...Deja vu, anyone? Yeah, me too. Somehow, out of a group of five friends, three of us have birthdays in March, within a few weeks of each other. Strange indeed.
Anyway, it was my friend's birthday last week. I decided to finally give in to the fact that I seem able to make fairly enjoyable foods, and just accept that that's my 'thing' now. It's taken me a while to come to terms with the idea that what I make could be enjoyable enough to actually be worth giving to people on its own. But I think I'm there. So if you're reading this, expect edible presents from now until whatever point in the future where I'm earning enough money to buy you what you actually want.
So, for this particular friend, I made two different things. The first was some chocolate truffles, and the second was some Danish pastries. I'll be posting proper write-ups of both of those in the next couple of weeks, but for now I'm just going to tantalise you with some photos.
The truffles were originally a back-up plan. I was pretty nervous about getting the Danish pastries right, because I knew I had to make them the day before, and that it was quite likely to go horribly wrong because I'd never tried it before. So in preparation I made chocolate truffles in case they ended up being the only present, because I knew they'd be fairly easy and probably wouldn't go badly wrong.
I got quite into the whole presentation thing, too. I found a box from a gift set of toiletries which was exactly the right size, and had a window in the top which looked really good. So I painted it, and painted a piece of cardboard to go in the middle between the layers too.
It was great fun, and I was chuffed with how it all looked by the end.
The Danish pastries were quite another matter. I was almost certain that they would turn out completely inedible. Pastry is notoriously difficult, laminated pastry even more so, and I had literally zero experience with making anything like that before. So I was highly doubtful, it was really more of an experiment to being with.
But they actually turned out pretty good. I mean, they weren't perfect, by any means. In fact I dread to think what a real expert would have said about my pastry. All in all though, I was really happy with them. To be honest, I was surprised that the yeast dough even rose - every time I made yeast bread, I still can't believe that it is going to double in size without me doing anything to it. It's like a miracle every time. And then when the pastry layers puffed up in the oven too, I was over the moon.
As I said, I'll write up the truffles and the pastries and get them up here as soon as I can.
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