Friday, August 27, 2010

August Daring Bakers Challenge - Brown Butter Pound Cake Two Ways

Make yourself comfy, because it is that time of the month again!

The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”.

I was so excited to read this challenge. I have been very curious about browned butter for quite some time now, but have always been too afraid to try it. While there were some daring bakers who were less excited to have a second ice cream based challenge in a row, to me, there is no such thing as too much ice cream, especially now that I know how amazing the homemade variety is. So between the brown butter and the ice cream, I could not wait to dive right into this challenge.

So I didn't.

Wait, that is. For the first time ever, I started this challenge the day after it was posted. So I am so excited to finally be able to share it with you.

The first step was to decide which of the two desserts I was going to make with my brown butter pound cake. This was easy. They both looked great - I was going to make both. There was no question about that.

The second step was to make the brown butter. This was a little harder, at least mentally, before actually starting. Browning butter was always something that worried me a bit, since there is only a fine line between browning butter and burning it. A line I have always been nervous to cross. And this recipe called for two and a half sticks of butter. That is a lot of butter to risk. But this was the perfect opportunity, so I got started.

The process of browning butter is actually quite simple, as long as you watch it carefully.
The butter is melted over medium heat, and then heated further until the milk solids begin to toast, darkening to a nice brown and giving off a delicious, nutty aroma. At this point, I placed the entire pot into a pan that I had set aside, filled with cold water. This was to immediately stop the cooking process to make sure that the butter didn't cross that line into "burned" territory. The beautiful, golden, aromatic butter was then transferred to a bowl and placed into the freezer to cool for use in the pound cake. I love how you can actually see the layers in the butter, with the dark milk solids on the bottom.

While the butter was cooling, little miss and I got started preparing the dry ingredients for the brown butter pound cake. She absolutely loves measuring, pouring and mixing.

The batter came together absolutely beautifully, and had such a beautiful color and smell, thanks to the brown butter. Needless to say, I was very encouraged, even at this stage, about the entire challenge. I mean, if just the batter for the first element looked this good, that had to mean good things for the rest of the challenge.

Once the cake was done, it was time to choose which dessert I was going to make first. I chose the Baked Alaska, for no other reason than I actually had a plan for the egg yolks that I would wind up with as a result of making the meringue. I actually had some vanilla ice cream left over from last month's bombe challenge. As lucky timing would have it, I had made the ice cream late in the month for that challenge, and was preparing this challenge early, so the ice cream was only one week "leftover." I decided to convert it to cookies and cream for use in this challenge, just to change things up a bit. Little miss helped me crush Oreo cookies, then mix them into the vanilla ice cream. We then lined two of little miss's small-sized bowls with plastic wrap and used them as molds for the ice cream. These were placed into the freezer to get nice and solid, to be ready for the construction of the final dessert. I then used another of these bowls as the guide for cutting out the cake, onto which these ice cream rounds would rest. Then, when the time came to put it all together, I whipped up some meringue.

To put the dessert together, the molded ice cream is turned out onto the cake rounds. Then the whole thing is covered in the prepared meringue. The meringue can be piped on or, as I did, spread onto the ice cream and cake, making sure that the entire dessert is fully covered. I then put the meringue covered domes back into the freezer until dessert time, just waiting for the finishing touch. Once dinner was done, it was time to pop these guys into a very (VERY) hot oven for just a couple of minutes to toast the meringue. The meringue (plus the extra freezer time...) insulates the ice cream enough to keep it from melting, despite the 500 degree oven temperature. The resutly was a beautifully toasted Baked Alaska. Little miss was absolutely amazed that I was putting ice cream in the oven, and was more than happy to be a taste tester for the finished product. It got major thumbs up all around.

Baked Alaska completed (and thoroughly enjoyed), I was able to then turn my attention to the second dessert option. In cutting the pound cake for the Baked Alaskas, I had reserved half to be used to create ice cream petit fours.

For the petit fours, I decided to use the leftover caramel ice cream from last month's challenge. I had just enough, and, as luck would have it, had a complimentary flavor-combination idea to use it. The given recipe for petit fours was something like a chocolate-enrobed ice cream sandwich, with the brown butter pound cake as the "bread" for the sandwich. With the combination of caramel ice cream and the chocolate covering, I was really getting "candy bar" vibes, so that was my inspiration for my petit fours. After carefully splitting the pound cake in half, I proceeded to spread chocolate sauce on one half and caramel sauce (the same caramel sauce ipe recthat I had used as the topping for my apple pierogi) on the other. I then put the caramel ice cream in the middle and, as quickly as possible, closed up my "sandwich" to re-freeze in the freezer. As you can see, I had the same problem with the caramel ice cream here as I did in the apple pie bombe - it melts. Fast. And becomes just a little bit messy. As quickly as I could, I wrapped the whole thing in plastic wrap and put it back into the freezer. As for the mess on the counter? Little miss was more than happy to help me clean it up... as only a four year old can...

After several hours in the freezer, it was time to cut the sandwich into cubes to be covered in chocolate. The caramel sauce actuall froze to be pretty hard, which made cutting the layers cleanly a little bit tricky, but I soon had about a dozen sandwich squares, ready to be covered in chocolatey goodness. For some reason, my sauce came out very thin, so we actually double-dipped them, hoping for a nice, clean chocolate coating. The result wasn't quite what I had hoped for, but I must say - the combination of melty caramel ice cream and thin chocolate coating made the pound cake extra moist, even after time in the freezer, and the results were super delicious. What was lost in presentation points, I certainly think was made up for in taste points.

Elissa, I cannot thank you enough for such an awesome challenge. Thank you for helping me get over my fear of brown butter, thank you for the amazing brown butter pound cake recipe (oh yes, that will be made again!), and for the fun chance to exercise dessert creativity with both dessert options. This was a really great challenge.


I highly recommend checking out the beautiful, creative and delicious looking desserts made by the other Daring Bakers this month.

33 comments:

  1. Lovely baked alaska and petit fours. Very nicely done.

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  2. Your baked alaska and Petit Fours are pretty. Very nicely done.

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  3. Oh wow, I love your cookies and cream baked alaska, it looks perfect! The petit fours must have tasted so good with the chocolate and caramel! Great job!

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  4. Oh I just love the pic of your daughter licking up the sauce - too cute, and something I'm only too familiar with! Great idea with the 'candy bar' flavoured petit fours - that sounds so delectable! Great job on the challenge! -- Jen =)

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  5. Shelley, I could see from the forums that this was YOUR challenge! You were encouraging everyone so enthusiastically! Both your creations are gorgeous and look absolutely delicious. You made me laugh with Little Miss's cleaning method... hehe... Thanks for stopping by my blog and for leaving a lovely comment. Like you, I thoroughly enjoyed this month's challenge and had a lot of fun! Till next month!

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  6. YOU ARE AN ANIMAL! Congrats on tackling 2! wow, very nice

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  7. Great job, Shelley! I had thought about doing both but couldn't end up managing, so I'm glad you were able to experiment with both desserts. Your Baked Alaska looks yummy and your Petit Fours sound like a great flavor combination. Nice job on the challenge!

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  8. Wow the pictures are awesome with step pictures and great job with two desserts .. worth the effort right ???

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  9. The Alaska came out so nice and perfect!! and you made the petit fours as well!!! Awesome!!

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  10. well done your baked alaska looks great

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  11. Great job with both challenge recipes! It's so wonderful when inspiration hits!
    :)

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  12. Cookies and cream. Oh how I love thee. Great choice of ice cream and nice work with the extra cookie crumbs ;P

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  13. Aww you made both of them!Gr8 job and love yr little helper...can I borrow her when my kitchen top is covered in chocolate????

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  14. Beautiful! Loved the cookies and cream baked alaska. :) Great job!

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  15. ha ha glad i am not the only one who used 'leftover' ice cream. You did a fabulous job with the brown butter. Fear it no more. And you did both versions too...they look awesome, love the candy bar-ish squares!

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  16. I agree, you can never have too much ice cream--especially the homemade kind! I never knew how good that stuff was until this challenge.

    Kudos on making both recipes! They both look very yummy!

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  17. Your baked alaska is just gorgeous. It was my first time browning butter too, and the cake looks perfect.

    Thank you so, so much for all your help throughout this challenge. I honestly couldn't have done it without you, and can't say how much I appreciated it! :)

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  18. Hi! It looks so good :) The Oreo cookie ice cream is great idea :) It's a brilliant idea to use these caramel and chocolate sauces. I'll definitely try the cake again :)

    Cheers
    Yummita

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  19. That looks and sounds so great! I love the whole "candybar" vibe. lol

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  20. I want to try that chocolate and caramel petit four! Looks delicious.

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  21. Caramel and chocolate sauce sound just perfect. What a great job you did of these challenges. They do look delicious!

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  22. Excellent job I say, well done indeed. I love how it seems like a breeze, and should be too! Your flavour combinations are gorgeous!

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  23. wow! you completed both the challenges. BOTH look lovely

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  24. I love that you did both! It was certainly an inspiring challenge this month. Both of your creations look utterly fantastic. I want your petits fours. Chocolate and caramel and caramel ice cream. *happy sigh* Also, this might be my favourite description of something ever:

    'chocolate-enrobed ice cream sandwich'

    It sounds so decadent. Everything should be chocolate-enrobed!

    Then cookies and cream ice cream too .. it's all so good. Oh, and I completely agree about the batter. The smell was wonderful.

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  25. Wow, I'm so impressed you made both desserts and with lots of time to spare! They both look delicious, and the candy bar petit fours are a brilliant idea. Well done to you and little miss.

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  26. Wow! Bravo to you for preparing both desserts! You managed to get many of my favorite flavors in there -- chocolate & caramel sauce, cookies n cream & caramel ice cream...i'll take thirds please! And i love the shot of Little Miss "cleaning" the counter. So cute that she is your assistant for the challenges!

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  27. Oh boy, those caramel petit fours sound divine! Love the combo! And the Alaska looks perfect too. Great job!

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  28. Wow Shelly! I can see you really enjoyed this challenge. I loved your Baked Alaska and your petit fours. Scrumptious!
    It seems that cute Little Miss had a lot of fun, too. Congrats

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  29. Oh,I forgot! I loved the ways you describe how to make brown butter. It can be a bit tricker. Great job!

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  30. Very well done! Your Baked Alaska and petis Fours are delicious looking!

    Cheers,

    Rosa

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  31. The browning is perfect, I am just too scared to put the alaska inside the oven and instead use a blow torch...

    And btw, vanilla oreo ice cream is a good choice :-)

    Sawadee from bangkok,
    Kris

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  32. Wow! So impressed with you... can't believe you did both the baked Alaska and the petite fours! Great job on this month's challenge, keep up the great bakes :)

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  33. Your petit fours and baked alaska both look outstanding, and the flavors (caramel slays me, as mentioned before) are mouth watering. Amazing job as always!1

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