To bake or not bake that is the question!

That morning a ray of sunlight peaked through the grey heavy clouds and straight onto my face as I tossed in bed. My eyes were still shut but my thoughts were doing the Macarena in my mind. The dripping faucet of raindrops from the gutter outside sounded like an anxious schizophrenic patient tapping his fingers on the doctor’s table and the strong winds brushing against the grills so angrily made my thoughts a fast forward version of the Macarena. *RINGGG my alarm went off* and my hand reached out to grab the alarm to shut it even before my brain could register where the sound was coming from. I pulled the covers over my head and got into the fetal position. Images of the old ancient looking building and patients that look the same age as the building, shuffling their feet at 1cm/min made me wish I could inject myself with a strong dose of diazepam or morphine and self induce a coma.

But before I knew it, I had slipped off the mattress and my naked feet were touching the cold unkind floor and I was shutting the bathroom door behind me in spite of the voice in my head screaming “GO BACK TO BED”.

To bake or to sit and listen to people going on about their problems for 9 hours was the million dollar question. I knock on my roommate’s door and stood there for a good minute before I could recall why I went in. Should I go in to hospital today was what I asked. Her reply was gold. “You’ve got only a few more months to chuck a sicky whenever you like, you know before u start working for good.” She continued after a second, “stay at home and I’ll be back in the afternoon and we can bake together.” So that was what I did after calling up my parents so that they would reduce my guilt. And it worked!

Soft, crispy cream puffs were what I made. I’ve had the urge to make them for the past few months but never got around to it. However, I got inspired after reading Iocyes’s post on cream puffs. I’ve always been afraid to work with Choux pastry. But I did it!!

I found this really easy recipe from easyhomemakers. I do agree with her that it is foolproof! The only thing that I added to the pastry dough was a few drops of vanilla essence due to my “egginess” phobia.

The recipe is as follows.

Ingredients

Pastry

1 cup (200ml) water
1/2 (150 gm) cup butter
1 cup (125 gm) flour
4 large eggs
1/2 tsp salt

1) Heat water and butter to rolling boil; reduce heat. Stir in flour and stir vigorously over low heat until mixture forms into a ball, about 1 minute.
2) Remove from heat. Beat in eggs; continue beating until smooth.
3) Heat oven to 200 degrees Celcius or 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
4) Use rounded teaspoonfuls (to tablespoonfuls, depending on the size you like) to make mounds about 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
5) Bake puffs until they are puffed and golden brown, 20 to 30 minutes. Cool.
6) Slit each puff halfway and put in the custard filling.

As for the filling, I used Nigella’s crème pâtissière recipe to fill these little treats up. You can email me if you want the recipe.

All in all, I had a nice self proclaimed long weekend. I seriously hope no one from the surgery reads my blog in the next few weeks if not my little secret will be revealed!

Thank you Iocyes for the award.

For spreading the love and being so generous with your time, words and expertise and making the blogging world a much lovelier place...i pass the award on to..

Su ling

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