Daring Bakers- The Perfect Pizza

This is my very first Daring Bakers challenge, and this challenge was the perfect one to start with! Since I am crabving for pizza for more than anything else, this was just perfect! Though it was a little bit hard to work with the dough, the final result was worth it.

I made 2 pizzas from the dough, and they turned out really thick, so I`ll make about 4 the next time. The dough itself was quite wet, so you should try to make it in the mixer (unless you like mess…). After a night in the fridge, the dough is a lot less sticky, and you could  work with it withoun a problem. One more thing- if you have a pizza stone now is the time to use it!

As for the toppings- I`ve made one pizza with basic tomato sauce, mozzarella and olives. The other pizza was with cream based sauce, sweet potato and Parmesan cheese.

White Chocolate Mocha Cookies

This is my most useful cookie recipe, to be exact this is the one recipe that I make the most. ever.

Well, the obvious question is why? I`ll tell you- this recipe is easy to make, and takes no time. Every time I make it everybody (and I do mean everybody) loves it , and the most important- this recipe always turn out great.

If you plan to try this one, please pay attention to one thing- the oven temperature. Please don`t be tempted to bake it a higher temperature. It would simply mess the final result.

Mini Brioches Filled With Chocolate Truffle

Brioche is a very rich eggy bread, in the fine line between bread and sweet yeast cake. This is not very sweet, but the texture us so rich, and full of rich butter flavot (but not greasy!), that you will find yourself ignoring all the calories, and eating one after the other.

You may think that the brioche dough may be time consuming and hard to make, but, in fact, the mixer does all of your hard work, and after one night in the fridge, the dough is very easy to work with.

The thing that may be time consuming is making the chocolate truffles, but you can easily replace them with easier fillings like jam or Nutella spread.

Note: The recipe does not call for any liquids except the yolks. When I made the dough it did not form into a ball, but remained crumbly. I added about 1\4 cup of water, until the dough was a little sticky. I suggest that you make the recipe as it is, and if you see that you need to add liquids, add them, but do it slowly, just until you get a dough at the right texture.

Chocolate Marble Cake

This is a very simple cake, this is what you may call a “coffee cake” (not a cake made of coffee, but a cake to accompany one).

The chocolate marble is totally optional. You can omit the chocolate and make this cake with fresh fruits, or with all kinds of nuts.

The look of the cake in the picture may look strange, and that`s because I made this specific one using a rose shaped tin (which looks great when the cake is whole, but looks rather weird when you slice the cake).

Triple-Layer Carrot Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting

This carrot cake is utterly different than the other carrot cake that appears just a few posts below. This one is all about the frosting, and I promise you that while you start eating this cake, you will soon forget that you are eating a mixture of sugar, butter and cream cheese (in fact, you would probably go and have another slice…). 

This recipe demand quite a lot of preparation and time, but the final result is so good, that it is worth it. I make this cake only for special occasions (this one was for my father`s birthday), but you could skip the frosting and make this cake as cupcakes, or just as a regular cake without the layers and the frosting. It will be just fine.

If you don`t want to use the 1 1/2 cups of oil as suggested in the recipe, you could easily repalce it with 3/4 cup of applesauce and 3/4 cup of oil, as suggested in the recipe reviews at epicurious. Frankly, you wouldn`t tell the difference.

Millionaire’s Shortbread

I first had this little bars when I was in Durham, England, With my parents. We walked in this lovely city, and near the river we found this little pastry store that looked so welcoming, that we just had to get in. After some time, we finally bought two pieces of millionaire’s shortbread, and the flavors were just amazing- sweet yet salty, with melt in your mouth chocolate and a crisp base.

Well, it took me more than a year to try the recipe, but it was worth the wait, in spite of some little difficulties that popped in my way. I guess you all have these days that nothing is going the way it should, and everything is one big mess. So, the day that I made this recipe was a day like this: I burnt the bottom of the pan while making the caramel layer, then the caramel went lumpy, and my top record was putting the base and caramel in a shut oven (it took my 30 minutes to figure that out…), It certainly was not my day!

But, to my surprise, after all that mess, these turned out great! almost good as the ones that I had in Durham.

Mini Pavlovas

What would you make when you have leftover egg whites, one pomegranate waiting on the tree, and some whipping cream? (well, obviously food… and something sweet, right?). I decides to make pavlovas, which are these perfect little desserts, full of different textures and flavors, and just at the right size.

The nice thing about these little beauties is that you can make the meringue the night before, or just make these a few days ahead and keep them in an airtight container, by doing that you could assemble them just before serving, and save a lot of time.

One small note: in order to get whiter meringues, I bake them overnight (about 8-9 hours) in 80 degrees C. and in the morning I just turn the oven off and let them cool until I use them.