Monday, March 30, 2015

Sticky Buns

Sticky buns 
a.k.a. Cinnamon rolls


Made from brioche dough, rum-raisins, toasted pecans, and the mandatory cinnamon sugar


Proofed 


And baked!


It was the last course to a super-scrumptious Indian/Japanese home-cooked meal. 
One of the perks to an international life;-)


Saturday, March 21, 2015

A "Slow" Breakfast: Snail Buns & Escargot Puffs

More like a heavy breakfast! Or a fancy one? 
Anyway, not your typical breakfast. But then, why not?



Where do you get snails? 
From a can, of course! 
(I have no idea where they actually come from... Maybe a snail farm?)



These two dishes called for a lot of parsley -- generous sprinklings of it everywhere.
Which is great because we (= my enthusiastic housemate) started a garden awhile back. How wonderful to just walk out of your kitchen for a handful of herbs! 



First, the snail buns:
brioche dough slathered with garlic butter and peppered with parsley.



And then rolled and stuffed with snails.
The dough rose beautifully this time, unlike the disappointingly lackluster rise from my first attempt at making brioche (I think I even wrote about how pie-baking skills were non-tranferable to pastry-baking...). This time, the brioche rose so much that the snails all popped out! Oy!



Hot brioche snail buns.



 And the escargot puffs:
savory cream puffs dabbed with garlicky-parsley butter and stuffed with escargot.



Breakfast is served!
I'm not sure if I've tried escargot before (well, now I know I have). They were a lot like golbangi, not surprisingly. Chewy and squishy as they are, I think I might opt for a more "accessible" filling next time!



Banana Split Pie

The final ice-cream pie of the project!
I lugged over a lot of ingredients for this one...



The bottom layer: 
vanilla wafer crust, homemade caramel, liqueur-infused bananas, and roasted walnuts.




 The top layer: 
triple vanilla ice-cream 



 And finally:
hot fudge, more caramel, more walnuts, and a baby banana:) 



Nomnomnom