June’s Daring Baker’s challenge was to make a danish braid. When I first saw the length of the recipe and all the steps, I considered dropping out of the Daring Bakers – it seemed like far too much work, and to be honest, I didn’t think the end result would be worth all the effort. Well, I can’t say that I would ever make this dessert again, but I do think it was worth making once.

I halved the recipe, since I couldn’t see myself eating that much danish braid, so I had enough dough to make a single one. It was easy enough to prepare the dough – I had no problems with it getting sticky, and the butter block rolled smoothly into it. I did use the cardamom, as it was easy enough to find, and for the first time, scraped out a vanilla bean, hence the little black specks in the dough. I didn’t do the five turns as recommended, but came close enough.

I let the completed dough sit in my fridge a bit long – the weekend came and I got distracted. Rolling it out was tricky, and I admit, i got a bit lazy and sloppy, not worrying about straight edges. The filling was a cream cheese one, with orange zest and lemon zest. I spread it on the dough, and topped it with fresh raspberries.

It was easy to cut the slits in it, and I thought I pinched them together well enough after I stuffed it with its filling, but half of the danish split open when it was baking. Its final result was named “pastry pig,” – I thought it looked more like the victims’ bodies in the movie Alien.

Looks aside, the danish was very good. I’m not a big danish fan to begin with, but that certainly doesn’t mean I won’t eat this one with delight. The pastry was very light, very crispy and flaky on the outside, and getting slightly moister as you get to the centre. It was slightly buttery and sweet – a really good, delicate pastry. I liked the filling – it wasn’t sweet at all, and the raspberries added a nice tartness and brightness. Next time, I would probably add a bit more filing – though maybe not, considering the explosion of pastry that happened to one end of the braid!

Thanks to this month’s hosts, Kelly from Sass and Veracity and Ben from What’s Cooking, for having me bake something I would’ve never done myself! Check out all the other Daring Bakers to see all the fillings, sweet and savoury, and all the beautiful danish breads.

Danish Braid with Raspberries and Orange Cream
adapted from Sherry Yard’s The Secrets of Baking

Makes 2-1/2 pounds dough

DOUGH (DETREMPE)
1 ounce fresh yeast or 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1/2 cup whole milk
1/3 cup sugar
Zest of 1 orange, finely grated
3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 vanilla bean, split and scraped
2 large eggs, chilled
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
3-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt

BUTTER BLOCK (BBEURRAGE)
1/2 pound (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour

ORANGE CREAM CHEESE FILLING
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
Zest from one large orange
Zest from one lemon
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Combine all ingredients in the stand mixer and blend until smooth. Refrigerate for at least one hour, or up until 24 hours.

DOUGH
1. Combine yeast and milk in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and mix on low speed. Slowly add sugar, orange zest, cardamom, vanilla extract, vanilla seeds, eggs, and orange juice. Mix well.

2. Change to the dough hook and add the salt with the flour, 1 cup at a time, increasing speed to medium as the flour is incorporated. Knead the dough for about 5 minutes, or until smooth. You may need to add a little more flour if it is sticky. Transfer dough to a lightly floured baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

(Without a standing mixer: Combine yeast and milk in a bowl with a hand mixer on low speed or a whisk. Add sugar, orange zest, cardamom, vanilla extract, vanilla seeds, eggs, and orange juice and mix well. Sift flour and salt on your working surface and make a fountain. Make sure that the “walls” of your fountain are thick and even. Pour the liquid in the middle of the fountain. With your fingertips, mix the liquid and the flour starting from the middle of the fountain, slowly working towards the edges. When the ingredients have been incorporated start kneading the dough with the heel of your hands until it becomes smooth and easy to work with, around 5 to 7 minutes. You might need to add more flour if the dough is sticky.)

BUTTER BLOCK
1. Combine butter and flour in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and beat on medium speed for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and the paddle and then beat for 1 minute more, or until smooth and lump free. Set aside at room temperature.

2. After the detrempe has chilled 30 minutes, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll the dough into a rectangle approximately 18 x 13 inches and ¼ inch thick. The dough may be sticky, so keep dusting it lightly with flour. Spread the butter evenly over the center and right thirds of the dough.

3. Fold the left edge of the detrempe to the right, covering half of the butter. Fold the right third of the rectangle over the center third. The first turn has now been completed. Mark the dough by poking it with your finger to keep track of your turns, or use a sticky and keep a tally.

4. Place the dough on a baking sheet, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes. – Place the dough lengthwise on a floured work surface. The open ends should be to your right and left. Roll the dough into another approximately 13 x 18 inch, ¼-inch-thick rectangle. Again, fold the left third of the rectangle over the center third and the right third over the center third. No additional butter will be added as it is already in the dough. The second turn has now been completed. Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes.

5. Roll out, turn, and refrigerate the dough two more times, for a total of four single turns. Make sure you are keeping track of your turns. Refrigerate the dough after the final turn for at least 5 hours or overnight. The Danish dough is now ready to be used. If you will not be using the dough within 24 hours, freeze it. To do this, roll the dough out to about 1 inch in thickness, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and freeze. Defrost the dough slowly in the refrigerator for easiest handling. Danish dough will keep in the freezer for up to 1 month.

DANISH BREAD
Makes enough for 2 large braids
1 recipe Danish Dough
filling of your choice

1. Line a baking sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper. On a lightly floured surface, roll the Danish Dough into a 15 x 20-inch rectangle, ¼ inch thick. If the dough seems elastic and shrinks back when rolled, let it rest for a few minutes, then roll again. Place the dough on the baking sheet.

2. Along one long side of the pastry make parallel, 5-inch-long cuts with a knife or rolling pastry wheel, each about 1 inch apart. Repeat on the opposite side, making sure to line up the cuts with those you’ve already made.

3. Spoon the filling you’ve chosen to fill your braid down the center of the rectangle. Starting with the top and bottom “flaps”, fold the top flap down over the filling to cover. Next, fold the bottom “flap” up to cover filling. This helps keep the braid neat and helps to hold in the filling. Now begin folding the cut side strips of dough over the filling, alternating first left, then right, left, right, until finished. Trim any excess dough and tuck in the ends.

PROOFING AND BAKING
1. Spray cooking oil (Pam…) onto a piece of plastic wrap, and place over the braid. Proof at room temperature or, if possible, in a controlled 90 degree F environment for about 2 hours, or until doubled in volume and light to the touch.

2. Near the end of proofing, preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Position a rack in the center of the oven.

3. Bake for 10 minutes, then rotate the pan so that the side of the braid previously in the back of the oven is now in the front. Lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees F, and bake about 15-20 minutes more, or until golden brown. Cool and serve the braid either still warm from the oven or at room temperature. The cooled braid can be wrapped airtight and stored in the refrigerator for up to 2 days, or freeze for 1 month.

Summer is still hitting us hard (not that I mind!), so we’re spending a lot less time in the kitchen. However, this morning, on my first day of vacation, Soli prepared me a fantastic breakfast that had me go straight back to bed after. Wow, I love vacation!

I don’t think there’s much of a recipe for this – Soli created it rather quickly. We toasted up some St-Viateur bagels, as well as popping a tray of fresh spinach sprinkled with olive oil in the toaster oven. While all of that was cooking, Soli made a mushroom duxelle made with chopped mushrooms, butter, smoked sea salt, heavy cream, a shot of champagne (hey, it’s vacation!), and some chunks of brie. With this simmering on the stove, he poached some eggs and sliced some home-smoked salmon from the fish store, Waldman’s.

In under an hour, we had this meal plated and then sprinkled with freshly ground pepper and some chipotal peppers. It was a great breakfast – the slightly wilted, roasted spinach was perfect, the salmon nice and smooth, and the cheesy, creamy mushrooms had me licking my plate.

Hello vacation!

I recently had to make a dessert that didn’t contain any gluten. There are lots of gluten-free recipes out there, but most of the time, they call for some gluten-free concoction of rice flours, and seeing as I’m not all that interested in investing the time or energy to finding and mixing up these flours, it was easier for me to just come up with a flourless dessert.

Or so I thought. Everything contains flour!

After picking my brain and cookbooks for a long time, I finally came up with the idea of a pie in a coconut crust. I figured a coconut crust probably couldn’t withstand a long baking time, pies like pecan were out. I needed a cold pie, something that would go well with coconut…so out came Baking: From My Home to Yours, and I prepared the lemon filling for The Most Extraordinary French Lemon Cream Tart. Lemon cream and coconut – how could it go wrong?

It was great. The coconut crust was very easy to prepare, and it tasted exactly like a macaroon, very sweet and delicious. I patted it down in an ungreased pie plate, baked it for about 20 minutes, and it came out perfectly browned and it held together very nicely.

The lemon filling was absolutely stunning though. The work it took was unbelievable though, and so I don’t know if I would be willing to put forth the effort again. I created a double boiler out of a pot and a bowl, and whisking the lemon cream for (at least) twenty minutes, while the bowl slipped around, while trying to hold a candy thermometer in there, proved to be more trouble than it was worth.

But the taste is fantastic! Not as rich as one would think, very light, tart and lemony. I found the textures between the filling and the coconut crust to be a little off, but their tastes complimented each other perfectly. I halved strawberries and circled the pie with them, and they added a great touch – I wouldn’t want to eat the pie without them. I was able to make two 9″ pies from the lemon cream recipe.

Overall, a great dessert! Perfect for these summer days!

Lemon Cream Pie with Coconut Crust

COCONUT CRUST
1 1/2 cups flaked sweetened coconut
3 tablespoons butter
1 egg white

1. Mix all three ingredients together.
2. Press mixture firmly into a 9″ pie plate
3. Bake for about 20 minutes at 325 degrees F

LEMON CREAM
adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours

1 cup sugar
Finely grated zest of 3 lemons
4 large eggs
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (from 4-5 lemons)
2 sticks plus 5 tablespoons (10-1/2 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon-size pieces, at room temperature

Getting Ready: Have an instant-read thermometer, a strainer and a blender (first choice) or food processor at hand. Bring a few inches of water to a simmer in a saucepan.

1. Put the sugar and zest in a large heatproof bowl that can be set over the pan of simmering water. Off the heat, rub the sugar and zest together between your fingers until the sugar is moist, grainy and very aromatic. Whisk in the eggs, followed by the lemon juice.

2. Set the bowl over the pan, and start stirring with the whisk as soon as the mixture feels tepid to the touch. Cook the lemon cream until it reaches 180 degrees F. As you whisk—you must whisk constantly to keep the eggs from scrambling—you’ll see that the cream will start out light and foamy, then the bubbles will get bigger, and then, as it gets closer to 180 degrees F, it will start to thicken and the whisk will leave tracks. Heads up at this point—the tracks mean the cream is almost ready. Don’t stop whisking or checking the temperature, and have patience—depending on how much heat you’re giving the cream, getting to temp can take as long as 10 minutes.

3. As soon as it reaches 180 degrees F, remove the cream from the heat and strain it into the container of the blender (or food processor); discard the zest. Let the cream stand, stirring occasionally, until it cools to 140 degrees F, about 10 minutes.

4. Turn the blender to high (or turn on the processor) and, with the machine going, add the butter about 5 pieces at a time. Scrape down the sides of the container as needed as you incorporate the butter. Once the butter is in, keep the machine going—to get the perfect light, airy texture of lemon-cream dreams, you must continue to blend the cream for another 3 minutes. If your machine protests and gets a bit too hot, work in 1-minute intervals, giving the machine a little rest between beats.

5. Pour the cream into a container, press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface to create an airtight seal and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight. (The cream will keep in the fridge for 4 days and, or tightly sealed, in the freezer for up to 2 months; thaw it overnight in the refrigerator.)

6. When you are ready to assemble the tart, just whisk the cream to loosen it and spoon it into the tart shell. Serve the tart, or refrigerate until needed.

First of all – our apologies for suddenly becoming very lazy in updating! With summer comes heat and a variety of other things that are keeping our appetites and desire to hang out in a hot kitchen at bay. The last two weeks have been hectic, hot and busy, and it seems we took a mini-vacation from here.

Second of all – we’re back, even if it is on somewhat of a reduced schedule, with a Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake. I just wish I had better things to say about it!

When I saw the recipe on Alpineberry for this cake, I was instantly drawn to it. A maple syrup glaze over a brown sugar cake? It made my mouth water.

Unfortunately, the real cake did not live up to my expectations. This is not to say it wasn’t good – it was. It was just boring. Like a very moist white cake with some chocolate chips thrown in. Even the glaze was dull…hardly any flavour other than just sweet.

If I were to make it again, I would have to make a whole lot of changes, because this cake offers nothing other than occasional chocolately bites. It’s a good base bundt cake recipe, as it is quite moist and perfectly sweet, but it can hardly stand up to all the other wonderful cakes out there.

Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake with Maple-Espresso Glaze
(from Bon Appétit, October 2007)

CAKE
12 ounces chopped bittersweet chocolate (or 12 ounces chocolate chip morsels)
3 cups all purpose flour (plus an additional amount for dusting pan)
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup (8 ounces/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temp
1 1/2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp maple extract (you could use maple syrup instead, which is what I did – just increase the amount!)
4 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk

GLAZE
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tbsp pure maple syrup
2 tbsp (or more) heavy cream
1 1/2 tsp instant espresso powder

CAKE
1. Preheat oven to 325F. Generously butter a 12-cup Bundt pan then dust pan lightly with flour.

2. Place your chopped chocolate (or chocolate chips) in medium bowl. From your 3 cups all purpose flour, measure about 2 tablespoons flour and toss those 2 tablespoons in with your chocolate. (Tossing your chopped chocolate with a tiny bit of flour helps keep them evenly suspended in the batter.)

3. Sift remaining flour with baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

4. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream butter and brown sugar until fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Mix in vanilla extract and maple extract (or maple syrup). Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

5. On low speed, mix in the flour mixture in 3 additions alternately with buttermilk in 2 additions, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Detach the bowl from the stand mixer and, using a spoon or spatula, fold in the chopped chocolate. Spread your batter evenly in your prepared pan.

6. Bake at 325F until cake tester comes out clean and the cake begins to pull away from sides of pan, about 60 minutes. Cool cake in pan over a cooling rack for about 30 minutes. Then invert cake onto cooling rack and let it cool completely before glazing.

GLAZE
In a medium bowl, whisk powdered sugar, maple syrup, 2 tablespoons cream, and espresso powder until smooth. If the glaze seems too thick to drizzle, add cream by 1/2 teaspoonfuls until the desired consistency. Drizzle glaze over top of cake. Allow the glaze to firm up before serving, about 60 minutes.

After a VERY long hiatus from Tuesdays With Dorie, I decided to make a comeback with this Tuesday’s recipe, French Chocolate Brownies. And wow! Am I ever glad I did!

These brownies are something special. They are one type of dessert fresh out of the oven, and something completely different the next day. I definitely like both, but I prefer them the next day.

Right out of the oven, they are very cake-like and fluffy. The taste is rather simple – very chocolately and not much else going on. Still good, but nothing different from your average chocolate cake. However, the next day, these brownies morph into something even more delicious and much more brownie-like: denser, richer, with a light crust on the top and a moist, sweet centre. Absolutely fantastic!

The recipe asks for rum-soaked raisins that are then flambeed…I didn’t have any rum, but I have rum syrup left over from the rum-drenched banana cake, so I heated that up and soaked them in that. The raisins don’t make much difference to the brownies – I didn’t notice them unless I ate one my itself. The brownies would still be great without them.

Other changes? I didn’t have 6oz of bittersweet chocolate, so I used what I had, which was 2oz unsweetened chocolate, 3 oz semisweet, and 1 oz of Nutella. I couldn’t really taste the Nutella – the overall taste of the brownies was simply chocolate. The cinnamon was barely distinguishable, but there. It’s good to know that these brownies are so versatile; you can pretty much use any chocolate you have available to you.

We topped the brownies with some vanilla ice cream and some salted butter, French vanilla caramel from Chloe’s (this caramel is extraordinary – heaven in your mouth).

A great dessert – fast, easy, and a nice, more adult version of the typical brownie.

French Chocolate Brownies
adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours

½ cup all purpose flour
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1/3 cup raisins
1 ½ tbs water
1 ½ tbs dark rum
6 oz finely chopped bittersweet chocolate (I used a combo of unsweetened and semisweet chocolate, as well as some Nutella)
1 ½ sticks (12 tbs) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
3 large eggs
1 cup sugar

1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 300°F. Line an 8-inch square baking pan with foil, butter the foil, place the pan on a baking sheet, and set aside.

2. Whisk together the flour, salt and cinnamon, if you’re using it.

3. Put the raisins in a small saucepan with the water, bring to a boil over medium heat and cook until the water almost evaporates. Add the rum, let it warm for about 30 seconds, turn off the heat, stand back and ignite the rum. Allow the flames to die down, and set the raisins aside until needed.

4. Put the chocolate in a heatproof bowl and set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Slowly and gently melt the chocolate, stirring occasionally. Remove the bowl from the saucepan and add the butter, stirring so that it melts. It’s important that the chocolate and butter not get very hot. However, if the butter is not melting, you can put the bowl back over the still-hot water for a minute. If you’ve got a couple of little bits of unmelted butter, leave them—it’s better to have a few bits than to overheat the whole. Set the chocolate aside for the moment.

5. Working with a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until they are thick and pale, about 2 minutes. Lower the mixer speed and pour in the chocolate-butter, mixing only until it is incorporated—you’ll have a thick, creamy batter. Add the dry ingredients and mix at low speed for about 30 seconds—the dry ingredients won’t be completely incorporated and that’s fine. Finish folding in the dry ingredients by hand with a rubber spatula, then fold in the raisins along with any liquid remaining in the pan.

6. Scrape the batter into the pan and bake 50 to 60 minutes, or until the top is dry and crackled and a knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and allow the brownies to cool to warm or room temperature.

7. Carefully lift the brownies out of the pan, using the foil edges as handles, and transfer to a cutting board. With a long-bladed knife, cut the brownies into 16 squares, each roughly 2 inches on a side, taking care not to cut through the foil.