So here's my year end reflection :)
I'm not quite sure where to start with this because I've learned a lot of just random things that I know I'll use again in the future. From cutting butter properly to the fact that you can stick pins in your gingerbread house while you wait for the icing to dry. I've learned all these tips and skills that I know I'll probably use again one day in the future and that's what I liked about this course. That it felt more real since I really do bake at home so these are things I can take with me as we end the year. I even used the butter cutting technique when I was working on my final project. I also MOST definitely think I will continue using the chocolate chip recipe for my baking at home but use actual butter. OH and I'd make those breadsticks again. I can't tell you everything I've learned because there's just a bunch of tips that I can't think of but here are some that come from thee top of my head that I learned this year from our class. 1. Grating cold butter to make it easier to work with when making scones or such 2. Cutting butter to proper sizes 3. Folding our dough to get those flaky layers (and generally just how to properly fold dough) 4. Pins in the gingerbread ! 5. POPPING POPCORN (I know its crazy I don't think I've actually done that til that class) 6. The difference between icing that barrier for your cookie, then flooding the cookie 7. Knife technique (from the chef at LaSalle) 8. CONVERSIONS (metric to imperial etc.) 9. That meat should go on the bottom of the fridge :o *we still don't do that at home but it's something I'm going to keep in mind when I live away from home one day 10. The different instalments for the stand mixer and when to use which :D Those are just some of the tips I've learned from this class but I know there's so much more that I'll be taking away from this. It was a great year and it's sad to see it be slightly cut short but I'll probably still bake at home until this quarantine ends :) it's actually pretty fun :-)
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So it's finally time for me to bake for our final project. For this I chose to do something really complicated and hard...French Macarons. I love eating them and it's one of my favourite sweets as well so I decided why not challenge myself and try to make them. I started off wanting to make really cool baby yoda ones after binging the star wars trilogy's, and being inspired by these really cool pokemon ones my friend has gotten for me once. But... after a bit more research on the internet and watching video on youtube of a girl making them... it seemed just maybe a little toooo ambitious. So, I reverted to a classic flavour in Asian culture, Matcha :). My plan of action was honestly to watch A BUNCH of youtube videos of people making macarons or giving tips on how to not mess up. Then, I found a recipe from Tasty. Next, I had to make a trip to Save Ons to get some ingredients I didn't have at home like almond flour and matcha powder. At this moment I also forgot to buy parchment paper and a piping tip. I thought that maybe I should make another trip to the store but then just did some research and found a different way to get through this.
Without parchment paper I knew the chances of the macarons sticking were going to be higher. I only had aluminum foil so what I did was just lightly grease them with oil. A thin layer so it wouldn't affect the way they would bake. And without the piping tip I knew I could only use a ziploc bag and hope to cut the hole just enough to have a little control. Well, because I couldn't really see through the aluminum foil I couldn't get a template for the circles and I'd just have to free hand it so I eyeballed this process of piping. It didn't turnout thaaat disastrous though. Onto the actual baking part I came across a couple problems, and I had tried this recipe three times. I knew this would happen though so I made sure to find a recipe that would only make a small portion size so I could have enough ingredients to keep trying again. Here's a list of some issues I came across: 1. The feet of the macarons spreading (so I had to lower the temperature// open the oven door a few time to release the heat) 2. No feet on some and feet on others, but not tall enough 3. CRACKING! (meaning I had either over mixed or under mixed) :0 that wasn't good 4. Lack of consistency in the shape (most likely because I just cut the hole of a ziploc bag for piping) 5. Lumpy? (I think this might have been because of the way I piped them out or maybe I didn't tap them enough on the table? Overall, I'd say that making these were really time consuming and difficult but, I would do it again because I really want to try and make them more consistent and pretty. Maybe I'll get parchment paper and tips and redo it one day :) Here are some pictures I took of the whole process from the couple days I spent making these macarons. *Oh also, I found a recipe to make whipped white chocolate ganache and I also tried a buttercream for macarons and added some matcha powder to it to add to the theme of matcha macarons :) I was finally able to clean up my fridge today even though it still looks a bit cluttered it's at least more organized than it was before. It's just that we have so much stuff in the fridge all the time :) What surprised me the most in this whole process was that my family has A LOT more expired food in the fridge than I thought so I finally took those all out of there. I ended up moving all our glass jars of condiments, dips, and sauces on the top. Putting leftovers and bread on the second shelf. Moving the meats bag to a metal bowl to keep away from the eggs. And then leaving the bottom shelf//biggest shelf to the veggies because we have so much of them. And of course I moved some misplaced fruits back into the fruits drawer. On the side of the fridge, I put our most used jar foods on the top because we use those a lot more than most other condiments in my house. Then next I moved my dads wine next to our milk and also moved our creamer next to our milk, as our "drinks" section. Lastly, below the drinksI had our syrups, and bottled condiments. Overall, I'm glad I did this, I just hope my parents don't get mad at me for messing up their whole setup :o Before After Expired
Today I decided to use my sourdough starter to make sourdough popovers that I found on King Arthur's website. These popovers were fairly quick to make and tasted great. I'm not sure if the recipe wanted me to sift my flour before adding it to the rest of the mixture, however I found that after adding the flour, the mixture turned clumpy and it was hard to get rid of all the clumps. Because of all the flour clumps I had to mix the mixture more and I don't know if had over mixed them. So next time I might sift the flour to make it easier to incorporate. Aside from that these popovers were fairly simple to make and I also learned how to reduce the heat in an oven :)
My sourdough mixture was finished today, it definitely has that sour smell to it though it was on the runny side. This is what it looked like
I decided to do a fun little bake today by myself so I recreated our cinnamon buns baked in the muffin tin. I used to same recipe but I just put all the cinnamon buns together on the baking and stuck them all together. It turned out great and I added a twist to the icing by mixing in a little butter and vanilla for added flavour. I even remembered to document ;)
Today I started my sourdough starter, it took me a while to find a jar that was big enough but II finally found one so I decided it was time to begin this little project. Today I mixed 2/3 cup of flour with 1/3 a cup of water. It made this sticky pasty texture and now I'm just going sit overnight before I proceed to day two! I also put a cloth overtop for the carbon dioxide to escape for the night!
Hey, I'm back from spring break... sort of? Since we aren't able to go back to school right now we will most likely be baking at home. Luckily I've got a bit of baking supplies at home so hopefully everything will be about the same. As for how I've been doing, everything been going okay right now and I actually have been doing a bit of baking and cooking with my mom recently. I've been documenting and taking picture for my website of course! Aside from baking though, I've also been video callings with friends, catching up on my favourite TV shows, and finishing this 1000 piece puzzle of a famous Van Gogh painting; Cafe Terrace At Night!
Here is a link to all my supplies at home. *The items that don't have a quantity beside means I have a lot of, and I cant really find out how many grams I have of them. Today me and my mom decided to bake a cake together. She watches a lot of baking and cooking shows and youtube videos and came across one that caught her eye...this one. This cake was made in a rice cooker and it was super cool because it looked really bouncy and sort of like a cheesecake when it came out. It tasted great and we plan on remaking it soon too!
Today we made cinnamon rolls in a muffin tin, and these were delicious. What was even better about these cinnamon rolls was that they didn't require yeast which is great because that means it's something I could definitely remake at home because I don't have yeast at home. Making these cinnamon rolls was really simple and didn't require many ingredients with is great and they're mini so you feel less bad for eating so many ;)
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