a whisk and a spoon

Daring Bakers in December: Yule Log

‘Tis the season…to eat cake shaped like tree branches!  I love holiday baking (wish I’d gotten to do more of it this year) and I absolutely love yule log, or Bûche de Noël.  If you were wondering what the Daring Bakers would be up to for the holidays, this is it!  Or hosts, the co-founders of the group, Ivonne and Lisa chose a yule log, a symbol of light and warmth for this month’s challenge.

A Bûche de Noël is usually a genoise sponge cake rolled up with a filling, cut to resemble a log and frosted with buttercream.  Then it gets all kinds of slightly wacky decorations.  Mushrooms are a traditional yule log decoration.  Don’t worry–I’m taking about sweet sugar mushrooms!  We were able to chose to make our ‘shrooms from either meringue or marzipan. Not being a huge marzipan fan, I went the meringue route.  I dusted them with cocoa and a little gold luster dust.  My log came from a magical, sparkley forest!

I have made a couple of yule logs in the past, so I knew the general drill. The genoise sponge we used was slightly different from ones I’ve made in the past. This one had no butter and used cornstarch…more like a ladyfinger recipe I’ve used many times. I decided to keep my sponge plain in flavor, but I was worried it would dry out in the fridge, so I soaked it with a rum simple syrup before rolling it. We had to use coffee buttercream to frost the cake (which was fine by me),  and it was made Swiss-meringue style.

I didn’t have any real problems making the yule log.  The most difficult part was deciding on a filling, as we could chose whatever we wanted to roll our cakes up with.  I decided to do a chocolate mousse filling.  It set up nicely and went well with the coffee and rum flavors in the other components.  Decorating the cake was a lot of fun, and we certainly had no difficulty eating it up!

I am flying to the States today for the holidays. I’m very excited about the trip, but it means I may not be able to comment on as many of my fellow DBer’s posts as I would like. I apologize for that, but do check out the Daring Bakers’ blogroll and see all the beautiful Bûche that were made!  Ivonne has the recipe on her site.  Happy holidays!

Daring Bakers in October: Bostini Cream Pie

“Hey– don’t you mean Boston cream pie?” you ask.  I know I’m a lousy typist, but I do in fact mean Bostini.  It is, of course, a take on the traditional Boston cream pie, created by Donna Scala and Kurtis Baguley of Bistro Don Giovanni and Scala’s Bistro in Northern California– an orange-flavored chiffon cake sitting on a bed of vanilla custard and topped with chocolate glaze.  Our Daring Baker hostess this month is Mary from Alpineberry, and since she first tried it about 12 years ago, Bostini cream pie has been one of her restaurant favorites.  From what Mary whips up in the kitchen I’d say she has impeccable taste, so I was certainly excited to try this when I saw she had chosen it as the October challenge. 

Once I got the ingredients together (a whole farm’s worth of eggs and dairy!), the recipe came together pretty easily.  No troubles with the cake (I recommend squeezing the orange juice yourself for best flavor and whipping the egg whites by hand to avoid overbeating), and the custard thickened up quickly thanks to the cornstarch.  The glaze couldn’t have been easier– just melted chocolate and butter. 

This dessert is assembled in a ramekin or custard cup at the restaurants, but we were allowed to play with presentation, provided we didn’t stray from the ingredient list or basic concepts.  I thought about putting it together in a wine glass or bowl, but wanted to put some cute new teacups to use, so I really didn’t play too much.  I baked my chiffon cakes in a muffin tin rather than using the same cups I assembled the cake in (as the recipe instructed).  I don’t know if my teacups are oven-proof, and didn’t want to chance blowing them up the first time I used them!  Also, I liked that the muffin-sized cakes were a bit smaller than the cups, so that all the drippy glaze could run into the custard instead of just down the outside of the cups.

Boston cream pie is R’s number one dessert, and he really liked this version of it.  And my brother, who is visiting from Seattle, just loved the custard.  I am one of those weirdos who doesn’t like the combination of fruit and chocolate, but the orange flavor was pretty subtle and fresh, so I didn’t mind it here.  This dessert is super-rich, so you can get away with a small portion, even though the recipe yields quite a lot.  (I actually halved the custard and glaze amounts.  I made the full recipe of cake and froze what we didn’t eat right away.)  As you can see from the top picture, my oranges were larger than my dessert, and it was plenty! 

Thanks to Mary for picking another winning DB challenge!  You can check out the recipe over on her site.  Don’t forget to look at all the other Bostinis out there by visiting the Daring Bakers’ Blogroll.  From some sneak previews I’ve seen, they look pretty good…

Daring Bakers in July: Strawberry Mirror Cake

Sometimes when a challenge is thrown my way, I shake my Magic 8 Ball to predict the outcome.  But here, I think I’ll take a cue from the Queen in Snow White: “Mirror, mirror on the wall.  Will I skate through my first Daring Bakers challenge, or will I fall?”

Yes, that’s right.  I’m now a whisk-wielding member of Daring Bakers.  For months I’ve read about the escapades of this group, and I’m very pleased to be able to display the logo myself.  Isn’t she cute?

Our hostess of the month, Peabody from Culinary Concoctions by Peabody, had us tackle a strawberry mirror cake.  I’ve actually made a similar cake once before (in culinary school…I think we called it “fruit mousse miroir”), so I was reasonably familiar with its components– sponge cake Bavarian cream and gelée.  I knew that gelatin is what makes this cake possible, but I don’t eat red meat, so I also do my best to avoid gelatin.  One of the hard and fast rules of DB membership is that you must make the recipe the way it is written, and resist the urge to tinker and tweak.  An exception is allowed for food allergies or strong aversions, so the green-light was given to use agar-agar as a gelatin substitute.

Armed with my agar powder, a whole bunch of eggs and several baskets of surprisingly nice-looking winter strawberries, I set out to make the cake.

I started by making the sponge cake, which was easy and really delicious.  I had a fair amount of scrap left over, so I stuck it in the freezer where it is waiting to be reincarnated, possibly as a trifle….mmm.

From there, however, things took a turn for the difficult.  I had never actually used agar-agar before, and really had no idea how.  I did some reading on the subject, but perhaps too much, because I wound up confused.  You can substitute powdered agar-agar for powdered gelatin in equal amounts, but strawberries are acidic, so they might require more agar…you need to boil it, but it sets at room temperature, blah blah blah.  What did I get myself into?

In terms of dissolving the agar-agar in boiling liquid, I did what I thought was best without altering the amount of liquid in the recipe (that was my real concern with using the stuff).  Everything looked the way it was supposed to, which was a good sign.  So I crossed my fingers and slid the cake tin in the fridge for a nice long rest.  When I popped the cake out of the tin, I couldn’t believe how big it looked on the stand–with only two of us in the house, I’m used to just making little six-inchers.  It was quite shiny and splendid in all its red and pink glory, and I could actually see a bit of my reflection on the surface!

It’s not all about looks here, though.  What’s inside counts, too.  I knew I had to bite the bullet and cut the cake, and I was nervous.  The Bavarian cream was a bit softly set, but held up fine.  Sadly though, it had a bit of a pasty texture that I wasn’t too fond of.  I know that had nothing to do with the original recipe.  It was the fault of the agar, or more likely, the fault of the person using the agar.

I’m not too keen to blindly experiment with agar-agar again anytime soon, but I have a packet in my pantry in case the urge surfaces.  I am a Daring Baker now, after all. 

To see how the other DB members tackled this assignment, visit the Daring Bakers’ Blogroll.  And if you know of any worthwhile books with recipes designed specifically for agar-agar, or if you’ve had good luck with any of the Kosher gelatins available, please let me know!