Daring Bakers’ Challenge: Biscuit Joconde Imprime/Entremet

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agar agar, cakes, chocolate, Daring Bakers, fancy, France, matcha, mousse, pastry cream, whipped cream

The January 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Astheroshe of the blog accro.  She chose to challenge everyone to make a Biscuit Joconde Imprime to wrap around an Entremets dessert.

Wait, what??  That’s exactly the reaction I had.  We didn’t learn those words in my year of French in college.  An entremet is basically a layered dessert (think trifle) and the biscuit joconde imprime is in this case the part that contains it (edible sponge cake bowl, anyone?).

This is my third month as a Daring Baker, and the first challenge that has really made me shake in my boots, so to speak.   (Note: This Texan is bootless, unfortch.)  As with crostata and Stollen, I had never made an entremet, much less a sponge or even a rolled cake.  That didn’t stop my visions from being lofty, though.  Oh, the ideas I had for the joconde and the top of the entremet…

What actually did happen isn’t bad, especially for the mini/almost disasters that occurred.

Here is how my experience went. 

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Macaron Making: First Attempt!

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almonds, baking, chocolate, cookies, eggs, France, gluten-free, macarons

First off: these are NOT my macarons, though I wish they were!

(“What, you mean you don’t label your desserts that are on display in your bakery case in the kitchen?”)

They are the first macarons I’ve ever had and were at La Boîte Cafe, which is a food truck reused shipping container in Austin.  This was back in September, and I wasn’t even aware of the existence of macarons until a little over a year ago, thanks to the food blogging world.  You don’t really see macarons ’round here* is basically what I’m getting at, so when I found out about them, I was instantly intrigued.

* Okay, that’s not true.  I had a really terrible one here in SA at a certain place, but maybe they were just really old.  Their croissants are good at least.

So pretty, yummy, and what’s that – tricky to make?  Well, I must!

On Saturday I’m going to Florida and have promised my macaron-loving friend Katie that I’d be armed with some.  That’s a pretty ballsy commitment for someone who has never made any, but I finally gave them a go today!

Before getting started, I read Demystifying Macarons by Helene of Tartelette multiple times, which made me feel quite a bit more comfortable about the whole process.  Highly recommended if you’re feeling the urge to bust out a batch of these finicky babies.  She is the Master!

So…how did it go? 

Ginger and Vanilla Pear Tarte Tatin with Chocolate Puff Pastry

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baking, chocolate, fancy, France, ginger, pears, puff pastry, recipes

I ain’t gonna lie.  I lost a little sleep over this thing.

That’s part of the challenge with desserts like cakes, pies, and tarts: you can’t sample them to make sure they taste okay!  Wahhh.  It’s probably a good idea to do a test run on them, but when you don’t have much money to spare, that’s not always an option.

That was definitely the case with this tarte tatin, especially because puff pastry is so expensive!  (I am well aware that it’s definitely worth it, though!)  I noticed a few weeks ago that Dufour now makes chocolate (!!!) puff pastry.  Having only heard rave reviews about their original puff pastry, I was very intrigued.  So intrigued, in fact, that I just skipped over the regular stuff and went straight for the chocolate!