The Daring Bakers' May 2012 Challenge - Challah

May’s Daring Bakers’ Challenge was pretty twisted – Ruth from The Crafts of Mommyhood challenged us to make challah! Using recipes from all over, and tips from “A Taste of Challah,” by Tamar Ansh, she encouraged us to bake beautifully braided breads.


I love when a challenge is something I have not heard of and that was the case this month. I also love sweet eggy buttery breads, so it was a good month. 


Challah is a Jewish celebration bread that is traditionally served on the Sabbath. Fortunately I made two loaves and put one in the freezer, because if there had been only one there is no way it would have lasted until Sunday. 


The mixing part was very simple to do in the stand mixer. The braiding part was slightly more complicated, but like most girls who have ever had long hair (or even a doll with long hair), I can plait pretty well. I chose to do a 4 strand braid, but you can't really see that from the finished product because it over-rose and the surface tore down the middle when baked. I don't know what the technical term for this is but I think it happened because I proved them for too long. I was not too upset though because it still makes a gorgeous looking loaf. 


I made the whole wheat version suggested by Ruth because I generally like wholemeal (as we call it Australia) but I think for next time plain white would probably work better.


Thanks to Ruth for the terrific challenge and especially for including lots of interesting information about challah - I really enjoyed baking (and eating) it. 

The Daring Cooks' May 2012 - Bouef Bourguignon

Our May 2012 Daring Cooks’ hostess was Fabi of fabsfood. Fabi challenged us to make Boeuf Bourguignon, a classic French stew originating from the Burgundy region of France.


This was a great challenge for me just at the moment. Firstly the weather is turning colder here in Sydney, so a lovely beefy stew is pretty appetising. It also makes 6 portions, so I could use it to add to my stash of frozen dinners. I recently discovered that it is a good idea to not cook dinner from scratch on the same day I clean the house - it only took me 5 months of staying at home to work that one out. 


The version of Boeuf Bourguignon suggested by the host is what I would call elaborate, in that it required the beef, the onions and the mushrooms to each be cooked separately and then combined together. The recipe is based on one from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which it goes without saying does not steer you wrong. So I was happy to follow the copious instructions, although I did note that there is a BB recipe in Stephanie Alexander's The Cooks Companion, which is also very reliable, and quite a bit simpler.  


My execution of this recipe provides a good illustration of my life at the moment. I spent most of the morning weighing, peeling and chopping the various components, in between feeds and naps and cuddles. Then I popped the meat in the oven and headed out to playgroup. It was supposed to cook for 3- 4 hours, which is roughly how long it takes me to walk to playgroup, play and walk back. But it was a lovely sunny day, the playgroupies wanted to stay longer than usual and I was the only committee member there, so I had to wait until everyone left. Then little mister fell asleep on the walk home and as decent naps are rather hard to come by for us, I was reluctant to go inside and tend to the BB until he woke up. So by time I got to it, it had been stewing away for 5 hours. There was not much sauce left and the meat was falling apart but it was far from ruined, so I was happy. 

Rather fortuitously I had leftovers of two delicious starchy sides to serve with the BB. Some parsnip dumplings left over from this recipe. And some leftover swede and potato cake leftover from this recipe. (Just quickly, isn't the internet amazing? Is there are recipe that you can't find a link to these days?)


So a few hours later, after our bath-feed-story-bed routine, it was nice and simple to reheat, add some veg and there we had a pretty amazing dinner. 


I can't recall now, but it is likely that we got about three quarters of the way through the meal before being summoned to the baby's room for a little more settling. "I'll go", "No, I'll go", "No its okay, you finish your dinner." Life is good. 


A big thank you to Fabi for hosting this challenge. I will think of you on housecleaning days in the coming weeks when I am eating delicious Boeuf Bourguignon for dinner without having to lift a finger.  

The Daring Bakers April 2012 - Armenian Nutmeg Cake

The Daring Bakers’ April 2012 challenge, hosted by Jason at Daily Candor, were two Armenian standards: nazook and nutmeg cake. Nazook is a layered yeasted dough pastry with a sweet filling, and nutmeg cake is a fragrant, nutty coffee-style cake.


So I have missed a few challenges since my little man arrived 5 months ago. It is not that I don't have time to cook. I am at home on maternity leave and I cook pretty much every day. It is just the palaver of photographing, choosing and editing the photos and writing the posts that I find hard to get around to. Its also hard to find time to read the forums and look at other's blog posts, which is half the fun of the Daring Kitchen. 


This challenge was the perfect example. I completed the challenge on time, although only after a timely reminder via social media from The Procrastinating Baker (ironic no?) Yet here I am several weeks later still trying to get my post up. But I do want to continue with the Daring Kitchen though as I enjoy it so much. So I will try harder. 


This nutmeg cake was very easy to make. I whipped it up in under 2 hours after a last minute invitation to visit a friend. It was mostly devoured over a  lovely afternoon chatting with 2 mum friends. Breastfeeding is such a great excuse to eat extra cake.  


I love nutmeg but don't tend to use it very much apart from atop banana smoothies. So I was slightly nervous about using 1.5 teaspoons as it such a strong flavour, but it was not too much at all and next time I would even use more. 

Daring Bakers March 2012 Challenge - Tiger Bread

Sara and Erica of Baking JDs were our March 2012 Daring Baker hostesses! Sara & Erica challenged us to make Dutch Crunch bread, a delicious sandwich bread with a unique, crunchy topping. Sara and Erica also challenged us to create a one of a kind sandwich with our bread!

What a great challenge this was Make a yummy new bread and then make a special sandwich with it. I loved the idea when I saw it at the start of the month and thought I would have plenty of time to bake it and try out different sandwich toppings. Then suddenly I was reminded by a Facebook post from a fellow DB that it was the end of the month and hey I hadn't even started.

So that very afternoon I marched into the kitchen and whipped up the rolls. It's a very simple white bread recipe with a rice flour paste painted on top to create the crunch and tiger-like appearance. They came out a little dense but certainly yummy.

When it came to the sandwich I went with the amazingly creative approach of "what we had" - which was tomato, beetroot, avocado, cheddar cheese and rocket. I have never been a big fan of the salad sandwich, but with the sweet bread and a good slather of mayo, this was actually quite delicious.

Thanks Sara and Erica for a great challenge. I loved learning about this unique bread and seeing the sandwiches that others came up with.

Daring Bakers' February 2012 Challenge - Quick Breads

The Daring Bakers’ February 2012 host was – Lis! Lisa stepped in last minute and challenged us to create a quick bread we could call our own. She supplied us with a base recipe and shared some recipes she loves from various websites and encouraged us to build upon them and create new flavor profiles.
I think I have mentioned before my crazy love of banana bread. "Toasted, no butter" is pretty much my catch-cry. At times I have eaten a slice a day for weeks on end. So I was pretty happy to see quick breads as the challenge and an opportunity for me to broaden my quick bread horizons.
I had high hopes to make many different breads, including a lime version of this lemon coconut bread and a proper high fat "cafe-style" banana bread. But once again I must plead the excuse of the new little baby in my life. In the end I made just two versions, one sweet and one savoury.
The sweet bread was this zucchini bread. Sadly it was not "the best" and in fact was not even very good, but I did omit the chocolate (because I ate it) and reduce the sugar (because we had run out) so I can't blame the recipe.

Zucchini bread - Papa loaf and baby loaf

The savory bread was a stout version of this beer and cheese bread. I happened to have some stout left over from making a most amazing stout and coffee ice-cream. (I would very highly recommend that recipe, but it's not part of the challenge.) The stout bread was interesting and livened up a few dinners, but it was a little too stodgy for my taste.

Stout bread - toasted, no butter 

Thank you to our host Lis. Without Lis there would be no Daring Kitchen. Imagine! It was great to have a challenge that allows us to see the amazing creativity of the bakers, I will never get tired of that.

Daring Cooks' February 2012 Challenge - Patties

The Daring Cooks' February Challenge was hosted by Audax and Lis and they chose to present patties for their ease of construction, ingredients and deliciousness. We were given several recipes, and learned the different types of binders and cooking methods to produce our own tasty patties.

Initially I was a little disappointed with this month. Patties. Not exactly daring and certainly not a challenge. But what it lacked in daring it made up for in deliciousness. Anything that leads to three yummy meals in one month can't be cause for complaint. I made two of the recipes suggested by the host and then free-styled a third.

The first was zucchini, prosciutto and cheese fritters. Thanks to my Mum's garden's zucchini abundance and to Costco's irresistibly cheap prosciutto, I already had all the ingredients in the fridge. These are technically a fritter and so are poured and fried like pancakes rather than pre-shaped. In any case, they were yummy. I served them with a fattoush style bread salad for a very pleasing dinner.

The second recipe was titled Basic Canned Fish and Rice Patties. Not the most inspiring sounding dish, but when host Audax said it was one of his favorite recipes and he makes it regularly, I knew it would be good. And good it was. Simple ingredients that you would almost certainly have on hand, easy to prepare and really tasty. This recipe is a keeper.

Finally I made my own rather special creation - Thai Fish Cakes. These were inspired by, but rather different to, traditional deep fried thai fish cake. The ingredients were simply the leftovers from two dinners made by my partner Tom. The dinners were the rather incongruous Hot and Sour Rice soup from a David Thompson recipe and red wine braised rabbit from a Julia Child recipe. So when I was emptying out the fridge on a Sunday night and found one container of leftover fish soup and rice, and one of leftover steamed potato and carrot I decided to (literally) mash them together and fry them up. Hey patty! As you'll see from the picture, my patties were too wet and my frying technique poor, so the end result looked like a hash, but it tasted fantastic. Served with a little Sriracha on the side it made a great lunch.

So that was my adventure in patty land. Thank you to our hosts, I really enjoyed the recipes you provided and got a kick out of making up my own.

Daring Bakers' January 2012 Challenge - Scones

The amazing Audax Artifex was our January 2012 Daring Bakers’ host. Aud worked tirelessly to master light and fluffy scones (a/k/a biscuits) to help us create delicious and perfect batches in our own kitchens!

Scones are simple to make but Audax encouraged us to make multiple batches and really perfect the technique. This is a wonderful idea and I would have loved to do so, but a little baby is taking priority at the moment. I am just pleased that I managed to make two different versions, photograph them and do a blog post. 
For the first batch I followed the host's recipe and directions. It worked very well but honestly, anything tastes good fresh out of the oven and slathered in jam and cream. It was interesting to discover that I consider scones absolutely must be accompanied by a red jam - strawberry, blackberry etc, while Tom considers marmalade or apricot jam to be perfectly acceptable. 

Plain scones with the compulsory cream and strawberry jam 

For the second batch I made Flo's pumpkin scones. For any non-Australia readers, Florence (or Flo) Bjelke-Petersen is a former politician and wife of a well-known ultra-conservative politician, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen. I am not sure why, but she is also known for her recipe for pumpkin scones. While she is certainly not my cup of tea politically, I was keen to try her famous scones. They were tasty enough, especially plenty of of butter, but I was disappointed that they didn't taste of pumpkin at all. 
Thank you to our host Audax, who not only did an amazing job with this challenge, but contributes a huge amount to the Daring Bakers and Daring Cooks every month. Visit his blog to be amazed. 

Flo's pumpkin scones