Hobbies and interests of Carly Gooch
My Grandma recently took a trip to dubai and europe. My dad and uncle convinced her to take a camera.
Grandpa was the one who used to take photos so this is my Granny’s first time with a camera.
A special hello to my cousin Samantha – Granny said you read my blog 
A couple of day’s late for daring bakers but mum’s party was today and a croquembouche doesn’t keep. I woke this morning to a cold rainy day… not great for pastry, caramel or pizza dough. I started the day planning out all the timings to have everything ready by lunchtime. Unfortunately the oven didn’t agree with my timings and seems to be refusing to get to and hold heat at anything over 200deg C. My oven also doesn’t have a window so checking the status of items also loses heat.
The choux pastry did not behave as well as my two batches the other day. By three eggs it was looking the same as the previous batches consistency at 4. Therefore I only added 1/2 of the last egg. I think this saved them from being a disaster. The piping was a lot better with a nice open tip and the first lot that went into the hotter part of the oven went perfectly. 1/2 of the other tray spread out and only puffed slightly. These were at the top front, coldest part of our oven. I’m tempted to halve the recipe and try with only one tray in the oven at a time.
The custard went smootly. So far I’ve been really lucky with custard. I’m sure the one day that it is critical that it works, i’ll stuff something up. I’m looking forward to trying again with some variations on flavour.
Assembly was left to after lunch due to everything else taking a longer to cook. By this time the kitchen was full of pizza toppings, dirty dishes etc but I was determined to try to make the croquembouche structure. I used my dolly varden cake pan to assemble the structure in.
I still had heaps of fun and it was enjoyed by all. It was very small but it actually was the perfect amount for the number of people.
The perfectionist in me wants to try again, the realist in me knows that it isn’t likely with the number of other things I’m meant to be doing.
I’m going to be a day late for my daring baker’s challenge as the challenge will be the ‘birthday cake’ for my mum’s birthday tomorrow.
As I had never made profiteroles before, here are a couple of pictures of my trial run, gladly consumed by my workmates.
The trial run went pretty smoothly. Pastry right consistency, custard delicious etc. The only thing that really needed improving was my ability to pipe them, but now I have a better tip that will fit into the right sized piping bag so things should go a lot smoother tomorrow. Oh and I forgot to egg wash the first batch too.
Sammy needed a draw string bag for daycare to hold sheets etc. Mum’s sewing machine being broken, so she came up here and between packing for Bondi and polishing off my presentation, we whipped up the following bag. Once I’m back from webdu, I’ll put together something cooler. I’ll see if he likes it Wednesday when seeing us off at the airport.
The pumpkin I was cooking the other day tasted lovely so I decided to plant the seeds. It was a really quick plant and forget until today when I noticed I had 22 seedlings growing. We really don’t need 22 pumpkin plants but I’m sure some will grow stronger than others, especially if I continue giving them very little attention.