Baking Attempts

Another thing that I love to do, or have in the past is cooking and baking. When I was growing up, my mom loved to bake - so much so that we would always have cakes, pies and cookies in the house, but there were times I would be begging her to make something "savoury".

When I met J, he was the one who started me cooking. Ironically, he also started his brother on that path as well and his brother is now a head chef of a great restaurant in Etobicoke, Ontario. J is part Italian and his father had taught his mother how to cook, so I guess it was only natural for him to try and teach me. I had been banned from cooking in my mom's kitchen for years after I had blown out two microwaves as a teenager (don't ask!). And since my favourite food was always pasta, I was thrilled when he taught me how to make my favourites which were Penne in Rose Sauce and Fettuccine Alfredo. Previously, all my pastas had been the pre-made stuff.

After that, I started watching the food network incessantly and just listening. I wasn't into any recipe in particular but more about techniques, and observing what things were supposed to look like when finished. That way, if I tried to replicate it, I'd know what it was at least supposed to look like.

Fast forward more than a couple years, and I'd like to say my abilities are much better. Not Chef great, I'm still terrible with knives - slow as molasses, and there are some things that still escape me. Pie dough and I don't get along very well, the first working one I managed was only a couple weeks ago and it was a shortbread (sweet) dough. Previously, it was a crumbly mess. My first attempt at it, I was in tears for 4 hours from the failure.

 

Well, last April, J and his parents decided to surprise me after a weekend away by cutting a hole in the brick wall in house to extend the kitchen. It was one of those things that had been planned for sometime, but I was holding us off of doing until we had the funds and time to fix it after. Previously, it was pitifully small and abhorrently decorated. Well - they pushed up the time line on me and in so doing, I lost two counters from my kitchen, leaving me only one, pitifully small counter top which is constantly covered in dishes. My drive to cook/bake evaporated. But now, with the install of my new cabinets only 3 weeks away, I guess I'm getting excited again and my desire came back.

(The Remains of my kitchen)

So last night, I tried to make a lemon souffle. I found the recipe a couple months back and I know, it's an ambitious project. Well, it worked - sort of. The top was beautiful but for some reason the bottom didn't set. I'm not sure if the hot water bath was too high? I left it in for an extra twenty minutes because it kept wiggling. But I had to take it out when the top started browning too much. It was lovely from the top, the knife came out clean and it had risen a full inch. But I left it to cool for 5 minutes and when I came back, it had sunk back down which was the first sign. It still tasted pretty good - kind of like a liquid lemon meringue pie. J at least tried it which is nice. I tried baking it again after just to set the bottom, which sort of worked but it still never rose back up. I will try again one day but after I work up my courage again. For now, I'll stick with easier options.

On another note, I finished the stocking that I mentioned in the first post (Yay!) and am now trying to finish one of my UFO which any stitchers will know of as Un-Finished Objects. It's an image of a Pegasus and it's actually working up a lot faster than I anticipated. So perhaps it will be finished soon too!