Recipes

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.
We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

Mmmm, two of my favourite things...  chocolate cake and ice cream! 

So I had good intentions of making this for dessert for Christmas Eve.  But then life happened.  Tim worked right up to Christmas Eve which made it hard to do this with a baby in the kitchen so I didn't get started until boxing day.  I made the Crème Brulée that day and then planned to make the rest following but that didn't happen either so my poor little brulee sat in the freezer for a few days by himself.  I am happy to report that he is doing well now that he had joined his buddies!  But...  I'm not done quite yet!  I had a miscalculation (didn't read fully) and put the dacquoise on the top of the log as opposed to the bottom, which means I needed to make more (which is ok because the leftovers are so yummy!).  So I have made more  dacquoise and it is ready to go when I get the ganache done.  I burnt my caramel (yeah, I know bad me) so I'm going to try again after my little man is in bed.  Hopefully it will work better this coming time and I will be able to finish tonight!  I am SO looking forward to enjoying this one as it has been the most exciting I think to date for me and I can't wait for more Daring Baker's challenges in 2009!

UPDATE:  Ok, everything is done!  Except for the icing and it is setting up right now.  I'm very excited to try it!  The ganache tasted amazing!!!  It's in my blast chiller (also known as my deck) as we speak.  I thought -25 Celcuis might freeze it faster than whatever the freezer inside is set at.  I'm hoping to have some pictures very soon of what it looks like so far but I guess we'll have to wait till tomorrow night for the finishing touches as we are planning on eating it for New Year's Eve.  I think this is my favorite challenge so far.  I'd like to thank my brand new Kitchen Aid Standing Mixer from my wonderful husband for Christmas.  Without you life wasn't complete! :P

Isn't it beautiful?!  I love it.  I can't wait to try it out on more things.  It's like having that extra third arm I've been looking for since my little man was born!  Just in time for the other one to come out and make day to day life even more challenging!  That's ok though, I can't wait for this new little person to make their appearance.  We've even decided on a name and sorted the baby clothes last night.  Ok, I'm getting side tracked.

This month's challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux. 

They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand.

And the Challenge this month is…
A French Yule Log!!!

I have such good intentions...  I made the cake last weekend and was ready to start the frosting when I got just too tired and decided I would do it the next night.  Well... 4 nights later I finally did the Frosting! 

I enjoyed this challenge as I'd never made caramel this way before.  I've always done it the cheaters way with cream.  It works really well but does have a slightly different flavor than this way. 

Hosting this month's challenge was Dolores at Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity.  Helping her along the way are co-hosts: Alex the Brownie of the Blondie and Brownie duo, Jenny at Foray into Food, and finally but definitely not least, Natalie of Gluten-a-Go-Go!

So I make pizza a fair amount at home, mainly because I like to know what's going into my sauce and what I'm feeding my little ones.  But I had never tried tossing the dough in the air!  It sounded like a step that really wasn't necessary to me.  I thought it would do nothing for the dough.  I was so wrong!  It made such a huge difference in the crust.  I would recommend trying it at least once even if your sure you'll throw it on the ground.  Took me a few times to get it sort of right (I am by no means a master yet!).  Here is the picture that was requested as part of the challenge of you tossing your dough, flattering don't ya think? :P  

I use to love this...  one of the restaurants Tim and I use to frequent had this on their menu and I ordered it almost every time.  Their servings were huge and I could normally eat it for dinner and two lunches!  It's basically fettuccini Alfredo with Chicken and mushrooms.  It also normally has green onions sprinkled on top but I used parsley from my garden herbs.  I made the pasta from scratch purely because I think it tastes 100% times better than boxed dried pasta.  Although, I do still use it for those extra lazy days or when I just don't have the time to make pasta. 

Homemade Pasta:

100 g of all-purpose flour

1 egg

I have completed my first daring bakers challenge!  It went very well and only took me three and half hours to complete.  I think thats a really good time.  I made sure that the little man was safely in bed before starting because it makes doing anything in the kitchen about a hundred times harder with him under my feet. 

I decided to make an almond cake with lemon syrup and a layer of strawberries, lemon-vanilla butter cream and white chocolate mousse and ganache.
 

Paula,

I love your recipes, but I have to be honest I don't make them very often because of the behind and hip enlargement that seems to come with your cooking.  I really appreciate your cooking and now that I have taken the plunge and experienced it first hand I'm sure I will be making many more of your delicious recipes.  Could you please take it under advisement though that I would appreciate you keeping the calorie count to something around 1200 a piece of cake so that I may enjoy one forkful before having to walk away and only dream of the entire piece.  Summer is coming and I would like to buy a new bathing suit for the first time in 4 years.  I would also like to have the new swimsuit a size 6, that is very do able as that is what I am currently.  Therefore, I am requesting that you from now on make your recipes with little calories and no fat and all the flavor!

Thank you for taking my suggestions under advisement, I eagerly await your new low cal, no fat recipes!

Your loyal follower,

Holly   

I love these generous goopy, jiggly, sweet, chocolately packages of goodness.  I found the recipe a couple of years ago out of one of my favorite cookbooks. 

Nigella Lawson, you are a genius in the kitchen and your pretty cute to boot!  You make such beautiful and yummy looking dishes.  Every time I look through one of the four cookbooks of yours I own I always find something new I want to make.  This however, is the recipe I always come back to. It works every time.  Even when I reduce it from it's normal amount for 48 brownies to 6.  I've also added walnuts, dried cranberries and white chocolate chips to it and it still works.  Although, I have never tried all three at once!