Well, this is exciting -- my very first Daring Bakers challenge. It's been difficult to wait for the posting date, and, at last, here it is.

The October challenge was hosted by Mary at alpineberry. The treat was to create a Bostini cream pie, a yummy concoction of vanilla custard, orange chiffon cake, and chocolate sauce. (Full details about this dessert along with the recipe can be found at Mary's site.)

My first step was to make the vanilla custard, which I did the night before I baked the cake so it would have time to chill thoroughly.



Next came the orange chiffon cake. I halved the recipe, scaling out the ingredients, and baked it in a 9x9 pan. It came out only ok as there was a slight bit of separation at the bottom of the cake. Not satisfied with this, I made a second cake, being sure to really whip the egg whites until nearly stiff and having the oven well-heated. This time I also turned the cake upside down to cool, since it is a foam cake. The second cake turned out fine -- no cracks, no sinking, no rubber layer. I used various cookie cutters to get different shapes for the plating.

The chocolate sauce was straightforward.

The hardest part of the challenge was plating, so I spent some time trying out various kinds of serving dishes:

Number one is tiny -- in a liqueur glass.


Number two is in a small dish.


Number three is on a dish.

And, number four, my favorite, is in a margarita glass.

In the end, it didn't really matter what the dessert looked like, because it tasted so good. With a lot of pleasure and no guilt, I just polished off the remaining custard, all by itself.

Now, I'm looking forward to seeing the creations of the other Daring Bakers, and, of course, to the November challenge!