Daring Bakers: Cheesecake

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

This post is bare-bones for now... alls I can say is WOW was this cheesecake easy, amazing, and will be made again. Has already been made again, actually... more later.

Easter: Deviled eggs

This post comes after a weekend of holiday cooking, first for Passover and then for Easter. I love both holidays, and will share with you one of my favorite recipes.

Lemon-Dill Deviled Eggs:

This recipe is an amalgam of the many deviled egg recipes I found on the web, which are all variations on the same theme:
eggs+mustard+mayo+anything else= YUM.

I'm including some of my own cooking philosophy here, too: The appeal of deviled eggs is the taste and the uniform look, in equal proportions. Luckily, the egg makes this pretty easy for the chef, since it's white with a smooth texture.

However, there is some technique here.




The two tricky parts are The Boiling of The Egg and The Piping of The Filling.

I'd say don't even bother making the eggs if you don't pipe the filling... Why go to all the effort of peeling a dozen eggs if you are just going to shlopp in the filling with a spoon? I mean, the taste will be the same, but you are only selling yourself short.

The recipe:

1 dozen eggs+ 2 (old are best! easier to peel!) Why plus one? Well... stuff happens. Boil yourself two extra eggs, just in case one bursts during boiling, or cracks while you peel it, or looks funny when you cut it.
1 teaspoon mustard
1/3 cup mayo
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
zest from 1 lemon
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
3 tablespoons chopped dill
paprika, preferably smoked, for garnish

1. Boil the eggs: Put your eggs in the bottom of a pot. Add water to cover them 1 inch. Add 1 teaspoon salt to the water. Heat the water till it simmers, then keep it simmering for 10 minutes. DON'T overcook these puppies, you want the filling to be creamy, not dry. Using tongs, remove eggs to a bowl of ice water, let sit until they feel cool to your touch.

2. Peel the eggs. Tip: on the flatter end of the egg, there is usually an air pocket. This is a good place to start peeling. If there are shell bits stuck to them, rinse and dry thoroughly.

3. Cut eggs in half. Over a medium bowl, place a sieve. Squeeze out the filling gently into the sieve and mash it through the holes with a spoon. OK, so you could forget the sieve and just mash it with a fork, sure. But must I remind you, you have ALREADY peeled the eggs! That was the hard part! Go the extra mile here and feel like a winner.

4. Put all other ingredients in the bowl, mix, adjust for seasoning. Mmmm.

5. Get your pastry bag out and choose a nice fat tip. Fill the bag and pipe the filling into the eggs, really pushing it down so there is a mound of filling for each egg. This is not like cake decorating... we want maximum fill, not a nice little nubbin. You should have exactly enough filling for all the eggs, plus a few squirts to put on top of some cucumber slices.

6. Make it pretty with dill, paprika, lemon zest, etc. Enjoy!

Daring Bakers: Homemade Lasagna Noodles

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

I had a super time with this challenge, using it as an opportunity to have a fancy-shmancy dinner party for six friends. OK, so the lasagna took two days, loads of planning, two rooms (for hanging the noodles) and myriads of pots and pans, but it also gave forth pure gustatory pleasure and heaps of leftovers.

The components of the challenge were as follows:

1. Make spinach lasagna noodles. This involves 10 ounces of spinach, which is two of those large plastic containers of baby spinach.

To make the noodles:

- Make a well of flour on your counter. Add the pulverized spinach, and eggs.

-Mix with a wooden spoon. Why wooden? I dunno.







-Kneed for 10 minutes, then let rest, covered, for several hours.












-Cut dough into 4, and roll out each section.














-The rolling isn't so much about pushing and squishing as it is about stretching and pulling.






First, you pull it along the length of the rolling pin, then you hold the dough down on the counter and pull the rolling pin up with the dough attached. Confusing? You betcha.













-The dough should ultimately be thin enough to be translucent.






-Cut noodles into thick strips, then hang to dry over kitchen towels draped over brooms. Or, you know, hang them on that pasta rack that you have stored in your cupboard, right next to your pasta machine, which is next to your dough-kneader, which is next to the package of store bought pasta.





-Cook noodles in salted water for 2-4 minutes. These noodles are sooo tasty right after you have made them!




2. Make a ragu. The Daring Bakers recipe called for many kinds of meat, as well as milk, and I substituted with a mushroom ragu. I changed the recipe by chopping up the mushrooms ridiculously small so that they would have a consistent mouth-feel, almost like a meat sauce. I would totally make this sauce again- you can add any kind of mushroom! I chose the four pictured here.

3. Make a bechemel. This is a white sauce of milk, flour, and butter. Since I had one guest who does not eat dairy, I made two bechemels: one dairy and one with hemp milk and cashew butter to replace the milk and butter. Both turned out great- arguably the cashew butter sauce was better! Something about the nuttyness of it made the lasagna feel rich and creamy.

4. Layer the noodles, the ragu, and the sauce with parmesan cheese, bake it, and eat it.


You can see some other examples of Daring Bakers' lasagna interpretations here. Also, check out the original recipe here.

Thanks to Andy and Diana for taking lovely photos! You can see more of Diana's work here.