Daring Bakers: Cappuccino Swiss Swirl Bombe

The July 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Sunita of Sunita’s world – life and food. Sunita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that’s then used to make a bombe with hot fudge. Her recipe is based on an ice cream cake recipe from Taste of Home.

Imperfect whimsy. That is what I finally produced for this month’s DB challenge.

An upside down ice-cream bombe that poses as a cup of cappuccino.

What is on the outside: slices of flourless chocolate swiss roll, with a cream filling. On the inside: vegan coffee ice cream topped with a dairy-free frozen Amaretto mousse.

What is this?

I bought this from the farmers market where it was labeled calabasas. I thought it was some kind of zucchini, but I was told it was a kind of cucumber. A cucumber with peach fuzz on the outside.

Here it is with the skin off and sliced:

Maybe it is mo qua, otherwise known as fuzzy melon or hairy gourd?

I served it raw, sprinkled with salt, pepper, smoked paprika, and ground chipotle and ancho chili pepper. It was very good, like cucumber.

Here is a recipe for cooking it from Joanne Chang of Flour Bakery (who has a cookbook coming out).

Blueberry Torte

This a super easy and delicous blueberry pie recipe.

Blueberry Peach Crisp and Flapjacks

I was leisurely flipping through Bon Appetit when I saw a recipe for British flapjacks (a granola bar cookie).

Israeli Kranz Cakes: Chocolate Halvah and Orange Date Almond

I wanted to try the kranz coffeecake concept again after making a whole wheat cinnamon raisin one.

This time, I made half a batch of Janna Gur’s recipe (from The Book of New Israeli Food by the editor of Israel’s leading food magazine Al HaShulchan–see here for another interview) to make one loaf of chocolate halvah kranz coffeecake.

I also used half a batch of whole wheat challah dough to make the orange date kranz coffeecake version suggested by Baroness Tapuzina.

Pinkalicious

I was inspired to make pink cupcakes (pink frosting AND pink cake) after reading Pinkalicious. (take a thorough look at this site if you are a pinkalicious fan. And here is a YouTube clip from the musical.)

Whole Wheat Cinnamon Raisin Kranz Cake

I was fascinated by Stefanie’s  idea of using a water roux to make dough lighter and fluffier. I wondered what it would do to my whole wheat challah dough.

Zucchini Yellow Tomato Goat Cheese Pizza

I tried out yet another pizza dough recipe, this time from Moosewood Restaurant New Classics. The basic dough is 3 cups of bread or all-purpose white flour, 1/2 cup of whole wheat, 1 1/3 cups water, 1 Tbl. yeast, plus sugar, oil, salt, and–here was the interesting part–1/2 tsp. ground pepper. The pepper really affects the dough (maybe more so because my pepper was coarsely ground).

Moroccan Roasted Vegetables

Wondering what to do with my farmers market bounty, I came across not one but two recipes for Moroccan spiced roasted vegetables. The first was in Moosewood Restaurant New Classics (p.263) and the other was in Suzy Fishbein’s Kosher by Design Lightens Up.

Hila Solomon’s Baghdadi Red Lentil Soup

This humble looking soup was phenomenal. Red lentils, onions, garlic, ginger, turmeric, cumin, hot pepper, lemon juice and tomatoes mingle together to make a exotic soup. The recipe comes from Hila Solomon, who runs Spoons restaurant out of her home in Yemin Moshe. This soup recipe appeared in the Jerusalem Post, but I found it in Chefs’ Confidential, Emunah lovely cookbook.