Chaosqueen's Kitchen

The actual challenge of the Daring Bakers this month presented from Tony Tahhan and MeetaK The choosed Chocolate Éclairs by Pierre Hermé.

I was very encouraged about this reciepe. I made eclairs a very, very long time ago an liked them very much. If I remember correctly they was filled with cream and strawberries. I really don't know why I made them more often.

Tony and Meeta allowed to change one of the two chocolate elements. I decided to make the chocolate pasry cream filling and change the chocolate glaze against some decorations with white and semisweet choclate.

The fully reciepe can be found here.

The actual challenge of the Daring Bakers this month presented from Chris from Mele Cotte is a Filbert Cake. She wrote 'So, I am excited to see what everyone comes up with for this month.' I'm too.

My first thougth after I read the reciepe was that I will pass the challenge.

But then I thouft that this cake will be the perfekt Birthday cake for my husband at 20th of July. He loves cakes with buttercream and ganache much more than I do.

It was a lot of work to do the cake, but his joy at the cake was worth the effort.

The cake was really delicious and somtime I will do it again, maybe next year to my husband's birthday. ;-)

The whole cake from above.



and a piece of it.
The cake's taste was much better on the day after baking, because the single components had combined to a perfect combination.

The fully reciepe can be found here.

The actual challenge of the Daring Bakers this month presented from Kelly on Sass & Veracity and Ben on What's Cooking? is a Danish Braid made of Danish Pastry. It's kind of puff pastry made from a yeasted dough. It was allowed to choose a filling of your own taste, but I decided to make the original posted one, because we love all kinds of cakes with apple filling.

Like some others I was very happy that the choosed cake is not again made of full-fat cream cheese or is filled with buttercreme.

	It's not so difficult as it seems to make the Danish Pastry and the Danish Braids and the result is worth the effort.

Two weeks ago my husband an me spend some days in the capital of Denmark Copenhagen and and naturally we ate some Danish pastry.

So the challenge was a nice memory of these days and I'll bake again with danish pastry, because it is so delicious.

The fully reciepe can be found here.

==========	REZKONV-Rezept - RezkonvSuite v1.4
Titel:	Cheesecake Pops
Kategorien:	Daring Bakers
Menge:	30 - 40 Pops

Ingredients

5			8-oz. packages cream cheese at room temperature
2	cups		Sugar
1/4	cup		All-purpose flour
1/4	ts		Salt
5	big		Eggs
2			Egg yolks
2	ts		Pure vanilla extract
1/4	tup		Heavy cream
			Boiling water as needed
30-40			8-inch lollipop sticks
1	pound		Chocolate, finely chopped - you can use all one kind or half
			And half of dark, milk, or white (Alternately, you can use 1 pound
			Of flavored coatings, also known as summer coating, confectionary
			Coating or wafer chocolate - candy supply stores carry colors, as
			Well as the three kinds of chocolate.)
2	tbs		Vegetable shortening
			(Note: White chocolate is harder to use this way, but not impossible)
			Assorted decorations such as chopped nuts, colored jimmies, crushed
			Peppermints, mini chocolate chips, sanding sugars, dragees) optional

Source

	Daring Bakers
	Erfasst *RK* 27.04.2008 von
	Chaosqueen

Directions

Position oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees F. Set some water to boil.

In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, flour, and salt until smooth. If using a mixer, mix on low speed. Add the whole eggs and the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well (but still at low speed) after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and cream.

Grease a 10-inch cake pan (not a springform pan), and pour the batter into the cake pan. Place the pan in a larger roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with the boiling water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cake pan. Bake until the cheesecake is firm and slightly golden on top, 35 to 45 minutes.

Remove the cheesecake from the water bath and cool to room temperature. Cover the cheesecake with plastic wrap and refrigerate until very cold, at least 3 hours or up to overnight.

When the cheesecake is cold and very firm, scoop the cheesecake into 2-ounce balls and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Carefully insert a lollipop stick into each cheesecake ball. Freeze the cheesecake pops, uncovered, until very hard, at least 1 - 2 hours.

When the cheesecake pops are frozen and ready for dipping, prepare the chocolate. In the top of a double boiler, set over simmering water, or in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water, heat half the chocolate and half the shortening, stirring often, until chocolate is melted and chocolate and shortening are combined. Stir until completely smooth. Do not heat the chocolate too much or your chocolate will lose it's shine after it has dried. Save the rest of the chocolate and shortening for later dipping, or use another type of chocolate for variety.

Alternately, you can microwave the same amount of chocolate coating pieces on high at 30 second intervals, stirring until smooth.

Quickly dip a frozen cheesecake pop in the melted chocolate, swirling quickly to coat it completely. Shake off any excess into the melted chocolate. If you like, you can now roll the pops quickly in optional decorations. You can also drizzle them with a contrasting color of melted chocolate (dark chocolate drizzled over milk chocolate or white chocolate over dark chocolate, etc.) Place the pop on a clean parchment paper-lined baking sheet to set. Repeat with remaining pops, melting more chocolate and shortening (or confectionary chocolate pieces) as needed.

Refrigerate the pops for up to 24 hours, until ready to serve.