Florentines & Panna Cotta: Daring Bakers February 2011 Challenge

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.

After the prior month's outrageous baking challenge, I was happy to have some recipes that were a little bit more fool proof and low stress. At least, so I thought.

I had been wanting to make panna cotta for a while - for the prior month's challenge I had made a yogurt mousse using a vegetable-based gelatin, and I was excited to try this newly-discovered product in other recipes. As it happened, I was already planning on making a panna cotta for a friend's dinner get-together later in the week the challenge was posted. I had found a recipe for a buttermilk panna cotta, which I thought would have a nice tangy flavor.

Already being versed in the peculiarities of the veggie gelatin, I re-wrote the recipe in a way that I thought would work with its particular needs. I began by heating cream, lemon peel, and sugar in a small saucepan - sure, the recipe called for a medium saucepan, but I didn't think that would be necessary. The procedure said to bring it to a boil, so I let it do its thing on the stove while preparing the gelatin with my back turned. Next thing I knew, gushing sounds were coming from the stove top, and a billowing mess of frothy cream was everywhere. Fortunately, it provided a good reason for cleaning the stove and an even better educational experience of learning how to open the stove top for cleaning. Also, fortunately, I had some extra cream, so I could still proceed on my panna cotta mission.

To that end, I softened the gelatin and added it to the cream mixture and brought everything to a boil. It was at this point that the mixture should normally be cooled before the buttermilk and vanilla are added so that the buttermilk doesn't curdle. However, since the veggie gelatin is quick-setting, I had to act fast. I decided standing outside whisking it for a few minutes would be good enough. And then instead of adding the buttermilk and vanilla to my cream mixture, I added it to them (remember the small saucepan instead of the large one?). In any case, I mixed it all up and found that I had a quite a mess on my hands. It appears that the cream-gelatin mixture had already started to set so that once I added it to the buttermilk, I had chunks of gelatinous cream floating in a sea of purple buttermilk (due to the addition of the vanilla). I hoped that this would remedy itself as it set, and so I set the mixture in the refrigerator and crossed my fingers. There may have been someone I was trying to impress at the dinner I was attending, so I was going for a crazy amazing dessert, not a lumpy, watery, purple, mess.

I meticulously checked on the panna cotta and wiggled its pan throughout the following hours, and only got more and more worried as no signs of cohesion could be detected. I headed out for the afternoon and came back to an unchanged unfortunate panna cotta disaster. There is no evidence of this first attempt - consider yourself spared.

Fortunately for me, I had prepared for this and picked up the ingredients for the florentines on the way home. I decided to cut my losses on the panna cotta, and go for my attempt at dessert number two of the day. The florentines were easy enough to mix up, though the actual baking of the cookies took quite a bit of time. However, being in a frustrated baking state and nervous about how things at the dinner would go, maybe it was best I had something to focus on. I packed up the baked cookies and chocolate chips and headed to my friend's place for dinner to assemble them.

The cookies turned out wonderful, and everyone at the party enjoyed them, including the guy I was trying to impress. I had tried florentines before from Whole Foods and gave up before I finished the box, but these were way better.

I finished the panna cotta saga this past evening with the IF. We fashioned a panna cotta smackdown. In one corner, a panna cotta with agar agar, coconult milk, and yogurt...

...and in the other corner, Giada's recipe using the veggie gelatin.

The winner? I vote for Giada's recipe, but I'd add some vanilla, lemon, peel, and use less gelatin next time. The first panna cotta tasted mostly like thick yogurt to me - we added some berry sauce to make it more tasty. Overall, I found the veggie gelatin panna cotta to be quite smooth, while the IF reported small bits of agar agar that remained in its panna cotta - otherwise, I think both would work well, although the agar agar might be better to use in another attempt at a buttermilk panna cotta. Also, good to know, both panna cottas set much faster than traditional varieties - in only about an hour or so.

On a more personal note, in case anyone was wondering, I'll report that cookies can't buy you love. But then, would I really want to date someone who'd only want me for my cookies? No, no I would not.

Torta Della Nonna

After the January Daring Bakers Challenge, I was left with a lot of left over pastry cream. And not only did I have a lot of it, it was quite a runny pastry cream at that. Hating to throw away food, I began scouring the Internet for a solution to my creamy debacle.

Fortunately for me, I am not the first one to find myself in such a situation, as I came across a blog post, "What do you do with left over Pastry Cream? Make a Torta Della Nonna of course!" So, torta della nonna it was.

The dessert is essentially a crostata filled with pastry cream and covered on top with a solid crust. Since I had also been looking for an opportunity to make crostata, this all worked out perfectly.

I made the crust as per the recipe's instructions and found myself with a coarse dough that would not form together. After spending way too much time trying to knead it together on my own, I decided I would give adding a little more liquid a whirl, so I added about a tablespoon of water to the dough. Like magic, it all started coming together into the smooth dough it was destined to be.

I rolled the dough out - on a piece of plastic wrap as suggested - and had no problems with tearing. I had never used the plastic wrap technique before, but I think it worked well. After the bottom croust was in, it was time to fill with the pastry cream and cover with the top crust. Since the cream was so thin, it started to bulge above the top crust, and I began to have visions of disaster. I sealed the cream in as best I could and brushed the top with an egg wash.

The recipe called for the torta to be baked in a pan with a removable bottom - since I did not have one, I used a standard cake pan. The torta baked up with no problems, and I left it on a wire rack to cool. I attempted to remove it from the pan in one piece with no luck - I was irrationally worried that if I breached the crust the pastry cream would all come spilling out. Of course, the pastry cream had cooked in the oven and had taken on a custard-like consistency, so my fears were abated.

The final product was quite the looker. Unfortunately, it is a little rich as a breakfast, although that didn't actually stop me from eating it like one. I also brought it to enjoy with friends and it made a great dessert - eating the torta reminded me just how good homemade baked goods are.

I did have some dough left over from the torta, and I attempted to make some mini-tarts with a jelly filling in my muffin tins. This did not work out so well. If I were to do it again, I would roll out the dough into cookies, and then fill jam following Briciole's recipe for frollini.

Cold Soba Salad & Tempura: Daring Cooks February 2011 Challenge

The February 2011 Daring Cooks’ challenge was hosted by Lisa of Blueberry Girl. She challenged Daring Cooks to make Hiyashi Soba and Tempura. She has various sources for her challenge including japanesefood.about.com, pinkbites.com, and itsybitsyfoodies.com.

This month's challenge consisted of two recipes, a cold soba salad and tempura.

I teamed up with my partner in crime, the Inconvenient Food, to handle the tempura part of the challenge, as I get a little intimidated by any sort of frying and since eating all that tempura on my own would be a daunting task. We chose a variety of vegetables to use for our tempura: zucchini, onion, mushrooms, and carrots. We mixed up the batter and added the veggies, and once the oil was heated, in they went. We let them cool on a splatter screen over some paper towels. We couldn't resist tasting the first veggies to come out of the oil, and they were crisp on the outside and cooked on the inside, just like any tempura should be.

In the heat of the moment, we continued with frying, stacking our fried veggies on top of one another on the splatter screen.

This was a bad idea. Since the mass of fried veggies became one large pile, we were left with soggy, "limp and flaccid" (the IF's apt description) tempura - not nearly as exciting as what we had first prepared. So, lesson learned - next time we'd move them to a rack in the oven on one layer.

The next recipe was for the cold soba salad. I had tried soba before and remember not liking it very much, so I was tempted to go with another noodle. Nonetheless, I thought it was worth another shot, so I went with the soba - I picked a variety that was actually a blend of buckwheat and wheat since it was much more affordable than the all buckwheat variety at Whole Foods.

For a topping for the soba, I first made the egg pancakes mentioned in the challenge recipe. I had tasted these sweet egg pancakes before as a sushi component, but never really thought about how making something so delectably delicious could be so easy. It is just a mixture of beaten egg, water, salt, and sugar, strained through a sieve and cooked to be a thin pancake. I found that about one egg's worth (2 pancakes) was a good serving size per person. To serve the pancake, I rolled it up and cut it into strips.

I made the soba according to the recipe instructions, and it cooked perfectly. I also make the spicy dipping sauce, which was very tasty. I topped the soba with the egg pancake strips and added some toasted sesame seeds. I definitely enjoyed the soba, and I think it would make a great meal for an easy summer dinner party. Looking forward to making it again and enjoying it with friends!