10K, Baby.

Big day: Heather Bakes finally exceeded 10,000 views! I began this blog on a whim at the end of March and started with like 3 hits per day (thanks Mallory, Katherine and Brian!), so this is pretty amazing.  I really appreciate all of you who tolerate my ramblings- it’s very rewarding to know that people might actually be reading this thing, even if if half my hits are from my mom refreshing her screen every 5 minutes.  I hope you’ll let me know if you have any suggestions, like if you want to see more Chloe pics or hear less of my whining (HA- you can just take your place in line behind Brian).  And thanks for the comments, too

So today was one of those days where I didn’t really have a ton to do, but it still seemed really hectic. I didn’t really feel like heading to the gym, so I opted for swimming instead.  I LOVE the water and swimming was one of the main ways I got in shape before my wedding a few years ago- I should get back into that, especially since running isn’t really an option right now (too dang hot).  Anyway, I tried something new for lunch today! Morningstar Farms Mushroom Lovers Burger… because yes, MSF, I am a mushroom lover.  Here’s a shot:

Not too bad! They don’t lie; it is quite mushroomy, and weirdly enough, it seemed to cook a lot faster than their garden veggie patties.  It’s filling and seemed to have more of a “meat” texture than some of the other veggie burgers. 

Class was really good tonight! We took a quiz (eh, we’ll see) and got our midterms back (111- hells yeah) and then set about making puff pastry galore.  After looking at the syllabus I figured that tonight would be frantic and overwhelming, but it was really pretty chill… and everything we made turned out well!

First up: Blueberry Turnovers.  I hope these are good- haven’t tried them yet. 

My group member, Bryan, made these amazing  Cheese Straws with parmesan, paprika and cayenne.  They definitely had a little kick to them.  We pretty much ate half the batch during class:

And Eclairs.  Pate a choux = meh. It just tastes like egg and air. 

We made a batch of blitz puff pastry for these giant Sinterklaas Cookies.  Apparently this is a traditional Dutch recipe made during Christmas, the “S” being for Sinterklaas (Santa Claus).  I’m Dutch and I’ve never heard of these. For shame, because they are reallyreallyreally good.  Kind of a pain to make- we filled them with this marzipan-type filling that was delicious and then sprinkled the tops with sanding sugar.  Mmmm. Here’s my group modeling our S’s… but first let me just add the disclaimer that mascara is a no-no in the bakeshop (I know- that was almost a dealbreaker).  Okay, now you can see it. Don’t judge.

Let’s see, what else (now are you understanding why I thought we might be stressed??)- Palmiers:

Aaand finally, Napoleons! This is actually one huge brick- the pastry cream needed time to set so we decided to refrigerate and slice them at home later:

Tomorrow I have NOTHING going on! No babysitting, no dog walking, nada.  I’m super excited about this, especially since I just started a great book that I read about in my Eating Well magazine: The Man Who Ate the World by Jay Rayner.  It’s authored by a British food writer who is searching all over the world for the “perfect meal.” I just finished the first chapter on Las Vegas and now I want to take a trip there and visit every restaurant he mentioned (not that I could afford them!).  I would definitely recommend it to you foodies out there.

Hope everyone has a great day!