Choux Pastries!

Hello and welcome to another Daring Baker's Challenge! Kat of The Bobwhites was our August 2012 Daring Baker hostess who inspired us to have fun in creating pate a choux shapes, filled with crème patisserie or Chantilly cream. We were encouraged to create swans or any shape we wanted and to go crazy with filling flavors allowing our creativity to go wild!

Choux Pastries with Peanut Butter Chocolate Crème Filling

Pastry adapted from: Steamy Kitchen 

Chantilly cream adapted from: Martha Stewart

Ingredients (Choux Pastry AKA Pâte à Choux):

• 1 cup water
• 1 stick butter
• 1 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 4 eggs

Ingredients (Crème filling - Chantilly Cream):

• 1 cup whipping cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
• 1 tablespoon PB2

This was a "fun shaped pastry" - I wasn't too creative, but it would be super fun to make different shapes!

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees
2. Mix water, salt and butter in pot over medium heat.
3. When mixture is just bubbling, add flour, turn off heat, and mix vigorously until a dough forms - about 1 minute.
4. Transfer dough to stand mixer, start the mixer to cool it down a bit. 
5. Add eggs, one at a time, making sure the each one is fully incorporated before adding the next (this is important - you don't want to cook the eggs!)
6. Once this is done, either pipe the dough onto a prepared sheet or spoon it on (this just depends on whether you want to have fun shapes, or regular cream puff shapes)
7. Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes.
8. Reduce the heat to 350 degrees and bake for about 25 minutes. Start checking the dough around 18 minutes to see if it's done. It could take as long as 30 minutes, but mine only took about 25.
9. While the choux pastries are baking or cooling, make the Chantilly cream. This step is super simple - simply add everything in a stand mixer and mix until you have a whipped-cream like consistency!
10. Enjoy your pastries!

Battenberg Cake! A Daring Bakers Challenge

For this month's Daring Bakers Challenge, the recipe was Battenberg Cake! I had never heard of (or seen) Battenberg Cake, so I was pretty excited! It turns out that the cake is a British cake, and so this recipe is in honor of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee! How fun! I used the traditional Battenberg cake recipe supplied in the challenge, but I changed it a bit. SO, here's the recipe I used!

Battenberg Cake

Adapted from Daring Bakers Challenge

Ingredients:

Cake:

1 1/2 sticks butter

3/4 cup granulated sugar (the recipe calls for caster sugar, but I used granulated and it was fine)

1 1/4 cup flour

3 eggs

1/2 cup ground almonds

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder (reduce if using self-rising flour)

1 teaspoon salt (omit if using self-rising flour)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 vanilla bean (if you're feeling fancy! Totally optional though)

Food coloring of your choice

Jam

Modeling Chocolate:

7 ounces milk chocolate

3 tablespoons corn syrup (light) 

Inside of the cake

Instructions:

Modeling Chocolate:

1.  Make modeling chocolate first, as it has to sit in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours

2. To make modeling chocolate, melt chocolate in double broiler or in microwave (heat in increments of 15-30 seconds - don't let it burn!)

3. After the chocolate is thoroughly melted, stir in corn syrup, put in baggie and refrigerate until ready to use

4. When ready to use, knead with powdered sugar until soft and workable

Cake:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare 8x8 pan with parchment paper (see tutorial here)

2. If you haven't already ground the almonds, grind in food processor until fine (note: this will not be super fine, but it will still work)

3. Mix all ingredients in stand mixer

4. Take out half of the batter and mix your colors in each of the halves

5. Put half the batter in one half of the pan, and half in the other

6. Bake for 25-30 minutes

7. Let cool

8. Cut each half in half (the long way)

9. Arrange in the alternating pattern, putting the jam of your choice in between each slice (this will act as a glue)

10. Roll out modeling chocolate so it will cover the cake

11. Cover the cake and refrigerate until ready to serve!

12. ENJOY!

NOTES:

There are a lot of varieties to this cake - look around online, there are some really fun ones! (Like this Rubik's Cube cake!). Also, don't be discouraged with this one, it's a bit tricky. I sadly forgot to put sugar in until I'd already put the cake in the pan! I had to scoop it out and stir it in by hand - not a total disaster, but not my finest baking moment. Anyways, the point is, this was a super fun cake to make, just don't let the hiccups discourage you!

 I used milk chocolate modeling chocolate, but you can use dark or white, or use fondant or marzipan. I also chose to use purple and green, but any two colors work - have fun with it!

YUM!

Daring Bakers' Challenge - CHALLAH!

Challah. I LOVE CHALLAH. As my first Daring Bakers Challenge, I'm pretty psyched. It's like easing me into the process. Anyways, growing up I had challah all the time. The local bagel shop had probably the best challah ever, in fact, when I go home, I usually insist on eating challah with literally every meal. So, when I found out the May Daring Bakers Challenge was challah, I was very excited. I have made challah a few times before, but since it's a long process and I don't have a recipe I love, I don't do it too often. This time, I decided to make two loves, one savory (sesame/poppy seed) and one sweet (dried cranberry). I used King Arthur Flour's Classic Challah Recipe because I've had very good luck with their other bread recipes (croissants, English muffin bread, Scali bread). I made a few changes to the recipe, but overall I thought it turned out great.

Challah

Recipe adapted from: King Arthur Flour

Ingredients
1 cup warm water
12 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup pure maple syrup (the original recipe calls for honey, but since I didn't have honey, I used maple syrup - I thought it worked well!)
4 large eggs
8 cups flour
4 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoon instant yeast
Add-ins: Sesame seeds, poppy seeds, cranberries, etc.
For egg wash: 1 egg with 1 tablespoon water, beaten

Instructions:

1. First, mix all ingredients except add-ins and egg wash in mixer with dough hook. Mix until everything has come together into a stiff dough.
2. Split dough in two equal part, put each in a greased bowl (I used Pam) and cover with plastic wrap. Allow dough to rise for 2 hours. NOTE: If adding in anything that should be incorporated into the dough, such as cranberries, this is the time to do it. Take out your first half of dough and place it into another bowl. Use the mixer to mix the add-ins into the remaining dough half. Then place half into bowl with plastic wrap. 
3. After two hours, split each half into three small "strands." These can be short, as they will rise a bit more over the next 10 minutes. Cover and let rest 10 minutes.
4. Roll each strand into long strands, maybe 15-20 inches long. Put the end of the three strands together and pinch them so they stay. Braid the loaf as you would a normal braid and pinch the other end. Put on a baking sheet with parchment paper, cover with plastic wrap. Repeat with other loaf. Let rest and hour to an hour and a half.
5. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Put one loaf in the refrigerator (this will ensure the bread doesn't over-proof). With the other loaf, brush egg wash over entire loaf. DO NOT OVER EGG-WASH. (This happened to me on my second loaf. It was still tasty, but one side definitely tastes a bit like scrambled eggs). NOTE: If putting seeds (or anything else) on top, this is the time to add them on. Bake the loaf in the oven for 20 minutes, then put a foil tent on it and bake for another 20. Take out of the oven, you're done!
6. Repeat step 5 with the other loaf. Now you're really done!
7. HELPFUL TIP: King Arthur's website suggests placing two cookie sheets under the bread to ensure it doesn't get too crispy on bottom. I did this and the loaves turned out great! Since I did do it, I don't know how they'll turn out with only one cookie sheet, but the crust could burn or become too thick.
8. ALTERNATIVES: There are many ways to braid challah. There are 4 strand loaves, round loaves, challah rolls, etc. If you google the type you want, there are tons of tutorials out there.

 Photos of Steps 4 and 5:

 

Photos of the savory challah!

Photos of the sweet challah!