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 in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”.
I made a gluten free poundcake which I adapted from the recipe on the Daring Bakers website. Browning the butter for the cake really develops a rich buttery taste. I used the other recipes straight from the challenge recipes. The most difficult part was doing the chocolate fontant coating because the ice cream melted really quickly once the little squares were out of the freezer. I also made a regular wheat based poundcake, and it was also terrific. The chocolate fondant covering recipe worked well, and these were delicious and also interesting to decorate. I used pieces of strawberry that I cut up and mint leaves from my bumper crop.
I had some chocolate fondant left, so I also made some little baked alaskas. I used the pound
cake, added a layer of the chocolate, then the ice cream. when all this was frozen I added the merangue and froze it again. A torch was the final method of browning the Alaskas. G. liked them, although found them a little too sweet.
All in all, this was a really fun challenge. The baked Alaska method worked extremely well, and with the torch method you can make these all ahead, so that is also a good thing as Martha Stewart says.
All the recipes are on the Daring Bakers site right here: http://thedaringkitchen.com/sites/default/files/u11/46_browned_butter_-_DB_Aug_2010.pdf
