Week 11

Wow I really kind of dropped the ball last week. I was pretty much having a constant allergy attack all week long and only ended up cooking a few easy meals. I did however get to visit my grandma and she gave me a few gardening tips and I helped her prune her garden and weed it a little. This week was also pretty light in cooking but overall I think I came across some new landmarks and improved

Tuesday- For the first time I tried going for one of the dishes that was under the difficult category and ended up selecting Tiramisu, which actually didn’t turn out being too difficult to make but I just had to be careful and my mom helped me out a little. The recipe was broken down into three sub sections of separate items that need to be made then combined towards the end which is pretty fancy to me. I guess you could say that this was my first multipart meal even though it took under an hour to make. The first step was to make the ladyfingers portion of it. It required 6 eggs, separated, 1/4 cup sugar (2 xs), 1 cup cake flour, and melted butter. First job was to whip the egg yolks and once they started to peak add in ¼ cup of the sugar and then whip them some more until they returned to medium peaks. From previous experience I learned to add the sugar very slowly when whipping or else the whipped eggs won’t rise anymore and you end up just creating a bunch of mush. They directions were very specific about sifting the flour a few times so that it was very light and airy before measuring it out and the funny thing is I remember learning this from the home ec class in Stanley. Then I was to fold the two together and spread the batter into a baking tray. The lady fingers took about 10 minutes to cook and they came out to be a beautiful golden brown but they didn’t taste nearly as good as the ones you buy somewhere else like star bucks. The instructions said that these can be made up to two weeks in advance before making the Tiramisu and some users commented that this actually makes it taste better. I have noticed the same thing in crepes but with crepes you let the batter sit for a few days before making them. Next I was to make the Mascarpone which is cheesy cream that is made from 6 egg yolks, 1 cup sugar, 1/4 cup Marsala, 1/4 cup brandy, 2 pounds mascarpone cheese. We substituted a few of these because we didn’t have any but I think the same gal was reached. First I whisked together the yolks and the sugar. Then I added the alcohols and placed it over a double boiler on low until it reached a thick paste. It smelled really good surprisingly. The thick paste is called sabayon. In this recipe I had to look a lot of the French words because they were new cooking terms to me. Next I was supposed to cool it over an ice bath but I just stuck it in the freezer and it turned out fine. Once it was room temperature I whipped the cheese into it and it was ready to go. There was also an express syrup portion but I ended up skipping that because I knew my sister wouldn’t like it. Now it was a simple matter of layering the ladyfingers and the Mascarpone Cream until I had a nice looking dessert. I had some in Italy that tasted quite different and used nuts and honey so I think I’ll try to incorporate that next time. My mom made some coffee to go with hers and it was a hit. We also ended up pouring some honey and some chocolate shaving onto the top as suggested by one of the comments.

And this is all I really did this week. It was a new step in cooking as it was a dish consisting of multiple parts buts I really just haven't been in the mood lately because of my allergies.