No, this is not what they're supposed to look like...
It seemed so simple and had so much promise.. all the ingredients alone were perfect... together they were going to be delicious. I couldn't even wait till I was done leveling the cake before eating the scraps of the Brown Butter Pound Cake. And Amaretto Ice Cream? Yes please.
But sandwiched together? Fail.
In petit four form? Epic fail.
Maybe they knew how good they were alone and just didn't want to come together with the Chocolate Glaze to top it all off? Whatever the case may be, all I know is is that I ended up with a huge chocolate-y, melted ice cream mess in my tiny galley kitchen. The one thing that does makes me feel better is knowing some other people had the same problem..I really need to stop waiting till the last minute to complete the challenges, but sometimes the month just slips away from me!
The August 2010 Daring Bakers' Challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa's challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz's "The Perfect Scoop."
Brown Butter Pound Cake
Oven: 325 Bake time: 25 minutes
Yields 9x9 square pan or 9inch round cake
19 TBS butter
2 cups sifted cake flour (if you don't have this you can make your own by placing 2 TBS of cornstarch into a measuring cup and filling the rest of AP flour)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup sugar
4 large eggs
1/2 vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 325. Grease and flour pan.
Place butter in a skillet over medium heat. Brown butter until color changes to dark brown and butter starts to smell nutty (constantly mix!) Pour into shallow bowl and place in freezer for about 15-20 minutes or until slightly congealed.
In a small bowl whisk cake flour, baking powder and salt.
Beat chilled brown butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time, and then add vanilla extract.
Stir in flour at low speed until just combined.
Scrape into prepared pan and bake until golden brown on top and toothpick comes out clean.
Cool in pan for 10 minutes before removing from pan to cool completely.
Amaretto Ice Cream
1 cup whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup sugar
about a shot or two of Amaretto (or more if you want really boozy ice cream)
In a medium bowl, use a hand mixer to combine milk and sugar until dissolved.
Stir in vanilla and Amaretto to taste.
Pour mixture into chilled freezer bowl in ice cream machine.
Let mixture churn and thicken for about 25-30 minutes.
Transfer ice cream to freezer safe bowl and place in freezer over night.
Chocolate Glaze
9 oz semi-sweet chocolate
1 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 TBS light corn syrup
2 tsp vanilla extract
Stir heavy cream and light corn syrup in a small sauce pan over medium heat until it comes to a boil. Remove from heat and add chocolate. Let sit for about 30 seconds before whisking until chocolate is completely melted. Stir in vanilla and allow to cool for about 10 minutes.
Assembly
1. Line same size pan that you baked your cake in, with plastic wrap so no sides are exposed. Spread about 1 3/4-2 cups of ice cream into pan. Cover with more plastic wrap and freeze for several hours.
We're still looking good.
2. Once pound cake has cooled completely, level the top and then split the cake in half horizontally to form 2 thin layers.
Yup, perfect cake...a little leveling
3. Unwrap frozen ice cream and flip onto one of the layers of cake and top with second layer. Re-wrap and return to freezer over night.
I should have known this was going too well.
4. Make chocolate glaze5. While glaze cool, cut cake into little squares
We're still doing ok, until they sit for a few...
And this is where the failing begins.
Noooo...they're meellltinggg.
7. Place petit fours onto parchment paper lined baking sheet and return to freezer for at least an hour
Ugh.
Mess.
The assembly may not have been perfect, but at least the final product still tasted good!
Until next time Daring Bakers...please no more ice cream!!
After this slight catastrophe I ask you out there in the blog world..
1. Does anyone know how to make homemade ice cream harder?
2. Does anyone have any good tips for covering petit fours with a glaze?
3. For those of you who made these and won, HOW DID YOU DO IT!?
4. Would anyone still eat these? haha
21 comments:
I can only answer your last question - I would ABSOLUTELY still eat these!!! LOL. I had some trouble with the glaze, too (though slightly different trouble... I goofed something and it was too thin...), but that was part of the fun. I just started laughing about it, and enjoyed the taste anyway. Amaretto ice cream sounds fantastic, too - so yes. I waould absolutely still eat those. :)
Yes, I would still definitely gobble those up. Your cake and ice cream do look absolutely scrumptious!
Yes! I would still like to try one of your little chocolate glazed cakes, they still look delicious;-)
My individual elements were pretty good as well, but mine was a fail too. Although yours looks mighty tasty.
I had the exact same problem! After I glazed them...they were completely melting. Shooting pictures with 95 degrees also did not help :(
@Shelley- Ha thanks so much.. fun was definitely had, but its so frustrating when things don't turn out the way you were hoping!
@5 Star Foodie- Ok, I'm glad everyone would still eat them depsite the fail :)
@Patty- You find yourself in Texas and I will glady let you try one of these little guys
@Barabra- Its actually really making me happy to know that I wasn't the only one who had trouble! Especially from someone like you!! :)
@Sara- I had the same problem with the heat! It makes me happier to know we're not alone!
Well at least you tried. I bet they tasted delicious! For whatever reason, I have never had ANY luck with petit fours of any kind.
The taste is what really matters in the end :-D good work!!
I've added guar gum to ice cream to give it extra thickness.
At least you tried? ;-) Honestly, before reading this, I didn't even know what a petit four was except for what I've seen inside the dessert display case at Whole Foods.
Just eat them faster! They look so good with the chocolate glaze! I imagine working with ice cream on the smaller cakes is pretty tricky. All I can suggest as far as keeping the ice cream colder is stuff you probably already know. I bet the heat played a huge part in the problem. :)
This challenge sounds challenging, indeed. I just read another post by Koci at the blog la Kocinera and she had a hard time with this too! All those ingredients do sound like they are so good together though. I'd eat these no problem!
haha you are a one funny girl Evan! Yes, I would still eat those and probably finish them all. Hmm..never made ice cream before. Then, maybe if you use a toothpick and dip in a glaze?
Id eat them. I applaud you for even trying--i saw this challenge and was just like, I hate baked alaska and I see a melting failure in my future if I try these. Hopefully they lay off the ice cream and maybe start to choose things that an alternative baker might be able to play with.
I would definitely still eat this! The sound amazing. As for glazing them, not exactly sure. I've tried to make those ice cream bon bons before and they were fairly simple to make but you have to work really quick.
I don't know if this may be why yours fell apart but maybe you should make the cake ahead of time and when it's cooled, put it into a spring form pan. Then make the ice cream and once it's done churning, immediately spread it onto the cake that's in the spring form pan instead of freezing the ice cream separately. This way, the ice cream is a "part of the cake" and freezes together instead of being made separately and sandwiched together in layers. (If that makes sense?)
Also, maybe you should slice the petit fours then re-freeze them? Or you can even just do a single layer of cake with ice cream instead as well. I saw it on the food network where they had a brownie base then ice cream on top and then they dipped it in chocolate and it seemed to work well. Maybe that would work better. :)
do you know mine were looking same like these i was so dissoppointed dont want to serve in foront of my family then i leave in freezer for 1 day , next day when they are hard like rock (ha ha )I trimed them again not only sides tops too bring them into perfect shape then glaze again and now you can see at http://bakemedelicious.blogspot.com
@Alwayz- MM just had 4 after dinner so I guess they can't be that bad :)
@Victoria- It is the taste that matters indeed!
@Evan- I'm going to have to look for guar gum.. do you know where to get that?
@bunky- I still need to go over and check out your creation. .I don't know how to get colder ice cream unless I use liquid nitrogen! ha
@Marisa-Thanks for the support- I'm going to go check her stuff out!
@Tanantha- I try ;) ha I thought about dipping but I didn't know if that would melt the ice cream even more!
@Barrister- haha I laughed out loud when I read this I really hope there's no more ice cream next month!
@AJ- You're such a smart young man.. so smart in fact that we're on the same page because I did pretty much every single thing you suggested and they still melted on me! ha I appreciate your suggestions though of course :)
You know, I like eating ice cream when it is already beginning to melt, so looking at the photo of your melted petit fours with that awesome chocolate glaze.... made me drool....
I wish I knew the answers to your questions! I just admire that you gave it a go...I would have been intimidated. But I still would have devoured these...they look yummy in my book!
I don't know what went wrong but I would have been there to eat them very quickly to help!!! They still look delicious!
chocolate and ice cream? who cares if it melts! that's good no matter what!
Oh hell yes I would eat these. I have to say though, I'm glad I joined daring bakers after this challenge! Ha, I'm sure I would have made an even bigger mess!
Post a Comment