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.  =)