Look at me! While ranting about trying to lose weight, losing a ring and other mundane stuff I forgot to mention about my winnings in Vegas. Ooh yes, baby, I won, gambling in Vegas. To tell you the truth, I did not forget but I was in a double mind to mention it- since I do not want to endorse gambling on such a public forum (yes, yes I am the morally right kind of person 😉 ). So why mention today. Well, the reason why I mention it today is that I put my winnings into buying a new cookbook! Well, its funny because I remember telling V before leaving for Vegas that I’ll only play for enough money to buy this cookbook that I had been eyeing for some time now (people gamble for the enjoyment, to pay debts, buy drinks, while I play to buy cookbooks 🙂 ) . And that’s exactly what happened! I won only enough to buy me that book. This was destiny. That book was in my destiny! God wanted me to have it. So even though I just played twice on the slot machine- the moment I hit my target amount I immediately encashed it. No, this time I was not going to be greedy.
A few days back, the book (that I bought from my hard earned money), arrived in a shipment from Amazon. Happy and excited, I opened the package, and behold the beauty! There it lay Sarabeth’s Bakery From My Hand to Yours Sarabeth’s Bakery: From My Hands to Yours
It was on my bed side table that night, and I read through the first few pages and instantly knew I made a good decision in buying this book. The book is designed with elegant simplicity. Her tips and techniques are what makes this book worth buying. I do wish though she had included the recipe for her famous orange-apricot marmalade that kick started her career.
Yesterday I chose to try Sarabeth’s version of Puff Pastry.
As Sarabeth describes:
With countless amazingly, thin, buttery layers that shatter when bitten into, puff pastry is the classic layered dough.
The secret to Sarabeth’s dough is that she uses heavy cream instead of water. Ok! I know what you thinking- “heavy cream! Wasn’t it fatty enough with the butter! “. But Sarabeth believes that the added butterfat from the heavy cream gives the pastry another dimension of flavor and crispiness. Hmmm.. It just means I have to gym harder!
You can use puff pastry in a number of things. It can be used in making palmiers, tarts, mille-feuille. I will be using it to make Apple Turnovers to send to V’s office. (That’s why I am not too worried about the butter and the heavy cream going in the dough- as long as I don’t have to eat them all!)
PUFF PASTRY 101
The dough should be made at least 2 days before using. It has two parts the D’etrempe and the Beurrage