You read that title right, swans. Yep, as in the fancy pertyful bird, but don�t you worry, we didn�t bake a swan, we baked Filled Pate a Choux Swans.
But before we get to that, let�s catch up a little.
This girl right here is happy, happy, lately.
I�m full of free time, which means I get to read and read and read some more. It also means I�ve organized parts of my closet, volunteered with my Making Strides Against Breast Cancer team at a car wash and bake sale, and I�ve had days of TiVo time and days spent enjoying my Netflix subscription.
This brings us to the newest member of my electronic family, Shiny Pretty, my brand spankin new laptop.
On August 13th I was curled up in bed with my lovely teal laptop I�ve had for 4 years. Now Tealy, as we shall refer to him, has been having issues for the last year. There was the month in which he crashed daily. Then the next month of figuring out how to get him to recognize yes he did have a disc drive and yes it was attached. Most recently, he overheated constantly and became too hot to in fact, rest on my lap. I had to have him attached to his battery unless I wanted him to shut off in 30 minutes, and connected to a laptop cooler. So, on August 13th, he and I were chillaxing watching Buried via Netflix. I�d spent the better part of the day before defragmenting and getting rid of the 37 viruses that had popped up out of nowhere, so he was moving along quite nicely. 1 hour and 10 minutes into a movie just under 2 hours, the computer crashes.
I turn it back on and suddenly it doesn�t want to do anything. I force shut down, turn it back on again and pop into safe mode. I shut down 20 minutes later after clearing some junk away and double checking my virus situation. Turn my baby back on and get back to my movie. 20 minutes later, it crashes again. Now I�m a little panicky.
My previous laptop died a similar death. It suddenly had 0 memory and would shut down at random. In the end, it crashed up to 6 times a day. I got the computer back on and busted onto Dell�s website (my preferred brand) to price the laptop I�d picked out again.
As you may or may not know, I don�t make an enormous amount of money. I�m not destitute by any means, but I am 29 and living at home because I honestly can�t afford an alternative at this point. Someday, perhaps, but not currently, thus I have a list (surprise, surprise) of things I feel I need that I can�t currently afford. It�s my saving list. In other words, what I�m saving for. The list is ranked by priority and at the top, is not an upgrade for my laptop. At the top is the money needed for the trip I�ve booked for my birthday to Minnesota with a friend. Next is the money needed to go see my best friend in South Carolina because I am in serious need of both a road trip and some quality Brandi time. Third, is a laptop upgrade.
I took out my book and began running some figures. It came down to, if I�m financing a trip to MN, a trip to SC, and The Momma and I want to go to Tennessee summer 2013, there�s no way in hell I can afford a laptop that�s going to cost me some $1500 anytime soon. But, it certainly became a necessity.
When I was a youngin� I had a typewriter forever and I was cool with it. By 15, I was blogging from the library and slightly addicted to some things online related. I got my first computer at 18 and I haven�t looked back since. I am full on addicted to many things related to being able to get my booty online whenever I want. On top of that, Tealy held pictures from the last 4 years, music from the last 4 years, playlists, writing, comments from my professors through college. I needed a replacement.
So I sucked it up and applied for credit and in a total panicky impulsive moment. I purchased a brand spankin� new laptop, which I�ve currently deemed Shiny Pretty because she is in fact awful shiny and pretty.
Now, in that impulsive moment, I made sure to get the version of Microsoft Office I prefer for all my word processing needs. I also made sure the current versions of a few programs I enjoy would be included. Then I confirmed it all and hit submit order.
When my shiny pretty got here and I saw the line of lovely usb hookups, I realized, I was missing something quite important: a card reader. *sigh* this is what happens when you rush through a purchase.
I did order a card reader, but as of today, I do not have one and therefore, do not have pictures to accompany my entry. Don�t worry, I�ll share them when I get my card reader and can upload what�s on my camera. For now, you�ll just have to picture my cute lil flock of swans in your head.
Now that you have the backstory, onward to the baking!
Kat of The Bobwhites was our August 2012 Daring Baker hostess who inspired us to have fun in creating pate a choux shapes, filled with cr�me patisserie or Chantilly cream. We were encouraged to create swans or any shape we wanted and to go crazy with filling flavors allowing our creativity to go wild!
I will admit I was incredibly intimidated by this month�s challenge. Swans?! Seriosuly?! I had never in my life seen cream filed swans; I�d certainly never made them. I had been looking to try my hand at pate a choux though. I am a lover of a good cream puff and pate a choux is the pastry part of a cream puff.
So I set off to find recipes for fillings and get it going. The Momma decided she wanted the swans for her birthday dessert (we celebrated her birthday this past Saturday) as long as they had pastry cream in them. Lovely! Now I needed to make pastry cream too!? Ahhhh�.so many new things.
I let my inner freak out subside. I actually love trying out new recipes. It�s kind of a favorite thing. I tend to prefer new over making the same thing I made a month ago, unless it�s something I�m currently craving. (That craving right now is the yummy Peanut Butter Smore�s I�ve made a few times, sooooo good)
Friday after work, I headed out to grab a couple last minute ingredients and then set up to get baking. I tied on my apron (shoes!) and grabbed a pile of cookie sheets. I used the pate a choux recipe provided by Kat and set out to make poufy swan bodies and heads. The recipe was a little hard for me to follow. I�m a super specific step by step baker. I�m not the cleanest or the prettiest result baker, but I need step by step. The dough/batter seemed to come together pretty good and I grabbed my piping bag and piped out some gorgeous swan heads. I was proud of those babies! Then the bodies. I wasn�t sure if you piped them like you would when frost the top of a cupcake or how much batter needed to be there. So I did my best and guesstimated and chucked them in the oven. 12 minutes later, I took out 3 pans full of beautifully browned swan heads, and FLAT swan bodies.
Remember people, I was making cream puffs in the shape of swans. You can�t make a puff without a poufy body!
I was tired and discouraged but I set them out to cool and tried to think of a solution. Perhaps I could piece them together to look like swans? Maybe I could just make cream filled sandwiches, like an oatmeal cream pie, just pate a choux form.
I moved on to my first filling. I mentioned before, I love a good cream puff. I�m partial to the cream filled ones, while The Momma is all about the pastry cream filled, so I thought I�d make both.
I decided the Chantilly Cream recipe included with the challenge was close enough. It seemed like a sweetened whip with a fancy name.
Check it out:
Chantilly Cream
1 cup (225 ml.) cold heavy cream
2 tablespoons confectioners' (powdered) sugar
Chill medium mixing bowl and whisk in freezer for 10 minutes before beginning. In chilled bowl, whisk cream until it begins to foam and thicken. Add sugar and continue to whisk just until soft peaks form. Do not over-whip.
Freezing/Storage Instructions/Tips: While the cr�me filling stores well when covered tightly and kept in a refrigerator, the baked choux does not store well at all, especially after being filled. Therefore, you must eat these the day they are made. This won�t be a problem, though, I assure you.
Doesn�t that seem simple enough? Here�s the fun part, I�ve never made a whipped cream by hand. I got bored about 20 minutes in and just added the sugar and said screw it. The result: a delicious, loose cream. Ahhh well, it�ll pipe well, right?
At that point, it was 11:30pm, I was tired and figured I�d just do the pastry cream in the morning and figure it out. I took a few more pictures and went off to bed.
Saturday morning I decided I was ready for round 2!
I grabbed up the pastry cream recipe (find it here) and realized, this was a full recipe and instruction for cream puffs. I looked at the clock and decided I�d have enough time before our guests arrived to attempt this again from the beginning.
I gathered up the ingredients and set to make this pate a choux again. The ingredients were the same but the instructions were totally different. And then, I did one of the stupidest things I have ever done: I dropped half an egg, shell and all into a moving mixer!
Oh yah, the whole damn thing! Luckily, I came out of my �no I didn�t just do that fog� before the half an egg actually rolled under the beater and I salvaged the batter. I know, I broke a cardinal rule of baking, you�re supposed to dump it and start over, but I made sure I had no shell in there and continued on my merry way, laughing my ass off the entire time.
I piped these ones bigger and lo and behold, I ended dup with poufy bodies! Not a whole lot but still, success!
Next was the pastry cream. I have learned something about me, I hate stirring. I mean hate it. I get so annoyed waiting for something to boil when I know stirring it will just interrupt the boiling process. But alas, I stood and stirred, and I added all my stuff and egg yolks with barely any white, and everything. And let me tell you, that pastry cream was frikkin delicious.
I ran around cleaning and getting ready and then I put together my swans I like to think I had a flock of 7 that looked like swans, then I had the one that looked like a turtle, the one that exploded, the one that melted, and several that didn�t want to keep their heads on. I found that cutting up the puffs didn�t work my puffs so I just opted to fill the puffs like you would a standard cream puff (slit in the side and pipe into the hole) and just popped the neck in the hole.
All in all, I�d say after a hilarious bunch of blunders, the dessert came out lovely.
The Momma as well as the rest of the family really enjoyed them. I�d love to attempt the cream puffs again and some point.
Good stuff. Can�t wait to see what September has in store for me!
8:35 p.m. - Monday, Aug. 27, 2012