I was suddenly shaken awake late one night last month. I groggily opened my eyes to three masked figures hunched over me in the dark. Before I could make sense of the situation I was pulled out of bed, down three flights of stairs, and out of my apartment building. A lone van awaited in the dead of night, and a door opened as I was dragged inside. The van sped away and a blindfold was pulled over my face. Excitement filled up inside of me as the van screeched to a halt. Two arms pulled me out of the van and into a building, up stairs and into a room. Suddenly in my hands I felt tools, and my mask was lifted. One hand held a whisk, the other a spatula and I faced a mixing bowl full of egg whites.

“Mix, mix mix,” the women who filled the room cheered. I jumped into action, pulling pans of sugar onto the stove, whipping up whites and folding batter.

“Hurrah,” they all cheered as I garnished off my cake and it was over. I had made it, a Daring Baker I would now be.

A few months ago I came across the Daring Bakers and I’ve thought about this scene ever since. Here was a group of bakers who all participate in a monthly recipe challenge, each posting about their luck or struggles with the recipe. With La Vita Cucinare finally up and fully running, I joined last month with eager anticipation of the challenges to come. And with March fast and furiously at an end, my first challenge is finished and a Daring Baker I have become(sadly without the blindfold)

This month’s challenge was Dorie Greenspan’s Perfect Party Cake, my first Daring Baker challenge and my first Dorie recipe. The cake came out too thin in my half sheet tray, but when the recipe was doubled, became a a nice classic sponge. Butter cream never ceases to amaze me, as the curds of butter and meringue break and then always faithfully come back together, and Dorie’s was a good recipe that I would use again. I tried a variation on the recipe below, orange zest and juice in the cake and a marmalade between the layers, which made for a nice citrus cake, great for a friend’s birthday and as my initiation into Daring Bakers.

PERFECT PARTY CAKE
From Dorie Greenspan’s Baking from My Home to Yours (pages 250-252)

For the Cake
2 ¼ cups cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ cups whole milk or buttermilk (I prefer buttermilk with the lemon)
4 large egg whites
1 ½ cups sugar
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1 stick (8 tablespoons or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ teaspoon pure lemon extract

For the Buttercream
1 cup sugar
4 large egg whites
3 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
¼ cup fresh lemon juice (from 2 large lemons)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For Finishing
2/3 cup seedless raspberry preserves stirred vigorously or warmed gently until spreadable
About 1 ½ cups sweetened shredded coconut

Getting Ready
Centre a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter two 9 x 2 inch round cake pans and line the bottom of each pan with a round of buttered parchment or wax paper. Put the pans on a baking sheet.

To Make the Cake
Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
Whisk together the milk and egg whites in a medium bowl.
Whisk together the sugar and lemon zest in a mixer bowl or another large bowl and rub them together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and fragrant.
Add the butter and working with the paddle or whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat at medium speed for a full 3 minutes, until the butter and sugar are very light.
Beat in the extract, then add one third of the flour mixture, still beating on medium speed.
Beat in half of the milk-egg mixture, then beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients until incorporated.
Add the rest of the milk and eggs beating until the batter is homogeneous, then add the last of the dry ingredients.
Finally, give the batter a good 2- minute beating to ensure that it is thoroughly mixed and well aerated.
Divide the batter between the two pans and smooth the tops with a rubber spatula.
Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the cakes are well risen and springy to the touch – a thin knife inserted into the centers should come out clean
Transfer the cakes to cooling racks and cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes, unfold them and peel off the paper liners.
Invert and cool to room temperature, right side up (the cooled cake layers can be wrapped airtight and stored at room temperature overnight or frozen for up to two months).

To Make the Buttercream
Put the sugar and egg whites in a mixer bowl or another large heatproof bowl, fit the bowl over a plan of simmering water and whisk constantly, keeping the mixture over the heat, until it feels hot to the touch, about 3 minutes.
The sugar should be dissolved, and the mixture will look like shiny marshmallow cream.
Remove the bowl from the heat.
Working with the whisk attachment or with a hand mixer, beat the meringue on medium speed until it is cool, about 5 minutes.
Switch to the paddle attachment if you have one, and add the butter a stick at a time, beating until smooth.
Once all the butter is in, beat in the buttercream on medium-high speed until it is thick and very smooth, 6-10 minutes.
During this time the buttercream may curdle or separate – just keep beating and it will come together again.
On medium speed, gradually beat in more lemon juice, waiting until each addition is absorbed before adding more, and then the vanilla.
You should have a shiny smooth, velvety, pristine white buttercream. Press a piece of plastic against the surface of the buttercream and set aside briefly.

To Assemble the Cake
Using a sharp serrated knife and a gentle sawing motion, slice each layer horizontally in half.
Put one layer cut side up on a cardboard cake round or a cake plate protected by strips of wax or parchment paper.
Spread it with one third of the preserves.
Cover the jam evenly with about one quarter of the buttercream.
Top with another layer, spread with preserves and buttercream and then do the same with a third layer (you’ll have used all the jam and have buttercream leftover).
Place the last layer cut side down on top of the cake and use the remaining buttercream to frost the sides and top.
Press the coconut into the frosting, patting it gently all over the sides and top.

Cruising North along the 5, there’s one place on my mind. Down at the end of Market Street, the Ferry Building awaits, alive with the farmer’s market. The all-night drive saves just enough time for a quick nap and then it’s off we go, into the heart of the Bay City. The Ferry Building is the first stop, and my heart jumps a little to be inside this gastronomic mecca.There are gorgeous pistachio macaroons from Miette, a love affair of a little bakery, hearty whiffs of cheese from Cowgirl Creamery, and exotic mushrooms from the Far West Funghi stand. Just outside, the Saturday farmers market bustles, alive with juicy persimmons, musky Andante goats milk cheese, and everything from chicken feet to five different varieties of dried beans. It’s hard not to want to wrap it all up, tuck it into the car, and bring it back to Los Angeles.

Leaving the farmer’s bustle behind, it’s a short walk along the bay to Fisherman’s Wharf for a steamy, warm sourdough baguette. The crisp air stings as we bite into Boudin’s crunchy bread and begin to walk up one of San Fransisco’s famous hills, towards North Beach. This little Italian section echoes of the Philadelphian Italian Market or New York City’s Little Italy, sealing San Fransisco’s place in my East Coast heart even more. A quick walk through Washington Square Park, past the array of ever present dog walkers, always brings us to Palermo Delicatessen. Sifting through imported dried pastas and olive oil, it’s a lovely sight to see for my Italia obsession.

Straying off our beaten path, we head towards Pacific Heights, per suggestion of a born and bread San Franciscan. On Pine Street, we find the little bakery, Boulangerie Bay Bread. Inside, the tiny shop is packed with customers and its beautiful canneles, buttery tarts, and the most wonderful macarons ever. The canneles are dark and crisp with oh-so-creamy interiors, the macarons, flavored with spicy pumpkin, tart cherry, or salted caramel, melt in your mouth. A new love affair with San Francisco begins at this Boulangerie.

Navigating the windy roads of the city, on a bit of a Boulangerie sugar high, we make our way towards Twin Peaks, exploring another new-for-us area of San Fransisco . A tall climb to the top of these summits, up windy wooden steps built into the hillside, reveals a breathtaking view of the city that has swept my heart. It’s hard not to care for a place that has so much to offer. From a wonderful market, to an Italian mecca, to fresh baked bread, to the softest macarons, every trip to the Golden Gate city brings new adventures and revisits old favorites. Along Route 1, past Big Sur, the scenic route is said to be well worth the extra time, and another visit must be planned soon to explore this path. Unfortunately though, with busy work days and little free time, sometimes all that can be done is some San Fransisco Dreamin’.

Rosemary Salted Caramel Macarons

Bay Bread Boulangerie’s macarons made such an impression, I had to try to recreate them myself. Here I tried a new method, using an Italian meringue(where I usually use a French) and love it. Steeping the cream with rosemary gives these cookies’ filing an earthy flavor, with a salted caramel inspiration all the way from San Fransisco.

For the Caramel(make the day before to allow caramel to set up):

100g granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
100 g heavy cream
1/2 tsp maldon salt
70 g butter, chilled and cut into cubes

1. In a small heavy bottomed sauce pot, bring cream to boil and steep with rosemary for up to one hour. Strain.

2. Turn a small heavy bottomed sauce pot on medium heat. Sprinkle half the sugar into pot and allow to caramelize, stirring occasionally to avoid burning. Contiune to add sugar until all is added. Cook to a dark caramel color.

3. While sugar is cooking, reheat cream to just barley simmering.

4. Add vanilla to caramel, then pour in warm cream. The mixture will steam up and may splatter, so be careful.

5. Add the maldon salt and stir until completely combined.

6. Cool caramel to 100 degrees farenheit. Using an immersion blender, add butter until sauce is smooth and glossy. Allow to set up and use as macaron filling.

For the Macarons:

100 g egg whites, room temperature
135 g granulated sugar
135 ground almond meal*
135 confectioner’s sugar
1tsp salt

*I usually get blanched almond meal from baking specialty stores, but this time I used an unblanched meal from Whole Foods. For uncolored macarons, this texture works great!

1. In a food processor,grind the almond meal, confectioner’s sugar, and salt together until very fine. Sift.

2. Place the egg whites in the clean, dry bowl of a standing mixer. Place the sugar in a small heavy bottomed sauce pot, and add a small amount of water to create a quicksand consistency.

3.Place the sugar pot over medium heat. As the mixture begins to boil, start the mixer on low speed and begin to mix whites.

4. Continues to whip the whites to medium peaks. Bring the syrup mixture to 240 Fahrenheit, and in a slow, steady stream add it to the whites, mixing on medium speed. Whip on high until meringue is stiff peaks, then decrease to medium speed until cool.

5. Using a spatula, fold the dry ingredients into the meringue. Do not over mix. When totally combined the batter should be thick, but smooth. When drizzled onto itself, the batter should smooth out, not continue to stay stiff. This is often referred to as “flowing like magna.”

6. Line a sheet tray lined with parchment or a silpat. Place batter in piping bag with a small piping tip(or cut tip off bag evenly) Pipe small 1/2″ circles into rows on tray. Small peaks should settle into the piped circles in a few moments. If the peaks do not subside, the batter is under mixed. Place back into mixing bowl and gently mix a small bit more. Carefully sprinkle each macaron with small amount of maldon salt.

7. Preheat oven to 325 Farenheit. Let macarons sit up to one hour to develop an outer shell.

8. Bake macaroons for 11-15 minutes. When done, the macarons should not look wet in their centers, but have very little color.

9. Allow to cool completely and remove carefully from the sheet tray. Using an offset spatula to gently lift the macarons will help with any minor sticking. Fill with salted caramel filling and enjoy!

Tucked back into a corner of downtown Weisbaden’s shopping center, the tiny bakery is far from the bustle of nearby shoppers. It is not one of the numerous stands that lines the pedestrian zone, selling piping hot pretzels for fifty pfennings. Nor is it the corner bakery case that offers bright fruit tarts and our favorite, fluffy dampfnoodles, steamed buns with a salty, crispy crust. Far away from the hip clothing stores that entice my teenage eyes with the latest Euro fashions and Spice Girlesque boots, the bakery is saved for trips downtown with my mother. We always travel deeper into the shopping district, near the giant cuckoo clock store and the linen shop where she often buys new table cloths. There, the tiny bakery awaits, full of wonderful poppy seed brotchen, rich apfel strudel, and buttery, jammy, linzer cookies.

It is always at this bakery that I ask for the linzer. Big round cookies, filled with bright raspberry jam and topped with powdered sugar, I rarely leave the cookie in it’s bag long enough for the grease to mark the paper. The cookies are the perfect mix of spicy, sweet and delicious.

Back in the US, several years after my European adolescence, memories of those linzer cookies still connect to shopping trips with my Mother. Thoughts turned to her Valentine’s Day gift, the idea of baking these cookies swirled in my mind. Traditionally made with ground nuts, spices, butter, sugar and eggs, the cookies are a form of the Linzer Torte. Home to Linzer, Austria, the dough that forms both the torte and the cookies is said to date back as far as 1696. As I searched for the perfect recipe, I found many variations from this traditional dough. Each used brown, white, or confectioner’s sugar, a variety of different nuts and a mixture of spices. Some called for chemical leavener’s, other’s did not, and many included variations for the jam filling, including using any kind of store bought flavor. At first I thought traditional:ground almonds with cinnamon and nutmeg, and perhaps Apricot jam, but I needed a recipe. Mulling around with the ratios for linzer’s that I found, I decided finally on one egg to one yolk, and dark muscovado sugar for it’s deep molasses flavor. With a good base linzer cookie recipe created, I decided to play around with the ingredients. Pistachio linzer with cherry jam. Punched into hearts and topped with confectioner’s sugar, these cookies were quite attractive all boxed up and tasted almost as wonderful as the linzer’s I remember eating with my mother in Germany. For Valentine’s Day or any day that needs something special, these Linzer’s are a great way to go.

Over-baked, under-mixed: The challenges of baking

Baking is a tricky little art. Reading a recipe seems straightforward enough. Measure ingredients, mix together, and bake. These simple instructions should create the perfect cookie, batter or dough. Mix those ingredients too much (over creaming them) and you are left with lacy, crunchy cookies or an overly, aerated batter. Under-mix the ingredients and you have cake-y cookies and batter with bits of butter and sugar about it. Butter too cold: that dough won’t cream the same. Water not warm: no elasticity in your dough. Misread a recipe, skip over a step, forget an ingredient, and the whole thing may go down; way down into the garbage, a causality of pastry battles. Every element’s handling is vital and a change in each can garner a different result. Of course this means the same recipe could turn out different numerous times, and getting it right often may just be luck. With so many elements and so much to concentrate on, pastry certainly is a tricky art.

Getting over these adversities means being meticulous. Reading a recipe thoroughly before beginning it. Measuring and measuring again every ingredient. Studying text on how ingredients work together and how each should be handled in order to produce the desired result. Working at it, practicing over and over again in order to master the minute skills of art. Trying to understand failures and working to improve recipes in the future. Those without the lucky touch of a pastry chef who seems to always get it right must work at it. The perfect cookies, beautiful bread, and smooth custards will be all the reward needed for the hard work pastry can be.

Of course, even if the elements are right and all the ingredients are accounted for, even then a recipe may fail. A poorly written recipe may be the cause, which means back to the testing board to try again. Was the oven too hot? Were the eggs too cold? Was there enough flour? Should the tart shell be par baked? Should the butter be room temperature? All these details can be vital in perfecting a recipe, and this becomes the focus of those dedicated to pastry and to their recipes. Frustrating as it may be to turn out cakes or candies that are not quite right time and time again, it is these tests that create tried and true recipes and teach the intricacies of the pastry arts. So although it may be difficult, trying at it over and over again is the way to win the pastry battle and create the perfect cookie, cake or dough.

Look forward to more thoroughly tested recipes and pastry battle wins coming soon.