Daring Bakers/Orange Tian

I often find myself frustrated when new Daring Baker's challenges are posted, because so often I find the recipes do not appeal to me. Almost every single time, I have been proven wrong. This month I was proven wrong yet again. For a dessert that sounded too much like orange creamsicle pudding, this tian far exceeded my expectations. That being said, the orange whipped cream combination is not totally my thing, but I liked it much more than I thought I would. So when I remake this (yes, I will be remaking it), I will probably try a berry version; this citrus version was good, but a berry version sounds great.

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.

For those of you who don't know what a tian is (I didn't), its essentially an upside-down cake with a pate sablee base smeared with marmalade, then topped with lightly sweetened whipped cream, with circles of fruit segments on the top.

Brown Butter Brown Sugar Shorties*

*you may notice that the title today is just the name of the cookie, they warrant no further explanation. Read on...

Every week I face a challenge, the same challenge: to bake or not to bake? And I mean that in reference only to cakes, cookies, pies and the like. Now I love sweets, a lot, but I really and truly try not to eat them a lot. I have learned that the best way not to eat too many sweets is not to have them around and for most people that's pretty manageable. Instead I went ahead, started this little old blog and gave myself a reason to break that rule.

Yesterday, after turning in an econ paper and a frightful wrestle with my windswept umbrella (I lost), I knew it was time to bake. To make things a little more fun, I set some ground rules: I had to have the ingredients in my house, the recipe had to be simple, and it had to be delicious. I managed to follow all the rules, except for my cardinal rule of 'everything in moderation.' But, hey, I have no regrets. When the cast of characters includes nutty brown butter and brown sugar, regrets are impossible. And I don't want to show off or anything, but my way-too-old brown sugar clumped together in parts essentially leaving me with brown butter brown sugar chip cookies. Yeah, I know, right?

If you haven't run off to make these yet, let me tempt you more. I'll bet you already have all the ingredients you need sitting in your pantry, dying to be transformed into a brown butter brown sugar shorty.

Boy Food/Meatball Subs

I haven't figured out why the notion of a girl's night usually conjures up images of cute little PJs, homemade facials and pillow fights. Sorry for the bad news, but reality is far from that; most 'girls nights' I have are neither called that nor do they involve any of this allegedly girly behavior. Take the other night for example, a few of my friends and I got together to eat meatball subs, watch The Hurt Locker, burp and act totally ungirly. In my experience this is much more honest picture of reality; girl's nights are an opportunity to relax and be yourself and most importantly, a chance to enjoy somewhat sloppy, messy food without caring about the sauce on your chin or the crumbs on your lap.

In this vein, I can confirm that homemade meatball subs are the ideal messy food to indulge in with girlfriends and in our case the casual, homey food was the perfect complement to an intense and suspenseful movie. The idea for meatball subs actually came to me when I was in a Subway with two friends the other day; one of them told me that she had always wanted to try a meatball sub. I begged her to let me make them rather than letting her get one at Subway or any other commercial enterprise. I knew that my own version would be far superior in flavor and quality and I couldn't bear to let my friend scar her taste buds with a commercial version of this classic Italo-American dish.

I don't know about my friends, but these subs far exceeded my expectations and I think that a huge part of that is because I did not skimp on a single component. Hoagie rolls were turned into garlic bread before being smothered with huge meatballs and a rich butter and onion spiked tomato sauce.

Easy Bread/English Muffins

Between my fear of baking with yeast, my finicky oven and my overall belief that homemade bread is never as good as something fresh from a boulangerie, I almost never make my own bread. That being said, after the challah, the pretzels, and now these english muffins, my fear of yeast is essentially overcome and I am looking forward to the day that I have an oven powerful enough (and kind enough) to form a crusty brown loaf from a ball of perfectly risen dough. In the meantime I am finding loopholes, ways to get over my fear of yeast without worrying about the repercussions of a weak oven.

Enter the english muffin. About five years ago when I saw Alton Brown making english muffins on Good Eats, I knew I would have to make them one day. Fast forward to a few weeks ago when I finally gave his recipe a go; it was an utter disaster. I almost blamed myself and gave up, but the truth is I just didn't like the recipe. There was just way to much yeast giving these an overly sour, raw flavor and a gooey, under risen texture. Instead of giving up, I forged on and did some more research and noticed that most recipes used at least two times as much flour for the same amount of yeast! It really wasn't my fault, the proportions were off as I had thought and I comforted myself by realizing that maybe I do know a thing or two about bread making.

The second round yielded ideal results, I used half the amount of yeast, replaced half the flour with whole wheat flour and wound up with beautiful, toasty, fork-splittable disks that are as good for absorbing melting butter as they are for making a sandwich.