Daring Bakers June 2011 - Baklava

Erica of Erica’s Edibles was our host for the Daring Baker’s June challenge. Erica challenged us to be truly DARING by making homemade phyllo dough and then to use that homemade dough to make Baklava.

My baklava was a disaster! Except that I had fun making it, it tasted yummy and we loved eating it. So not that much of a disaster.

I was thrilled when this challenge was revealed because (a) I love baklava and (b) I knew home-made filo pastry would be very challenging. I was right about that. After hours of rolling and holey dough and even some tears of frustration, I learned one very important lesson – never, ever try to make your own filo! In all seriousness, I am glad I tried it and I would urge all the more talented cooks out there to give it a go, but next time I will go back to store-bought pastry.

Where do I start with my problems? Not with the dough – that was great. My beloved mixer made light work of the kneading and the dough looked perfect. But when it came to rolling, things went rapidly down hill. I didn't use a dowel and I am sure that would have helped. I tried both my rolling pins and I used a lot of flour, but it just wouldn't go thin enough. Before it got anywhere near translucent it would tear. And every time I tried to pick it up it would also tear. And after it had been rolled out once, it turned hard and refused to be rolled again. And then the leaves started sticking together. And even though I doubled the recipe and rolled for hours, I only ended up with 10 useable pieces. Sigh.

The end result probably shouldn't even be called baklava. My pastry layers were not light or crisp or flaky. More like dense and hard and chewy. But hey, how wrong can you go with all those nuts and all that butter and honey? The flavour was still lovely, we ate the whole tray and I will happily use this recipe again. With store-bought filo.

Thank you Erica for the excellent challenge, a really great choice.

Filo pastry dough:

Ingredients:

185 gm plain flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

105 ml water, plus more if needed

2 tablespoons vegetable oil, plus additional for coating the dough

1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar

Directions:

1. In the bowl of your stand mixer combine flour and salt

2. Mix with paddle attachment

3. Combine water, oil and vinegar in a small bowl.

4. Add water & oil mixture with mixer on low speed, mix until you get a soft dough, if it appears dry add a little more water

5. Change to the dough hook and knead approximately 10 minutes. You will end up with beautiful smooth dough.

6. Remove the dough from mixer and continue to knead by hand for 2 more minutes. Pick up the dough and through it down hard on the counter a few times during the kneading process.

7. Shape the dough into a ball and lightly cover with oil

8. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and let rest 90 minutes

Rolling the Filo

1. Unwrap your dough and cut off a chunk slightly larger than a golf ball. While you are rolling be sure to keep the other dough covered so it doesn’t dry out.

2. Be sure to flour your hands, rolling pin and counter. As you roll you will need to keep adding, don’t worry, you can’t over-flour.

3. Roll out the dough a bit to flatten it out.

4. Wrap the dough around your rolling pin/dowel

5. Roll back and forth quickly with the dough remaining on the dowel

6. Remove; notice how much bigger it is!

7. Rotate and repeat until it is as thin as you can it. Don’t worry if you get rips in the dough, as long as you have one perfect one for the top you will never notice.

8. When you get it as thin as you can with the rolling pin, carefully pick it up with well floured hands and stretch it on the backs of your hands as you would a pizza dough, just helps make it that much thinner. Roll out your dough until it is transparent. NOTE: you will not get it as thin as the frozen phyllo dough you purchase at the store, it is made by machine

9. Set aside on a well-floured surface. Repeat the process until your dough is used up. Between each sheet again flower well. You will not need to cover your dough with a wet cloth, as you do with boxed dough, it is moist enough that it will not try out.

Baklava

Adapted from Alton Brown, The Food Network

Ingredients

For the syrup:

· 1 1/4 cups honey

· 1 1/4 cups water

· 1 1/4 cups sugar

· 1 cinnamon stick

· 1 (2-inch/50 mm) piece fresh citrus peel

· a few cloves or a pinch or ground clove

When you put your baklava in the oven start making your syrup. When you combine the two, one of them needs to be hot

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients in a medium pot over medium high heat. Stir occasionally until sugar has dissolved

2. Boil for 10 minutes, stir occasionally.

3. Once boiled for 10 minutes remove from heat and strain cinnamon stick and lemon, allow to cool as baklava cooks

For the Filling:

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

A pinch of allspice

170 gm blanched almonds

155 gm raw or roasted walnuts

140 gm roasted pistachios

2/3 cup sugar

phyllo dough (see recipe above)

125g melted butter

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to moderate 180°C

2. Combine nuts, sugar and spices in a food processor and pulse until finely chopped. If you do not have a food processor chop with a sharp knife as fine as you can. Set aside.

3. Trim your phyllo sheets to fit in your pan

4. Brush bottom of pan with butter and place first phyllo sheet

5. Brush the first phyllo sheet with butter and repeat approximately 5 times ending with butter.

6. Sprinkle 1/3 of the nut mixture on top

7. Continue layering phyllo and buttering repeating 4 times

8. Sprinkle 1/3 of the nut mixture on top

9. Continue layering phyllo and buttering repeating 4 times

10. Sprinkle 1/3 of the nut mixture on top

11. Continue layering and buttering phyllo 5 more times. On the top layer, make sure you have a piece of phyllo with no holes if possible, just looks better.

12. Once you have applied the top layer tuck in all the edges to give a nice appearance.

13. With a Sharp knife score your baklava in desired shapes and number of pieces. If you can't cut all the ways through don’t worry you will cut again later. A 9x9 pan cuts nicely into 30 pieces. Then brush with a generous layer of butter making sure to cover every area and edge

14. Bake for approximately 30 minutes; remove from oven and cut again this time all the way through. Continue baking for another 30 minutes.

15. When baklava is cooked remove from oven and pour the cooled (will still be warmish) syrup evenly over the top, taking care to cover all surfaces when pouring. It looks like it is a lot but over night the syrup will soak into the baklava creating a beautifully sweet and wonderfully textured baklava!

16. Allow to cool to room temperature. Once cooled cover and store at room temperature. Allow the baklava to sit overnight to absorb the syrup.

17. Serve at room temperature

Healthy Potato Salads - Daring Cook Challenge June 2011

To be honest, I was disappointed when this months challenge was revealed. Potato salad?!? What is so daring about that? Also it was a competition to come up with a recipe, which I am not very good at. Oh well, I thought, I'll make a couple of potato salads, we'll eat them, I'll post and then we can move onto next month. So I turned to some of my favorite cookbooks for healthy potato salad inspiration.

The first was Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Everyday. I am one of the legion of fans of Heidi's natural food-focused blog 101 Cookbooks and in her new book I found a recipe for Broccoli Gribiche. Her description in the head-note - Think French-dressed egg salad, meets potato salad, punctuated by plenty of broccoli - had my mouth watering and the end result was terrific. The dressing is a gribiche sauce - hard-boiled egg, vinegar, mustard, capers, shallots and herbs. So its healthier than mayo, but with that nice vinegar tang you expect from potato salad.

So far so good. The second recipe I tried was from Karen Martini's Where the Heart Is. Karen Martini is not known for healthy cooking. Even I have been known to gasp at the amount of fat and sugar in some of her recipes, but I cook them a lot and they are always super tasty. We had some dill left over so I was drawn to the Warm potato, Dill, Caper and Mustard salad. The vinegar, mustard and lemon juice dressing is added to well-boiled potato when they are still hot. The end result was a lovely creamy texture, once again without mayo. Win.

So after two successes, I deciding to get daring and come up with my own healthy potato salad. I loved the texture of the baked potato in the first salad I made. And I have been mad for this tahini salad dressing the past few weeks, so I knew I would use that. Then I just brainstormed for other ingredients that are healthy but totally delicious, and came up with avocado, edaname and beetroot.

I gotta say, for someone who doesn't make up her own recipes very often, I killed it. This was a seriously yummy salad and it is about as healthy as they come. I actually proud to submit my baby to the competition and I hope someone out there will try it and like it as much as we did.

Ingredients

4 medium potatoes, skin on, cut into 2cm cubes

1 Tsp olive oil

2 beetroots

1 avocado

1 cup frozen edaname (soy beans)

2 Tbs tahini

1 Tbs lemon juice

2 tsp dijon mustard

1 tsp soy sauce

Directions

Heat oven to 180

Wrap beetroot together in foil and seal well. Place on a tray and roast in oven for 1 hour.

Combine potatoes with olive oil in a baking tray and season well with salt and pepper.

Roast potatoes in oven with beetroot for around 45 minutes, stirring several times.

Cook edaname in boiling water or microwave for around 2 minutes and drain well.

To make dressing, combine tahini, lemon juice, dijon and soy sauce in a jar with a lid and shake until creamy. You may want to thin it a little with hot water and shake again.

Peel and dice the cooled beetroot and the avocado. Combine the cooled potatoes, diced beetroot, edaname and avocado in a bowl and drizzle over a generous amount of tahini dressing.

You can stir the salad at the point if you like, but the bossy beetroot will turn everything pink.

Fish Cake

My brother loves fishing and I like making silly cakes. He was only turning 41 but I have ever made him a cake before, so it was a good excuse. Here he is blowing out the candles with his daughter. Dad in the background also capturing the moment as ever.

Mesquite Brownies

I hope that this is the mesquite brownie recipe you have been looking for.

Last year I found myself with most of a box of mesquite flour and no idea what to do with it. I had gone to some trouble to source the mesquite flour because I wanted to make the chocolate chip cookies in Heidi Swanson's book Super Natural Cooking. The cookies were great, but then I had a box of expensive native American super-food to use up. As mesquite flour is somewhat cocoa-like and I love brownies, I searched for a mesquite brownie recipe. I found a couple and even made one, but it wasn't memorable.

I took to using the mesquite flour a tablespoon at a time in smoothies and in this wonderful banana soft-serve. But when I came across Alice Medrich's recipe for cocoa brownies on a blog I had an idea to try it with the mesquite flour. It was a good idea! This is a fantastic recipe that makes delicious, moist, fudgey, moreish brownies and it happily accommodated the mesquite flour.

So if there is anyone else out there like me, with half a box of mesquite flour and no where to use it, I strongly recommend you give these a whirl. I think you'll be glad you did.

Mesquite Brownies

Adapted from a recipe in Bittersweet by Alice Medrich

140g butter

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup mesquite flour

1/2 cup cocoa

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 eggs

1/2 cup plain flour

Preheat the oven to 162′C. Line the bottom and sides of a medium square baking pan with baking paper.

Combine the butter, sugar, cocoa, and salt in a medium heatproof bowl. Melt over hot water or in the microwave in short bursts. Stir from time to time until the butter is melted and the mixture is smooth. Set aside until the mixture is only warm, not hot.

Stir in the vanilla.. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring vigorously after each one. When the batter looks thick, shiny, and well blended, add the flour and stir until you cannot see it any longer, then beat vigorously for 40 strokes with the wooden spoon or a rubber spatula.

Spread evenly in the lined pan.

Bake until a skewer poked into the center emerges slightly moist with batter, 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool completely on a rack.

Lift up the ends of the baking paper and transfer the brownies to a cutting board. Cut into 16.

Marquise on Meringue - Daring Bakers' Challenge May 2011

Wow - even the spelling of the dish was challenging this month. I can't seem to get the hang of spelling meringue.

The May 2011 Daring Bakers Challenge was hosted by Emma of CookCraftGrow and Jenny of Purple House Dirt. They chose to challenge everyone to make a Chocolate Marquise. The inspiration for this recipe comes from a dessert they prepared at a restaurant in Seattle.

The challenge had four separate components – spicy chocolate marquise, torched meringue, tequila caramel sauce and spicy toasted almonds. All up it took me 6 hours to prepare. At the end it was utter chaos in my kitchen as I tried to "plate" everything before the sun went down so I could get a picture.

The whole process was fun and educational, and the end result was impressive. The texture of the marquise was amazing and unlike anything I have made before. I made the recipe exactly as suggested and sadly I didn't greatly enjoy the overall flavour profile. I usually like chilli and chocolate together, but this didn’t work for me and I also didn’t enjoy the tequila flavour in the caramel. I would definitely make each of the components again, but with different flavours added.

I have a lot of observations about this challenge, which probably won’t be of interest to anyone except a few hardcore DBs, but I feel it is therapeutic to share them.

Firstly, thanks to Audax Artifex for posting the half and quarter variations. The half version was enough for 16 mega-rich servings, which I used over 3 separate occasions. It was very nice, but I am awfully glad there are not another 16 portions in my freezer.

The marquise and chocolate base were fairly simple to prepare, with the invaluable help of a stand mixer. The only issue I had was with the direction to mix until the bowl was cool after adding the sugar syrup. My bowl didn’t get hot in the first place, so I just went with 10 minutes.

The meringue was fun to make. I have never before been directed to mix something with my hand and was slightly taken aback, but I loved it - you could really feel how it was supposed to feel. I don't have a blowtorch and ran out of time to buy one, so I used the grill. This was easy enough not ideal as the meringue was very tricky to move and collapsed when I tried.

The tequila caramel should have been simple to make, but stupidly I turned my back on the syrup (to look at the forums!) at the wrong moment. Of course it burned and I had to start again. The eventual finished product was wonderful, with a beautiful caramel colour and luscious thick texture.

The nuts were also simple to make, apart from the fact that I decided to blanch my own almonds, which added a good half an hour to the job! However, the proportions seemed a bit out, I think the amount of egg/sugar/spice mixture could have coated another cup of almonds and then there would have been less mixture burned onto the baking sheet.

I found the directions for cutting and plating the marquise confusing. As it read, I think you were supposed to remove the marquise from the freezer, cut the squares, roll them in the cocoa, then let them thaw fully in the fridge while you plated the other components. But it was awkward to move the marquise to the plate once it was coated. I think it would make more sense to plate the marquise, let it thaw, then pipe your meringue and torch it on the plate and lastly add the caramel and nuts. (Of course you would need a blowtorch for that which I don't have.)

Thank you to the hosts for bringing us a truly daring challenge.

Chocolate Marquise

Ingredients

6 large egg yolks at room temperature

2 large eggs

1/3 cup (75 grams/ 2⅔ oz) sugar

2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons (1⅓ fluid oz/ 40 ml.) water

Chocolate Base, barely warm (recipe follows)

1 cup (8 fluid oz./ 250 ml.) heavy cream

1 cup Dutch process cocoa powder

Torched meringue (recipe follows)

Spiced almonds (recipe follows)

Directions

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the egg yolks and whole eggs. Whip on high speed until very thick and pale, about 10 - 15 minutes.

2. When the eggs are getting close to finishing, make a sugar syrup by combining the sugar and water in a small saucepan.

3. Bring the syrup to a boil and then cook to softball stage (235F/115C). If you have a cake tester with a metal loop for a handle, the right stage for the syrup is reached when you can blow a bubble through the loop.

4. With the mixer running on low speed, drizzle the sugar syrup into the fluffy eggs, trying to hit that magic spot between the mixing bowl and the whisk.

5. When all of the syrup has been added (do it fairly quickly), turn the mixer back on high and whip until the bowl is cool to the touch. This will take at least 10 minutes.

6. In a separate mixing bowl, whip the heavy cream to soft peaks. Set aside.

7. When the egg mixture has cooled, add the chocolate base to the egg mixture and whisk to combine. Try to get it as consistent as possible without losing all of the air you've whipped into the eggs. We used the stand mixer for this, and it took about 1 minute.

8. Fold 1/3 of the reserved whipped cream into the chocolate mixture to loosen it, and then fold in the remaining whipped cream.

9. Pour into the prepared pans and cover with plastic wrap (directly touching the mixture so it doesn't allow in any air).

10. Freeze until very firm, at least 2 - 4 hours (preferably 6 – 8 hours).

11. When you're ready to plate, remove the marquise from the freezer at least 15 minutes before serving. While it's still hard, remove it from the pan by pulling on the parchment 'handles' or by flipping it over onto another piece of parchment. Cut it into cubes and roll the cubes in cocoa powder. These will start to melt almost immediately, so don't do this step until all of your other plating components (meringue, caramel, spiced nuts, cocoa nibs) are ready.

12. The cubes need to sit in the fridge to slowly thaw so plating components can be done during that time. They don’t need to be ready before the cubes are rolled in the cocoa powder.

13. Plate with the torched meringue and drizzled caramel sauce, and toss spiced almonds and cocoa nibs around for garnish. You want to handle the cubes as little as possible because they get messy quickly and are difficult to move. However, you want to wait to serve them until they've softened completely. The soft pillows of chocolate are what make this dessert so unusual and when combined with the other elements, you'll get creamy and crunchy textures with cool, spicy, salty, bitter, and sweet sensations on your palate.

Chocolate Base

Ingredients

6 oz (170 grams/ ¾ cups) bittersweet chocolate (about 70% cocoa)

¾ cups (180 ml/6 fluid oz.) heavy cream

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon cayenne

1/8 cup (30 ml/ 1 fluid oz.) tequila

1/8 cup (30 ml/ 1 fluid oz.) light corn syrup

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/8 cup (2 tablespoons/less than 1/2 ounce) cocoa powder

1/16 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/2 oz unsalted butter (1 tablespoon/15 grams), softened

Directions:

1. Place the chocolate in a small mixing bowl.

2. In a double-boiler, warm the cream until it is hot to the touch (but is not boiling). Remove from the heat and pour over the chocolate.

3. Allow it to sit for a minute or two before stirring. Stir until the chocolate is melted completely and is smooth throughout.

4. Add the remaining ingredients and stir to combine.

5. Set aside until cooled to room temperature. Do not refrigerate, as the base needs to be soft when added to the marquise mixture. If you make it the day before, you may need to warm it slightly. Whisk it until it is smooth again before using it in the marquise recipe.

Torched Meringue

Makes about 2 – 2½ cups of meringue. If you aren't planning on serving *all* of the marquise at once, you might want to scale this recipe back a bit.

Ingredients

6 large egg whites

¾ cup + 2 tablespoons (210 ml) (7 oz or 200 gms) sugar

Splash of apple cider vinegar

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Directions

1. Combine the egg whites, sugar and vinegar in the bowl of a stand mixer.

2. Using your (clean, washed) hand, reach in the bowl and stir the three together, making sure the sugar is moistened evenly by the egg whites and they make a homogeneous liquid. Over a saucepan of simmering water, warm the egg white mixture. Use one hand to stir the mixture continuously, feeling for grains of sugar in the egg whites. As the liquid heats up, the sugar will slowly dissolve and the egg whites will thicken. This step is complete when you don't feel any more sugar crystals in the liquid and it is uniformly warm, nearly hot. Remove the mixing bowl from the saucepan and return it to the stand mixer with the whisk attachment.

3. Whisk until you reach soft peaks. In the last 10 seconds of mixing, add the vanilla to the meringue and mix thoroughly.

4. When you're ready to plate the dessert, spoon the meringue onto a plate (or use a piping bag) and use a blowtorch to broil.

Tequila Caramel Sauce

Ingredients

1/2 cup (120 ml/4 fluid oz) (4 oz/115 gm) sugar

1/4 cup (2 fluid oz./60 ml) water

1/2 cup (4 fluid oz./120 ml) heavy cream

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon tequila

Directions

1. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine the sugar and water on medium-high heat. Boil until the water completely evaporates and the sugar caramelizes to a dark mahogany colour.

2. Working quickly, add the cream to the darkened caramel. It will bubble and pop vigorously, so add only as much cream as you can without overflowing the pot.

3. Return the pot to the stove on low heat and whisk gently to break up any hardened sugar. Add any remaining cream and continue stirring. Gradually, the hard sugar will dissolve and the caramel sauce will continue to darken. When the caramel has darkened to the point you want it, remove it from the heat.

4. Add the salt and tequila and stir to combine. Set aside until ready to serve.

Spiced Almonds

Ingredients

1/2 cup (4 oz.) sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon cayenne

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 large egg white 1 cup (145 grams/ 5 oz.) blanched whole almonds

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper or foil.

2. In a small bowl, combine the sugar, cinnamon, cayenne, and salt.

3. In a larger mixing bowl whisk the egg white until it's frothy and thick.

4. Add the spice mix to the egg white and whisk to combine completely.

5. Add the nuts to the egg white mixture and toss with a spoon.

6. Spoon the coated nuts onto the parchment paper-lined baking sheet.

7. Bake the nuts for 30 minutes, or until they turn light brown.

8. Allow the nuts to cool completely and they will get very crunchy. Set aside until ready to serve.

Gumbo - Daring Cooks' Challenge May 2011

As may be apparent, I have lost my cooking mojo a little in the past few months. Shamefully, I missed both last month's Daring Cook and Daring Baker challenges. But I am back and determined not to let things slip again.

Our May hostess, Denise, of There’s a Newf in My Soup!, challenged The Daring Cooks to make Gumbo! She provided us with all the recipes we’d need, from creole spices, homemade stock, and Louisiana white rice, to Drew’s Chicken & Smoked Sausage Gumbo and Seafood Gumbo from My New Orleans: The Cookbook, by John Besh.

I have never made gumbo and thought it looked delicious. And bonus, it is seasonally appropriate for the cold Sydney autumn we are experiencing. As a gumbo virgin, and feeling nervous about the roux component, I decided to follow one of the suggested recipes, for a smoked sausage and chicken gumbo, as closely as possible. I couldn't find either of the specified sausages so I opted for just a hot smoked sausage from the local Italian deli and it was great. I couldn't find celery salt for the Creole spice mix, so I substituted celery seed. And I couldn't find file powder so I left that out.

I took the host's advice and chopped everything before I started. I was glad I did as the roux did need constant attention.

I was very nervous about the roux but it worked out perfectly. These pictures shows the development of the color from the start, after 5 minutes, after 10 minutes and after 15 minutes – just as the recipe said.

Once the onion was added to the roux it started to smell amazing. Then as each new ingredient was added, it just got better and better. The finished product was really, truly delicious and more than worth the effort. Tom declared it the tastiest thing he had ever eaten – though I should add that he had run a half-marathon earlier in the day and that I don't cook him two-meat treats very often.

Thank you so much to the host for introducing us to this classic dish in such an accessible way. I will absolutely be making gumbo again and again.

Drew's Chicken and Smoked Sausage Gumbo

Adapted from My New Orleans: The Cookbook by John Besh

Ingredients

1 cup (240 ml) (230 gm) rendered chicken fat, duck fat, or canola oil

1 cup (240 ml) (140 gm) (5 oz) flour

2 large onions, diced

1 chicken (3 ½ to 4 lbs.), cut into 10 pieces

2 tablespoons (30 ml) (15 gm) (½ oz) Basic Creole Spices (recipe follows), or store-bought Creole spice blend

2 pounds (2 kilograms) spicy smoked sausage, sliced ½ inch (15mm) thick

2 stalks celery, diced

2 green bell peppers (capsicum), seeded and diced

1 tomato, seeded and chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

Leaves from 2 sprigs of fresh thyme

3 quarts (3 liters) Basic Chicken Stock (recipe follows), or canned chicken stock

2 bay leaves

6 ounces (175 gm) andouille sausage, chopped

2 cups (480 ml) (320 gm) (11 oz) sliced fresh okra, ½ -inch (15mm) thick slices (or frozen, if fresh is not available)

1 tablespoon (15 ml) Worcestershire sauce

Salt, to taste

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Filé powder, to taste

Tabasco, to taste

4-6 cups (1 – 1½ liters) (650 gm – 950 gm) cooked Basic Louisiana White Rice (recipe follows)

Directions

1. Prepare homemade chicken stock, if using (recipe below).

2. Prepare homemade Basic Creole Spices, if using (recipe below).

3. Season the chicken pieces with about 2 tablespoons of the Creole Spices while you prepare the vegetables.

4. Make sure all of your vegetables are cut, diced, chopped, minced and ready to go before beginning the roux. You must stand at the stove and stir the roux continuously to prevent it from burning.

5. In a large cast-iron or heavy-bottomed pan, heat the chicken fat, duck fat, or canola oil over high heat. Whisk the flour into the hot oil – it will start to sizzle. Reduce the heat to moderate, and continue whisking until the roux becomes deep brown in color, about 15 minutes.

6. Add the onions. Switch to a wooden spoon and stir the onions into the roux. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Continue stirring until the roux becomes a glossy dark brown, about 10 minutes.

7. Add the chicken to the pot; raise the heat to moderate, and cook, turning the pieces until slightly browned, about 10 minutes.8. Add the sliced smoked sausage and stir for about a minute.

9. Add the celery, bell peppers, tomato, and garlic, and continue stirring for about 3 minutes.

10. Add the thyme, chicken stock, and bay leaves. Bring the gumbo to a boil, stirring occasionally.

11. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, for 45 minutes. Stir occasionally, skimming off the fat from the surface of the gumbo every so often.

12. Add the chopped andouille, okra, and Worcestershire. Season with salt and pepper, several dashes of filé powder, and Tabasco, all to taste.

13. Simmer for another 45 minutes, continuing to skim the fat from the surface of the gumbo. Remove the bay leaves and serve in bowls over rice. Pass more filé powder at the table if desired.

Basic Creole Spices

Ingredients

2 tablespoons (30 ml) (33 gm) celery salt

1 tablespoon (15 ml) (7 gm) sweet paprika

1 tablespoon (15 ml) (18 gm) coarse sea salt

1 tablespoon (15 ml) (6 gm) freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon (15 ml) (7 gm) garlic powder

1 tablespoon (15 ml) (7 gm) onion powder

2 teaspoons (10 ml) (4 gm) cayenne pepper

½ teaspoon (2½ ml) (1½ gm) ground allspice

Directions:

Mix together all spices in a bowl. Transfer the spices to a clean container with a tight-fitting lid. Store up to six months.

Yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake - Daring Bakers March 2011

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.

I loved the recipe source for this one: "Jamie found this recipe on a piece of yellowed paper in her dad’s collection of clipped out and hand-written recipes from the 1970’s, no source, no date, and she tried the recipe and it was brilliant!" This reminded me of my late Gram's recipe box. My mum is now the custodian and she has photocopied some of them for me, and I hope I'll inherit the originals one day.

The recipe calls for a sweet, buttery, yeast-risen dough, which is filled with meringue and assorted fillings and then rolled and formed into a wreath. The recipe makes 2 cakes and the hosts said we could easily halve it, but I decided to divide the dough in half and make a sweet version and a savoury version.

For the sweet one I used Jamie's filling of pecan, cinnamon and chocolate. The dough was simple to make and rose nicely. I found it tricky to roll and shape the meringue-filled dough, so my wreath was somewhat misshapen.

I also made the mistake of following the recipe literally and "rolling" the dough with a rolling pin. As I should know from making pizza, that is no way to love your dough. The end result was a cake that was a little drier and chewier than it should have been.

When it came time for the savory version, I carefully and gently stretched the dough rather than rolling it and the difference was amazing. The savory scrolls were perfectly light, moist and soft. I could hardly believe that they each came from the same batch of dough.

I made two different savory fillings, just using what I had on hand. One filling was olive and tomato, the other was pesto, potato and haloumi. I also went with "cinnamon-roll" style, which I much preferred to the wreath. Obviously there was no meringue in the savory version so it was easier to work with. I also wonder if this affected the texture in a positive way?

Thank you Ria and Jamie for sharing this interesting and versatile recipe with us. I can't wait to see what all the clever Daring Bakers came up with.