Another long day. I cut school to make truffles and cheese cakes for my CG presentation. After the macaroon disaster last night, I couldn’t bring myself to make any more sweets. I finished my speech (though it needs to be polished), and the truffles and cheesecakes look lovely. I’d still like one more thing for my classmates. I am going to buy strawberries for this quick fix, and raspberries to garnish the individual cheesecakes. I also picked yellow, red, and pink roses this morning to garnish the sweets (since rose petals are edible). I was planning on candying them, but ran out of egg whites. I still have to make a final menu, a detailed outline (to refer to in my speech), and a final draft of my paper, before the night is over. Pictures below.
I have had the worst baking experience. My background with baking this far has consisted of cakes (mainly), cupcakes, and a modern sort of creme brulee (a hard shell surrounding a warm, liquid center). For my baking final I narrowed it down to five dishes that I have loved and would be happy to include in my own bakery, if I were to open one. I’ve been at work every day this past weekend, with a limited amount of time to do homework, or create my moms birthday present. I realize that I saw Twilight twice this weekend- an unexpected mistake- I only planned to see it once and the date and time weren’t finalized until late in the day. I made a point of picking up the ingredients for my main dishes this weekend. I didn’t want to do any of the berry dishes because I wanted them to be fresh for the presentation- I also had to knock off my berry trifle from the presentation from lack of funds.
Tonight I started off with the chocolate macaroon. I love the idea of pistachio, lemon, and rose macaroons, but I know that they wouldn’t sit well with my classmates judgmental taste buds. I got the recipe off of David Lebovitz website, French Chocolat Maccaron Recipe. The recipe was simple but I didn’t quite have the baking utensils necessary to create them.
First I had to find a food processor (that took forever). Once I located one I put in the powdered sugar, unsweetened Dutch-processed cocoa, and sliced almonds. I ground these items up until it made a fine powder. Then I beat two egg whites until they rose and began to foam. Lebovitz says to use a standing electric mixer, which I don’t own, so I had to do it by hand; another long process. Then I added the granulated sugar, mixed until it was stiff, and added the ground concoction I had made earlier. Once I added the powder I realized that the almonds had not been ground well enough. They were small but substantial pieces. The mixture, after having been folded in, smelled and tasted delicious.
Lebovitz later instructs to use a bakers bag to pipe the mixture on to a baking pan lined with parchment paper. I didn’t have any more baking bags so I put the mixture into a plastic lunch bag, and cut the tip. This method worked well at first but became harder and harder as I ran out of mixture. The macaroon batter was busting out of every end of the bag. At this point I switched to a rounded spoon, which was much easier. I only had enough mixture (though Lebovitz says you should be able to make fifteen cookies with this recipe) for twelve cookies (six macaroons, a big let down). The macaroons were not looking very good. The first batch was cracked, with no foot. I thought that trial and error suggested I might do better on my next try, and I did. The macaroons didn’t crack on the second batch, but they combusted out of the foot of the cookies. The third batch was perfect, but once I grabbed it (with a glove), I burnt my hand and dropped the macaroons. They pan landed bottom up, which was wonderful, but the macaroons slid to the side, detaching their shell from their still maturing inner-batter. I’m so incredibly frustrated with the circumstances. I haven’t gotten anything done this weekend. I only got three hours of sleep last night, and haven’t been able to make it to bed yet, this evening. It is the worst, and most awful scenario. I am hoping my presentation still goes well. At this rate, I won’t be able to finish my mom’s present by tomorrow, her forty forth birthday.
