A Short Story: Daring Bakers’ January 2011 Challenge

Required language to get credit for the challenge because regardless of the results, I tried! 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.

Now sit back and let me tell you a little story. It is the story of a silicon mat crossed love affair between two pastry parts. It all started one lovely Wednesday morning when two pastry parts found each other, met up for a date, and dreamed of growing their budding love affair into an Entremet.

Ms. Joconde-Décor Paste presented herself beautifully in a shade of violet; she was ready for her date. She was kind of indecisive however about what pattern of dress she wanted to wear so she wore all her favorite patterns - swirls, crosshatches, and continuous hearts.

Ms. Paste was sad however when she realized that she had only three patterns to choose from, one fourth of what she had available in her closet. Ms. Paste is very emotionally soft and needed to chill out before her date to get her softness under control.

When Mr. Joconde Sponge arrived, he could not find Mr. Paste at first. When he saw her trying to get herself together and chill out, he thought he would comfort her by wrapping her in his almondy, light goodness. Mr. Sponge himself was dressed in half of what he originally took out of his closet to wear. He thought Ms. Paste would appreciate his less it more approach.

Mr. Sponge was now ready to wrap Ms. Paste in his arms. Mr. Sponge quickly embraced Ms. Paste, not leaving any part out of her out of his embrace. Ms. Paste decided that the embrace was not enough and wanted to warm up to Mr. Sponge’s advancements after her chill out session. Ms. Paste was only warmed up to about 425 degrees because she though Mr. Sponge could not handle full 475 degrees of her loving. Mr. Sponge responded to this change in temperature by setting up strong and bouncing back slightly when touched. Ms. Paste was feeling Mr. Sponge too and melted into Mr. Sponge’s embrace.

After nearly 10 minutes Mr. Sponge could not take the heat anymore and had to turn the temperature way down. But before releasing from the embrace they knew that they both needed to cool down just a bit. After five minutes, the couple was feeling less heated and was ready to reveal their love affair to the entire world.

Unfortunately, Ms. Paste and Mr. Sponge did not take the proper precautions and did not think about the foundation they were building their relationship on- a last minute, untested, impulsive silicon mat.

The mat that originally supported their relationship and bound them together, while they became one, now would be their down fall. As they tried to separate from that temporary impulsive silicon mat induced passion and build a more stable independent relationship, their relationship crumbled.

Mr. Sponge blamed the Ms. Paste for starting their love affair on such impulsive grounds calling her codependent and Ms. Paste blamed Mr. Sponge for pulling her too deep, too fast completely smothering her.

Though Mr. Sponge and Ms. Paste were enticing as a couple during their brief love affair, poor planning left them both irreparably broken. Their love never reaching full Entremet maturity. Though jaded by their disaster they are confident that in the future they will be brave enough to try again this time basing their relationship on parchment paper.

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Translation: I fourth the recipe for the paste and dyed it purple. I was going to make 2 to 3 desserts, so I piped 3 different designs so each entremet would have its own design. I halved the recipe for the sponge. After covering the paste with the sponge batter, I baked it at 425 for 10 minutes. I let the cake cool for five minutes and it became comfortable to the touch. I flipped the silicon mat onto parchment paper and begin to try and lift the mat away from the design. The mat stuck completely. I clawed at the mat trying to get the design off and nothing. I was left with a crumbly mess. Though it tasted good and the pieces looked like the design transferred well. I will try again in the future, but I will use parchment paper instead.

See the other (correctly completed) DBers’ Challenges and the Challenge recipe at the Daring Kitchen.