Every Easter I see these pretty speckled robin’s egg cakes pop up all over the food internet, and I’ve been wanting to make one myself for a while. I’ve also been wanting to make a coconut layer cake, so I combined the two and here we are!
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Torta Della Nona
Creamy custard inside a crisp, cookie-like tart shell, the whole thing flavoured with vanilla and lemon and topped with toasted pine nuts. Is your mouth watering yet? It should be, because I’ve just described an Italian dessert called Torta Della Nona and it is SO GOOD. Translated as “grandmother’s cake”, this was the November Daring Kitchen Challenge hosted by Ginger-Z, and of course, I’m over a week behind schedule for posting about it. But once again, better late than never – this one is worth the wait!
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Daring Bakers: Sfogliatelle Ricci and Lobster Tail Pastries
Sandie of the lovely blog, Crumbs of Love, was our November Daring Bakers hostess. Sandie challenged us to make a traditional Italian dessert, along with its American version – Sfogliatelle (or better known in the US – lobster tails!) The flakey, 1000 layers of super thin dough, shaped into a horn and filled with a scrumptious filling. Così buono!
Being that this is the month we said goodbye to Lis, the Queen of All Daring Bakers, it is fitting that this month’s challenge was a doozy, something that probably none of us had ever made before and some of us (myself included) had never even heard of. Sfogliatelle? Lobster tails? Turns out we’re not talking about the back end of a crustacean, but a flaky layered pastry stuffed with a delicious filling.
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Daring Bakers: Roasted Plum Mille Feuille
Our October 2012 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Suz of Serenely Full. Suz challenged us to not only tackle buttery and flaky puff pastry, but then take it step further and create a sinfully delicious Mille Feuille dessert with it!
Mille feuille (aka napoleon) means “a thousand layers” in French, and is so-called because it contains three layers of puff pastry (pâté feuilleté), each containing many flaky layers, plus two layers of pastry cream (crème pâtissière). I’ve been wanting to make puff pastry since making croissants and danishes – the laminating process (aka rolling and folding and rolling and folding) is exactly the same, the only difference is that croissants and danishes are yeasted and puff pasty is not.
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Daring Bakers: Fresh Fraisier
Jana of Cherry Tea Cakes was our July Daring Bakers’ host and she challenges us to make Fresh Frasiers inspired by recipes written by Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson in the beautiful cookbook Tartine.
A fraisier is a French pastry consisting of two layers of cake soaked in simple syrup with strawberries and pastry cream sandwiched between. Essentially, it is a free-standing trifle, but the special thing about a fraisier is the exposed fruit around the sides. To make a true fraisier, you have to use strawberries (fraise = strawberry), so I’m not really sure what to call my strawberry-raspberry-blueberry combination – a baies mélanger-ier doesn’t really have the same ring to it. But whatever you want to call it, it was tasty!
I did this challenge while I was in California visiting my aunt and uncle, and it was extra challenging because I was baking in an unfamiliar kitchen and also contending with a wheat and corn allergy. But it turned out beautifully and just proves that you don’t need fancy equipment or lots of space to make a spectacular dessert. 
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