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

Opera Cake!

I'm on vacation right now and I realized today is the posting date!

This months challenge was an Opera cake. Something I've wanted to make for a long time now. I really didn't think I'd get to make this challenge, seeing as how there were so many ingredients, and most of them were expensive.

Looking though my pantry one day, I realized I had enough ingredients to make 1/4 of the recipe! So, I used what I had, and made one, cute little cake!



I used pecans for the cake, and my favorite ceamcheese butter cream.





I didn't have anything for a glaze or mousse so I ended up making some strange orange/cream cheese curd-jello-thing, then whipped it up after setting it in the fridge.

I want to try making this cake again when I can do the flavors I want!

I apologize for the sloppy post! Blogging is not easy to do on vacation! ;-)

No Pops For Me :(

Due to some issues, I was unable to participate in this months challenge, Cheesecake Pops, but if you came here to see them, check out Karen's! She did an amazing job on them and they're definitely worth checking out!!

Anyway, so this is what I've been up to:

Iced brownies. Too cakey for me and not fudgy enough. I thought I was making the ones Mom usually makes, turns out I was using the wrong recipe! Next time.



Homemade tortilla shells! I didn't taste these, I made them for my brother. I was never of fan of soft tortilla! Next time I'll roll them thinner.



Cookies! With substitute chocolate chips. I made my favorite fudge frosting (in comment) but used milk instead of water, then plopped them on a baking sheet and put them in the freezer while I made My favorite chocolate chip cookies. The leaked a bit, but were incredibly delicious! Perfect for when you don't have chocolate chips!!





Sadly, no pops, but next month I'll be ready and daring!

Daring baker's challenge: French Bread!

I woke up this morning and my first thought was: I can post my bread!! So, I plug in the digital camera, and open up the folder with all the pictures...but to my greatest disappointment, the pictures are gone. Yep, gone. -sigh- I still have one picture,and luckily it was my favorite, but I'm still very upset.

The bread absolutely fabulous. The taste, the texture, the crumb, everything was really great. This was the best bread I've ever made. And thank goodness, too, because it took all day to make! Luckily it was still done by 7 and we were able to have some with dinner. Everyone gobbled it up!



The recipe looks a bit intimidating, but as you read through it you realize you only need half the directions, and they're not that bad. The recipe is VERY long, so I'll link to BreadChick's POST.

I'll I can say is, BRING ON THE NEXT CHALLENGE! Wooh!