PRETTY LITTLE THINGS

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.

I have to admit that at the beginning I was a bit skeptic - the recipe seemed too simple. Oranges, cream, and that's all? But fortunately I was proved wrong. I made the tian following the recipe step by step for my Birthday celebration last Saturday (more on that to come soon!) using a Bundt Cake mold. What should I say - it was delicious, kind of Panna Cotta with caramelized oranges and cookies :) Thank you for the great recipe!

The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession.
As usual when Italian dishes are part of the challenge, I'm (too much) critical .... after all, Tiramisu is THE Italian Dessert, and in Rome I've been living across the street from Pompi, a pasticceria/bar that claim to have the best tiramisu in Rome, and they're probably right. They've got the classic one, the one with Nutella and banana, and in summer the one with fresh stawberries (without coffe). But for the challenge I went the straight way, following the given recipe in detail. Let's take a look at the tiramisu parts:
- Mascarpone from scratch - I think that's the best part of the challenge. I've never made mascarpone from scratch, and I could't stop liking the spoon, testing whether it's firmed up ... which it did nicely. I'm only sorry that I didn't have any remains to eat plain ...
- Zabaglione from scratch - definetely tasty. I used espresso to flavour it, but next time I'll surely try Marsala wine.
- Pastry cream, from scratch, obviously - nice, but for my taste too swett, and has got nothing to search inside a tiramisu. Sorry.
- Savoiardi from scratch - really good. Different from storebought in more than one way, I enjoyed the fact that I could made the shape just as I fancied. I planned on serving individual portions, so I piped the batter circle-shaped to fit the individual serving glasses.
- Whipped cream .... nothing to search inside tiramisu, again. Sorry, I know I'm annoying ...

The result - following the recipes in detail I used all the required ingredients, including pastry cream and whipped cream. It was very good, but I think I'll scip both of them the nect time. And there will be a next time, for sure!

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca.

So, Nanaimo bars this time. I was really curious to try them them since I've seen them on the web some months ago. And I really wanted to like them, I really did. So my lacking enthusiasm in the final product was certainly not caused by a lack of motivation. You can guess by now that I was less than happy with them .... It started with Graham Crackers. I've never had some, I've got no idea how they are supposed to taste like, but I expected them to look like crackers, at least. What came out of the oven was not like crackers at all. It resembled sponge - tasty and fragrant, but sponge nevertheless....which hardened up after some time out of the oven, but I don't know if it was anywhere close to the real thing.

Then, the first layer ... Coconut AND almonds? No way! I omitted the coconut and decided to follow the almondy direction throughout the cake.

But it was the second layer that really gave me the creeps! If you take a close look at the recipe picture in the DB-Forum, you can actually see teeth marks in it! No wonder, if you consider that the second "creamy " layer consists basically of sweetened butter, NO buttercream in any way! In my version, I prepared an actual vanilla-almond custard and mixed it with the so-called "buttercream". I added some canned pears on top of the crackers' layer as well before filling the custard cream.

The top chocolate layer was the less problematic.

The results? I brought it to the office yesterday and it was unanimously approved. But personally, for me, it was too too much work for a rather averaged result.

Oh, and by the way - it was tasty, too! I wish I could live in a gingerbread house, waking up in the morning and taking a bite out of wall fro breakfast :) But I think it would make me homeless sopn ....