2 May 2012

I am happy to report that in Round 1 of Plumpcious v Pastry ... Plumpcious has prevailed. Woo hoo!!!

In what was a rather manic morning in the kitchen I managed to concoct homemade lemonade, shortcrust pastry, a mushroom and thyme leaf tart and Penny's cabbage salad, which despite the rather uninspiring name is actually a lovely fresh salad of cabbage and fennel in a lemony dressing.

Making lemonade was an experience - the friendly looking bright yellow and orange juicer was not as friendly as it appeared - the thing shook so tremendously that when you tentatively applied your half a lemon to the wildly spinning juicer it not only chomped through the fruit in seconds but also sent vibrations up the entire length of your arm. Six lemons later, my teeth were chattering.

The pastry was nerve-wracking. It involved two hours of kneading, cooling, blind baking, egg-washing, re-baking, filling and then baking for a final time. I found myself staring hopelessly into the oven on a few occasions as I willed the tart to be edible. And finally it was done. I plated a delicate slice with a rather enormous portion of salad (my thinking was that the salad would counteract the obscene amounts of butter cream and Parmesan in the tart) and called the teacher over.  She broke a piece of tart with her fork and immediately said 'The pastry is perfect' (Seriously?!) and then ate her forkful and said 'And its delicious' (You mean this old thing?).....'And there is WAY too much salad here' (Yes, yes, just eat more tart and stop complaining). Honestly, I was so delighted with the tart she could have said the salad had the flavour and texture of an old shoe and I still would've thanked her.

In this afternoon's cooking demonstration we were shown how to make: Goat cheese salad with rocket figs and pomegranates; Tuscan rocket, goat cheese and honey salad; Fresh goat cheese salad with watercress kumquat compote and walnuts; Mejool dates, goat cheese, almonds and honey (there was a bit of a goat theme today!); Pasta shells with tomatoes, spicy sausage and cream; Penne with mushrooms and marjoram; Chocolate and hazelnut tart; Belgian chocolate biscuit cake; Raspberry coulis; Sweet white scones, raspberry jam and candied peel dipped in chocolate.

Tomorrow we have a theory class where we shall be learning about (and eating) cheese. In anticipation of all the cheese I will be devouring, and in celebration of the fact that it has finally stopped raining, The Editor and I embarked on a lovely clifftop walk this evening, and I shall leave you with a photo of the view from the cliffs of Ballycotton ... yes, they are almost as pretty as my tart.