It's been a productive weekend.... my niece's birthday party, yoga on Parliament Hill, celebrating JP's birthday, shopping, cleaning, organizing photos from our BC trip, and striking three things off my list. Three very unrelated things.
First off: Horseback riding. I've always wanted to ride a horse! There's a picture of me and two cousins riding an elephant from back when we were all single digits but i'd never been on a horsie. One of the lemons, AM, organized a trail ride for me, LVL, and GL. It was great! we got up super early this morning and headed out to Pinto Valley Ranch. I rode Geronimo, the sweetest, slowest little horsie and I wasn't afraid of him at all! Sure, that first trot kind of freaked me out, but the second and third were really fun! and my adductors don't hurt as much as my sitz bones. Woah. Anyway, we had a blast! I was smiling from ear to ear. After a pogo lunch at their restaurant, we all tried our hand at lassoing. I lassooed. Lassoed? I did it.
Nextly: I showered to get the horsey smell off me, called SG and went to the Chateau Laurier for High Tea. I've always wanted to go for High Tea and have heard only amazing things about it. Tiny sandwiches and tarts, scones..what's not to like? So far, everything seemed right up my alley. But for some reason, I'd never been. The tea was delicious (a spicy chai, finally!) and the scones were warm and freshly baked (our server got the kitchen to make us new scones because the other ones had sold out), the sandwiches were tiny and gorgeous (smoked salmon was my favourite), and the teeny tiny fruit and custard tart was the perfect ending. The Boy was there, it clearly wasn't his type of activity, but he came because he loves me. And even when SG and I got girly and chatted about girly things, he just pretended not to listen and played on his phone. I had fun! And I've done it! And now I know I can do it at home for cheaper and with better food. Not the scones though, those are ridiculous to make. It's so hard to get them light and fluffy.
Finally: the profiteroles. I'd made them before with great success in anticipation of one day doing the stacking to make a big tower. Here are some handy baking tips for those of you who plan on making one of these in the future:
- plan on making them all in one day. it will take several hours, but the pastry kind of gives out in a day, so you need to work quickly.
- work quickly. enlist a friend or three.
- use a magic bullet. wtf is up with the dough? it just gets all gloopy. GROSS. the magic bullet is a life saver.
- pipe quickly. they will spread out so hurry up!
- watch the progress with the oven light. if you take them out too soon, they will fall flat. who wants to eat a flat cream puff? they are no longer puffs then, they're more like cream pitas. or cream pupusas.
- no, putting the fallen cream puffs back into the oven will not make them rise.
- have many pans. if you have to reuse the pans, don't stack the warm puffs on top of each other. the beautifully golden round puffs will deflate and you will have a stack of flattened puffs.
- use a toothpick to gouge a hole in each puff so that you don't have to rip a hole with your piping tip.
- use freshly whipped cream. if you whip the cream and then leave it in the fridge overnight, you will have to rewhip it.
- for 8x the kraft canada recipe, you will need 1L worth of whipped whipping cream. Thanks to The Boy for running out to get an extra 500 ml container.
- pipe quickly. those things do not stay crisp forever, and start their expiry as soon as the moisture of the whipped cream hits them.
- prepare your caramel mixture and DO NOT WALK AWAY. and when you dip it in the ice bath afterwards, it's just a quick dip, not a rest. instead of reheating your caramel, start over. if you reheat it, you will get a gooey mess that sticks to your teeth.
- dip the profiteroles into the mixture and then stick them together. don't use a chopstick to apply caramel. i thought it would be a good method, but dipping is so much better. do use a chopstick to do the decorative caramel swirly bits.
- since you did it all in one day, it will be fresh enough to eat.
- have a plan as to what to do with the croquembouche. who will eat it? who would you like to serve it to? if the caramel is rock hard and the pastry is wilting, what is your contingency plan?
- if you want a free croquembouche, please let me know ASAP. it needs to be picked up tomorrow morning before I go to work. it's just not going to last very much longer.
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