I was fortunate that my first three Daring Bakers challenges were all cake-related and not unfamiliar territory. I knew my luck would eventually run out and that one day I’d come across a dough challenge. Well, that time finally arrived when this month’s challenge of a Danish braid was announced by Kelly of Sass & Veracity and Ben of What’s Cooking?. I think I’ve attempted cooking with yeast perhaps once before. It may have been in my childhood or teen years, but it was enough of a failed experience to have turned me off from working with yeast.

My initial reaction was to skip this month’s challenge, as after all, this is mostly a site about cakes. But my husband who has a lot of faith in me really wanted me to try this. And after perusing so many scrumptious and successful braid after braid completed by other zealous Daring Bakers, I decided to give this a go.

Braid, pre-baked

I decided upon a cream cheese/egg filling and fresh blueberries, topped with raw sugar and sliced almonds.

Nothing novel here, but I’m glad I “rose above” my fear of yeast and ventured out of my cake comfort zone! Thanks to Kelly and Ben for hosting! To see what other Daring Bakers have done, please visit the Daring Bakers Blogroll.

You could say I’ve been on an Opéra kick lately. I made the above shortly after the completion of May’s Daring Baker’s challenge and I’m posting this just in case the food blogging world hasn’t seen enough Opéra cakes lately. After having tried a less traditional pistachio-apricot Opéra last time, I was curious to try the classic flavor combination of espresso syrup-soaked almond joconde, mocha buttercream, ganache and chocolate glaze and used the recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s Paris Sweets. These flavors did not disappoint. Actually, that’s an understatement. I made these for a party and people’s eyes bulged out after taking a bite.

My next Opéra variation was for my boss’ 50th birthday. I made a Frangelico-espresso syrup soaked almond joconde, with peanut butter mousse, ganache, and chocolate glaze. My boss loves the designs of the luxury hand woven leather goods manufacturer Bottega Veneta, so I created a chocolate bow inspired by their classic woven patterns. The bow was made from chocolate modeling paste, onto which I imprinted the criss-cross design. I cut out strips, formed them into loops, and arranged the loops into a decorative bow. For the stitching detail, I used a decorative comb used to created ridges on the sides of cakes. The triangular teeth had the perfect spacing to create a repeated indented pattern that resembled stitching. The entire bow was dusted with gold dust.

I was sooo excited when I found out this month’s Daring Bakers challenge was an Opéra cake. I’ve enjoyed my share of similarly quadrilateral shaped layer cakes in Paris, always wondering how they were done (and mostly questioning how those sides were cut with such laser-like precision).

This month’s Opéra cake challenge was a marriage of recipes from Dorie Greenspan’s Paris Sweets and Tish Boyle and Timothy Moriarty’s Chocolate Passion. While the Opéra cake is typically made with joconde, dark chocolate ganache, and buttercream, the twist for this month’s challenge was to keep the colors and flavors light, i.e. no dark chocolate, coffee, etc. I decided the light theme would be well suited for Mother’s Day, so I ultimately decided upon a combination of almond joconde flavored with apricot-kirsch syrup, pistachio buttercream, apricot mousse, apricot glaze. This flavor combination was inspired by a class on petits gateaux that I took with Chef Chad Pagano at the ICE. I filled it with fresh apricot chunks, and the top is decorated with white chocolate swirls, chopped pistachios and specks of edible gold leaf.

For the buttercream recipe, I used an old standby which can be found on a previous post (with modified quantities). I mixed pistachio paste into the basic buttercream at the end and it was delicious. Sugar Chef made an amazing creation and was kind enough to post her recipe and photo on the Daring Baker’s non-public site and I basically used her mango mousse recipe to create my apricot mousse. For the glaze, I used agar agar dissolved in apricot juice. I also used syrup flavored with kirsch and apricot juice to moisten the cake. The white chocolate swirls were a bit tricky. Instead of just drizzling the chocolate over the top of the glaze, I drizzled it over silpat which I topped with chopped pistachios while the chocolate was still liquid. I then carefully transferred the fragile, hardened white chocolate web onto the top of the cake. I did this perhaps unnecessarily complicated maneuver so the pistachio bits would adhere only to the chocolate, not the glaze. Finally, I added a few small bits of edible gold leaf.

I’m thrilled these seemingly daunting cakes were finally demystified! Though there are some changes I would make to this cake next time, the process was actually much simpler than I would have guessed. And the getting the sides cut neatly wasn’t rocket science and didn’t require a laser. A freezer and a long knife dipped in hot water and cleaned, however, was extremely helpful.

Thanks to Lis, Ivonne, Fran, and Shea for hosting and choosing such an awesome challenge! If you’d like the basic recipe, I’m hoping and fairly certain you will find it on their sites. For an inspiring roundup of other Daring Bakers’ concoctions, click here.

I recently posted a black pearl cake with ginger, wasabi, black sesame seeds here. It was so delicious I made it again, this time in a miniature cupcake version. I’m talking *mini*, as in I baked them in wrappers generally used to hold chocolates (though the package did say they were baking cups). These were absolutely delicious, moist bitefuls of chocolate cake filled with ganache, complemented beautifully by airy whipped cream frosting.

In the cake version, found in my previous post or the original here, you bake three 8″ layers, soak each layer with ginger syrup, and fill the cake with black sesame seed/ginger/wasabi ganache between layers. In this cupcake version, I did brush syrup on the tops of each cupcake and piped the ganache right into the heart of these mini chocolate bites. I topped each cupcake with the ginger whipped cream, black sesame seeds and chopped crystallized ginger.

I also adjusted the baking time, of course, so they baked for about 10-12 minutes or so. Adjust the cooking time depending on the size of your liners, of course. If you’re making mini-mini cupcakes as I have, you may want to half the recipe, as these would make a LOT.

April’s Daring Bakers challenge was cheesecake lollipops dipped in chocolate. I had first seen and eaten these cheesecake pops at Davidburke and Donatella restaurant in New York (their pops come with bubble gum whipped cream) and thought the concept was really quite inventive and playful. In an episode of Road Tasted on FoodNetwork, it was revealed that David Burke’s children were the actual inspiration for these pops and now they’re a huge seller. A chef from the restaurant demonstrated how their pops are created. After baking the cheesecake, it is whipped, put into a pastry bag, piped onto a sheet, then dipped into chocolates, tuxedo style. In our challenge recipe, the cheesecake was baked, frozen, scooped into balls, then dipped in chocolate.

We were given free reign in our choice of toppings and in the shapes of the pops, so I eventually settled on five toppings: cocoa nibs, chopped dried cherries, crystallized ginger chips, crushed chocolate chip cookies, and crushed chocolate cookies. I think my pops turned out resembling meteoritic space balls, but I was not unhappy with the look.

At first, I dipped a single topping onto each pop, but I starting mixing it up a bit to accommodate eaters who might like to sample several of the toppings at once.

I also experimented with the shape a bit and used round cutter to create a drum-like shape with sides. This allowed me to alternate toppings a bit easier.

Thanks to Deborah from Taste and Tell and Elle from Feeding my Enthusiasms, who were this month’s hostesses. Deborah has the recipe posted on her site if you’re interested. The recipe calls for adding shortening in the chocolate to create a snap, but I used cocoa butter instead, which worked well. I also flavored my pops with seeds from a vanilla bean. To be frank, if I made these again, I would try another cheesecake recipe. I think at the very least, the cheesecake itself could have used a kick with more citrus flavors. I would also try the piping method to avoid the mess created from rolling the cheesecake balls by hand. To check out what other Daring Bakers have done for this challenge, click here.