I'm a Daring Baker: Tender Potato Bread

I am late with this month's Daring Baker project, but that's not because I haven't been daring. I've spent quite a lot of time being daring in a kitchen last weekend, which wasn't mine (I'll tell you more one day), and I simply couldn't muster up enough energy to bake tender potato bread before the deadline. Today I stayed home, relaxed, and finally completed the challenge.

This month, Tanna of the My Kitchen in Half Cups blog decided we should have something baked and savoury, for a change. Since joining the ranks of Daring Bakers earlier this year I've made Jewish Purist's Bagels, a fancy Strawberry Mirror Cake, a delicious Milk Chocolate & Caramel Tart a la Eric Kayser, very comforting Sticky Buns & Cinnamon Buns, and elegant Bostini Cream Pies. This month we baked bread. And not any bread, but tender potato bread. The recipe is from Home Baking: Sweet and Savory Traditions from Around the World, a book by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid, and can also be found here on Tanna's blog.

And so this afternoon I peeled some potatoes, boiled them until tender, drained and pressed through a fine sieve. Then mixed and stirred and kneaded and waited and folded and formed, and finally enjoyed some lovely moist potato bread with a beautifully chewy-soft texture:



I made a large focaccia and some small potato buns (sprinkled with caraway seeds). K. and I enjoyed the bread alongside a bowl of hot borscht (same recipe, just cabbage-less), and were feeling very happy indeed.

Thank you, Tanna, for a lovely challenge - and sorry for completing it a bit late..

I'm a Daring Baker: Bostini Cream Pies

Yes, it's that time of the month again when Daring Bakers strike across the foodblogosphere! And I'm one of them. Since joining the ranks of Daring Bakers I've made Jewish Purist's Bagels, then a fancy Strawberry Mirror Cake, followed by a delicious Milk Chocolate & Caramel Tart a la Eric Kayser, and last month I was baking very comforting Sticky Buns & Cinnamon Buns. This month a lot of Daring Bakers are making Bostini Cream Pies. October challenge was set by Mary of AlpineBerry, and you can find the recipe here. Mary tells you all about the background of Bostini Cream Pies, but apparently it's an adaptation of Boston cream pie (vanilla layer cake with cream and topped with chocolate glaze). Boston cream pie is an American classic - the official state dessert of Massachusetts, no less - created by French chef M. Sanzian at Parker House Hotel in Boston a while ago.

Bostini Cream Pie is similar, yet different. The dessert was nice - a combination of rich vanilla custard, light orange chiffon cake and a glossy dark chocolate glaze. It was easy to make and assemble, and I used my silicon muffin tray for baking the chiffon cakes which worked really well. We enjoyed this American classic just before watching a great American movie (TransAmerica), so it was a thoroughly American Sunday:) However, there's something about the American cakes & desserts that I never understand. As it was just two of us eating it this weekend, we halved the recipe, which should have yielded four desserts. Yet we still ended up with enough custard, cakes and chocolate glaze to feed at least 6 (if not 8) comfortably - and believe me, neither I or K. can boast to have a small appetite. I could, in theory, have eaten a 1/8th of the original recipe instead of lunch or dinner, but never ever as a dessert after the starter and main course..

Anyway - my favourite Daring Baker challenge so far is still the Milk Chocolate & Caramel Tart a la Eric Kayser, K. swears by the Strawberry Mirror Cake. We're both looking forward to the next month's challenge :)

You can learn how other Daring Bakers did with this month's challenge by browsing through the blogroll here. There are about 200 Daring Bakers already, so be patient:)

I'm a Daring Baker: Sticky Buns & Cinnamon Rolls

After Jewish Purist's Bagels, a fancy Strawberry Mirror Cake and delicious Milk Chocolate & Caramel Tart a la Eric Kayser, it's time for daring comfort baking. Pip in the City's Marce chose a recipe for Sticky Buns/Cinnamon Rolls from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. I've been really busy all September, so I didn't have a chance to make these buns/rolls until today, which was a bit nerve-wrecking. What if the dough won't rise/burn in the oven/collapse in the tin? Luckily, they turned out just well. I'm not intimidated of using fresh yeast in the kitchen, and I've made cinnamon rolls for years (remember this?) Remember, the task of any daring baker is to use a recipe without changes. However, Marce had given us some allowances. I made one portion of dough, and used half of it to make a batch of sticky buns and used the other half for making fondant-glazed cinnamon rolls. As orange extract was allowed in the glazing, I cheated a little and added some of my precious Boyajian Pure Orange Oil in the dough instead of lemon zest/juice. I had used this orange extract for making madeleines few months ago, and liked the intense orange flavour it yielded. Continuing the theme, I used finely chopped crystallised orange zest - lovingly made by my dear K. - instead of nuts and almonds for the sticky buns (well, dried fruit was allowed, and crystallised orange zest surely counts, no?)

Both the sticky buns (above) and fondant-glazed cinnamon rolls (below) were delicious. Very, very rich, both of them, but yummy. As they were not more difficult to make than my usual cinnamon rolls, then I might make these again when I want something more luxurious..

Below are quantities 'converted' to my European metric kitchen. The quantitites for the dough make one batch of sticky buns, and one batch of cinnamon rolls. Quantities for fondant glaze and sticky caramel layer have been reduced accordingly.

Enjoy! We're dashing off to my parents place to share some of the still-warm sticky buns with them :) You can learn how other Daring Bakers did with this month's challenge by browsing through the blogroll here.

Cinnamon Rolls & Sticky Buns



The dough:
90 grams caster sugar
1 teaspoon salt
75 grams butter
1 large egg, slightly beaten
1 teaspoon orange oil
450-550 grams plain/all-puprose flour
40 grams fresh yeast
240 ml milk, at room temperature

For sprinkling:
100 grams sugar
1.5 tsp ground cinnamon

For sticky buns:
See below.

White fondant glaze:
250 ml icing sugar, sifted
0.25 tsp orange oil
2-3 Tbsp warm milk
Add orange and milk to the icing sugar, then whisk vigorously until you've got a thick, smooth paste.

To make the buns:

1. Mix body-temperature milk with crumbled yeast, let dissolve.

2. Cream together the sugar, salt, and butter on medium-high speed in an electric mixer with a paddle attachment (or use a large metal spoon and mixing bowl and do it by hand). Whip in the egg and orange oil until smooth. Then add the flour, yeast+milk. Mix on low speed (or stir by hand) until the dough forms a ball. Switch to the dough hook and increase the speed to medium, mixing for approximately 10 minutes (or knead by hand for 12 to 15 minutes), or until the dough is silky and supple, tacky but not sticky. You may have to add a little flour or water while mixing to achieve this texture. Lightly oil a large bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling it around to coat it with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.

3. Prove room temperature for approximately 2 hours, or until the dough doubles in size.

4. Sprinkle the table with a light coating of flower, transfer the dough to the counter. Roll out the dough with a rolling pin, lightly dusting the top with flour to keep it from sticking to the pin. Roll it into a rectangle about 1-1.5 cm thick and 14 inches wide by 12 inches long for larger buns, or 18 inches wide by 9 inches long for smaller buns.
Don´t roll out the dough too thin, or the finished buns will be tough and chewy rather than soft and plump.

5. Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar over the surface of the dough and (C) roll the dough up into a cigar-shaped log, creating a cinnamon-sugar spiral as you roll. With the seam side down, cut the dough into 8 to 12 pieces each about 1 3/4 inches thick for larger buns, or 12 to 16 pieces each 2.5 cm thick for smaller buns.)

6. For cinnamon buns, line 1 or more sheet pans with baking parchment. Place the buns approximately 1/2 inch apart so that they aren´t touching but are close to one another.

7. For sticky buns, coat the bottom of 1 baking dish pans with sides at least 4 cm high with a 6 mm layer of the caramel glaze. Sprinkle on the chopped crystallised orange zest. Lay the pieces of dough on top of the caramel glaze, spacing them about 1/2 inch apart. Cover loosely with plastic wrap.

8. Proof at room temperature for 75 to 90 minutes, or until the pieces have grown into one another and have nearly doubled in size. You may also retard the shaped buns in the refrigerator for up to 2 days, pulling the pans out of the refrigerator 3 to 4 hours before baking to allow the dough to proof.

9. Preheat the oven to 175°C with the oven rack in the middle shelf for cinnamon buns but on the lowest shelf for sticky buns.

10. Bake the cinnamon buns for 20 to 30 minutes or the sticky buns 30 to 40 minutes, or until golden brown. If you are baking sticky buns, remember that they are really upside down (regular cinnamon buns are baked right side up), so the heat has to penetrate through the pan and into the glaze to caramelize it. The tops will become the bottoms, so they may appear dark and done, but the real key is whether the underside is fully baked. It takes practice to know just when to pull the buns out of the oven.

11. For cinnamon buns, cool the buns in the pan for about 10 minutes and then streak white fondant glaze across the tops, while the buns are warm but not too hot. Remove the buns from the pans and place them on a cooling rack. Wait for at least 20 minutes before serving.

12. For the sticky buns, cool the buns in the pan for 5 to 10 minutes and then remove them by flipping them over into another pan. Carefully scoop any run-off glaze back over the buns with a spatula. Wait at least 20 minutes before serving.

Caramel glaze for sticky buns
90 grams butter, at room temperature
4 Tbsp caster sugar
4 Tbsp soft brown sugar (I used 'fariinsuhkur')
0.25 tsp salt
4 Tbsp light syrup (I used Dansukker)
0.5 tsp orange oil
Mix sugars, salt and butter in the bowl of an electric mixer, and cream together for 2 minutes on high speed with the paddle attachment. Add 4 Tbsp light syrup and 0.5 tsp orange oil . Continue to cream for about 5 minutes, or until light and fluffy. Spread at the bottom of the baking pan with a 6-7 mm layer.

I'm a Daring Baker: Eric Kayser's Milk Chocolate & Caramel Tart

Me, my cool apron and my buggert recipe notes.

My adventures as a Daring Baker continue. So far I've made Jewish Purist's Bagels, and a fancy Strawberry Mirror Cake. This month another multi-layered challenge was chosen by the hosts Veronica and Patricia - Eric Kayser's Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart. Chocolate and caramel go really well together, as far as I'm concerned, so I was pleased with the choice.

I enjoyed making this cake. The chocolate hazelnut shortbread pastry worked like a dream, and tasted heavenly. The caramel (I used the 'dry method') was easy to make, and set nicely during baking (I cooked it for 25 minutes instead of recommended 15, following advice from fellow bakers). My troubles only started when making the milk chocolate mousse. I managed to churn the first batch of whipping cream into butter (well, it was another hot summer day, so I wasn't really surprised). K. kindly - and very quickly - brought another packet of cream from a nearby store, and whipped it up into a nice thick cream himself, to which I added a cooled melted milk chocolate (I used Fazer Blue milk chocolate). The mousse was a bit thinner than I had imagined, and sure enough, refused to set even after hours in the fridge*. It tasted absolutely wonderful however - a subtle symphony of cinnamon, cocoa, caramel, chocolate - all very nice, and although sweet, then not cloyingly so. None of the 7 official cake tasters in our judging panel (me included) seemed to mind that instead of chocolate mousse the cake was covered with chocolate mousse sauce :)

Oh, and as you can see from the top photo, I managed to destroy my testing notes in the process, but I think the 'metric' recipe below is what I did:)

Whereas I wasn't so enthusiastic about the previous Daring Baker challenge,the Strawberry Mirror Cake, I would happily make this cake again without modifications. That's how delicious it was. And I'll make sure that the milk chocolate mousse behaves next time..

Click here to see a list of other Daring Bakers!

Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart
Adapted from Eric Kayser's Sweet and Savory Tarts
Serves 10



Chocolate Shortbread Pastry

80 grams unsalted butter, softened
50 grams caster sugar
3 Tbsp ground hazelnuts
0.5 tsp ground cinnamon
1 small egg
130 grams cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
0.5 tbsp cocoa powder

On the previous day:
In a mixing bowl of a food processor, cream the butter.
Add the confectioners’ sugar, the ground hazelnuts, and the cinnamon, and mix together
Add the egg, mixing constantly
Sift in the flour, the baking powder, and the cocoa powder, and mix well.
Form a ball with the dough, cover in plastic wrap, and chill overnight.

On the day of the assembly:
Preheat oven to 160 °C.
Line a 26 cm loose-bottomed baking pan with the chocolate shortbread pastry and bake blind for 15 minutes.

Caramel Layer

300 g granulated sugar
250 g whipping cream (room temperature)
50 grams butter (room temperature)
2 whole eggs
1 egg yolk
2.5 Tbsp (15 g) plain flour

In a saucepan, caramelize 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar using the dry method until it turns a golden caramel color. Incorporate the cream and then add butter. Mix thoroughly. Set aside to cool.
In a mixing bowl, beat the whole eggs with the extra egg yolk, then incorporate the flour.
Pour this into the cream-caramel mixture and mix thoroughly.
Spread it out in the tart shell and bake for 25 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool.

Milk Chocolate Mousse

300 grams whipping cream
250 grams milk chocolate

Prepare the milk chocolate mousse:
Beat the whipping cream until stiff. Melt the milk chocolate in the microwave or in a bain-marie, and fold it gently into the whipped cream.
Pour the chocolate mousse over the cooled caramel mixture, smoothing it with a spatula. Chill for one hour in the refrigerator.

To decorate

Melt ½ cup (100g) granulated sugar in a saucepan until it reaches an amber color. Pour it onto waxed paper laid out on a flat surface. Leave to cool. Break it into small fragments and stick them lightly into the top of the tart.

* In the interest of clarity I should probably reveal that the slice on the photo is cut from a frozen piece of cake :) And just for the sake of it - the cake froze beautifully, and tasted really nice. K. actually preferred the slightly defrozen frozen version..

Strawberry Mirror Cake

If my first task as a Daring Baker was to make Jewish Purist's Bagels, then my second task was to make a Strawberry Mirror Cake. The cake was chosen by Peabody, and you can find the recipe (which is rather lengthy!!!) here on her blog. I had never seen or heard of a strawberry mirror cake before, but apparently it's a classic fancy cake. It's also on the menu of Ritz Carlton Hotel in Bahrain, if you cannot be bothered to make one yourself :)

Well, the point of being a Daring Baker is to bother to make a cake even if the recipe seems a bit daunting. With 4 full pages of instructions, a frightening Bavarian cream and lots of gelatine, this recipe definitely scared me a bit. Yet I made it, and despite of some cursing and swearing in my kitchen (not a frequent sight, believe me), I ended up with a huge multi-layered strawberry mirror cake. Our friends Kristiina, Gretel, Peter and Kristel came to judge the cake (thank you for your help!!!), and everyone seemed to like it. K. thought it looked really professional, with nice and neat layers. I must admit I was a bit disappointed, as I expected the cake to have a much more pronounced strawberry flavour than it did. After all, I had used the last of seasons strawberries for this cake, and wanted it to be a true homage to those wonderful summer fruit.. I really liked the sponge, however, which had a delicious flavour and good firm texture - possibly because we used eggs from these really happy chicken again.

Anyway, here are some pictures. I'm not giving you full instructions below - you'll find them over at Peabody's blog - but I'll give you the metric measurements with my minor adaptations.

Strawberry Mirror Cake
Adapted from Cakes and Pastries at the Academy (California Culinary Academy, 1993)



The biscuit sponge
3 eggs
3 egg yolks
175 grams sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 egg whites
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
2 Tbsp sugar
100 grams sifted cake flour
125 ml water
75 grams sugar
2 Tbsp Kirsch or strawberry liqueur

Strawberry Bavarian Cream
2 ½ Tbsp unflavored gelatin* (I used 6 gelatine leafs instead)330 grams strawberries, pureed and strained
5 egg yolks
150 grams sugar
250 ml milk
1 Tbsp lemon juice
several drops of red food coloring (I didn't use any)
400 ml whipping cream

Strawberry Mirror
1 tsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp kirsch (I didn't use any)
1 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp unflavored gelatin (I used 6 gelatine leafs instead)
Few drops of red food coloring (I didn't use any)

Strawberry Juice
500 grams strawberries
175 grams sugar
200 ml water

I baked the sponge at 200 Celsius (instead of the recommended 230 C, which seemed a bit high for me).

Garnish with whipped cream and strawberries:



*I had struggled with powdered gelatine way too much while making the mirror (I even had to dish one portion of the mirror mixture), then I used my tried and trusted leaf gelatine instead! If you read instructions on Peabody's blog, you're supposed to sprinkle gelatine over strawberry puree and simply let it expand there. This didn't work for me at all, so I did the 'usual' thing of soaking gelatine leaves in cold water, squeezing them dry and then mixing with some hot strawberry juice..

Overall I'd say that although it was fun taking part and I was rather pleased with the result, I can think of quite a few cakes that taste at least as good, if not better, are much less of an hassle to make, and don't require to use a whopping 11 eggs!!! I might consider making it again if K. really-really-really requests it. On the other hand, he's quite a skilled pastry chef, so he can just make his own strawberry mirror cake if he feels like :-)

Thank you, Peabody, for this challenge! You can see a list of other Daring Bakers here, with links to their Strawberry Mirror Cakes.

Bagel is a doughnut with rigor mortis?*

* p. 90 in Claudia Roden's book The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand and Vilna to the Present Day (Penguin Books, 1996). Sounds cool, doesn't it?

My first challenge as a new member of the Daring Bakers was to make bagels. Not just any bagels, but Real Honest Jewish Purist's Bagels according to a recipe chosen by Jenny of All Things Edible and Freya of Writing At The Kitchen Table.

Bagels, in addition to being a doughnut with rigor mortis (alias chewy and dense and just a bit hard), were the staple bread of the Jews in Eastern Europe, especially in Poland (though they originate in Southern Germany). Since then bagels - especially lox and bagels - have become the most famous Jewish food in America, and a popular breakfast dish for non-Jews as well. I've never had the New York bagels, which are supposedly the best in the world (something in the water, apparently), but I did have some in Scotland over the years. I began with the six-packs available at one of the large supermarkets (not too bad to my novice bagel-tastebuds), and during my last year in Scotland I often picked one up from the Bagel Factory kiosk at the Waverley train station (so much better that the supermarket ones; I always opted for the salt beef & gherkin topping). Until I've tasted the NY bagels, I rely on Clarissa Hyman's description of a perfect bagel in her The Jewish Kitchen: Recipes and Stories from Around the World (Conran Octopus, 2003): "I am a purist when it comes to bagels: they should be crisp and glossy on the outside, soft but still satisfyingly chewy inside".

How did mine compare? They're far from perfect, I must admit, but then we have both eaten quite a few of them, so they're far from disaster as well. They're glossy alright, and definitely chewy. But shapewise, I found them a bit flatter than I remembered, and they weren't as smooth as I wanted.

May I present my first ever bagels - vesikringlid alias 'water kringles' in Estonian - with four types of toppings:


Starting from the top left corner, moving clockwise: caraway seeds, Maldon sea salt, Kalonji black onion seeds (also known as nigella seeds, read more here), sesame seeds.

The shape of the bagels - a small circle with no beginning and no end, and with a hole in the middle - represents the eternal circle of life. There are two ways to get the all-important hole: a dough-centric (you roll the dough into a long 'snake', then press the ends together) and a hole-centric way (roll the dough into a small ball, press your finger through to make a hole). I used the hole-centric way of making holes:



Then you boil the bagels first in some water which has been seasoned with syrup or sugar (malt syrup would be the first choice, but I used dandelion syrup instead; mine were all 'floaters', I must admit), then brush with egg wash and sprinkle with your chosen topping (see first photo above), and then bake until golden in the oven. (And then cool, halve and schmear with your choice of topping).

I got 22 reasonably-sized bagels instead of the 15 prescribed ones:



Although the Daring Bakers were allowed to get all creative with the fillings, we opted for the popular lox & bagel topping (bagel, smoked salmon, cream cheese and a sprig of dill). Note that this is not the 'traditional' bagel filling. Quoting Clarissa Hyman again, "The bagel met its life partners, smoked salmon and cream cheese, in the New World. ... [this is] a marriage made in heaven. Which is why the egg and bacon bagel will always end in divorce". I wanted to be on the safe side, so smoked salmon and cream cheese it was:



Clarissa suggests few other schmears in her book, which I'll keep in mind for the future bagel-baking extravaganzas: avocado & egg schmear, cheese & dill schmear and Liptauer schmear.

Now, I wonder what the next Daring Baker challenge - hosted by Peabody - will be like?

I'm a Daring Baker

Yep, I've joined the ranks of the Daring Bakers. Couldn't help it. Back in November 2006 they all made pretzels, in December 2006 tried their luck with biscotti. I noticed them in January 2007, when they all made croissants (What a coincidence, I naively thought, all those bloggers suddenly making croissants. I wonder why?) In February 2007 it was Chocolate Intensity, in March 2007 the Red Velvet Cake. That's when I finally understood what's going on. I followed the evergrowing list of daring bakers replicating Martha Stewart's Chocolate Crepe Cake in April 2007, and the challenging Gateau Saint Honore in May 2007. The idea of everybody following exactly the same recipe and then showing off their more or less successful (usually the former) results became irresistible, and I inquired about the 'club' and was graciously admitted.

Here's a logo for the Daring Bakers - done by the ever-talented Ximena, who's also the author of my new fabulous banner.