Daring Bakers June 2008 Challenge: Danish Braid

Danish Braid

I first found out about The Daring Bakers in a forum, I think. I can't really remember now. It was mentioned casually and I thought the name was very interesting so I decided to check it out. The idea of this club is simple. The host for the month will post a recipe for all members to try (all members are expected to complete at least 8 out of 12 challenges in a year) and then on the chosen day, all members will post a write up about the challenge on their blogs. So, I made up my mind and officially became a member this month of June.

And now for my very first challenge...Danish Braid.

I know there's a reason why they called the monthly recipes to-try "The Challenge" but I just didn't think it would me this challenging. For me anyway. And not for my first challenge. A little background: I have an aversion for any and every recipe that calls for yeast of any kind. Why? Yeast hates me. Yes, they do. (Yeast are live organisms, you know. They have feelings just like we do and they hate me.)

Every yeast-based bread I tried to make failed. The worst one was the Dinner Rolls Disaster. I could not shape the dough at all because they were waay too soft. They were almost like batter. In fact, to bake them, I had to ladle them on to cupcake pans. The one and only yeast-based recipe that worked for me was the copycat of the Cinnabom Buns. I love Cinnabon and that was the motivating factor that pushed me to try the recipe. And in case you're wondering, no it was not a disaster. It had a happy ending. Despite that, my fear of yeast remained. And now for the challenge this June. I actually considered quitting The Daring Baker's club because I just didn't see how I was going to pull this one off. Then I remembered the saying that "the only way to get over your fear is to face it." So I decided to face my fear, my nemesis. Yeast.

I made the Danish Braid in 3 days. So how did it go? Well, they say a picture paints a bazillion-gazillion words. So, let's allow the little chatterboxes do the talking.

The yeast creatures and I have officially made up.