Kerry Beal

Canuck Sazarac for Anna - sadly I'm on call and can't join her.

So I got called in to the ER last night for a rather nasty accident - rug rat was not even in her PJ's yet. I was there for about 3 hours over my prime baking time. So this morning I used up the last container of half price sour cream to make another sour cream coffee cake. This time I remembered to put the baking powder in the cake part - it made for a much loftier product.

Lisabeth yesterday introduced us to a whole new baking world that we had not been aware existed - that of piecaken. Does for baking what turducken does for roasting. Apparently last year there was a Manitoulin Piecaken festival - might have to change our dates up here so we can attend the next one.

I am - of course - in! And interested in a masters class for sure.

Not quite - though that is brilliant! Actually pasta and whatever can be found to go wif it!

Spaghettini and wif it.

Eeyore's Requiem

It's looking a bit brighter now but this is what we woke to. Little baby stroopwaffle dipped in milk chocolate. Crunchy dried apple chip and crushed werther candy bark. Milk and dark chocolate with maple sugar flakes. Candied ginger in dark. Gummie bums.

I've made raspberry honey before which was very satisfactory.

I'm a big fan of Chocolot's suggestion - using fondant to make more fondant. I cook the syrup (called a bob syrup) to 115 or 118 C depending on the use - then cool down to about 60 C before adding the old fondant to seed the bob.

So in the spirit of the test kitchen - tonight it was gummies (not bears however - with the molds I bought inexpensively they look more like gummie bums). A few mistakes were made - leaf gelatine - you should separate each leaf before soaking - really hard to pull 4 leaves apart when wet and stuck firmly together. Forgot to add the tartaric solution at the end - so the flavour doesn't pop as well as it might. However they are made of black current which does declare itself. Tomorrow I shall unmold and perhaps coat with some sour sugar.

Lamb chops - sous vide then BGE, roasted spuds with schmaltz in steam oven.

Tonight - Negroni for Anna, homemade G&T for me.

Realize I hadn't yet shown you the shelf that we are using for the liquor this year. Picked up the wire shelving at the Flee Market - found some boxes there yesterday that help hold the bottles securely on the wire.

My lunch as it looked before it hit the carpet - toasted bun, cheese, bacon, tomato and mayo.

You may ask - but you may not get a correct answer - I just put them in and took them out when I was ready for them. Suspect it was around 20 minutes. Temp was 210F.

Added probably 2-3% extra cocoa butter - whipped in TMX for about 30 minutes at speed 3 with whisk (butterfly) in place. So first attempt - cooked for 12 minutes - too loose, back in for another 4 minutes or so - still too loose - back in cooling oven for about 10 minutes.

Raspberry breakfast bars use a pound. Blueberry Crumb Bars work well with 4 cups of raspberries instead (or a combination).

Experiment under way over here.

This evening I've been playing with the l'ambroisie chocolate tart under discussion in this thread. Mixed the eggs and sugar for most of 30 minutes in the thermomix (or until the power went off) - then mixed in the ganache that I had tempered. Now due to my chronic inability to follow directions (the pastry recipe was for two tarts and was to have been refrigerated for 24 hours) I ended up with pastry that could be used as a doorstop. It also provided wonderful insulation against the heat in the oven for the filling. So the 12 minutes did absolutely nothing towards cooking the filling I'd say. So now I had leftover filling that was to have filled the second tart (the pastry of which was insulating the first tart) - Anna suggested the phyllo that was in the fridge left over from the burek. Much more interesting texture - I baked this one about 4 minutes more. I put tart number one back in the oven for 5 minutes - still too oozy - but after letting it sit for another 5 or so in the cooling oven - the filling seemed perfect. Sadly the pastry didn't improve!

For work tomorrow I made Fruit Crumble Bars with the raspberries and blueberries.

I add a little lemon oil to the batter and usually use plain sugar (if I remember to sprinkle with sugar)!

While we were enjoying a glass of vin de peche with Kira's sitter - the sky to the north started to look a little spooky. Then a little spookier - and the air got cold - Then it lightened up - but it didn't get warm! We did have a power outage for a few minutes - right at a critical cooking point! A caipirinha for Anna and I before dinner - actually Anna snacked - and I just realized now that I didn't have dinner.

Stopped in at the grocery store on our way home - and guess what we found - right on Manitoulin? Mussels - so there is hope Tri2Cook!

After lunch we stopped in at Tracy's to pick some raspberries. Tracy and her hubby live on the water - a property zoned for farming - they have a couple of horses. And raspberries!