The Daring Bakers Challenge - March 2011 - Yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake!

I am most definitely posting late for this month's Daring Bakers' Challenge. It has been an insane month and it seems that just yesterday I was posting about our Panna Cotta challenge. Well, surprise, an entire month has flown by and I feel like I have nothing to show for it. But at least I managed to complete the challenge! And had a good time doing it! The March 2011 Daring Bakers' Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria's Collection & Jamie of Life's a Feast. Ria & Jamie challenged the Daring Bakers to make a yeasted meringue coffee cake. I made two of the coffee cakes - the first one I stuck to the recipe and used cinnamon sugar, chocolate chips, and toasted pecans. I shaped this bread differently - more of an "S" shape then cut down the middle to show off the meringue. The second coffee cake I sprinkled on a tiny bit of the cinnamon sugar, fresh cranberries, toasted pistachios, almonds, and the zest of one lemon. I shaped this one like the wreath we were challenged to make. I found this to be a very similar technique to that of the Stollen Wreath we made at Christmastime, the only additional challenge was rolling it up without the meringue squishing out the sides! I will definitely be making this recipe over and over again with different fillings! The possibilities are endless and it really does look nice when it is baked. Not to mention the fact that the house smelled absolutely heavenly while it was baking away in the oven. It was pretty tough to wait for the loaf to cool before hacking into it!

There are a couple of parts to this recipe, the first being the sweet dough.

Yeasted Coffee Cake Dough

Ingredients:

• 4 cups flour


• 1/4 cup sugar


• 3/4 tsp salt


• 1 pkg active dry yeast


• 3/4 cup whole milk


• 1/4 cup water


• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

Method:

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups of the flour, the sugar, the yeast, and the salt. Set aside.


2. In a saucepan, combine the milk, water and butter. Heat over medium heat until the mixture is warm and the butter is melted.


3. With an electric mixer on low speed, gradually add the warm liquid to the flour/ yeast mixture, beating until well blended. Increase mixer speed to medium and beat 2 minutes. Add the eggs and one more cup of the flour and mix for 2 more minutes.


4. Switch to your dough hook and stir in enough of the remaining flour to make a dough that holds together. Knead with the dough hook for 8-10 minutes until the dough is smooth, soft, sexy and elastic, adding extra flour as needed.


5. Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap and then a tea towel. Place in a warm, draft free place until risen and doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.


6. Prepare your fillings.

The next component of this coffee cake is the meringue filling. The meringue is super easy to whip up as long as you have a stand mixer that you can just turn on high and walk away!! Which I do, so of course I LOVE making meringue because it turns out perfect every time. :) Ingredients:

• 3 large egg whites, at room temperature


• 1/4 tsp salt


• 1/2 tsp vanilla


• 1/2 cup sugar

Method:

1. Once the dough has doubled in bulk, make the meringue. Using a very clean mixing bowl, beat the egg whites and the salt on low speed for 30 seconds, then increase speed to high until the egg whites and foamy and opaque. Add the vanilla and then start adding the sugar, a tablespoon at a time, beating until stiff, glossy peaks form.

Mix up 2 tbsp of sugar with 1/4 tsp cinnamon in a small bowl. Set aside. Also prepare one cup toasted pecans and 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (or as I did for my other bread - sprinkle with cranberries, pistachios, almonds and zest of 1 lemon).

The last step is to assemble the bread!

Method:

1. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.


2. Punch down the dough and divide in half. On a lightly floured surface, working with one piece of dough at a time, roll out the dough into a rectangle about 20x10 inches. Spread half the meringue over the dough, leaving about 1/2 inch of room on each side. Then sprinkle with 1/2 of the cinnamon sugar mixture, 1/2 of the nuts and 1/2 of the chocolate.


3. Roll the dough up jelly-roll style, starting on the long side. Pinch the seam closed to seal. Bring the ends of the log around and seal together, forming a ring, tucking one end into the other and pinching to seal.


4. Using a sharp knife, slash the dough evenly about 1 inch apart.


5. Repeat with remaining ingredients. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise again for about 1 hour.


6. Preheat the oven to 350F. Take 1 egg and beat well. Brush the loaves with the egg wash just prior to placing in the oven.


7. Bake the loaves for 25-30 minutes in the preheated oven until risen and golden brown. The dough should sound hollow when tapped.


8. Remove from oven to cooling racks until well cooled. Just before serving dust the tops lightly with cocoa powder or icing sugar (or both) to give them a pretty look. These are best if eaten fresh, the first day or two is ideal.

Yummers! They were great! The meringue sort of absorbs into the bread to make it so moist and delicious tasting. You'll have to restrain yourself from eating the whole loaf!

Thanks Ria and Jamie for such a lovely challenge! My favorite part about this challenge was the fact that it took elements that most of us Daring Bakers were familiar with and did something totally unexpected with them. I mean who would have thought of putting meringue into a sweet bread?! I know I never would have. I can't wait to have a look around at what all of the other fabulous Daring Bakers did with their challenges. Check it out if you have a second at the Daring Kitchen website. You won't be disappointed. :)

Hope everyone had a great Monday! Only 4 days left til the weekend. :) The count down is on!!!!!

Happy Baking my Friends!

The Daring Bakers' Challenge - December 2010 - Christmas Stollen!

Okay, Okay, I have been a very bad blogger. :( I didn't finish my 12 days of Christmas series and I have barely posted during the month of December. Thank you to all of you who still faithfully visit my blog when I do update it! My New Years' resolution is to be a better blogger - more consistent and lots of different types of recipes!

Now, on to the December Daring Bakers' challenge! The 2010 December Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie's Baking. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make Stollen. She adapted a friend's family recipe and combined it with information from friends, techniques from Peter Reinhart's book.... and Martha Stewart's demonstration.

My stollen was not very traditional (at all!!). I was inspired to make a tropical stollen because my sister was going to Maui for Christmas, so I thought something tropical was in order. Yes, tropical stollen sounds a little, odd, but it was delicious. I made candied lime peel following the instructions here. And used the recipe Audax recommended for home-made marzipan. I made a macadamia marzipan using ground macadamia nuts and Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum (a couple of tsp). I only needed 1/2 of the marzipan recipe for the stollen. The stollen was wonderfully moist and flavourful. Please see below for the recipe I adapted.



Tropical Christmas Stollen

Ingredients:

• ¼ cup (60ml) lukewarm water (110º F / 43º C)
• 2 packages (4 1/2 teaspoons) (22 ml) (14 grams) (1/2 oz) active dry yeast
• 1 cup (240 ml) coconut milk
• 10 tablespoons (150 ml) (140 grams) unsalted butter (can use salted butter)
• 5½ cups (1320 ml) (27 ozs) (770 grams) all-purpose (plain) flour (Measure flour first - then sift- plus extra for dusting)
• ½ cup (120 ml) (115 gms) sugar
• ¾ teaspoon (3 ¾ ml) (4 ½ grams) salt (if using salted butter there is no need to alter this salt measurement)
• 1 teaspoon (5 ml) (6 grams) ground cardamom
• 3 large eggs, lightly beaten
• Grated zest of 2 limes
• 2 teaspoons (10 ml) (very good) vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon (5 ml) coconut extract
• ¾ cup (180 ml) (4 ¾ ozs) (135 grams) candied lime peel
• 1 cup (240 ml) (6 ozs) (170 gms) firmly packed mixed, dried tropical fruit (I used pineapple, cantaloupe, crystallized ginger, and papaya)
• 3 tablespoons (45ml) Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum
• 1 cup (240 ml) (3 ½ ozs) (100 grams) chopped macadamia nuts
• unsalted butter for coating the wreath
• Confectioners’ (icing) (powdered) sugar for dusting wreath
• 1/2 batch macadamia nut marzipan candy

Method:

1. In a small bowl, soak the dried fruit in the spiced rum. Set aside.
2. Pour 1/4 cup of water into small bowl. Sprinkle with yeast and let stand 5 minutes. Stir to dissolve yeast completely. In small saucepan, combine 1 cup coconut milk and 10 tbsp butter over medium heat until butter is melted. Remove from heat and let cool until lukewarm (about 5 minutes).
3. Lightly beat eggs in separate bowl. Add vanilla and coconut extract. In a large mixing bowl, stir together flour, sugar, salt, cardamom, and lime zest. Then stir in the yeast/ water mixture, the coconut milk/ butter mixture. This should take about 2 minutes. The mixture should be soft but not sticky. When the dough comes together, cover the bowl with a tea towel and let rest for 10 minutes.
4. Add the lime peel, mixed fruit, and macadamia nuts. Mix until incorporated.
5. Turn dough out onto floured work surface. Knead dough, adding extra flour as necessary. Knead for approximately 8 minutes. When some dried fruit starts to fall out of the dough while it is being kneaded, you will know it has been kneaded enough. The dough will not be sticky enough to hold the outer dried fruit inside.
6. Lightly oil a large bowl and place dough in bowl, turning to coat. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Place in fridge overnight.
   

Making & Shaping the Dough

1. Let the dough rest for 2 hours at room temperature after removing from the fridge. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Punch dough down, and roll into a rectangle about 16x24 inches, 1/4 inch thick. Roll your marzipan into 4 logs that cover the length of the rectangle (see above picture). And place logs evenly on the dough.
2. Starting with a long side, roll up tightly, forming a long, thin cylinder. Transfer cylinder to sheet pan and join ends together, trying to overlap the layers to make the seam stronger. Pinch the seam to make it stick and form a large circle. You can form it around a bowl to keep the shape.
3. Using kitchen shears, make cuts at 2 inch intervals around the circle, cutting 2/3 of the way through the dough. Twist each segment outward forming a wreath shape. Mist dough with spray oil and cover with a tea towel. Proof for approximately 2 hours at room temperature until dough has increased to about 1 1/2 times its original size.
4. Preheat oven to 350F. Bake stollen in preheated over for 20 minutes, then rotate the pan 180 degrees and bake another 20 -30 minutes or until a thermometer registers 190F when placed into middle of bread.
5. Transfer to cooling rack then brush with melted butter while it is still warm. Immediately tap a layer of powdered sugar onto bread. Wait one minute then tap another layer of sugar onto the first. Repeat layers of sugar until the butter no longer soaks through the sugar. Let cool at least one hour before serving.

This was a really great challenge and it made a whole lot of stollen! I think if I made it again I would make it into 4 smaller wreaths. The size would be far more manageable and would also make a great gift to give. Thank you Penny for encouraging us all to try something new and for providing us with such a delicious recipe. It was a lot of fun to try it and the taste and texture were very rewarding.

Happy Baking my Friends!