TWD

mmmm.... I did last week's challenge for today. We didn't buy milk this week so the only thing I had was a can of condensed milk. Haha... icecream wouldn't have turned out too well. Anyhow, so the white and black bananna cake turned out super well. Once again, i substituted rum for irish cream and since i'm on a diet, I substitued half the butter for apple sauce. Turned out beautifully moist, and rich. As for the milk, I just diluted some of the condensed milk with water.

Well, I'm back. Gosh, it's been too long.
Anyhow the Twd challenge this week was the summer fruit galette, but I came across quite a few problems.
My family has quite a few allergies to fruit especially and being a tuesday, i can't really share it with anyone else other than my family. So I turned the galette into an apple and apricot galette and left out the custard. Tasted like one big apple pie with a good amount of tartness to it. The crust turned out beautifully. It was perfectly flaky and I rushed it with an egg before baking it. Not too many pictures this time I'm afraid. My great grandmother cut it up, stuffed it into a pyrex container, and shoved the now unidentifiable dessert into the fridge. I was pretty angry. I looked around yesterday for it after I made realized that all my pictures were blurry to take some more pictures and couldn't find it anywhere. Never thought that the stuff in the pyrex container would be it. I thought it was left over beef and chicken.
So that's what I'm stuck with. Maybe I'll make it again today. It would be a bloody waste though. I've already gained 7 pounds this summer from my nearly limitless mealplan at Duke.

Well, I'm finally back, but I'm absolutely exhausted. I'll start posting again next week. I'm really wiped out this week.

TWD: challenge

Yes! I made the deadline.
I've been totally swamped these days with final papers and just finals in general. I'm going to be at Duke for a business program for the next 3 weeks so i won't be able to post anything/bake anything. =(.
This recipe turned out quite well. The pastry was lovely, just like store bought cream puff pastry dough. The only problem I had was my failure to read. I went to the supermarket today to pick up a little container of heavy cream only to discover upon my return that I had picked up light cream instead. I wasn't willing to return to the supermarket so I just added 3 egg yolks to thicken it. It turned out pretty well. The flavor of the mint is charming. Strong, but charming. This was quite an easy recipe. Next time I'll do it properly.

I totally adore fruit tarts.
And recently, I've managed to make this absolutely delectable and irresistible flaky crust that has conspired to sabotage my diet. And after playing around with the cream for two weeks, I've managed to make a wonderful cream, nice and rich but tastefully so. I've also been obsessing over fruit tart designs. So here's my little tropical fruit tart. The two new chins that appeared magically the next morning were indication enough of its charm. <3

TWD , french brownies

Okay,
mm... I dunno. I think I did something wrong again. -_-.
Well, it turned out pretty well... just more cake-y. I probably measure the wrong amount of flour. I added in walnuts and put in 2 tablespoons of irish cream. It gave the brownies a nice touch. Well, I ldefinitely liked the taste, so the only thing I have to complain about is my lack of skill at measuring.
My camera wasn't cooperating with me either. Pardon the blurriness.

Okay, so several unfortunate occurrences took place this weekend.
My uncle and grandparents came up from New Jersey so my mom decided to throw a party, and I was like... oh cool! I can make the sticky buns. And so I did. So while they were rising, my friends called me up and were like... "hey, let's go clubbing" so I did. I told my mom how and when to bake the buns and all was well until i got home. They left me the smallest buns in the batch and like... only three of them at that.
So I had to take a picture of the three most miserable looking buns in the batch and after snapping several miserable looking pictures of three miserable looking buns, I ate them. Then going through my camera, I realized that my brother had played with my camera and made the setting super dark. So my pictures came out dark and gloomy looking. The flash made everything too bright and so all in all, pictures were pretty miserable. Fortunately, I still have half a batch of dough left since I made the full batch of brioche dough. I'll post my miserable looking photos of my 3 miserable buns today and update with happier photos either by the end of the day, or by tomorrow (hopefully).

Now, some feedback on the process of the bun making. It turned out pretty well actually. My dough didn't seem to rise as well as I wanted or expected it to, but it tasted pretty good. I thought that the three sticks of butter in the brioche dough was a little ridiculous (especially for someone watching her weight {moi} so I took out one stick. It probably made it less tasty or moist than it should have been, but I found three sticks a little scary. I should have substituted it for something else to help keep the dough more moist.
Other than that, I felt as if it was pretty much just a normal cinnamon bun. I've had better, but maybe that's cause I left out one stick of butter? =\ My fault probably. I'll do it over

I'm really excited for the TWD challenge this week. I wasn't able to do last weeks due to tests and other baking frenzies. I didn't have the appropriate pan either, but this week's challenge will definitely be done.

I decided to take the Daring Baker challenge from a while ago. I'm not yet a daring baker, but starting next month I will be. I'm really excited.
Anyhow, After I saw pictures of this cake, I've been itching to make it. Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore and woke up at 1:00 am to do it.

The preparation isn't difficult, but like always, I fail to follow recipe for the cake part. Everytime, I'm always doubting the recipe and end up changing it. That's not good.... cause I'm usually wrong. Anyhow, the cake inside took me two tries to get decently right. I realized that if I'm going to rely on air to make my cakes rise, I need to bake them immediately after I've whipped the batter. I had technical difficulties with my springform cake pan.... It didn't occur to me that it would leak... -_-.... so I had to take the leaking pan out of the oven, and left the batter there for like.. half an hour. When I baked it, the air was almost gone and the cake had this gross unrisen flour-egg texture.

I've learned my lesson. Other than the cake, everything turned out upretty well. I'm pleased with the results. It's not my cake of choice for eating, but it's a nice and pretty piece I can show off.
I'm sort of new to this entire baking thing so I'll be making a lot of blunders, but stick with me. I'll get better. =D

Well, here's to my first post.
We had an orchestra party yesterday and I thought, hey, might as well have some fun baking. When I bake something, it always has to be for someone else otherwise I end up eating it all and gaining 20 pounds.

So I made a nice fruit tart.
It was my first time making a fruit tart and I totally forgot that I ran out of fresh fruit so I used frozen raspberries and and frozen blueberries instead. The kiwis are fresh.

The crust was absolutely stunning. Flaky, tender, and perfectly flavored. I love the taste of the salty crust (just right)--sweet cream--fresh fruit combination. It's delicious.

The tart was gone within minutes with people going back for seconds and thirds.

My cake turned out pretty well too. A pumpkin spice cake with butterscotch mousse and butterscotch, brown sugar icing. I was really satisfied. That disappeared too. I have to work on the aesthetics a bit, but I'll improve.

Well, Here's to the opening of Diet Murder, my blog dedicated to food, the sin of my life.