons of flour)
Streusel-
¼ cup chopped toasted pecans
¼ cup brown sugar
¼ cup all purpose flour
2 tablespoons butter (melted)
Strawberry Butter-
½ cup butter (softened)
¼ cup toasted pecans (finely chopped)
¼ cup chopped strawberries

Cooking Instructions:

Step 1: Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees and grease the bottom and sides of an 18 cup muffin tin/s. Mix together all ingredients for the streusel and set aside.
Step 2: Mix together for the muffins- 1 ¾ cups flour, 2/3 cup sugar, and 2 teaspoons baking powder.
Step 3: In a separate bowl mix ½ cup milk, ½ cup melted butter, 2 beaten eggs, and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Gently mix this mixture into the flour mixture. Fold in lightly floured chopped strawberries.
Step 4: Pour muffin batter into your tins and top with the streusel mixture. Bake at 375 degrees for 25-30 minutes
Step 5: Allow muffins to cool for 10 minutes before removing them from the pan or else they will stick. Finish cooling muffins on a wire rack.
Step 6: Now you are going to make the strawberry butter by thoroughly mixing ½ cup butter and 1 cup powdered sugar. Fold in chopped strawberries and toasted pecans. Chill until needed and soften before serving. The strawberries butter can be spread on the inside of halved muffins.

Enjoy!

Slightly Overdue for a Sweet Treat = Chocolate Goodness

It's been a little while since I posted an actual Sweet Treat. I had great intentions this last week, picked a fairly harmless recipe and meant to get right to it...

That was last Wednesday I believe.

It's Thursday night of the following week. Yikes!

Luckily for me tonight I had great motivation. My best friend is the biggest chocolate lover I know. She is the sweet and I am the salty (I know that sounds weird as I Make Sweet Treats is my blog. Trust me I enjoy them, but she is on a different sweet tooth level, and it's a great and motivating one.) We had plans to hang out tonight so it was perfect :) I would make chocolate deliciousness for my favorite chocolate loving friend.

I found a recipe for flourless chocolate cupcakes with a toffee hazelnut sauce. They were described as chewey, ooey and gooey. That sounded right up our alley. When picking up some ingredients at the store that week strawberries were on sale. I decided that a chocolate and strawberry variation was a must. (Quick side note - strawberries are my absolute favorite. I will pick them anytime over almost anything. Especially if they are fresh from the berry stand in Santa Maria. These were local OC strawberries, but they smelled delicious and I knew they would be good. Rarely can one go wrong with strawberries.)

Back to the recipe and the baking :) The cupcakes were VERY simple to make. Cooked rather quickly and were rich and delicious. Definitely the chocolaty flavor I was going for. I made the toffee topping, it was tasty but it should be noted to pour the toffee sauce over the cupcake and serve while the toffee is still warm. I would even omit the ice cream next time. They call it toffee for a reason - it hardened and lost some of it's great appeal. The strawberry variation on the other hand was flawless. I might be slightly biased :) but my best friend sure enjoyed it, AND ice cream would only add to the deliciousness factor of the strawberry variation.

Here's the recipe. It's quick, easy, and just the chocolate fix you probably need. :) Enjoy!!!

Flourless Chocolate Cupcakes
makes 12 cupcakes

3/4 cup unsalted butter
8oz bittersweet chocolate (either morsels, or chopped bar form)
3 large eggs
3 large egg yolks
1/4 cup plus 1 T sugar
1 t vanilla extract
1 T AP flour

Preheat oven to 425*. Grease a muffin tin liberally with Crisco.

Place eggs, egg yolks, sugar and vanilla in the bowl of a stand mixer or in a large mixing bowl. Beat on medium-high speed with the whisk attachment until fluffy and light yellow, about 8 minutes. The mixture will drizzle into the bowl in a slowly-dissolving ribbon when it's been mixed enough.

While the eggs are being mixed: In a large, heavy saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Add the chocolate and stir constantly, until chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth. Remove from heat.

Switch to the paddle attachment (or, if not using a stand mixer, a sturdy spatula).
Slowly add 1/3 of the chocolate to the egg mixture, stirring slowly. Once the chocolate is incorporated, add the rest of the chocolate and the flour. Mix on low speed until a somewhat thin batter is formed.

Divide the batter among 12 muffin cups.
Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until set around the edges and slightly jiggly in the center. Place pan on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes. Gently run a knife around the edge of each muffin and turn out onto a rack to cool for about 5 minutes.

Salted Toffee Hazelnut Sauce
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup chopped toasted hazelnuts (I actually used pecan's and they were great!)
1 t vanilla
1 t kosher salt

Place all ingredients in a heavy saucepan. Over medium heat, stir until the butter and sugar melt. Continue stirring occasionally until the mixture comes to a full boil - 5-7 minutes. Once it reaches a boil, let it boil without stirring for 1 minute. Remove sauce from the heat and let cool about 10 minutes. Spoon over cupcakes.

Fresh Strawberries and Chocolate Sauce (Pictured at the top)
Lightly dust the cooled cupcakes with powdered sugar
Slice fresh strawberries and place on top of sugar dusted cupcake
Drizzle with chocolate sauce and add whip cream
Serve with ice cream (optional)

One small disclaimer. As the pictures might indicate - the hubby was out tonight. I am working on my food photography but there's a reason its a skilled profession of it's own :) He might not be a professional but he's good at his hobbies. I make the sweet treats, he takes the pictures...just bear with me as I catch on :) Hopefully it still looks tasty enough to try for yourself.