Week 15: Baked Alaska (The End)

Hi everyone!

A poorly drawn map of
Australia crying because
Matt didn't win

I’ve been betrayed. Our great nation has been betrayed. MasterChef has broken my heart, and judging by Facebook and Instagram comments, the hearts of many other Australians. Matt was robbed. Robbed by some stupid, bloody, fancy pants egg. He is literally the new Poh… and I will never, I repeat, never, forgive network ten for this travesty.

Anyway, this is my last post! I’ve actually had my final dish in mind for a good few weeks now. Surprise, it’s the Baked Alaska! It's generally agreed upon that the Baked Alaska is one of the needlessly difficult dishes out there. I can attest to that. I was really, really hoping my last dish would go swimmingly. But like Matt Sinclair’s, my dreams were crushed. And I’m don’t mean they were slightly shaken about, I mean that they were absolutely shattered.

Frozen Elements: Sorbet and ice cream

Why do I do this to myself?

I lounged about all morning, before reading the recipe at approximately 11 o’clock. This, my friends, was the beginning of a marathon-length nightmare. The recipe summary promised 1 hour and 35 minutes cooking time ‘plus cooling and freezing’. I thought, sweet, that’s probably around 5 hours in total, what a walk in the park. Alas, subtly buried in the recipe, as a sort of afterthought, it was stated that it must set for 'at least 8 hrs'. EIGHT HOURS. Excluding ice cream and sorbet setting time! Needless to say, many rude words were flung around, as I entered extreme panic mode. You see, I couldn’t simply make it tomorrow. My mum’s BFF was coming over specifically to sample my baked goods. 

Thankfully, my first ever attempts of sorbet and ice cream were a reasonable success.

The sorbet was orange juice and sugar, infused with star anise. The aniseed flavour was a little overpowering, but I'm blaming the recipe for that shortcoming. In my mad frenzy I forgot to add the orange marmalade to the orange ice cream, but it was still utterly delish! 

Chocolate cake dome

Yeah look, I'll be the first to admit she ain't pretty

This went a little less well. It turns out that the baking tin I used wasn’t quite large enough, meaning that there wasn’t quite enough cake to build a base for my Baked Alaska. 

The dome is meant to be constructed in a pudding dish. Does anyone in Australia have a pudding dish? Instead, I used a normal bowl. Consequently, constructing the cake dome was an uphill battle. My tragic patchwork quilt of cake glued together with melted chocolate, can be seen on your right.

Assemblage (a.k.a. disaster)

Please set, please set, please set

Alrighty, I’m warning you, the following succession of events is an utter tragedy.

I let my Baked Alaska freeze for a few hours. It wasn’t the recommended 8, but trust me, I left it for as long as possible. The night ended with me furiously whisking meringue during the commercial breaks of the MasterChef finale. What can I say?My reputation for being the most frustratingly last minute person on Earth is well deserved.

Once I slapped the meringue onto the dome, it actually looked quite pretty. However, the icecream and sorbet inside my cake dome weren’t rock solid and it had no cake base. I was iffy about putting it in the oven for ten whole minutes, so my step sister advised me to use the grill, because it would cook the meringue quicker.

I took my eyes off it for like 20 seconds, and suddenly the entire top was burnt to a blackened crisp.

I’d lost all will to live.

But, hold on, it gets worse.

Somehow, I dropped my Baked Alaska.

I bloody dropped it.

I don’t know what happened, but it slipped from my grasp, and onto the open oven door.

I won’t lie, I almost cried. I could feel the tears behind my beedy eyes.

But instead of bawling, I chose to laugh hysterically, as my mother and her best friend tried to comfort me.

Before and after I died of a broken heart

Ranking rubric

Mum & Li, my two biggest fans,
apart from maybe Chelsea Wilson

Taste: 7/10- since the aniseedy sorbet melted into non existence, the icecream + cake combo was quite yummy

Presentation/resemblance to dish: 1/10- need I say more?

Time: 2/10- This is the closest I think I'll ever feel to being in a Pressure Test. I just didn't have enough time. I did achieve a lot in the time frame though

Kitchen Mess: 2/10- it was a lowkey bombsite chez moi

So yeah, my final attempt at being MasterChef worthy, well and truly backfired. At the end of these past few months, I can confidently say that I am not MasterChef worthy (yet). Ah well, that’s life. It’s been a fun ride.

Thanks if you’re reading this, and I hope my failures have been somewhat entertaining to you.

Cheers,

Rosa  

Week 14: Parfait

Hi everyone!

If Matt doesn't win, I will cry.

Exciting news: I saw Matt, Gary and George in the flesh at Regional Flavours! And yes, those hours were the greatest of my life. Matt Sinclair was present as well. God, I wish that he wasn’t married and I was approximately fifteen years older. But what can I say, life is one long disappointment.

Anyway, woo it’s finals week, and I have an announcement to make. I’ve decided that as MasterChef comes to a close, so will my blog. Lately I’ve been so busy, and consequently inconsistent with my posts. This is my second last post, and rest assured I chose a tough cookie to bake!

In the past few seasons of MasterChef, parfaits seem to be terribly à la mode. I figured, what with nearing the end of this journey, I would test myself to see whether I’m MasterChef material. This week I attempted Elise’s Burnt Apricot Parfait, which has a bunch of fancy add ons.

Burnt Apricot Parfait

Somewhat inconveniently, apricots have disappeared off the face of the Earth. They aren’t in season, nor do they seem to be in any supermarket in metropolitan Brisbane. It looks like my chequered history of using the wrong ingredients and equipment is destined to go on until my dying day. Instead of ‘charring apricots on a griddle pan’, I was burning one peach and one nectarine in a fry pan. I guess some things never change.

Speaking of my unshakeable culinary habits, guess what? I overwhipped cream. Again. Additionally, I think I took my egg and sugar mixture (is that called an anglaise?) too far. In my defence, Elise, what the hell does ‘thick and pale’ actually mean? How thick do you want it? How pale? Vague recipe descriptors are actually ruining my life.

Man, who needs silicon moulds
when you have improvisation?

Since I didn’t have silicon, cylindrical moulds, I lined a cupcake tin with gladwrap to prevent stick-age. If that isn’t culinary resourcefulness, I don’t know what is. Unfortunately that stroke of genius didn’t make up for all my little cock ups. My parfaits’ texture was a little off, but at least they still tasted good.

Passionfruit Curd

These were reasonably fuss free, except that I didn’t have enough passionfruit juice. I think that affected how well it set. Ah well, worse things happen at sea. In fact, worse things happen in the MasterChef kitchen.

A note on setting time: Those blast chillers must be made out of magic. While the contestants set their frozen elements in an hour, my curds and parfaits were still runny at the three hour mark. I was forced to leave them in the freezer overnight.

Strawberry Coulis

For the first time in my life,
I don't have to blitz in batches.

What a triumph. Firstly, stewed strawberries, sugar and thyme are absolutely delish. Secondly, for the very first time, my inconveniently tiny food processor was the perfect size. After all these hellish months of making me split everything into batches, my food processor has found its true calling. Blitzing strawberry coulis- who’d have known?

Crumb

I am now head over heels in love with this ‘crumb’ trend. Dump butter + flour + sugar into the oven, and voilà, c’est finit. Tastewise, this crumb is minimal effort for maximum pleasure. Listen to me, I’m starting to sound like Nigella!

 

Forgive the melting curd. I reckon it looks pretty damn good.

Ranking rubric

With the lovely coulis

Taste: 8.7/10- other than the parfaits' odd texture, it tasted wonderful!

Presentation/resemblance to dish: 9.5/10- this is the proudest I’ve been of a dish’s appearance

Time: 8/10- not quite MasterChef’s 90 minutes. Minus setting time, I managed in roughly two and a half hours.

Kitchen Mess: 7/10- would've been worse, had mother dear not helped me clean up as I cooked.

So yeah, I'm not MasterChef ready, but there's no doubt that I've improved. My final post will probably be up soon after the grand final. 

Cheers,

Rosa

Week 13: Beef Wellington

Hi everyone!

Frankly, this week’s culinary undertaking was an absolute disaster. I never want to taste, see, or even think about a beef wellington ever again. As much as I'd love to blame a subpar recipe, Gordon’s instructions were pretty damn clear. Truth be told, my beef wellie was doomed before I even entered the kitchen.

It all started at Coles. The recipe asked for 1 kg of beef eye fillet, but my mum made it pretty clear that a 35 dollar hunk of meat wasn’t going to happen. So I settled with 1.1kg of blade roast, thinking it’s all beef, what could possibly go wrong?

The answer to that question is apparently: everything.

Pastry and duxelles

Before I recount the tragedies, why don’t we kick off with the positives?

Pastry: Gordon’s rough puff pastry recipe was a dream. It was similar to last week’s pastry, but this time I didn’t even have to whip out my wheezy old food processor!

Duxelles: What kind of pain in the ass decided that mushrooms had to be the consistency of ‘coarse breadcrumbs’? Thankfully, my 20 minutes spent finely chopping mushrooms was well worth it. Even though I used really, really old goon in the duxelle mixture, not a single family member of mine threw up. In my books, that’s a bloody solid win.

Beef

Right. This did not go well. This did not go well at all. In fact, talking about it makes my heart feel rather raw- much like my slab of beef. I wish I could travel back in time, and tell my past self: don’t be a stinge, listen to Gordon. Buy a bank breaking piece of meat. It’ll save you the tears.

Basically, wellingtons are meant to be cylindrical. My blade roast wasn’t even a shape that I could name; it was a twisted, polygon-like lump. When I laid it out on the prosciutto with the duxelles, it was quite clear that my wellie was not going to hold its shape. But oh well, I covered my mini disaster with the lovely pastry and shoved it into the oven.

A horrible photo of a truly
horrible dish

Appearances are so deceiving

When I took my wellie out of the oven, a glimmer of hope erupted within me. It's a miracle, I thought, it's like the tale of the ugly duckling! The utter ruin which entered the oven came out all golden brown and perfect! 

I spoke too soon. When I cut through the pastry, it looked like a slaughterhouse- there was so much damn blood. I know nothing about beef, but even I knew that I couldn’t pass that off as rare. Now, imagine eating a bleeding, leather boot. That's what this beef tasted like.

Ranking rubric

Taste: 3/10- to quote my step sister ‘everything but the meat was good’

Presentation/resemblance to dish: 5.5/10- before cutting: 9, after cutting: 2

Time: 3/10- this monstrosity was 3 hours in the making

Kitchen Mess: 8/10- Well at least the kitchen didn’t look to bad, ay?

Thanks for reading about my failures!

Cheers,

Rosa

Week 12: Mille Feuille

Hi everyone!

This week I attempted the classic, French dessert that sent sweet Karmen packing last week. It’s the mille feuille! In plain English, it's known as a vanilla slice, but that doesn’t sound half as impressive, does it? 

Almost all mille feuille recipes recommend using store bought pastry, because it’s so much easier. But has anybody ever won MasterChef with pre-packaged pastry? No, they haven't. I don't want easy. I want heartbreakingly, bathroom floor sobbing-ly difficult. Manu’s classic recipe was the closest fit to my brief. Unfortunately he's a judge on MasterChef's rival show, My Kitchen Rules. I felt like I was betraying Matt, Gary and George, by using Manu's recipe, but I couldn't find a better alternative.

Rough puff pastry

Surprise, surprise: I screwed up in a major way. So I decided to start cooking at 5pm. That means that I read the recipe for the first time at 5pm. It turns out that Manu’s ‘proper’ puff pastry recipe takes hours upon hours to make. He literally recommended making it over two days!! But I don’t have time pouring out of my ears, so frankly, Manu and his idealistic recipe can piss off. Luckily, after a little googling, I found MasterChef Zoe’s speedy rough puff pastry recipe.

The problems didn’t stop there. Our household’s food processor is the bane of my existence. It’s older than I am, and even less functional. It’s also ridiculously tiny, so I had to painstakingly split all my pastry ingredients up into two batches. I’m utterly surprised my pastry came out golden and flaky. It was marginally overcooked, but I could hardly blame that on a dodgy food processor.

Crème patisserie

This is what shame looks like.

Unfortunately my first batch of crème patisserie was lumpy, since I didn’t stir it enough. I do think the recipe’s ambiguity is partially at fault, so naturally, I’m going to completely blame the recipe for my failures. Damn you Manu, for ruining my crème patisserie dreams.

Guess what happened next. Somehow, in the process of whipping up a second batch, I managed to drop a bloody egg. I haven’t done that since I was ten! Besides that egg and ego shattering drama, my second lot of crème patisserie came along perfectly.

Fondant Icing

Obviously working with fondant icing and melted chocolate caused an insurmountable amount of chaos and mess. The icing on my mille feuilles was a little lopsided and decidedly asymmetrical, but y’know what? I love them just the way they are. I've never felt more proud of a culinary creation.

A bad photo of beautiful pastry babies

Ranking rubric

Taste: 9.5/10- the pastry, crème patisserie and icing were lovely!

Presentation/resemblance to dish: 8.5/10- they were rustic, ok?

Time: 5/10- Roughly four hours- which could’ve been 3.5 if I had an operative food processor and actually remembered to preheat the oven for once in my sad life.

Kitchen Mess: 1/10- Despite cleaning up twice during the cook, somehow I ended up with an absolute bombsite.

Thanks so much for reading! 

Cheers,

Rosa

Week 11: Crème Caramel

Hi everyone!

Just three ingredients:
that's my kinda recipe

Yes, I’m a day late. And yes, I hate myself. But at least I had the company of MasterChef whilst I wallowed in my self hate.

This week I decided to take on the French classic, crème caramel. To be honest I’m starting to run out of stereotypically hard things to cook, which also happen to be cheap as chips. Crème caramel seemed like both. The two components are caramel and custard, and I’d never made either. I fell head over heels in love with the ingredient list, which was even cheaper than chips. Eggs, milk, sugar- that’s it! All pantry staples!  I didn’t even have to part with the comforts of home to purchase ingredients.

Caramel

Heating sugar and water, what could possibly go wrong? 

Burning said sugar and water, that’s what. 

Perhaps 'slightly charred caramel'
will be the next hipster
food trend

I deeply regret not keeping a more watchful eye on the troublesome stuff. However I will say, in my defence, I’d never made caramel before. I had zero idea what I was looking for. The bubbles on top of the caramel were lightly coloured, so I thought sweet, I’ll just leave it be. It turns out that the bubbles lied to me. It was only when I stood directly over the pot that I could smell the slight char of the decidedly darker caramel underneath. But it wasn’t bad enough to discard, so with a shrug, I poured it into the ramekins. After that, I couldn’t second guess my decision even if I wanted to, because the caramel was rock hard within seconds.

Custard

Appearance-wise: a solid 10/10

Perhaps it was the stress of boiling caramel, but my usually proficient egg separating skills let me down. Luckily my whisk didn’t fail me. After a spectacularly disastrous first date, my whisk and I have developed quite the loving relationship. It stay put when I tell it too, like a perfectly well trained dog. I can only dream of finding a husband who exhibits such good behaviour.

Baking my custard children was pretty nerve wracking. Thankfully, other than a brown, scalded patch on one of my darling cremes, they were cooked perfectly! Demolding them was just as scary, but alas, they came out easily.

Ranking rubric

Taste: 8.5/10- they were scrumptious: the custard was silky, and the caramel only slightly burnt.

Presentation/resemblance to dish: 10/10- they were even prettier than they tasted.

Time: 7/10- it wasn’t a time consuming dish at all, and that’s coming from Queen Dawdler herself.

Kitchen Mess: 9/10- twas a perfectly reasonable amount of mess

Thanks for reading. Keep enjoying MasterChef! I dunno about you guys, but I’m totally rooting for Matt to take home the title.

Cheers,

Rosa

Week 10: Apple Strudel

Hi everyone!

Making a strudel makes
me a real chef, right?

When I first embarked on my grand mission (keeping this blog), I undertook intense research. And by research, I mean googling ‘hard things chefs should know how to make’. According to one of the many sites that I browsed and do not remember, apple strudel is one of those hard, chef-y things. So guess what? This week I made apple strudel!

I was caught choosing between a recipe by Martha Stewart and another by some Viennese website’s recipe. However, the Viennese website's was cheaper and had step by step photos, so it was an easy win in my book. Also, the writer claimed that it was her grandmother’s recipe. And come on, nothing can beat a little, old Austrian lady’s strudel.

Dough

I was surprised at how tiny the ball of dough was (later it's rolled extremely thin). The recipe requested that the dough be worked for ten minutes, and I mentally readied myself for torture. I swear every bloody time I've kneaded dough or pastry, my arm has desperately wanted to fall off. Alas, not this time! The strudel dough was an absolute dream- it was like kneading a fluffy marshmallow!

Filling

Dubious looking
'chilli rum'

I have no idea what a Macintosh apple is. To me 'Macintosh', conjures images of an Irish man in a kilt. As far as I can tell, Macintosh apples don’t exist in Australia. By that I mean that they weren’t at Woolies, and that’s pretty much the same thing. I compromised, using Granny Smith apples.

The raisins had to be soaked in either rum or water. I asked my family members if we had any rum, as more of a joke than a genuine enquiry. I was pretty surprised when my mother said that we did, and fetched the dodgiest looking bottle I’ve ever set eyes on. Nobody knows where it came from. It honestly looked like Captain Jack's secret, 30 year old stash of rum. I didn't use it, I'm not insane.

Also: the combination of toasted breadcrumbs in butter, sugar and cinnamon is sinfully good. I may or may not have eaten half of the mixture.

Strudelling it up

After rolling out the rested dough with a rolling pin, the dough had to be hand stretched until it reached paper thinness. Unfortunately, delicacy has never been my forte. Needless to say, holes appeared. But that’s alright, it’s rustic right? Rolling the strudel up was simultaneously the most stressful and satisfying thing I’ve ever undertaken. It reached the point of explosion a few times, so yes there were a few tears, but thankfully they didn’t affect the taste!

I now know what true love feels like

Ranking rubric

Taste: 9.8/10- so good, so ridiculously good. The tastiest thing I’ve made so far. The only thing that would have improved it was ice cream.

Presentation/resemblance to dish: 9/10- a beautiful log of crispy pastry, with only a few charred edges

Time: 7/10- my deadline was 4:30pm (afternoon tea time at my place) I started at 1:15, finished before 4, and actually had extra time to eat lunch in between. So yeah not too bad!

Kitchen Mess: 8/10- The amount of washing up didn't make me want to die. What a day of surprises.

This apple strudel is the best thing that’s happened to me.

Cheers,

Rosa

Week 9: Tempered chocolate

Chocolate + me = love
(and mild self loathing)

Hi everyone!

I’m a slack ass. I broke my personal rule of posting every Sunday, reinforcing the fact that my self-discipline levels are about as high as a school stoner. I literally have no excuse; my chosen recipe only requires one basic ingredient! It’s everybody’s best friend and worst enemy: chocolate. This week I decided to temper the gorgeous stuff, because it’s always a big deal when anyone does it on MasterChef.

Sidenote: I baked and iced cupcakes too, because tempered chocolate on its own is pretty useless.

Tempering chocolate

I followed The Guardian’s guide to tempering chocolate. Basically, you melt chocolate, then add some more room temperature chocolate. It was pretty much as simple as it sounds. The only hitch was that it took me at least 4 minutes to realise that I’d turned on the wrong stove ring. Also there was the issue of the few unmelted chunks left in my tempered chocolate, which I cleverly solved by eating them.

Moulding decorations

Now for the fun bit. I watched a YouTube video of some European man who made up for his lack of personality with his excellent chocolate crafting skills. He used acetate sheets to mold his chocolate, and I panicked a little, because all I had was uselessly flimsy cling wrap. Alas, I was blessed with a very rare moment of genius, and improvised by chopping up my mother’s plastic Marbig folder.

Curls: bane of my existence,
devil on earth

Firstly he shaped some sort of ornate hoop, so I did too. Then he ran a funky rake like contraption down the chocolate, which I did not do too, because I didn’t have one. I used a chopstick instead, which did the job, albeit shakily and without finesse. But my hoop didn’t crack, so that’s a win in my book.

Next were chocolate curls, which were a nightmare and a half. For setting purposes, I had to curl my chocolate covered acetate around the interior of a cup. That was frustrating and fiddly and chocolate dribbled everywhere. And it all came to nothing, because tragedy struck. My set chocolate curl cracked upon removal. I blame the damn chopstick.

Lattice: love of my life, beat of
my heart

Into the piping bag my (now cooling) chocolate went. I drizzled out a couple of lattices. They were beautiful.

Lastly were the chocolate decorations. I’m a pretty good drawer, so I was excited and prepared to ace this. And do you know what fate decided to throw at me? Fate had the absolute nerve to slap me in the face with hardened chocolate. I only got to pipe one measly heart, and then I was left with a piping bag filled with set, unusable chocolate. Oh well, at least my one heart was very pretty.

Ta da!

Ranking rubric

Taste: 8/10- they were chocolate cupcakes. So they were yummy, but nothing ground breaking.

Presentation/resemblance to dish: 8/10- They were very cute cupcakes

Time: 2/10- three hours all up, we all know I’m a snail

Kitchen Mess: 1/10- I was scraping hardened chocolate off the kitchen bench for at least 10 minutes

Have a great week and see you Sunday (I promise this time)!

Cheers,

Rosa

Week 8: Panna cotta

Hi everyone!

Who are you?

How bloody good was Nigella week? How is she so hot? Nigella Lawson is fifty bloody six, and she’s sexier than most twenty year olds. It isn't fair.

Is it just me? I've never understood why panna cottas seem to be the only desserts made on MasterChef. This week I sought to solve this mystery. The MasterChef website’s recipes were unachievable, since my local Woolies doesn't stock titanium strength gelatine leaves. Luckily for me, adelaidenow published a modified version of MasterChef winner Michael’s panna cotta recipe. If you’re wondering who the hell this Michael is, you aren't alone.

I've been bogged down with a cold recently; true to my pathetic character, I played the ‘I'm too sick to live’ card, and half assed Michael’s recipe. Saving myself the bother and about $15, I ditched the rhubarb and pistachio components, and settled on the panna cotta and accompanying syrup. Call it a cheat day.

Panna cotta

Look at how chill I am!! I've
never been this chill.

It turns out that the reasoning behind panna cotta’s popularity isn't as puzzling as I believed. The secret is that panna cottas are as easy as a wanton school girl.

A simple equation: cream + gelatine + fridge = panna cotta
Even I, the most stressed out cook to ever grace the planet, managed to sneak in a few games of trivia while I breezily followed the recipe.

There was a slight moment of anxiety when little flecks of gelatine settled on the skin of the mixture, and I was worried that I hadn't dissolved the gelatine thoroughly enough. However I stirred and shrugged it off, because what choice did I have?

My moulds: storage container, 
bowl and plastic cup

Michael’s simplified recipe called for setting and serving the panna cotta in the same bowl. But I refused to make a panna cotta without going through the stress of demoulding it. I sought that adrenaline. I sought the true MasterChef experience. So I used a variety of extremely fancy containers, hoping that at least one would work.

Orange and honey syrup

I dumped everything in a pot and waited for it to reduce. It was so simple, it barely deserves its own subheading.

Demoulding the panna cotta

It had all the pleasure of giving birth, without the pain. It was stressful. I placed my plastic cup in warm water for a few moments. I then slid a knife down the side of the cup and swivelled around, before squeezing it out on the plate. And god, my darling panna cotta was so beautiful. It even had the ‘sexy wobble' that Matt Preston loves. I would be lying if I said I didn't giggle and jiggle it around for a few minutes.

Rating Rubrik

Taste: 8/10- panna cottas are jellied cream, not really my thing

Presentation/resemblance to dish: 4/10 because it was gorgeous, but I only made half the components.

Time: 9/10- disregarding setting time, making it was super easy

Kitchen Mess: 2/10- not a complete wreck for once

Thanks for reading! Enjoy MasterChef everybody!

Cheers,

Rosa

Week 7: Handmade Tortellini

Hi Everyone!

A visual depiction of my
previous pasta making
experience

This week I decided to handmake pasta. Since I love making my life harder, I decided to fold my own tortellini! My past, rather disastrous attempts of handcrafting pasta took place when I was thirteen, and each time my family ended up eating dinner at about 9 at night.

Where did I learn to make pasta? Two words: Jamie Oliver, my first culinary crush. I fell in love with him when I was ten, watching Jamie at Home, with my mother on our boxy TV. His first ever cook book, The Naked Chef, was also the first cook book I ever owned. Unfortunately, I've only ever tried a couple of its recipes. It was all a bit too intense for a twelve year old, who didn't even know what polenta was. Five years on, I'm still not certain about polenta’s origins, but I decided to revisit The Naked Chef and get some bang for my buck.

Filling

The filling was roasted butternut pumpkin, basil, ricotta and parmesan. It was absolutely delicious! Also did you know that they call pumpkins ‘squashes’ in the UK? You learn something new every day.

Pasta

I was hoping that pasta making would be easier than it was in my youth, but I knew in my heart of hearts that I was going to make a right mess of it. The seeming effortlessness of pasta rolling and shaping in the MasterChef kitchen completely dumbfounds to me. I don’t know what sort of universe two metres of flimsy, wafer thin dough behaves itself in, but it certainly doesn’t cooperate at my house.

My dough was sticky and in constant need of flour. Sheer laziness and exasperation, drove me to neglecting these cries for flour and I was punished with tears in both my dough and eyes. My cheapo pasta machine is older than I am; it wobbled on the benchtop and my night was punctuated with the occasional clang of the temperamental metal handle hitting the tiles below.

I needed more patience and four more arms. I recruited my lovely mother, who fulfilled the patience quota and supplied two of the required limbs.

Shh...they're totally identical

Folding was another nightmare and a half. I stupidly thought, ‘I can make Chinese dumplings, this will be a breeze.’ Once again, I was a fool. The dough was unforgiving. Since I didn't have a suitably sized circle cookie cutter, I used poorly cut squares (rectangles), to craft my tortellini. Consistency has never been a strength of mine, and the shapes of my tortellini were further proof of this.

Due to my substandard folding skills, many burst when submerged in boiling water. Once cooked, they looked like a pack of wrinkly pugs. A pack of sad, saggy pugs.

Never judge a book by its cover: they looked like wrinkly dogs, but thankfully didn't taste like it.

Rating rubric

Taste: 8/10- the pasta was actually quite light, and the filling was delicious.

Presentation/resemblance to dish: 2/10- my poor ugly, little bundles

Time: 1/10- my family ate at a somewhat acceptable time of 7:50pm. However, I started cooking at 4:30pm.

Kitchen Mess: 3/10- I cleaned up half way through, so it could've been a lot worse.

I hope you all recover from the shock and grief of Nidhi’s elimination. Enjoy Nigella week everybody!

Cheers,

Rosa

Week 6: Lemon Tart

Hi everyone!

I really need more socially
acceptable celebrity crushes

Truth be told, I'm a little obsessed with Marco Pierre White at the moment. His wild hair, his eccentric personality, his culinary finesse, his polished speeches- I'm in love! I wish he could stay on MasterChef forever, but alas, all good things must come to an end.

To mourn the conclusion of Marco week, I took on one of the great man’s recipes! So this week I lost my tart virginity to a lovely lemon number, which Marco used to serve at Harvey’s, his Michelin starred restaurant. Aren't I getting fancy?

Pastry

This tart certainly took the saying ‘go hard or go home’ to heart. The prescribed quantity of every ingredient left me flabbergasted. According to a dodgy internet site, 250 grams is four fifths the weight of a human heart. According to Marco Pierre White, 250 grams is the amount of butter that goes into an average sized pastry base!

I'm merely a naïve, inexperienced cook, in a world of deceptive desserts. Who am I to question Marco the godfather of modern cuisine? I'm legitimately scared that he’ll sense my doubt from London, chuck me in a food processor and turn me into some warped version of foie gras.

The blind baking process seemed so professional- I felt like a real chef! Unfortunately, I stopped feeling like a culinary god, when I realised that I’d forgotten to trim the overhanging pastry bits. They broke off in the oven, turning into burnt shards which bore a heavy resemblance to dog shit. I bet Marco never had to chip off poo-esque pastry with a butter knife.

Tart filling

The filling was simply a matter of combining eggs, cream, sugar and lemons. Mr Whisk was on his best behaviour. He didn’t decide to jumpship once! I may even be growing to like the damn contraption. Although I whisked to my heart’s content, I suspect my filling could have used a little more churning time. But that’s alright, I simply covered the tiny flecks of visible egg yolk with icing sugar later!

Although it was runny, the tart was absolutely delicious! It was obviously rich, but I personally found the richness manageable since the lemony tang cut through it. Listen to me, I'm turning into a pretentious food critic! As well as my usual guinea pigs (my family), two of my lovely friends came over to share a slice of my cholesterol-sky-rocketing tart.

Rating rubric

Dearest, loveliest lemon tart

Taste: 9.5/10- It would take talent to make cream, butter, sugar and lemon taste any worse than amazing.

Presentation/resemblance to dish: 7.5/10- it was a sexy tart, but the pastry wasn't perfectly shaped and the filling was slightly mottled on top because I didn't skim off enough gunk.

Time: 0/10 – Three and a half hours. I was in a sloth like state.

Kitchen Mess: 2/10 – not the absolute worst, but pretty close to it.

Well my tart obviously wasn't Marco or MasterChef approved, but it did taste wonderful. Enjoy Reynold’s return to MasterChef everybody!

Cheers,

Rosa

(sometimes) lovely amigos