TWD: Chocolate crunched caramel tart

It was a bit hard to get this weeks TWD recipe out. Not for any sane reason, like not wanting to make the recipe.. because believe me that picture looked so good and chocolaty, I knew I wanted to make this one! The real problem you see is that this is the last week before we leave for the USA and get MARRIED! Yup so sorry if this is a kinda lonely blog for awhile but pretty much all of October is wedding and honeymoon.. so come 10/10 you know I'll be digging into my own wedding cake that me and my mom have made- with a little help from some bridesmaids!

As you can see this is pure deliciousness and for once I had no issues with making caramel! Hooray! A quick press in (i love not having to roll it out) cookie tart dough- breezy caramel and super simple ganache and you have something that looks beautiful, tastes like the best candy bar you've ever had and definitely impresses! Make sure to check out the rest of the TWD blogroll tarts!

Daring Bakers: Vol au Vents

The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

I was pretty excited to make my own puff pastry this month. I remember doing it once as a kid with my mom so I thought I'd see how tough it could be on my own. I must admit I found this pretty straight forward. I spent one Saturday doing errands and then coming in and doing a turn of the dough before starting something else and returning.

The result was a nice crispy, golden, flakey form ready for me to fill! I had some leftover black bean hot pot that was fantastic in these!

Be sure and see the rest of the Daring Bakers posts this month!

TWD: Cottage Cheese Pufflets

We have had a bumper crop of plums this year- so I thought this would be a good excuse for using up some of the jars of jam in the fridge that didn't seal properly.

These were very simple to make and the cottage cheese added an interesting tanginess to things. I think perhaps they might of needed a bit more time in the oven to get flakier, but they were delicious even slightly underdone!

Yum!

Be sure to check out the rest of the TWD blogroll today.

Daring Cooks: Indian Dosa

This months daring cooks is a great choice for me as I am vegetarian and the past couple have been pretty meat/fish heavy. While this 3 piece recipe seemed daunting at first the filling came together quite easily.

I then moved on to making the sauce- and I think there must be some sort of misprint in the instructions as it ended up tasting too stocky.. kinda like gravy (not so curry inspired) I doubled the coconut milk- but it was still a sort of gravy taste..

For me I think the biggest challege was the dosa themselves- getting these pancakes to turn out took some time figuringout the right amout of oil in the pan and the right heat. I got there in the end though!

These were pretty good- but I did find the recipe too reliant on curry powder- i guess living in the curry capital of the UK this was just a bit too 'translated' for me to really taste anything like the dosa I can get in Bradford!