My first Daring Bakers challenge~ French batards

As a new member of the daring bakers, I present to you, my first challenge~~ The French batards
I must admit that I got a bit frustrated when I saw the recipe for this particular bread, because it was like a thousand pages long and also because that I've never made bread before. So I was really pushing myself out of my comfort zone.

The dough ready to go in to the oven

The expected holes which also represents the rightness of the properly made batard.
I think mine is not there yet, maybe it's because I didn't abuse the dough long enough..but my arm was so tired and sore

Pierre Herme's Blueberry & Mascarpone Cake , my first time making mousse, lady fingers, and meringue

I have finally received my Desserts By Pierre Herme book on Friday, I think I've waited too long to get the book.
I've wanted to get this book since August, 2007, and ever since then, I've been watching it on Amazon.


The price was around $45.00 at the time I was looking at it, I kept waiting, believing that a better deal would come up.
But then I got busy with school and forgot to keep track , then it was after a month when I realized that the prices had gone up to hundreds. Some are for around a hundred and some are up to two hundreds.
Then my journey for Pierre Herme books spying had begun, it went on for about three month and I'm glad that I've finally found a person selling the Dessert book and the Chocolate one together.
Although I've already have the Chocolate book, but I could always sell it on Ebay to get rid off it.
(or if any of you are looking to add this book into your recipe collection?)

So Friday night, I was so excited as I flipped through the book. I asked friend A : pick something and I'll make it!! It's just too fascinating that I can't even decide what I wanna make.
And later that night , friend A stated that he'll be fine with anything "mousse".

Pierre Herme's got a few mousse in the book, but a lot of them requires the ingredients or the techniques that I've not yet have a chance to practice. And that reason had made the Blueberry & Mascarpone cake seem the best thing for me to do at the moment. So yes, that's why I made the cake. And I made two , so me and my friends can eat one and I'm gifting the other cake to the vocal coach who helped me play on my Peabody audition.


First of all, I first thought that this cake is the easiest and less complicate compare to the other cakes in PH's book.
But I was wrong. Dead WRONG!!!
It was far more scaring then I have imagined.
(Advice: read the recipe very very carefully, don't just glance, lol)
I had to make a blueberry filling, a lemon syrup and the heated hard sugar for the meringue.
Then after I'm done making the filling and the syrup, I whipped up the whites and made the meringue.
The process for making the Meringue is rather scary, because the sugar was heated to a very high temperature , then you have to pour it in to the whites slowly in a thin stream WHILLE the mixer is ON.
But the meringue came out perfect, despite the heart attacking process, the experience for making the meringue as a first timer wasn't so bad.
(yada yada yada , hehe, yeah..I never used meringue to make my macarons, but I think I'll start trying that)


So basically after I've done making the syrups , jam, filling and the mouse, I realized that I didn't have mouse rings.
Jajajajajajajajaja , sometimes, you just have to laugh about it , then you'll be fine.
I end up using two of my 6" cake pans w/ lined parchment paper, and it turn out "fine"



Another scary process in making this cake is to brown the meringue .
Basically what you do is freeze your cake for an hour and then pre-heat your oven to 275F, and throw the cake in for like 5 minutes and take it out immediately as the top of the cake (the meringue part) should be slightly brown.
Yes, this was another scary moment because the mousse had started to melt when it's only 4 minutes, so I took it out from the oven , since I'm happy with the browness already.


OK, so seriously, speaking of planning things ahead.
I knew that the recipe called for lady fingers , so I bought two bags of it from Whole food.
But what I realized was that the cake was not as tall , so I would have to "saw" the lady fingers shorter, it was really late when I get to this stage, so I thought I might just keep the cakes in the freezer and proceed the next day.
This morning I got up , I look at the cake and I was in shock that it has no lady fingers on it, so I started.........................
making lady fingers..................
(this is why sometimes life is better kept messy, if I weren't to store my lady fingers so well at such a covert place , I would have not wasted the time and ingredients )
I made them chubbier and shorter, and I piped them the wrong way, the longer sides are the sides that are suppose to be touching. But the only reason to do that is just so it is easier for you to use when you are using it to decorate your cake.


I used the ribbon because I like ribbon and it's in the trend to use ribbons to decorate the cake.
I like the idea of it, but ribbons are just so pricey in the States. My mom used to have this entire drawer of good quality ribbons and they cost like half the price we're paying in the States.(according to my mom, yes)



因為我英文版不小心打太多了
中文的大意是:這是我做的蛋糕 其中有許多精心膽跳的時刻 因為這是我第一次做幕斯 第一次做lady finger 跟meringue , 幕斯混好了才發現沒有幕斯模 於是硬着頭皮用烤蛋糕的模子 XD
但是最後來還是出來了

耶......就先這樣 = =