Baked Goods Sunday

Actually I didn’t bake that much today.  We ate loads of baked goods though.

I’ve come to realise that I really really like baking.  The way I feel for baking is different from how I feel about cooking in that if I screw up my cooking I get really frustrated and grumpy and kind of resent doing all that preparation work to produce a piece of crap at the end of it whereas if my baking goes wrong I just feel a bit disappointed but curious as to why it didn’t come out right.  More often than not I’ll seek advice as to what I’m doing wrong and attempt the recipe again.  Cooking is more of a stressful activity for me whereas I bake for fun!  Perhaps after Di wins Australian Masterchef she can open a restaurant where she does all the dishes and I’ll chip in with desserts!  Hahaha.

Don’t those vine tomatoes look gorgeous?  I was surprised to find them at our regular supermarket because the tomatoes there are normally anaemic to the point of greenness and aren’t very sweet.  For really good tomatoes I have to go to a really cheap supermarket which has a fantastic fresh fruits and vegetables section.  That’s all I ever buy from there, nice fruits and veg and nothing else because all their brands aren’t what we’re used to and I’m a creature of habit.  Haha.  Oh actually I also get salami and potato salad from there.  They have lovely potato salad.

I bought some ready made puff pastry sheets recently and had to use them up before they went off so for breakfast today I made balsamic vinegar pancetta (Italian cured meat) and vine tomato puff pastry slices.

They turned out very tasty.  I prepared them with tomato puree and some chopped garlic on the base and they turned out perfect.  Puff pastry sheets are fantastic!  They’re so convenient and easy to use.

After our puff pastry slices GM and I had dessert.  The bread rolls were bought pre-prepared – all I had to do was bung them in the oven for 10 minutes and they came out brown, crispy and hot.  Another fantastic item!  I’m never buying pre-baked baguettes again; why have cold baguette when you can do this in 10 minutes and have hot rolls?  I love these rolls.

But the real star of the pic isn’t the bread rolls….. it’s that jam next to it.  GM’s uncle came over recently remember?  Before he came over he asked me what I wanted from Paris and I said I wanted some jam, specifically those made by Christine Ferber whose jams are world renowned.  I had to limit myself to three jars since I didn’t want to impose too much on his luggage allowance but now I wish I’d asked him to buy more.

Because this jam is everything I’ve heard and more.

Out of the three jars I chose to open the Confiture Ispahan which Christine Ferber makes for Pierre Herme, a really famous French pastry chef.  The Confiture Ispahan is lychee, rose and raspberry flavoured and previously even though I knew Pierre Herme’s signature macaron was the Ispahan I’d had no desire to try it since I dislike raspberries and don’t much care for rose.  However, most of the foodie blog writers I read seem to love it so I thought “Okay, let’s see if it’s really that good” and got GM’s uncle to buy me the jam (since it would have been quite hard for him to not sit on the macaron coming over on the train haha).

Well the jam.  I don’t even know how I can do it justice with my words.  I don’t think I can.  It was exquisite.  Not gloopy and over gelatinous like your bog-standard jam but smooth and light.  I could have almost drunk it like a soup.  And the flavours: I never knew lychee, rose and raspberry would go together so well.  On first taste the lychee was strongest but later on the raspberry came through with a subtle hint of rose.  It was so beautiful I nearly sank to my knees in thanks.  Well okay that’s a bit much but you get the picture.  Haha.  It was certainly moreish; each swallowed mouthful left me with such a delicate hint of fine, fruity fragrance that it made me feel like I needed to have another, just to seek out the different notes again.  But invariably I’d swallow the next mouthful too quickly to really do the jam justice and would need to have another.  And another.  And another.

You know a food is good when after eating it the first thing I think is, “Jo and Di need to try this”.  And this is exactly what I thought this afternoon.  Unfortunately, I can’t bring food into Australia!

Later on in the evening I decided to bake a cake.  Just for fun.  Remember the strawberry cake I made recently?  This is the blueberry version.

This cake turned out even better than the strawberry one but my fruit sank to the bottom again.  I will be making this again soon to try out a new method I’ve learnt to prevent fruit from sinking.

From tomorrow onwards I will be back on my healthy eating plan.  I’ve made some exciting plans recently and need to shape up!

Food Diary

Brunch – Pancetta and vine tomato puff pastry slice

Dessert – One wholemeal bread roll and one mutigrain bread roll with butter and that gorgeous jam……

Dinner – Thai green curry with rice.  I made another curry because this is GM’s and my favourite dish of the moment.  Today’s was vegetarian though.  Very good but spicier than the ones I’d made previously!

Dessert – Two slices of my very gorgeous blueberry cake.  We ate it warm this time and it was really really good.  I love this cake.

Drinks – English tea, water

Exercise – None!

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We did nothing today!  Nothing at all! :)

We spent all day watching tv and vegetating in the living room.  We also did three loads of laundry but that doesn’t count because laundry isn’t taxing at all when there are two people sharing the task.

We didn’t bother to cook nor stay healthy and ordered in all our food.

It feels so good to have a completely ridiculous and irresponsible day.  I feel so rested.

I love my life today :) ♥