rubberbelly-blog

[rubberbelly-blog]

Extra Sweetness - Extra Randomness

Starring: Howe’s SUPER MEGAGYGAHYBRID ADORABLE CUTIEPIE LUNCH BOX!

Not meant to exaggerating it, but his lunch box is really, really, really cute. I asked him to give it to me, but he said he’ll give it later on our graduation day. BUT I REALLY WANT THE LUNCH BOX. Then i asked him where did he bought it. He said his sister bought cookies and the lunch box came as a package.

LOOK AT THE INNOCENT PENGUIN.

Few days after Howe’s super megagygahybrid adorable cutiepie lunch box, i stay at school after school for macaron practice. It went miserable as i mistakenly made my meringue to become very runny so i have to re-done it and miserably asked for James’s help and then it became miserable night but i got a chance to see Chef Michelle hand-painting her macarons which is really great, and i saw Margaux hand-painting her macarons as well, with edible watercolor.

I could die of cuteness.

It was a banana-shelled and rum ganache for the filling.

Next randomness; Jose’s project. Apparently he stayed after school for practice and--making a classic New York Cheesecake! 

Everybody were helping him except me. Because i am a lazyass.

So here is the final touch of his classic New York Cheesecake with raspberry;

[rubberbelly-blog]

Sweetness 13 - Hitchhiked to Danish Pastry and Croissant

I embraced my morning with a snow.

I know that it would be a snowy day few days before since i checked the weather forecast, so i got up earlier, and get ready for school.

Later that i know, i was waiting on the bus stop with approximately 15 other people, under the heavy rain snow. It was about 15 minutes of standing before i realize maybe the bus won’t come at all.

A passerby lady with a red coat approached us and told us that the bus ‘stuck’ downhill and can’t get up due to the thick snow. In conclusion, the driver told the people to get off and walk.

In conclusion, the bus won’t come after all.

BUT I DON’T WANT TO SKIP SCHOOL. There is Danish Pastry!

So i keep waiting in hope that the bus could magically fly and showed up to us. Some people had given up and walk back to their warm homes, while i was standing for more than 30 minutes after i decided to do a pretty rare thing to do; hitchhiking.

By any means, as desperately as i wanted to go to school, i waved to every cars on the street. I feel very embarassed but i want Danish Pastry and i’d do anything for that.

Eventually a car stopped by and this dude asked where am i going. My school is only about 20 minutes from my home, less than 4 kilometers, after the dude decided to gave me a free ride, saying he was about to go to the same direction anyway.

We were talking about noodles along the way. I always believe that people who talk about food is the best people, so i feel less awkward. I got off safely at school, an hour late, and didn’t regret my decision.

That was my first time randomly get along with a stranger.

On the first thing in the morning when we get to school, is making Baklava. Baklava is very popular, classic Turkish delight, which has spices and usually (very) sweet, even too sweet for my taste. I just figured out that Baklava is very simple and easy to make! I thought we had to make every layer from somekind of dough, but actually, it is a phyllo pastry.

So all this time, i was eating phyllo.

We made the Baklava syrup mixture from some spices, orange peels (yum), lemon peels, cinnamon stick, cloves, honey, and got a chance to try saffron! 

“Oh my God, i’ve never been this happier to see honey!” -James

The phyllo-built in layers was brushed with a clarified butter on every layer. This took more times. For the filling, we have peanuts mixed with sugar. We filled the peanut mixture only in the middle part of phyllo, before closed it with another layers and layers of phyllo.

We then baked it, and pour the syrup mixture and spreading pistachio after baked. I found Baklava is perfect eaten cold ;)

Look at the shineee

The next thing we made is Apple Tatin. Refering from my older posts, i am always excited about apples. French apple tart, American classic apple pie--those two are my lovers!

So with confidence, i thought i will love Apple Tatin. Chef Michelle told us two different version of this dessert. The first version is, once upon a time there is a woman who madly in love and she was baking the apple pie, only later she found out that she forgot to make the crust. So therefore she flipped the apples upside down, and therefore; apple Tatin!

The other version is, she is not that bright to make the crust. Whichever you believe ;)

So we made the apple mixture; apple slices combined with dry caramel, apple juice, apple cider vinegar, and rum. I got very excited as Jose caramelized them up. We filled those apples in a ramekin (wiped with butter before so it’s not sticking) and then pour the caramel mixture, and then goes to the oven.

This is how they looks like when they first came out. We have to put them on a plate straightly while they’re still hot, because if they’re cold, there is no chance to take them out from ramekin. Eventough its hot, mine took a pat on the back of ramekin and a lot of shaking and trying to lure them out with spoon. They are sticking at first but after 1001 attempts, they finally came out.

We don’t have any plan to (stole) James’s Creme Anglaise. Coincidentally he made the cream a day before as an after-school practice and i used them up in my Tatin, like 5 tablespoons (because i love creme Anglaise) with no shame.

By the way, each Tatin of my classmates are different, James’s Tatin, for example, like shown above, is darker than mine. Also, it holds the shape nicer than mine.

Margaux has a vanilla ice cream so i (stole) them and added it on the top of Jose’s Tatin.

I feel so excited when i scoop the first spoon of the Tatin, and end up face palming all the way to the end.

For the first time in my life, i am not a fan of this apple dessert. However since its easy and simple to make for home little party, i’d recommend this dessert.

But really, i’m not quite sure what i don’t like about it. I’ve always loved rum, so rum is not the problem. Other than that, i don’t know.

We came to the Danish pastry. Danish pastry, in my opinion, is not much different from French or German pastry, like Vol au Vent or Pithivier. The color is brownish though, but almost the same thing.

One thing i figured out that Danish Pastry has this ‘poppy seed rolls’ and ‘coffee cake’ which NOT HAVING ANY COFFEE IN IT. Until now i don’t know why the name is coffee cake, eventough the shape is a braid, with cream cheese raisins, blueberry (or blackberry?) jam, and walnut cream. Walnut cream is amazing! Triple filling, and i braided them.

This is how ‘coffee cake’ looks like;

Congratulations for wondering where is the coffee.

Danish pastry, like any other European pastry, required a lot of hand skills. Just like my poor hand skills for handling German and French pastry, i was also struggling--in fact, having fun at the same time, handling this Danish pastry. So far, the poppy-seed roll is my favorite.

These are Jennifer’s and James’s collection of Danish Pastry;

And finally, we came to Croissant!

If you, by any chance, looking for a perfect getaway, wanted to see wildlife, especially orangutans and Sumateran tigers, or just wanted to chill in the white sand beach with your choice of cider, Indonesia is a perfect destination. Along with traditional culinary travels, if you miss sitting with coffee and bread, we also have plenty European bakeries in the capital.

And?

Indonesian people LOVES croissant. They are CRAZILY IN LOVE with croissant.

Except, we thought its one kind of a bread rather than pastry. So we oftenly called it ‘croissant bread’.

I oftenly bought them after school, and usually the Indonesian version of croissant is sweet and buttery at the same time. Its usually either cheese croissant, or chocolate-dipping with toasted almond croissant. But, we also have the classic croissant with sesame seeds on top.

Making croissant reminds me of my dearly beloved mother. My mother loves croissant too much, i am pretty sure she could live her life just by eating it. My mother is always the one who got excited everytime i bought her croissant. She, in fact, loves to explore different types of croissant and got really happy when we got to Europe to try out some bakeries.

This one pastry always bring me to nostalgic times back home.

So back in school, we got chances to make croissant for 2 times. The first time, my croissants were not in the same size. I tried my best to cut them precisely but apparently they are still bigger or smaller than the others, i don’t blame the ruler though :p

The second time i tried to be slower. It finally came for the same size, but different shape. Some of them are puffing more, some of them have different amount of rolls.

Croissant is averagely hard to master, but i always remember my mother everytime i make it, so i made it happily.

My first day experiment of Croissant:

I’d say it wasn’t bad as a first-timer trying. We also filled some of them with Creme d’amande (almond cream) and coated them with toasted almond. Yum!

How to know that a croissant is perfect? Chef Michelle told us that it should looked ‘swirl’ inside and also doesn’t feel like a greasy dough.

Apparently, Fernando made the best croissant ever. As usual, it’s Fernando!

Conclusions of this sweet, lovely week, enjoy! ;)

[rubberbelly-blog]

Sweetness 12 - Vol Au Vent, Pithivier

I can’t even pronounce the title right.

Back in culinary program, i remember the day when we got free pastry items from fellow pastry students. And i remember this one time i brought home a poppy-seed pastry, which i really loved. I thought i’m really into puff pastry, they are amazing-ly layered, buttery flavor--and needs so much attention and patient.

Yup. Puff pastry is not the one kind that you wanted to get done within a day, or as an instant snack. It needs longer rest hours and soft-treating. The dough is very fragile.

Decorating it is another story. They were all soooo pretty. I am not the master of decorating--but seeing those colors of fruits and the sparkles from the jam coating made me excited.

We made three different basic puff pastry dough; German, French, and Danish. For this post though, i will only write about German and French. Its amazing how we can make different types of pastry items from these two dough. Overall we made Napoleon Cake, or you could call as Mille Feuille, Vol au Vent, Pithivier (phew, those are difficult names).

And plus, SAUSAGE ROLLS.

OMG.

I remember those times back in Malaysia when i was still this full of life 16 years old kid, i used to buy sausage rolls from Auntie Anne. Their sausage rolls are the best and they have three different dipping sauces, including cheese sauce! I couldn’t describe how delish it was!

We get to choose either beef, vegetable or pork meat for the sausage mixture. Jose and i chose beef. Meat lover all the way!

So first of all, here is how our basic dough looked like; when rolling and folding.

Julia was about to rolled out her pastry dough;

When we get to make the meat mixture for the sausage rolls, we get to choose any spices or herbs as we like (feels like going back to culinary for a moment). Jose and i chose oregano, cumin and smoked paprika. also, garlic, onion, and salt.

We then piped them with piping back to the dough and rolled them out.

Aaannd this is how they looked like when they came out from the oven! We had this as our lunch, and i remember i ate much of these with mustard and couldn’t feel enough!

Candice and Margaux’s are the only one used meat-like-vegetable. Great thing about their mixture is, the color is much darker and the shape holds itself.

And this is ours;

So after that, we moved to sweet, sweet puff pastry series! Hand skills are really required for this kind, so many different styles and dedication to each of them! For the Pithivier, we can put the filling and the fruits before baking. Oppositely for Vol au Vent, we only can design them after baked. Funnily enough, some of the fruits on Pithivier can ‘jump out’ from the dough while they are still in the oven, due to the super puffiness power from the dough (it might looked like normal flat before you put them in the oven!).

I got jealous by Eve’s little hands.

And do you know who is the superstar of the class that day?

Embrace: Howe Wang!

His hands works really, really, really well for this puff pastries, and he seems enjoyed to make each of them! Here is his creations;

And some of mine and Jose;

One of the puff pastry design i really like named Bear Claws, which looked just like a bear’s feet. Jose put some toasted almond slices on each section so it looked more like claws. So cute!

After we baked them, there goes my favorite part; decorating those puff pastries! We brushed them with Nappage (apricot glaze) and then filled them with vanilla cream or cream d’amande (almond cream), and then assembled mini fruits, and topped with splashed white fondant.

It was hours of fun!

James carefully brushed them with Nappage;

Julia was spreading the white fondant;

And when we get into filling the Vol au Vent with vanilla cream, bunch of fruits and candied lemon, Chef Stacy and Chef Michelle showed us their decoration. These are what we called a perfect design!

So after that, they sent us off to create our own decoration. I finished mine and took a photo before brushed them off with Nappage, and then walk around to see how others doing;

Mine before Nappage;

Candice and Margaux’s elements ready for decorating;

Candice’s delicate hands brushing her pretty Vol au Vent;

Jose contemplating ideas for his untouched Vol au Vent;

[rubberbelly-blog]

Sweetness 10 - A Perfect Killer; Banoffee

So we spent the first morning to build French Apple Tart. I couldn’t decide which one i love the most; French Apple Tart or American Apple Pie. This french apple tart used jam and creme d’amande (almond cream) on the first layer of the crust to give more flavour, and the apple slices are more exposed on the outer layer.

The trickiest thing about this tart is; assembling the apple slices. If its too thin, it would burn in the oven. If it’s to thick, it would be more difficult to assemble. And it keeps falling apart!

After this sexy tart came out from the oven, we noticed that some slices of our apple were little bit burned, but apparently its normal to have that burning part for extra color!

We then glazed it with jam and icing sugar.

The second pie we made that day was Pecan Pie. I love peanuts, so this kind of pastry items would always be my favorite. Jose and i put a lots of pecan on this mini tartlets and ate some pieces as well.

The next thing we made is Vegan Lemon Tart, which Chef Michelle said could be very tricky--and it was. Apparently, the lemon filling has to be on the same height as the crust, and majority of us didn’t made it. Its either we have too much filling, or like mine--too less. We reduced it too long, that’s why if you’re wondering.

Jose’s filling was also reduced too much;

However, the next thing i know that we have to pipe the surface with 2 different styles of piping techniques. I couldn’t nailed neither, but the bowtie-style is little bit easier. We have to piped all the yellow surface to be white (literally no yellow spot to be seen!) with meringue and torched it in the end.

Howe had his own way to hold the piping bag and his piping technique;

After we torched it, we cut them up into 8 slices and sent them to culinary peeps!

The next trickiest thing (after re-read all of these, i could say that almost all pastry-related is very tricky and could drive you nuts if you’re not ready to dedicate your life into it), is piping a rose shape. There is a special tip from Wilton that specifically used for a rose shaped piping.

The tip is brilliant.

But in the end, it all depends on whose piping it!

For example, my rose-piping is nuts.

We had to pipe the small lemon tartlets for this style of piping, and Chef Stacy showed us her amazing technique to pipe rose, and hers looks beautiful (always). I went to everybody seeking for tips and tricks because there are always people who is doing better than me, but everybody was struggling as well.

Everybody was struggling with a rose.

I (miserably) did the rose twice, and both were pretty demanding to be fixed, so i wiped it again I went up to Jose to teach me. Then i went to James and checked if his looks good, because usually his piping always look pretty and maybe i could learn something--but eventually my rose looked like a messy lotus instead.

LOTUS!

WHY.

Left: James’s rose artwork. Right: My Rose-supposed-to-be-but-more-like-collapsed-lotus artwork.

Everything i can’t do is on mid-term! Bless me.

Next; decorating banoffee is one fun thing to do (not as difficult as that Vegan Lemon Tart), eating Banoffee is another matter! Today, i tried Dulce de Leche for the first time. As a milk-lover myself, it then become my favorite topping. It just taste really amazing.

I COULD EAT THIS THING FOR THE WHOLE JAR.

For that Dulce de Leche, we have Banoffee Pie--stands for banana and toffee, which the crust was built from chocolate shortbread dough, and filled with that heavenly dulce de leche and vanilla bavaroise. Thus i can’t eat the vanilla bavaroise due to gelatin included, i am 100% sure that pie is a perfect killer.

BANANA + MILK = WIN.

Everybody were having fun designing it, with a finishing touch of whipping cream, caramel popcorn, candied lemon, chocolate sprinkles and raspber1ries! Yum!

Candice’s Banoffee finishing act; icing sugar rain, yipeeyy!

Jose’s finished Banoffee;

[rubberbelly-blog]

Extra Sweetness - Fernando’s Early Easter Gift

EXCEPT, ITS NOT EASTER DAY YET.

*with calm voice* uhm, yes, it is not easter day. But today i found out that Fernando left school early for his part-time job and we found some of our plain, regular eggs suddenly HAS FACES. 

Like, FACES.

I didn’t know when Fernando drew them all, i absolutely don’t have any idea as we were usually very busy everyday at school and i just couldn’t believe that he still had time to drew them for fun! This has proven much that Fernando actually loved us as his classmates <3

EVENTOUGH HE CLEARLY DON’T KNOW HOW TO SPELL MY NAME CORRECTLY.

Is that Angia or Angie, i’m not even sure.

I forgot whose egg was behind me.

Howe is so on point. Thats how he really looked like.

Samantha drew James’s hair. On point. It is indeed on the middle to the left. Like that.

If you noticed, i drew Fernando. He is in the back of Tina. Him and his fabulous eyelashes.

Julia drew herself as a lovey-dovey eyes girl.

And you know what had cracked me up?

SAMANTHA.

SAMANTHA’S EGG looked EXACTLY like her!

I laughed non-stop for like, 2 minutes and still telling her the face jokes until today.

And Jose for some reason has fabulous eyes and... a cracked head. The top of the egg is cracked.

Apparently, Samantha willingly duplicate her face on the egg in real version.

And also, James’s fabulous side hair!

:)))))

[rubberbelly-blog]

Sweetness 9 - Pies and Tarts

IT’S MY FAVORITE DAY!

Because it was Friday.

Nah, kidding. It was my favorite day because we were making pies and tarts and nobody could explain how much i love pies and tarts! Actually i promised myself that today i wouldn’t want to rush my decoration and took less photos, which i did and i am so happy about it. I just captured my creations this time.

The first thing we made for tart is mini lemon tart, and 100% vegan. We also used a classic meringue on top for decoration and used other decoration ornaments that we used yesterday for cream puffs and eclairs. So excited! What a good day to reach weekends! 

So these are the base for mini lemon tart. We were making three different dough yesterday to chill overnight in the fridge, and as i was so busy making them all, i don’t really have time to take a picture! So the dough we made are;

-Pate Brisee

-Pate Sucre

-Flaky/Mealy Dough

I think Flaky/Mealy Dough is the trickiest, because we don’t want to work too much on it. And as the name, it is super flaky. The flour is everywhere. The butter is everywhere but you can’t do something about it because it is the way it is. Pressing it is even worse, you can’t fold the dough more than 4 times, and especially--no kneading!

After having loads of raw dough in our fridge, today is the day that we shaped them into molds and trays.

And pouring the lemon curd into that petite tartlets, of course!

After that we got to chilled them back in the fridge before finally decorate them! Jose and Lena were not there, so i paired up with Howe, and we were kinda left behind while making dough because we both doing 4 persons recipe. It was crazy, but as Howe said ‘this is excercise!’ i tried to pull myself all together. And here are my three decorations of mini lemon tart;

Did you just spot something weird?

Actually, yes.

Look at the left ones. It looked incredibly funny and messy, i couldn’t stop laughing for like, 3 minutes by looking at it. I showed Candice, she laughed. I showed James, he laughed. Even Chef Stacy laughed and i think we were just kinda got sugar-high or might be too tired, because now im looking at it, i should feel embarassed instead of laughing! Its like randomly-piping meringue and nothing i can do to fix it, its not like i could scrap them and start all over!

I was using Howe’s piping bag without realizing that its not the same spuit. It looks almost the same, but different. So after successfully decorating the other two, i confidently shape the third one without trying the piping spuit on my bench. And it turn out really ugly! So i thought, ‘oh well, it needs to be done’ and continued the ugly piping!

This always gonna be a joke in the future when i looking back :))))

Next up was the Cherry Flan Tart. Flan and tart, together! Do you know how amazing is that?!

As cherry always remind me of the flavor of kids cough syrup, this cherry flan tart is unbeatable. The yumminess!

Apparently we could choose the color of the cherries, but Jose, Howe and i chose to mixed them up, and some of our classmates picked red only, or purple only (or is it black?) :p

If you’re wondering what is the blurry thing in the left, its Howe’s hand, blabbering on Jose while he pouring the flan to the tart crust. This photo always triggered me.

After we poured the flan, we baked them. And these are their looks after got out from the oven. For me, its best served cold but really you can eat it warm, too.

The next task were my favorite task. Chef Michelle told us yesterday that we have to search for any pie crust idea for our individual apple pie. Yes! I always love designing pie crust. Its fun and the result is superb. So on Thursday night i was strolling around Pinterest and Google searching for inspiration design. Can’t wait for it!

At first i wanted to do something like a tree, but i realized it might be too difficult and surely needs a lot of time. We only had like, 45 minutes for the whole design. As usual, Jose done it so fast before anyone else, and later i done it pretty fast, too (was so surprised. I usually do everything slower than everyone).

Here are some of our designs!

First, of course, Jose’s pretty design. He don’t even have any ideas before he did this, he just did it. Real genius, right there.

And here is mine. I thought my sister would laugh to see my creation because it looks lovey-dovey and does not really represent me, but i love my touch of braids. Not perfect, i’ll keep trying. Apparently i tried them after baking and the base crust is really thin, not as my preference of pie crust. I will roll less next time.

I was undecided wether i wanted to sprinkle some sugar on top for extra shine and colors, but i decided not to because it has brown sugar and cinnamon with the apples inside, so i don’t want it to be any sweeter.

Julia’s creation is neat! It is perfect in any side and proportion;

And Candice’s pie is really cute!

Howe was brushing his pie for final touch-up with his flour-y arms :)))

Mine and Howe’s pie before both of them flying into the oven;

Samantha’s dripping rosie pie, before and after baking. I didn’t noticed that her pie was dripping out when i took the photo, seriously :)))

She made roses ornaments from the flaky dough!

Shauna’s pie after baking; this is with sprinkled sugar on top. Look at how shiny it is!

And last thing, this is mine after baking ;)

[rubberbelly-blog]

Sweetness 8 - Colorful Eclairs and Cream Puffs

Getting close to the end of the week has always been the busiest to wrap up. Especially when there are A LOT of things to do. Today we required to have a hand skill for decorating. This including sharpening your eyes because the decoration ornaments are extremely fragile and small, and you have to pick them up using tweezers. A TWEEZER! I feel like a surgeon.

So much details in one thing, and so little time we had. Chef Stacy told us that Eclairs would be included in mid-term practial exam--which concerned me a lot. I can’t make a pretty shape of Eclairs! Mine are not puffy and so thin. Well maybe that describes me as a whole person as well--

Anyway, i found cream puffs are easier to handle, because--well, its just a simple square shape. Shortly, Eclairs killed me. Or the decoration session killed me, i don’t know which one works better (to kill me).

First thing we did on the day was making a choux paste for the basic eclairs and cream puff.

Here are Samantha and Lena piped up their cream puffs and eclairs. On the top of each cream puffs, we can put a Strousel layer. Don’t get deceived, those cream puffs might looks small for you, but once they came out from the oven, boom! 

The next step while they are in the oven was, making a lemon meringue.

I am no fan of acid.

Yes, you didn’t read it wrong. I am no fan of acid. By any means, any acid; lime, lemon, orange, everything sour.

Weirdly enough, i love dried sour mangoes.

Move along, after we made the meringue, we started to (steal) some decorations element from Chef Stacy and Chef Michelle. We had lots of things, candied lemon, chocolate balls, chocolate super small pearls, pink meringue, candied mint, and stuff. Its soo much fun taking them to my counter and start decorating.

And start to have problem with the filling. My filling is just not right. My piping skill is currently so weak, i don’t know how to ‘fluff’ the Eclairs so it looks high enough on the filling. And everybody seem to do good, which i started to get worried with my piping skills.

My ‘flat’ Eclairs...

By the way, you can see the white-left one, i forgot to torched it before i put all the decorations, so i let them be (the torched version ones is on the most right).

I gotta admit that Jose got a pair of fabulous hands. Like, seriously. He decorated them so fast (so fast, i tell you) and in perfectness. I can see he enjoys decorating so much, while mine was totally cluttered compared to him. Look at these brilliant series!

Candice’s piping technique. I am jealous;

All of those Eclairs has three different flavor that we made on my last post (Cream Pouring Day). They are lemon curd (lemony!), raspberry curd, and butterscotch. My favorite, definitely is butterscotch. And haven’t i tell you that Chef Michelle making a beautiful, tastiest caramel popcorn, ever? I could eat a gallon of them. No kidding.

Fernando’s Eclairs, which has meringue torched inside the Eclairs. Speaking about creativity...

Last but not least, I LOVE SAMANTHA’S CREAM PUFF DECORATION. I mean it. I looked at her cream puffs and i told myself that it is sooo pretty! Look at them! Very simple yet colorful!

Plus, more of other classmates works;

[rubberbelly-blog]

Sweetness 7 - Cream Pouring Day

We started the day by baking the Sour Cream muffin from yesterday, and having them as quick breakfast.

And today, we made lots of, lots of liquid. I mean it. Its like i can’t even remember the craziness to get all of them ready.

And liquids are tricky, as always. I never had a good luck with liquid! Still traumatized by the egg whites.

Chef Stacy and Chef Michelle reminded us that Creme Anglaise, would be on our mid-term practical examination.

Which, makes me panicked. Even now when im writing this.

Because that cream is tricky, fragile and hard to handle. You can’t be too thin. You can’t be too thick. You can’t be too yellowish. And between thick and thin, believe me, its very very close!

Creme Anglaise is based on the temperature. It has three specific temperature; when you put them in the pot, they must passed about 75 degree celcius in medium heat, and then quickly pull them up until the temperature reaches 82 degree celcius, but MUST NOT pass 82. Confused? Me too. You have to see my face when i was doing it. Me and Lena, my team-mate that time, were too fast to pulled them from the heat. Our sauce is become runny. We have to test it with napper (coat the sauce/liquid with the back of the spoon to check the texture) and see other team’s work. Some people had it too thick, and too runny--except Jennifer’s team who got the texture right.

Just when i thought this cream would be fantastic together with chocolate pudding. Hmmm...

Apparently, Jose’s and Howe’s Creme Anglaise is too thick.

We moved into Creme Patisserie, which is a basic cream for any filling, and can be modified into another flavor other than vanilla! I found scraping vanilla is fun but at the same time i was horrified to heard that vanilla pods are so expensive. We were told that a full bag of vanilla pods, maybe about some hundred grams, costs up to $200! Isn’t that a crazy price? It’s like my grocery total cost for a month! Lol.

So because mostly we made liquids in pot and in the mixer, i don’t really have photos. Its basically cream, milk, or both.

We also made liquids--for Creme Brulee! This has been one of my favorite dessert, but some people made it too sweet, and torching the sugar is the most fun part! I just know that baking Creme Brulee is with oven-bain-marie, take care of them like you take care of babies.

We got four varieties of flavour, and i think our team’s flavor were the best; made from bay leaf and vanilla. Some never thought that bay leaf could be sweet and used for dessert. The other teams got saffron (i was really curious of using saffron that time), cinnamon and cardamom.  

After we put them into those ramekins, we had to double torch before baking to pop all the extra foams and bubbles on the surface.

And most fun part was coming; torch with sugar after baking! We can chose from two colors of sugar, white and brown, and i chose brown color just because its prettier and darker after torch. Remember; always make sure that the surface is hard enough to crack with spoon, not too thick, and always torch all the sugar until melts! (You don’t want to taste crispy sugar that haven’t melt in your mouth).

I walked around and catch Jose’s torching his Creme Brulee and Lauren’s proud face with her un-torched Creme Brulee, lol!

When we moved to the next part, which was Creme Caramel, i thought it would be just a cream with caramel taste. I was wrong. Its basically a Creme Brulee look alike--only with caramel sauce and coating! The ingredients itself was slightly different, Creme Brulle is using cream and Creme Caramel is using milk. Nevertheless, both are amazing.

The caramel coating for the base looked like this;

At this point i still got no idea how Creme Caramel would looks like. Obviously its my first time trying ;))

Turned out, it looked TOTALLY different when you flipped them out from ramekin into plate. In contrary opinion, i believe that making Creme Caramel is harder than Creme Brulee, because i got this really, really, really, bitter Creme Caramel. I am sure the caramel burned when someone made it in the pot (we made and bake it together and then each person got one randomly so nobody knows who’s creation we were eating). It was a nightmare. It reminds of a taste of cough syrup which i hate back in primary school.

I took a note for myself that i should make the caramel base to be amber-red color, not more than that. The more darker, the more bitter.

The next cream is; a cheesecake! That day we made a pumpkin white chocolate cheesecake. This cheseecake is similar type with New York cheesecake, it has firmness but still creamy and smooth at the texture.

We were given pumpkin puree and white chocolate which has to be turned into ganache and a cream cheese; three main ingredients on this one. 

The base was made from graham crackers. We crumbled them and then mixed it with brown sugar.

Then we put them in the fridge so that the base can hold itself for the incoming cheesecake batter.

After we baked the base with the cheesecake batter, we also have an extra topping with really simple ingredients; vanilla pod scraps, sour cream and sugar. After mixing them together, we wiped them on the top of the cheesecake, and after that it goes to the fridge for final eating!

Jose’s perfect slice of his cheesecake;

Fernando is confused wether he might eat two of them.

[rubberbelly-blog]

Sweetness 6 - (Really) Quick Breads

As i love the word of ‘quick’ food, i actually left undecided if love or dislike making it. As the title said, quick breads are really quick. Quick in making and quick in baking. We were doing 4 different items of quick breads; banana breads, classic scones, sour cream muffin and morning glory muffin. But first in the morning, we have to make lady fingers!

Now, these little lady fingers are fun snack, could be your best friend while watching TV, drinking a cup of hot tea, reading books and those enjoyable stuff, except,...

Yes, except... I was struggling making it.

I have not been best friends with egg whites. Or i think egg white hates me. Everytime i whisk egg white in bain marie, it always cooked. Therefore it became scrambled egg whites. And not only once, i actually cooked the egg whites TWICE. As Chef Stacy told me to discard both, i felt so miserable to drain them all to the sink. It’s only an egg whites, for God’s sake. And i failed it TWICE.

Again? TWICE.

This made me and Jose (my team-mate that time) left quite behind. We were rushing in everything including piping the lady fingers batter to the tray. We didn’t even had time to spread an icing sugar on top. Sigh. My mistake.

Ours came out a little bit brown-ish, but taste the same and absolutely delicious. Some of us in class had different colors as well, even some had burned lady fingers!

These were ours;

And Jennifer’s white icing lady finger version;

And i even forgot whose tray was this, but they took out some of burned lady fingers (actually the burned sugar, which i don’t know what caused it).

After that disaster egg whites for lady fingers in the morning, we moved quickly to quick breads. The first bread to be baked was banana breads. Tell you what, i love banana breads. I can eat one loaf just by myself, and while in Malaysia i always buy a slice each day for class.

What’s so interesting that day was that we made two different version of banana breads! The first was regular ones, and the second was specially for vegan, or maybe someone on diet. No animal products included, and the flavor was still soooo moist and sooo good. Trust me, i am not a vegan myself, but i love this vegan version!

For the vegan version, we changed egg with flax seed and reduce the sweetness by using coconut sugar. Imagine when we took all of them out from the oven, the smell of banana. Yummm

So the vegan banana breads and the regular banana breads are easily spot on by eyes if you put them together in one table. Regular version is having lighter color (i presume because we used white sugar), and rising up more than the vegan ones. I personally love, love, love the texture and moistness of the vegan ones, but i like the flavor of regular version ones (because its sweeter and i love sweet).

In here, the vegan is on the right, and the regular is on the left.

In here, vegan is on the left while regular is on the right. Spot the major differences?

By the way, after eating banana breads i’m extremely falling in love with walnut.

However, isn’t that amazing that we can make banana breads (or other breads, even) with non-animal products?! And it taste almost the same, maybe even better! I asked my friends in class and majority of them loved the vegan ones more!

I lost faith once towards vegan food, my sister went to Yogyakarta and they invented a vegan cake--which taste really, really bland and the texture is similar to a brick. So i thought--how can people chose this over thousand delicious bread out there? But with this banana breads, i quickly changed my mind. It is healthy and delicious--two combination that you can actually have in one thing!

The next one is; breakfast muffin and scones. I have never taste scones before, but i knew them from most of British TV Show where they were having tea time with a three tier various cakes and pies and tarts, and scones were always there. They described it as a perfect friend for tea time, of course!

Jose and i chose blueberry with lemon and a hint of lavender. After baking, we barely taste the lavender, eventough we surely put two tablespoon to the dough. After we mix all the ingredients, we quickly combine them together into a dough, flatten them, and divided them into eight slices, just like a pizza.

Usually scones are shaped like a muffin, round, square, whatever you called it. But we shaped it into slices now. Maybe its actually cuter?

As mentioned; quick breads is quick in baking, too! For each breads we made, we only baked them not more than 15 minutes.

Muffins are incredible. They always looked fresh and classy. We made two different types of breakfast muffin that day--sour cream, and morning glory. Chef Michelle told us that the Morning Glory Muffin is really popular and named differently in different states, for example, its name is Hummingbird Muffin in Australia, eventough its totally the same thing.

AND.

MORNING GLORY MUFFIN IS ABSOLUTELY GLORIOUS.

Believe me. It is indeed looks ‘meh’ in the outside, but once you bite it, the fluffiness, the moist, the butteriness, the freshness...Nothing can beat it! I brought home only three, and deeply regret my decision. I can eat five of it, or maybe more!

I was excited about the sour cream muffin, but rather than sour cream, Morning Glory wins my heart straightly!

Jose and i forgot to include chopped apple into them--which turned out no problem at all!

[rubberbelly-blog]

Sweetness 5 - Rugelach and Individual Cookies

There are some nights when i looked at the recipe and getting stuff ready for the school next day and i didn’t know what kind of sweet item recipe i was reading. Including of them, is Rugelach. Rugelach pronouncation is similar with Arugula, so Rugelach reminds me of Arugula--which are two totally different things and classification.

So basically Rugelach is a Jewish cookies, or so Google said. It is very common and popular in Israel.

And i still didn’t know anything about it. So Chef Stacy and Chef Michelle showed us the pictures in class. It looked really, really similar with croissant. Its like a mini croissant. But the texture is quite different. But it does look like croissant. Should i stop mentioning croissant? :p

The spices are brilliant. Definately nothing to do with full-chocolate and other sweet taste, this time we used cinnamon, jam (any kind jam you want! But usually Rugelach is using fruit-based jam) and cream cheese. I was so excited because its a new thing and knowledge for me!

So the first step of Rugelach cookies is mixing and making the dough, roll them out flat, and then measure the thickness and the size, it should be a perfect 11 inch round. The next step was spreading the fruit jam, cinnamon sugar, peanuts and the chopped pieces of dark chocolate. How about the cream cheese? It was included inside the dough already ;)

I like rugelach because the texture is not too dry like crispy cookies. I love moist, chewy and fluffy cookies so this kind of cookie is perfect. Also, fruits! Actually, jam. But still, fruits! Fruits for life!

Before we cut them out, it does really look like a pizza.

Then we have to divided it into half, and then into 12 slices. These slices then rolled into 12 rugelach at most.

Pizza, and then mini croissant. Who invented this fabulous pastry item?!

So we reduced the amount of chopped chocolate pieces because we simply don’t want any sweetness here. Cinnamon sugar and the fruit jam are the stars.

Here how it was looked like when we pull them out from the oven; i guess all the sugar kinda came out from the roll and then burnt out, but don’t worry! Sugar inside the cookies are completely safe, and aside from the melted sugar, all of them are really good! I put them in Shauna’s beautiful tea cup’s plate.

So i picked one and then cut them in half to see how it looked like in the inside.

This is by far, my most favorite pastry things, and this is only the first week! Couldn’t wait for more interesting stuff coming out.

Next up, the first weekly challenge we faced today is individual cookies. We had to make our own cookies, without any tutorial recipe (well, you could use any recipe from internet or from your family and relatives, but you do have to modified it into something new and called it your own recipe). I had enough sweet so i wanted to try savory cookies. I picked cardamom as it is my most favorite spice among all the spices, and i matched them with honey (simply because i don’t want any sugar anymore). But realizing that eventough cardamom and honey is a perfect suit, i want to add more pair for more flavor. Then i decided to add earl grey tea and dates.

Then i added pistachios and pecans, hoping it would be perfect.

We were given about two hours to practice making them on the first day. These two hours is including making the dough, shaping and baking time. I used as much knowledge from the school as possible. Being undecided for some time about shape and texture, i wanted it to be soft in the inside and crunchy in the outside. And for that, i decided to make it with ‘ice box’ method (scoop the cookie dough with ice cream scoop). I’d love to roll the dough and then shape it with cookie cutter, but those kind of cookie is more likely to be dry cookies. While i want it to be chewy, i need them to be more like a ball shape.

By the time my cookies are in the oven, i was exploring other classmates cookies. These are Samantha’s cutie cookies with guava spread in the middle;

But Jose didn’t approve! Lol

And this one is Lauren’s. Chopped apricot. Hers are so lovely, i stole some pieces and brought them home.

Candice’s cookies are so classy! It was hibiscus with lavender shortbread cookies, with white chocolate drizzle on top.

I was struggling at the first trial but having fun, learning from mistakes. My first attempt cookies are tasteful, but the texture was a total failure. It is somehow very dry, and thats because i put too much flour so it was lacking of moisture. I wanted the ball to spread, but since there is not enough moisture, the shape kept staying like a ball during and after baking. Not so satisfied about it, on the second attempt, i changed the flour from all-purpose to pastry flour and added more butter and more honey and hoping it would make a difference.

It did!

Mine was spreading waayy moree in the oven and im pretty much happy about it, only next time i would chopped more pistachio and pecan because i barely taste the crunchyness.

What made me worried was because the tutor chefs will taste them all. I thought mine is so worse it could kill somebody, but after Chef Tony from culinary came visit our pastry class and tried my raw dough and said it was tasty, my confidence rises. At least it won’t kill somebody, yeay :p

Beautifully fresh baked cookies to be judged!

I kinda regret my second decision to not brushing the top part of my cookies with egg wash. I brushed them at the first day and it gave my cookies nice golden color. But then i thought ‘maybe it would look better without the egg wash’ and it came out dull and just not as shiny.

Oh well, at least i’m happy with my own cookies! :)

Also, two version from yesterday trial and today. Which one you actually like more based on the shape and the color? :D

[rubberbelly-blog]

Sweetness 4 - Nanaimo Bars were sent from Heaven

Today was so exciting as we learn one tricky sweet item; French Macaron (this time is made from egg white and sugar) and im really looking forward to it as not so many people back in my hometown could make a proper french macaron, and people are fussing about how difficult it is to get them correctly.

The second is my new favorite dessert--Nanaimo Bars! This is my first time making it, and i love it because its not too sweet, simple and no oven required! So for those who are lazy (like me) to set and turn on oven and deal with them, you can try to make this absolutely delicious Nanaimo Bars. (on the other hand, you will need a stove and a fridge. The effort is only get them back and forth to the fridge!)

Based on Shauna, my team-mate, the name of ‘Nanaimo Bars’ came from a guy who got into baking contest and invented a bar-style cookies with three layers. The guy himself come from Nanaimo, so therefore it is called ‘Nanaimo Bar’.

It might be too sweet for some people because we had a layer of thin chocolate on the top of it, but you could definately modified it into another flavor so it won’t be as sweet. Also for the second layer--the buttery, custard-y layer would be really sweet, so make sure the base (bottom layer) is not so sweet.

This is the first one, or you could call the bottom layer. Made of loads of peanuts, coconut flakes and chocolate. Mouthwatering.

At this point, you have to put it in the fridge until it gets firm. Make sure that the bottom layer is flat and neat on the edge so its easier to cut them later.

After the bottom was firmed, we started to make the second layer and apply it right away. You can make the butter custard batter for the second layer in completely another flavor, raspberry, vanilla, green tea macha, or even liquor. Shauna and i decided to go with classic vanilla.

After we spread the butter custard batter on the top of the bottom layer, we had to put them in the fridge again until the second layer gets firm. And only by then, we made the chocolate ganache for the top part, spread it (and then get it back to fridge again) for the final step of cutting it.

I got really excited to see various colors in class, they all are pretty!

I took back my words when i said this is simpler than any other sweet items because it requires no oven. But. There is a but. Cutting it needs more perfection for every bite size, especially when the chocolate part start to melt and it became super messy.

Pardon the messiness. Here is a photo of Fernando cutting his Nanaimo Bars. By the way, his was pink colored.

After we cutted them into those little cute cubes, we got a chance to put them in a transparent box and decorate them with ribbons! Yup, little bit more handwork in here, because i don’t even know how to tie my ribbons so that it become pretty--sigh. I want to borrow Lauren’s creative hands for this.

The next item we made is, french macaron! For the non-sweet tooth, i got this for you. Its not too sweet, we were balancing the flavor so you won’t hate these. I know some people don’t like to eat macaron as they are literally very sweet, i never really liked them too, but this flavor is amazing!

As Chef Stacy said, that we couldn’t reduce the sugar for the shell, as it would change the texture. So what we can do is trying to get the filling part to be as not sweet as possible. Always remember; the shell will always, always be sweet!

It was coffee and almond flavor for the shell. Not good enough? Beat down all the sweetness, we have mocha as the ganache filling! I have to say sorry in advance because there is no during-proccess photo, we had it super fast and under pressure because there was like three things to do at once. At first we had to mix all the dry ingredients in the food proccessor, melt the sugar in a pot, and whisk the egg white in the mixer. All of those made me forgot about taking pictures. But i got them after piping and baking. After piping we need one special move before get them into the oven; punch (or in other languange, hit, or in smooth languange; smooth hit) the bottom surface of the baking tray, so each of them will lay flat. At this point if its not flat, that means your macaron’s batter is too thick.

Some macaron have slightly (very slightly you won’t even notice them) in color after baking, its because of the dryness level. After we took them out from the oven, we have to put it in the cart for cooling and drying. This part is included in the tricky part, because it cannot be too dry and definately not too fresh/wet, otherwise it would crack and crumble when you touch them.

Filling them with mocha ganache was another level of challenge. You have to do it with softness and love, meanwhile i am that kind of person who treat things pretty rough. We definately need smooth hands for this, because i cracked some of them shells.

On the other hands, the filling itself is tricky. Sometimes its too much, sometimes its too less and you seem can’t fixed it up.

Conclusion; everything about french macaron is tricky. No wonder nobody get it right in my hometown!

Maybe except Fernando who always did everything so fast. This is his invention of ‘macaron tower’, a three-stacks macaroon. Look at his proud smile.

Kinda reminds me of a hamburger.

Last picture of my macarons and nanaimo bars! ;)

[rubberbelly-blog]

Sweetness 3 - Happy Tea Friends

The main subject of day 3; is tea friends! Various pastry items that you can always eat together with tea, coffee or milk (or even better, dipped!). Since im not fancy of coffee (in fact, at all) and my love is forever for plain water (i’m a fish), i would prefer to eat them all with tea or milk.

We made Biscotti, which means ‘twice baked’. I thought it’s only the fancy name, but you actually baked them TWICE! Eventough i prefer to have it with once baked :p

For the biscotti ingredients of tea, we learned about infusing tea flavor by adding them to the biscotti dough. I am so in love with tea, this cookies would be my favorite recipe because we can use any kind of tea! 

Each team had to chose one kind of tea. As i love chamomile--i know it is good for stress, depression and tiredness, i’d love to choose it. Fortunately Shauna, my team-mate were thinking about chamomile too so i picked chamomile in the end and we paired it up with lavender. Also, we added some chopped white chocolate and chopped, toasted almond.

This is how they looked like before the bake;

And once it kept in the fridge for few hours, we brushed the top part with egg wash and baked them straigthly to the oven. For a second i thought it would hold the shape (never had biscotti before, so i didn’t know) but once it came out from the oven, the shape spreaded a lot, it surprised me.

We then cut them into long pieces and the rushed to baked them again for the second time until its finally done.

For the second tea friends, we have shortbread. Who didn’t love shortbread?! Its simple yet flavorful. We made dark chocolate shortbread with peppermint ganache. It looks sooo tempting, i brought home and shared them with my housemates and one of my friend actually break her diet schedule and eat them up!

For the shortbread, we used classic technique of making the dough (the key ingredients here is: temperature) you need cold ingredients and also, cold hands! My hands are medium warm (?) but somehow perhaps because im was too slow, my dough become...pretty warm. However, we have to chilled the dough before shaping, so i still could fixed it. Phew!

The dough in Lauren’s hands;

After we chilled the dough, we rolled it out, shape it with cookie cutter--flowery ones of course--this step has to be fast, really fast, because the dough can’t be warm again. It has to be stay cold, and that’s why i don’t have any photo of the shaping proccess because i was rushing and anyway--we finally baked them. When they came out, Shauna’s tray is way more prettier than my tray. Hers are in perfect cute, small shape while mine is a little bit bigger, and has different thickness. Again, lack of consistency, i need more practice on rolling the dough.

Here is mine. You can see some of them are more flat than the others, and im wondering why some of them are spreading out.

Decorating might be my most favorite thing to do in pastry world. For the shortbread, we have to pipe the filling, in here was peppermint ganache. Even for piping them, it needs a specific technique to get it right, not too much filling, and not too stingy :p

Not perfect, but definately will get better.

I walked around to see how people are doing the filling, and some of them are so serious! The class never been that quiet for a moment :p

Here are James and Shauna;

James was like ‘i.must.not.screw.this.up.”

These are Tina’s creation; very tidy indeed.

This is Tina holding my creation (i didn’t forced her i swear :p), if you look closely you could see that my stack of shortbreads are...uhm--not perfect (i blurred it out for the sake of embarassment)

You can actually decorate the shortbread whatever you wanted, drizzle some chocolate on top, brush them with some cream, make swirl, spread rainbow sugar--anything! Or even dipped it in some (or whole) chocolate ganache. Looks super creeaaammyyyy

Or even more, BURNT IT FOR MORE DRAMATIC EFFECT!

Nah, just kidding. I swear that torch is not my idea. Its actually Howe’s 'unique’ experiment, which wasn’t uhh-going well, lol!

Enjoy!

[rubberbelly-blog]

Sweetness 2 - Macaroon, not Macaron

As the the title, there is a new knowledge i got from school today; that Macaroon and Macaron is two totally different things. All this time i know Macaron, those tiny, colorful, sweet and creamy taste. In fact, they have been said that it is one of those dessert that difficult to make. 

On the other hand, macaroon, that i made today, with double ‘o’, is basically one of the type in cookies family made from coconut flakes and orange zest. With the texture of goeey-ness by the mixture of sugar, authentic coconut and sourness from orange, it is a complete delish combination! I love coconut in almost everywhere, in rice, in the chocolate, or even eaten straight from the fruit shell.

Using bain marie technique and then chilled overnight, we scooped out the dough with ice cream scoop. I honestly just know this technique exist, i thought ice cream scoop is specially from ice cream :p. From there we poke a little hole on the top of the dough, you can basically decorate this hole with jam or minced fruits (after baked), drizzle with some chocolate, brush it, or even sprinkle icing sugar on top (if you really love sweet) and up you go! ;)

Pretty tiny things.

We took some times for decorating, because there are a lot of it. As im bored with chocolate at the moment (just at the moment. Offer me again later) :p, i choose fruits based decoration, pineapple jam, raspberry jam, and chopped fresh pineapple. Decorating is always fun!

So we were having about 20 minutes of fun without had to rushing anything. And i wish i had more plain macaroon to decorate with fruits (shortly, im craving for fruits).

Here are Howe and Lauren decorating their creation;

So i packed four different flavors home (and gave the chocolate ones to my housemate), after captured them. It looks so pretty and taste amazing at the same time. As my first time to taste ‘macaroon’, this could be my next favorite cookies ;)

Look at that cubed fresh pineapple! Wish i have the whole fruit! Lol

My second favorite flavor is of course--raspberry jam. Yum!

Basically the other two is chocolate based, dipped and drizzled.

[rubberbelly-blog]

Sweetness 1 - Begin the journey

Starting a new term of Pastry & Bread Making just made me extremely excited. I woke up at the first morning very early with an excitement just like a kid who got candies.

I couldn’t really explain what i feel, but after day by day dreaming of making my own sweet stuff, i can’t wait to get going.

The first day we got fun knowledge of basic royal icing and...cookies! Yup, as i do love cookies soooo much i want to know how to make it right. Our tutors are superb. They divided us into a team of two, and then each team gonna make their own cookies, following the recipe. The first one is called Lemon Sable. Sable means sand, which mean the texture is supposed to be sandy. 

My sable cookies shape is...not so pretty. By all mean, it supposed to be a round cookies, not this random-almost-rectangular thingy. And what made it worse was because the thickness is little bit different with one another. I was being so inconsistent. But it was my first time making sable. Attempting is harmless, lol.

Coated with sugar in the outside, fragrant of lemon, sable cookies is simple, easy to make, and perfectly delicious with your choice of comfort drink. I dipped mine in milk at home. Even more, you can pick many different spices or flavors as you want! This also would be good with cinnamon.

So here how it looked like when it came out from the oven:

Too brown means too thin. Its supposed to be light yellow colored.

Perfect round creation of Margaux;

The next task is to make a Nestle chocolate cookies. As the name, we used pieces of Nestle chocolate with toasted walnut. Sounds yum? Wait for it... Each team had to made it with one DELETED ingredients. Yup, you read it correctly. So based on the perfect beautiful recipe, we have to work with one ingredient missing, different on each team. My team apparently, didn’t given a leavener; baking soda. Another team also had to use pastry flour instead of all-purpose flour, the others didn’t get sugar, baking powder or egg. I think lack of baking soda is not so bad compared to lack of egg. It gets no moisture and turned out really dry.

The purpose of this missing ingredients are to see each different types of cookies, what will happen to them and each one is so different! From the flavors, colors, textures, even the shapes. Its just amazing thinking back that we won’t really have a perfect result if we’re missing just one key of ingredient!

I definately LOVED our team creation, tho;

We got into the end of the day by practicing different patterns and technique of piping. For the batter itself, we made and used royal icing, with a hint of lemon juice for balancing the sweetness. 

Whenever i saw people doing piping in the TV, its always looked fun and easy peasy. BUT OF COURSE, ITS TELEVISION. THEY ALL ARE PROS. I was literally struggling because i just cannot get them pretty. Maybe except the lines. My lines are kinda neat, or so i thought.

My rossete (swirl) is all over the place.

My round is not in same size, as usual.

Such a mess.

And i just couldn’t get them to be flat in the end. Its like a little peak and i’ve tried to wipe them with spatula before i decided that spatula only get it even worse. Does anyone has advice how to get it smooth and flat?

Rossete pattern by Shauna;

If i don’t remember that i ate sugar too much daily (bought and ate sweets almost everyday) i really would eat all the royal icing. Its soooo good.

I’ll wrap it up here. Here is the last photo of the amazing lemon sable cookies! :)