Dim Sum and Daring Baker Challenge!

I’m finally back to doing the Daring Baker challenges after hiding out in a cave from fear of some recent challenges and from being way too busy to overcome that fear.  I figured this would be a nice challenge to include in our blog’s Dim Sum of All Fears challenge by combining it with a dessertish dim sum I wanted to try.  So for this challenge, I made Ginger Tuiles with Fried Bananas, Vanilla Bean Ice Cream, and Ginger Caramel topping.  I know, it sounds like a mouthful and it was. But really it was by far the easiest challenge which was perfect for me as things have been nonstop in the kitchen what with Christmas and Chinese New Year feasts back-to-back. 

The fried bananas were the sort of dim sum part to the dessert although the ginger flavor was the winner here.  This recipe was very much like making fortune cookies (or rather, we make misfortune cookies here) and so the shaping bit wasn’t too surprising but still fun to deal with super hot baked batter with your bare hands at lightening speeds…

I shaped mine using small kid-size cups however I wasn’t really going for a beautiful presentation (excuses excuses) and I was really going for taste.  I was kind of surprised that I didn’t so much like fried bananas, go figure.  Too mushy and maybe I was too used to the banana split idea so I think I’ll stick to fruit the old fashioned “healthy” way.  :)  The ginger caramel sauce was pretty spunky though!

Ginger Tuiles with Fried Bananas, Vanilla Bean Ice Cream, and Ginger Caramel Sauce

Tuiles

recipe modified from “The Chocolate Book”Angélique Schmeinck
¼ cup softened butter (not melted but soft)
½ cup sifted confectioner’s sugar
a dash of vanilla extract
2 large egg whites (slightly whisked with a fork)
1/2 cup sifted all purpose flour
3/4 tsp ground ginger
Butter/spray to grease baking sheet
Oven:  350F
Using a hand whisk or a stand mixer fitted with the paddle (low speed) and cream butter, sugar and vanilla to a paste. Keep stirring while you gradually add the egg whites. Continue to add the flour and ginger in small batches and stir to achieve a homogeneous and smooth batter/paste. Be careful to not overmix.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to firm up. (This batter will keep in the fridge for up to a week, take it out 30 minutes before you plan to use it).
Transfer the batter into a piping bag fitted with a small plain tip. Pipe the desired shapes and bake 5-10 minutes or until golden brown. Shape immediately after baking using for instance a rolling pin, a broom handle, cups, cones…. These harden quickly as they cool so it is recommended to do only a couple at a time.

Fried Bananas and Ginger Caramel Sauce

from Martin Yan’s “China”, 2008
sauce
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 inch piece ginger, lightly crushed
1/2 cup water
batter
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup water
1 1/2 tsp vegetable oil
4 firm, ripe bananas
vegetable oil for deep-frying
To make the sauce, combine the brown sugar, ginger, and water in a small saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring, until the sugar dissolves and the sauce thickens slightly, about 5 minutes.  Keep warm over low heat.
In a 2-quart saucepan, pour oil to a depth of 2 inches and heat to 350 degrees F.
Meanwhile, make the batter by combining the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl.  Gradually pour in the water and oil, whisking until the batter is smooth.
Peel the bananas, halve them lengthwise, and then cut in half crosswise.  One at a time, dip the bananas into the batter;  drain briefly.  As the bananas are coated, add them to the hot oil, a few at a time, and deep-fry, turning once, until golden brown, about 3 minutes per batch.  Remove with a wire strainer or slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.
This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

Momma, Me A Pizzeria!

Daring Bakers October challenge! This month's challenge was hosted by Rosa's Yummy Yums and the challenge was to make some basic pizza dough (see her blog for recipe), toss it (with pics/video to document it), and top with any flavors we desired but had to consist of sauce and toppings. Oh sure, pizza may seem old-hat but in the past I didn't want to even attempt tossing it because I can be a spaz when it comes to these sort of things. But surely rolling the pizza dough works just as well right?

Aside from my poor stage presence and bad form, I'd have to say I fulfilled that part of the challenge. This recipe makes 6 small pizzas and it was a good thing because I needed to have extra dough just to account for my mistakes (I actually doubled the dough recipe to account for that..). My first try ended up on the floor. Ewww. I tried another bit of dough and rolled it out instead. I was so disappointed with the lack of stretching and good shaping that was occuring so I decided to try tossing it again. I will say that it works best with dough that has been relaxed and sitting for a while, meaning, if I made a mistake and tried to work it back into a ball, it wouldn't relax enough for me to toss it. But if I made a mistake (huge gaping holes were common) then I would just ball it up again and let it sit and come back to it later and it'd be just fine.

Problem is though, with this kind of challenge there are so many possibilities that I had a very hard time narrowing down my final choices. My sweet little baby niece just had some major surgery for her hip dysplasia and came home in a half body cast and we had some family coming by to see how she was doing. We wanted to help out by providing food and so we made a big family luncheon out of this challenge. I decided on making 6 pizzas (I know, a lot) and with an audience of varying tastes and preferences, I thought that should be enough to satisfy all.

How did we fare you ask? We had 6 tasty thin crusted pizzas that were almost completely devoured by all. For the kids we did the basic red sauce/pepperoni/mozzerella. We did some basic red sauce/italian sausage/olive and a low fat Penzey's recipe using ground turkey and sausage seasonings plus mushrooms for the folks who just wanted it simple.

Now for the foodies, a Canadian bacon/mango/yellow tomato/brie pizza seemed like a good choice (no sauce on this one, only drizzled with olive oil). I will admit, I had high expectations for this one but it didn't quite meet it. I guess I was thinking there would be some fabulous mango flavor, like how pineapple tastes great on pizza, but it ended up being pretty dull. I suppose if you are in an area with access to super mangoes then you might want to try this. I guess the Midwest is not the place to shop for tropical fruits...

Everyone seemed to like this one: Neal had the idea to do a bbq chicken pizza and I came up with this awesome version, Emeril's smoked chicken bbq pizza with red onion, mozzerella, and basil. This recipe was terrific - it is at least worth it for the sauce recipe. The bbq sauce tastes like regular bbq but with a slight asian touch (uses sesame oil and fresh ginger) and while this recipe makes a ton of sauce, it can certainly be used for many other meals or as a good dipping sauce for your homemade chicken nuggets... Ah. Really, the sauce is thick and yummy! The chicken itself was rubbed in the homemade Emeril Essence Creole Seasoning (also included in the pizza recipe) and we cooked it on the grill prior to adding it to the pizza. Next time I would like to try grilling this particular pizza. Mmmm...

And then finally we made a pesto pizza with baby spinach, artichoke, red tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, and crumbled goat cheese on top. This one seemed to be the winner of the group, closely followed by the bbq one, but unfortunately we were too eager to dig in that I didn't even get a picture of it. But really, this one was very flavorful and a fun option for the vegetarian craving you know you all have at one point or another!

And lets not forget the little lady, who, inspite of being in a cast and in a perpetual squat for the next month or so, continues to have a sweet smile for everyone. What a pleasant baby! I picked up this My Little Pony stuffed doll to match her pink cast and Neal chuckled as he said, "At least she can straddle it!" Hopefully it provides some cushion for her, poor girl!

We love you!

September Daring Baker Challenge - Livin' it up Vegan and Gluten-Free

I need to start off by saying I am not a vegan nor do I lead a gluten-free life, not even close. As far as the vegan thing goes, I think I could honestly live without meat (oh but it would be hard) however I think my biggest hang up would be the no dairy and no eggs. Not to mention my first encounter with a vegan overly reeked of garlic and I vowed never to become like that. Reeking of garlic that is, from every pore. And the gluten-free thing, all I can say is it must be hard to have to go totally gluten-free as so many things have gluten in it even if they don't outright say 'gluten' in the list of ingredients. Both lifestyles can add up in time and money when you start trying to find substitute ingredients or recipes.

The September Daring Baker Challenge was to make Lavish Crackers and we were instructed to make them vegan and optionally gluten-free. We were also instructed to make vegan plus gluten-free dips to accompany our crackers. The cracker recipe seemed simple enough consisting of only 6 ingredients plus toppings. Since I know people who either need gluten-free diets or dairy/egg-free diets I figured I had better make this a true challenge to see if I could meet these needs while still pleasing a be-all, eat-all audience (us).

First, the Lavish Crackers from The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering The Art of Extraordinary Bread, by Peter Reinhart. Since the recipe was relatively simple I decided to make it twice, one using an all-purpose flour and soy flour mix (above right) and another using a gluten-free all-purpose flour mix (above left) that consists of rice flour, sorghum flour, tapioca starch, soy flour, corn starch, and xanthum gum and was supposed to be a 1 for 1 sub. I was surprised that the instructions for making the gluten-free version seemed simpler (but definitely was not cheaper). Well, silly me, my first time buying a gluten-free mix was not the most successful as I realized later on that this particular mix "does not work well with yeast" and the recipe calls for yeast. Well it did rise some but clearly not as well as the non-gluten-free version but I don't know whether to attribute that to the gluten or the mix-no-likey-yeast version.

The trick was to roll the dough out as paper thin as possible and the gluten version was very easy to work with. The gluten-free dough I struggled with and did not get it as thin as I would have liked, mostly because the suggested method of rolling the dough between parchment paper was just not working well at all. I cut the dough and I used an assortment of salt, golden and black toasted sesame seeds, and poppy seeds.

No super fancy shapes for the bulk of the chips although I did have some extra dough to play with and inspired by a recent Family Fun recipe, I made bone shaped crackers. I don't know if this would be considered offensive to the vegan type but I figured if anything, they can serve as a precursor for all your Halloween party snacks and maybe someone will find them amusing...

For my dip(s) I wanted to do a recipe that called for dairy and use some substitutes to see if it ended up being edible, dare I say, delicious too. My knowledge of gluten-free products is shamefully puny and so if I used something that turns out there is hidden gluten ingredients in them, I'm sorry. As a backup I made some hummus just in case the others didn't count. My first dip was a Sun-Dried Tomato, Roasted Red Pepper, and Pesto Dip that used Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese and Soymage Vegan Parmesan Flavored Topping and my second dip was a Butternut Squash, Walnut and Parmesan Dip which used soy milk and again with the Parmesan topping.

I was actually really impressed with the cream cheese substitute - eating it straight up, sure, you can tell the difference but in the dip it worked like a charm. The Parmesan topping was a little off in taste though and I'm not sure it helped the dip too well. I think soy cheese in general is going to have a hard time competing against regular cheeses, at least for me. All said and done, we took the haul down to my in-laws this weekend and by far the favorite was the tomato pesto dip. I am excited to use the leftovers as sandwich spreads and veggie dips for lunch this week. Very flavorful and healthy too!

I'm sure glad for this fun challenge and the fact that it wasn't another expand-my-gut recipe for a change. Check out the hosts, shellyfish and natalie, for this month's challenge as well as all the other completed challenges!

Sun-Dried Tomato, Roasted Red Pepper, and Pesto Dip

with the help of All Recipes

Half recipe of Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto replacing the Parmesan with Soymage Vegan Parmesan Flavored Topping

One container of Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese

One roasted red pepper (can use canned)

• Mix all ingredients in a food processor. Add more or less tomato pesto to your taste. Add soy milk to thin to desired consistency.

Butternut Squash, Walnut and Parmesan Dip

modified from Sauces and Salsas by Christine France

1 butternut squash

1 tablespoon margarine

4 garlic cloves, unpeeled

2 tablespoons Soymage Vegan Parmesan Flavored Topping

3-5 tablespoons regular soy milk

salt and ground black pepper

roughly chopped walnuts to garnish

• Preheat the oven to 400F.
• Halve the butternut squash, then scoop out and discard the seeds.
• Use a small sharp knife to deeply score the flesh in a criss-cross pattern: cut as close to the skin as possible, without cutting through it.
• Arrange both halves in a small roasting pan and dot them with the margarine. Sprinkle the butternut squash with salt and pepper and roast over high heat near the top of the oven for 20 minutes.
• Tuck the unpeeled garlic cloves around the squash in the roasting pan and continue baking for 20 minutes, until the butternut squash is tender and softened.
• Scoop the flesh out of the squash shells and place it in a food processor or blender. Slip the garlic cloves out of their skins and add to the squash. Process until smooth.
• With the motor running, add all but 1 Tb of the Parmesan and then the milk. Check the seasoning and spoon the dip into a serving bowl; it is at its best served warm. Sprinkle the reserved Parmesan and the chopped walnuts on top.

*This may also work well with other types of squash. Acorn ...mmm!

Behold Your Little Ones

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently helped out with our Stake Primary Leadership Training meeting and my major responsibilities were putting together a folder with all our handouts, making dessert (did the Daring Bakers Eclairs again), and putting together a presentation for new curriculum (new nursery manual and 2009 CSMP) and addressing any Sharing Time/Singing Time needs. As my general duties in our Stake Primary presidency, I have been assigned to be a "consultant" of sorts for all music and Nursery needs which works out perfectly because those are my favorite parts of Primary!

While we were setting up for the meeting in the Primary room, Aedan would frequently go up to the podium and fold his arms and bow his head to say a prayer in the microphone and he did this several times with an incredible reverent manner. Just yesterday, Aedan got behind me and put both hands on my head and said, "Close eyes mommy" and then started to say a prayer, trying to give me a blessing by the laying on of hands. Now while he does not yet have the priesthood authority to perform blessings, I am amazed he picked that up and recognized all the little bits of it. He recently saw Neal help give a friend a blessing before she had her baby and something about seeing his daddy serve and perform Christ-like acts really stuck with him.

I've had a lot of time to focus on the music aspect of Primary, keeping myself busy with making CDs of the CSMP music for each unit, occaisionally playing the piano while visiting some units, meeting with the music leaders. I would really like to put more emphasis on Nursery now and with the new Nursery manual, Behold Your Little Ones, I feel like Nursery is finally getting some additional attention church-wide. First off, Nursery is one of my favorite places to be on Sunday. I love it and it really makes me sad when people don't realize the importance of the Nursery class and view it as a "glorified babysitting" calling. I think we often don't realize how much kids this age are actually absorbing.

I love the title of this new manual, "Behold Your Little Ones" which comes from the Savior speaking to the Nephites in 3 Nephi 17:23 and the spiritual thought we chose to focus on complimented this theme nicely. Again, a worthwhile read, M. Russell Ballard's Great Shall Be the Peace of Thy Children talks about the significance of the word 'behold'. He says, "Notice that He didn’t say “glance at them” or “casually observe them” or “occasionally take a look in their general direction.” He said to behold them. To me that means that we should embrace them with our eyes and with our hearts; we should see and appreciate them for who they really are: spirit children of our Heavenly Father, with divine attributes"

Nursery is the first class of Primary and it provides a chance for children ages 18 months to 3 years old to learn basic truths about our church and the gospel and to really learn what being a child of God is all about. I'm sure many parents of toddlers can agree with me when they say that it is amazing the things they learn in Nursery. I know I need to do a better job at letting the teachers know how much we appreciate them. Aedan comes home and says things and sings songs that I know he learned in his Nursery class. So thank you to all of his teachers, both current and past!

This new manual is wonderful and I can see why they recommend that each family with Nursery age children should have a copy in their home - it works great for FHE and it is so incredibly easy to use. I am hoping they redo all of the manuals to be like this manual. Each lesson is in two pages or less and right by the lesson is your visual aids and an activity to copy and print. All the music for the lesson is written within the lesson, any tips to help the lesson go smoothly is written right in the margins... I love this manual! Buy one, I promise you won't regret it!

And for anyone actively using this manual for their Nursery calling, be sure to read the introduction very thoroughly as there are a few guidelines that have changed for Nursery. The obvious ones are that we are to use church-approved materials only in Nursery (ie. anything published directly from the LDS church, including music) and no set times for each activity but still keep a general schedule (snack, lesson, playtime, etc). These are the church's guidelines, not mine although I fully support them. Watch the introductory video online, it is pretty good too.

Eclair de Lune - simply music to my mouth

This month's Daring Baker challenge was just what I needed - something a little more low key, low maintenance, low cost, but BIG taste. This month's challenge was Pierre Hermé’s Chocolate Éclairs hosted by MeetaK and Tony. I felt pretty comfortable going into this as I've made eclairs and cream puffs before (even recently for my April Fool's Dinner) but was still very excited about it because it wasn't something that would take me days to prepare and I knew that Neal would be very thrilled to eat them.

I had some great plans in my mind to do something truly daring, but in the end, I volunteered to make the desserts for a friend's baby shower and thought I had better play it safe and follow the recipe given. This recipe called for chocolate filling plus chocolate glaze and while that was very tempting, I opted out of doing the glaze and just stuck with the filling. Afterall, I was making 3 other desserts for this event and I was starting to feel like things were getting a little too rich.

I used my big ol' Wilton Dessert Decorator Pro, which I love because I could never quite master the bags and the pump was just easier in my opinion. I used the large star tip for the Pâte à Choux and the pastry cream and it was so easy. I sifted some powdered sugar on top and I was done! I really liked this puff pastry recipe (although it isn't very different from others but it tasted really good to me) and the cream was good enough to eat on it's own, like a warm chocolate pudding. Mmmm....

They were the only dessert that totally disappeared at the shower. In case you were wondering, I also made some Oatmeal Toffee Cookies, some Mousse au Chocolat Amer or Bitter Chocolate Mousse, and some Cinnamon Pecan Cheesecake Bars. I stayed away from fruity desserts as fruit was served at the shower.

I had actually doubled the recipe but made just one batch of pastry cream and it ended up going a long way. I had a handful of unfilled pastries left and so I saved them until this afternoon. I made up another batch of pastry cream and filled the leftover pastries and we served them to the Elder missionaries (Elder Price and Elder Charles), who are full-time missionaries for our church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints), whom we had over for dinner this evening. I will say that they are not as good as when they are freshly baked so next time I will have to remember that. And yes, there definitely will be a next time.

Daring Bakers Hello to Hazel

This month's Daring Bakers Challenge was a Filbert Gateau with Praline Buttercream, a recipe from Great Cakes by Carol Walter. You can find the recipe at Mele Cotte's site. The cake itself is a Génoise cake, which is a sponge cake named after the city of Genoa and closely associated with French cuisine that does not use any chemical leavening, instead using air suspended in the batter during mixing to give volume to the cake (thanks again wikipedia). It is rather odd but I have had several Genoese food items as of late... Well to sum up, this cake was to have hazel nuts in the cake itself, the cake cut into three layers with a sugar/rum glaze on each cake layer, with praline buttercream and whipped cream in between each layer, then with apricot glaze over the entire assembled cake, then covered with a ganache glaze over everything else, then with piped on praline buttercream and topped of with more toasted hazelnuts. And if you can say all that in one breath and haven't passed out, then I will be impressed.

I must admit, they had me at filbert as I like hazel nuts but I never know what to do with them. It took me a while to find hazel nuts that were not chopped into tiny bits and pre-packaged into tiny bags. Can I just say that removing the skins off of these nuts was almost enough to make me give up on this challenge? It wasn't hard, just way too time consuming. I was to remove the skins and then toast the nuts to later be included in batter, in buttercream, and in garnish.

I really like cake batter. I know, I know, raw egg and what not. But I really liked it with the ground up toasted Hazel-meal. I ended up baking my cake in two 9" pans instead of one 10" round because that is what I had. This was to be a layer cake with praline butter-cream inbetween layers of cake and since I had four layers instead of the suggested three I had to adjust a little bit. Oh sure I could have left out a layer but why waste a perfectly good layer of cake? I was intrigued by the apricot preserve glaze that was to go around the entire cake and thought I might like a little more so I glazed one of my layers before assembly. Thanks to Neal's grandma, we had some homemade apricot jam to use and it was finger-lickin' good.

The Praline Buttercream was an interesting idea. I've made Swiss Buttercream before but never thought to add nuts and/or additional flavoring. Since we are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, we don't drink alcohol so there was no sense in me going out to buy rum for this fancy cake. But by some strange twist of fate, I had purchased a bottle of imitation rum extract days before this month's challenge was announced so I substituted it in. The toasted hazelnuts were candied (I had a lot of fun with this) and pastified and then added to the prepared buttercream. I thought the buttercream was yummy, and I think I had quite a bit to taste before putting any on the cake. Problem #1: don't eat too much of the praline rum buttercream beforehand or you will be sick of it before you even get to taste the cake. Too much of a good thing...

So from my stated problem, I was kind of getting tired of the rum taste early on. I like the rum flavoring but it got to a point where that was all I was tasting. So I decided to go ahead and add the whipped cream layer in addition to the buttercream layer in between cakes as it would seem to mellow things out a bit. It did.

By the time I had to do the sugar glaze (also rum flavored) on each cake layer plus throw in the buttercream and whipped cream, I was beginning to worry that this would be a rum cake instead of a filbert cake so I did not flavor my ganache which was a smart move for me. The ganache was very yummy and easy to handle. But really, by this point, I was kind of fed up with this recipe as it was so long and there were so many parts to it. I took my frustrations out on the ganache drippings and made a skull and crossbones...

And not to scare you further but these were most of the dishes left in the wake of cake...

I know being a Daring Baker is supposed to be a challenge but I'm not so sure this one was fun for me. And I wasn't sure if any amount of amazing tastiness would make up for that. But let me tell you, if you ever get up the nerve to make this cake, my advice would be to make it a day or so ahead of the time you plan to actually eat it. It is far better a few days afterwards (moister, flavors melded together nicely, etc) and I think I appreciate it better after I've recovered from the shock of it all. I suppose you need to see the final product? Here it is in all it's glory:

Hhhmmm... all that comes to mind here is 'brain coral'

So I am the last person qualified to actually decorate a cake but I found this buttercream a little difficult to work with as it seemed to weep a bit. So I quickly squiggled some lines on and put a border around the base and gave up. I still don't have a strong filbert impression as I eat the leftovers so I don't know if that using the nuts was worth it. Neal said he thought it is a 'snob' cake and in a way I agree with him - it is way fancy for the likes of us and I'm sure it would fetch a handsome price at a fancy bakery/pastry shop but I have to tell you, I'm not sure it is my style. Aedan was excited to eat it but after one bite he left it alone. If anything was to be gained from this challenge (and I'm not referring to my overall weight/width) it was that I learned a few new tricks and I now have leftover praline paste to play with.

This is me trying to look like a Daring Baker

My first month into the Daring Bakers clique has been a tasty/time-consuming one.  Maybe they are all like that and maybe that is the life of a true baker.  The question on my mind is "was it worth it?" This month's challenge was Danish Braids hosted by Kelly and Ben.  My brain had a power outage for a second or two when I realized I'd be dealing with yeast laminated dough. May I remind you that I am not much of a baker, I think partly because I have a working knowledge of the time and effort that goes into the really good baked goods. However much I wanted to back out of my first challenge, I stuck with it and am glad I did.

The dough was amazing!  Sure it takes some time folding and chilling it but when your star ingredients are ground cardamom, orange zest/juice, and vanilla bean, you'd be better off making it.  Otherwise you start thinking about it constantly.  I did - I had all month until I finally buckled down and went to work.  I ground my own cardamom seeds (hey, high-five!).  If you make this you must follow the recipe exactly - the taste is not worth sacrificing. 

We were allowed to be creative with our fillings and the first thing that came to mind was my long-standing unfulfilled craving to make a peach melba pie.  I had gone for quite some time under the delusion that the original Peach Melba had alcoholic origins but was pleasantly surprised to find out that is not the case.  Wikipedia says: "The Peach Melba is a classic dessert, invented in 1892 or 1893 by the French chef Auguste Escoffier at the Savoy Hotel, London to honour the Australian soprano, Dame Nellie Melba, the stage name of Australian opera singer Helen Porter Mitchell (1861 - 1931). It combines two favorite summer fruits: peaches and raspberry sauce accompanying vanilla ice cream.  He had heard Nellie Melba perform at Covent Garden one night and was inspired to create a dessert just for her. Rumour had it she loved ice cream, but did not dare eat it often, believing it would affect her vocal cords. Escoffier created a sauce of raspberries, redcurrant jelly, sugar and cornstarch. In Peach Melba, the ice cream, being only one element in a whole, would not be as cold and thus not harm her vocal cords. He served it at a dinner she was hosting, presented in an ice sculpture of a swan inspired by the performance of Lohengrin he had seen." Hhhmmm... it makes no mention of a love affair but why else would you make such a lovely dessert presented in an ice sculpture for someone?  This same chef also made the Melba toast for her and "the term is thought to date back to 1897, a year when the singer was very ill and this kind of toast became a staple of her diet." 

Well, so really the only Melba thing about this was the fact that I used peaches and raspberries. I sweetened it with brown sugar, and added a little nutmeg for fun.  I attempted to thicken the juices and where it would have worked wonders in a pie setting, it was still too runny for a braid filling, giving my dainty braid a bleeding effect. 

The recipe makes enough dough for two braids and I had some apple pie filling I had canned a few years ago (yes, still good) and that worked out really good.  The glaze was very much needed and I think if I were to do it again I would go a nutty route, at least on the top.  The dough was nice and flaky and I really liked doing the fruit filling. 

 the apple filled braid

the peach melba filled braid

The dough recipe can be found here and I would have to say it was worth the effort but it is definitely a once or twice a year recipe for me as I just don't have two days to spare very often.  We usually do cinnamon rolls for General Conference weekend and I just might have to work this one into the rotation.