29.1.08

My First Lemon Meringue Attempt

I am not a fan of lemon meringue pie in general. I don't like custards & the filling is a custard. I don't like meringue & obviously there is quite a lot of meringue. The process was enjoyable, however, & I got rave reviews for the pie itself (I wasn't going to eat it nor was I going to throw it away). Overall the baking went without incident. I was a little nervous as I was rolling out the crust. It seemed crumbly & dry, but once it was in the pie plate it worked beautifully. I'm happy to say my first (and possibly my only) attempt at lemon meringue pie was a success. See for yourself.









The crust started simply enough. Cutting the butter into the flour.







This is where I started getting nervous. It just seemed really dry. It wasn't forming a ball like my pie crust typically does.









I used black beans as my weight for baking the pie crust. It worked really well.








Baked pie shell. It looked & smelled absolutely delicious!









The shell as it cooled. I think it looked quite pretty with a simple fluting around the edges.








The egg mixture as I slowly added some of the heated ingredients.









Back on the stove to thicken.









Poured into the crust. It almost looks good enough to eat.









The meringue is almost ready.









Into the oven goes the pie.









Some of the peaks got a little too brown, but I think it looks beautiful!









The first slice.









It's not perfect looking, but considering I wasn't using a pie server, it came out pretty nicely.

16.1.08

The Promised Pictures

Here is the step-by-step process it took to complete the Yule Log. I have pictures of making the mushrooms, but uploading all the pictures is rather time consuming & I don't have the patience. But there are plenty of other pictures to look at since it was a multi-step, multi-recipe project.










All the pretty ingredients getting ready to sift several times.










Items to be mixed & heated.









Ingredients being heated.









Whipping the ingredients to create the light & fluffy consistency required for a genoise.










Folding in the chocolate.









Baked to perfection and...









rolled to cool.









Mmmmm...raspberry filling (I was on the phone while Stephanie made this, so we don't have photos of the process).










Almost done.












Making buttercream.












Turning buttercream into chocolate buttercream.












Done.