This pie, my Daring Bakers club challenge for the month, is upside down. Tarte Tatin was the delightful discovery of an overworked French woman who meant to make a regular apple pie but left the apples too long in the butter and sugar, was running short on time, so chose to throw the crust on top rather […]
Tag: daring bakers challenge
Esterhazy Torte or Hazelnut Dacquoise Layer Cake
Yet again, a “rustic” cake from the wedding cake designer only Quasimodo would hire. Sorry folks. Another good schadenfreude moment for my haters. What is my handicap with fancy cakes? I need to take a class or something! You know, I think it’s the end game for me—I’m solid through the baking, the layering, and […]
Ensaimadas and Flo on the Go
I was beginning to exhibit snail behavior, slowing to near-imperceptible movement, curling my face downward, shelling most everything, things I’d like to say, feelings. Thank God I have a day off to sleep in, uncurl, put on my sneakers and leave some silver streaks around the neighborhood. Actually feel the sun on my body. Here […]
Paris-Worst, an Attempt at Paris-Brest
Once again I make a fool of myself with another “learning experience,” a.k.a: a failed Daring Bakers Challenge. Lots of laughter and approximately two and a half tears. It was all going so well. I made a break-through in my annals of praline, discovered the ribbon stage of an egg, and then—I blew it on […]
Sachertorte, or the Drunk Sand Castle Project
I’m totally in over my head with this new baking group. Last time I made chimney cake. Now this. I spent four hours of my Saturday spackling this cake into the unimpressive mound you see here in this photograph. No shortcuts, every last moment of this project was painstaking–[See: straining apricot chunks out of boiled […]
Moravian Kolaches for Theological Fermionic Bakers
This is the second time I have made kolache, but my first time ever working with quark outside of a particle physics context. Quark. I just love the word. So Anglo-Saxon, full of consonant and bark and spit. Seamus Heaney sort of gravel. The particle physicist who discovered and hence named the quark found the […]