My final practical is tomorrow, so I decided to do a dry run today of the two desserts I was assigned:
Blueberry Turnovers & Chocolate Cream Pie
You know what? Ingredients are EXPENSIVE. I had to buy all of this specialty crap that’s standard for a bakeshop but not so much for home use: bread flour, pastry flour, graham cracker crumbs, heavy cream. And now the remainder will rot away in my pantry until weevils find it and make a home inside, and then I’ll open it 3 months down the road and almost poo my pants, spilling the entire bag of flour & weevils all over the floor.
I’m sorry… what was I talking about? Oh yeah, the pastries.
The thing with these desserts is that they each have many parts. For the chocolate cream pie, you have to assemble & bake the pie crust, cook the filling, fill the crust, wait for the whole thing to cool, make the whipped cream, and top/decorate the pie. For the turnovers, you have to assemble the dough, let it rest, roll it out, let it rest again, roll and cut it into squares, insert the filling, shape and vent the turnovers, let them rest, egg wash, and then bake. The whole process took about 2 hours. And I made a mess.
Kitchen before:
Kitchen after (notice Brian playing video games in the background):
Here are the final turnovers- I overfilled them and ended up with some spillage. No worries. Three of them are apple filled, three are apricot, and the final three are blackberry. They are good but super buttery… I think the butter was too soft when I assembled the dough.
Filled, pre-baked:
After baking:
Here is the chocolate cream pie pre-topping:
And post topping:
So the big question is, what am I going to do with 2 cream pies and all of these turnovers??? And I’m just going to come home with more tomorrow. Oh well, Chloe really appreciated the homemade whipped cream…
Brian took over the big part of dinner because I was hot and tired of cooking. I found this recipe for Grilled Chicken with Whiskey-Ginger Marinade on CookingLight.com, so I marinated and he grilled. Kroger had this big package of seasoned brussels sprouts (for only $2.50!) that I roasted, and then we had our old standby: Alexia fries! Brian thinks that this is the prettiest grilled chicken he’s ever prepared. I agree.
The marinade is super easy (no cooking) and delicious- it has a citrusy-asian flavor and the sugar, hoisin sauce and bourbon carmelize on the top. Carmelization is a great thing.
Wish me luck on the final! We tried a new restaurant this weekend, so I’ll post on that tomorrow… along with some of Chloe’s weekend adventures. Night!
























