Posts tagged learning

I finally bought some plastic pastry bags and decided I’d teach myself to use them (also, there’s some tutorials online). I had previously been using this plastic thingy that looks like a wide syringe, but it only holds enough frosting to frost 3 cupcakes and I know you are more in control with a pastry bag and it was time for a change.

I may not be doing it right, but I LOVED it! Not having to reload every couple of cupcakes was so wonderful and I started to get the hang of it while frosting the 48 mini cupcakes.

I used a little star tip and made simple swirls, but now I can’t wait to watch some more how-to videos. Any recommendations?

I got a lot out of the 2 hour demo and I’m sure I’ll learn a lot more from the book. But here are a just few things that I took away/learned/new things to think about:

• Don’t let baking intimidate you. 
• Measure everything first. Something I do occasionally because it makes me feel like I’m on a cooking show but that she highly recommends. She also recommends weighing your ingredients because how much you put in a measuring cup, or if what you’re measuring is sifted or the way you look at the measurement line can vary. This is not something I will be doing anytime soon, but interesting to think about. 
• If you can take the butter and bend it, then it’s at room temperature. 
• The reason why the unsalted butter selection at the supermarket is smaller and generally more expensive is because the shelf life is much shorter (salted butter lasts much longer). 
• Always use unsalted butter when baking AND add salt. Using unsalted butter is important because each butter manufacturer uses a different amount of salt, so you don’t know how much you’re starting with. Also, always add salt (not necessarily a lot). But just like you add salt when cooking, because it enhances flavors.
• When rolling out dough, if it is properly/fully chilled it won’t pick up any extra flour, so you don’t need to worry about it.
• Use a large (16”-18”) pastry bag. The other ones are simply too small “unless you’re only decorating one cupcake.”

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…It’s not burnt or disgusting, but there’s something about it that makes me feel like something’s not right. I don’t want to throw it out because that’s wasteful. So I will still bring it to work (usually) and say “it’s not my best” or “I made cookies but they’re not very good.”

I was really excited about making a Red Velvet something to bring to school (that’s where I work) for Valentine’s Day. I found a recipe for Red Velvet Whoopie Pies on Smiling Fork and was really excited about it. I’ve never made whoopie pies before or a red velvet anything from scratch and I think this is the first time I used a recipe from Smiling Fork. 

Things to learn by/what I think went wrong:

1. There was a discrepancy between Baking POWDER and Baking SODA (one was listed in the ingredients and the other was called for in the directions), I looked up a couple other red velvet recipes and found a happy medium, or so I thought. 
2. I think the butter was too soft.
3. I didn’t use enough red food coloring.
4. Not that I think you HAVE to have a stand up food mixer with a paddle attachment if the recipe calls for it, but I don’t, so that’s all I’m saying about that.
5. The cookies are a weird consistency and don’t taste like much.
6. I tried using a cookie press to shape the cookies but the thing just wouldn’t push (it’s battery powered, I’ve never used it before and didn’t know what I was doing).
7. The frosting: Not enough cream cheese and too much sugar. And too much frosting left over.

I made a bigger mess than usual. I’m still clueless on certain things, but I know some ways to make it better in the future. I’m learning, I’m learning, I’m learning. Pictures to come.

….this whole Cora-bakes-a-lot and blogs about it deal. Especially when I have a baking blunder. Especially when I have more than one at once. 

I’m going to a brunch tomorrow so I decided to make a brunch-y baked thing. I found a recipe for Cardamom Crumb Cake which called for these things

I didn’t actually know what cardamom was before seeing this recipe and am not sure if I just don’t like it, or if something else wrong happened. It has a very strong taste and I checked the recipe many times and I didn’t put too much in but I thought the whole thing would have been sweeter. Also, the recipe calls for a bundt or roll pan, (I have neither) so I used a square pan and also a bread loaf pan. 

Also, this happened

Some of it just fell off when I was transferring it to a plate. Not only am I not sure if it’s yummy enough to serve, but also, I’ve made a mess.