The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession.
Tiramisu brings back a very exciting familiarity for me as this was just what I had been preparing weekly one month ago at the restaurant I worked! Yes, a very traditional Italian restaurant selling Cannoli too, remember? Haha! There is a very huge difference, though, between the recipe chosen for this month's challenge and the one I used at work. Ours are actually simpler in the ingredients used but still unique in its own way.
(My sponge fingers were really delicate, thus I brushed the coffee syrup over them instead of soaking them in it. I was very sure that it might melt within the 0.5 seconds in liquid LOL.)
Anyway, I'd been really busy the past few days and didn't got the chance to use the computer, so here's a very late post!
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The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes.
Tomorrow will be Christmas Day! Merry X'mas to all the bakers and foodies! ^o^ I believe most of you are in the festive mood of this special occasion! For me, though, I might admit Christmas day was only considered another 'date' in my childhood. My family never celebrated it and I grew up knowing Santa Claus does not exist. But maybe because I don't have much impression or any opinions towards Christmas, I actually don't feel that 'I have missed out a damn lot of things' either! Hey, I suspect I haven't even eaten a roasted/baked turkey before. LOL.
Until I celebrated my first Christmas Countdown with my basketball teammates (I was already 14 by the way), I realised that Christmas is a beautiful and extremely lively festival. (a bit slow right) That was certainly a wonderful experience for me but if you ask me, I think I'd still prefer to avoid every area that is heavy in human-traffic. Haha. I believe I am somebody who treasure peace a lot!
Staying at home to bake or just drinking under the tree with my small group of buddies suit me more :) We can still have our christmas countdown happily! You know, the extent of my displeasure for noise includes the noise sound of my mixer at speed 10! That is also why I decided that my husband-to-be should not be over-ly talkative....! LOL
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ICECREAM CANNOLI. LOL! Haven't you heard of that?? Of course it's possible, it's FABULOUS! :D
The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.
Cannoli are known as Italian-American pastries, although the origin of cannoli dates back to Sicily, specifically Palermo, where it was prepared during Carnevale season, and according to lore, as a symbol of fertility. The cannoli is a fried, tube-shaped pastry shell (usually containing wine) filled with a creamy amalgamation of sweetened ricotta cheese, chocolate, candied fruit or zest, and sometimes nuts. Although not traditional, mascarpone cheese is also widely used, and in fact, makes for an even creamier filling when substituted for part of the ricotta, or by itself.
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October's Daring Bakers' Challenge is hosted by Baking Without Fear.
Macaroons usually refers to a cookie made of coconut in the United States and a cookie made of ground almond, or almond paste in the Europe (called the French-styled Macarons).
Oooh..... I've been looking forward to this day - the blogging, the baking, the eating and the picture-taking!
(promise to keep this secret for me, yeah? i actually spent 10minutes thinking of what title to write for this post!! yes. i'm soooo excited - its my very first daring baker challenge!)
In fact, I also intended to make the macarons for graduation! (that is on 15 October, which is just one day after I baked them) Graduation's considered one of the most important event for secondary 4s, so I was quite worried that things don't turn out well (but still looking foward!!)
Anyway I used the recipe selected by our October host from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern.
Yeah, these're the very cute but feetless macarons I brought for graduation in the end! All sandwiched with chocolate ganache and I was really glad that my classmates enjoyed it :)
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