Daring Bakers August 2010

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”. You can find the full recipe printout here.

I went full throttle with this challenge and made both! And I didn’t even have to make 2 pound cakes. I made my brown butter cake in an 8x10 pan and the cook time remained the same. Then I just cut an 8x8 square for the ice cream petit fours and then used the leftover section to cut up for 2 mini baked Alaskas. Between the 2, the petite fours were my favorite. I mean, come on, they were covered in chocolate ganache! The brown butter pound cake was delicious as well, the scraps were delicious straight up with some powdered sugar. My only complaint being that once it was frozen with the ice cream it was too subtle a flavor to detect. That may also be because I used the leftover ice cream from last months challenge, lemon and raspberry gelato, both of which are pretty strong flavors. The ice cream sandwich part was not nearly as long or labor intensive as the recipe makes it sound, the trick is to just got a little at a time so the ice cream doesn’t start to melt. The Baked Alaska was divine with the lemon gelato, it was just like a lemon cream pie! It was great fun to bust out the torch too, I always enjoy that. :)

So thank you Elissa for a fantastic way to use up my ice cream stash!

It's the BOMB!

Boy, you don't realize how much you need electricity until you don't have it! So it seems I am now a few days late posting this, but better late than never!

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.-

Since on first challenge I followed the directions exactly, this time I decided to play a little bit. I was in the mood for something summery since the heat index has been over 100 now for several weeks. Lemon gelatto is one of my favorites and I knew it would pair nicely with the fresh strawberries I had saved in the freezer. So lemon and strawberry ice cream it is! I am one of the unfortunate few who does not have an ice cream maker (yet!) so I had to do this the old fashioned way, with a hand mixer and lots of freezer time. Bot ice creams came out good and creamy, but then again, how could I fail with David Lebovitz as my source?

 Since both of those were very strong flavors, I left the sponge cake plain with a whip cream filling. Just  remember for the sponge cake, never spray your pan, otherwise the sponge cake won't rise and it will be very thin. A small sheet of parchment on the bottom will do the trick. Instead of fudge I just used more whip cream in between the ice creams.  A few cherries on top and it was like a giant ice cream sunday. :) The sponge cake works wonders with the ice cream, since it really soaks it up when it starts to melt. This was a deliciously refreshing treat for the summer. Thank you Sunita for the fun challenge!