An Untraditional D(o)B(os) Torte

Before I say anything else, I have to give a shout out to two ladies. One is my good friend and partner in crime, as you'll see, Meeta K. of What's For Lunch Honey? and the other is the woman who regularly saves the day, the sweetest Frenchie (both literally and figuratively) on the Eastern seaboard, Helene of Tartelette. This challenge would not have seen completion without either one of these two ladies.

So why does my Dobos Torte not look like most of the other Daring Bakers' this month? Well, never one to conform, and sometimes for the worse, I used white chocolate.
We haven't been feeling very chocolatey at all here since it's been quite hot and sometimes very humid (for London that is, we're wimps we know), so I thought I'd try this Dobos Torte with a fruity spin. I halved the recipe to make two mini-cakes and used white chocolate, mascarpone and lemon for the frosting and fresh blueberries between the layers of sponge. If you've visited me before you know I have a fetish for this combination, and it seemed like if I was going to try something different than the stated recipe for yet another layer cake, I might as well be able to compare it to a previous DB challenge: Dorie Greenspan's perfect party cake.

I didn't take pictures of the process and, really, you should thank me for that because it wasn't pretty. Oh the sponge went ok enough, as I said to Meeta on twitter I didn't have time to bake each layer for one big cake, particularly with Baby Saffron, but I did have time to use a cookie cutter! She and I baked the sponges separately and then met up over chat to do the rest of the cake. We'd done this once before for the Daring Bakers' 2007 Yule Log, and just like last time, the conversation was a hoot and really helped to ease the process. Between her and her chocolate quark mousse for Soeren's birthday cake (7 years old!) and me with my lemon mascarpone mousse because we both didn't really want to use butter for the buttercream, exclamations of all colors flew and at one point she proposed, and I agreed, that we needed a stiff drink, so dry martinis with extra olives were poured and enjoyed, virtually that is.
My lemon mascarpone mousse didn't set properly which is when I resorted to a twitter plea for help from Tartelette and, as always, she came to the rescue. She is, as I have been quite fond of saying since I first saw her blog in early 2007, a Baking Fairy. If you haven't seen her blog which just got a beautiful new makeover, get thee over there now!
As for Meeta, she is a dear friend, a rockin' blogger with a beautiful blog, and an awesome person all around and I am better for her friendship. We have to do this more often!

The cake turned out to be meh taste-wise (and yes that is about as elaborate and articulate as I am going to be about that) so I think it's probably the kind of cake for which you want to actually use dark chocolate and stick to the recipe. And Dorie, well, she's keeping my heart for now.
Oh one more thing: About the caramel layer, I'm not sure I get the purpose of it other than as decorative, but I actually didn't make it with lemon juice as prescribed in the recipe as it seemed a bit odd to me to mix caramel and lemon, and it turned out just fine by adding a little bit of butter to enable it to pour out onto the sponge layer before it set.

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague. You can find the recipe on our hostesses' blogs.

Rainy Day Thoughts and Lemon Bars

You know how sometimes you read a blog entry and it sets you thinking very intently about something that had been crossing your mind occasionally?
This blog entry by pastry chef Shuna Fish Lydon made me think that there was something I wanted to talk about in this post.
Amongst other things, she makes the point that to cook professionally you have to want it above all else, you have to be ready to give up normal hours, and you should have one way or another of supporting yourself that isn't through cooking professionally (at first anyway because you'll be be a no-pay or low-pay gofer).
There are two things that I would happily do 16 hours a day. One is work in film post production and the other is bake. I've been fortunate enough to do the first and will go back to doing that as soon as I can leave my perfect baby with someone else, but I will never do the second professionally, and that's ok because I've been able to do one of these two things which is more than most people get to do in life.
Now, if you've drifted in and out of reading this blog for as long as it's been around, you might know that I was trained as an engineer in college, but I think that if I remember my posts well enough, that may be all you know about me other than that I'm married with step-children, a new baby, and a menagerie of animals. So here's something I've been wanting to say on and off for a while now. I do not come from a family of people who love to cook or bake. My sister is probably the only person in my family that loves to cook. We were always told to do something practical like be an engineer before we went off and did anything else because it was a solid foundation for whatever else we might want to do. I don't begrudge my father for nudging us consciously and subconsciously in that direction because, even though I hardly use my engineering degree in the way it was intended anymore, that sort of mathematic and scientific foundation is useful every day in a myriad ways (including when I bake). It is interesting to me though that I'm suddenly realizing that if I had thought it was an option back when I was 18, I would have probably wanted to go to pastry school. As is, I went to graduate film school instead and here I am, doing something I love for a living, lucky me. The reason I wanted to mention this train of thought now is because I look at my two month-old daughter (today! boy time sure does fly) and my step-daughter, who is 9, and feel like my job as their mom is to make it possible for them to do whatever they want to do and to let them explore every option if possible so that they too can end up doing something they love. That's not a very deep thought, I know, but it's so important to me I felt like I needed to verbalize it somehow.

What does this have to do with lemon bars? Well nothing really, I'd just been dying for some lemon pastry after seeing all these lemon desserts all over the blogosphere and baking them gave me a little bit of time to think about what I was talking about above. The recipe is from the Tartine Cookbook by Elizabeth Prueitt and Chad Robertson with some minor tweaks here and there such as a little less sugar and unrefined blond cane sugar at that (I try to replace refined white sugar with unrefined sugar as much as possible where allowed) and pine nuts in the brown butter shortbread crust which is an optional addition in the recipe (and which I highly recommend). I'd made these once before with Meyer Lemons and did not like them nearly as much as I liked these made with regular lemons (and here is where I confess to those of you who've read this far that I don't think I like Meyer Lemons very much because to me a lemon should be tart and acidic and make me pucker and Meyer lemons just don't do it for me. I know, I can hear the collective gasp from all over the foodosphere). I also didn't have a 9x13 inch pan to bake them in so the surplus from my slightly smaller pan went into tartlet molds for those of us, such as A., who can handle a bigger piece than a 2 square-inch lemon bar.
A new picture of Baby Saffron will accompany this post tomorrow. Gotta get back to her now, my little precious...

"Maman! You are such a doofus sticking that big camera in my face!"

Perfect Party Cake - Le Parfait Gâteau de Fête

Hello hello, I know I am absent these days, but one thing still entices me enough to come out of my hiding place, and that would of course be the monthly Daring Bakers' Challenge. This month it was Dorie Greenspan's (I am not worthy) Perfect Party Cake from her book Baking: From my Home to Yours and was hosted by Morven of Food Art and Random Thoughts (you can see the full recipe on her website). I have to say I'm very grateful to Morven because she allowed us to pick whatever flavors we wanted this cake to be. The original recipe calls for it to be a lemon-raspberry cake and for a while I toyed with the idea of making it a chocolate-orange cake, but in the end, if you say lemon to me, I say blueberry. (This will come as no surprise to those of you who have read this blog before).

FR: Bonjour Bonjour, je sais que je suis absente ces jours-ci, mais quelque chose arrive encore à me faire sortir de ma tannière, et cela évidemment est le Défi mensuel des Pâtissiers Téméraires. Ce mois-ci c'était le Parfait Gâteau de Fête du livre Baking: From my Home to Yours de Dorie Greenspan et nôtre hôtesse était Morven du blog Food Art and Random Thoughts (Vous pouvez voir la recette entière sur son site). Je suis très reconnaissante à Morven de nous avoir laissé libre de choisir les parfums que nous voulions donner au gâteau. La recette originale fait appel à un gâteau au citron et à la framboise, et pendant un petit moment j'ai pensé à faire un gâteau au chocolat et à l'orange, mais en fin de compte, si on me dit citron, je réponds myrtille. (Ceci ne surprendra pas ceux d'entre vous qui ont déjà lu ce blog).

It's fairly straightforward. You make cake. You slice the cake horizontally. You make buttercream. You layer cake, preserves, buttercream, and finish it all off with more buttercream for the frosting (you can add chopped coconut on top of the frosting but I opted not to). Since the ever so wonderful Dorie talks about adding fresh fruit and substituting whipped cream for buttercream in the Playing Around section of the recipe, I decided to layer lemon cake with blueberry preserves, whipped cream instead of buttercream, and fresh blueberries, then frost the whole thing with her lemon buttercream, which is a brilliant recipe by the way, my favorite so far and lighter somehow than the buttercream recipe for the Yule Log we did in December.

FR: C'est assez simple. On fait du gâteau. On coupe le gâteau en tranches horizontales. On fait de la crème au beurre. On superpose des couches de gâteau, de confiture, et de crème au beurre, et on finit le tout en glaçant le gâteau avec de la crème au beurre (on peut ajouter de la noix de coco sur la crème au beurre mais j'ai décidé de ne pas le faire). Puisque la merveilleuse Dorie suggère d'ajouter des fruits frais et de remplacer la crème au beurre par de la crème fouettée dans sa section sur comment jouer avec la confection de ce gâteau, j'ai décidé de superposer du gâteau au citron avec de la confiture de myrtilles, de la crème fouettée plutôt que de la crème au beurre, des myrtilles fraîches, et de glacer le tout avec de la crème au beurre parfumée au citron, dont la recette est brillante d'ailleurs, et que je préfère à la recette de crème au beurre que nous avons utilisé dans nôtre bûche de Noël.

Hitches: For those of you who know my crazy oven saga from the French Bread we made last month, well it turns out that this time the oven was too hot and my cake did not rise as much as it should have but domed and cracked a little at the top. Although I beat the batter quite sufficiently for it to be as light and airy as it should have been, since it was not, I think perhaps next time I might try beating the egg whites until they are quite fluffy before folding in the buttermilk, which should hopefully help to attain the sponge-cake like texture I was seeking (this time I just had to make twice the batter). No matter, A. said he actually preferred the crumb the way it was, that is quite a bit denser than it should have been.

Problèmes: Pour ceux d'entre vous qui connaissez l'histoire de mon four farfelu durant le dernier défi du pain à la Française, et bien ce mois-ci mon four a décidé d'être trop chaud et mes gâteaux n'ont pas gonflé autant qu'ils auraient du et étaient craquelés à la surface. En dépit du fait que j'ai battu l'appareil bien suffisamment pour qu'il soit léger et mousseux, puisque les gâteaux n'étaient pas très légers, je crois que la prochaine fois je battrais les blancs en neige pas ferme avant d'ajouter le babeurre, ce qui devrait je l'espère rendre le gâteau prôche de la texture d'une génoise (cette fois-ci j'ai fait deux fois plus de pâte). Ce n'était pas grave, A. m'a dit qu'il préférait le gâteau un peu plus dense comme celui-ci l'était.

I cut the cake in half before taking pictures of it so that the layers would be apparent. Anyway my decoration was so simple that it's quite easy to imagine what the whole cake looked like. The little sugar lion was an Easter gift from a dear friend and seemed appropriate to denote the lemon flavor in the cake.

FR: J'ai coupé le gâteau en deux avant de prendre des photos pour que les couches soient apparentes. D'ailleurs ma décoration était tellement simple que c'est très facile d'imaginer l'apparence du gâteau entier. Le petit lion en sucre était un cadeau de Pâques d'une très bonne amie et était de la bonne couleur pour noter le parfum citronné du gâteau.

If any of you know how to slather buttercream on a cake so that it is perfectly smooth-looking (I'm looking at some of your cakes, OTHER DARING BAKERS), would you give me tips on how to achieve that?

For more Perfect Party Cake Deliciousness, visit the other Daring Bakers here.

FR: Si l'un d'entre vous sait comment étaler la crème au beurre pour qu'elle ait une apparence parfaitement lisse (je regarde certains de vos gâteaux, VOUS AUTRES PATISSIERS TEMERAIRES), pourriez-vous me donner des astuces pour cela?

Pour d'autres Parfait Gâteau de Fête, allez voir les autres Pâtissiers Téméraires ici.

Tarte au Citron Meringuée aka LMP - DB January

I know I know... I haven't been posting. Mea Culpa. Life is a little crazy ridiculous right now with all sorts of developments that would take so long to explain here that I simply don't. But one thing never changes, and that is the Daring Bakers' monthly challenge. This month, Jen of The Canadian Baker challenged us to make a Lemon Meringue Pie with the pie portion of the recipe courtesy of Wanda's Pie in the Sky by Wanda Beaver, 2002, and the Tartlet recipe courtesy of Ripe for Dessert, 2003 by our favorite web chef David Lebovitz. You can see the full recipe on Jen's website.
Actually, you've already seen me make lemon tartlets without meringue on top, so for me this recipe was primarily a variation on the methods I normally use. I didn't want to get butter and/or sugar on my camera so I didn't take any pictures while I was making the dough; then I was afraid of pouring water or something else on it while making the filling, so the camera didn't appear in the kitchen until all the elements were ready for assembly.

Le French: Je sais je sais... je n'ai pas écrit de billet depuis un moment. Mea Culpa. Mon existence est un peu folle et dans tous les sens en ce moment et ça mettrait trop longtemps à expliquer ici alors je n'explique pas. Mais une chose ne change pas, c'est le défi mensuel des Pâtissiers Téméraires. Ce mois-ci, Jen de The Canadian Baker nous a défié de faire une tarte au citron meringuée avec les recettes suivantes: La recette pour la garniture de Wanda's Pie in the Sky de Wanda Beaver, 2002, et la recette de la pâte à tarte de Ripe for Dessert, 2003 par le chef pâtissier David Lebovitz. Vous pouvez voir la recette sur le site de Jen.
En fait vous m'avez déjà vu faire de la tartelette au citron sans meringue, donc cette recette pour moi était sûrtout une variante sur les méthodes que j'utilise normalement. Je ne voulais pas mettre du beurre et du sucre partout sur mon appareil photo alors je n'ai pas pris de photos pendant que je faisais la pâte; puis j'avais peur de verser de l'eau ou quelque chose d'autre dessus en préparant la garniture, alors l'appareil n'est apparu dans la cuisine que quand les éléments étaient prêts à être assemblés.

As you can tell, I made tartlets with molds, free-form tartlets, and mini-tartlets. David Lebovitz's dough tasted good but I found it harder to roll out to fit the molds and that it had more of a tendency to become gluten-ish and elastic than my fetish dough recipe, that of my boyfriend Pierre Hermé (don't tell A.).

FR: Comme vous pouvez le voir, j'ai fait des tartelettes avec des moules, des tartelettes sans forme particulière et des mini-tartelettes. La pâte de David Lebovitz avait bon goût mais je l'ai trouvé moins facile à étaler dans les moules et ayant plutôt tendance à devenir rapidement élastique et épaisse que ma pâte fétiche, celle de mon boyfriend Pierre Hermé (ne le dites pas à A.).

The lemon filling was pretty easy to prepare. It was the first time I was preparing a lemon cream that was primarily made up of water, lots of egg yolks, corn starch and very little butter. Generally, I make PH's lemon cream, which is essentially made up of butter and lemon. I know, I'm obsessed.

FR: La garniture a été assez facile à préparer. C'était la première fois que je préparais de la crème au citron essentiellement composée d'eau, avec beaucoup de jaunes d'oeufs, de la maizena et très peu de beurre. Généralement, je fais la crème au citron de PH, qui est sûrtout composée de beurre et de citron. Je sais, je suis obsédée.

Perhaps because I haven't made any French meringue recently, having made only Swiss meringue since the yule log, the meringue didn't appear very stiff to me; maybe I beat it too much, or maybe not enough, I'm not exactly sure. But I still had a good time decorating the tartlets.
The best part of the whole process was using my brand new mini-blowtorch which is, as I said to Meeta, my new favorite kitchen gadget.

FR: La meringue, peut-être parce que je n'ai pas fait de meringue française depuis un moment, n'ayant fait que des meringues suisses depuis la bûche, ne me semblait pas très ferme; peut-être l'ai-je trop battu, ou peut-être pas assez, je ne sais pas exactement. Mais je me suis quand même bien amusée à décorer les tartelettes.
Le clou de l'opération a été l'usage de ma nouvelle mini-torche de cuisine qui est, comme je l'ai dit à Meeta, mon nouveau gadget de cuisine préféré.

Overall, I found the dough to be pretty good but I still prefer PH's recipe with almond meal, an egg, icing sugar, a little more butter, a little less flour, etc...
The lemon cream was good too, particularly because it was pretty tart but, I know you already know what I'm going to say, I still prefer the coronary available to me with PH's lemon cream recipe, which tastes better in my opinion.
And I think that next time I'll make a Swiss meringue so that it's stiffer and that the egg whites are cooked.
In any case, it all disappeared very quickly, which is always a good sign...
I hope you'll visit the other Daring Bakers daring creations.

FR: En tout, j'ai trouvé que la pâte était pas mal mais je préfère la recette de PH avec de la poudre d'amandes, un oeuf, du sucre glace, un peu plus de beurre, un peu moins de farine, etc...
La crème au citron était bonne elle aussi, en particulier parce qu'elle était assez acide mais, je sais que vous savez déjà ce que je vais dire, je préfère la crise cardiaque disponible avec la crème au citron de PH, qui a plus de goût en ce qui me concerne.
Et je pense que je ferais une meringue suisse la prochaine fois pour qu'elle soit plus ferme et que les blancs d'oeufs soient cuits.
En tout cas, tout est parti très vite, ce qui est bon signe...
J'espère que vous rendrez visite aux autres Pâtissiers Téméraires pour voir leurs créations.

Mini-Tartelettes quand je suis invitée - Mini-Tartlets when I'm invited

Généralement quand je suis invitée, j'aime emmener quelque chose dans l'esprit de la rencontre, alors étant invitée à un apéritif dînatoire, j'ai inauguré mon nouveau moule à mini-tartelettes en silicone en faisant des tartelettes salées et sucrées. Voici donc le résultat des courses, qui comme vous allez le voir, n'est en fait que le rassemblement de parties de recettes différentes déjà publiées sur ce blog (à part la recette de pâte à tarte salée qui a été piqué sûr un autre blog). J'en profite par la même occasion pour participer à la quinzième édition de Hay Hay it's Donna Day qui est proposé par Trinigourmet ce mois-ci et dont le thème est les tartes salées et sucrées.

Anglophiles: Generally, when I'm invited, I like to take something in the spirit of the event, so having been invited to an "appetizer dinner", I broke in my new mini-tartlet silicone pan by making savory and sweet mini-tartlets for the occasion. So here's the result of the procedure, which as you'll be able to tell, is really nothing more than a gathering of various bits and pieces of other recipes already posted on this blog (except for the recipe for the savory tart dough which I took from another blog). I'm also taking this opportunity to participate in the 15th Hay Hay it's Donna Day round-up which is being hosted by Trinigourmet this month, the theme being sweet and savory tarts.

Alors dans le salé j'ai fait des mini-pizzas en utilisant une recette toute simple de pâte à tarte que vous pouvez trouver ici chez Estelle du blog Le Hamburger et le Croissant, et en faisant la garniture d'après la recette utilisé pour les melanzane, là.

Anglophiles: In the savory category, I made mini-pizzas using a tartlet dough recipe that you can find on Estelle's blog Le Hamburger et le Croissant (it's in French people) over here and using the topping made in my recipe for melanzane, here.

Ensuite pour le sucré, les mini-tartelettes aux myrtilles. Je crois que vous devinez que j'ai utilisé cette combinaison mortelle de myrtilles et de crème au citron, et si vous me connaissez déjà, vous savez que j'ai utilisé cette recette de pâte sablée qui est dans le même billet que celle-ci de crème au citron. Franchement, j'ai dû me contrôler parce que j'adore les myrtilles (n'est-ce pas évident dans le nom de ce blog...) et j'adore la crème au citron.

Anglophiles: Then for the sweet, blueberry mini-tartlets. I think you can guess that I used that most wonderful of combinations, blueberries and lemon cream, and if you already know me, you know that I used this sweet tartlet dough recipe which is in the same post as this lemon cream recipe. Frankly, I had to control myself because I love blueberries (can you tell from the name of this blog...) and I love lemon cream.

Voici donc le mariage... (et oui j'avoue que je les aime bien ces photos, c'est pour ça que je vous en gave).

Anglophiles: And thus the pairing of these two... (and yes I admit that I really like these pictures, which is why you have to see so many of them).

Et puis il faut quand même dire que j'ai utilisé cette cantine très sympa que j'ai trouvé soldée à 5 Euros chez Habitat pour emmener mes petites copines à leur fin tragique. (Apparemment au tournant du 20ème siècle c'était ce genre de cantine qu'utilisaient les ouvriers).

Anglophiles: And I need to point out that I used this fun little cantina which I found on sale for 5 Euros at Habitat to take my little friends to their tragic demise. (Apparently, laborers used this kind of cantina for their lunch at the turn of the 20th century).