Tuesday, January 1, 2008

New Years Eve...

is always a lot of fun with my friend CR and I. It usually involves lots of food; this drink mixture of sparkling cider, and Monster energy drink; and some Law and Order. The night simply can't be better. So for this annual tradition we have going on I decided to make something a little more complicated and interesting than the usual chips and cookies. I took a previous Daring Bakers challenge that I've been dying to do. The Strawberry Mirror Cake. I am hesitant to put pictures up because it didn't go exactly according to plan... While making the Bavarian cream I let the gelatin sit for too long before incorporating the whipped cream... Yes, I know. There was a good amount of cursing from the kitchen right around then, let me tell you. So the cream was lumpy, it was kind of like having strawberry jam mixed with the whipped cream rather than having a nice strawberry, lovely pink cream. Oh well. It tasted OK. Also, after I poured the would-be mirror on top, it began to leak from the bottom a bit but I put it directly into the fridge and left it over night. I was so afraid about the out come of this cake...I had dreams about it all night! Some were about other members of my family putting things on top of the cake; and the jello top completely leaking out; or most of all, the mirror tearing when I took the sides off the pan! But at  last, when it came to it, everything went well. The mirror looked great, even if you could see a bit of the cream underneath too much.









Before I got ambitious enough to try this beast of a cake, I made something simple but tasty. An Apple-Custard Tart. 
Now I couldn't find a recipe that I really saw that had the same idea as mine exactly so I kind of just ran with what was in my head
. I first made a simple sweet tart crust, then worked with the apples. I essentially made the inside of an apple pie, but in a pan. Slice the apples thinly, then add cinnamon, sugar, and some other things I can't remember at this moment (ask me and I'll put the recipe up here) then I let it simmer until the apples got to the softness I had in mind. After the crust was done and sufficiently cooled, I arranged the apples in the tart then poured the custard on top. Then arranged some more apples on top, and coated everything with an apricot jam glaze. I'm not sure if the glaze was really necessary, but it wasn't offensive to the taste of the rest of the tart, so it didn't bother me. 
It isn't exactly the prettiest thing to look at but it tasted good enough. 

And tonight I get to ride on a bus for just about 12 hours back up to Montreal! Yay! Here's hoping I sleep the whole way!

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