My First Challenge With Daring Bakers- Nutty, Toasty, Creamy and Cool

August 2010 Daring Bakers Challenge- Nutty, Toasty, Creamy and Cool


Baked Alaska

 This is my first challenge with Daring Bakers, I don't know we need any introduction about Daring Bakers any food blogger or non-food bloggers who is interested in baking will definitely know about Daring Bakers. Even before blogging I used wait for every month Daring Bakers challenge to see the recipes they come up with.
 Daring Bakers was started by two lovely ladies Lisa and Ivonne, when they first challenged themselves for baking Pretzels in back 2009, now Daring Baking  has members all over the world to try something new once a month in their kitchen.
Petit Fours

  This month the challenge is brought to us by Elissa of 17 and baking. You can understand how young she is from the title of her blog. This young, talented cook has given us some amazing challenge for this month.
 There are two desserts in the challenge, and we have been given a option to make any one of them. Since this is my first challenge, I went ahead and made two of them.
  Our challenge for this month is Baked Alaska and Petit Fours. I never made either of these desserts. Baked Alaska is always been a challenge to me, I never dared to try that, but with Elissa's step by step clear instructions I managed to get it right.
  Actually I'm bit busy today, so I have to be really quick so my pictures are not that appealing and I haven't given step by step pictures. Okay now let's get straight into the recipe now.
For Baked Alaska you need:

• Cake Base
• Ice cream
• Meringue

For the Petit Fours you need:

• Cake
• Ice cream
• Chocolate glaze

For both the desserts same cake and ice cream, so I'll start the recipe with cake and ice cream, then we'll look for assembling instructions.

Browned Butter Cake:

Ingredients:

19 tablespoons (9.5 oz) (275g) unsalted (sweet) butter
2 cups (200g) sifted cake flour (not self-rising; sift before measuring) (See “Note” section for cake flour substitution)
1 teaspoon (5g) baking powder
1/2 teaspoon (3g) salt
1/2 cup (110g) packed light brown sugar
1/3 (75g) cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F/160°C and put a rack in the center. Butter and flour a 9”x9” (23cmx23cm) square pan.

2. Place the butter in a 10” (25cm) skillet over medium heat. Brown the butter until the milk solids are a dark chocolate brown and the butter smells nutty. (Don’t take your eyes off the butter in case it burns.) Pour into a shallow bowl and chill in the freezer until just congealed, 15-30 minutes.

3. Whisk together cake flour, baking powder, and salt.

4. Beat the brown butter, light brown sugar, and granulated sugar in an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well, and then the vanilla extract.

5. Stir in the flour mixture at low speed until just combined.

6. Scrape the batter into the greased and floured 9”x9” (23cmx23cm) square pan. Smooth the top with a rubber spatula and rap the pan on the counter. Bake until golden brown on top and when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 25 minutes.

7. Cool in the pan 10 minutes. Run a knife along the edge and invert right-side-up onto a cooling rack to cool completely. 

Stawberry Icecream

Ingredients:
Light cream- 300 ml
Milk- 300 ml
Egg yolks- 3
Sugar- 200 g
Cornflour-1 tsp
Strawberries- 150 g( pureed)

Method:
Beat the egg yolks , sugar and cornflour until thick and creamy. The sugar has to completely dissolve in the mixture. Combine the milk and cream together and heat it just under boiling point. At this stage immediately pour the milk into the egg mixture little by little whisking continuously.

 Once it's well combined, return the mixture to the heat again and heat it in medium to low heat whisking continously until the mixture coats the back of the spoon.
 Remove it from heat and let it cool down completely. Then add the puréed strawberries and stir well. Churn in the ice cream machine according to your machine instructions.
Allow it to set in the freezer until required.

For Assembling:

For Baked Alaska:

For Baked Alaska cut a circle out of the cake using a tea cup. Line the inside of the tea cup with a cling film hanging outside, fill the cup with ice cream and cover the edges, freeze it completely.
Take the ice cream after it's completely frozen, pull the cling film out and remove it from the cling film and flip it upside down.
For making 1 tea cup Alaska you'll need two eggs whites for meringue layer.
Meringue:
Egg whites- 2
Sugar- 50 g
Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks forms , add the sugar little by little and keep whisking until stiff peaks form.
 Spread the meringue layer on top of ice cream layer using a spatula or using a piping bag. Bake it in the preheated oven at maximum temperature until it's slightly brown on top. Serve immediately.

For Petit Fours:
For the Chocolate Glaze;
I din't use any cream I just melted 200 g of dark chocolate and white chocolate.

Cut the cake into half, spread the ice cream layer, i also sliced some strawberries and placed them in the middle and top it with the remaining half. Cover tightly with a cling film and freeze it overnight. Cut the into squares and dip it in the melted chocolate. Serve immediately.
Both the desserts were amazing, have fun in making them.