Daring Bakers Challenge: Chocolate Pavlovas with Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse

The June 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. Dawn challenged the Daring Bakers’ to make Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse. The challenge recipe is based on a recipe from the book Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard

For those of you unfamiliar with Pavlovas (like me), they are meringue based desserts that are common in Australia and New Zealand. They are normally meringue disks, filled with whipped cream and topped with fresh fruit.

The real challenge for this is, of course, the meringue. Vegan meringue has been tried by many and with most people not having the best results. Julie Hasson is one of the nice vegan folks who worked really hard to come up with a meringue recipe that really works. I can’t post this recipe because it is on the membership side of her website, Everyday Dish. I use her recipes all the time and I have to say it’s definitely worth getting the membership!

Meringue recipe whipping in my stand mixer.

Meringue all whipped up and ready to go. I folded in 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder into the meringue and put in a piping bag with a large star tip.

Piped out meringue on parchment paper. This part was allot of fun to do and it tasted like chocolate marshmallow!

I baked the meringues at 200° overnight. They kind of remind me of the mad scientist experiments I did as a kid with chocolate chips and marshmallows in the microwave! They still felt really soft to the touch in the oven, but as soon as I took them out, they instantly hardened. They ended up being very crispy, but not in the light and airy way that meringues are. Not perfect, but definitely a really good start to having meringues!

I also made crème anglaise from the book Passionate Vegetarian. The recipe is really delicious and is a great dessert sauce. I mixed a couple of tablespoons of cocoa powder with a cup of the crème anglaise for a second sauce.

The last item I made was chocolate mousse. This is my all time favorite chocolate mousse recipe that you would never guess is dairy-free! I’ve used it as a filling in cakes or just as is. It is absolutely wonderful stuff! I normally sub out the amaretto for more chocolate soy milk and it works great.

Here is the final product! A chocolate meringue disk with piped on chocolate mousse, on top of vanilla & chocolate crème anglaise, with sliced mango, kiwi and a raspberry. Very good stuff! It tasted wonderful and I am really happy with the end result.

Sorry for the lack of posts and this very late Daring Bakers post! I will be posting the Daring Cooks Challenge in a couple of days!

Daring Bakers: Tiramisu

The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession.

Tiramisu used to be one of my all-time favorite desserts. What’s not to love about it? A fluffy, creamy filling with espresso soaked ladyfingers/cake and a hint of just a little bit of rum or marsala. Yes, please! Unfortunately, this is normally a rare treat in the vegan world. I made tiramisu once at school, but of course, it wasn't vegan. This is something I’ve been wanting to tackle for a while now.

Since tiramisu is a rare thing for me, I decided to make two flavors: traditional and chocolate caramel. I used the Tira Mi Su recipe from Urban Vegan and used marsala wine instead of brandy. I’ve heard nothing but great things about this book and after making this kick ass recipe, I will definitely be buying this book! This recipe is pretty simple, easy to follow and down right delicious! This will be a special occasion recipe for me because the ingredients are a bit expensive, but definitely worth it!

And now for brown pic mania. Sorry about the bad lightning!

Traditional Tiramisu

Bake sponge cake and cool on cooling rack. I forgot to take pics of the cake process! Whoopsie!

Cut the sponge cake into circles using a cookie cutter or cup. Slice the cakes in half length wise.

Whip Soyatoo! and set aside. This stuff is amazing! I cannot believe how similar it is to whipped cream!

Whip Tofutti cream cheese, marsala wine, sugar and vanilla until smooth and well combined.

Gently fold whipped cream into cream cheese mixture. Remove half of the whipped mixture and set aside for the chocolate caramel tiramisu.

Pour espresso in a bowl and quickly soak cakes.

Transfer cakes to ramekins or cups and spread the yummy whipped filling on top. Set aside to decorate.

Chocolate Caramel Tiramisu

I used this vegan caramel recipe from A Vegan Ice Cream Paradise blog. While I do prefer a more traditional caramel recipe without using brown sugar, this recipe was super fast and simple to make.

Melt Earth Balance in a saucepan over medium heat. Add brown sugar and stir until combined.

Add creamer and stir. I used coconut creamer and it worked great!

Bring liquid to a boil and boil for 4 minutes, stirring frequently.

Remove from heat. Add a slurry of arrowroot and creamer. Stir constantly until well combined and set aside until cooled to room temp.

Sift one tablespoon of cocoa powder to the saved whipped filling. Silly me, I forgot to sift! Add two tablespoons of caramel sauce. Gently fold until combined.

Add espresso soaked sponge cake and caramel to a ramekin. Smooth chocolate whipped filling on top and set aside.

Smooth tiramisu tops with a cake spatula.

I bought these handy little cake stencils at Ikea. Place the stencil on top of the tiramisu and sift cocoa powder until covered. Slowly remove the stencil. The tiramisu sticks a little bit to the stencil, but it still looks pretty cool.

For a cool little trick on your plate, place a spoon on a white plate. Arrange paper towels or parchment paper next to the spoon. Sift cocoa powder on top to cover the spoon and the exposed part of the plate.

The end result is decadent and freakin’ delicious! This recipe will definitely fool any omni and is just incredible! Dinoff is not a coffee drinker, and even he loved it!

My Mom's Birthday Cake!

My Mom requested a chocolate raspberry cake for her birthday, so, of course I had to go with the raspberry blackout cake from VWAV. This lush and decadent dessert has four layers of cake with chocolate mousse, ganache, fresh raspberries and was wrapped in a chocolate band. This is one of the best tasting cakes I have ever made! It was rich and delicious!

To make the chocolate band, I followed directions similar to this; except I used a cake comb and a mixture of white & dark chocolate to get the striped sides.

I made modeling chocolate and molded the chocolate roses by hand. I also topped the cake with fresh raspberries and piped ganache.

Delicious!

Daring Bakers: Nanaimo Bars

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and http://www.nanaimo.ca/.

So....I'm a little late (only 13 days) on January's challenge! For some reason, I really had to push myself to make this challenge. It just didn't sound that appetizing to me and I just wasn't feeling it. I finally decided to go with "better late than never" and I am so glad I did! I was wrong, wrong, wrong! Nanaimo bars are one of the best desserts I've ever had! They are rich, sinful, decadent, and just plain awesome!

January's challenge was a two part challenge:

Part 1: Make homemade graham crackers.

Part 2: Make Nanaimo bars.

We also had the option of making everything gluten free, but I opted to make my mine with AP flour.

So, what are Nanaimo bars? They are a Canadian no bake bar with three layers:

1: A chocolate layer.

2: A layer of light vanilla or custard flavoured buttercream.

3: A wafer crumb-based layer.

Graham Crackers
I used this graham cracker recipe provided by our host, but I used Earth Balance for the butter and Trader Joe's Maple Agave Blend for the honey. They were really simple to make and tasted great!

Combine the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt in a food processor.

Cut in the Earth Balance until it becomes a coarse meal.

Add agave, soy milk and vanilla and blend until the dough comes together.

Roll out dough, cut into rectangles and mark with a fork.

Bake at 350° for 15 minutes. Done!

Nanaimo Bars

I used the Nanaimo bar recipe featured on Julies Hasson's EverydayDish TV , by vegan cookbook author Sarah Kramer. I used ground pecans instead of walnuts and used dark chocolate instead of unsweetened chocolate. This recipe is amazing! They are VERY rich, so I recommend cutting them into one inch squares.

Melt Earth Balance with sugar over low heat.

Add cocoa powder and whisk until smooth.

Smooth and yummy!

Mix chocolate mixture with the flax seeds, water, ground pecans, coconut and graham cracker crumbs until combined.

Press mixture into an 8X8 pan and set aside.

Melt dark chocolate and Earth Balance and set aside.

Cream together Earth Balance, soy milk, vanilla, corn starch, turmeric and powdered sugar until well mixed.

Spread buttercream layer on top of the graham cracker layer and then pour the cooled chocolate layer on top.

Delicious!

Decadent!

They went too fast!

Daring Cannolis!

Well, the time has finally come.......I did my first Daring Bakers challenge! For those of you not familar with the Daring Bakers, the Daring Bakers are a group of bloggers who accept a challenge once a month from a designated baker. The challenges are different every month and range for foccacia to opera cakes.
I have been wanting to join the Daring Bakers for quite a while, but was afraid to take the leap. There are so many awesome bakers out there posting their beautiful pics and it made me a bit nervous to try. Well, I finally joined thinking that this would be a perfect way for me to do some of the things that I learned in school and change them to vegan. I was also hoping to be challenged to do something that I would not normally make and this challenge is exactly that.
While I absolutely do love cannolis, I have not had them since going vegan. I've never given them a shot because they are normally fried, and well, that scares me a bit. Sure, we deep fried things in school, but it was with a huge deep fryer that was made for that sort of thing! I did find a couple of recipes that allow you to bake the cannoli shells, but none of them had very good reviews. Baked cannoli shells just won't bubble and puff up like the fried ones will.
Well, I gave it a shot and ended up with some pretty freakin' tasty cannolis and no oil burns!

I followed this recipe on live journal and made a few changes:

I used Earth Balance instead of shortening and Ener-G egg replacer instead of a flax egg.

I only used 1 tsp of lemon zest and 2 tsp of lemon juice.

I added 1 TB of instant clear jel to thicken the filling. It was still pretty soft, so next time I think I will add at least 2 tablespoons of instant clear jel.

Roll out cannoli dough. If you have a pasta roller, use it! This dough takes some serious muscle to roll it out thin.

I cut the dough into circles and then rolled them into thin ovals.

Wrap the cannoli ovals around the cannoil tubes and brush the inside lip with the "egg" wash to stick together. There is a fine line on how loose/tight to wrap these around the tubes. Too tight and they will be really hard to remove from the tubes. I learned the hard way on wrapping them too loose and lost my first batch while frying.

I fried these at 375° in a canola oil for a couple of minutes. Be sure to move them around with tongs to make sure they brown evenly and don't walk away at this point! They fry up fast!

Naked cannoli shells just waiting to be filled. See all the nice bubbles?!

Candy Cane Cookies & Cream Cannolis

I left out the lemon juice & lemon zest and added a few crushed Candy Cane Trader Joe Joes Cookies to the filling. I dipped the ends in melted chocolate and more crushed cookies.

Mocha Cannolis

I left out the lemon juice and lemon zest. I added coffee extract, cocoa powder and dipped the ends in melted chocolate.

My Favorite Cannolis
I added chopped chocolate to the filling, dipped the ends in chocolate and more chopped chocolate. They were the best! A little bit of sifted powdered sugar on top would have been perfect!

The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.