I made it!! My First Daring Bakers Challenge

Looking for a challenge/inspiration to do more than baking cakes and doing desserts, I end up joining The Daring Kitchen . This site was a result of two passionate people who loves baking & blogging - Lisa of La Mia Cucina and Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice . As soon as I joined, I knew I came to the right place. :-) They announce a challenge every month which has to be made by the end of every month. Not only they gives the chance to venture into the unknown, I get the chance to savor the yummy results.

The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England.



First of all, I have never seen or tasted bakewell tart! Luckily they had given snaps of the tart, so I could know that once done, my tart has to look like that.The tart had three layers - shortcrust pastry layer, jam layer and frangipane layer(I didnt know what this was till now).They had given an option to play around with jam layer.So I decided to go with Mango Chutney and Apricot Preserve.




The pastry layer was easier to make than I thought which made me wonder why didn't I make it earlier, but hey that's what daring kitchen is for :-)The Frangipane looked more like a sponge cake and even easier to make. The one which took all my time was the jam/preserve since I made the preserve by myself!! I made apricot preserve and mango chutney to go with the tart. Here goes the recipe.

Sweet shortcrust pastry
All Purpose Flour - 225 gm
Sugar - 30 gm
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Butter,cold - 110 gm
Egg yolk - 2
Vanilla extract - 1/2 tsp
Cold Water - 1-2 tbsp

• Sift together flour, sugar and salt.
• Cut cold butter into the flour mixture. Using your finger tips only, and working very quickly, rub the fat into the flour until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Set aside.
• Lightly beat the egg yolks with vanilla extract and quickly mix into the flour mixture.
  
• Keep mixing while dribbling in the water, only adding enough to form a cohesive and slightly sticky dough.
• Form the dough into a disc, wrap in cling and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Frangipane
Unsalted butter, softened - 125gm
Icing Sugar - 125 gm
Eggs - 3
Ground Almonds - 125 gm
All Purpose Flour - 30 gm

• Cream butter and sugar together for about a minute or until the mixture is primrose in colour and very fluffy.
  
• Scrape down the side of the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. The batter may appear to curdle.
  
• After all three are in, pour in the almond extract and mix for about another 30 seconds. With the beaters on, spoon in the ground nuts and the flour. Mix well.
  
• The mixture will be soft, keep its slightly curdled look (mostly from the almonds) and retain its pallid yellow colour.

Home-made Apricot Preserve
Canned Apricot - 2 cans
Sugar - 1/4- 1/2 cup
Lemon Juice - 1 tbsp

• Reserve 3-4 apricots aside.
  
• In a pan, add rest of the apricots with the juice and sugar. Since I bought canned apricots, I used an extra 2-3 tbsp of water.
  
• Simmer for 30-45 min until it's thickened and apricot breaks.
• Add rest of the apricots and continue simmering until they are breaks almost apart, but not completely.
• Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice.

Home-made Mango Chutney
Mango- 3
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Water - 1/2 cup
Garlic - 5 cloves
Ginger - 1 " piece
Red Chilli flakes - 1/2 tsp
Raisin - 1/4 cup
Vinegar -1 tbsp

• Peel and cut mangoes into pieces.
• In a pan, add mangoes, sugar, garlic,ginger,red chilli flakes, raisins and water.
• Simmer for 30-45 min until it's thickened. Keep stirring occasionaly.
• Once done, stir in vinegar and stir for 5 min and remove from heat.

How to assemble:

• Preheat oven to 200C/400F.
• Remove shell from freezer, spread as even a layer as you can of jam onto the pastry base.
• Top with frangipane, spreading to cover the entire surface of the tart.
• Smooth the top and pop into the oven for 30 minutes. The finished tart will have a golden crust and the frangipane will be tanned, poofy and a bit spongy-looking.
• Remove from the oven and cool on the counter.

Once done it sure looked like the one in the snaps they had given :-) As far as eating it, since I haven't eaten any Bakewell tart before, I didn't have anything to compare with, but well, it tasted good. That I could tell the rate by which it got finished. ;-)

It's Raining Red Velvet Cakes

Well,I'm listening to Madonna's song Jump and eating a slice of my red velvet cake. I could not have asked for more :-) This cake has been tempting me for a long time until i decided to take action and make it. Red Velvet cake is more of a celebration cake here mostly served for weddings. It has the distinct deep red color and with a white frosting make its so rich and unique. I was searching for a good recipe and then Joy of Baking came to rescue.

I followed the recipe,but I made some subtle changes/additions to it. I added baking powder to make it little more fluffy. Also I used half the amount of the red color recommended. The recipe called for buttermilk. I didn't have buttermilk, so as Stephanie of this site says I made the buttermilk by adding 1 tbsp of distilled vinegar(you can use lemon juice also) to 1 cup of milk. I intend to make cupcakes with this recipe, but ended up making a batch of cupcakes and a two layer cake. Honestly, I didn't have the patience to bake a second batch of cupcakes. But in the end it all came out well, which was what mattered.


Waiting to get baked!!

For the cream cheese frosting, I used a recipe found in a old copy of Ladies Home Journal magazine. Cream cheese is readily available in markets here. If you want to make home made cream cheese, you can try Ria's home made cream cheese



Ingredients:
For the cake:
Adapted from Joy of Baking

All purpose flour - 2 cup
Cornflour - 1/2 cup
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Baking Powder - 1/2 tsp
Cocoa Powder - 2 tbsp
Unsalted butter - 1/2 cup
Sugar - 1 1/2 cup
Eggs - 2
Vanilla extract - 1 tsp
Buttermilk - 1 cup
Red food color - 1 tbsp
Distilled vinegar - 1 tsp
Baking soda - 1 tsp

For the Frosting :
Adapted from Ladies Home Journal Magazine

Cream Cheese - 150 gm
Butter - 150 gm
Icing Sugar - 2 cup
Vanilla extract - 1 tsp

How to prepare the cake:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for cakes
  
• Butter two - 9 inch (23 cm) round cake pans and line the bottoms of the pans with parchment paper.
• In a mixing bowl sift together the flour, salt,baking powder and cocoa powder.
  
• Beat the butter until soft (about 1-2 minutes). Add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy (about 2-3 minutes).
• Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
• Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the vanilla extract and beat until combined.
• In a measuring cup whisk the buttermilk with the red food coloring.
• Add the flour mixture and buttermilk, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour to butter-sugar mixture
  
• In a small cup combine the vinegar and baking soda. Allow the mixture to fizz and then quickly fold into the cake batter.
• Working quickly, divide the batter evenly between the two prepared pans and smooth the tops with an offset spatula or the back of a spoon.
• Bake in the preheated oven for approximately 25 - 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cakes comes out clean.
  
• Cool the cakes in their pans on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Once the cakes have completely cooled, wrap in plastic and place the cake layers in the freezer for at least an hour. (This is done to make filling and frosting the cakes easier.)

How to prepare the frosting:

• Beat cream cheese and butter until smooth.
• Add icing sugar and vanilla essence and beat just until combined and smooth.
  

How to assemble the cake:

• Place one of the cake layers, top of the cake facing down, onto your serving platter.
• Spread the cake layer with a layer of frosting.
• Place another layer of cake on top of the frosting and continue to frost and stack the cake layers.
• Frost the top and sides of the cake.

Once the frosting is done, it's ready to eat!! For the cupcakes, some changes has to be done. The oven temperature should be 325 F. And bake for approx 20-25 min.



And I'm dedicating this to lovely Ria as part of her birthday celebration event. :-)

Chocolatey Cupcakes

This was my first attempt in cupcakes. I wanted to make cupcakes for a long time. And then I came across a very easy recipe, from my favorite Ina Garten's chocolate ganache cupcake. Watching her cook is such a pleasure. She uses simple ingredients and makes such beautiful dishes. I chose her chocolate ganache cupcakes this time. This asks for Hershey's chocolate syrup instead of chocolate powder or bar which makes it even more easier to make the dish.


Ingredients:

All-purpose flour - 1 cup
Baking powder - 1/2 tspn
Unsalted butter,at room temperature - 1/2 cup
Sugar - 3/4 cup
Eggs, at room temperature - 4
Hershey's chocolate syrup - 1 1/2 cup
Vanilla extract - 1 tbspn
Instant coffee granules - 1 tspn

How to prepare:

• Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line a cupcake pan with paper liners
• Sieve together four and baking powder.
  
• Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl light and fluffy.
  
• Add the eggs, 1 at a time. Mix in the chocolate syrup and vanilla.
  
• Add the flour mixture and coffee granules and mix until just combined. Don't over beat, or the cupcakes will be tough.
• Scoop the batter into the cupcake pan and bake for 30 minutes, or until just set in the middle. Don't over bake! Let cool thoroughly in the cupcake pan.

The original recipe also called for a ganache frosting. But even before I planned to make the ganache the cakes were finished!!