Daring Bakers: Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

This is a basic cheesecake recipe developed by her friend Abbey T., who has made infinite flavor modifications to this basic recipe with great success. Basically, you can take this recipe and easily tweak it to create any flavor cheesecake you desire. I decided to go for a Neapolitan effect, inspired by the classic ice cream flavor.

I planned to make the basic batter, then split it in thirds and add strawberry puree to one portion and melted chocolate to another, but then I realized how neatly the recipe divides in to third. Since it calls for three blocks of cream cheese and three eggs, and all the flavorings are listed in tablespoons (1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons), making the batter in thirds seemed like a really easy way to ensure even flavor distribution.

Oddly, despite my equitable distribrution of ingredients, the chocolate portion came out notably thicker than the other two. I expected the strawberry puree to thin the batter a bit, but it didn't really: the pink and plain batters had the same consistency. I ended up using cocoa powder instead of melted chocolate, but even so, I used about a tablespoon, which doesn't seem like enough to significantly alter the consistency. But it did. Once baked, there wasn't a noticeably difference in texture, but the chocolate layer held up better than the strawberry and vanilla.

To top it off, I dipped some strawberries in dark chocolate. Delicious! 

I would definitely recommend this cheesecake recipe. It's definitely rich, but not so rich that just a bite or two makes you say, "Enough!" In that way, it's actually pretty dangerous - it's just mild enough to make you want one more bite. Every time. So, with that in mind, proceed with caution.

This post is already long, so I'll post the recipe separately.

Daring Bakers: Lasagna of Emilia-Romana

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

In the introduction to the recipe, Kasper writes, "Mere films of béchamel sauce and meat ragu coat the sheerest spinach pasta.... The results are splendid."

Maybe in her world. I followed the pasta portion of the recipe faithfully, letting the dough rest for as long as possible - anywhere from 30 minutes to three hours is recommended. I waited the full three hours before starting to roll it out, in order to give the gluten maximum opportunity to develop, and still, my sheets were anything but sheer. It seemed impossible: before I'd stretched it even as thin as boxed dry lasagna, holes were popping up everywhere. This was an exercise in frustration, as you can see.


I found the dough stretched a little better if I sprinkled a few drops of water on the surface. Following Daring Baker Audax's recommendation, I also allowed the stretched sheets to stick to the counter for several minutes; if you pick them up right away, they will shrink and become thick again. Still, my lasagne was nowhere near thin enough "to see color through," as the recipe calls for. Only the last few sheets even approached that level of thinness, and that was after I picked them up from where they had been resting on the counter and found they stretched very thin and long in my hands. Unfortunately, by this point, I had already boiled the rest of my (too-thick) lasagne. If I were to try this again (let's face it: not anytime soon!), I would let the pasta rest much longer - probably five hours - before I started rolling it.


Here are my (leathery-looking) lasagne, my ragu, and my bechamel sauce. Or rather, Dan's bechamel sauce - he made it! Rolling the lasagne was taking so long that I began to get frustrated and worried that I wouldn't have this mess done in time for dinner, so I enlisted his help.

Our deal is I do the cooking, he does the dishes. This works for us: I like to cook, and he actually enjoys washing dishes. To me, that is as foreign as saying "I enjoy drinking toilet water," but hey, I'm not going to argue. We 've had this arrangement for years and rarely deviate from it. Sometimes I'll fill the sink with soapy water for him or he'll put water on to boil for me, but that's about it. But yesterday, I was desperate, and he could tell, and he cheerfully agreed to help me out. So while I called out directions from my lasagne-rolling spot, Dan made the bechamel (and did a great job of it, too!).


The recipe includes instructions for a country-style ragu, and while it sounded amazing, it called for veal, pork loin, skirt steak, pancetta, prosciutto, and red wine - a definite budget-buster. So, having already spent more on groceries than I wanted to this month, I made up my own turkey ragu, using ground turkey, hot Italian turkey sausage, and turkey pepperoni that I had on hand. The turkey ragu was the saving grace of this experience for me; I rarely make meat sauce for pasta, but this ragu was so delicious that I will definitely have to make it again, and I probably wouldn't have come up with it if not for this challenge.


So here it is: the labor-intensive lasagne that ate my Sunday (completely with big, ugly hunk of ragu - yeah, at this point, I didn't really care about getting a pretty picture). Sadly, after all of that work, it wasn't even that good. It wasn't bad, certainly, but it was nothing special. Maybe if I had been able to get the whisper-thin, ethereal lasagne that Kasper writes about, I would feel differently. At least I got an awesome ragu sauce out of the deal, and Dan learned how to make bechamel. (What should I teach him next - bearnaise? Beurre blanc? Why do all white sauces start with b?)

This post has gone on long enough, so I'll post my turkey ragu sauce in a separate post tomorrow. Hope you all had a nice weekend!

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

Daring Bakers: Chocolate Valentino with Ice Cream

Here it is - my first Daring Bakers challenge result!


The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef. They have chosen a chocolate valentino cake by Chef Wan, a vanilla ice cream recipe from Dharm, and a vanilla ice cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.


The flourless chocolate cake requires only three ingredients - chocolate, eggs, and butter - and pretty much tastes exactly like the chocolate that you use. I selected Scharffen Berger 70%, which is dark and not very sweet, with subtle fruity hints. The cake is supposed to be very dense and fudgy, but I'm sorry to say mine came out rather dry. There could be a few reasons for this. I've heard that the cake is best after sitting for a day, but I ate my first serving the day I made the cake, and my second serving straight out of the fridge. Other servings (which we gave away) that weren't straight out of the refridgerator looked a bit more moist, but I can't say for sure. The other possible cause for the dryness might be the egg whites; the recipe calls for stiff peaks, which I thought I had, but notes that overbeating may cause a dry cake. I guess my peaks should have been a little softer.


The challenge hosts, Wendy and Dharm, each provided a vanilla ice cream recipe (one custard-style, one Philadelphia-style), but they also stated that we didn't have to make vanilla - we were free to experiment. I made a custard-based coffee ice cream (since Dan loves coffee!). I hobbled together a recipe (included below) after looking at dozens of non-coffee recipes (every coffee recipe I could find used instant - yuck!). After spilling half of the ice cream mix (oops), I dumped the rest in my ice cream machine only to discover that the motor had died. It wasn't completely gone - a sickly hum emanated from somewhere within - but it couldn't summon the power to turn the paddle, so it was useless. I had to pour the mix in to a Tupperware container and use the old "take it out of the freezer to stir every half hour" method, which worked fine, but it wasn't as smooth as it would have been with a machine.


I also made a bourbon caramel sauce, which was fantastic. I used Bulleit, which has undertones of tobacco and coffee, so it worked very well with the coffee ice cream. The caramel sauce is the subject of my next video, which will be posted here Monday, so come back then for the recipe. (If you haven't seen the first video, click here to watch it.)


CUSTARD-STYLE COFFEE ICE CREAM
2 cups heavy cream, divided
1 cup 2% milk
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup coffee

Put milk, sugar, and 1 cup of the cream in a saucepan and cook over medium heat until just before boiling. Do not let it boil! Remove from heat and let cool for five minutes. In a small bowl, whisk the eggs, then slowly add a small amount of warm milk mixture (about 1/2 cup) while whisking rapidly to temper the eggs. Add egg mixture to the saucepan with the remaining milk mixture and stir. Return to moderate heat and cook (without boiling) until thick enough to coat the back of a metal spoon. Remove from heat and stir in coffee and remaining cream. Place custard in refridgerator for several hours or overnight. For freezing, if using a machine, follow manufacturer's directions; to freeze without a machine, follow David Lebowitz's directions here.
The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef. We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.