This morning, I completed June’s Daring Bakers challenge, the Danish braid, because we don’t have enough carbs in the house. What with the cake, the biscuits, the Tuesdays with Dorie scones. If not for Simply Orange, we’d have scurvy.

There are three things you should know if you decide to make this Danish braid:

1. The entire process takes at least eight hours. The dough rests in the fridge for five. So, you’ll need to set aside an afternoon or evening to prep the dough. The process isn’t all that intense, but you’ll be rolling and folding the dough four times, with 30-minute breaks in between. Plenty of time to catch up on the laundry, take a multivitamin, or watch way too much Law and Order. Guess which one I did.

2. If you’ve neither seen nor eaten a Danish braid before, it’s basically a glorified Hot Pocket® with buttery, flaky layers. You can fill it with roughly a cup of anything you like: ham and cheese, apples and almonds, Nutella and hazelnuts, spinach and feta, cherries and cream cheese. The dough recipe you’ll find at the end of this post makes two Danish braids. My first was cinnamon, sugar, and toasted pecans. The second was pepperoni, ricotta, mozzarella, Parmesan, and basil. If you decide to make a savory braid, use the given dough recipe, but leave out the orange zest, cardamom, vanilla, and orange juice.

3. The braiding is no big deal. A Danish braid is a laminated dough. Instead of combining the butter and a flour mixture, you keep them separate and fold the butter between the layers of dough. Your first one or two turns of the dough might look pretty ragged; just keep going. With every turn, the dough will get smoother. And, if you can lace your shoes, you can braid this dough.

Once you’re done, you’ll have two rich, buttery braids that look impressive, taste delicious, and contain 100 percent of your daily allowance of vitamins and minerals. And by “vitamins and minerals,” I mean butter. Enjoy!

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Can you hear her?

Off in the distance, the fat lady is singing.

Yes, a mere hour from the deadline, I have completed my first Daring Bakers Challenge: an opera cake.

A traditional opera cake has layers of sponge cake, coffee buttercream, ganache, and a final glaze of chocolate. They’re usually decorated with a musical symbol, the word “L’Opera,” or a name – “Clichy.” Louis Clichy introduced the cake at the Exposition Culinaire in Paris in 1903.

The DB Challenge was to create a nontraditional opera cake: no chocolate, no coffee, no dark colors.

I decided on almond sponge cake moistened with vanilla syrup and topped with raspberry buttercream, framboise (aka Razzmatazz), and a white chocolate glaze.

Certifiably Daring Bakerish.

Unfortunately, the first sponge cake was a rubbery abomination. So flat you could roll it into a tube.

The second cake was perfect, but the fluffy pink raspberry buttercream tasted like a 3-day-old sink sponge.

The third cake had raw spots. The meringue deflated. The buttercream looked like cottage cheese. And the white chocolate chips wouldn’t melt.

I was ready to chuck the challenge. I was out of almonds. I didn’t think I liked cake anymore.

But this morning, I rallied. I didn’t want to wait another month to be a Daring Baker. I mean, have you seen the logo? It’s cute.

So, less than two hours from the close of Reveal Day, here are my mini opera cakes. I’m officially a Daring Baker!

The dirty dishes can wait.

P.S. The Daring Bakers are dedicating this month’s challenge to Barbara of Winos and Foodies. Barbara is the force behind “A Taste of Yellow,” a food blogging event that supports Lance Armstrong’s LiveSTRONG foundation.