Hi Everyone, it's Jane writing as the August Daring Bakers Challenge is revealed today.  What was this month's challenge you ask?  Something different for me anyway... chocolate eclairs!  And while my eclairs may not win any beauty pageants, they tasted scrumptious!  I will make this recipe for company next time.

So, details... This month's challenge was issued by MeetaK and Tony Tahhan.  The original recipe comes from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme (visit Meeta or Tony for the challenge recipe). An eclair consists of a Pâte à Choux (dough), Pastry Cream (filling), and Chocolate Glaze.  The challenge recipe called for a chocolate filling, which is not how Lane and I remember eclairs, but I was making enough modifications to the recipe (and a little more chocolate is usually a good thing).

Of course, the Pâte à Choux wasn't written as a vegan recipe, so I looked for a bit of help from the Alternative Daring Bakers.  The suggested recipe the ADBs can be found here.  I halved the recipe because we didn't want to wind up with a zillion eclairs, and wound up with 8 very  small eclairs, which was perfect for the 4 of us who were tasting my results.

I'd never done this type of baking before and really enjoyed how the dough worked up.

Here's the recipe for the cream puff/eclair dough I used, including my modifications (note, this is the full recipe):

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 tablespoons Earth Balance
2 tablespoon Ener-G Egg Replacer whipped until stiff with 1/3 cup water
1 cup almond milk

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Line baking sheet with non-stick mat. Prepare egg-replacer. Stir together flour, sugar, salt, cream of tartar. In a non-stick sauce pan, bring the milk and margarine to a boil, stirring constantly. Add the flour mixture all at once, and reduce heat to low. Stir constantly until the dough forms a ball that pulls away from the pan and the spoon and is glossy and smooth.  Smooth the dough and stir together a few times.  Cooking time after flour is added should be about 3-5 minutes. Working quickly, remove from heat and add the egg replacer, about a third at a time, beating well after each addition until the dough is glossy, smooth, and pulls away from the pan.  (I used my mixer with dough hook attachment, but that didn't work so wel.)

Shape the dough as desired. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, then lower heat to 350 for another 20 minutes, then turn off oven and allow to cool, with door slightly cracked for another 30 minutes, then cool completely on wire racks before serving or filling.

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Some of the Daring Bakers had issues with their eclairs deflating.  The general consensus was that the pastries were undercooked.  Some of the ADBs used baking powder in place of the cream of tartar.  I didn't make that change but baked everything much longer than the original recipe called for.  None of my eclairs deflated and they were all cooked through and a light golden brown.

Also, I tried to pipe my eclairs, but that didn't work so well.  So after I piped them, I wound up rolling them around in my palms a bit.  Next time, I'll skip the piping.

As for fillings.... I did a chocolate filling and chocolate glaze.  Hubby was very complimentary.  The crust was light and flaky and definitely tasted as we remembered an eclair to taste.  However, we both remember eclairs as having a custard-like filling, so the chocolate seemed a bit odd, but hey, it was chocolate and yummy anyway.  I'm not including my recipe for the filling and glaze as they didn't come out well enough to recommend.  But the original recipe is easy enough to veganize, if you're interested.

Bon Appetit!

This month's Daring Bakers challenge was a Filbert Gateau with Praline Buttercream from Great Cakes, by Carol Walter. Our host was Chris at Mele Cotte, you can visit her site for the recipe, if you're interested.

So my first reaction was a deep sigh. Layered buttercream cakes aren't my thing. I much prefer a good loaf of bread, or the Danish Braid we made last month. But each host has the right to choose whatever recipe they desire, and as a Daring Baker, it is up to us to take the challenge and do the best we can. There were also a few interesting twists to this recipe. The recipe included a hazelnut cake moistened with simple syrup, layered with praline buttercream and whipped cream, topped with apricot glaze, and glazed with a chocolate ganache. Whew! And there were components to some of these things. For example, we made praline paste which was incorporated into the buttercream.

The first thing I did was make the cake. I did not attempt to veganize the original recipe, but instead opted to follow the "spirit" of the challenge. I used this recipe for vegan genoise instead. It came out swell, but not nearly tall enough to cut into the three layers the recipe called for. So my cake was only two layers. I opted not to redo the cake as I didn't have high expectations for the results this time around.

Next I worked on the components for the cake. I had leftover macadamia nuts which I used to make my praline. What fun. It took forever, way more than the 20 minutes the recipe specified, but yum. I will be making the praline again (not necessarily the paste), you can be sure of that. I had to keep Lane out of the kitchen. He loved it, and I was afraid I wouldn't have enough for the cake! For any of our "inner circle" reading this out there, you can be sure to see a bit of the praline on your Christmas cookie trays!

I don't normally include the recipes for the challenges here, but this component is something you should try at home!!! And make sure to read below about incorporating the paste into your buttercream!

Praline Paste
1 cup (4 ½ oz.) Hazelnuts, toasted/skinless (any nut would work here, depending on the flavor you're going for)
2/3 cup Sugar
Line a jelly roll pan with parchment and lightly butter. (I used my Silpat.)

Put the sugar in a heavy 10-inch skillet. Heat on low flame for about 10-20 min until the sugar melts around the edges. Do not stir the sugar. Swirl the pan if necessary to prevent the melted sugar from burning. Brush the sides of the pan with water to remove sugar crystals. If the sugar in the center does not melt, stir briefly. When the sugar is completely melted and caramel in color, remove from heat. Stir in the nuts with a wooden spoon and separate the clusters. Return to low heat and stir to coat the nuts on all sides. Cook until the mixture starts to bubble. **Remember – extremely hot mixture.** Then onto the parchment lined sheet and spread as evenly as possible. As it cools, it will harden into brittle.

Break the candied nuts into pieces and place them in the food processor. Pulse into a medium-fine crunch or process until the brittle turns into a powder. To make paste, process for several minutes. Store in an airtight container and store in a cook dry place. Do not refrigerate.

I'll spare you the details of the rest of the assembly. Things went as they should have. My real "issue" was the buttercream. I'd discussed the buttercream dilemna in forum land. So far, I haven't found a vegan buttercream recipe I like the taste of. My original intention was to use Vegan Noodle's suggestion of adding soy milk powder to the mix. Unfortunately, I set out on my quest to buy the soy milk powder ("better than milk") the day before I was assembling the cake, and my Whole Foods does not carry the product. The inventory manager knew what I was talking about and offered to order it for me, but I needed it "now." Alas. Nor did my local health food store stock it. Strike one!

Natalie recommended using a vegetable shortening/coconut oil/cocoa butter mix, but it's a little warm now to be using coconut oil. I know this because the coconut oil is liquid in the cupboard, and I didn't want my buttercream running down the side of the cake! Strike two!

Shellyfish recommended using the buttercream recipe in Vegan with a Vengeance (a much better book than Veganomicon, IMO). Hey, a home run, sort of. It was good enough to eat, although not in large quantities. I wound up using a non-vegan non-dairy creamer, since that recipe also called for soy milk powder. Unfortunately, non-dairy creamer is somewhat of an oxymoron as the non-dairy creamer contains SODIUM CASEINATE (a MILK DERIVATIVE), and a whole host of other badness. But it was the only thing I could find, and I knew the Earth Balance / Powdered Sugar combinations were not palatable. So, it was a pseudo-vegan buttercream, strike three?

Whatever buttercream recipes you wind up using in your cake baking ventures, I recommend adding the praline paste (1/3 Cup added into your finished buttercream, then stir together) It's amazingly delicious.

So my finished cake was not worthy of a blog post. It looked pretty, but wasn't worth the time or the effort, and most of it wound up in the trash. But I walked away with the promise of a palatable vegan buttercream, yay! And the praline alone was worth the rest of the challenge.

~ Cheers, Jane!

Hi All, it's Jane writing today - post day for the Daring Bakers. This month's challenge was a Danish Braid. As some of you may have realized, I begged off last month's challenge, an Opera Cake. My fellow Alternative DBs did the challenge proud; however, I simply couldn't face another buttercream. But the waiting was worth it, I was thrilled with this month's offering. Lane has always loved pastry, however, that's been off the menu for us since we've been vegan. I'm sure the vegan bakeries in Los Angeles have plenty of pastry options, however, we're not really near any of them, and don't need to be making special trips for goodies.

I always suspected that pastry would be something easy to "veganize," after all, my pie crust hasn't suffered a bit in the transition. I had just never tried pastry before. I made the assumption that it would be incredibly difficult to make. I was wrong. It's time consuming, but fun.

I'd gotten a sense of security from all the posts on the alternative DB board. Most of the vegan bakers seemed to have a positive experience. The gluten-free people had a tougher time of it, as you can imagine! But most people were reporting successes, even if the process wasn't textbook perfect. So when I actually started laminating my dough (a technique where you roll "butter" into the dough) I was surprized that I didn't have any of the difficulties I'd read about and expected -- dough too sticky, butter exploding out of the dough... Everything went swimmingly, my single folds and double book folds were almost perfectly aligned. Not bad for a first try! I left the dough in the fridge overnight and went to bed.

Today I needed to assemble the filling, roll out the dough, fill and braid, and bake. We were supposed to fill one braid with an apple concoction and the other with the filling of our choice. I bought the Fuji's as directed, even though they're not in season here now. They didn't taste as sweet as usual, and I wasn't really happy with the apple filling. So, for the second braid, I used a triple berry jam, and vegan cream cheese. This was a very satisfying pastry to make. I enjoyed the process, I enjoyed the end results. But it's not something you're going to throw together a few minutes before you're company is coming!

We shared this with our omnivorous cousins, and they loved it. They asked me to make it with blueberries next time. I was also thinking it might be good with the lemon curd from the vegan lemon meringue pie we made in the January challenge...  (Lane's liking that idea.)

I will definitely make this recipe again, but I'll make a few changes. The recipe directed us to mix the dough for 5 minutes after incorporating all the ingredients. I've never done that before in making any type of dough. I'm not an expert, but I thought you weren't supposed to "overmix" as you make things too tough. My dough was a tad chewy, so next time, I will only mix until things are incorporated. Also, I don't think the orange zest/juice in the dough recipe added anything to the pastry, so I'll omit them next time as well, and maybe the cardamom too.  They added a nice taste to the pastry, but I made croissant with the leftover dough, and that didn't work.   And finally, if I have the time, I'll try to make individual danishes. I'm really glad Kelly and Ben selected this recipe as our challenge. I would have never tried to make this on my own, and now I have a wonderful new dessert in my repertoire.

Note: I skipped the egg wash (of course), so my pastry wasn't shiny. No one missed it!

-- Cheers, Jane

This month the Daring Bakers Challenge was Cheesecake Pops. (This is cheesecake scooped into little walnut sized balls, stuck on a lollipop stick and then dipped in melted chocolate, and decorated as you desire.) Yum. But what to do about a vegan cheesecake? I've had a few successes with vegan desserts, but other than the amazing vegan brownies I made recently, I've been somewhat disappointed with the vegan desserts I've tried. Cheesecake seemed particularly daunting, as it is so incredibly delicious as an omni dessert. How could it possibly live up to the original? Time to do some research.

First, I was excited to learn earlier this month that there are enough of us now to have formed a splinter group of Alternative Daring Bakers, wholly sanctioned by the original Daring Bakers. We all play along and follow the same challenge, but because of our varied dietary regimes (vegan, gluten free, etc.), the group has a special forum and held a "bake along" this month. I couldn't participate because it was too early in the morning for me, but I did get some pointers, and many recipe options. Ultimately though, I adapted the Vegan Eggnog Cheesecake recipe from Fat Free Kitchen; if there'd been any vegan eggnog around, I'd have made the original. Anyway, here's my adapted recipe:

2 12.4-ounce package extra firm light silken tofu
2 8-ounce package Tofutti Better than Cream Cheese (make sure to buy the one in the yellow package -- it has no partially hydryogenated oils!)
1 ½ cups sugar
¾ cup almond milk
3 tablespoons lemon juice
6 tablespoons Myer's Coconut rum
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
4 tablespoons cornstarch

Drain the tofu and place in food processor along with the cream cheese. Blend well. Then incorporate the sugar. Susan at FFV, suggests letting the food processor run for at least three minutes, and I wholly concur. It really blends things together. Then I added all the remaining ingredients and let the processor run for another few minutes.

Because I wasn't making a cake I poured this mix into two small pyrex dishes. This way I could more easily keep an eye on what was going on. If you are making a cake, you might want to consider the traditional graham cracker crust. Susan also offers an oatmeal cookie crust (in her Vegan Eggnog Cheesecake recipe) which sounds pretty good. Or you could simply press some almond pieces onto the sides of the cake after you've removed it from your springform pan.

Bake at 350° F for anywhere between 45 and 75 minutes (no, I'm not kidding -- this is based on what my fellow ADBs experienced). It took me 75 minutes, but you don't want to burn this, and you'll want to make sure it sets a bit before removing it from the oven. That's a delicate balance. You really have to make a mental note as to how "jiggly" it is before you put it in the oven in order to gauge how much the cheesecake has set. It will definitely still jiggle when you remove it from the oven. It will set further while it's cooling and once you refrigerate it. I let mine brown a bit on the top because I was very concerned that it would be too watery. That worked well as Lane got a bowlful of the browned bits to nosh on as I assembled the pops.

If you're making a cheesecake you definitely want to make sure to use a water bath. This prevents the cake from cracking. If you're making the pops, there really is no need, as you can scoop around any cracks that might form. I used the water bath anyway, because that's the way I've always baked my cheesecakes in the past. That may have accounted for some of the additional baking time.

The cakes need to be refrigerated, I let mine sit overnight. Then you scoop out 2 ounces (about the size of a walnut) and roll it into a ball. These go onto a sheet of parchment paper (on a cookie sheet) and into the freezer for at least two hours. After which you dip them into melted chocolate and decorate as you wish (sprinkles, nuts, white chocolate, icing...) My experience was a little harrowing as it was 96° here today, which meant it was probably about 80° in our kitchen. By the time I got to the end of my pops, they were starting to free themselves from the sticks. Why it didn't dawn on me to leave half of them on the freezer is beyond me. Suffice it to say, I felt a little silly when it finally did!

These were a birthday cake for our cousin who is going to be 60 on Tuesday. So I wrote one pop said "Happy" another said "BDay" and a bunch had 60s and squiggles. There were also all the other pops that I simply put on a plate (not as part of the "centerpiece"). I was pleased with the aesthetics of the individual pops, and the overall presentation. I think this makes a fun take on the traditional cheesecake. And the recipe was DELICIOUS! It even passed the omni test (meaning people asked for seconds, and those who didn't know it was a vegan cheesecake, didn't guess).

The Daring Bakers group now has a message board with two public forums. So, if you'd like to see what we're up to, or get tips from other Daring Bakers -- here's the link.

-- Cheers, Jane

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