Have I ever told you about my spinach and cheese rolls (a.k.a. Diana-Ring. srsly.) encased in croissant bread. It was a hit from the 2nd Annual Christmas Party of 2009 but a friend did mention that it needed to be flakier. So, last night, after inspiration struck, I embarked on a quest of self-improvement and better eats.
Last Christmas (I gave you my heart…na na na naa..), I used those ready-made Pillsbury Crescents, so flakiness was absent- dough that comes out of a can shall not be trusted to deliver quality, ever. Today, I wanted to make homemade dough, which required the use of yeast to make the bread rise. Having done a few biology labs in high school and university using yeast, I thought: How hard can it be?! Answer: Not hard at all. Really, easy. Assuming, of course, that you actually use yeast. Unlike me. Who mistook beef broth powder for dry yeast. Yes, you read that right. BEEF BROTH POWDER, IN BREAD. You can go ahead and laugh out loud, I sure did. And so did my mom. She tried very hard not to laugh too much, bless her, but I really won’t blame anyone for pointing and laughing. It truly was my biggest baking blunder, yet.
What a disaster! I was trying to make puff pastry, which required laminating the butter so that we can make layers and layers and layers of flaky goodness. It meant I had to fold the dough to enclose 1 cup of butter (blocks flattened to look like a sheet), flatten, fold, flatten, fold, flatten, fold and flatten. By the second flattening, the butter had oozed out of my dough, and all over the kitchen counter. SUCH A MESS. 1/2 of the butter probably ended up in the garbage, and the other half oozed out in the oven. I don’t know how WebJoe07 and Mr. Pino Ficara do it so well. Oh right, they’re actually chefs. WebJoe07 is even a pastry chef.
That said, it doesn’t taste too bad! And it’s not too ugly to look at, right? I mean, it’s food. Who cares if it really looks like a big, brown.. pile… of things…
The day was not a bad day at all. I learned. Hopefully, my mom also learned that if she wants her children being non-idiots, she needs to idiot-proof the house. Labels will help. We are not as smart as you might hope we are. (I can’t imagine living in my own house. In all likelihood, I will wist away and die of starvation. That OR, I’ll just revert back to eating at home.)
Lastly, here’s something beautiful I saw today:
It’s just the pantry door, at 6 o’clock, while the sun was setting. I’ve been living in this house for 5 years and I can’t believe I’ve never notice this happen.