The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England.
I'm not a huge fan of crusts or tarts in general so I quartered the crust and thirded the frangipane. Luckily, I had the right amount of everything because it gets kind of annoying when the small containers start to take over the fridge. I used strawberry jam for 2 tarts and left it plain for one tart because I wasn't sure how much I would like the strawberry and almond together. I remember making frangipane with TWD and really enjoyed the almond filling. Instead of creaming, I used a mini attachment for my handmixer that works like a food processor since there was so little filling and I didn't want the ingredients to stir around the bottom of the mixer bowl. This is how Dorie makes it and it's great because there is no curdling. You're left with a nicely emulsified thick almond cream. The bakewell tart didn't really change my mind about tarts, but I'm more of a cake and cookie girl.
Is it just me or is anyone else starting to feel like they're on dessert overload? Lately I've been feeling a little sick of sweets, but not the baking part so that makes it really difficult to make something new when the desserts are piling up. That's why I love getting together with family because it gives me an excuse to bake, and a full recipe too (no annoying egg splitting or creaming 3 tbsps of butter!). Oh.. and catching up is fun too. Since it's the summer and strawberries are everywhere, I finally decided to give Sprinkle's strawberry cupcakes a try. It seemed like the perfect summer dessert for Father's Day. My family seems to be on a health kick nowadays with everyone splitting a cookie or taking out knives to cut a cupcake in half. I thought I would make it easier on them by making mini cupcakes and test out my new mini silicone baking cups. I never thought I would use silicone just because I have this weird belief that whatever is baking in them will not cook. I don't know why.. maybe it's because the cups don't feel hot like metal does. The batter was delicious and tasted like strawberry icecream! I'm not usually a batter licker because the raw flour grosses me out, but I couldn't help dipping my fingers one too many times. Too bad I didn't love it when they were baked. They weren't horrible, but I didn't love the texture. I even made regular sized cupcakes in a metal pan because I didn't want to judge a recipe I've never tried before baked at 1/4th of its original size. I think I'm going to try adding strawberry puree to a butter cake recipe next time, but I have the feeling it's not as easy as replacing some of the milk with strawberry. Fruits do weird things to batter.
Normally, I don't like to bake with berries because I would rather eat them. There's nothing better than fresh and juicy blueberries, raspberries and strawberries! When I saw that strawberries were on sale, I picked up a few boxes and ate an entire one myself, saved the other one for my family (ok, this sounds bad, but they're not big fruit eaters.. I'm not a hog..) and used part of another box to make strawberry muffins! At first, I was going to make the strawberry cupcakes from Sprinkles, but Steph of Steph Chows, who has been on a muffin kick lately inspired me to make strawberry muffins. Plus, I had one container of strawberry yogurt that needed to be used so it was perfect. I was going to make her recipe because I've never made muffins that were truly low in fat or healthy even though I generally like to cut butter and sugar where I can. Then I realized I didn't have apple sauce so I adapted a recipe from Cook's Illustrated. I made Steph's topping, but subbed the slivered almonds for flour because I didn't have any. I really liked how light the topping was. With less butter, it doesn't have its usual buttery and crunchiness, but when it comes to streusal/crumbs, too much butter makes me feel like I'm eating chunks of butter so I really liked her recipe!
Topping
Adapted from Steph Chows
1 tbsp slivered almonds (I used 1 tbsp flour)
2 tbsp firmly packed brown sugar
1 tablespoons whole wheat flour
3/4 tablespoons butter or margarine
1/4 cup uncooked regular oats
Rub butter into flour, sugar. Add oats and mix together.
Strawberry Muffins
Adapted from Cook's Illustrated, original can be found on Basically Baked
(I made a half recipe so these are the ingredients divided by 2 and got 11 muffins)
1 1/4 cup flour
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp butter, melted
2 tbsp oil
100g container of yogurt (I used strawberry for extra strawberry flavour) + enough milk to make 1/2 cup liquid
1 cup sliced strawberries
1. Preheat oven to 400F
2. Grease muffin pan
3. Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together in large bowl.
4. Whisk sugar and eggs together until thick and homogeneous, about 45 seconds. Slowly whisk in butter and oil until combined.
5. Using rubber spatula, fold egg mixture and flour mixture until just moistened (Batter will be very lumpy with few spots of dry flour; do not overmix.)Fold in sliced strawberries
6. Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin pan (I used an Oxo large cookie scoop = 3 tbsp)
7. Sprinkle topping on top of muffins
8. Bake until muffin tops are golden and just firm, 17-19 minutes, rotating muffin tin from front to back halfway through baking time. Cool muffins in muffin tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack and cool 5 minutes before serving.
I wanted so badly to make a cherry rhubarb cobbler because I've never eaten rhubarb before and because cherry + rhubarb sounded like a nice combination. Somehow, I never made it to the supermarket to pick up a bag of frozen rhubarb. Without the rhubarb, it just didn't feel worth it to pit a pound of cherries! Instead, I used a half a box of strawberries that were a little too ripe to be eaten, but would make a delicious filling and tossed in some blueberries so that there would be more filling.Usually, I make my TWD recipes during the weekend, but it got so busy with birthday parties and work. To make clean up a lot faster and more convenient, I just rubbed the butter into the flour with my fingers and mixed the rest of the dough by hand. Somehow, I forgot about the whole wheat flour and added all purpose twice. I was afraid that the biscuit would be done before the fruit so I popped the filling in the oven first for 25 minutes as I prepared the dough (a trick I learned from Cook's Illustrated). Good thing the filling was precooked or the biscuit would have been way overdone... although that may not have been a bad thing as the filling made it a little soggy.
I didn't have a deep dish for baking and had to settle with my 8x1.5 inch cake pan. Thankfully the biscuit tasted so good because it was overtowering on top just a couple berries. This was the first time I've had cobbler, but I knew it wouldn't be the dessert for me. Sogginess has always been something that turns me away.. I can't even use mayo in my sandwiches because of the sogginess factor. I actually had to eat this hot before the juices soaked into the biscuit. 
Thanks to Amanda of Like Sprinkles on a Cupcake for choosing this recipe, which can be found on her site and in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From my Home to Yours. Don't forget to checkout the TWD Blogroll!
