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 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!

Tiramisu Parfaits

Tiramisu is a favorite easy dessert of mine, but one downfall with the recipe I use is that it yields 12-15 large portions. The recipe also uses 24 oz marscapone cheese, which can get expensive.

Hubby and I invited a close couple over for a Christmas dinner party, and I found the perfect solution in individual Tiramisu Parfaits.

Tiramisu Parfaits, based very loosely on a CooksIllustrated.com recipe. Makes 4 wine glass sized parfaits.

3 oz dark Rum
1/2 cup strong coffee, room temperature
1 Tbsp Instant Espresso Powder
1 cup Heavy Cream
6 oz Marscapone Cheese
2 Tbsp granulated Sugar
12-15 Ladyfingers
Cocoa Powder
Chocolate shavings, optional

Mix rum, coffee and espresso powder together in shallow dish until espresso powder has dissolved. Set aside.

In standing mixer, whip cream into stiff peaks.

Place marscapone cheese in medium bowl. Add sugar and soften using a few strokes with a spatula. Mix in whipped cream, starting with a small amount and gradually adding the full amount.

When ready to assemble parfaits, break the ladyfingers into pieces that will fit well in your glass. I broke mine into 2 or 3 pieces. Working with about 3 pieces at a time, dip the ladyfingers into the coffee/rum mixture. Roll the pieces, ensuring all is covered, but do not leave the ladyfingers in, or they will quickly become too soggy. Place the wet pieces on a separate plate and continue until all ladyfinger pieces have been dipped.

To assemble the parfaits, scoop a layer of marscapone mixture into the glass first. Sprinkle a light layer of cocoa powder on top of the marscapone. Place a layer of ladyfingers then repeat with an additional layer of each item. Finish the parfait with a top layer of marscapone, and garnish with chocolate shavings. Place in fridge for at least an hour so the flavors can really develop.

For my parfaits, I used 4 wine glasses and was able to layer each component twice, and then topped the dessert with a final layer of marscapone mixture. If you have taller glasses, you might want to adjust the layers or increase the recipe quantity.