Andrea’s Recipes

A month or so ago a graphic began to appear on some of the websites that I regularly visit, an image showing ninja warriors hacking away at what appeared to be a meringue while mixers and rolling pins were flying above. The title on the graphic intrigued me: “Daring Bakers.”

I mused about who The Daring Bakers might be. Was it some freemason-like secret baking society with their own rituals, passwords, and initiation rites? Did they have their own secret formula for pain au levain? What did one have to do to become a Daring Baker? Would I be able to recognize one if I bumped into her on the street?

After a bit of searching, I stumbled across a post on Cream Puffs in Venice in which Ivonne mentions that she and Lisa of La Mia Cucina decided that they wanted to try making new things and challenged themselves to trying something new once a month. And that is the humble beginnings of The Daring Bakers. What started with just two daring bloggers has now grown to about 100 members! Each month two members work together to choose something for the group to make and post the recipe on their blogs. Then everyone tackles it and writes about their experience making the challenge item.

So far the group has been challenged with bagels, Gâteau St. Honoré, Martha Stewart’s Darkest Chocolate Crepe Cake, red velvet cake, flourless chocolate cake, croissants, biscotti, and pretzels. (Oh how I wish that I had known about the red velvet cake challenge! What a great excuse to make that! I’ll just have to try it this summer anyway…)

Of course after seeing all the fun that The Daring Bakers were having, I wanted to join in. I thought that I would have to submit some kind of baking resume or send in a list of all my baking cookbooks…how silly of me. As it turns out joining is very simple. I sent Ivonne a polite email begging for permission to join the group and she graciously said yes. Actually, anyone can do it, but the group is growing so fast that they’ve limited the number of new members each month.

So as of July 1, I will be a proud Daring Baker! I’m going on vacation this weekend, but starting the week of July 9 you can look for the logo in the sidebar along with the announcement of the challenge item (the challenge item is a secret) plus links to the other Daring Bakers so that you can find everyone’s beautiful creations each month.