Daring Bakers' Challenge: January 2011

The January 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Astheroshe of the blog accro. She chose to challenge everyone to make a Biscuit Joconde Imprime to wrap around an Entremets dessert.  It's a wonderful idea and the finished product can be quite beautiful.  This is, it can be quite beautiful if someone else makes it.  This is what happened at my house (ick!  I need to clean my oven.):

Lovely, isn't it, all curled up on the oven door?  I tried not to scream too loudly, because the landlords were next door.  I'd love to say that I picked myself up, dusted myself off and started all over again*, but I didn't try the joconde imprime again because I was too heartbroken and all my dishes were dirty.  I did go ahead and make This Side of Paradise Pudding and a roast chicken.  I shouldn't have waited until the last minute!  I actually think what I did would have turned out all right (it was nice and flexible when I pulled it off the oven, but had, unfortunately, stuck to itself).  I just should have removed more of the décor paste so that more of the joconde sponge would have shown through.  It was really tasty, though.  I used ground hazelnuts in the sponge and I made the cocoa version of the paste.  Paul and I ate part of it, even though it touched the oven.

To top it all off, the chocolate cake I was going to use as one of the entremet layers along with the This Side of Paradise Pudding and a pistachio Bavarian cream (Spumoni-inspired layers) fell apart as well.  I don't know what my problem was other than I was rather apprehensive about attempting the whole thing.  My apologies to Astheroshe, to whom I tip my hat for this month's comprehensive instructions and inspired challenge.  I'll try again when I've recovered.

I should have

• worn an apron. (I was covered in cocoa powder.)
• baked this at my parents' house. (They have a big Edwardian kitchen, I have a tiny 1920s kitchen.)
• baked this at my parents' house. (My dad would have done something amazing with the décor paste.  I actually think this whole daring thing is more up his alley than mine.  To quote my great-grandma, I'm a "lazy cook.")

Well, here's hoping next month is easier for me!


*The song is in the first video, the dance in the second.