#114 - Adventures in cookery...

In which not all attempts at adapting recipes are successful

I didn't want to have to convert ratios from my lemon and white chocolate mousse recipe so after some consultation with a few friends, I used a white chocolate ganache recipe...

The result:  Disaster!  The ganache was fine but not enough lemon (so it was sickly sweet).

Trying to make it not look boring by adding cocoa powder to the short crust pastry - which looked ok, but placing the lined tart mould on a tray to bake instead of directly on the wires resulted in an undercooked pastry shell - just on the very bottom. I  didn't realize what had happened until after I had filled the tarte and the tartelettes.  And sticking it in an over for an extra 5 minutes?  Well, no - the chocolate boiled (which isn't good) and the shells still weren't cooked.  So tick that off the list of potential fixes.  The thing with pastry is, after a certain point, you can't fix it unless it is a cosmetic error.

Making raspberry coulis from frozen berries?  Bad idea.  4 layers of muslin and a super-fine sieve only took out most of the seeds.  The seeds left over seemed fine - but trying to pipe it when the seeds clog up the tiny little hole in your piping bag, then all burst out in a big clump, ends up looking something like this (see right).  Trying to disguise the disaster didn't work so well either and everything ended up in the kitchen rubbish.  Lesson learned: don't put your tarte cases on a tray to bake if you don't have to!  (Yes, I can see there's shrinkage in the tarte cases...)

Travels with friends
There was also a trip to Adelaide, South Australia.  Overnight trip and one of the weirdest time zone changes ever (30 minutes).  I happened to love it but what's not to love when you're partying with friends?  And eating.  Lots and lots of eating.  Exemplar of a typical dish at any cafe / restaurant - trio of dips (beetroot, hummus and baba ganoush for this one) - suitable for the vegetarians.  The others ordered drinks and I ordered...this.

Also - glow chairs!  Fun party and we were all in our pretty clothes in a pretty city - uncrowded, unpolluted...

They call Adelaide the City of Churches - I was only there overnight the sound of church bells each time they rang didn't get old.

I've been told there isn't much in Adelaide and perhaps there's more to be seen (certainly surrounding regions are well known for wine and good food) - well, there's always next time!