Do you have the Barefoot Contessa fantasy?

The one where you come home to mammoth bouquets of freshly-picked, artfully arranged flowers. Tomato and feta salad packed into Chinese takeout containers. Picnics on the beach and fireside dinners. The perfect cocktail for every meal. A refrigerator filled with exotic cheeses, olives, and homemade lemon curd. And friends who are international experts in garden lighting and table settings.

You know, the fantasy where you’re the Contessa’s husband, Jeffrey.

Guilty as charged.

That’s why I was very excited to find the Barefoot Bloggers, a new group celebrating Ina Garten, aka the Barefoot Contessa. Twice a month, we’ll be cooking and baking from her books and Food Network recipes.

Today’s inaugural recipe was Herbed-Baked Eggs. Gratin dishes filled with eggs, cream, and butter, broiled with a crunchy topping of fresh herbs, Parmesan, and salt and pepper. I even got to use a little of my own freshly-grown basil. How Contessa is that?

Easy and really delicious.

So, I wouldn’t really trade places with Ina’s Jeffrey (those wool sweaters would rub me raw), but I’m looking forward to trying out these recipes with my Jeff. I might even spring for those cute Chinese takeout boxes. He’s worth it.

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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.

So, way back when Tuesdays with Dorie made Brioche Raisin Snails, I used the other half of the dough to make this week’s recipe: Pecan Honey Sticky Buns.

If you don’t make another thing you ever see on this site, make these.

Baptized in honey.

Christened with pecans.

Worthy a two-syllable damn.

Even after you eat one of these perfectly golden, buttery sticky buns, you’ll find yourself snacking on the gooey orphaned pecans at the bottom of the dish every time you walk by. Because willpower is so overrated.

And who needs to wear shorts?

Nom. Nom. Nom.

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Unless you’re in traction or trapped under something heavy, life’s too short to read Remembrance of Things Past. It’s more than 3,000 pages–roughly the length of War and Peace, Gone With the Wind, and Bill Clinton’s My Life combined.

What do you need to know about Marcel Proust’s masterpiece? It’s all about involuntary memory. The narrator tastes a madeleine, remembers ones his aunt gave him as a child, and starts remembering his childhood in detail. From there, he decides to write about his entire life. Proust kept adding details until he died. I’m surprised his editors didn’t kill him.

Today’s Tuesdays with Dorie assignment is the traditional madeleine. I’d always assumed madeleines were cookies, but they’re actually buttery, lemony little tea cakes. If you piped a little marshmallow fluff inside, they would taste like very high-end Twinkies. The shell shape comes from the madeleine pan.

How did they fare at our house? Jeff and I thought they were good, but Henry the French Bulldog inhaled them. I used them to sneak him his allergy meds. Do you remember the scene in Velvet Goldmine where the rock star snorts cocaine off a hooker’s back? That was Henry with the madeleines. Then he passed out on the couch and started nursing in his sleep. Dreaming of life as a puppy.

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My nephew, Jack, is rocking in my dad’s recliner when Henry the Wonderdog launches over the armrest and licks the tip of Jack’s nose.

“HENRY TRIED TO BITE ME!”

We tell him nooooooo, Henry was just trying to kiss him.

“HENRY KISSED ME!”

I tell him he should feel special, because Henry doesn’t go around kissing everyone. This doesn’t help.

Finally, Jack asks for the only thing that will take away the pain.

“Are we having pie?”

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, Peanut Butter Torte, is pie taken to the extreme–big flavors in ridiculous quantities–and it’s illegal in states that frown on The Devil’s Threesome: Oreos, peanut butter, and cream cheese. There’s also butter. Ganache. Chopped peanuts. If I didn’t know it was a Dorie recipe, I’d swear Emeril. This is a recipe that goes over the top, then takes a hot air balloon and a rocket.

So, how is it?

Straight out of the fridge, it softens fast, gets hard to slice, and the peanut butter-cream cheese filling has an odd twang to it that makes two bites plenty. I divided it into Rubbermaids, shoved it in the freezer, and forgot about it for a few days.

Put it in the freezer. Seriously. The texture and flavor are much, much better. The filling mellows and becomes more like ice cream. Frozen, it’s Jack-worthy.

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