Daring Bakers and an award!

Okay, so this months challenge was Filbert Gateau with Praline Buttercream. I was excited to find out this cake was from Carole Walter's "Great Cakes".

To start, I made this cake on monday night. I had no idea I was making the cake, but I got an unexpected tip from work.

so I picked up the ingredients at 4 and got to work at 6, after dinner. That's the last time I'm ever staring a daring baker project at 6 in the evening! By the time I was done I was ready to break down and cry myself to sleep. It was almost midnight, and nothing was going my way!

When I woke up the next morning, I was feeling a little better and decorated the cake. The only pastry tip I have is very small, and it kept getting clogged. The big splatter on top were accidents because the butter cream came right out of the top and plopped right on my design...*sigh*







Taste review:
I didn't like it. I didn't hate it, but I didn't like it.

My sister liked it! Maybe she has a more "adult palette"?

My friend Heather didn't like it, so she brought it home to her mom

My fron "Hollie" didn't like it very much but ate it anyway because she loves me. XD

Needless to say, I won't be making this again! But I'm glad I tried, it was worth the experience!

Luckily, "Hollie" brought over her peanut butter cup cheesecake! AMAZING. I'm seriously going to steel the recipe from her one of these days.



EDIT:
Karen of Do Better awarded me with the smiles award! It made me very happy and definitely put a smile on my face!

Characteristics for the Smile Award:
1. Must display a cheerful attitude. (not necessarily at all times–we are all human)
2. Must love one another3. Must make mistakes
4. Must learn from others
5. Must be a positive contributor to blog world
6. Must love life
7. Must love kids

These are the rules:

1. The recipient must link back to the award’s creator (http://www.thebabblingsofmere.blogspot.com/)
2. You must post these rules if you receive the award.
3. You must chose 5 people to receive the award after receiving it yourself
4. You must fit the characteristics of the recipient of the award, as posted by Mere.
5. You must post the characteristics of a recipient.
6. You must create a post sharing your win with others.
7. You must thank your giver.

Now I'm not sure if I can do this, but I want to award Karen with the same award! So I give the award to

1. Karen of Do Better. She's an amazing baker and extremely nice. She has 2 children who take after her beauty and her family seems so loving.
2. My very own sister, Christina, of Stuff By Stina. She's beautiful, talented and of the nicest people I've met!! She's great with little kids and when she smiles the whole room glows. (sorry, that was cheesy...but true!)
3. is Mother Bliss. She has a wonderful family and I love reading about her life! She's a great baker and cook, and her kids are adorable.
4. is Daily Delicious! Everything she makes looks so incredibly delicious! I'd love to visit her house for tea one day.
5. is Christina of She Runs She Eats. She's an amazing athlete who knows good food! I lkove to read how she's doing and all her tips. Everything she posts looks great, wether she's eating it or making it herself!

Daring Bakers -- Danish Braid!

The Daring Baker have decided it's time for more yeast. This months challenge was a Danish Braid. I'm going to keep my post short. (I appoligize in advance for the crummy pictures. The lighting in my house was terrible at 9 PM)



I made my braid on Friday. I started around 10 AM and it finished baking at 9 PM. That wouldn't have bothered me so much, but the whole bottom of my braid was burnt. Pitch black. Thankfully that was the one part that burnt. The filling and the top stayed nice and fluffy/flaky. But nearly twelve hours and I burnt it!!





It didn't seem like I had any problem doing the turns, but I'm not sure since this is my first time making anything like this.

The filling was pineapple/cheese, and I got the recipe from Carole Walter's "Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More". I liked the filling a lot, but I should've added more. I added a crumb topping from the same book to the top.



Anway, as for why it burnt, I'm not sure. I didn't have any parchment paper so I wasn't able to use that one the pan. Instead I greased it with margarine. Is that the reason why?

Please go to this months hosts blog for the recipe, as well as great pictures of the process!
Sass and Veracity and What's Cooking

Prepping for Easter Brunch: Part 3

Does it even need words? Seriously. I really wish I could upload smells to this blog, it would be so popular then! I nose was driving me crazy the whole time I was baking today, and I can't wait to eat it all up tomorrow!



And speaking of smell, this cake smelt so good. The lemon with the cream cheese and blueberry is to die for! I have no idea how the cake tastes, but the batter before it cooks is so good I would eat over pudding any day. It sits all pretty on it's cake dome tomorrow:



And the extra frosting is so yummy to lick, me and my sister had a ball...


There are 45 cinnamon rolls in total, not including the tasters we baked in a muffin tin and ate today. :)



And last week when I wasn't baking I was sewing! I was working an Irish dance dress for St. Patricks Day. I don't think I've ever mentioned I'm an Irish dancer, but I am!

Here's a picture of me in my dress, in the kitchen where I do all my baking:


And with my sister, in the dress she made:



For now, Happy Easter!!

Marbled Gifts

I have four friends, whom I love dearly. Two of them are sisters name Sarah and Heather, the sweetest girls you'll ever meet. The other two are a couple named Tom and Kris. Kris is sort of my adopted Godmother, as she was my sponsor when I made my Confirmation. Tom is a Deacon at my church, also adopted Godfather. I love them all so much, and what says I love you better than a home-baked gift? Especially one with chocolate!











All wrapped up and ready to be given! I can't wait to see if they like them tomorrow. This is the Marbled Pound Cake, from Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More. It has a shelf life of around 5 days, so I thought this would work best as a gift. It tastes great too. Had to save one for myself...ya'know, couldn't give something away not knowing if it tasted good or not!

Swedish Tea Ring

I did it. I went out and bought Carole Walter's Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More. After seeing it at my aunts house I knew I had to have it! It such a wonderful book. My family and I will be eating well for quite a while! Good thing we're all passed the sugar making us hyper.


Yesterday I put together the Rich Sour Cream Dough, that needs to sit in the fridge overnight. Today I turned it into the Swedish Tea Ringe, and because I so wanted to try one of the streusel toppings, and made that too, and threw it on before baking. Topping it all off, I used her Orange Glaze instead of vanilla, because I love orange!

(please ignore the background in this photo)


Here's the recipe. Now, the swedish tea ring doesn't call for the streusel, but that's what I used, and if you use only half the dough, you only need half the recipe for the streusel. It also calls for vanilla glaze, but I liked the orange. This took forever to type!

The Following recipes are taken from Carole Walter's Book: Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More. Please support her by buying the book! It's definitely worth every penny.
Rich Sour Cream Dough

4 tablespoon of sugar
1/4 cup warm water
1 package active dry yeast
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour spooned and leveled, (plus 1/4 cup for hand method)
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes, plus 1 tsp soft butter for brush top of dough
2 larg eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon pure vanilla exctract

In a large bowl, whisk together the 3 cups of flour, 3 tablespoons of the sugar, and salt. Add the cubed butter. Using you hands or a pastry blender, work in the butter until the mixture looks like fine meal. Make a well in the center.
Disolve the yeast and the remaining 1 tablespoon sugar in the warm water, making sure it's activated. Using a fork blend together sour cream, eggs, vanilla. Poor the cream mixture and the yeast mixture into the well. Using a wooden spoon, slowly work the crumbs into the liquids, mixing until all the ingedients are incorporated and a rough dough is formed. Sprinkle the work surface with 2 tablespoom flour. Turn the dough onto the floured surface, add the remaining 2 tablespoons flour and knead until smooth. Note: This is a soft dough!

Lightly butter a bowl for storing the dough. Place the dough into the bowl and brush the top with soft butter. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator over night. This dough may be kept in the fridge tightly covered for up to 3 days.

Swedish Tea Ring (Note: This recipe only uses half the rich sour cream dough. I doubled the following so I could use all my dough. Mine took long to bake, and I had to cover with tin foil for the last 10 minutes or so.)

1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 recipe rich sour cream dough
about 1 tablespoon melted butter

In a bowl, combine the sugars and cinnamon. Set aside. Removce the dough from the refrigerator and knead the cold dough 6-8 times. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough into a 9 x 16 inch rectangle, with the 16 inch side parallel to the counter. Brush the dough with butter and sprinkle with sugar mixture, leaving a 1 inch border in the far side, and gently pat them into the dough. Beginning with the side closest to you, roll the dough tightly, jelly roll style, to form a log. As you roll, be sure to square the ends of the log with a dough scraper to even the thickness of the log. Pinch the seem, sealing it well, and gently roll the log back and forth, elongating it until it measures 16 to 18 inches long. Place the log seam side down on the prepared cookie sheet and form it into a circle, 7 to 8 inches round. To make the ring, brush one of the ends with butter was and seal it to the opposite ends by pinching them together. Place a greased, inverted heat-proof bowl into the center of the ring, to help hold the shape. using sharp scissors, cut 16 to 8 slits about 3 quarters of the way through the dough, spacing them about 1 inches apart. Turn the slices out, so that they lay somewhat flat on the pan. Cover the dough loosely with plastic wrap and a towl, and let rise for 45 to 60 minutes, or until puffy and almost doubled.


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Brush the top of the dough with soft butter and cover with streusel topping*. bake in the oven for 25 to 28 minutes.

Streusel topping:
Carole's Favorite Streusel:
6-7 tablespoon melted unsalted butter(I used margerine)
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tso salt
3 tablespoon finely chopped walnuts
with a fork, combine all the ingredients until crumb forms.
While dough is baking, prepare the orange glaze.

Orange Glaze:
1 cupe powdered sugar, 4 to 5 tablespoon hot orange juice, 1 1/2 tsp light corn syrup, 1/3 tsp orange oil, 1/8 tsp vanilla extract. Apply while the dough is hot!

I'm editing this post to add a picture I did for this blog. Sadly it won't fit on the side like I wanted because all the layouts just don't work that way...but I still wanted to post it, since it sort of has to do with baking...sorry it's so big!

Cinnamon Rolls! Mmmmm.....

Carole Walter is a genious. Her Simple Sweet Dough is Absolutely delicious! I felt like I was making a pie crust when mixing the dough, not a yeast bread! It's soft, flaky and slightly sweet. Just perfect for cinnamon rolls! And what better to top cinnamon rolls than cream cheese frosting? Nothing. It's got to be a sin to use anything other than cream cheese frosting on cinnamon rolls!

Sunday evening and cinnamon rolls, a fire in the fire place, ahh....what could be better?





They were so gooey and yummy! Recipe for the dough can be found on this blog. I didn't use that filling recipe or icing. Filling was free-style. I used 1 sticks of really soft butter, and spread it all across the rolled out dough. Then sprinkled with a ton of dark brown sugar, maybe about 2 cups. Then sprinkled a fair amount of cinnamon, about 1/2 to 3/4 cup . Frosting was from my mom's carrot cake recipe-

Frosting Recipe:
8 Ounces or cream cheese, softened
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
6 tablespoons butter (softened works best)
1 tsp. vanilla


The Fireplace:


We got a new tablecloth and new napkins for our Easter brunch we're having at our house. My aunt and uncle are coming over, as well as their grown and married kids. (my cousins)





Here's our WIP menu for our Easter Brunch. Me and my mommy will be doing the cooking/baking. (with some help of Dad and big sis :-) )

Roast Beef with oven roasted potatoes.
Ham, with pineapple and cherries.
Sausage
French Toast casserole (Courtesy of Paula Deen) with our twist of cream cheese dollops and crumb topping, (thanks to a nice chef I met who attended the CIA)
Croissants, with a variety of filling. Chocolate, cherry cream cheese, pinapple cream cheese.
Dinner Rolls
Fruit bowl. (still deciding, it will depend on the prices.)
Green Bean Casserole
Cranberry Sauce
Sweet red cabbage, the way grandma makes it.
Blueberry Cream cheese Coffee Cake

Vegetables:
Corn
String Beans

I can't wait for Easter! Plus, I want to make homemade Cadbury Cream Eggs. And we'll buy lots of yummy chocolate and candy. =3