Daring Bakers: Yeasted Meringue Cake

I'm posting late because UB and I have had ridiculous months and when we went to make it I had no flour or money so it got postponed, but its here now. And by jove, is it ugly. I don't even particularly like the taste, but I was planning to eat it all because I hate being wasteful, until (mercifully) some raw mince fell on it and rendered it (more) inedible.

Never cooking during an existential crisis again.

If this has somehow enticed you (or you want to see some other, delightful versions!), you can do so here.

The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.

Daring Bakers: Panna Cotta

You should have seen my face when I read about this month's Daring Bakers. I was fuming. If there's anything I hate in this world, it is panna cotta. Heck, I'd even eaten an awful panna cotta on a camp not three days before!

Luckily for my tastebuds, though, I stuck with it, because this was delicious. And if you look at the ingredients, why wouldn't it be? It's essentially cream and honey. The Florentine biscuits were a little too chewy for my taste, almost a sub-par Anzac biscuit (and I do love a good Anzac biscuit), but they all got eaten.

You can find the recipe for this month's Daring Bakers challenge here.

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.

Daring Bakers: Stollen

The 2010 December Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie’s Baking. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make Stollen. She adapted a friend’s family recipe and combined it with information from friends, techniques from Peter Reinhart’s book.........and Martha Stewart’s demonstration.


HOORAH! Now you know where my marzipan went!


As much as I love Christmas, I'm not big on "Christmassy" sweet food - fruit mince tarts, fruit cake, pudding, I don't really like any of it. Common theme here? I hate fruit mince. And dried fruit. And muesli with dried fruit in it. So I wasn't overly enthused about making the Christmas Stollen. And then I started making it, and got told I wasn't even allowed to use the fruit mince because then we'd have less fruit mince tarts. So this turned into more of an Australian Christmas stollen - dark chocolate, coconut and almond. By Australian, I mean Emily-friendly.


I also learnt the phrase "mise en place", meaning you weigh/measure everything out BEFORE you start cooking. Ingenius, I must say. 

Daring Bakers: Crostata

The 2010 November Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Simona of briciole. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make pasta frolla for a crostata. She used her own experience as a source, as well as information from Pellegrino Artusi’s Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well.


This was my first solo Daring Bakers' Challenge, because The uber-blonde is illin' (D:). It was still fun, and you get to see The Boy's kitchen that I used to cook in because... well... Black Ops has taken over our relationship so we need to stay at his house. Although he was quite obliging in taking photos for me because I had pastry hands. 


I used raspberry jam as my crostata filling. Had I not left it to the last minute I could have been more inventive, particularly as I don't actually like overly sweet things, but thats a job for another day! The pastry was really nice, although I overworked it a bit which made it difficult to get into the dish in one piece. In the end, it was easiest to tip the board I was rolling it onto straight on top of the baking dish and let it fall in, then patch up the areas I'd missed. I think I'll make this again, aside from the chilling time it wasn't too time-consuming or complex! Hopefully then I'll have some better ideas for fillings :)

Daring Bakers: Sugar Cookies

The September 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mandy of “What the Fruitcake?!” Mandy challenged everyone to make Decorated Sugar Cookies based on recipes from Peggy Porschen and The Joy of Baking.


This was my first Daring Bakers challenge, which I completed with DB veteran The Uber-Blonde. The theme for this challenge was "September", and the cookies had to be decorated in a way that represented September to you. Easily done for us - yesterday was the bump out for the pantomime we were just in! Needless to say, the cast liked having biscuits with quotes from the show, double rainbows, and in-jokes. NOT TO MENTION THEY WERE DELICIOUS.


I'd really like to do these again, looking at the pictures on the webpage some of them are INCREDIBLE. And I like to talk up my artistic talent, particularly when its also edible :)

These were my cookies - my favourites are the MiS: ARC (Macbeth in Space: A Romantic Comedy) and "My delicious radish of knowledge". 

The recipe for sugar cookies can be found here