Food!!!

It was a weekend about food.

After last weekend's raising the kids in the daycare, I was so sleep deprived that I had put off baking for a whole week. The stress from my daywork only make my case more serious. However, by this Saturday I was all excited to bake again.

I woke up at 7am, a mere 5 hours of sleep after a I-don't-want-to-do-anything Friday night, thinking about making some bread. I must be crazy. I made some "tang zhong" ("65 degree" is another name) buns with Singapore shredded dried pork. I rolled the dough out to a long strip about 3 inches wide, brushed them with melted butter, spooned a layer of pork on top and rolled the dough up. I waited for a second proof and put them in the oven.

I thought I was clever to make good use of time and went out to the baking store for a short run in search for some specific items, only to know that a short ride of 5 mins turned to a 15 minute drive because of construction. Not only that the store did not have what I was looking for, when I got back to my kitchen the bread was a bit overcooked. I immediately took them out of the oven and brushed more melted butter on top to try to preserve the moisture.

Not to forget the Cakes: Classic to Modern class I had with Rita in the afternoon. We made St. Honoure with puff pastry, choux pastry, vanilla pastry cream and strawberries. It was the first time I make puff pastry. I have always known that the folding process is time consuming, but it never occurred to me that the baking part requires that much attention. Half way through the baking process, the pastry has to be taken out, flip over, press down and return to the oven. And when you have 6 big discs and 8 small discs to flip while the oven door was open waiting for you, the pressure was on. I burnt my left index finger during the flip. Ah well, not too bad, not to ruin my love of cakes!

The cake looks nice, not difficult to be a crowd pleaser when shown to your guests. The texture of the puff pastry could have been better though. I need more practice.

So what else?

When I say it's a weekend about food, I don't just mean Saturday, right?

Sunday started off with our usual weekly family gathering of brunch. We then had a 3 hour break and set off to the Taste of Danforth. Besides the usual Greek souvlakis, roasted corn and baklavas, there were a few rare finds like grilled lamb chops, quails, calamari and lamb liver wrapped with intestines. Since the weather was a mixed of rain and sun and cloud, it was not as crowd as usual and it was more fun to explore the stalls freely. It was a lot of fun going out with my cousins and we had a great time together. We should go back next year.