Tag Archives: experimental

Eclairs & Bacon Scones

I don’t have pictures since I lent my camera to a friend of a friend in need of video-recording capabilities…

But last night I made bacon and ham scones (both with swiss cheese) and eclairs. And damn they were delicious. Every single lump of fat and carbs.

For the scones, I followed the Peppered Pear and Goat Cheese Scone recipe from the book Savory Baking. I had to use a little more milk since swiss cheese is less spreadable than goat cheese, but it worked out well. Flakey and full of piggy goodness.

For the eclairs, I followed this recipe for the dough and this one for the pudding and the chocolate. But, a couple notes (mostly to myself, like most of this blog) —
1. Small eclairs are easier to make crispy, but use a proper pastry bag for piping.
2. That pudding recipe results in pudding that still tastes a bit like corn starch, find a new one
3. Straight pudding is too heavy, a mix of half half whipped cream and pudding is delicious
4. The chocolate glaze on that is very chocolatey, maybe a little too dark. Try adding some milk chocolate instead of all semi-sweet.

Clearly, it’s time for eclair science. Hopefully with pictures.

Also, the original recipe for the Peppered Pear and Goat Cheese Scones is pretty good. I mean, it’s so good I made scones twice in two days. And I usually hate scones.

Dinosaur Cookies

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Over the last two nights Danielle and I have made some pretty awesome (at least to look at) cookies. Dinosaurs-who-eat-children cookies! It’s actually three dinosaur shaped sugar cookies glued together with icing. The center one has a hole cut in it to hold the contents of the dinosaur’s stomach. In this case, upon CH’s suggestion, sour patch kids — since everyone knows dinosaurs eat children! Roar!

Adapted from this guide.

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Make some colored blobs of dough.

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Carefully make a block of dough in stripes. Freeze it overnight.

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Slice it into sheets. Then bake it.

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Quickly, before the cookies cool and they get hard to cut, use a dinosaur cookie cutter on them. Also, a circle to cut out their stomachs. Carefully assemble them with royal icing. Two whole dino cookies + one with a cut out stomach in the middle

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Fill their bellies with sourpatch kids.

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Let them sit for 30 minutes to dry before standing them up. It might be helpful to flatten them gently since the dinosaurs probably aren’t perfectly flat but be careful not to break them.

Buddha’s Hand

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I’m not sure why this fruit is named Buddha’s Hand and not… lets say… Cthulu fruit or monster’s hand, but it is. It’s also delicious. I adopted this one from work, it was part of a display of avocados at the end of day on Friday and it was starting to feel a wee bit squishy, as citrus tends to as they enter old age. So this Buddha’s hand was adopted.

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Then candied. Nom. The fruit is all skin and pith, no actual ‘flesh’ — but the pith, unlike most citrus, isn’t bitter. I cut up the whole fruit, cooked it in 2 cups sugar/2 cups water, then let it out to dry. It didn’t quite crystalize as I’d hoped, but it’s still a great candied citrus flavor. Additionally, the sugar syrup it was cooked in is delicious — slightly tart, mostly fruity citrus. I’m looking forward to mixing it with some soda water for some Buddha’s Hand sodas. I drink weird things.