Biscuit Joconde Imprime

The January 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Astheroshe of the blog accro. She chose to challenge everyone to make a Biscuit Joconde Imprime to wrap around an Entremets dessert.

Due technical difficultys I am un able to get the recipe to copy and paste.

I made my project into a Tiramisu. I did the Joconde Imprime wrap as described. Then instead of lady fingers I used some of my broiche that I posted about below. I soaked the brioche in espresso and kaluha. I then made a marscapone mousse and alternated the brioche with the mousse. I let it set up then I took it out of the cheesecake pan and placed it on a plate. I had some gumpaste flowers leftover from another project so I decorated the project up and I'm very happy with how it turned out. I whipped this whole project out in about 1 1/2 hours total!

The colored part of my project. I colored the sponge part brown and put it over the circles.

The product only baked 10 minutes then I flipped it out on the counter ontop of powdered sugar and cut it up to fit in the springform pan.

Layering the broiche with the marcapone mousse.

Finished I let it set up and then topped it with cocoa powder.




A beautiful slice!

BBA Challenge: Brioche

This weeks challenge was brioche bread. It was definatly not your run of the mill sort of bread. I went with the Middle Class version after reading what Chris (http://www.akuindeed.com/ ) wrote about the Rich version

Making the sponge before and after the proof.

Once the sponge was proofed I added the other ingredients as listed and mixed it. I ended up attaching my dough hook towards the last few minutes of the mix. I put the dough on a parchment sprayed sheet pan. I smoothed the dough out and put it in the refridgerator overnight to proof. Below are the before and after dough pictures.

I formed the dough. I only had one brioche pan so I made one of those, I made a loaf pan and I used the remaining dough to turn into cinnamon rolls. This is the picture once I formed the dough, I covered with wrap and proofed for about 2 hours.

This is my brioche after it proofed.

This is the finished product.

This is the brioche cut in half to show the crumb. Overall I liked the cinnamon roll the best. The bread will make good french toast but the taste of the brioche did not blow me away. Maybe that is why Maria Antionette explained-let them eat cake! Which when properly translated is...Let them eat brioche.

BBA Challenge: Bagels

This weeks challenge was homemade bagels. I was SO excited to make bagels as I have never done it before. Where I live here in Wisconsin we purchase our bagels in the freezer isle or the refrigerated isle near the orange juice. Well...these bagels that I made were the best bagels I ever had in my life and my whole family agreed. Some of my fellow bloggers that are doing this challenge are from New York and they had different opinions on bagels. I fear I may not be a bagel connoisseur but when it comes to cheese.....

The sponge, it seemed thick.

The sponge after 2 hours.

This dough was VERY hard to kneed. I could not do it in my mixer so I did it by hand and it took about 30 minutes. My wrist were getting sore so my window I decided was good enough. I found high gluten flour which I think is why the dough was so hard. I did have to add some extra water as I was going along.

Balls scaled out to about 4.5 oz.

Bagels are formed.

Bagels a day later, after proofing.

Bagels were boiled then topped with seeds and baked.

The finished product, served warm

from the oven. Yum.

Thank you Chris from http://www.akuindeed.com/ for hosting this challenge.

Pat's Funeral Cake

This is the cake I made for Pat, the women who taught me to bake. I have been so upset over this. Pat had a great impact on my life and one was of the most influential women in my life. She taught me to bake which changed the course of my life as I have worked as a baker for the past 17 years.

I was at a loss what to write on this cake. I searched my Bible, I searched the internet. I prayed about it and nothing. As I was getting ready to leave to bring the cake and feeling terrible that I could not think of something to write...God's voice whispered into my ear. Though her sin's were as scarlet they are white as snow. So this cake represents in the white frosting the white as snow covered sin. The flowers represent that Pat is now in the eternal garden of God. Then...I was at peace.

BBA Challange: Greek Celebration Bread

This weeks challange was a Greek Celebration Bread. I went for the barm method which meant I had to make a seed culture. I have never done anything like this but I was up for the challange. The seed culture starts out in day 1 and day 2 adding flour and pineapple juice together

Day 1 Day 2

Day 3 Includes adding water and flour. Day 3 is the day I started to smell that sour dough scent and it was getting exciting!!!

Day 4 involves tossing some of the seed culture out and adding more flour and water. The picture on the left is once the ingredients were added and the picture on the right is after 24 hours. This is the day it started to proof.

Day 5 The culture had not proofed enough so I did some internet research and re-did the steps from day 4 to give it more time.

Day 6: It is ready!!!! The picture on the left is the final mix and the 2 on the right is after 24 hours.

Barm: Using the seed culture which is added to flour and water the barm is started. Cover it with plastic and overnight it proofed.

Ingredients including barm are added to mixer and kneeded until the window pane appears. After that the fruit is added and the dough is placed in an oilded bowl to proof.

proofed dough turned out on counter, cut, formed, and some put aside into the refridgerator.

The bread is turned into a round and some leftover dough rolled out into ropes and then placed on the bread in the decorative style.

Finshed Product, I brushed the glaze on the bread and topped it with sesame seeds.
For more discussion on this bread please go to http://www.akuindeed.com His name is Chris and he is hosting our BBA challanges. Thank you Chris!!