My First Daring Baker Challenge!

This is my first time to get to join in on a Daring Bakers' challenge.  It was a lot of fun.   The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.

The recipes and additional information can be found here:
 http://thedaringkitchen.com/sites/default/files/u11/52_Panna_Cotta___Florentine_Cookies_-_DB_Feb_2011.pdf

Today is the posting day and the day that I made my recipes. This month has been crazy, but luckily I purchased all of the ingredients last week so they were ready for me this morning.  I had a root canal this week after having 2 weeks of tooth pain from a silly tooth that decided that it really needed more attention after getting a crown put on it.

 The first thing that I made was the Coffee Gelee for my Panna Cotta.  This is how the mixture looked after the gelatin had been added and dissolved.  I left it out at room temperature to cool while I made the Panna Cotta.

 Moving on to making Panna Cotta.  I used a 4 cup chilled pyrex container to allow my milk and gelatin to soften before heating it.

This is what the milk/geletin looked like after sitting for 5 minutes.

Before I started to heat the panna cotta ingredients I got everything ready to add in little containers.  I am neat to a fault while cooking, this method of pre-measuring and then putting things away works quite well for me.

Heating, not boiling!

 I know that my husband has a 17" MacBook so that I can watch Netflix and view my Daring Baker recipe at the same time. =)

I poured the Panna Cotta into a measuring cup before putting it into my glasses so that it would be easier to pour.  To take it one step further when I put it in the glasses I used a funnel, although you can see that I still made a bit of a mess.

On to the Florentine cookies!

All of the ingredients for the Florentine Cookies

The mix was quite chunky

I added about 2 tbsp of cinnamon to mine.  Hard to have oatmeal in a mix without cinnamon.

No parchment paper, I substituted aluminum foil and cooking spray.

These are the finished cookies.  I made mine a bit too big because I didn't get as many as the recipe said I would.

This is the final product.  I melted my favorite chips, Hershey's Cinnamon Chips for the middle!  Hopefully my next Daring Baker post will be a little more put together.  I look forward to seeing what I get to make with the next challenge.  =) 

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cupcakes

 

Yum!  Valentine's Day is my favorite holiday.  For my office I made Chocolate Covered Strawberry Mini-Cupcakes.  After getting the idea for the dessert I decided that I wanted to make the cupcakes from scratch with real strawberries and that they would need a ganache for the topping.  I followed the Sprinkles Strawberry Cupcakes  Recipe.  I did the recipe adding 1/2 tsp baking soda and put in extra strawberry puree.  If you watch the video of Candance Nelson of Sprinkles Cupcakes making the cupcakes the recipe that they show has the baking soda included for whatever reason Martha posted the recipe with the typo.

The recipe is for 12 full size cupcakes I was able to make 48 mini cupcakes and 4 regular size cupcakes.  To fill the mini cupcake tin I used a sandwich bag with a very small hole in it.  Be careful not to overfill your cupcake tin, the first time I made mini's they didn't turn out so well.  I baked the mini's for 13 minutes at 365F and the regular size ones for 16 min at 365F.

After my cupcakes were cooked I made a strawberry chocolate ganache to go over them.  I did the following recipe

Strawberry Chocolate Ganache

3 tbsp strawberry puree

12 ounces of heavy cream

12 ounces milk chocolate chips

Add the strawberry puree to the heavy cream and let it set in the fridge for about an hour (while you bake the cupcakes).  Then put the strawberry heavy cream and the chocolate chips in a double broiler.  Use a whisk to periodically stir while the chocolate melts.  Then after the chocolate is melted and the heavy cream is entirely incorporated into the mixture lower the heat under your double broiler (enough so that the chocolate will cool a bit, but stay liquid).  

After the ganache was complete I dipped the tops of each of my cupcakes into it.  I allowed the cupcakes to cool and the chocolate to set slightly before storing.  I recommend storing them at room temperature.

If you have left over ganache you can store it in the fridge and then make truffles out of it the next day.  I recommend following the directions from Keegan Gerhard's appearance on 5 Ingredient Fix.

Everyone at my office thoroughly enjoyed the cupcakes.  They all disappeared during our Friday morning meeting.

One more picture of the cupcakes!