Salted Caramel, Walnut and Meringue Coffee Cake

From the beginning I enjoyed this Daring Bakers challenge due to the charming origin of the recipe (Jamie found it in her dad's collection of recipes, handwritten on a piece of yellowing paper with no source/date etc). I've got various similar recipes written by my granny and great-grandmother but none so far have turned out as well as this. 

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.

Jamie and Ria suggested that we look to national specialities for inspiration, as they had with their All-American and Indian versions. I spent ages trying to think of something delicious to fill this bread with. Eventually I hit upon a good idea. 

In my town in Switzerland, Verbier, the boulangerie/patisseries all sell 'Tarte aux Noix' (photo below). I haven't seen them anywhere else and nothing similar pops up on google. Essentially they're little shortcrust cases filled with walnut halves drenched in soft creamy caramel. I've been meaning to recreate them in their original form for ages. 

To try and recreate the tarts in bread form, I filled the bread with caramel, walnuts and the requisite meringue. For the caramel I decided to make a salted caramel sauce with about half the cream, so that it set softly. In the end it was like a just-too-soft batch of caramels that you cut up. 

Then I tried to cut and transfer the caramel. It wasn't set enough to do so cleanly, but I managed to spread and tease it into shape. 

I made about double the amount of caramel that I needed. What a shame. I've put a half recipe below but you can double to its former glory if you want extra for guzzling separately. 

Then the caramel was topped with the meringue and then the toasted walnuts. When I make this again I think I'll either stir the walnuts into the caramel while still liquid or put the nuts on before the meringue as they didn't mingle as much as I would have liked. 

I'd read on the forums that the dough is better if the first rise/punch down step is repeated, so my dough rose three times in total. It's a lovely dough to work with, I'll definitely use it again. 

I decided to braid the bread rather than form it into a wreath as I wasn't sure how the caramel would behave if I tried to roll it up. I learnt to braid filled breads when I made this Braided Lemon Bread from Smitten Kitchen.

When I baked the braids, some of the caramel escaped and bubbled away on the pan. Next time I'm going to make sure I pull up the sides a little when braiding so it doesn't escape through the gaps. I did this without realising on one side of one of the braids and it didn't leak as much. There's still plenty in the middle of these, though, and the escaped caramel on the sides went delightfully crunchy. 

I thought the meringue was going to disappear into the bread as mentioned but some of mine remained. I think it looks a bit like cobwebs (see the 2nd photo up top). I'd be interested to try this recipe without the meringue and see how it affects the result. 

I'm really pleased with how this came out and the flavours I chose. Definitely a keeper and I'm glad I managed to fit in a version of the lovely Tarte aux Noix. 

Salted Caramel, Walnut and Meringue Coffee Cake

(caramel adapted from David Lebovitz's The Sweet Life in Paris)

I made the dough as stipulated in the challenge pdf except I used 15g fresh yeast instead of dried (see here). I then filled it with 2/3 of the required meringue recipe (in pdf) and the caramel (below). I've put a little how-to on for the braiding/assembling below too. 

For the caramel:

200g granulated sugar

100ml double cream

15g salted butter

1/8 tsp fleur de sel or good sea salt

Line a tray with greaseproof paper. Spread the sugar in an even layer in a big saucepan and set over medium - high heat. Wait until the edges start to liquify then start to move the sugar around onto the wet spots to try and get it to melt evenly. Don't worry if it starts to clump a little, it will melt down later. Keep everything moving until you have a liquid. Keep cooking until a deep bronze, the colour of a penny. Take off the heat and whisk in about 1/3 of the cream. Keep pouring and whisking until all the cream is incorporated. I wear a small oven glove while whisking as it can get pretty hot. Stir in the butter and salt. Pour into the tray and put in the fridge to set. 

To assemble:

215g walnut halves

2/3 recipe of the meringue (from pdf)

1 egg, beaten

Toast the walnuts in the oven until golden. Reserve 15g and chop finely. Prepare the meringue. Punch down the dough and divide it into two equal pieces. Cover one piece with clingfilm. Start rolling the other piece out into a rectangle on a floured work surface. When it reaches 50cm x 30cm, transfer to a big sheet of parchment paper. Roll briefly again to make sure it's smooth. Have the rectangle with the long side facing you. Use a ruler and a knife to lightly score the dough into thirds lengthwise. Mark out the final 5cm on each end. Cut each corner out by pressing down with your knife (don't drag). Then mark the long side flap closest to you into 2cm strips and then cut them. Turn the bread around so the the other long flap is closest and repeat the marking/cutting. 

Now cut a strip of the caramel and transfer to the central rectangle, spreading it into shape gently so you don't tear the dough. I topped it with the meringue and then walnuts, but I suggest you cover the caramel with 100g of the walnuts and then spread over half of the meringue. Fold the two small end flaps over onto the filling. Swivel the braid so the short side is closest to you. Take the top strip on the right and fold it over the flap, across the middle. Fold the left strip over the top of the right. Repeat all the way down the braid. When you get to the last few strips, it may be best to trim the final pair so that you don't have a big mound at one end. Fold any strips underneath. Transfer carefully to a baking tray and cover with lightly greased clingfilm. Repeat the whole process with the other piece of dough. 

Put both trays in a warm place and leave to rise for the final time (about 45-60 minutes). When ready to go into the oven brush with the beaten egg and sprinkle the reserved walnuts over the top. Bake for about 25-30 minutes until golden brown. Cool then dust with icing sugar before serving. 

(Makes 2 braids - each about 16 slices)

Panna Cotta and Florentine Roses

Once upon a time in 2009, I wrote a post about Strawberry and Dark Chocolate Panna Cotta Shots. It was my sixth post. As I had tried the whole layering-in-a-glass thing then, I decided to try unmoulding my panna cotta for this challenge.

I have to admit that I screwed up the panna cotta part of this challenge and didn't try it again. I must have got my sheet gelatine conversions wrong because it was like rubber. I will defnitely try making it again at some point in the future as I like panna cotta.

The roses didn't come out quite how I wanted them but I'm pleased they're at least recognisable as roses. To make them I spread the batter thinly over a baking sheet and then baked it like that. When it came out of the oven and was still hot I used heart shaped cutters in two sizes to cut out petals and then constructed the roses from those. Another time I would spread the batter even thinner in the middle as it was a bit greasy and thick. 

The recipe pdf is on the main DK page 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.

Chocolate Truffle Crostata

This Daring Bakers challenge came at a very busy time, so this isn't too wild. No giant profiterole presents or baked alaska mountain ranges this month. Just a really yummy chocolate tart. 

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.

I chose to make the first pasta frolla for my crostata. I had a few ideas for fillings, but in the end I settled on this yummy chocolate truffle filling. I've made it once before and it's a great recipe. The coffee comes through fairly strongly, especially when the tart is cold. I wasn't sure about the pastry when I took it out of the fridge to roll - it had got all sweaty and solid. It came out in the end, though. Perhaps not my favourite pastry ever, but it was fun to do something different. 

Originally I wanted to do a lace design on top of my crostata. Then I came across quite a lot of complications when trying to design it and the pastry turned out to be fairly hard to work with, so I switched to this art deco design. I cut the design out of the rolled out pastry with a knife and then baked the pieces separately, chilling throughly in between. When it came out of the oven I arranged the pieces on the top. Another time I would wait until it had cooled slightly as the top tore slightly in places and I misplaced a few pieces and couldn't move them without causing chaos. 

To find the recipe for the pastry, head over to the Daring Bakers website. The chocolate truffle filling is from Tartelette - I halved it to fill this tart. 

Doughnuts

I'm afraid I'm super busy at the moment so this will have to be a brief post about the Daring Bakers this month. The challenge was doughnuts...

I decided to try and make alphabet doughnuts and form words with them. I just had to think of the words. This took me ages - they had to be short, I wanted there to be a few and for them to have a theme and I just like words a lot and couldn't decide.  One of my first thoughts was an Alice in Wonderland 'Eat Me' ('Drink Me' doesn't make much sense when you're thinking about doughnuts!). In the end I went for a bit of a mix-up of the film title Eat Pray Love, changing it to Eat Play Love. 

I have a tendency to take things too seriously, especially when I'm stressed (read: once I'm back at Oxford). So this was a bit of a reminder to myself to remember to lighten up and mess about a bit. I even pushed past my normal dislike of sprinkle-type things to add silver balls to these. Thought I had better live on the wild side. I still don't really like them! 

To make the letters I cut out some templates and then cut them into the right shape with a sharp knife dusted with flour. 

Along with the alphabet doughnuts, I made some simple rings. I also made some filled with raspberry jam spiked with plenty of lemon juice. 

I rolled the 'eat' doughnuts in cinnamon and sugar, glazed the 'love' with the glaze recommended for the pumpkin doughnuts and topped the 'play' ones with chocolate icing. The plain rings were dipped in a simple sugar and water glaze. 

This was all from a half batch of one recipe - I don't even want to think how many there would have been if I had made the full amount. 

I have to admit that apart from the filled doughnuts, I wasn't really a fan. Even the filled ones weren't as good as I was hoping they would be. The recipe (the Alton Brown one) had rave reviews from other Daring Bakers so something must have gone wrong - or I just have a different taste in doughnuts!

The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.

Baked Alps

When I saw this challenge, I knew what I had to do. I've made baked alaska a few times before, but this time I wanted to do something a bit different with the shape - and so I present to you... Baked Alps! 

I adore mountains, especially the bit of the Swiss Alps where my mum lives. They're like home and yet are the most exciting, changeable place to be. Nothing is ever boring in the mountains. 

To make my Alps, I simply cut out a bit of the cake in the right shape and then sculpted the mountains with the ice cream. I then made some french meringue and used a small palette knife to cover and perfect my range. I then used a kitchen blowtorch to make them look more realistic.

 I'd say this is a picture of the alps in mid-late spring - the brown areas are a combination of the trees and also the snow melting, leaving the bare ground. For this reason, there is a swathe all around the bottom and then more up along the south, sunny side (to the right of the pictures). 

My favourite addition to baked alaskas is a fruit layer between the ice cream and cake. The last one I made had an almond and orange sponge base topped with mixed summer fruits which were lightly cooked and then topped with vanilla ice cream and meringue. I feel the sharpness of the fruits is really needed to cut through the sweetness of the rest of the dessert.  For my alps I decided to use a layer of fresh blackberries. 

Though I absolutely adored making the shape and using the blow torch a bit like a brush, I wasn't hugely pleased with the recipe - though all I think doesn't work is that the cake base and fruit becomes rock solid with all the freezer time. The cake also lost a huge amount of taste when frozen.  If I were to make this again, I would sculpt the ice cream on some clingfilm and freeze that, then simply top the cake and fruit with it before covering with meringue and torching. 

Despite this, baked alaska is an amazing dessert. I have always thought that I were ever to host a DB challenge, I would choose baked alaska. 

The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”.

Baked Alps

See the challenge recipe, here. 

My changes 

I made a half measure of the challenge recipe for the pound cake in a rectangular tin (I had leftovers). 

I added a layer of fresh blackberries in between the cake and ice cream.

I made a french meringue with 1 egg white and 55g of caster sugar as I didn't need much. 

Swiss Roll Ice Cream Cake

I loved this challenge - though I made more mistakes than I would have liked.  Instead of making a bowl shaped dessert lined with individual slices of swiss roll, I decided to make what looks like one big slice of swiss roll. It's a dark chocolate and espresso roll filled with coffee marscarpone cream...

But what's inside? Well, working from the top down, we have dark chocolate and brown sugar ice cream, fleur de sel caramel ice cream, hot fudge sauce with a hint of coffee and then more caramel ice cream and then more chocolate ice cream. Yum. 

(Also, that's sugar from rolling it on the outside, not frost!)

The odd thing about this was that I spent ages planning it and thinking of how I could make sure it rolled smoothly round the edge, how I could make the swirl look perfect on top... and then when it came down to it, I rushed and fudged several things. Very annoying. 

The brown sugar and dark chocolate ice cream is an adaption of the Rich Chocolate Ice Cream I made before. It's smooth and rich without being overwhelming. 

The fleur de sel caramel ice cream is taken from David Lebovitz's blog, here - I didn't have salted butter so I used unsalted and added a whole teaspoon of fleur de sel. I made the whole recipe but half would have more than adequate for this cake.  I contemplated writing the recipe out below, but decided that David's instructions are so good you might as well get them at his site. This ice cream is so so delicious, if a little gloopy for these purposes. Still, yum. Yum. Make it!

As I was making a chocolate roll, I tried the original recipe from the challenge. Unfortunately it didn't really work for me - it was thin and floppy and didn't taste of much. This was almost definitely my fault, but I decided to go for a different recipe as I didn't have time to mess up again. I went for Delia's Swiss Roll recipe, adapting it by adding cocoa powder and espresso.  I also couldn't face not creaming the butter and sugar first, although it's an all-in-one recipe. It's very different from the DB recipe and much more like a normal cake - it has butter and egg yolks etc. 

Thankfully this recipe worked out well, though it was a little bit thick. Once I had tipped it out onto the sugared paper, I cut it in half lengthways. Then I rolled it into the cake tin I had prepared with cling film. Unfortunately I wasn't really concentrating and it cracked slightly in a few places. 

I then cut small strips from the other half and started rolling them around to create the top of the slice, adding the marscarpone as I went.  Then it went into the freezer for a half an hour or so to set before I added the layers of ice cream and the hot fudge, chilling well between each addition. 

Unfortunately, with the first layer of the caramel ice cream, I let it melt a bit too much before spooning (pouring...) it in. It spread through to the bottom of the cake and soaked parts of it, resulting it in not looking as pretty as hoped and my having to use another lot of ice cream as the rest had melted away. It also screwed up the look of the swirl on the top, taking out some of the definition. As a result, I had to pipe/smooth another layer of marscarpone on the top of the cake.

Above was the moment of truth... when I realised how much damage I had done by adding the ice cream when it was too liquid. Rookie mistake, I know. 

Still, this tasted fantastic and I was really pleased with the flavour profile. I'd like it to look a lot neater. All in all, though, a great challenge - I was already making lots of ice cream but I wouldn't have thought of making this without Sunita and the DB's.

The July 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Sunita of Sunita’s world – life and food. Sunita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that’s then used to make a bombe with hot fudge. Her recipe is based on an ice cream cake recipe from Taste of Home.

Swiss Roll Ice Cream Cake

(Delia, David Lebovitz, my ice cream maker manual and the DB challenge recipes- see details in post)

For the brown sugar and chocolate ice cream, see this post and replace the sugar with brown sugar. 

For the fleur de sel caramel ice cream, see David's post about it, here. 

For the coffee marscarpone:

150g marscarpone

1 1/2 tbsp icing sugar

1 tbsp espresso powder

1 tbsp boiling water

Beat the marscarpone in a bowl a little to loosen it. Sieve over the icing sugar and beat in. Mix the boiling water and espresso powder together then add to the bowl and beat in. Put in the fridge until needed. 

For the cake:

50g softened butter

110g caster sugar

2 large eggs

90 g plain flour

20g cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp hot water

1 tbsp espresso powder

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F. Grease an then line a swiss roll tin, making sure it comes up the sides and the paper is well greased too. Put the butter and sugar into a mixer and beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and sift in the flour, baking powder and cocoa. Beat until just combined. Mix the hot water and espresso powder and then fold into the mixture. Spread evenly into the tin, making sure it reaches the corners. 

Bake for about 12 minutes or until it is springy to the touch in the middle. Meanwhile place a large piece of baking parchment on a surface and sprinkle with extra caster sugar. When you take the cake out of the oven, loosen the edges from the paper and then flip out onto the sugared surface. Cut all the edges off. At this point, either follow a traditional method with the coffee marscarpone, or start to line the tin with the cake for this ice cream cake. 

For the fudge sauce (half batch of DB recipe):

100g caster sugar

1 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder

1 tbsp cornflour

1 1/2 tsp espresso powder

180ml water

1/2 tbsp butter

Whisk together the sugar, cocoa, cornflour, espresso powder together with the water in a small saucepan. Stir until the sauce thickens - about 2 minutes. Stir in the butter and leave to cool. 

(Serves about 12 to 15 or more - it's very rich!)

Cranberry, Orange and Acacia Honey Steamed Pudding

Being British, I probably should have made a steamed pudding before. I did have it on my to-bake list but it didn't get crossed off until it became April's challenge for the Daring Bakers. Conversely, I wanted to make it before I came back to Britain, and as a result, I couldn't find the suet we were asked to use if possible. Instead, I adapted two butter based recipes for my purposes...



Looking at all the treacle and golden syrup puddings, I decided that it was a shame that honey didn't seem to be used (I'm quite sure that people used to make - and still do make - honey steamed puddings, but I couldn't find a recipe).

As a result I decided that I should use up one of the little pots of swiss honey we buy each summer at the market. They have an uncanny ability to split slightly and cause a small flood of honey in the cupboard, which meant that the pot of Acacia honey had been sitting in my mum's special hot chocolate mug for several months. To free her mug and to create an excuse to buy some more this summer, I used the remainder of that pot up. We still have several nearly dead ones that we don't have the heart to throw out, as you can see above.



To complement this gorgeous honey flavour, I decided to add soaked dried cranberries for a bit of a sharp kick and some lovely colour. For the first time it seems that they have started stocking dried cranberries in the supermarket at home (YES, cranberry sauce with the turkey at Christmas!) and so I wanted to try baking with them.  Before I used them, I soaked them overnight in some of the honey and the juice of an orange.

The April 2010 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.



I then added some of the cranberry soaking juice to an additional few tablespoons of honey in the bottom of my pudding bowl. For the pudding itself I made the butter based pudding then added the cranberries and some orange rind and steamed it in Mum's big old le creuset vegetable steamer.

I served my pudding with an orange infused custard, which was lovely. I think mine somehow sunk when I had a peek to see if it was done with about 15 minutes to go - it wasn't done and when it was, it was pretty solid instead of spongey. The flavours were nice but I think I should probably try a different recipe another time.

Blood Orange and Rosemary Tian

Like many others, I came to this challenge with no idea what an 'orange tian' was. It turned out to be a lovely dessert - crisp, shortbread-esque pate sablee smoothed with homemade marmalade, smoothed over with scented whipped cream and topped by orange segments seeped in caramel. 

Despite having never tasted an orange tian before, I decided to play with the flavours. I swapped in blood oranges instead of 'blonde' oranges (as they call them here in Switzerland) as I simply cannot resist their flavour and I thought they would look stunning in the dessert. 

I also decided to be 'daring' and incorporate rosemary. I absolutely love rosemary, but I usually only use it in savoury dishes. I had a hunch it would work well in the cream layer of the dessert. And so my mum walked in on me standing in the kitchen alternately delicately chewing a leaf of rosemary and a segment of blood orange. 

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.

I was very excited when I noticed that the recipe included making marmalade. I haven't made any jams since I used to as a child with my Grandma. Now I think back to it, I'm not quite sure why I was often left in charge of a big pot of boiling sugar, standing on my little stool by the Aga with a very long spoon. Still, it's one of my most treasured memories of my Grandma. 

The resulting marmalade is really very tasty. I was worried that the pith would still be bitter despite the multiple blanchings, but it mellowed out in the end product. I decided to try and not use pectin and try to use pips instead. Unfortunately my oranges didn't have any pips, but I found a lemon in the fridge and used those instead, tied in a little square of muslin. It firmed up beautifully. 

Another new element was the pate sablee (my accents don't seem to be working, so excuse the lack of them). It's the richest of the french pastry crusts and really very tasty. The method was unusual too - you have to beat the egg yolk and sugar till pale and creamy before adding it to the ice cold butter and flour. I think it would be quite lovely just as biscuits. 

Happily my mum had some old crumpet moulds (which, believe me, are going to be used for their original purpose soon) which I could use as moulds and to cut out rounds of the pastry. I managed to have a bit of a baby-swap with the pastry - I took out the remaining pastry from my Roasted Rhubarb Tarts and used that instead of the sablee! I did think they looked different to others I had seen on the forum but it wasn't till the next day when I spotted my pate sablee dough still waiting patiently in the fridge that I realised my mistake. 

For my tians I used our absolute favourite cream in the world, which stars above. It's unbelievably thick and decadent and has a wonderful flavour that I can never put my finger on. It added a lovely richness to the dessert. On another note, I've always loved the Italian for double cream - doesn't doppia panna create the image of thick, luscious cream dropping off a spoon?

I submerged my spring of rosemary in a sea of the beautiful thick cream and heated it gently to infuse it with the flavour of the herb. It then sat in the fridge overnight before being whipped. When I took it out this morning, I was slightly worried - the cream had set slightly oddly and had small lumps. It seemed to come together when whipped, however. I added a little extra plain whipped cream to smooth it out. I don't think I got quite as much volume on the rosemary cream.  

After having learnt to segment an orange (who knew it was so easy?!) I made my caramel. I was glad that it wasn't my first time making a dry caramel - it's definitely something to get used to and the orange juice really made it foam up.  The orange segements then seeped in half the caramel overnight. When it came to drying them out on kitchen paper I realised we had run out, so they had to make do with coffee filters...

I also found I had to split some of the fatter segments in two to get a nice even layer when placing them in the bottom of the moulds. 

I really enjoyed assembling the tians, with the different layers.  I used the tip off the forums of grating down the edges of the pate sablee to fit the moulds where it had spread during cooking. Amazingly they also easily popped out of the moulds - I just flipped them over onto the plate, peeled off the square of parchment and eased them out. 

They're really tasty - my mum went to try one bite and ending up eating an entire tian. She then spent five minutes going 'MMMMMNN', describing the aftertaste in detail and occasionally saying 'delicious' at random. A success, I feel!

Blood Orange and Rosemary Tian

(Makes four tiny tians and lots of marmalade!)

I don't have time to type all the recipes out today, apart from my changes, but you can find everything you need on the Daring Kitchen website  - just scroll down a little and it'll be there.

My changes - I made half measures of everything except the marmalade. I didn't use pectin in my marmalade, just put some pips in some fabric and heated it for slightly longer. I swapped in blood oranges for the segments and caramel. For the rosemary cream I gently heated the 3/4 of the cream with a sprig of rosemary then left it to seep overnight in the fridge before whipping the rosemary cream and then adding the gelatine. I then beat the remaining 1/4 of the cream and folded that in.