Happy 13th birthday, Michael!

Tall Strawberry Shortcake

Three layers of vanilla-glazed vanilla pound cake alternate with layers of vanilla buttercream and fresh strawberries. At eight inches high, it's the Empire State Building of shortcakes! Made with fine cake flour, butter, Madagscar vanilla, and organic and cage-free eggs.

Inspired because he likes strawberries but didn't want pink icing.=)

And some positive feedback:
"Sarah it's BEAUTIFUL! I just went back to the kitchen to see it (THE ESB of shortcakes), and I think there are some envious co-workers here. I really can't wait and I'm sure Michael will be thrilled - he loves strawberries. I appreciate your creativity in providing non-pink icing and OMG, cage-free eggs!! Happy chickens make a better world so we buy cage-free too."

and later:

Yes, it was as wonderful as it looked. You've definitely outdone yourself! As I told your mom, Michael is not typically a cake person, usually has a few bites and eats the ice cream. He made a point that this is the first time (he can remember) that he finished the whole piece. It was perfect in every way, and I'd recommend you make one for yourself and your family to try it. Thanks again!

Happy birthday, Michael!!!

Daring Baker's Challenge - October

My very first challenge! I wasn't able to do the dough toss (despite trying VERY hard, so I had to kind of hold the edges of the dough and let the weight stretch itself out...!)

For toppings I didn't have a whole lot on hand. The first was a clam and artichoke - took a can of clams, a can of artichokes and boiled down the water from both of them to a small amount of thick sauce, mixed it with chopped artichokes and clams, and spread it on the pizza. I grated a little parmesan on top of that and voila! It was really tasty and I liked the flavor combo, but fresh clams would be tons better - not in the least because it was a bit salty with the boiled down clam water! But I still really enjoyed it nevertheless.





The topping worked well on this one because there wasn't very much liquid involved - the crust stayed nice and crunchy and baked up well.



For the second batch of pizzas, I put a spoonful of tomato sauce, grated mozarella and parmesan, sprinkled Italian seasoning, and chopped some sundried tomatoes on top. As I said, I didn't have a lot on hand, but I have to admit I still really enjoyed it!

A word of advice - put much less sauce than you think you need, or everything gets very soggy.

Until you make your own pizza crust, you really don't realize how lacking takeout pizza is. Homemade crust has this beautiful, rich yeasty flavor (even though I pretty much failed at shaping it and am a novice at yeasted doughs) and had both a nice crunch on the bottom and a nice airiness on the thicker crust. Most other pizzas will taste like nothing, or alternatively, cardboard. Definitely really easy (as long as you don't care about having misshapen pizzas like me if you can't toss them into perfect circles) and well worth it. A great first challenge!

I am very excited to join the Daring Bakers community.=)