comfort food: vanilla pudding

so many plans for this weekend! i wanted to try macarons finally, and make cinnamon buns, and do some sewing, and go for a hike now that spring is finally here and it is possible to go outdoors.

but: norovirus.

the kid and i were both hit at 5 o'clock friday morning. and that was that. we arefeeling a little better - no more vomiting - but still queasy, with sore achy legs. getting up the stairs is an insurmountable chore.

so, i did nothing. by saturday i was able to knit again, but that was it. after three days of not eating and not moving, i feel weak! time for some nutritious food. so i looked through my cookbooks, and found some recipes labelled "invalid cookery"...

... and decided to avoid them.

i ended up making a simple, old-fashioned vanilla pudding - easy to digest, but with some easy calories and protein to replace what we've been missing. and egg yolks are full of trace nutrients, so that helps too.

after looking at a bunch of recipes online, i went with the one from chow (martha stewart's was basically the same - but with twice the sugar and twice the cornstarch? blecch!) i think the word "easy" in the title kind of sold me.

i don't know if it's the cure, but it was a lovely afternoon break with a pot of tea! and now i have more egg whites for macarons. next week, maybe.

i also got a fair amount of work done on the sleeves of this cardigan. the question remains: will i run out of yarn? it's awfully close! i don't want to buy more, although my brain is already cooking up ideas for what to add to the order to get it up to the "free shipping" amount.

needs blocking obviously, but i'm pretty happy with the neckline.

easy vanilla pudding (from chow)

1/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp sea salt
2 tbs corn starch
2 1/4 cups milk
3 egg yolks
3 tbs butter (cut in pieces)
1 tbs vanilla

combine sugar, salt, and cornstarch in a small saucepan. whisk in 1/4 cup milk, whisking till smooth.

beat together egg yolks and remaining milk, and stir in.

cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it starts to thicken.

remove from heat; beat in butter and vanilla. beat till smooth.

strain into 4 individual ramekins. top with plastic wrap and chill 2 hours, or until firm.

cookies! brownies! croissants!

what a glorious weekend! we spent about half of it outdoors - there was an epic neighbourhood snowball fight - and half of it indoors. baking!

i made black bean brownies:

"wowbutter" cookies (aka peanut butter cookies made with a nut-free school-safe substitute):

and something i haven't made since i was a kid - butterscotch brownies!

they were so very very good that i'm certain we'll be making more soon.

finally, we made croissants!

or, to be more precise, we started making croissants. because they take a fair amount of time, including an overnight rest before the final rise.

i used to make croissants on a semi-regular basis, but it had been a long while. the dough was lovely to work with, so lovely and silky!

mmm, butter.

much rolling and folding went on. here's a look at the rested dough, ready to shape:

it's hard to see, but i brushed the centre of the circle with a little milk, in order to help glue the points in place. when i used to make these, back in the day, i remember them unrolling as they puffed up in the oven! the milk trick worked, thankfully.

they start out looking a little wormy...

... but puffed up nicely after an hour.

so tasty! so flakey! so doing this again!

croissants

1 cup tepid water or milk (or a mix of the two)
1 tsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp yeast
1 cup butter
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
egg beaten with milk for glazing

mix 3 tsp of the liquid with sugar and yeast and leave to sponge for 15 minutes.

sift together flour and salt, and rub in 2 oz butter. cut the remaining butter in small pieces.

add frothy yeast to remaining liquid and mix into flour. knead for 10 minutes.

roll into a rectangle about 10" x 20". dot 2/3 with half the remaining butter. fold dough in thirds, encasing the butter.

rotate 90 degrees, and roll, butter, and fold again as before.

fold again, then rest in the fridge for an hour.

roll and fold twice more, then let rest overnight in the fridge.

the next day, divide the dough in two. roll each piece into a large circle, turn over, and cut into 6 wedges. roll each up from the outside to inside, brushing milk on the point to help stik it in place.

curve into crescent shapes, place on greased sheet, and let double in a warm place.

brush with a mix of beaten egg and milk, and bake at 350f for 25 minutes.

another dress done!

another old project finished! this one i started in 2012. based on when samson met lila, but turned into a dress. got to wear it today!

buns!

i recently discovered a food blog called the woks of life, and fell in love! i want to make everything, everything. all of the yummy dim sum things. things i might previously have imagined to be impossible, but the recipes are refreshingly manageable.

too late for the lunar new year, unfortunately.

i decided the bbq pork buns (cha siu bao) would be first. i started with the recipe for chinese bbq pork (cha siu), which is so tasty we've just been snacking on the leftovers in the fridge non-stop.

the bread dough was something amazing. i used to make bread now and then, and then i lost the touch somehow and made bricks for a while until i gave up. then i discovered the new york times no-knead bread that everyone went crazy for a few years back, and had success with that, and started tiptoe-ing into the world of yeast again, mainly with our weekly pizza nights.

but this dough is something else, you start by making "tangzhong," which is something like a roux, and adding that to the flour along with the other wet ingredients. it also required 15+ minutes of kneading - making me realize just how out of shape i am! apparently getting zero exercise can interfere with baking, who knew.

the really tricky bit is forming the buns so that no filling escapes.

i pulled four points to the centre and sealed the edges...

... and then folded them in to the middle to make the buns nice and round.

will have to work on my technique - i did end up with a number of leaks, sadly!

but they still looked gorgeous and tasted amazing.

that said i do have a bit of an upset tummy today after three buns for dinner... and two for breakfast... and one for lunch...

long time no post!

can't believe it has been two months! whoops. time flies. there have been xmas dinners and pastries and ice cream cakes and a ninja pinata.

but what's got me finally around to posting again is the most arduous project i think i've ever done. i started it in 2010. i continued working in 2011 and 2012. i left it alone for months or years. but finally - the spring dreams dress is done!

the lacework is frost flowers - there are a few repeats at the hem, one at the sleeves, and a sort of triangular insert at the keyhole neckline. the i-cord bind-off keyhole tie neckline is kind of my favourite i think - feminine but still polished-looking. i did an i-cord drawstring belt thingy too, to try to discourage sagging and dragging. hope it works!

this was my inspiration - a dress pattern from the 1930s. kind of wish i'd made the sleeves a little poofier - but i was afraid they'd be too poofy!

holiday crunch time!

the end of december is almost here, and we haven't even sent out our cards yet, yikes!

but at least i got a pair of mittens made for the kid's teacher:

and volunteered in his class this morning making gingerbread houses (actually from graham wafers):

then i had to rush home to finish decorating 75 cupcakes. every year, i volunteer to bake cupcakes for one organization or another for their holiday party - this year it was for youth without shelter.

not even halfway through, my piping bag exploded! whoops.

this is why we always make extras! i added extra sprinkles to make up for the less-than perfect icing job.

i made a bunch of chocolate ones, too!

holiday madness!

getting ready for our holiday party tomorrow! baking baking baking. and cleaning. and organizing. ugh. thankfully, we have the best christmas recod ever: the tijuana trumpets "tijuana christmas party." it was repackaged with different cover art and artist names for sale - so i once accidentally bought a second copy of the same record. i gave it to a friend, who was eternally grateful!