Tag Archives: daring bakers challenge

baking

A half-baked response to the Daring Bakers Challenge

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August’s Daring Bakers Challenge had two components — a cake and one of two types of cookies — and I only completed one of them. It was worth it, though, and I’m pretty sure no one at Daring Bakers headquarters is keeping score.

Mawa Cake is popular in Irani bakeries in India. Making the “mawa” — which is just whole milk that’s cooked way, way down and tastes kind of weird on its own — required a good bit of time and attention, but other than that it’s a pretty straightforward recipe. The mawa’s made like so:

Pour 4 cups of whole milk into a heavy-bottomed nonstick saucepan. Bring the milk to a boil, stirring it on and off and making sure it doesn’t stick to the bottom. Turn down the heat to medium and keep cooking the milk until reduces to about a quarter of its original volume. This should take an hour to an hour and a half. The important thing during this process is to watch the milk and stir it frequently to make sure it doesn’t stick to the sides or bottom of the pan and get burnt. The danger of this happening increases as the milk reduces and gets thicker.

Once the milk it has reduced to about one-fourth, turn the heat to low and let it cook for a little while longer. Keep stirring regularly until the milk solids — the mawa — take on a lumpy appearance. There should be no visible liquid left in the pan, but the mawa should be moist and not stick to the sides of the pan. Remove the pan from heat and transfer the mawa to a bowl and let it cool completely.

You can cover and refrigerate it for a day or two (not more) until you’re ready to make the cake. It will harden in the fridge, so let it come to room temperature before using it.

The Mawa Cake has a pretty mild flavor, and it went quite nicely macerated strawberries. I think I might’ve liked it with even more cardamom. The kids devoured it plain (minus the cashews, naturally), and my in-laws doctored the slices they took home with some peaches and, I believe, ice cream. It’s a versatile cake.

Mawa Cake
Recipe Type: dessert
Author: Daring Bakers Challenge
Ingredients
  • 1/2 cup room-temperature unsalted butter
  • 3/4 cup packed crumbled mawa
  • 1-1/4 cups sugar
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1-1/2 tsp powdered cardamom
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • Cashews, to decorate
Instructions
  1. Pre-heat oven to moderate 350 degrees. Beat the butter, crumbled mawa and the sugar in a largish bowl on high speed until soft and fluffy.
  2. Add the eggs one at a time and beat on medium speed until well-incorporated. Add the vanilla and milk and mix well.
  3. Sift the flour, baking powder, cardamom and salt onto the batter and beat at medium speed until well-blended.
  4. Grease and line only the bottom of an 8-inch springform pan. Pour the batter into this and lightly smooth the top. Place the cashews on top of the batter. Do not press the nuts down into the batter.
  5. Bake for about 1 hour until the cake is a golden brown and a skewer pushed into the center comes out clean.
  6. Remove from oven and allow it to cool for 10 minutes in the tin. Release the cake, peel off the parchment from the base and let it cool completely.

 

Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen was our August 2013 Daring Bakers’ hostess and she challenged us to make some amazing regional Indian desserts. The Mawa Cake, the Bolinhas de Coco cookies and the Masala cookies -– beautifully spiced and delicious!

baking

For some reason I keep singing “macaron” to the tune of Bush’s hit tune “Glycerine”

A pretty weak photo of a pink macaron with chocolate ganache

The Terribly Tardy Daring Bakers ChallengeIn October 2009, the Daring Bakers made French macarons and I made some red beans & rice. I’m not sure what the Daring Bakers were up to today, but the kids and I were making French macarons using Martha Stewart’s Parisian macaron recipe.

I was a little nervous about retroactively taking on this Daring Bakers Challenge because I was under the impression that macarons are a very tricky species. Our finished product isn’t showroom-gorgeous, but I was pleasantly surprised to find they were pretty simple to make. They tasted great, too, despite what I overheard the kids saying after they pilfered a few fresh from the oven:

“Um, these taste kind of weird.”

“Yeah, they don’t taste like anything. They’re not very good.”

“But Mama said she was going to make a chocolate filling for them. Maybe then they’ll be better.”

I filled them with a chocolate ganache, and we are all in agreement that it did indeed make them better. Chocolate ganache’ll do that.

recipes

One more reason that I needed to start that diet

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

I made this month’s Daring Bakers Challenge recipe weeks ago, before the South Beach Diet was a glimmer in my eye. And it’s a good thing, too, because I think I ate half of it by myself. Friends, this is a fantastic cheesecake. I divided the batter in half and made two smallish cheesecakes. One was plain cheesecake with strawberry sauce (and it was so good). For the second, I mixed about half a cup of Nutella in with a cup of batter and swirled it into the batter in the pan. It was good, but it would’ve been better if I’d made a chocolatey crust for it.

This cheesecake freezes really well. I flipped the plain cheesecake out of the pan and wrapped in solidly in plastic wrap. Then I put it back into the pan and stuck it in the freezer. I took it out and thawed it about a week later. And I was in cheesecake heaven all over again.

Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake
For the crust:
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 stick butter, melted
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the cheesecake:
3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each (total of 24 oz), room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon liqueur, optional, but choose what will work well with your cheesecake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too – baker’s choice. Set crust aside.

Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done – this can be hard to judge, but you’re looking for the cake to hold together but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don’t want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won’t crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.

Pan note: The creator of this recipe used to use a springform pan, but no matter how well she wrapped the thing in tin foil, water would always seep in and make the crust soggy. Now she uses one of those 1-use foil “casserole” shaped pans from the grocery store. They’re 8 or 9 inches wide and really deep, and best of all, water-tight. When it comes time to serve, just cut the foil away.

Prep notes: While the actual making of this cheesecake is a minimal time commitment, it does need to bake for almost an hour, cool in the oven for an hour, and chill overnight before it is served. Please plan accordingly!