A Snippet of Life + Petit Fours
You know, I can really notice a difference in myself after a couple days of not having my daily quiet time with God. I become cranky, stressed, snappy, and in general just not my usual self. So to anyone whom I may have offended/hurt over the last couple of days, I'm sorry. I didn't put my priorities in the right order, and that's what happened as a result.
Now, moving on. Many of you will have seen the status update I posted the other day on Facebook. Yes, failed cooking attempts make me very depressed. I am now going to delve into the details of one of these such attempts.
The other day, I had the wonderful idea to make petit fours. They're such a nice size, taste good (although very sweet), and it would be a change from the normal Japanese cuisine. I used a cake recipe we'd done in home ec and baked it in a shallow baking try to get the thinness I needed. It tasted really good. I then made cocoa-flavored butter cream icing, and spread that in between layers of cake. (Picture below.) Let me tell you, it tasted quite amazing.
The trouble came once I cut the cake into petit-four-sized squares, and wanted to ice them. First failure: attempting to make fondant icing. It turned into a grainy, sugary, nothing-like-icing mess. It was chucked.
Second failure: trying to use normal icing to coat them. This involved mixing icing sugar with enough water to make it runny-ish, and spooning it over the cakes. The idea was for it to run down, coating all the sides, and then harden to make nice icing covers. However, this is what it turned out like. (Please ignore the bright color - I wanted pink, but a bit too much food coloring slipped into the mix.)
In the end, I ended up following the recipe for icing on the back of the icing sugar box, which gave me a thick pasty mass. I rolled it out, at a loss of what else to do (and at this point frustrated beyond belief), and cut little squares out to fit on the top of the cakes. Forget coating all the sides like should have been done. Result:
Ok, so it doesn't look too bad, and I'll admit it tastes marvellous. But I guess the fact that it didn't turn out exactly like I wanted depressed me just slightly. The sides are supposed to be SMOOTH, and they ended up all lumpy (from the crumby texture of the cake I suppose). It was going to be perfect little pastel pink cake squares decorated with powdered sugar and chocolate shavings...
Well, after so many good food attempts, there was bound to be one less than perfect. Why did it occur as soon as I tried something non-Japanese? Oshiete kudasai ne...
Now, moving on. Many of you will have seen the status update I posted the other day on Facebook. Yes, failed cooking attempts make me very depressed. I am now going to delve into the details of one of these such attempts.
The other day, I had the wonderful idea to make petit fours. They're such a nice size, taste good (although very sweet), and it would be a change from the normal Japanese cuisine. I used a cake recipe we'd done in home ec and baked it in a shallow baking try to get the thinness I needed. It tasted really good. I then made cocoa-flavored butter cream icing, and spread that in between layers of cake. (Picture below.) Let me tell you, it tasted quite amazing.
The trouble came once I cut the cake into petit-four-sized squares, and wanted to ice them. First failure: attempting to make fondant icing. It turned into a grainy, sugary, nothing-like-icing mess. It was chucked.
Second failure: trying to use normal icing to coat them. This involved mixing icing sugar with enough water to make it runny-ish, and spooning it over the cakes. The idea was for it to run down, coating all the sides, and then harden to make nice icing covers. However, this is what it turned out like. (Please ignore the bright color - I wanted pink, but a bit too much food coloring slipped into the mix.)
In the end, I ended up following the recipe for icing on the back of the icing sugar box, which gave me a thick pasty mass. I rolled it out, at a loss of what else to do (and at this point frustrated beyond belief), and cut little squares out to fit on the top of the cakes. Forget coating all the sides like should have been done. Result:
Ok, so it doesn't look too bad, and I'll admit it tastes marvellous. But I guess the fact that it didn't turn out exactly like I wanted depressed me just slightly. The sides are supposed to be SMOOTH, and they ended up all lumpy (from the crumby texture of the cake I suppose). It was going to be perfect little pastel pink cake squares decorated with powdered sugar and chocolate shavings...
Well, after so many good food attempts, there was bound to be one less than perfect. Why did it occur as soon as I tried something non-Japanese? Oshiete kudasai ne...
Comments