May's challenge was a resounding success, dear readers. Mmm, mmm, good. Sara and I were more nervous than usual because we knew we'd be cooking for a much bigger crowded than usual -- 14 people!!! Ay dios mio. Thank you to Genevieve for letting us provide dessert at your delicious monthly supper extravaganza. To drool over the pulled pork and everything else we ate, go
here.
We started that morning by making the marquise, well in advance so it had time to freeze.
Let me tell you, this was some delicious batter. It was essentially gussied-up mousse. Naturally, Sara and I undertook multiple taste tests. We had to be sure it was good. You can't tell by the pictures, but the chocolate had a little kick of heat that made it just delightful.
One of us -- yours truly -- beat the cream a little to zealously, so it didn't quite stir into the rest of the marquise as it was supposed to and instead stayed in little lumps. I have to say, though, frozen little lumps of cream are not the worst thing to find in your dessert.
Once we had the marquise ready to freeze for the day in Genevieve's freezer, we made some sweet 'n spicy almonds for a garnish. Sugar, cinnamon, cayenne, and a little salt . . .
The recipe required an unusual meringue-ish batter to get the sugar and spices to stick to the almonds. This was new to me and Sara, but ultimately quite effective. Even though we were too lazy to blanch the almonds.
During the morning we also whipped up the true belle of the ball -- the tequila caramel sauce. This sauce is not too be missed. Go make some now. I'll wait. It's easy -- Boil sugar and water until it turns into caramel. Add tequila. Cool. Eat.
* * *
After a morning of cooking, Sara went off to watch Will race bikes and I took a nap. (Look, the night before was a late one. We were out dancing. Sara almost got into a bar fight with Snooki's doppelganger. But that's a story for another day.)
* * *
Once at Genevieve's, after stuffing ourselves full of her Mexican-themed dinner, we were ready to finish the Challenge. The process for the meringue threw us for a loop. The picture above shows Sara uncomfortably stirring sugar into the egg whites over boiling water and keeping track of the temperature with her fingers at the same time. Yes, this was part of the recipe's instructions.
Although untested, this new meringue process worked quite nicely. We made a lot of little beds of meringue.
A lot.
Yes, I mean a lot!
But, oh, all of our efforts were worth it. Our marquise on meringue turned out just wonderfully. Every last one!
Look at those delicious almonds.
There's that tequila caramel sauce I was telling you about.
What a treat! And one of our must attractive challenges yet, in stiff competition with the
vol-au-vents and the
croquembouche. And our
festive gingerbread prison.
The only complaint we heard was that the cocoa powder that coated the marquise was a little too easy to inhale when one was scarfing down one's dessert. There was some coughing.
Apparently it didn't hinder people too much, however.
Don't worry, those last two got eaten, too.
The May 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Emma of CookCraftGrow and Jenny of Purple House Dirt. They chose to challenge everyone to make a Chocolate Marquise. The inspiration for this recipe comes from a dessert they prepared at a restaurant in Seattle.
Between the many weddings, graduations, and outdoor adventures of summer, Erica and I find it a bit difficult to schedule time for baking. Thankfully, San Francisco weather took a turn for the bizarre, and instead of attending a blue grass festival, rain forced us indoors to roll out sheets and sheets of phyllo dough. (Fun(?) fact? This was the first time on record that it rained in SF on June 4th).
The prospect of phyllo dough made us nervous. So many sheets to make! Typically, so very bad at making things as thin as they need to be! So we read through the comments, and came across the best advice of all - buy 00 flour. 00 flour is the finest ground flour in Italy (and also provides the name for one of my favorite SF restaurants - Zero Zero). We picked up a small bag at Whole Foods, and proceeded to make some of the thinnest, most pliable doughs I have ever worked with. Miracle of miracles!
We rolled and rolled and rolled, and stacked and stacked and stacked. We decided to make spanakopita as well, so we rolled and rolled and rolled some more. Cat helped us out with the nut mixture - a divine combination of flavors. I sauteed up some spinach and feta as well. We used an ungodly amount of butter.
The worse part about baklava? Having to wait an ENTIRE DAY to eat it. We baked it and watched as our piles of dough transformed into flaky goodness.
Instead of devouring it though, we poured on the honey mixture, and satiated ourselves with spanikopita (as well as both Wet Hot American Summer and Bridget Jones' Diary).
The next day, we agreed to meet at the old Castro theater for a showing of West Side Story. I dutifully wrapped up the baklava and packed it into tupperware containers. And in the middle of one of the saddest stories of all time, we happily munched on some of the best baklava I have ever tasted. Dare I say we're on a roll?
