The Daring Bakers - May Challenge

The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.

I must confess that I almost skipped the challenge this month. Partly because I've been a bit short of time but also because I was bit nervous about this one! I've never made any sort of pastry other than than a basic shortcrust and usually buy filo or puff pastry ready made. However, as this month we are blessed with two bank holidays I managed to find myself a window and told myself that the whole point of the Daring Bakers was that it was supposed to be challenging!

The first part was very straightforward. I needed to add a little more water to the dough than the recipe suggested but it came together very nicely and, after a few minutes kneading, I ended up with a very soft, pliable dough. I left it for a few hours to settle as suggested before coming back to roll it out.

This part proved to be my downfall! The instructions advised me that a few holes in the pastry wouldn't be a problem, however the large holes that appeared in mine certainly were. When I came to roll it up some of my apples fell out of the big gaps on one side and I had to hastily take some of the filling out and do a bit of a patch up job. I eventually managed to make sure all of the gaps were covered and manoeuvre it on to a baking tray.

It seems I wasn't entirely successful however, as a little of the filling leaked out where I had tried to cover up the holes. But still, the finished result didn't look bad on the whole, although looking at some of the other Daring Bakers' pictures I clearly could have done a lot better! I mostly used my hands to stretch the dough but I think I might have had more success if I'd stuck to the rolling pin.

Taste-wise I have to say I didn't love it. It tasted quite nice but that almost entirely thanks to the apple filling. The pastry was a bit chewy rather than light and crisp as I would have expected. In hindsight I'm now sure that I didn't roll the pastry out thin enough and therefore didn't have enough layers.

When recipes don't turn out too well I'm usually too disheartened to try again but I'm determined to give this one another go when I get the chance, just to prove that I can do it.

The recipe and instructions can be found here.

The Daring Bakers - April Challenge

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abby's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

As part of my foodie blog project I decided to join The Daring Kitchen. This is an online group for keen bakers and, more recently, cooks as a whole.  Each month both the bakers and the cooks are given a recipe to make and report back on at a later date.

This month the challenge was to take a basic cheesecake recipe which consisted of a cream cheese filling with a graham cracker crust (the US alternative to a biscuit base) and elaborate on it.  I have to confess I can't really take all of the credit for the final recipe I used as I decided to base it on a recipe I've been dying to try for ages - Nigella Lawson's Lime and Chocolate Cheesecake.

The base consisted of the usual biscuits crumbs and butter mixture, but instead of digestive biscuits (or Graham Crackers) I used double chocolate chip cookies.  These were whizzed into crumbs, mixed with melted butter and pressed into the base of a spring-form tin.

Then, to make the filling it was simply a case of mixing together the filling ingredients and adding the juice of four limes.  This was then poured in the tin and the whole thing baked in the oven for about an hour until the cheesecake was almost set, with just the hint of a wobble remaining.

The cake was left to cool in the fridge before removing it from the tin and serving.  

I have to say this recipe was definitely a big winner.  The chocolate chip biscuits added, not surprisingly, a lovely chocolate flavour to the base and the limes provided a wonderful balance to the cheesecake filling which can sometimes be a little too rich or sickly for me.  As you can see, the cake browned on the top a bit but it had no impact on the flavour as far as we could tell.

The original recipe can be found here on Jenny's blog.  Nigella's recipe for Lime and Chocolate Cheesecake can be found in Nigella Bites.