Yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake: Daring Bakers March 2011 Challenge

The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.

When I first saw the challenge, I couldn't help but think to myself how this recipe bore a striking resemblance to the December Daring Bakers challenge of Stollen, at least in appearance, anyway. Fortunately for me, it was a lot more up my alley. The recipe itself reminded me of a babka - a yeasted rich dough filled will chocolate and cinnamon sugar - except that this recipe yielded a wreath-shaped cake and was also filled with a layer of meringue.

The IF and I gathered early on a Sunday morning to take on this recipe. We began by mixing up the dough and letting it rise, which was a fairly painless process. The recipe aptly instructed that we were to, "...knead the dough for 8 to 10 minutes until the dough is soft, smooth, sexy and elastic." While I have heard dough described as elastic, and maybe even soft and smooth, sexy is not how I usually think of dough. The thing was, that our dough really did seem sexy - we couldn't keep our hands off it! We watched as our dough went through all the phases of maturity - unformed childhood, awkward adolescence with bulges and bumps all over the place, the shaggy frat boy stage, and finally, sexy and smooth. Once we set up the dough to rise, we began prepared the fillings: meringue, cinnamon sugar, and chocolate chips.

When the sexy dough had risen, we separated it into two, one for the IF - Hugo, and one for me - Bill (or Javier, depending on who you ask). The IF and I rolled out Hugo and Bill, respectively, and filled them with a layer of meringue, then the cinnamon sugar, and then the chocolate chips.

Rolling them up proved to be the biggest challenge of the day - first into a log and then into a wreath - as the meringue was bursting through the rolled dough. Fortunately, everything came together after baking. After another rise and an egg wash, it was into the oven for Hugo and Bill and what came out were two beautiful browned coffee cakes. Below, first Hugo and then Bill.

We couldn't wait to taste, and cut some slices of Hugo while he was still warm. In short, the coffee cake was very tasty. On the pieces we tried, no meringue remained after baking, but instead left a pleasant moistness throughout the cake where it had been.

Overall, I thought the recipe made a very nice dough that was fairly easy to prepare. The IF and I spent a lot of time entertaining ourselves while the dough was rising, but this could be a very nice cake to make while also preparing other foods or taking care of tasks around the house. While we stuck to the traditional fillings provided as part of the recipe, I could definitely see trying out different fillings and making this again for a tea party. Yum! I'm off to eat some more cake!

Ceviche: Daring Cooks March 2011 Challenge

Kathlyn of Bake Like a Ninja was our Daring Cooks’ March 2011 hostess. Kathlyn challenges us to make two classic Peruvian dishes: Ceviche de Pescado from “Peruvian Cooking – Basic Recipes” by Annik Franco Barreau. And Papas Rellenas adapted from a home recipe by Kathlyn’s Spanish teacher, Mayra.

While the Papas Rellenas looked very tasty, I just wasn't able to find the drive to make it this past month. Hopefully, I will find an occasion to make it sometime soon. As it was, since only one of the two recipes was required, I went with the ceviche.

I had made ceviche before, and in fact, after having some amazing ceviche at Oyamel in Washington, DC, went on a ceviche recipe search several months ago. Not finding much online, I discovered two cookbooks: Ceviche! and The Great Ceviche Book. For this challenge, I decided to go with the recipe provided. I visited my fish monger to pick an appropriate fish and went with the mahi mahi, since that was what he recommended based on the criteria that it be boneless and fresh. I am torn about the use of the raw fish in the ceviche with regard to parasites - I am very averse to using defrosted fish, but I'm at a loss as to where to find sushi-grade fish that would be suitable for ceviche. As it is, I took my chances, and I still seem to be doing OK.

I liked how in this recipe all the marinade ingredients were combined and then tossed with the fish and the sliced red onions were placed on top only for the marinading process - I find they give the ceviche too harsh of a flavor when diced and added to the marinade. Since the recipe made enough for two pounds of fish, and I am only one person, I cut down the recipe by quite a bit and saved some extra marinade to make another serving another day with fresh fish. In hindsight, I should have set the extra marinade aside before added the cilantro, since it didn't hold up very well already mixed with the other ingredients.

All in all, I thought it was a tasty ceviche recipe, and I look forward to having ceviche again in the near future.

Baklasagne

This post has been a long time coming, but better late than never. I had come across a recipe on Smitten Kitchen for "baklasagna," a lasagna made with fresh pasta rolled so thin that you would end up with thousands of layers (or at least seven, anyway) of lasagna goodness (like layered baklava). Excited about the recipe, I invited over my friend Rebecca (responsible for the beautiful pictures - a much better photographer than I am), and her roommate Jeanna to assist in the baklasagna preparation and to enjoy the fruits of our labor.

Being up for only so much manual labor, we used prepared fresh pasta sheets, and rolled them through the pasta machine to get them as thin as possible. For our lasagna fillings, we made a tomato sauce with fresh basil, sliced up some fresh mozzarella, and since I had chard from my summer CSA, we sauteed it up with some garlic and olive oil and combined it with some ricotta and parmesan.

Then the assembly began. Following Smitten Kitchen's example, we didn't boil the pasta first, and it came out fine. I think we ended up with 11 layers or so of sauce, fresh pasta, chard-ricotta, and mozzarella.

Once the lasagna was ready to go, into the oven it went...

...And out it came! In all its cheesy, saucy, chard-y glory.

I really enjoyed the silky texture of the baklasagna as compared to a typical lasagna, although I'll admit that it also sat a lot heavier than a typical vegetable lasagna. And the chard was wonderful in place of my usual spinach - I will definitely seek it out for my next lasagna endeavor. All in all, it was a scrumptious dinner and a great time with friends. And a big thank you goes to Rebecca for the great photos - hopefully she'll join me again sometime soon and I'll have more enticing picture to share :)