Fruit-Filled Pastries

I think that my favourite dining hall has to be the one at Kings Court. They frequently have vegetarian foods, occasionally have individual bottles of soymilk, and generally always have amazing dips and cereal. Generally, on Mondays and Tuesdays, there are vegan desserts. These desserts are much different from the typical desserts that Penn Dining chugs out; there are apricot bars, cranberry scones, raisin pinwheel cookies, and even these pastry thingys which are apparently called "Beggar's Purses". I personally really dislike that name (just a preference...) so I'm just going to call them fruit-filled pastries.

I do love pastry. I love savoury pastry for vegetable pies or spanakopita, and I love flaky pastry coating sweet pies. I love chocolate/glazed croissants. However, I seriously dislike plain pastry. I can't have a pastry made solely out of fat and flour. The pastry crust used here was extremely bland. There was a sprinkle of sugar only on the four corners, and each layer, although flaky, offered no taste whatsoever. Okay, I think that fat is a "taste", but it's definitely not enough to elicit a response for me to want to eat more pastry.

The fruit part was basically stewed fruits such as cooked frozen blueberries, apples, and other stuff... It was quite mushy, and its sweetness at least enhanced some of the pastry's blandness.

I disliked this pastry, although it looked extraordinary. Actually, the best things from the vegan desserts section are

1. Corn sandies cookies - the best. thing. ever.

2. Chocolate (or was it carob?) brownies

3. Apricot bars

Pirate Brand Puffs

Since I, like all other first-year students, was conned into buying a meal plan and dining dollars [okay, I've never understood why people want a meal plan with "all dining dollars". That's what PennCash is for! But for printing and buying non-food items too!], I decided I might as well spend my dining dollars on food that I can review...so I bought all five flavours of Pirate brand puffs and figured it'd be great to review them all. Judging by the first flavour I've ever tried, the white cheddar one, I had excheesingly high expectations.

I was wrong. I forgot to take a picture of the Barbecue flavoured one, so that's why it's pictured above. I would like to say that it does give a rather sweet barbecue aftertaste, and it is rather tangy, but the seasoning is erratically mixed into the puffs. There were some puffs that were absolutely bland, wheras others were 200% seasoning [which was nice. The whole package should just have a ton more seasoning dumped in!]. There was a nice umami taste, even though the sweet taste was more prevalent.

I also forgot to take a picture of the sour cream and onion flavour, but no matter; it was a boring one anyway.

Veggie. Tastes like super-mild kelp. Super-mild. No hint of parsley, even though it was stated on the package. No hint of anything, whatsoever. Have you ever wondered what a corn puff tastes like without salt and flavouring? Well, you have it right here. I know it looks really pretty and earthy, but I guarantee it tastes bland.

Okay, this one tastes a bit more flavourful than the Veggie one; there IS a hint of onion, but if you're expecting something like the Frito-Lay sour cream and onion-ness, you will be highly disappointed. Again, this is a rather bland flavour and actually tastes kind of sweet rather than savoury.

Now THIS! is the best flavour, by far. It is extremely cheese-flavoured, melts in your mouth [literally], sticks to your teeth with cheesiness, and crunches satisfyingly between your teeth. They are all rod-shaped. They are salty [but not too salty], tangy, and will most likely not make you smart.

This was another disappointment, because I was expecting something like Calbee's pizza flavoured potato chip that is so popular in Hong Kong. This flavour...was a tad sour ["tomato"], a tad sweet [?!], and a tad bland. There was nothing that made it taste like pizza. It was just a crunchy puff with a sweet aftertaste. There was nothing pizza-y: no cheese, no vegetable chunks, no dough, no crusty parts, no mushrooms... nothing.

This is the second best flavour, since the seasoning actually is spread out well, and there are no bland pieces. This is distinct from the Wisconsin Cheddar flavour because it is more sour and tangy, and it's softer in texture and more soluble [yes. More soluble.]. Therefore, it sounds quieter when you, with your saliva encrusted teeth, chew on it. I imagine myself chewing those styrofoam packing peanuts when I eat these, whereas the Wisconsin Cheddar flavour reminds me more of chewing sponge toffee. Fortunately and unfortunately, respectively, I have not done those tasks. So, depending on the texture/tangyness, take your pick. I decided to use the word "respectively" because I wrote a lab report and included it a few times. I haven't been updating much because I've been really busy with schoolwork. I have another exam on Wednesday!

In summary: buy the White Cheddar flavour and the Wisconsin Cheddar flavour, because, well, they actually have a FLAVOUR. Try out the Barbecue if you're in for some sweet, albeit, unevenly-distributed seasoning. Ignore the other 3 flavours because they are just a marketing gimmick [like my meal plan!].

Chocolate Chip Cake-Cookie Puffs!

I thought that it was a good idea to make a Victoria Sandwich cake. I weighed the sugar and butter and flour according to a recipe that I used around 7 years ago in Food Tech class, and I started mixing...

And then I realised that this was NOT going to work out because

1. The "batter" was the consistency of cookie dough.

2. The butter was globby.

3. The "batter" was brown, not yellowy-creamy-white, because I had used whole wheat flour instead of bleached flour.

4. I didn't have an electric whisk.

I'm not really sure why the batter worked out right 7 years ago, but completely failed when I tried to make it again. The method said to add the butter into the flour and sugar, rather than cream the butter and sugar first, which is what I'd usually expect to do.

So I added 3/4 cups of milk and then realised that the globby, pungent butter [Okay, the butter wasn't pungent, but I've decided that I don't like the smell of butter by itself. It needs to be creamed with sugar to smell good] was not going to somehow melt and homogenise into the mixture. I did not take a picture of it because it was terribly ugly.

So I added another 250 grams of flour... and make chocolate chip cake-cookie puffs!

It doesn't look like the dough is airy and not-dense, but it actually is. When you poke it, it should feels soft, and a hole should be easily made.

[Note the usage of my pie pan from "Santa"!!]

They aren't that sweet, which is good.

Ingredients for 45 cookie puffs:

1. 400g 100% whole wheat flour, or basically enough to make a dough that you can mould into balls with your hands - just keep adding flour by the tablespoon

2. 150g butter [about 1.5 sticks]

3. 3/4 cup milk

4. 3 eggs

5. 170g sugar

6. vanilla and chocolate chips, however much you want!

7. 1 tbsp baking soda

8. 1 tsp baking powder

9. Numbers 7. and 8. aren't that well tested out. Straight after baking, I could taste the baking soda, but after letting the cookies sit for two days, the taste of the baking soda is... gone...

Method:

1. [Don't do what I did, and mix the flour with the the butter...] Cream butter with sugar, and add eggs and vanilla. Add milk.

2. Add flour by the tablespoon.

3. Use hands to roll a dough. The dough SHOULD NOT STICK to the hands. Sift dough if you feel like it.

4. Add baking soda and baking powder.

5. The dough should be light, airy, NOT DENSELY PACKED, gooey, and feel plasticky.

6. Add however many chocolate chips you want.

7. Make balls the size of meatballs, maybe with a 3cm diameter.

8. Bake [see below]

I baked two batches. The first one was on the middle rack at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes.

The second batch was on the bottom rack at 360 degrees F for 6 minutes, and then left in the oven for ~10 minutes.

They should be done when a fork stuck inside the centre of the cookie comes out clean. They will appear soft when taken out of the oven, but they harden.

Both batches turned out basically the same...The cookies do not spread in the oven. In other words, you can make them into any shape you'd like.

The image above includes both the first batch and the second batch... and they look the same. They also taste the same; cakey, airy, dry-ish, not bland, textured [due to the whole wheat flour] and not too sweet. They don't taste greasy or rich or saturated with chocolate chips. Actually, maybe they're more muffin-y than cakey. You decide.

My mother likes them. She thinks that they look like meatballs! They are quite 3D, due to the baking powder and baking soda, of course. These can totally be cakes...except that they don't require a cake pan or paper baking cups.

So, how are my baking skills? I can turn a failed cake recipe into a cookie recipe... I guess that shows that I'm not a complete neophyte, right?

And now to actually make a Victoria sandwich cake...

Cheese Puffs!!!! [aka, Pufferfish]

They are not crackers. They are not Goldfish crackers. They are... PUFFERFISH CRACKERS! Literally, in the sense that they're poofy, cheesy [tastes like Goldfish, sorta], and honestly soo delicious!!! I have never baked anything so easy! You basically pulverise everything and mash it up and make globs of it and bake it. :D
So... I initially wanted to recreate the ubiquitous Goldfish cracker, which I adore with an emotional passion [track. track. track.]. I found this recipe, and decided to follow it, with some tweaking. Of course, anything I tweak ends up very different from the original, so instead of having crunchy crackers... I got gooey oozy cheesy ones. To make these you need:
1. pepper.
2. 20 turns of sea salt from the sea salt grinder.
3. 2 cups of flour.
4. 3 cups of cheddar cheese. I used the one from Costco. You know, big bag of shredded orange stuff.
5. 5 tsp butter [we ran out].
6. 1 tbsp oil.
7. water.
8. Whatever herbs you want. I added oregano.

Method:
1. Pulse everything dry + butter in the food processor. I don't have a food processor...so I pulsed everything in the blender.
2. Add oil.
3. Add water, 1 tbsp at a time, until you can make a dough that comes together and is even. You do not want a batter.
4. Stick it in the fridge in a container for as long as you want. For me, that was 40 hours.
5. Scoop balls of it out and flatten. You actually don't have to flatten them if you wanna make 3D pastry-type cheese balls. I initially used a bottle cap to make the circle, but it was wayyyy too tedious.
6. Bake at 350F for 13 minutes. If you want crunchy ones, bake for 14 minutes. If you like preheating your oven [which I don't], you can bake for 10 minutes.
7. Pick them up and eat them. You don't need to grease your pan, by the way.
They were delicious. My grandpa liked them... and he doesn't even like cheese! I made... 35 + 35 + 11 + 14 + 5 = around 100. Wow. Hmm I could start my own bakery.
Oh did I say? It smelled. Out of this world... and into the sea :P