The Filbert Gateau- July Daring Bakers

My Second Challenge

Filbert Gateau with Praline Buttercream
From Carol Walter's
Great Cakes page 378

Chris at Mele Cotte was in charge of the July Daring Bakers Challenge. This was an Advanced baking challenge. It involved 5 or 6 separate recipes before one could even assemble the cake.

First I roasted and skinned the hazelnuts.
Then I made a hazelnut praline candy.
Then I made it into a paste so that I could make the Hazelnut Buttercream. This for me was a convoluted screw-job. I think my wire whisk for my Kitchen-Aid mixer was accidentally thrown away and it was necessary to make the Swiss Buttercream. So I had to go to the garage and steal the one out of my daughters that she bought for herself at Kohl's after Thanksgiving Sale last year.

I don't have a hand mixer which was needed for the double boiler part of the Swiss Merengue for the Buttercream. So I had to go out and buy one of those, which I am glad I did, cause I really like it.

All the tags you see in the book are the recipes and techniques needed just to assemble the cake.

Then after the Hazelnut Praline Buttercream was made I had to put the Hazelnut Genoise together. A Genoise is a sponge cake made with tons of eggs and a very small amount of flour. This Genoise was different than the classic Genoise because of the large amount of nuts it contains. They had to be folded in with a 3 inch spatula. It was baked ever so carefully! Then the cake was cut into 3 layers and moistened with a sugar syrup, Swiss buttercream spread on top, repeated and then coated with an apricot glaze to prepare the cake to recieve the glorious ganache that was poured on top. Lastly, decorated with more buttercream.

This cake was tricky. There was lots of whipping of egg whites, yolks, processing, caramelizing, folding, but the trickiest part was the spliting of the single cake into 3 layers. All and all it took me about 10 hours in total, that I divided into 2 days. The hazelnuts were $7.oo a pound. Not too bad considering what some of the DB's around the globe were paying.

All and all what did I think of the cake? It was a major pain in the tush. And my family didn't like it all that much. I actually had a whole other design on it, but it looked bad, so I removed it, ran a steaming hot knife over the ganache and started over with the same design from the book. "A" for effort, "C-" for creativity. But it had a nice flavor, once the cake sat for a few days. I did not use the alcohol the recipe called for; the orange peel was just the right amount of fruity taste.

I may not make this cake again, but the Swiss Buttercream was a new technique for me, and it is one that I WILL create again and again!!! Awesome.see the recipe below

Berrilicious Crisp

I have noticed lately how screamingly good the berries are. There are some really nice deals at Sam's Club and other places. Christina is always begging me to buy her some berries so she can make her favorite smoothies before softball practice. Well Christina is a sleepyhead and never gets up in time to do it, so I took these beauties and created this stunner. It is only 5 points a serving on Weight Watchers. Isn't it ironic that I have to eat like this to lose weight?

4 cups of mixed berries
2 apples
1 cup of cranberries, I always freeze them from the holidays
3 tablespoons of lime juice
1 1/2 cups of sugar
3 tablespoons of cornstarch
pinch of salt

Tossed it all up really pretty and poured it into a 13 x 9 inch Pyrex dish.

In my Cuisinart I pulsed
1/2 cup of cold butter with, 1 cup of flour, 3/4 sugar, 3/4 cup brown sugar

Then I patted it carefully over the pretty fruit and baked it for 35 minutes at 400 or until it was crusty on top and bubbly all over. You can kind of tell by the smell that it is done too. It will be reminiscent of a pie. If you haven't smelled a fruit pie before...get to baking already~

I couldn't resist a small sample.

I really do live to eat.