My Second Daring Baker's Challenge, and I'm in Love

I can't express how pleased I was to see this month's challenge. Marce of Pip in the city was this months wonderful hostess and she choose the sticky bun/cinnamon roll recipe from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread, a book that I couldn't recommend more. Peter Reinhart was my breads teacher back in 1999, and the man really does an excellent job of sharing his techniques and love of all things yeasty.

Now I've procrastinated this challenge just about down to the last minute. We are all posting this on the 30th, and it is the 29th at 8:30 PM. I have just mixed up my dough, and expect to be shaping these babies in about 2 hours time. I've decided to go with the cinnamon roll version of these, as I've already posted some sticky buns here on my blog awhile back.

The complete recipe can be found on Marce's blog Pip in the city, as it's very late here and I should probably consider sleep sometime soon, I'm just going to go with photos of the process and some comments! So, here goes....

This is the dough just out of the mixer, the bowl is lightly oiled as is the dough. This is a very soft silky lovely to touch kind of dough. I love working with enriched doughs for their feel alone:

After 2 hours and 45 minutes of bulk rising time, the dough looked like this:
It's a bit hard to tell from the shot, but it had indeed doubled in size, It just doubled more out than up.

After the dough has doubled, it gets rolled out to about 12 by 14 inches (well, it did for me, as I was opting to make the larger rolls):
I then sprinkled (well, it's more like spread, this is a lot of cinnamon sugar) the cinnamon sugar mixture over the dough leaving about 1 inch free of sugar so that I could seal it up after I rolled it:
The dough is then rolled up into a nice long roulade and sliced into about 12 pieces(for the larger rolls):
The pieces are left to rise, covered, for about 1 1/2 more hours and are then baked for about 20 to 30 minutes:


The icing for the cinnamon rolls in this recipe makes quite a bit, so I think next time I would only make a half batch of it. I have quite a bit leftover and I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it currently. I've found the best way (aside from using my hands) to apply the icing is to dip a fork in it and wave it back and forth quickly over the warm rolls (they should only cool for about ten minutes before you apply the icing). You can make whatever kind of pattern you like with it. I'm a big fan of the crosshatch:

These are delicious cinnamon rolls with a really nice hint of lemon flavor that cuts the sweetness a bit. Best savored with a nice hot cup of tea!

You can see how all the other wonderful Daring Baker's did with their challenges by clicking on the Daring Baker Blogroll link on the right hand side of this blog!
Happy Daring Baking, and a big thanks to Marce for this wonderfully relaxing challenge! And now I'm off to bed...

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Daring Bakers.....Yep, that's right, I said Daring Bakers....

Normally I'm not a big fan of gangs. I don't condone drive-by shootings or hazing or any of that sort of thing. However, every time I watched this "Gang" in action, I knew I had to get in on some of that. Any gang that thinks slinging hot sugar and beating butter and sugar into submission is my kind of gang. So, my "hazing" begins with this, my first challenge as a Daring Baker. Being a member of this gang means being able to challenge yourself once a month with a recipe chosen by a fellow Daring Baker. Everyone has to follow the same recipe as stated by the host. The nifty thing is seeing how each of us interprets the exact same recipe and how everyone ends up with something just a bit different from everyone else. It is definitely a great way to keep pushing one's skills and knowledge, something I'm very keen on. This month's challenge is being hosted by Veron of Veronica's Test Kitchen and Patricia of Technicolor Kitchen. They have chosen to challenge us with a Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart. Now, I'm not the biggest milk chocolate fan, but paired with caramel and a hazelnut crust, really, how can you go wrong? You can't! We were allowed a few changes to the recipe, the only change that I made was to use less cinnamon in the tart crust (I used half the amount stated in the recipe), otherwise I followed it to a T.

Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart from Eric Kayser's Sweet and Savory Tarts

Preparation time: 40 minutes
Baking Time: 30 minutes
Refrigeration time: 1 hour
One 9-inch(24-cm) square pan; 1 10-inch (26-cm) round baking pan

Ingredients
½ lb (250 g) chocolate shortbread pastry (see recipe below)
1 ½ cups (300 g) granulated sugar
1 cup (250 g) heavy cream (30-40 percent butterfat) or crème fraiche
¼ cup (50 g) butter
2 whole eggs
1 egg yolk
2 ½ tablespoons (15 g) flour
1 ¼ cups (300 g) whipping cream
½ lb (250 g) milk chocolate

1. Preheat oven to 325 °F (160 °C).
2. Line the baking pan with the chocolate shortbread pastry and bake blind for 15 minutes.

My tart dough was nicely chilled for rolling:

The dough rolled out quite well for me:I did have a few areas of the tart that I had to patch up (the dough got a bit warm before I was able to transfer it): The shell is lined with parchment and filled with beans for blind baking: The baked tart shell:


3. In a saucepan, caramelize 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar using the dry method until it turns a golden caramel color. Incorporate the heavy cream or crème fraiche and then add butter. Mix thoroughly. Set aside to cool.
Dry method caramel: Put your sugar in a pan:
do not stir it, just swirl the pan as the sugar begins to melt and you will end up with this: I did nuke my heavy cream a bit before adding it to the caramel, because cold cream and caramel just don't mix well (seizing occurs). Even with the cream already heated, it did seize up a bit on me, maybe that was the butter's fault, but I just let it boil a bit as I stirred:
And I ended up with a beautiful deep amber caramel:

4. In a mixing bowl, beat the whole eggs with the extra egg yolk, then incorporate the flour.
5. Pour this into the cream-caramel mixture and mix thoroughly.

6. Spread it out in the tart shell and bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool.

Caramel layer before baking:
And after baking (at this point I put the tart into the fridge to cool off for about an hour)
7. Prepare the milk chocolate mousse: beat the whipping cream until stiff. Melt the milk chocolate in the microwave or in a bain-marie, and fold it gently into the whipped cream.
8. Pour the chocolate mousse over the cooled caramel mixture, smoothing it with a spatula. Chill for one hour in the refrigerator.
My mousse was a bit on the liquidy side, but it did set up nicely after about two hours in the refrigerator:
The tart sliced nicely after being chilled:
To decorate: melt ½ cup (100g) granulated sugar in a saucepan until it reaches an amber color. Pour it onto waxed paper laid out on a flat surface. Leave to cool. Break it into small fragments and stick them lightly into the top of the tart.
Chocolate Shortbread Pastry

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Refrigeration :overnight
To make 3 tarts, 9 ½ inches (24 cm) square
or 10 inches (26 cm round)

Ingredients:
1 cup (250g ) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (150 g) confectioners’ sugar
½ cup (50 g) ground hazelnuts
2 level teaspoons (5 g) ground cinnamon
2 eggs
4 ½ cups (400 g) cake flour
2 ½ teaspoons (10 g) baking powder
1 ½ tablespoons (10 g) cocoa powder

A day ahead
1. In a mixing bowl of a food processor, cream the butter.
2. Add the confectioners’ sugar, the ground hazelnuts, and the cinnamon, and mix together
3. Add the eggs, one by one, mixing constantly
4. Sift in the flour, the baking powder, and the cocoa powder, and mix well.
5. Form a ball with the dough, cover in plastic wrap, and chill overnight.
This is how my tart dough looked before I put it in the refrigerator overnight:

All in all the tart was pretty good. I think the crust could have been more chocolatey. The caramel filling was nice, but I thought it tasted a bit eggy. Otherwise, I think this was a wonderful first challenge for me and I look forward to many more fabulous Daring Baker Challenges.

If you want to check out how the other Daring Bakers fared, and believe me, you do, check out the Daring Baker Blogroll. You'll see many many talented bakers with beautiful blogs!

Happy Daring Baking!

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