October Daring Baker's Challenge

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.

First off, I must say I absolutely LOVE doughnuts! Eating doughnuts always brings me back to my childhood where I loved the plain sugared doughnuts from the neighbourhood bakery. I have always wanted to try my hand at making doughnuts and this challenge was the perfect oppurtunity! The recipe was pretty straightforward, although the dough turned out quite sticky and hard to handle so I had to work a little bit more flour while kneading it. I was glad to see that they rose like little beauties while resting!

It was quite easy frying them in my trusty wok and they fried up pretty quickly!

The final product! I went with my childhood memories and chose to just dust the doughnuts with sugar and a bit of cinnamon!

They were so soft and fluffy and tasty with a hint of nutmeg, and I absolutely love the little airholes from the yeast!

I brought the doughnuts to a gathering of friends and they were wolfed down in seconds! This is definitely something I will make again!



October Daring Cook's Challenge

Our October 2010 hostess, Lori of Lori’s Lipsmacking Goodness, has challenged The Daring Cooks to stuff grape leaves. Lori chose a recipe from Aromas of Aleppo and a recipe from The New Book of Middle Eastern Food.

It's good to be back after a brief hiatus! Been so busy with uni lately but am happy that there is only four and a half weeks to go before I am finished with uni!

I will start off by saying that I adore Greek food! Absolutely love dolmades! It wasn't hard to find the ingredients here in Adelaide as there is quite a big Greek community around. I thought they would be quite fiddly to roll but it was actually quite simple!

The rolled up product. It was quite a challenge to make them look uniform because of the different size and shapes of the vine leaves.

Close up of the uncooked vine leaves.

The cooked product!



The interior of the roll.

I am glad to say that the final product was very tasty! It was very juicy and absorbed the flavours of the lemon and tamarind in the cooking liquid with hints of the spices in the meat. Will definitely make more in the future and experiment with different fillings!

July Daring Baker's Challenge

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.-

What a challenge! I think the most challenging aspect of this challenge was making space in my freezer to make this ice cream cake! I've never made swiss rolls or ice cream before so this was a pretty interesting challenge.

I am quite happy with how the swiss rolls turned out! It was a bit daunting at first thinking about rolling the roll but it was actually quite okay and I'm gald it turned out with a pretty decent swirl. Also, the vanilla cream was delicious!

The vanilla and chocolate ice creams were quite straightforward to make and most of the time was spent waiting for them to set in the freezer. I did have some problems with the chocolate ice cream, it took quite long to set, unlike the vanilla ice cream.

Assembling the final bombe was quite fun and I must admit I was a little impatient in assembling each layer of the ice cream and fudge sauce as I was making it for dessert for a dinner party that very night.

I was pretty excited when it came out of the bowl quite easily with the swirl of the swiss rolls preserved nicely!

The chocolate layer of the bombe took quite long to set in the freezer, it was still quite soft after spending about 7 hours in the freezer and we ended up having dessert at midnight!

The layers of the cake turned out pretty well except that the chocolate ice cream later started melting very quickly when I sliced the cake, However the cake was delicious and I am sure my friends felt that it was well worth the wait!

July Daring Cook's Challenge

The July 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make their own nut butter from scratch, and use the nut butter in a recipe. Their sources include Better with Nut Butter by Cooking Light Magazine, Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds, and Food Network online.

It's going to be a short entry this month! I absolutely love nuts! Especially just roasted with some salt! This is my first time making nut butters and I will definitely try some other nuts in the future. I chose to make chicken and pecan cream this time as I have a weakness towards pecans. Absolutely love them. I have never used nuts like that before in a cream for pasta and the product was delectable. I must say the smell wafting from my food processor while processing the roasted pecans was absolutely heavenly!

I am definitely going to make this again and also try out other nut butters in other dishes including desserts. As a side note, here is what I made for dessert, one of my absolute favs after visiting France.

Crème brûlée! Yum.

Until next month!

June 2010 Daring Baker's Challenge

The June 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. Dawn challenged the Daring Bakers’ to make Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse. The challenge recipe is based on a recipe from the book Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard

This is not my first time making a meringue but it was my first time making a Pavlova and boy was it challenging! I decided to try making a big pavlova like what they have here in Australia instead of small portions.

It turned out quite well after I took it out of the oven but the challenge was removing it from the baking paper without the crust cracking and breaking! It also started sinking when I piped the mascarpone mousse on the top so I decided dress it after slicing it into individual slices.

I was quite happy with the taste and it was also well received by my friends but I shall definitely look into how I can make a sturdier pavlova!

June 2010 Daring Cook's Challenge

Our hostesses this month, Evelyne of Cheap Ethnic Eatz, and Valerie of a The Chocolate Bunny, chose delicious pate with freshly baked bread as their June Daring Cook’s challenge! They’ve provided us with 4 different pate recipes to choose from and are allowing us to go wild with our homemade bread choice.

What an exciting challenging this month! I have made bread before but this is my first time making french baguettes! It was quite time consuming but I must say the end product is pretty worth it!

I was quite happy with the result, the crust was very crunchy and the bread pretty tasty!

Traditional style french baguette

Epi style baguette which is made to look like a stalk of wheat and comes apart quite easily into smaller buns!

This is also my first time attempting a pate and I decided to try the trout and shrimp pate, a departure from the traditional liver pate. It was quite a joy cooking the pate and I must say this was my first time using the technique of flambeing and I have to admit I almost burnt my hair off! But all is well and the result was delicious!

Nice succulent prawns with a hint of orange from the Grand Marnier.

Cutting into the pate.

Absolutely delicious!

November 2009 Daring Cook's Challenge

The November 2009 Daring Cooks challenge was brought to you by Audax of Audax Artifex and Rose of The Bite Me Kitchen. They chose sushi as the challenge.

Sushi (寿司 or 鮨 or 鮓) is much appreciated for its delicate taste and exquisite appearance. Sushi actually means vinegared rice, which is the essential ingredient in every sushi recipe. Sushi is simple and cheap to make at home, needs no special equipment and is an excellent way to use left overs.

Although sushi in various forms has been around for fourteen centuries, the modern version was invented in Japan in the 1800’s where a 'hand-formed' sliced fresh fish and vinegared rice ball was eaten as a snack food. Nowadays, sushi is made with various seafood, meats and vegetables, raw and cooked.

Sushi is one of my favourite foods and this is not the first time making sushi but it is my first time making the more challenging dragon roll and nigiri sushi. I had great fun and the product was yummy and it was a good break from studying for my exams!
 

Dragon roll with unagi. I did not have enough unagi and so I wasn't able to cover the top as much as I would have like to.
 

Close up of the dragon roll.
 

 
Assorted platter of sushi
 

  
Unagi Nigiri sushi, this was a challenge trying to shape the rice and getting it to hold together to assemble it with the unagi and nori.
 

 
Sushi roll with crab meat, cucumber and smoked salmon
 

Cucumber nigiri sushi
 

Spiral sushi roll with cucumber, smoked salmon and avocado
 

 
Kanimayo gunkan sushi
 

Finally, sushi roll with unagi, smoked salmon, cucumber and avocado.
 
I had a blast with this month's challenge with one of my most favourite foods. Looking forward to the next!

October Daring Cook's Challenge

The October 2009 Daring Cooks’ challenge was brought to us by Jaden of the blog Steamy Kitchen. The recipes are from her new cookbook, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook.

Chicken Pho

The garnishes

And for dessert, Deep Fried Nutella Wantons

September Daring Baker's Challenge

The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

Here are the pictures of my first completed Daring Baker's challenge! Puff pastry was intimidating before I made it but it was pretty manageable! Really enjoyed making it and the product was really yummy!

The empty shells.

Egg salad and smoked salmon

Chicken and mushroom

Strawberry fool

Looking forward to the next challenge!