Daring Baker’s Baklava

What a neat challenge, Baklava! I enjoyed the challenge, although I did push it until the last minute!

Erica of Erica’s Edibles was our host for the Daring Baker’s June challenge. Erica challenged us to be truly DARING by making homemade phyllo dough and then to use that homemade dough to make Baklava.

See Erica’s site for the full recipe and directions to make your own phyllo and Baklava.

The dough was easy to pull together. Erica suggested to double the recipe to make sure you had enough dough for a 9x9 pan. I ended up doing a shallow baklava in a 8x8 pan, so I had extra phyllo dough, but that was better than too little!

Once the dough was made, I coated it in oil and covered the dough on a plate. It worked out so that I let the dough sit out overnight, which worked out perfectly fine.

The next morning, I rolled the dough into thin sheets, cut to match the pan, and started assembling the baklava. I had combined the nut filling the day before, which made assembly easy.

I layered 5 sheets of phyllo on the bottom, then added about a third of the filling. In hindsight, I probably added more than a third of the filling, and could have done with less. I assembled one more phyllo and nut layer before topping with the final phyllo layer. I think the phyllo layers could have been thinner, and will try that next time.

I cut the baklava, popped it in the over, and waited until the second thirty minute baking cycle to start the baklava honey syrup. Since I knew my baklava pan was smaller than the recipe intended, I reduced the syrup ingredients by about a third, and it worked out smoothly when adding the syrup to the baked baklava.

Once the syrup was added, I let the baklava sit over night. The final product was awesome. Such a sweet rich dessert, but I would definitely make it again, especially for guests!

Daring Baker’s Yeasted Coffee Cake

March’s challenge for Daring Baker’s was a yeasted meringue coffee cake, hosted by Jamie and Ria. Another treat I have never made before, and it turned out enjoyable. Also fairly easy, compared to some drawn-out challenges.

I decided to half the recipe and make only one loaf of coffee cake. The dough was easy to pull together, adding the hot milk and butter mixture to the dry ingredients. Once all was combined, I opted to let the KitchenAid's dough hook knead the bread, and that worked out just fine.

Once the dough was kneaded, I placed it in an oiled bowl and covered to let rise. It worked out where I left the dough for two hours, and was at least doubled in size when I was ready for work with it again.

I decided to use Jamie’s traditional filling of the meringue with cinnamon and chocolate chips. I whipped up the meringue, and since I halved the dough recipe, I only used two egg whites, instead of three, and reduced the other ingredients accordingly.

When the meringue was ready, I rolled the dough out and spread the meringue over. The amount of meringue worked out perfectly with the half recipe. I used generous amount of cinnamon, much more than was called for, and appreciated the cinnamon flavor once the cake was baked. I sprinkled chocolate chips on top, but after tasting, I could have done without the chocolate.

The cake was then rolled up like a jelly roll, transferred to a baking sheet, and shaped into a ring. I used scissors to cut into the cake, cutting fairly deep. The cake then had to sit for an hour.

I then topped with chopped pecans and placed it in the oven at 350 for 30 minutes.

The cake came out looking great, and it tasted great too, a classic coffee cake flavor!

Panna Cotta and Florentine Cookies

February’s Daring Baker’s Challenge was Panna Cotta, paired with Florentine cookies. The challenge was hosted by Mallory of A Sofa in the Kitchen, with full recipes and info over at her site! I had never made either of these items, although I am not terribly fond of Florentine cookies.

I was surprised how quick I was able to make the Panna Cotta. For a dessert I thought was complicated, it really wasn’t. The gelatin was added to cold milk to soften. Then I heated the milk mixture, added the cream, honey, sugar and salt. After the mixture heated thoroughly, and the honey and sugar dissolved, I took it off the heat to cool a little.

While I was making the Panna Cotta, I also decided to make a strawberry gelee. I used the fruit gelee recipe from the challenge, which was to heat pureed strawberries with sugar, then whisk in softened gelatin. I am still a little weirded out by gelatin and it’s texture,especially with the gelee.

Once the panna cotta and gelee cooled, I spooned both into dishes and refrigerated overnight.

Later, I made the Florentine cookie dough and baked off the cookies. Another surprisingly simple recipe. The butter is melted, then the dry ingredients, such as flour, sugar and oats, are added to the butter. I spooned the cookie dough onto a cookie sheet.

The cookies baked quickly, in about 6 minutes. I think I could have baked the cookies longer, but they looked like they were about to burn, so I took them out a little early.

September means Football & Cookies

The September challenge for Daring Baker's was Decorated Sugar Cookies, and how perfect! The cookies had to be in the theme of September, whatever that meant to you personally.

To me, September is the start of College Football. In our house, the only football that matters is Florida State football.

I started with the sugar cookie recipe, provided by September's host, Mandy of What the Fruitcake? I wasn't initially thrilled with the sugar cookie recipe, the dough seemed dry and had an average flavor. After I made the dough, I chilled it before rolling. I then rolled the dough, a handful at a time, to a thickness slightly less than ¼ inch.

I wanted my cookies to be a very specific spearhead shape, and since that isn't a cookie cutter you can get, I made a stencil. First, I printed the image, carefully cut it out, and then traced it onto a thick cardstock-type of paper. I carefully cut the shape out, and had my own cookie stencil. With a paring knife, I carefully cut around the stencil on the cookie dough. Once I cut as many cookies into the dough, I tore excess cookie dough from the cookies, and then transferred the cookies to a cookie sheet to chill in the freezer until firm.

Once the cookies were firm, I took them out of the freezer, arranged on cookie sheets, and baked. I was very pleased with how the cookies cake out of the oven, in the same shape, this changed my mind on the cookie recipe. My usually sugar cookie recipe wouldn't have kept the shape and sharp edges as well.

Cookies were baked, cooled, taken off the cookie sheets and transferred to baking rack. As the cookies were cooling completely, I made royal icing. Using thicker royal icing for outlining, I outlined the cookies in black. Let the outline dry overnight, then I thinned the icing and filled the cookies, in garnet, gold and white. While the large white and garnet sections were still wet, I dipped a toothpick in the alternating color to make streaks of color on the spearhead.

Once all the icing was done, I let the cookies dry overnight before boxing them.

Daring Baker's Ice Cream Petit Fours

This month's challenge was Brown Butter Pound cake, used in Ice Cream Petit Fours or a Baked Alaska. The challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and baking. Feel free to hop on over to her site for recipes.

My feedback on the challenge : in general, underwhelmed. The brown butter pound cake gave me issues, was not cooked in the center, even though it was cooked plenty long enough, I didn't test the cake and got an undercooked cake. I was able to work around that, but the taste of the cake was a bit dry to me. Maybe I'm not a fan of browned butter.



I made coffee ice cream, using David Lebovitz's vanilla ice cream recipe and adding several tablespoons of instant espresso powder to the cream as it initially came to a boil. I was pleased with the coffee flavor, not overwhelming, but strong enough to notice.

More problems came when I took the cooled pound cake scraps, cut them in half and places the ice cream on the cake, so then it could set up to freeze. I live in Florida, in an old house with a very hot kitchen. As I was leveling the ice cream layer on the pound cake, it was hard to work with. I tried to quickly get it back in the freezer, but it was a little too melty, and the top layer of the cake slid off the ice cream. I now know to put toothpicks in the cake to anchor it.


I made the chocolate glaze according to instructions, and it consistency was thick and clumpy. I decided to use ganache as a glaze, and that ended up working better. When I took the cake out of the freezer to trim and glaze, the ice cream started to melt quickly.


It was an interesting challenge, I would make petit fours again, but without the ice cream element, that seemed to be more of a hassle than it was worth. My camera battery also died in the middle of the project, so it is an interesting selection of pictures!

Daring Baker's Swiss Swirl Ice Cream Cake

This month’s challenge was hosted by Sunita . What an exciting challenge! Ice cream cake in such a hot month! I’ve never made an ice cream cake, and I even had a birthday to bring the cake to.

I made the ice creams with the recommended recipes. After reading recommendations to add alcohol to the ice cream so they wouldn’t freeze completely, making the cake easier to cut and eat when it is put together. I added a splash of vodka to the vanilla ice cream, and a splash of dark rum, as well as espresso powder, to the chocolate ice cream. Once those were made, I let them hang out in the freezer for a couple days until i was ready to bake the Swiss rolls and assemble the cake. I wasn’t impressed with quality of the ice creams individually, but in the cake it worked well.

Making the Swiss roll was easy enough. I don’t have the called for 9x11 inch baking sheets, but I do have 9x13 inch baking pans. I had read on the DB forum that someone had an issue with the Swiss roll breaking because they used a larger pan. Not wanting to have to make the Swiss rolls more than once, I calculated, with help from the Hubby, that the original cake batter recipe needed to be increased by about 15%, so I tweaked the recipe, adding an extra egg and such. I then sprayed the pans with baking spray, fitted with parchment paper, and divided the batter evenly by weight.

When the Swiss rolls comes out of the oven, I dumped them on a regular kitchen towel sprinkled with super fine sugar. I later realized I could have found better towels to use, but what I had ended up working, although I would have used thinner, smaller towels if I thought about it. I rolled the Swiss rolls with the towel and let cool on a rack.

Sometime during this I made the fudge. I was doing all of the work, minus the ice cream, on the day of the party that I intended to bring this cake to, and I also had come down with a cold a couple days before. I didn’t have cocoa powder in the house, and substituted unsweetened extra-fine chocolate shavings for the cocoa, and it worked well.

In the meantime, I made the cream filling. When the rolls were cooled, which didn’t take long, I unwrapped and unrolled it. It was sticking a bit to the towel, so I had to be careful not to tear the roll. I transferred the roll to a cutting board that had more sugar on it. I filled the roll with the cream, overfilled it actually, and rolled it up. Wrapped it in plastic wrap, and stuck it in the fridge after i repeated the process with the other roll.

I was waiting for the fudge to cool, which took what seemed like forever, and decided the cake and myself just weren’t going to make it to the intended party. Stupid cold.

The next day I finished assembly the cake, let it freeze overnight, and served the overdue birthday cake a couple days later, it was delicious!

Daring Baker’s Tiramisu

What an awesome challenge! I love tiramisu, the creamy paired with the soaked biscuits, yum!

I have never attempted to make tiramisu totally from scratch, but I really enjoyed it. The recipe wasn't hard, but had several components and required set-aside time and prior planning.

Recipe from Aparna at My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba at Passionate About Baking. See their blogs for full recipes. Too much retyping!

I just got back from an awesome wedding, so this is going to be a picture post, and a little late at that too!

The savoiardi biscuits, before baking.

Port used in the zabaglione. I hadn’t used port in baking before, neat opportunity to use a favorite spirit.

The Zabaglione folded with the mascarpone and pastry cream, before adding the whipped cream.

Putting the tiramisu together. I used a small dish, and placed plastic wrap in the dish before layering, because I wanted to de-mold the dessert.

The tiramisu didn’t de-mold the way I wanted it to, next time I will layer it in the dish I intend to serve it in.

Happy Baking!

Canada! Nanaimo Bars!

Daring Baker's Nanaimo Bars - January Challenge

What a great way to celebrate Canada and the Olympics, with a Canada favorite, Nanaimo bars!

Living in Florida, I definitely have never had Nanaimo bars, and I first head of them from Cakespy and her wonderful finds.

The recipe for Nanaimo bars with gluten-free graham crackers can be found at Celiac Teen's blog. The recipe for all of the components are super long, and well, it gives you an excuse to check out Lauren's blog!

The challenge could be done gluten-free or with wheat flour for the graham crackers, and I chose to try gluten-free. It was neat to work with the new ingredients I haven't worked with before, like sorghum, tapioca and sweet rice flour. One thing I noticed right away was how fine the flours' consistency was compared to all-purpose flour. I loved the gluten-free graham crackers, and I would definitely try GF baked goods again.

Nanaimo bars have three distinct layers, which in my book makes it a fancy bar-cookie recipe. the bottom layer is an ultra-tasty combination of graham cracker crumbs, coconut and buttery goodness.

The middle layer is a custard filling, and mine ended up a little grainy and a little too sugary. (One thing that could have caused that - I used skim milk instead of whole milk - I know, I know, but I hate having milk around the house if it isn't going to be used, and unless I am baking with it, it just sits there! )

The nanaimo bars are topped off with a layer of chocolate.

Problems I ran into with the bars, other than the custard problem I admitted to, was that the bars were sure hard to cut and get out of the pan. The top chocolate layer cracked while cutting, and on most pieces separated from the custard. I let the whole pan sit out of the fridge for about an hour to see if that would help in cutting, and it did, but just barely.

I liked the dessert, it was very rich and a great novelty. Great challenge!