Covid Baking

[Leofric]

Well I thought that I should start posting again. Over the past year and half I decided to try and perfect numerous items on my baking bucket list: 1. Finally gave in and got a hand crank poppyseed grinder to perfect my poppyseed roll! Stop using the canned stuff people it is awful far better to spend the hour hand grinding poppyseeds!

2 My poppyseed Bundt cake has now been perfected.

3. I finally found a perfect bread for my Dad, he had cancer treatment which weakened his teeth but he loves his toast, it is a buttermilk honey bread with a sour and a 18 hour cold fermentation. Dough is either rolled in poppyseeds and/or sesames braided and baked in deep pans.

4. As well made buckwheat crepes, financiers, different cookies and biscuits!

5. But my greatest success, not looks wise, was I made an Esterhazy torte today - hazelnut meringue layers sandwiched with a custard buttercream, topped with thinned homemade apricot jam and topped with homemade fondant - it is lovely but very rich!

Has anyone else work on perfecting some baking items on their bucket list?

 

[Cahoot]

Great to hear about your baking successes! Very nice that you've managed to perfect multiple recipes over the pandemic. The buttermilk honey bread sounds lovely. I've always wanted to have an Esterhazy torte - it's composition is much more unique for me compared to the American-style layer cakes that I'm used to.

I'm still working on getting the perfect eclair shells (something I've also realized I may never fully achieve in a residential oven), but I've managed to get pretty good at inverse puff pastry for an amateur. Definitely lots of room for improvement, so it's something that I still want to work in the near future.

I have spent lots of time making those aforementioned layer cakes though, trying to nail down both my base recipes for vanilla/yellow/white/chocolate cake as well as buttercreams (American, Swiss/Italian, French) and various cake fillings. Cake decorating is incredibly difficult still, but I'm getting better at achieving smooth sides and making simply decorated cakes.