The Daring Bakers present: Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart

Chocolate and caramel – a match made in heaven. That’s what I thought when Veron showed me this recipe – she was the host of this month’s challenge and asked me to be her partner in crime – thanks, sweetie! :)

We exchanged emails with many suggestions for the challenge but truth be told, who can resist this tart? I couldn’t, and didn’t.

The tart is delicious, but not as rich as I thought it would be – the chocolate topping is very light and smooth. The caramel fragments add a delicious crunch to it and the shortbread base is so delicious I have been thinking of using baking the amount left on my freezer as cookies.

I halved the entire recipe and got a 24cm round pie, with only a handful of pastry left.

There’s also some info I need to share: I ended up using the metric system to measure some ingredients and cup/tablespoon/teaspoon to measure others because some of the measurements were a bit confusing in my opinion – for instance, I weighed 2 ½ tablespoons flour and got more than 15g.

You’ll need to chill the pastry overnight, so plan accordingly.

Don’t forget to check the other Daring Bakers’ tarts – there’s a link to the complete list on my side bar.

Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart

Chocolate Shortbread Pastry:*
250g unsalted butter, softened
150g confectioners’ sugar
50g ground hazelnuts
2 level teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 eggs
4 ½ cups cake flour**
2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 ½ tablespoons cocoa powder

A day ahead:
In a mixing bowl of a food processor – I used my brand new Kitchen Aid, with the paddle attachment, yay!!! - cream the butter.
Add the confectioners’ sugar, the ground hazelnuts, and the cinnamon, and mix together
Add the eggs, one by one, mixing constantly; sift in the flour, the baking powder, and the cocoa powder, and mix well.
Form a ball with the dough, cover in plastic wrap, and chill overnight – take it out of the refrigerator a while before rolling it out, otherwise it will be too hard.

Caramel filling / chocolate mousse topping:
250g (½ lb) chocolate shortbread pastry (see recipe above)
300g granulated sugar
250g heavy cream (30-40 percent butterfat) or crème fraiche – I used 25% cream, which is the one available here in Brazil
50g butter
2 whole eggs
1 egg yolk
2 ½ tablespoons flour
1 ¼ cups whipping cream
250g (½ lb) milk chocolate

Preheat oven to 160ºC/325ºF.
Line the baking pan with the chocolate shortbread pastry (roll it between plastic pieces and it will be a lot easier) and bake blind for 15 minutes.
In a saucepan, caramelize 200g granulated sugar using the dry method until it turns a golden caramel color. Incorporate the heavy cream or crème fraiche and then add butter. Mix thoroughly. Set aside to cool.
In a mixing bowl, beat the whole eggs with the extra egg yolk, then incorporate the flour.
Pour this into the cream-caramel mixture and mix thoroughly.
Spread it out in the tart shell and bake for 15 minutes (I baked for 20). Remove from oven and allow to cool.

Prepare the milk chocolate mousse: beat the whipping cream until stiff. Melt the milk chocolate in the microwave or in a bain-marie, and fold it gently into the whipped cream – I set the chocolate aside for a couple of minutes to cool because adding the warm chocolate to the whipped cream did not seem right to me.

Pour the chocolate mousse over the cooled caramel mixture, smoothing it with a spatula. Chill for one hour in the refrigerator.

Alternate Caramel Method:

If you have problems with the dry method, you may use this method.

1 cup sugar
½ cup water
1 tablespoon corn syrup

Set mixture in a pot over medium-high heat and stir slowly. When the mixture comes to a boil, stop stirring and leave it alone. Wait till desired color is attained.
Proceed with the rest of the recipe.

Caramel Fragments:
Melt 100g granulated sugar in a saucepan until it reaches an amber color. Pour it onto waxed paper laid out on a flat surface. Leave to cool. Break it into small fragments and stick them lightly into the top of the tart.

Makes: One 22.5cm (9in) square or one 25cm (10in) round tart

* chocolate shortbread pastry can make 3 tart shells

** there’s no cake flour here in Brazil, so I used a substitute I found on the web: 1 cup cake flour = 7/8 cup all purpose flour + 2 tablespoons corn starch

The Daring Bakers present: Bagels

When I read that this month’s challenge was to make bagels, I was very excited – I’d never tasted the famous bread and what a nice chance to do so!

I loved the dough: delicious to be kneaded and rises like no other. I also had loads of fun with the whole “making of”… I just felt sad about the look of the bagels – they’re so ugly, the poor things. Wrinkled like a Shar-Pei. :(

Anyway, I thought the flavor was really good – even though I haven’t tasted a real bagel to compare – and I’ll try to make them again, hoping to get shiny and smooth bagels as it should be.

Liked this sort of Seinfeld post? Check the other Daring Bakers’ blogs – I’m sure you’ll find some pretty good bagels there!

Bagels

840-1,120g (6-8 cups) bread (high-gluten) flour
4 tablespoons dry baking yeast
6 tablespoons granulated white sugar or light honey (clover honey is good)
2 teaspoons salt
720ml (3 cups) hot water
a bit of vegetable oil
3.8 liters (1 gallon) water
3-5 tablespoons malt syrup or sugar
a few handfuls of cornmeal

First, pour three cups of hot water into the mixing bowl. The water should be hot, but not so hot that you can't bear to put your fingers in it for several seconds at a time. Add the sugar or honey and stir it with your fingers (a good way to make sure the water is not too hot) or with a wire whisk to dissolve. Sprinkle the yeast over the surface of the water, and stir to dissolve.

Wait about ten minutes for the yeast to begin to revive and grow. You will know that the yeast is okay if it begins to foam and exude a sweetish, slightly beery smell.

At this point, add about 420g (3 cups) of flour as well as the 2 teaspoons of salt to the water and yeast and begin mixing it in – use your hands or a wooden spoon; I prefer the latter.

When you have incorporated the first three cups of flour, the dough should begin to become thick-ish. Add more flour, a half-cup or so at a time, and mix each addition thoroughly before adding more flour. As the dough gets thicker, add less and less flour at a time. Soon you will begin to knead it by hand – do it in the bowl, in case it’s big enough, or on a clean and lightly floured countertop.
Add bits of flour if necessary to keep the dough from sticking. Soon you should have a nice stiff dough. It will be quite elastic, but heavy and stiffer than a normal bread dough. Do not make it too dry, however... it should still give easily and stretch easily without tearing.

Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, and cover with one of your clean kitchen towels, dampened somewhat by getting it wet and then wringing it out thoroughly. If you swish the dough around in the bowl, you can get the whole ball of dough covered with a very thin film of oil, which will keep it from drying out.

Place the bowl with the dough in it in a dry, warm (but not hot) place, free from drafts – I always use my microwave oven for this step when I make bread or pizza dough. Allow it to rise until doubled in volume – I let it rise for 1 hour and it was huge when I took it out of the oven.

While the dough is rising, fill a stockpot with about the water and set it on the fire to boil. When it reaches a boil, add the malt syrup or sugar and reduce the heat so that the water just barely simmers; the surface of the water should hardly move.
Once the dough has risen, turn it onto your work surface, punch it down, and divide immediately into as many hunks as you want to make bagels. For this recipe, you will probably end up with about 15 bagels, so you will divide the dough into 15 roughly even-sized hunks. Begin forming the bagels. There are two schools of thought on this. One method of bagel formation involves shaping the dough into a rough sphere, then poking a hole through the middle with a finger and then pulling at the dough around the hole to make the bagel – this is how I did it.
The other method involves making a long cylindrical "snake" of dough and wrapping it around your hand into a loop and mashing the ends together. Whatever you like to do is fine. DO NOT, however, give in to the temptation of using a doughnut or cookie cutter to shape your bagels. Just like snowflakes, no two genuine bagels are exactly alike.

Begin to preheat the oven to 205ºC/400ºF.

Once the bagels are formed, let them sit for about 10 minutes. They will begin to rise slightly. Ideally, they will rise by about one-fourth volume... a technique called "half-proofing" the dough. At the end of the half-proofing, drop the bagels into the simmering water one by one. You don't want to crowd them, and so there should only be two or three bagels simmering at any given time. The bagels should sink first, then gracefully float to the top of the simmering water. If they float, it's not a big deal, but it does mean that you'll have a somewhat more bready (and less bagely) texture – that’s what happened to me.
Let the bagel simmer for about three minutes, then turn them over with a skimmer or a slotted spoon. Simmer another three minutes, and then lift the bagels out of the water and set them on a clean kitchen towel that has been spread on the countertop for this purpose. The bagels should be pretty and shiny, thanks to the malt syrup or sugar in the boiling water.

Once all the bagels have been boiled, prepare your baking sheets by sprinkling them with cornmeal. Then arrange the bagels on the prepared baking sheets and put them in the oven. Let them bake for about 25 minutes, then remove from the oven, turn them over and put them back in the oven to finish baking for about ten minutes more. This will help to prevent flat-bottomed bagels – I didn’t turn them because I didn’t want the toppings to fall down. I baked them for 35 minutes straight.

Remove from the oven and cool on wire racks, or on dry clean towels if you have no racks. Do not attempt to cut them until they are cool... hot bagels slice abominably and you'll end up with a wadded mass of bagel pulp. Don't do it.

To customize bagels: After boiling but before baking, brush the bagels with a wash made of 1 egg white and 3 tablespoons ice water beaten together. Sprinkle with the topping of your choice: poppy, sesame, or caraway seeds, toasted onion or raw garlic bits, salt* or whatever you like. Just remember that bagels are essentially a savory baked good, not a sweet one, and so things like fruit and sweet spices are really rather out of place.

* I used coarse salt and thought that it became a bit wet on the following day.

Gateau Saint Honore

I'm having a slice of the cake while I type this. It is good, but I can’t say it’s my cup of tea…
I love puff pastry and even used the amount I had left to make lunch today. The Saint Honore cream is so delicious that I was afraid there was not going to be enough to assemble the cake – I kept reaching for spoons in my drawer and dipping them into the smooth mixture, promising that it would be the last time I was going to do that. Caramel is caramel – the word itself makes my mouth water. Cream puffs are a classic – everybody likes them, even my-not--into-sweets husband. So, what’s wrong?

In my humble opinion, all these incredibly delicious things just don’t go well together – I know it sounds insane since this cake is such a big staple in patisserie and all, but for me it wasn’t all that.

I’m glad I could try making cream puffs for the first time – actually, João is way happier with it than me. :)
I still have a lot to learn and improve and I thank the two ladies behind this for making the opportunity I needed to start trying my hand on that.

I’m sure the other Daring Bakers have some interesting cakes and points of view to share – you can find their links on the sidebar.

Since I used store-bought puff pastry I’m not going to post the recipe for that – only for the rest of the cake.

Oh, and let's forget the fact that my caramel decorations suck.

Gateau Saint Honore

Pate a Choux – Cream Puffs Dough:
135g (4 ¾ oz) all purpose flour
240ml (1 cup) water
58g (2 oz) unsalted butter
¼ teaspoon salt
240ml (1 cup) eggs

Sift the flour and set aside.Heat the water, butter and salt to a full rolling boil, so that the fat is not just floating on the top but is dispersed throughout the liquid.Stir the flour into the liquid with a heavy wooden spoon, adding it as fast as it can be absorbed. Avoid adding it all at once or it will form clumps.
Cook, stirring constantly and breaking up the lumps if necessary, by pressing them against the side of the pan with the back of the spoon until the mixture comes away from the sides of the pan, about 2-3 minutes.Transfer the dough to a mixer bowl. Let the paste cool slightly so that the eggs will not cook when they are added. You can add and stir the eggs by hand but it requires some serious elbow grease.
Mix in the eggs, one at a time, using the paddle attachment on low or medium speed. Do not add all the eggs at once. Check after a few, the dough should have the consistency of thick mayonnaise – I ended up using only 4 out of 5 eggs.
Transfer the dough to a piping bag and use as desired.

Saint Honore Cream (Rapid Chiboust or Diplomat Cream):
7g (1 envelope) unflavored gelatin
60ml (¼ cup) cold water
130g (½ cup + 2 tablespoons) sugar
70g (½ cup) all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
5 egg yolks
480ml (2 cups) whole milk
1 tablespoon rum – I used vanilla extract
60ml (¼ cup) whipping cream
3 egg whites
dash of salt
100g (½ cup sugar)

Soak the gelatin in the ¼ cup of cold water.
Put the sugar, flour, and salt into a saucepan and stir together with a whisk. Add the yolks and enough milk to make a paste. Whisk in the remainder of the milk.Place over low heat and stirring constantly, cook until thick. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla and the gelatin. Stir until the gelatin is completely dissolved.Stir in the whipping cream. Set the mixing bowl in cold water and stir until the cream is cool. Place the egg whites in a clean bowl and using clean beaters, whip them with the dash of salt. As soon as the whites begin to stiffen, gradually add the ½ cup of sugar and beat until they are very stiff.
Fold the egg whites into the cooled cream.

Caramel:
240g (8 oz) sugar

Decoration:
240ml (1 cup) heavy cream
1 teaspoon sugar - I used 1 tablespoon

Assembly the cake:
Roll the puff pastry out to 3mm (1/8 in) thick, 30xm (12 in) square. Place on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. Refrigerate covered at least 20 minutes.While the puff pastry is resting, make the pate a choux and place it in a pastry bag with a #4 (8mm) plain tip. Reserve.Leaving the puff pastry on the sheet pan, cut a 27.5cm (11 in) circle from the dough and remove the scraps. (An easy way to cut it is to use an 11in tart pan as a “cookie cutter”). Prick the circle lightly with a fork.Pipe 4 concentric rings of pate a choux on the pastry circle – as I made a smaller cake, I piped only 2 circles. Pipe out 12 cream puffs the size of Bing cherries onto the paper around the cake – I used only 8 cream puffs.Bake the puff pastry circle and the cream puffs at 205ºC (400ºF) until the pate a choux has puffed, about 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 190ºC (375ºF) and bake until everything is dry enough to hold its shape, about 35 minutes longer for the cake and 8 minutes longer for the cream puffs (just pick them up and take them out as they are done).
Place about 114g (4 oz) of the Saint Honore Cream in a pastry bag with a #2 (4mm) plain tip. Use the pastry bag tip or the tip of a paring knife to make a small hole in the bottom of each cream puff. Pipe the cream into the cream puffs to fill them. Refrigerate.Spread the remaining cream filling on the cake. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours to set the cream. Caramelize the 240g (8 oz) of sugar. Fill a bowl that is large enough to hold the pan used for cooking the sugar with enough cold water to reach halfway up the sides of the pan. Set the bowl aside. Place the sugar in a heavy bottomed pan and cook until the sugar until it has caramelized to just a shade lighter than the desired color.Remove from the heat and immediately place the bottom of the pan in the bowl of cold water to stop the cooking process. Dip the cream puffs into the hot caramel, using 2 forks or tongues to avoid burning your fingers. Place them on a sheet pan. The caramel must be hot enough to go on in a thin layer. Reheat if necessary as you are dipping, stirring constantly to avoid darkening the caramel any more than necessary. Also, avoid any Saint Honore cream to leak out of the puffs and get mixed in with the caramel while dipping as the cream can cause the sugar to recrystallize.
Whip the one cup of heavy cream and teaspoon of sugar to stiff peaks. Place the whipped cream in pastry bag fitted with a #5 (10mm) star tip. Pipe a border of whipped cream around the top of the cake. Arrange the cream puffs, evenly spaced, on top of the filling, next to the cream – I decided to secure them using caramel.

Option: Before filling the cake, take care of the cream puffs, dip them in more caramel, hook them up to the base. Fill with the cream filling and fill the holes with the whipped cream.

Darkest Chocolate Crepe Cake

I want to start by thanking my dear fellow Daring Baker Brilynn for choosing this recipe – it was a challenge, indeed, and one of the most interesting recipes I have ever made. Joao kept telling me how beautiful the cake looks – and he’s not into sweets, I have to say.
I guess I would never have chosen something like this to prepare and I’m so glad I have made it.
Not only it looks superb, it also taste delicious – I must confess I ate 2 crepes that remained after the filling was over. If the crepes alone were yummy, what to say of them combined with a filling made with whipped cream, meringue and Nutella, a ganache icing and hazelnuts dipped in caramel?? Heavenly.

I was worn out after standing up for 2 hours preparing the crepes but it paid off – beautifully.

If you liked my cake, go check the other cakes prepared by the lovely Daring Bakers – the links are on the side bar.

Darkest Chocolate Crepe Cake
recipe by Martha

Crepe batter:
170g (¾ cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces, plus melted for pan
225g (8 ounces) semisweet chocolate, finely chopped – I used a 51% cocoa solids chocolate
210g (1 ½ cups) all-purpose flour
67g (1/3 cup) sugar
½ teaspoon salt
600ml (2 ½ cups) whole milk, room temperature
6 large eggs, room temperature
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

Bring ¼ cup water to a rolling boil in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Add butter, 1 piece at a time, whisking to combine after each addition. Remove from heat; stir in chocolate until completely melted. Set aside.
Whisk together flour, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl. Whisk together milk, eggs, and vanilla in another medium bowl. Gradually add milk mixture to flour mixture, whisking until smooth. Add chocolate-butter mixture, whisking until smooth. Pour through a fine sieve into an airtight container; discard lumps. Refrigerate at least 2 hours or up to overnight.
Lightly coat an 8-inch crepe pan or nonstick skillet with melted butter - the three crepes that were torn were made with greased pan. The minute I stopped brushing it with butter I gor all the crepes perfectly shaped. Heat over medium heat until just starting to smoke. Remove pan from heat; pour about 2 tablespoons batter into pan, swirling to cover bottom – here I used a ladle that holds 3 tablespoons batter. Reduce heat to medium-low; return pan to heat. Cook, flipping once, until edges are golden and center is dry, about 30 seconds per side.
Slide crepe onto a plate. Repeat process with remaining batter, coating pan with butter as needed. Crepes can be refrigerated, covered, up to 1 day.
Place a crepe on a wire rack set over a rimmed baking sheet. Spread with about 3 tablespoons hazelnut filling. Top with another crepe. Continue layering with hazelnut filling and crepes, using about 32 crepes and ending with a crepe on top. Refrigerate until firm, about 15 minutes.

Spoon ½ cup glaze on top of the cake, spreading to edges. Spread remaining glaze around sides of cake, coating completely. Refrigerate until glaze is firm and set, about 20 minutes. Cake can be refrigerated up to 3 days. Garnish with toasted and candied hazelnuts.

Makes 32 crepes – I got 28 OK and 3 completely torn (which I gladly ate straight from the crepe pan)


Hazelnut filling:
160ml (2/3 cup) heavy cream
6 large egg whites
330g (1 2/3 cups) sugar
395g (1 3/4 cups) unsalted butter, cut into pieces, softened
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
100g (1/3 cup) hazelnut cream – I used Nutella
pinch of salt

Put cream into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment; beat on medium-high speed until soft peaks form, about 4 minutes. Transfer to a medium bowl. Refrigerate 1 hour.
Whisk egg whites and sugar in the clean bowl of mixer set over a pan of simmering water until sugar has dissolved and mixture registers 70ºC/160ºF, 2 to 3 minutes.
Attach bowl to mixer fitted with the clean whisk attachment; beat on high speed until slightly cooled and stiff (but not dry) peaks form, about 5 minutes.
Fit mixer with paddle attachment. With mixer on medium-low speed, add butter, several pieces at a time, mixing well after each addition (meringue will deflate slightly as butter is added). Add vanilla, hazelnut cream, and salt; mix until mixture comes together, 3 to 5 minutes. Fold in whipped cream with a rubber spatula. Use immediately.

Makes about 8 cups


Chocolate glaze:
300ml (1 ¼ cups) heavy cream
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
pinch of salt
280g (10 ounces) semisweet chocolate, finely chopped – I used the same 51% chocolate

Bring cream, corn syrup, and salt to a boil in a medium, heavy saucepan over medium- medium-high heat. Remove from heat. Add chocolate; swirl pan to cover completely with cream. Let stand about 5 minutes. Stir until smooth. Let cool completely.

Makes about 2 cups - sobrou cerca de 1/2 xícara


Candied hazelnuts
9 hazelnuts, toasted and peeled
200g (1 cup) sugar

Thread each hazelnut onto tip of a long wooden skewer; set aside. Place a cutting board along the edge of a countertop; set a baking sheet on floor next to edge.
Cook sugar and ¼ cup water in a medium, heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until sugar has dissolved. Continue to cook, without stirring, until syrup comes to a boil, washing down sides with a wet brush to prevent crystals from forming. Let boil until syrup turns light amber, about 5 minutes; remove from heat. Let stand until slightly cooled, 8 to 10 minutes.
Dip 1 skewered hazelnut into syrup, coating completely and letting excess syrup drip back into pan. When dripping syrup becomes a thin string, secure end of skewer under cutting board, letting caramel string drip over edge onto sheet. Repeat with remaining hazelnuts. Let stand until caramel has hardened, about 5 minutes. Break strings to about 10cm (4 inches).
Carefully remove skewers.

Makes 9