The Daring Bakers Challenge - February 2011 - Panna Cotta!

When this month's challenge was posted, I felt a little let down initially... after the hype of last month's uber challenging biscuit jaconde, the thought of making "simple panna cotta" seemed a little too easy. And while it was a technically simple procedure to make panna cotta, making layered panna cotta with other various elements including florentine cookies & homemade nuttella transformed this dessert into something spectacular which I think is what Mallory had in mind when she selected this fabulous challenge. It really gave me the opportunity to be creative and bring an otherwise simple dessert up a notch.

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 Giada De Laurentiis' recipe and Nestle Florentine cookies. It was a great challenge and I'm so thankful to Mallory for showing us how to make Panna Cotta. It was amazing to see how the other Daring Bakers really stepped it up for this challenge and made some absolutley amazing creations - beautiful flavours, colours, shapes and sizes.

I chose to make a layered panna cotta which included the following layers: vanilla panna cotta, homemade nuttella, toasted hazelnuts (chopped), chocolate panna cotta. I also made the florentine cookies and filled them with more homemade nuttella. I served these for a dinner party last night and they were incredibly well received. I also thought this dessert turned out so great - they looked beautiful and it really adds a wow factor when you unmold them for your guests! :)

There are a lot of elements to this challenge, so this post is going to be a long one... hopefully you can bear with me to make it through these recipes!

Vanilla Panna Cotta

Recipe slightly adapted from Giada De Laurentiis

Ingredients:

• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 tbsp (1 package) unflavoured gelatin
• 3 cups whipping cream
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1 tbsp granulated sugar
• pinch of salt
• 2-3 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

1. Pour milk into a bowl or pot and sprinkle gelatin powder over the milk in an even layer. Let stand for 5 minutes to soften the gelatin.
2. Pour the milk and gelatin into a medium size pan and place over medium heat on the stove. Heat until the mixture is hot, but not boiling, about 5 minutes. Whisking the mixture a few times while it heats up is a good idea!
3. Next, add the remaining ingredients. Make sure the mixture doesn't boil, continue to heat over medium heat, stirring occasionally until honey and sugar are dissolved, about 5-7 minutes.
4. Remove from heat, allow to stand for a few minutes to cool slightly. Then pour into glasses or ramekins, or whatever fun shaped dishes you have on hand.
5. Refrigerate at least 6 hours or overnight.

Next element is homemade nuttella! I found this recipe for homemade nuttella on David Lebovitz's blog and just had to make it. It was absolutely perfect for this challenge and how great is it to be able to make nuttella from scratch?!

Homemade Nuttella

Recipe from David Lebovitz

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup whole almonds
• 1 1/3 cup whole hazelnuts
• 1 3/4 cup whole milk
• 7/8 cup powdered milk
• 3 tbsp mild flavoured honey
• pinch of salt
• 6 oz bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 5 oz milk chocolate, chopped

Method:

1. Spread the nuts on a baking sheet, keeping the almonds and hazelnuts separate. Toast the nuts in an oven preheated to 350F, stirring a few times for about 10-15 minutes, until the hazelnuts are browned.
2. While they are roasting, warm the milk and powdered milk in a saucepan with the honey and salt just until the mixture starts to boil. Remove from heat.
3. Melt the chocolate together in the microwave until smooth.
4. Use a spatulla to put the warm hazelnuts in a kitchen towel and rub them vigorously to remove as much of the skin as possible (dont' worry if you don't get all of it, just get as much as you can).
5. In a food processor, grind the nuts together until they are as smooth as you can get them. It will probably take a good 5 minutes or so to get them pretty smooth. Add the melted chocolate and continue to process until mixed really well. Stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl if necessary.
6. Once mixture is smooth, add the warm milk mixture and process until smooth. It might be a bit soupy here, but don't worry, it will firm up when it is refrigerated. For perfectly smooth nuttella, you can strain the mixture, but you don't have to. I didn't and it turned out fine.
7. Transfer mixture into two jars and refrigerate. Keeps about one week.

Pipe a layer of nuttella onto the set layer of vanilla panna cotta and sprinkle with chopped toasted hazelnuts. Put that in the fridge to set up while you make the chocolate layer of panna cotta.

Chocolate Panna Cotta

Recipe adapted from Bon Apetit

Ingredients:

• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 tbsp (1 pkg) unflavoured, powdered gelatin
• 2 cups whipping cream
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup bittersweet or semisweet chocolate
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

1. Pour milk into small bowl and sprinkle evenly with gelatin. Set aside for about 5 minutes to soften the gelatin.
2. Place a saucepan over medium heat, stir in cream, sugar and vanilla. Bring to low boil. Add chocolate and stir until melted. Whisk in gelatin milk mixture. Whisk until gelatin has dissolved.
3. Pour very carefully over the already set vanilla, nuttella and hazelnuts. Place in refrigerator to firm up for 8 hours or overnight.
4. To serve, dip bottoms of ramekins in hot water, run sharp knife around edges and invert onto serving dishes. Garnish with florentine cookies and more chopped toasted hazelnuts.

And lastly, make the florentine cookies:

Nestle Florentine Cookies

Recipe from the cookbook Nestle Classic Recipes

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 2 cups quick rolled oats
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2/3 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup dark corn syrup
• 1/4 cup whole milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• pinch of salt
• homemade nuttella (recipe above)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Combine melted butter, oats, sugar, all purpose flour, corn syrup, milk, vanilla and salt. Mix well. Drop by the tablespoon full onto cookie sheet lined with parchment paper leaving 3 inches between cookies (they spread a lot). Flatten slightly with back of spatula.
2. Bake in preheated oven for 6-8 minutes until cookies are golden brown. Cool completely on cookie sheet. Peel cookies off parchment paper and place face down on cooling rack in pairs. Pipe nuttella onto the bottom side of one cookie and place other cookie on top creating a sandwich cookie. Keep cool until serving to ensure nuttella stays firm.

And that is this month's Daring Bakers Challenge! How fabulous does that look?? And they tasted even better. :) Do try this recipe - its easy and you can simplify it by just making one kind of panna cotta or buying premade biscuits or nuttella to serve it with. Thanks Mallory for such a fantastic challenge and for sharing such great recipes with all of us Daring Bakers!

Happy Baking my Friends!

The Daring Bakers Challenge - January 2011 - Biscuit Joconde Imprime/ Entremet

Since I joined the Daring Bakers in August I have constantly been amazed at the cool things we've made. I have conquered a number of culinary adventures that I never dreamed I would be able to complete. And then this challenge came along... it seemed so complex, so difficult, and as though I would never be able to successfully complete the challenge. I spent a few sleepless nights worrying about how this dessert would turn out...

The January 2011 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Atheroshe of the blog accro. She chose to challenge everyone to make Biscuit Joconde Imprime to wrap around an Entremets dessert. You should check out her blog for some beautiful entremets - she is so very talented and really did host an amazing challenge!

Now, despite being more terrified and stressed out about a challenge than I have been since I joined, I really enjoyed making this dessert and most definitely will try it again. I would love to perfect this technique - it is such a beautiful way to present desserts for special occasions and always leaves people wondering how you achieved such beauty in a dessert! I chose to make individual desserts as I was having a dinner party that weekend, so I figured I may as well make them. Even if they looked ugly, at least they would taste good!

I layered a no-bake vanilla bean cheesecake which I adapted from my mother-in-law's go-to cheesecake recipe, with a chocolate-kahlua mousse. I topped with sweetened whipped cream and a small piece of joconde imprime. I found the mousse to be far too rich for my taste, however my husband really loved it as did my dinner party guests, so I think this may just come down to my personal preference. However, I would highly recommend the no-bake cheesecake recipe (please see below for details).

Since this is going to be such a long post, lets get on with the instructions. Be sure to read through all the instructions prior to attempting this recipe!!!! Maybe read through them a couple of times... :)

Step 1: Make the Joconde Sponge

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup almond flour
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp icing sugar
• 1/4 cup cake flour
• 3 large eggs
• 3 large egg whites
• 2 1/2 tsp white granulated sugar
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

Method:

1. In a clean mixing bowl whip the egg whites and white granulated sugar to firm, glossy peaks. Reserve in a separate clean bowl to use later.
2. Sift almond flour, confectioners sugar, cake flour in the dirty egg white bowl.
3. On medium speed, add the eggs a little at a time. Mix well after each addition. Mix until smooth and light. Fold in 1/3 of reserved egg whites to lighten the batter. Fold in the remaining egg whites. Do not overmix.
4. Fold in melted butter.
5. Reserve batter to be used later.

Next Step: Make the Joconde Paste to pattern your sponge:

Ingredients:

• 14 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups + 1 1/2 tbsp icing sugar
• 7 large egg whites
• 1 3/4 cup cake flour
• food colouring gel or paste

Method:

1. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually add egg whites. Beat continuously. Fold in sifted flour. Tint batter to desired colour (colours).
2. Pipe batter into desired patterns on a silicone baking mat placed on an upside down baking sheet.
3. Slide the baking sheet with the paste into the freezer for 15 minutes until hard.
4. Remove from freezer. Quickly pour the joconde batter over the design. Spread evenly to completely cover the pattern of the decore paste.
5. Bake at 475F until the joconde bounces back when slightly pressed, approx 15 minutes. It will bake fairly quickly, so do keep an eye on it.
6. Cool. Do not leave too long or it will stick to the mat.
7. Flip cooled cake onto parchment paper dusted with icing sugar, remove silpat carefully. Cake should be right-side up with your pretty pattern showing.
   

Next Step: Prepare the Molds for the Entremets:

1. You can use a spring-form pan, biscuit cutter, ring molds, or PVC pipe cut approximately 3 inches high.
2. Lay a piece of parchment paper on a baking tray. Stretch cling wrap over the bottom of the mold and up the sides. Be sure to pull it tight so it creates a smooth base for your dessert. Line the inside of the ring with a curled piece of parchment paper. Cut the paper to the top of the mold as this will make spreading the entremet layers easier.

Next Step: Preparing the Joconde for the Molds:

1. Trim the cake of any dark, crispy edges. You should have a nice rectangle shape.
2. Decide how high you want your joconde wrapper. Traditionally it should be about 1/2 the height of the mold.
3. Once your height is measured, cut with a ruler into nice even strips. Besure strips are cut cleanly and ends are perfectly straight.
4. Press the cake strips inside of the mold, decorative side facing out. Push and press the ends together to make a beautiful seamless ring around the mold.
5. The mold is done and ready to fill.
   

No-Bake Vanilla Bean Cheesecake

Ingredients:

• 1 pkg light cream cheese
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 envelope dream whip
• 1 vanilla bean

Method:

1. Beat cream cheese & sugar until smooth & fluffy. Stir in vanilla and vanilla bean seeds. Prepare dessert topping according to package directions. Fold into cream cheese mixture.
2. Spoon into individual molds until cream cheese mixture comes up about 1/2 way to the top.
3. Leave in fridge overnight to let cheesecake set. Then make the mousse.
   

Make the Kahlua-Chocolate mousse based on the mousse part of this recipe. Spoon on top of set cheesecake mixture and level the tops as best you can. Mousse should come all the way to the tops of each mold.

Serve by garnishing with whipped cream & chocolate shavings. Enjoy!

Wow! What a lot of work and a lot of steps! But it really was worth the effort. Despite not being perfect, they really were beautiful and so much fun to serve at my dinner party. Thank you so much Atheroshe for sharing such an amazing technique with us Daring Bakers. This challenge was oh-so-daring, but I learned so much and enjoyed every step of the way.

Happy Baking my Friends!