Caramel-Topped Flan

To be honest I had never had real flan before I bought Dorie's book. Once while grocery shopping with my mom I begged her to buy me a box of instant flan. I believe the box actually said creme caramel/flan. It looked so gorgeous and exotic on the box. Like my very own haute dessert.

Well, lets just say that it did not taste "hot" at all. It was gross and very chemical tasting. Never touched the stuff again. Fast forward 15 years ...flan? Yes!

When Dorie's book came out I was awed by all the gorgeous recipes. And towards the end of the book a flan recipe was present along side a stunning photo.

The first time I made flan was for my friend Lucy, who is a flan connoisseur, and she gave it a thumbs up. I asked her what she liked about it. She said "...I loved the fact that cream & the vanilla shines through." And that the flan "...did not have an egg smell/taste to it." But the best part she said was "..the generous helping of caramel!"

I made the flan again for a friend who was convinced that flan could never be a great dessert and therefore should remain in the instant jello aisle. Let's just say that we quickly changed his mind.

Print Recipe

Perfect Party Cake

It's that time of the month again. Daring Bakers every where are baking perfect party cakes. Dorie Greenspan’s Perfect Party Cake to be exact. This months challenge was picked by Morven from Food Art and Random Thoughts. And what a fantastic recipe! I have baked this particular cake a handful of times and I know I will be baking it many more times. Five more times to be precise. Yes, FIVE. I have 6 friends who have birthdays in April and 5 out of the 6 picked Dorie’s Perfect Party Cake as their birthday cake.

I was starting to panic. Not because the recipe is difficult, but what to do with all those leftover egg yolks! I finally settled on crème anglaise ice cream. A incredible ice cream recipe from Ina Garten. This will mean each of the birthday friends will receive a birthday cake and ice cream for their party.

As for the cake, I did not make many changes to the original recipe. The exceptions were the filling and not covering the top of the cake with coconut. I filled the cake with a homemade strawberry filling and then placed a large fanned strawberry on top.

If you would like to see more Perfect Party Cakes click here. If you would like to see the original recipe click here. The recipe for the strawberry filling is just below.

P.S. Unfortunately, I have to work today, so I cannot visit blogs until Monday morning. I promise I will visit and drool over all the perfectly baked party cakes!

STRAWBERRY FILLING:

1 pound of clean and hulled strawberries; quartered
½ cup of sugar
2 ½ tablespoons of cornstarch
The juice of half a lemon

1. Place the strawberries, sugar, and cornstarch in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat until the strawberries burst and start to look like jam. Remove from heat and squeeze half a lemon. Cool completely to room temperature.

2. Put the strawberries in a food processor and pulse until small pieces of strawberry remain. It should look like a thick puree with an occasional piece of berry.

3. Move strawberry filling to a bowl and cover. Refrigerate a couple of hours. Fill cake once filling is cooled.

Kugelhopf

Today we are going to discuss fears. Well, actually just one of my fears, but first lets see what the dictionary says fear is. Fear [feer] n. (plural fears) frightening thought: an idea, thought, or other entity that causes feelings of fear, irrational fears.

Have you ever noticed that some people (me) “fear” the weirdest things? For example, I have spent most of my adult life avoiding recipes that contain yeast. I have no idea why? I cannot even remember trying to bake something with yeast that could have possibly led to this type of trauma. Yet, the very mention of yeast has me grasping for my asthma inhaler. Why am I so scared of yeast? It’s very irrational. Which leads me to one of my New Year's resolutions: to face and hopefully conquer my fears.

You see, I couple months ago I joined a little group known as the Daring Bakers. In the hopes of conquering my fear of yeast. I figured, I have made this commitment to the Daring Bakers and I must bake whatever the challenge is. And wouldn’t you know it; my second challenge was bread, with yeast. Dang.

Do you know what happened? I did it. I baked bread. It wasn’t easy and the bread was ugly, but I didn’t care. (Most fights end ugly anyway.) And I won the fight ugly bread and all. Now that I am fearless, I can go back to all the recipes I skipped over because they listed yeast as an ingredient. That’s the real prize, all the beautiful yeast based goodies that I can now make. I still have a couple of “irrational-fear” fights left, (...ahem) French macarons. Oh, how I love/hate you. Eventually I’m sure I’ll win this one too.

The recipe for the Kugelhopf is from Dorie Greenspan’s book “Baking”. It’s a long recipe with lots of waiting around for the yeast. Which means you can go about your day without too much worry. It’s definitely worth the wait and it makes great leftovers. It's a simple yeast cake/bread filled with raisins and then glazed with butter-sugar-cinnamon mixture. Just divine with a cup of coffee.

Devils Food Cupcakes

Why? Why...do I always think I will like meringue icings? I never do.May be it's the fluffy marshmallow-y goodness that seduces me.The cake part of the cupcake was incredible.It was tender and moist with mini chocolate chips through out the cake. The cake is a definite keeper, but the meringue icing will never be made again. ( I hope)The taste testers at work loved the cupcake including the icing. The "tasters" felt that the meringue icing complimented the dark rich cupcake.The cake part is too rich for a traditional american buttercream, maybe an italian buttercream?I am definitely going to tinker with Dorie Greenspan's "Devils Food White-Out Cake" for awhile longer.