The Daring part of Thanksgiving Break

It was a series of fortunate events:

1.  I had assigned myself dessert duty for the feast.*

2.  I said I would bring cheesecake, pecan pie and pumpkin pie.

3.  Our hostess sent around a list of who was bringing what, and there were three other people bringing pumpkin pie, too.

4.  I graciously offered to swap out my pumpkin pie for an apple tart**.  Nobody else was bringing anything with apples, so the coast was clear.

5.  On a whim, I checked to see what the Daring Bakers were up to this month***.

6.  This is what they were up to:  "The 2010 November Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Simona of briciole. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make pasta frolla for a crostata. She used her own experience as a source, as well as information from Pellegrino Artusi’s Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well."

7.  It turns out that Crostata means "tart" in Italian. Hmm...

8.  My apple tart was now an apple cream crostata. And a mighty fine one, at that.

Apple Cream Crostata

For the Pasta Frolla
(this is the Daring Bakers part)

Scant 3/4 c. powdered sugar

1 3/4 c. unbleached all purpose flour

1/4 tsp. salt

zest of 1/2 a lemon

1 stick of cold butter, cut into small pieces

1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk, beaten together in a small bowl

Place powdered sugar, flour, salt and lemon zest in a food processor, and pulse to combine.  Pulse in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Turn mixture out onto a work surface, forming a mound.  Make a small round indentation in the mound, and add the beaten eggs.  Use a fork to incorporate the egg into the dry ingredients, then use your fingers to bring it together into a smooth dough.

Knead a few times, then form into a disc and refrigerate for an hour.   Roll out between wax paper to a thickness of about 1/8th of an inch, and press into your tart pan.  From here, depending on your choice of filling, you can use right away, or bake with pie weights for 15 minutes, then uncovered for another 5 minutes.  This is known as "blind baking" or "par baking" the crust, and it's good when using custard or cream fillings for your tart.

For the tart:

(this is our family recipe part)

Par-baked crust

5-6 tart-sweet apples, peeled, cored and sliced thinly

Fresh lemon juice

1 pint heavy cream

3/4 c. sugar

2 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. vanilla

1/4 c. flour

1 egg

Preheat oven to 350.  Squeeze lemon juice over apples, then place apples into the pan with the pre-baked crust.  Use more or less apples to make pan nicely full but not mounded.   Mix the remaining ingredients together with a whisk until well blended.  Pour over apples until cream mixture is about 1/4 inch below edge of pie.  Discard any extra.  Bake for 40 minutes, until set.  Serve to raves at your next potluck, or just gobble it up by yourself.

*This was well before I knew that baking therapy would very much be in order.  I'm a dessert person even when times are good.
** Even though I make a really good pumpkin pie.
*** I did this guiltily, as I fully expected to be pummeled upon login for being such a flake. Fortunately, there are now so many DBs that my delinquency may have escaped notice, at least until I called attention to it in this footnote.

Dare to Steam

"The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet."

I almost skipped it.    Even absent the specific challenge information, logic told me to stay away*.     And then, when I saw instructions that involved rendering your own cow fat** as Step 1, and knotting up some kind of harness with string and foil as step 7, I was pretty much done.

I was just about to post my shamefaced "That's all folks, I'll see you Daring Bakers sometime in May" message to the group when I noticed one key fact***:

The suet was optional. Only the steaming part was required.

Well, that's a whole different story, isn't it?

I was in****.  And boy, am I glad about it.  This was a rich, luscious and deeply comforting dessert.  It was like eating the moistest cake you've ever had, straight out of the oven.  But without the oven, and without the fuss.   And of course, without that icky suet.

Dark Chocolate Spice Pudding with Cheater's Creme Anglaise
I discovered this recipe using good old google.  I think my exact search term was "steamed chocolate pudding recipe."   I lucked out.   All the spices serve to intensify and magnify the chocolate, making   this a wonderfully complex and grown up dessert.   My adapted version is below:

4 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped (I used Ghiaradelli Special Dark 72% baking chocolate)
½ cup butter
2 eggs
½ cup packed brown sugar
1 tbsp finely grated orange zest (I didn't have an orange, so I skipped this part)
¼ cup orange juice

½ cup cold strong coffee
1 tbsp vanilla
1 cup flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1 ½ tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp freshly ground pepper
½ tsp salt
½ tsp freshly ground dry mustard

Generously butter 6-8 small ramekins (or a single large pudding mold), and dust the bottoms with a combination of cocoa powder and sugar*****.   Put a bunch of water on to boil.

Melt chocolate and butter in a double-boiler or a microwave. Stir regularly until chocolate has completely melted.  Remove from heat and let cool for a few minutes. In a separate bowl, combine eggs and brown sugar until blended.  Stir chocolate mixture into egg mixture. Add orange zest, orange juice, coffee and vanilla, and mix well. Whisk flour, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, pepper, salt and mustard together, fold into chocolate mixture just enough to moisten.  Pour into ramekins and cover.

Get out your crock pot, or set up a large pot on the stove.   Place ramekins into the pot, and slowly add boiling water until it reaches halfway up the sides of your puddings.  Cover pan and return water to a boil.  Reduce heat to simmer.  Cook for about 1 hour for small puddings, 90 minutes for larger pudding.   During cooking time, add hot water as needed to maintain water level.

Remove puddings and allow to set for 5-10 minutes.  Serve warm in the ramekins, or unmold onto plates.  Either way, sprinkle with powdered sugar and pass the cheater's sauce on the side.

NOTE:  There may be a moment about halfway through cooking where your husband walks by and says, "So, you add chocolate to the water too, huh?  That's cool."   This will cause you to jump up in panic as you realize your ramekin tops are leaking and there are pools of chocolate goo floating around your puddings.    Fear not.  It's messy but most of the pudding will still be inside cooking away nicely.  Pretend to your husband that this is definitely part of the plan and that it is indeed cool.

Cheater's Creme Anglaise

Take some vanilla bean ice cream out of the freezer about 10 minutes before your puddings are done.   Put it in a bowl on the counter and let it soften up a bit.   Just before serving, stir it around vigorously so it has the consistency of frosting.   Top each pudding with a dollop and play it off as something you learned in cooking school.  Works every time.
 
* A: I'd spent the early part of the weekend cranking out cookies for the bake-off at our school fair, and then spent the fair day eating my way through the various competing entries (for research purposes, of course).   I was so thoroughly sugared out that I had eaten dry roasted peanuts for dessert.   B: My husband was on an enforced 24 hour liquid diet (don't ask), and the kids were heading to bed so any and all results would have to be eaten by me, and me alone.   C: There were new episodes of House and 24 on tonight.   Putting it all together:  A+B+C = Screw it.  QED.
** Per our hostess, "Suet is the hard but flaky fat found on the inside of a cow or sheep around the kidneys and that area of the body."  Yeah.  Double screw it.
*** Along with some raves from other DB's who had finished their challenges, and a helpful hint involving a crock pot.   
**** Plus there was a new factor, D:  I had these great ramekins that my mom had from the 60s that I'd been dying to use.  The recipe said you could use ramekins!  And we could pick any kind of pudding we wanted to make.  Putting it all together:  D > A+B+C.  QED.
***** If yours don't come with tops like mine, you will need to rig up a cover of buttered parchment or wax paper and some foil to make tops, and use string to hold the tops in place while they steam.

To do a Tiramisu

I'm sensing a theme in the Daring Bakers challenges I've done thus far*:

Layers.
With cream.
From another country.

This month's challenge?

"The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession. "

And Tiramisu is...

Layers.
With cream.
From another country.

I've noticed another consistent theme, at least in my own personal challenge results: The cream is always the best part**.

And the cream in this Tiramisu seriously rocked. You make your own homemade marscapone cheese. You make zabaglione. You make vanilla pastry creme. You whip heavy cream. You fold them all together. You have seriously made some of the best tasting stuff on earth.

My homemade ladyfingers were pretty, but dry. Scared off by instructions that had me petrified of disintegrating pastry, I failed to soak them long enough to get the hit of coffee and liquor that makes this such a wonderful dessert when done right. But it didn't matter, because I could just eat around that part to get more of the cream. Or better yet, just skip the formalities all together.

The Best Part of My Tiramisu

Step 1: Homemade Marscapone Cheese
Per Monty Python***, I am now among the blessed. You can be blessed, too, or get it already made at Trader Joe's.

2 cups pasteurized whipping cream, preferably organic (between 25% to 36% cream will do)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Bring 1 inch of water to a boil in a large pot. Reduce the heat to medium-low so the water is barely simmering. Pour the cream into a medium metal mixing bowl, then place the bowl over the simmering water to form a double boiler. Heat the cream, stirring often, to 180 F. If you do not have a thermometer, wait until small bubbles keep trying to push up to the surface. It will take about 15-20 minutes of delicate heating. Add the lemon juice and continue heating the mixture, stirring gently, until the cream curdles. You won't see a separating of curds. All that the whipping cream will do is become very thick, with a few streaks of whey when you stir. It's done when it covers the back of a wooden spoon thickly. Remove the bowl from the water and let cool for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, line a sieve with four layers of dampened cheesecloth and set it over a bowl. Transfer the mixture into the lined sieve. Do not squeeze the cheese in the cheesecloth or press on its surface (be patient, it will firm up after refrigeration time). Once cooled completely, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate (in the sieve) overnight or up to 24 hours.

Keep refrigerated and use within 3 to 4 days.

Step 2: Zabaglione
Again with the double boiler.

2 large egg yolks
3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup Marsala wine (or port or coffee) - I used a wonderful red dessert wine
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

Heat water in a large pot. (See the whole marscapone set up). In a large metal mixing bowl, mix together the egg yolks, sugar, the Marsala (or espresso/ coffee), vanilla extract and lemon zest. Whisk together until the yolks are fully blended and the mixture looks smooth.

Place your bowl over the pan/ pot with simmering water. Cook the egg mixture over low heat, stirring constantly, for about 8 minutes or until it resembles thick custard. It may bubble a bit as it reaches that consistency.

Let cool to room temperature. Cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight, until thoroughly chilled.

Step 3: Vanilla Pastry Cream
Still whisking over the stove, but no boiling water needed.

1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg yolk
3/4 cup whole milk

Mix together the sugar, flour, lemon zest and vanilla extract in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan. To this add the egg yolk and half the milk. Whisk until smooth. Place the saucepan over low heat and cook, stirring constantly to prevent the mixture from curdling. Add the remaining milk a little at a time, still stirring constantly. After about 12 minutes the mixture will be thick, free of lumps and beginning to bubble. (If you have a few lumps, don’t worry. You can push the cream through a fine-mesh strainer.)

Transfer the pastry cream to a bowl and cool to room temperature. Cover with plastic film and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight, until thoroughly chilled.

Step 4: Whipped Cream
I know this one!

1 cup chilled heavy cream (we used 25%)
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine all ingredients in a chilled metal mixing bowl. Using electric mixer with chilled beaters, beat until light and fluffy.

Step 5: Magnifico! Bravo! Fantastico!
Combine 1/3 c. of that marscapone, the zabaglione, and the vanilla cream until smooth. Fold in the whipped cream. Get out your spoon and prepare to be completely blissed out.

If you have baked up some ladyfingers and mixed some strong coffee with sugar and a splash of liquor, you can now make Tiramisu if you want by soaking said cookies in the coffee mixture for a second or so on each side, and then layering the cookies, the cream, the cookies, the cream, and so forth in a nice dish. Put the whole thing in the fridge overnight, dust with cocoa power and dive in.


Personally, I'd recommend skipping the whole ladyfinger thing, slicing some strawberries and spooning a whole bunch of the marscapone cream on top. You can have a cup of coffee (spiked or not) on the side. Multo bene!

* Multilayered hungarian torte, French puff pastry cups, French macarons, and Nanaimo bars from Canada. See what I mean?
** Mocha buttercream, braised short ribs with creme fraiche (perhaps stretching the definition of cream, but still), creamy peanut butter filling, and Kahlua cream cheese frosting, respectively.
***

If I lived in Nanaimo, I'd be really fat

After a two month haitus, during which I baked my butt off, but not audaciously, I rejoin the ranks of Daring Bakers in January. Hence:

"The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca."

Clearly, as with the oh-so-French vols-au-vent challenge, I needed some translation. I took it in steps:

Part 1. Gluten-free. Given the amount of flour in my pantry, this was the true foreign element of the challenge. Hopefully will be able to bluff my way through*.
Part 2. Graham Wafer. Hmm. "Wafer" sounds suspiciously like a former-British-Colony way of saying "cracker". Hold that thought.
Part 3. Nanaimo Bars. I was stumped. I read on. Aha!

"Nanaimo Bars are a classic Canadian dessert created in none other than Nanaimo, British Colombia. In case you were wondering, it’s pronounced Nah-nye-Moh."

Canada...which is, in fact, a former British Colony! Apparently the entire province, if not country, is overrun with super sweet chocolate sugar bombs disguised as bakery items. If you go to the town website, you get the recipe. If you go to the town itself, you will obviously get a heart attack**. Someone needs to warn the Olympic committee immediately about this threat.

The challenge further included a short description of the triple layer diet killer from the North:

1. A bottom crust made of crushed graham "wafers", cocoa, butter, sugar, nuts and coconut
2. A middle layer of flavored custard***
3. A top layer of chocolate ganache

The challenge was to bake fresh graham crackers, using an adaptation of Nancy Silverton's recipe. Then to take those crackers, crush them to bits****, and assemble our interpretation of Nanaimo bars. My mission clear, I went to work.

Frozen butter bits, ready for their close up

The graham cracker dough comes together easily in the food processor.
The secret ingredient? Lots of honey...

Form a rectangle, and put in the fridge overnight.

Dough must be really cold when you roll it out.

I made circles, although traditionally, the crackers are square.

They seemed happy enough...
Little did they know those smiles would soon be crushed.

Melting butter, sugar, cocoa and an egg together.
I throw in some almond extract and Kahlua for good measure!

My "add ins" for that chocolate layer:
Crumbs, almonds, and rice Krispies (in place of coconut)

In the pan, ready for layer two

Fresh cream cheese Kahlua buttercream

Seriously out of control decadence here.
My favorite part of these bars.
Must use on the next carrot cake...or cake of any kind that I make!

Where they got the expression, the icing on the cake. Pure chocolate, butter, and a dash of espresso drizzled on top, then spread out to make layer three. The whole thing goes right into the fridge, and about an hour later...

A Nanaimo Bar, eh!

This is an extreme close up, as the actual size of that bar is about 3/4" x 3/4", and even with a tiny bite of that tiny piece, I thought my head was going to explode from the sugar rush. They are decadent and totally deadly. Who knew those polite and neighborly Canadians had such a stealth weapon ready to go?

* I was. Although we were required to bake our own graham "wafers" we were allowed to use regular flour in the recipe if we liked. I liked. If you like, try the gluten-free version by substituting 1 c. sweet rice flour, 3/4 c. tapioca starch and 1/2 c sorghum flour for the flour in the original recipe.
** This is unfair speculation based on this challenge only. I am sure there are actually lovely stands selling seltzer water and fresh lettuce there, too, but they are not on the town website.
*** Another translation: Custard (in Canada) = pure buttercream frosting (everywhere else)
**** Really? A day of work, just to make crumbs??? Sigh. Luckily, the recipe makes a lot more than I needed for this challenge, and I found an unbelievably delicious way to use the extra. Stay tuned!

Flat Out Daring

Begin odd, but by now at least familiar, intro: "The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe."

When I saw this month's Daring Bakers challenge about a month ago, I was excited. As you can see by the intro, above, it was cookies. Cookies? I'm all about cookies! Plus, these were cookies with frosting in the middle!!! The last two challenges were tough, but this one? In the bag. Oh yeah.

I then promptly forgot all about it until about 9 pm this evening. Yes, this evening, the 27th of October. Reveal night. 3 hours, 2 kids with homework that needed to be checked, and 1 suddenly intimidating recipe* stood between me and the holy land of the completed challenges forum. Sure, it looked hopeless. But I had to try.

Printout in hand, I scrambled to get my egg whites warmed up, my almonds ground, my mixer dry, and my kids to bed. Soft peaks? Check. Stiff peaks? Looks good to me. Definitely going chocolate here. Pull out cocoa powder. Hmm. Recipe has no salt in it. Not a good sign, but I'll go with it. Ovens set. Ziploc bag snipped**. Piping onto baking sheets.

Uh oh. In printout, piped dough looked like mini perky breasts. In kitchen, piped dough looked like mini mud puddles. It's 10:45. Mud puddles it is.

As cookies go from low oven to hot oven, I look for the magic "foot" referred to lovingly in challenge recipe. No dice. Mine are amputee macaroons. As a bonus, they proceed to deflate when cooled, returning to their original mud puddle state.

That's right. I had spent the better part of the night creating amputee mud puddle macaroons...

...with peanut butter buttercream middles. Oh yeah!***

It is 11:28 pm. I am on a major sugar high. Deflated, but not defeated****, I survive to Dare another day.

* Fine print: they were French cookies. Damn.
** Note to self: Get a pastry bag, for heaven's sake!
*** Skippy to the rescue! Appearances aside, the cookies had a lovely, chewy texture and dense rich chocolate flavor. However, without salt, they were entirely too sweet for my taste. The filling (from the Great Cookies cookbook by Carole Walter) was a good idea, but also needed a serious reduction in the sugar department. But there is real potential here, folks. I will keep working on this one, and post a recipe when I get it right
**** The cookies were de-feeted (ha ha!). I was not.

Dare? Ya!

Was there ever really any mystery? Of course I was going to bake again. Boy, am I glad I did, too...these things are so cool!

But before I say another word, I will pause to give you this month's requisite Daring Bakers' intro:

"The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan."

I know what you're thinking. It's probably a tie between "What the hell is a Vols-au-Vent?*" and "Whatever it is must be complicated because apparently it takes three well-known chefs to make it."

That's exactly what I thought, too!

It turns out that Vols-au-vent is a fancy French way of saying "delectable homemade puff pastry cups that you can fill with whatever you want"**. It also turns out that it only takes one mildly ambitious home cook, a hard-working refrigerator, and multiple viewings of the helpful instructional video to make it.

I say unto you, Voila! Les vols-au-vent!

Step 1: Get out 5 ingredients. Ice water counts as one of them!

Step 2: Make a ball of dough.

Step 3: Take a pound of butter and whack the heck out of it with your rolling pin.

Step 4. Roll out the chilled dough. Put the butter in a dough envelope, roll the envelope out, then fold it up again. Turn, repeat, and put it in the fridge for about 1/2 an hour.

Steps 5 and 6. Repeat the "roll, fold, repeat" part of Step 4 two more times. In between, check your e-mail and run a couple of errands.

Step 7: Roll out the dough, but a lot flatter this time. Cut out circles, then make 1/2 the circles into smaller circles and rings.

Step 8: Brush some beaten egg on the circles, top with the rings. Fridge time!

Step 9: Bake, first with a mat on them, then without. Cool.

Step 10: Fill with anything you like (I chose cherry braised short ribs with creme fraiche, and curried crab salad with capers).



Final Step: Wipe that silly grin off your face. You know how easy this was, so don't get too impressed with yourself!***

* Jennie, no fair, you live in France.
** In reality, it translates to "lift by air" or something like that.
*** If you are unable to stop smiling, it is probably because you just took a bite out of one of your creations and realized how unbelievably good it tastes. Again, this is not your doing. It is the pound of butter talking.

Do I dare?

Begin strange intro now:

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

Explain strange intro now:

As Steve Martin so famously said, "I can do this act alone. I often do." But apparently, that doesn't have to be the case. All over the web, bloggers have bonded into net-wide coalitions, posting en masse in a frenzied outpouring of prose and photos and general togetherness on various topics. In the cooking world alone one could be busy almost daily, between Tuesdays with Dorie and Thursday's Barefoot Bloggers. I’m sure there’s Wolfgang Puck Wednesdays and a Morimoto Monday if I just looked hard enough. I have decided to dip my toe into this thing from the fringes of Cheesy Pennies Land by joining The Daring Bakers*. From what I can tell, it's a bit like Fight Club**.

1. There is an uber secret recipe challenge every month.
2. You must make the uber secret recipe in secret.
3. On a pre-determined day, everybody "reveals" the challenge and how it came out***.
4. If you don't keep the secret, I think something very bad happens****.

And so, with a big drum roll, here is my first production as a Daring Baker:


Pretty darn impressive, huh? (pause for applause)

But here's the thing. It was a lot of work. Totally doable, but a lot of work*****. I hand form thin layers of sponge cake. I whip up an intensely rich butter cream frosting. I decide the recipe's version is cloyingly sweet, and improvise by adding both a pinch of salt and some coffee for flavor. I rock! I make caramel. It's way too lemony for my taste or to suit the rest of the flavors in this cake, but there's no way to fix that. I add a pinch of salt anyway to make myself feel better. I coat a layer of cake with said caramel, and then swear a lot as I try to cut that sticky stuff into decorative wedges. I chop Marcona almonds and macadamia nuts. And then I'm still facing this step called "assembly"******.


But I did it, and the torte looked amazing. My sister and I cut into it with anticipation. And were underwhelmed. It tasted fine. Good even. But after all that? I wanted to be blown away. Only one part of this monumental effort did live up to the hype, and that was the frosting. That stuff was silky, smooth, buttery bliss on a spoon. Made the whole thing worth it, just to lick that mixing bowl.

Will I be baking again? I can't tell you, or I'd have to kill you.

Rich Mocha Buttercream
the best part of the Dobos Torte

4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup bakers sugar (superfine white sugar)
4oz bakers semi-sweet chocolate or your favorite dark chocolate, finely chopped (I used Trader Joe's Organic Dark Bars)
1 Tbs. finely ground (like to a powder) instant coffee
2 sticks plus 2 tablespoons butter, at room temperature.

Note: This can be prepared in advance and kept chilled until required. Allow to come to room temp before using.
1. Prepare a double-boiler: quarter-fill a large saucepan with water and bring it to a boil.
2. Meanwhile, whisk the eggs with the sugar until pale and thickened, about five minutes. You can use a balloon whisk or electric hand mixer for this.
3. Fit bowl over the boiling water in the saucepan (water should not touch bowl) and lower the heat to a brisk simmer. Cook the egg mixture, whisking constantly, for 2-3 minutes until you see it starting to thicken a bit. Whisk in the finely chopped chocolate and cook, stirring, for a further 2-3 minutes. Add the coffee powder.
4. Scrape the chocolate mixture into a medium bowl and leave to cool to room temperature. It should be quite thick and sticky in consistency.
5. When cool, beat in the soft butter, a small piece (about 2 tablespoons) at a time. An electric hand mixer is great here, but it is possible to beat the butter in with a spatula if it is soft enough. You should end up with a thick, velvety mocha buttercream. It would be fantastic on cupcakes, chocolate cake, vanilla cake, or just by itself. DIG IN!
If anyone would like the full recipe, let me know and I'll pass it along!

* Main attractions: Monthly activity, not weekly. Involves baking.
** "The first rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club."
*** I am so following these rules! Go me! For example, not only did I use the "club" intro text properly (I hope!) I actually wrote this post like a week ago, but kept it uber secret until today!
**** Just kidding. I think they just kick you out of the blogroll.
***** Perhaps a clue for me in the name "challenge."
****** If you haven't noticed, very few of the recipes I talk about have this as part of the process. Usually, it's straight from the oven to "dig in."