敏娣過日子 Mindi's Diary

哈哈，最近一直在做香腸賣！嗯，是蠻多工夫的，但是知道朋友們愛吃我做的新鮮香腸就有動力了！

有四种口味了呢！

   - 甜心：顧名思義，甜的！

   - 蒜香原味：當然是比較不甜的蒜香。

   - 小痲小辣：花椒、辣椒、胡椒香氣滿滿，但不是很辣、也不是很痲。

暑假去西班牙巴塞隆納玩了一趟，除了高帝很了不起的建築讓人難忘之外，最懷念的莫過於西班牙熱巧克力配吉拿棒了！

回家後上網查關於吉拿棒和那厚厚的巧克力的做法，嘗試過的都幾乎要加雞蛋在吉拿棒的麵糰裏，吃起來卻一點兒也不像在巴塞隆納吃的那麽外皮酥脆内裏結實有嚼勁，反而滿是蛋香且很鬆軟，聼起來雖然不錯，但就不像。今天終於找到一個食譜做出很類似口感的吉拿棒和濃厚的巧克力了！雖然還不是百分百像，已經可接受了！

以下是今早做法的記錄：

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西班牙熱巧克力： (4 servings)

The best dessert I had when we went to Barcelona this summer was the famous Spanish Chocolate con Churros. I had it twice in three day!! It was that delicious, honestly!

I've been missing it so much ever since I came back to Los Angeles, and have been looking up recipes trying to duplicate the taste, but have not been able to achieve my goal until this morning. Not 100% yet, but close enough!!

Most of the churros recipes call for eggs to be added to the dough, but it tastes more like fried cream puff shells with center way too tender and eggy rather than the churros from Barcelona which was cripsy on the outside and much firmer and chewier in the center. As for the Spanish hot chocolate, most recipes deliver a really rich chocolaty thin drink not at all the thick pudding like chocolate I had in Barcelona.

Here are the recipes of the Spanish hot chocolate and the chewy churros really taste like the ones I had, and I'm really happy with the result!!

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Yeah, it's been a long time since I last posted something, and I've already forgot what it was. What a shame! Anyway, her I am again.

Let's see what I've been doing during my absense: MADE A WEDDING CAKE OF 275 SERVINGS, and it totally killed me! Of course, not literally. To make the story short, quite a few things happened around the time making it, including my serious elbow injury that made me take a long break from making any more wedding cakes. But then with the experience in the commercial kitchen, I am now working on settnig up my own kitchen for a small cafe/lounge to serve my own guests, and I really like that.

I wish I have some touching feeling stories to tell, but they are just plain daily work and life so far. Well, At least I am starting again. :-)

好友 Terri 除了常常充滿智慧的用冷笑話開示我們之外, 也是位很有創意的藝術家, 大前天向我訂了一個鍋燒烏龍麵的生日蛋糕給她的女兒 Alison 14 歲生日. 哇! 好有意思喔! 鍋燒烏龍麵! 聽說是因為 Alison 很喜歡吃麵, 常吃辛巴樂的海鮮鍋燒麵. 隔天我就去辛巴樂叫了一份來拍照吃吃看!

這個蛋糕並不是那麼難做, 不過卻發生了必須重做的狀況! 我以為用吉利丁做湯底最適合了, 做好確實也很好看:

但是過了兩小時之後發現所有的 "食物" 一直溶化! 才想到, 翻糖只是糖粉加甘油之類的產品當然遇到吉利丁的水分就開始溶囉! 

還好隔天才要交作品, 還有時間全部重做! 這次用 piping gel 來做湯底吧! 做好後因為鍋子變小了 (事實上溶掉的那鍋太大) 整鍋看起來很豐盛,但 gel 用得少了些怕溢出來, 顯得有點乾... 不過覺得還滿好吃的樣子呢!

My dear friend, Terri, is always full of creative and surprising ideas, besides her wise fables. LOL This time, she got me very excited about the cake she ordered for her daughter, Alison's 14th birthday. She asked for a nabeyaki udon cake because noodle soup is Alison's favorite food. Wow! How interesting is that! Since Alison always orders the nabeyaki udon from a Taiwanese snack restaurant, Sing Ba Leh, in Arcadia, California, I went there the next day, and ordered Alison's favorite dish-seafood nabeyaki udon. 

I decided to make the wood stand the cake base, and make the soup pot the decoration. I thought this should not be too difficult, and it really was not that hard to make the food objects. As for the soup base, I thought I would use the gelatin for it, and all together it looked really nice.

Then I started to bake the chocolate cake per Terri's order. After a couple hours of leaving the soup decoration to set, I noticed that it started to break down. 

Oh, no! This is not looking good at all! I forgot that gelatin is full of water, and it would surely melt the fondant away!! Oh, my whole afternoon's work is now going down the gelatin soup!!! :-(

Good thing the cake is due the next day afternoon, so I still have time to make a new batch. My next best thing that would mimic a soup base should be the piping gel then, I thought. I left a small piece of fondant in a cup of piping gel for a couple hours, and yes, it was fine! :-)

Frances 在 Facebook 裡 post 了照片和評語:

The cake is not only pretty but also delicious -- chocolate with strawberry mousse. Never tasted such good tasting strawberry mousse!
see how much real strawberry is in the mousse -- when you bite into the cake, the fresh strawberry tidbits with its refreshing strawberry aroma, mixed with the creamy decadent chocolate cake, just melts in your mouth!

(Frances 真是太給面子了! 謝謝妳, Frances!)

(Frances, Elyse and Nana)

Frances posted photos and comments on Facebook, and she lets me include them in here:

The cake is not only pretty but also delicious -- chocolate with strawberry mousse. Never tasted such good tasting strawberry mousse!
see how much real strawberry is in the mousse -- when you bite into the cake, the fresh strawberry tidbits with its refreshing strawberry aroma, mixed with the creamy decadent chocolate cake, just melts in your mouth!

(Frances is so kind and sweet to use so many nice words! Thank you, Frances!)

(Frances, Elyse and Nana)

診所的牙科助理 Fiona 訂了一個芋頭戚風生日蛋糕慶祝她婆婆的 76 歲生日. 她說看我想怎麼裝飾都好. 我想長輩應該比較喜歡吉祥如意的祝福吧! 就做一個 "松鶴延年" 的祝福囉! Fiona 說公公婆婆都很喜歡, 蛋糕好吃而且長壽鶴做得很有意義! 老人家喜歡就好, 也是 Fiona 的一番孝心哪! 我也很喜歡,尤其是在 "松鶴延年" 底下的那兩朵如意, 很可愛!

Our senior dental assistant, Fiona, who has been working for Joshua's office for more than 10 years ordered a cake for her mother-in-law's 76th birthday. She wanted the chiffon cake with taro root mousse filling. I'd like to decorate it a little differently than the usual roses with shell border birthday cake, and I wanted it to express the love and best wishes from Fiona, so I decided to make it with a Chinese birthday wish theme.

Pine and crane together is a popular motif when it comes to birthday wishes since both pine and crane live long, so I decorated it with a Chinese watercolor painting of pine and crane. 

Fiona said both her parents-in-law were very happy about the cake. It was delicious and very meaningful. :-)

I also like the two red "Ju-Yi" fungi under the Chinese characters, they are supposed to promote our health and make us live forever!! LOL Cute!

我真的不是針對中國什麼, 但是他們的電影名字的翻譯真的很搞笑, 好嗎? "怪誕城之夜"! 真是有夠怪蛋的! 是找誰在替他們翻電影名字啊? (英文原名：The Nightmare Before Christmas * 中文译名： 圣诞夜惊魂- 怪诞城之夜（大陆） 圣诞夜惊魂（台湾） 圣诞夜惊魂（香港）)

Anyway, 回歸正題, 我的蛋糕. 我妹敏玲的一位同事 Marisela 是個 Nightmare 影迷, 自從看到且吃了上次的 baby shower 蛋糕之後, 就問敏玲我能不能做這個電影的蛋糕, 我心想沒有什麼不能做的, 只看要做到什麼程度罷了! 於是接了這個訂單.

其實我沒看過這部電影, 不過這個主角很有特色, 是個竹竿兒. 上網找到這張照片, 很喜歡他的表情, 就決定這樣做了!

(很溫馨人性化的表情!)

(電影海報, 在月光下的影像讓我很有印象!)

My sister's co-worker, Marisela, is a big fan of the 1993 movie "Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas", and she asked Min-Ling if I could make a cake in the movie theme for her after she saw and tasted the cake I made for the baby shower last time. I really didn't think why I can't, so I took the order, and made her the cake with Jack, the stick figure star of the movie, on it.

I have never watched the movie, but the figure has a lot of character to it, and I like that. I found a picture online, and I think it's expression is really sweet, so I decided to make Jack like this.

(This is the picture with a very sweet expression on Jack.)

(The under the moonlight scene on the poster.)

However, one obvious thing I did not do for Jack is the pin stripes on his suit. It's way too detailed in the size of the doll, and that will cost too much to do. Again, this is an 8" chocolate cake with strawberry mousse filling. I don't think I will make another mousse cake with fondant covered decoration any more. It is too soft to work with, the fondant gets torn easily, and the end result is not as satisfactory.