I’m late, I know!
I mean, in Italy is still the 29th October, so technically, I’m ok… But I wanted to publish it sooner, but, honestly, I was too lazy to make it before today, so, here I am, in the rush to use the last glimpses of day light!

Well, I was too lazy, that’s for sure, but other factor combine to my laziness:
1- I wasn’t attracted by the recipe (sorry Alpineberry!!! Nothing to do with you, absolutely: it’s me that is wrong!), not because it didn’t seem good or doable… But just because those kind of cakes doesn’t really make me scream in joy… I had to take EVERYTHING back!
2- I actually had not a lot of time this month (and all the months coming by), but at one point this morning, looking at all the wonderful recipes from all the other dear Daring Bakers from all over the world, I felt SAD! I want to be part of this wonderful and growing group, and if I wasn’t going to complete this task I had to leave, as I already jumped two!!! And, anyway, what’s the use of being a part of a community if you don’t participate to community events???
3- The whole point of this group is to challenge our skills, learning from errors and from tasks that seems too difficult or too easy! This time, the task seemed too easy to me, way to easy! BUT, even if easy, I’ve learned few things, like how to make a very good custard with not a lot of sugar, or that what in Italy is called Pan di Spagna, somewhere else is called chiffon cake… Only one problem: as I’m Pan di Spagna challenge, so I am even Chiffon cake challenge… It was so thin I had to put 2 disk in each serving…

All this to say that the cake was, as in the title, OH MY!!!
WONDERFUL!
So good!!!
So light, so simple, so quick (the overall process didn’t take me more then 45 minutes, not counting the cooling time!) and yet so rewarding!

Another Daring Baker task completed! Another challenge done! Another happy day spent baking!!!

Daring Bakers rock!!!

Sometimes ago I became obsessed by owning a copy of Larousse des desserts (the French equivalent of a gastronomical (dessert in this case) encyclopaedia), written under the supervision of the god of all pastry men, women, child, and passionate in the world, Pierre Hermé.
Stated this, I trusted the book like a bible, like the ultimate dessert recipe collection, along with the basic recipe.
I have to say I’ve made brioche (in the French meaning of the word), but never with this recipe. And I don’t know… The taste was the one of the brioche, but the texture wasn’t. In fact my husband (who is not very keen on pastry making, but it’s a scientist, so on some matters I certainly trust him!) said that the problem could be the flour. As I used normal white flour, may be the recipe was for stronger flour… The fact is that I haven’t trust my feelings (adding more flour), but I followed the book… Something I shouldn’t have done… Anyway, I think that if you add enough flour to the recipe I’m giving you, just to obtain a consistent, elastic and smooth dough, you should arrive to the right consistency… BUT if you are yeast/flour/patisserie challenged, do not attempt even to think about it!

This recipe was made among a series of Jam recipes I’m realizing for work, “to help” the tasting panel to get rid of all the jams they are tasting! As if they need it!

5 g of fresh yeast
190 g of flour
20 g of sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
3 eggs
150 g of butter, room temperature

Strawberry jam

Crumble the yeast and mix it with flour and sugar. Add the eggs one by one, kneading each entirely in the dough before to add the next. Add the diced butter little by little and keep on kneading (if at this point your dough is too wet, add flour).
Let the dough rest for 2 hours, then punch it, knead it a little, and let it rise more.
Scoop a little of the dough into a muffin mould, add over it a little spoon of jam. Cover with more dough and let it rise again.
Preheat the oven at 150° C and bake the mini brioche until risen and golden.