Daring Bakers Cheesecake Challenge!

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

This month’s Daring Bakers Challenge was to make a cheesecake. We were given a basic recipe and told to play with it, make it beautiful, and of course incorporate any changes for dietary needs. A good vegan cheesecake just has to have tofu, silken or cream cheese style, so I knew I wouldn’t be eating more than a bite or two. (I know I could have made a raw cheesecake, but this IS a BAKING challenge.) Believe me, my imagination went into overtime for all the flavor varieties to make a truly decadent cheesecake. Have you seen fondant covered wedding cheesecakes?!!!

My son and I are trying these days to eat light and grain free, making the majority of our diet fruits and vegetables. Money is tight, and since I wouldn’t be eating this cake, I made it specially for Chase. So here is my very colorful, delicious, and healthy cheesecake, light on crust and cheesy filling, and heavy on the fruit topping.

I began with a gluten free crust using our favorite crumb crust, the one used in Vive’s Pineapple Bars. I pressed it into an 8-1/2 inch springform pan sprayed with cooking spray.



I was thrilled to find this recipe for Vegan Tropical Cheesecake. It has banana and pineapple in the filling! Here is my adapted version of the filling:

1 box (12 oz) lite firm silken tofu
½ cup tofutti cream cheese
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 can (20 oz) crushed pineapple in its own juice
1 medium banana, peeled
1/4 cup agave nectar
3 tbsp cornstarch

Put everything but the cornstarch into a food processor and process until smooth. Add in the cornstarch and continue blending until completely smooth. Pour the filling over the crust.

Bake at 350 degrees for one hour or until edges are browned and center is set.

For my fruit-full topping, I made a strawberry puree from 4 cups of fresh berries and cooked it with a little cornstarch and sugar, then spread it all over the top of the cake. I topped the puree with starfruit.

Next I added sliced kiwi and Chase’s current fruit obsession, mango, just diced and piled in the middle.

I unmolded it onto a platter full of juicy, delicious starfruit.

And finally, plated with a nice slice of starfruit.

This cheesecake was so light and fruity, truly an incredibly delicious, guilt-free treat. As a testament to its goodness, I kept a piece to photograph, then gave the rest of it to my skinny son. He gave one piece to his girlfriend, then ate all the rest of it in one sitting!

Daring Bakers Challenge – Chocolate Valentino and Ice Cream

February’s challenge is a Flourless Chocolate Cake, Chocolate Valentino, inspired by Malaysia’s “most flamboyant food ambassador”, Chef Wan. Recipe comes from Sweet Treats by Chef Wan. Thanks to Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef for hosting this challenge.

This month’s challenge was certainly that for vegans as the recipe for this flourless cake was merely chocolate, butter, and 5 eggs! I had a difficult time deciding between a Fran Costigan nearly raw recipe or a recipe from the fabulous Gluten Free Goddess and many times vegan chef, Karina. She quite timely posted her recipe for Vegan Flourless Chocolate Cake. I decided the real challenge was in the baking, so I chose Karina’s recipe.

The most important ingredient was the chocolate, of course. I happened to have on hand my favorite baking chocolate, Scharffenberger 99% Cacoa. This particular box was so incredibly delicious. It had a nice subtle spicy note to it.

I made a half recipe and filled three 4-inch tart pans. I wanted to use my 6-inch heart pan (the appropriate pan for a Valentino cake), but I couldn’t find it anywhere. There are two of those somewhere in my house….

I waited for them to bake. I waited and waited and waited. I checked them at 45 minutes, and then every 5 or 10 minutes until they had baked almost an hour and 10 minutes. It was so funny when I would stick a toothpick in and they would deflate, and when I pulled the toothpick back out, they would poof up again! They are supposed to collapse once they’re done, so I wasn’t concerned. Anyway, I lost patience at 70 minutes and pulled them out. The top seemed almost overdone, and I wasn’t real sure the middle was good. I let them cool, and they properly sunk.

After they completely cooled, I cut a piece out to see what I had. I set one tart on a heart plate.

It looks a little weird.

I stuck the cutout piece back in and hoped a few more hours in the fridge would help my Valentino set up properly. I went on to the next component of the challenge, homemade ice cream! Making ice cream in February – I think that’s a first for me.

I made a vanilla ice cream with silken tofu. Although I can’t eat it and I really don’t like the flavor even if I could eat it, I have 2 fabulous vanilla extracts and made Very Vanilla Ice Cream.

This was our dessert for last Sunday’s dinner. I served it to Chase and his girlfriend on the pretty heart plate.

And they shared Valentino Cake and Very Vanilla Ice Cream for Two.

I got no complaints, only yummy noises, especially for the ice cream. I guess ice cream in February is a good thing.

btw, Chocolate Covered Katie is giving away a case of Jocolat Larabars! Enter here.

Daring Bakers Challenge - Tuiles

This month’s challenge was not so much about the baking, but about the technique. We were to bake tuile cookies, shape them into pretty shapes, and pair them with something light. I made Lemon Tuilles from Millennium.

I fashioned a stencil from cardboard by tracing a flower cookie cutter and removing the shapes with an exacto knife.

I thought I shouldn’t use an overly elaborate design for fear of very burnt edges on the cookies.

My design was a little too plain. When the cookies spread and baked, it was hard to tell they were flower shaped. They also wanted to break when I tried to curl them.

I baked three cookies at the time since the cookies have to be shaped immediately when they come out of the oven. Here’s the first batch. Good cookies, bad shape.

I tried another batch and got the same results. So I gave up and decided to be satisfied with just baking my mom some flat but yummy lemon cookies – her favorite.

Mom and I enjoyed my cookies with her fabulous fruit salad.

So I didn’t impress you, but at least you now know about a great lemon cookie recipe the next time you need one. Hopefully my next post will feature better food. Oh, and do look at some other Daring Bakers posts for successful challenges!

This month’s challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angelique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

Daring Baker’s Challenge – French Yule Log

This month’s challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux. They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand.

What a fun fun fun and chocolaty delicious challenge this month! It’s a good thing I had plenty of time away from the office to work on this Yule Log. Although it wasn’t terribly difficult, it took quite a bit of time to make all six elements (cake, mousse, crisp, ganache, crème brulee, and frosting), plan their vegan preparation, and manage my time to make sure it would all come together and be ready to serve on Christmas Day. Believe it or not, my main concern was that it would be chocolate overload!

The most important element of the Yule Log was the mousse filling. VCTOTW Chocolate Mousse Frosting with a couple of tablespoons of Kahlua added in was incredibly delicious. VCTOTW also provided my ganache. Crème brulee was replaced with JOVB pastry crème. I got to use one of my favorite ingredients, rice krispies, to make a white chocolate crisp.

The cake was more of a challenge. The recipe provided was a meringue almond cake, which I presume was crispy, but not really a vegan option (3 egg whites). I thought about a graham cracker layer, but wasn’t sure I could make it almond flavored. I finally decided on the best almond cake recipe I had, the one from My Sweet Vegan. Not a meringue cake, but a delicious almond cake!

The frosting was the only other element I struggled with, because it was made with gelatin or agar agar. I hate stuff made with agar agar and I wasn’t about to ruin all my hard work and 5 other tasty components with rubbery frosting. So I made a vegan version of the given recipe sans agar agar. It wasn’t the smooth mirror-like finish it was supposed to be, but it tasted fantastic.

To make the log, I began layering my components in a loaf pan in reverse order: Mousse, crème brulee, more mousse, crisp, more mousse. This went into the freezer several hours. Then ganache (a very thin layer for me!) and cake, and back into the freezer overnight.

Time to unmold!

Now time to frost. Although I knew I was putting frosting on something frozen, I wasn’t prepared for my frosting to freeze as I was pouring and spreading it! Oh, well. So it’s not so smooth. Add a few candy canes and it’s a chocolaty Buche de Noel.

I had to take it to my mom’s for Christmas dinner, but it traveled just fine. When the entrees and sides were eaten and the dishes cleared, I presented our dessert.

I couldn’t wait to slice into it and see if my layers were even.

I’m not sure what happened to the crisp layer. Maybe it broke apart when I cut into it. And my crème brulee looks like it should have been reduced by a third. But just you and I know it’s not perfect. The eaters only knew they were enjoying a heavenly concoction – rich yet light, smooth and chocolaty, and balanced with layers of complementary flavors and textures.

Would I make this Yule Log again? It was awfully time-consuming and rather expensive, but oh so delicious. You betcha!

A Test-y Sunday Dinner and Great Cake!

I wasn’t feeling quite 100 percent Sunday, so I relied on Urban Vegan’s test recipes for our dinner. (Thanks for all of your get-well wishes!) And of course there is still this:



What should be 3 feet of lighting on my kitchen ceiling. Someday…..

The testers arrived, quite serious and hungry.

We had:

The most fabulous Hearty Adzuki Bean Soup

Mini Rice Croquettes with a super delicious Wasabi Miso Dipping Sauce

A refreshing Jicama Salad

And fantastic Balsamic Roasted Vegetables

Here is our table full of yummies. I found it interesting to see the soup bowls with varying degrees of DIY garnish.

I made myself a nice plate to go with my soup.

I sometimes wish I had the time to write a cookbook, but it’s much more fun to test and eat and let someone else do all the work. We will all certainly enjoy The Urban Vegan: 250 Street-Smart, Animal-Free Recipes when it’s released!


Now for cake! I must have been out of my mind sick to have waited an entire day to cut into the Daring Bakers Caramel Cake. It is totally delicious and so moist. The crumb is tight, yet the texture is light. And we all really really liked the frosting, which we don’t normally like, and even dipped into the frosting shot I made! Look how lovely.

That’s it for Sunday dinner. See you again soon.

Daring Bakers Challenge – Caramel Cake

This month’s Daring Bakers Challenge was Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting. The recipe is from Shuna Fish Lydon as published on Bay Area Bites.

The rules for this challenge were simple – make the cake and the frosting. I am STILL further challenged by a kitchen with no lighting. My electrician did finally show up and we resolved issues in 4 of the 5 rooms, and parts for the kitchen fixture are on order, so you won’t have to hear me complain for much longer. And I have been further FURTHER challenged by having the flu or whatever you call it when you have 102 fever and ache so bad you can’t get out of bed. I only had energy to make one component at a time, starting on Wednesday, and I just now completed the cake.

I began by making the caramel syrup, the key ingredient in both the cake and frosting, and the hardest part of the challenge for me. It took me a couple of tries to get it the right consistency.

Here’s what you start with:

Here’s what I ended up with the first time:

Oops, obviously not syrup! Here’s the second try:

This syrup hardened too and I had to cheat and add milk to it to make it pourable. I also added in vanilla extract because it tasted bad as just sugar and water.

The cake recipe was easily made vegan. I used EnerG egg replacer and almond milk to substitute the eggs and milk. I figured many bakers would opt to make cupcakes with their batter instead of the 9-inch round, so I chose to make two 6-inch round layers. Interestingly, the recipe stated to place the pan on a baking sheet, so that’s what I did.

You can tell by the way the edges baked that my pans were a little small. Why don’t two 6-inch pans substitute for one 9-inch pan? Oh, well, nothing a little frosting won’t hide.

The frosting was also easily made vegan. I made a half recipe because I don’t like my sweets too sweet. Earth Balance browned just fine, and I used coconut milk for cream. Ready to make frosting – syrup, browned EB, and coconut milk:

I haven’t tasted the cake yet, but here’s what will be served after Sunday dinner. I thought some toasted pecans would help balance out the sweetness. And a frosting shot is available if anyone wants more frosting. This cake is nearly as tall as it is wide!

I’ll take a shot of a slice tomorrow and then let you know how it tastes.

Thanks to this month’s host, Dolores, and co-hosts, Alex, Jenny, and Natalie. Another fun challenge!

Time for more Tylenol and another nap.....

Daring Bakers Challenge - Pizza

This is my first Daring Bakers Challenge – Pizza! The real challenge here was to toss pizza dough – unless you elected to bake a gluten free pizza DOUGH, which is what I did. Although I didn’t get to enjoy the thrill of dough tossing, the very important thing I got from this challenge is that THERE IS NOW A FANTASTIC GLUTEN FREE PIZZA DOUGH! Big huge thanks to Natalie at Gluten A Go Go for this miracle.

Here is the recipe and detailed instructions for the gluten free version only, with my comments in color and pictures inserted. Please see other Daring Bakers for the *regular* dough recipe and pictures of dough tossing. I will attempt dough tossing at some point in the future!

~ BASIC PIZZA DOUGH ~

Original recipe taken from “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice” by Peter Reinhart.

(This is a half recipe.)

Makes 3 pizza crusts (about 9-12 inches/23-30 cm in diameter)

Ingredients:

2-1/4 cups GF Flour Blend with xantham gum or add 1 tsp xantham or guar gum

3/4 Tsp Salt

1 tsp Instant yeast

2 T Olive oil or vegetable oil (both optional, but it’s better with)

3/4 Cup + 1T. (7 ounces/210g or 210ml) Water, ice cold (40° F/4.5° C)

2 t agave syrup

gf flour for dusting

DAY ONE

Method:

1. Mix together the flour, salt and instant yeast in a big bowl (or in the bowl of your stand mixer).

2. Add the oil, agave syrup, and cold water, then mix well (with the help of a large wooden spoon or with the paddle attachment, on low speed) in order to form a sticky ball of dough.

3. Flour a work surface or counter. Line a jelly roll pan with baking paper/parchment. Lightly oil the paper.

4. With the help of a metal or plastic dough scraper, cut the dough into 3 equal pieces (or larger if you want to make larger pizzas).

NOTE: To avoid the dough from sticking to the scraper, dip the scraper into water between cuts.

5. Sprinkle some flour over the dough. Make sure your hands are dry and then flour them. Gently round each piece into a ball.

NOTE: If the dough sticks to your hands, then dip your hands into the flour again.

6. Transfer the dough balls to the lined jelly roll pan and mist them generously with spray oil. Slip the pan into a plastic bag or enclose in plastic food wrap.

7. Put the pan into the refrigerator and let the dough rest overnight or for up to three days.

NOTE: You can store the dough balls in a zippered freezer bag if you want to save some of the dough for any future baking. In that case, pour some oil (a few tablespoons only) in a medium bowl and dip each dough ball into the oil, so that it is completely covered in oil. Then put each ball into a separate bag. Store the bags in the freezer for no longer than 3 months. The day before you plan to make pizza, remember to transfer the dough balls from the freezer to the refrigerator.

That part was easy enough.

DAY TWO

8. On the day you plan to eat pizza, exactly 2 hours before you make it, remove the number of desired dough balls from the refrigerator. Place on a sheet of parchment paper and sprinkle with a gluten free flour. Delicately press the dough into disks about ½ inch/1.3 cm thick and 5 inches/12.7 cm in diameter. Sprinkle the dough with flour, mist it again with spray oil. Lightly cover the dough round with a sheet of parchment paper and allow to rest for 2 hours.

Well I actually goofed here and pressed the dough to 12 inches (instead of 12 cm.), which is a couple of steps further down. I put the parchment paper on the pizza stone so I would get the crust the right size. The nice thing about the gf dough is it holds its shape once it’s pressed. It doesn’t spring back like *regular* dough.

9. At least 45 minutes before making the pizza, place a baking stone on the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven as hot as possible (500° F/260° C).

NOTE: If you do not have a baking stone, then use the back of a jelly roll pan. Do not preheat the pan.

10. Press the dough into the shape you want (about 9-12 inches/23-30 cm in diameter - for a 6 ounces/180g piece of dough). DO NOT TOSS GF DOUGH!

At this point I got my ingredients mise en placed.

11. Lightly top it with sweet or savory toppings of your choice. (includes sauce and cheese)

I made a White Bean Garlic Sauce and used my favorite colorful toppings - shitake mushrooms (because it was my very own pizza and I’m the only one who likes mushrooms!), red bell pepper rings, yellow and orange tomatoes, and green onions. It’s not especially creative, but it’s what I wanted to eat.

12. Place the garnished pizza on the parchment paper onto the stone in the oven or bake directly on the jelly pan. Close the door and bake for about 5-8 minutes.

NOTE: Remember that the best pizzas are topped not too generously. No more than 3 or 4 toppings (including sauce and cheese) are sufficient.

I used only a half cup of sauce. The pizza was almost too heavy to move to the stone without risk of breaking apart.

13. Slide the garnished pizza onto the stone in the oven or bake directly on the jelly pan. Close the door and bake for about 5-8 minutes.

NOTE: After 2 minutes baking, take a peek. For an even baking, rotate 180°.If the top gets done before the bottom, you will need to move the stone or jelly pane to a lower shelf before the next round. On the contrary, if the bottom crisps before the cheese caramelizes, then you will need to raise the stone or jelly.

I baked for 3 minutes, rotated, and then baked 3 minutes more.

14. Take the pizza out of the oven and transfer it to a cutting board or your plate. In order to allow the cheese to set a little, wait 3-5 minutes before slicing or serving.

NOTE ON SAUCE: Your sauce should not be too thick as it will thicken in the hot oven. Less is more but make the less truly more by using quality ingredients.

Here’s a slice. It was easy to cut through the crisp crust.

And look how well it holds up. I’ve never been able to pick up a gluten free crust before!

I had a nice side of Roasted Sweet Potato Salad with it. I went back for seconds, and thirds!

Are you wondering about leftover gluten free pizza? I haven’t eaten it yet, but it’s still as crisp as ever in the fridge right now, 2 days after I baked it.

I became a Daring Baker at just the right time. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to be able to make gluten free pizza dough that everyone can enjoy.