Baking!

Indeed!
 
Thanks all! It was - I need to work on my crust, but other than that, the pot pie actually froze and reheated really well. The overall filling lost a bit of moisture after being reheated, but the chicken was still fantastic.
 
Apple pie. Girlfriend needed apples for a decorative bowl of apples for an office photoshoot, so we had about 20 apples. Made applesauce out of some, and this pie out of the rest.

Pie crust was just a simple basic recipe, but it responded well to the egg wash. I pre-cooked the apples waaaay to long, so it's a hair away from being an applesauce pie. I also followed the recipe, and it had way too little sugar. The recipe did call for sugar to be sprinkled on the crust (which I forgot) but I don't think it would have made the filling any less tart. The recipe suggested Pink Lady apples, which are quite tart. I used Granny Smith, which are only a little bit more tart, but I guess it was enough to throw off he tart/sweet balance. Oh well. Just an excuse to have a bigger scoop of ice cream with it.

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granny smith is way to sour to use in a pie
and normally, i don't cook my apples at all..
 
I like Granny Smiths in baking, but I just used a recipe that didn't have enough sugar. When you get the balance just right, the tartness is still there, but the sweetness is there just enough to cut through. I find that sweeter apples just make the pie sweet-on-sweet-on-sweet.

I find that cooking the apples beforehand in their sugar gets a nice caramelization and concentration of the sugar and the liquid that sweats out of the apples, generally making for a bottom crust that doesn't get soggy.
 
Hmmmm....now I wanna make some too.
 
I may have fallen in love with a recipe:

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I made this one with (too few) little bits of rhubarb instead of the raisins in the recipe, but the real star is the cake itself anyway. It's very fluffy on the inside, crispy on the outside, tastes bloody great and... brb.

Sorry, had to get another piece. :lol:
 
We had a ridiculously moist and awesome carrot cake at cafeteria the other week (yes, usually they serve mostly horrible stuff, but those were great) and decided to try my hand on one of those for the first time myself :)
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And?
How did it turn out?
 
Basically died after the first half piece I had :p super filling... But it was quite nice, not too sweet, good amount of moisture from the carrot - definite winner for a first try :)
 
Time to unearth this thread from a shallow grave by construction workers.
As Maud had her birthday last week, I baked some pastry to feed our guests:
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A traditional custard crumble tart, the base a leavened sweet dough made with milk and eggs, a layer of fresh custard made from scratch with milk, eggs, sugar and vanilla, and on top a nice buttery crispy crumble.

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A strawberry cake, the base an almond sponge cake with fresh vanilla, topped with freshly made strawberry jelly, on top of which is piped a ring of mascarpone cream and sliced fresh strawberries, topped with chocolate curls.

Both cakes were motherfucking awesome.
 
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Holy shitballs - those look fantastic! I bet both the tart and the pie were not overly sweet either. Mascarpone cream goes so well with strawberries. :drool:
 
Ok, incoming macaron pics. I've been practicing ... and I'm finally happy with these.

Shells were regular almond (colored by gel food coloring).
Cream cheese filling: strawberry, orange + lemon zest, blueberry, matcha, and plain.

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Final platter for friend's kids birthday party.

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Laduree's Macaron Shell Ingredients:
275 g fine almond flour
250 g confectioners’ sugar (aka powdered sugar)
6 +1/2 egg whites (room temp)
210g granulated white sugar
+ gel food coloring

Cream Cheese Filling:
227 g cream cheese (I used Trader Joe's Light Cream Cheese)
227 g unsalted butter, softened
100 g powdered sugar or to taste
25 g jam or puree (I used Les Comtes de Provence jams. I also like Charles Jacquin as well.)

Tips (I also made these in the winter at altitude, 4300'):
  • Aged egg whites for up to 3 days
  • Followed technique by Tasty for macronage.
  • Tap the pan after piping before drying.
  • Dry the macarons no less than 1 hour. Otherwise, you lose the feet/pied and get puffy and cracked macarons.
  • Pipe with a 1 inch head – pipe straight down into shallow rounds.
  • Some recipes call for you to smooth the tops with water – DO NOT DO THIS for the Laduree recipe.
  • I added 4-6 drops of food coloring for each color (Laduree recipe is made for gel food coloring... not powders)
  • Once the macarons are filled, store in an airtight container for <24 hours. The blooming allows the texture and flavor to settle - consume between 12h-24h for best tastiness.
For the next batch, I'm experimenting with natural coloring (via freeze dried fruit and powders)... and I'm also wanting to use some of my asian stuff and maybe try thai tea and milk tea flavored ones.
 
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OMG
 
You should totally try it out! They are addicting sons of bitches, but each batch makes a good amount. :)
 
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Kiki said:
You should totally try it out! They are addicting sons of bitches, but each batch makes a good amount. :)
Click to expand...
Rebeca has been wanting to make them for years, but finding the almond flour is a hurdle.
 
Redliner said:
Rebeca has been wanting to make them for years, but finding the almond flour is a hurdle.
Click to expand...

Ah makes sense. I have made almond flour from raw whole almonds before. You'll need to quickly blanche it and then pop them out of their skins and let them dry. It's doable for sure - it's just a pain to blitz them consistently and make sure it doesn't turn to almond butter.
 
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