The sorry roulade

One morning I was flicking through one of Mary Berry's recipe books when I came across a very attractive-looking roulade with delicious raspberries in it (I have a penchant for raspberries). A closer look at the recipe revealed that the roulade itself was made of meringue - I remember thinking to myself that I didn't think that it was possible to roll meringue.

I guess I should have known at that point that it was doomed to failure.

After a quick trip to Tesco to pick up some fruit I got the whisk out and prepared the meringue. That was fine. I popped it into the oven. I took it out. Lovely. Smelt delicious. I followed the instructions and turned it over. Almonds scattered across the table but it stayed in one piece. Slathered whipped cream and raspberries over it. Managed to avoid stealing raspberries. All good at this point.

And then I had to roll it. Now meringue is a strange substance. When you bake it the top goes all brown and crispy. It cracks when you poke it. When it's still hot it is all moist and gooey inside. Obviously I had let it cool for a while, thinking that maybe it would be fine but as soon as I started to roll, it fell apart. Deep crevices formed and parts of it started to cave in. Cream oozed everywhere. Almonds flew off. I managed to get it into a sort of roll and looked in despair at the sorry mess.

I wonder afterwards if it was some sort of April Fools recipe, and the photo was some sort of clever Photoshop affair. Or perhaps I made some crucial mistake. Maybe I'll never know :) Still, I did try the roulade before throwing half of it away. Well actually I ate all the raspberries and then threw it away - my mum rescued the other half and said that she'd have it for breakfast. It did taste nice at least!

Observe my first disaster:

Mini Chocolate Eclairs

Last week I decided to try making choux pastry for the first time ever. This is a must if you ever want to make profiteroles or chocolate eclairs. For the adventurous, Croquembouche is a tower of choux buns.

I have to say, that making the choux pastry itself was pretty easy. I wasn't entirely sure how big they should be when piping them onto the tray, but I think that they came out the right sort of size.

I was in a pretty foul mood whilst making these, it was the first time in a long while that I had tried baking at my parents place (where I am currently living). I spent ages trying to locate all the right equipment to discover that the electronic scales had run out of batteries, and that the measuring jug had gone missing. I then managed to pull out the very expensive Equilibrium scales that my brother had bought me some years ago only to then discover that I couldn't work out how to use them. It's a traditional type of scales with some lovely weights but it just didn't seem to be balancing correctly, no matter how hard I tried. Luckily I had a cheap backup pair of scales that didn't need batteries.
The measuring jug was found in the garden - my parents had used it for mixing cement. This is the sort of thing that happens in my house. My parents, particularly my dad has no clue about kitchen equipment despite being an amazing chinese chef. Baking is just not his area of expertise. I have this nice flan tin with a removable base that is now missing it's base because I suspect my dad threw it away. This tin is obviously now useless :( Anyway, I couldn't use this measuring jug and had to resort to using these measuring cups to approximate. *sigh*

I struggled a bit with the piping as I didn't have the correct nozzle so I made fewer eclairs than I had wanted. I think I ended up with about 10 or 11. When they were done in the oven, I took them out and placed them on a wire rack on the kitchen island and turned my back for about 2 minutes to pour some cream into a bowl. My parents were playing mahjong on the opposite side of the kitchen and I suddenly heard this voice pipe out 'These are a bit tasteless'.. 2 minutes! I looked round to discover that my mum had already eaten a plain choux eclair. *sigh*

Anyway, here is how they turned out in the end:



I have promised my old colleagues that I would make more and bring them in for a sample. I will be doubling the amounts this time!

Intro

22 days ago I resigned from my job as a manager of a small IT development team for a major UK bank. I am a Computer Science graduate, and for the last 7 years of my life I have worked in the Finance IT industry. I have given it all up to become a dessert goddess.

No more will I be part of the 9-6 rat race. The poorly air-conditioned offices, the sardine-tin simulator that is the Tube, the dishwater emitting coffee machines. Goodbye Outlook and 6 million rolling passwords to remember. Farewell to meeting requests and failed cruise control builds. No, my new life as creator of delicious confectionery and pastries beckons like a siren to a jaded sailor.

It's going to be a tough journey. I am a programmer. My language is logic and analysis. I have no experience and no qualifications in any other profession. But still, I have passion and creativity in my blood and these fingers can surely move away from the keyboard and into the mixing bowl.

I have given myself one year. In this year, I will learn the art of patisserie. I will get experience in the trade. I will seek help and knowledge in order for me to be able to open my own shop in which I will sell my creations to the public. I will be my own Alan Sugar - if I don't have the talent I will sack myself and go back to my IT roots.

So it's onward and upward from here!