Day Seven

I’m a little shaky right now because I just ate dessert: mini eclairs (filled with vanilla pastry cream) with toasted homemade marshmallow melted on top.  So much sugar. 

Look what I found on Dearborn Street when I was walking to school today!  A farmers’ market right in the middle of the city!  It was a lot smaller than Green City farmers’ market, but still had a lot of good stuff.  Most of the produce around here comes from Michigan.  I’ve never been to Michigan.  Someone take me there, please.   

Blueberries.  Mmm.



Sweet cherries.  I wonder if I missed sour cherry season?



Whenever I see sunflowers it makes me want to draw or paint a picture of them.  Know what I’m saying?  No?  That’s okay.  I get these drawing cravings sometimes. 



Michigan blackberries.  Aren’t they gorgeous?



Onions.  I’m mad at myself for not buying any of these.  I’ve never bought onions from a farmers’ market before.  Some kind of onion tart sounds delicious.  Pissaladière possible?  Oui!



I did buy peaches, though.  I hope they’re good!



Remember yesterday when I made passion fruit-apricot pate de fruit?  Well, today we made a raspberry version.





Remember how I made caramels yesterday, too?  Well, they didn’t set up right.  They oozed out of the pan, making them impossible to slice.  Somewhere during the cooking process I didn’t cook the caramel long enough.  Boo hoo.  I was sad. 

Hopefully I did better today with this chocolate caramel.  Yes, you heard that right - caramel with chocolate mixed in.  Just when you thought caramel couldn’t get any better.



We also made nougat today.  Pronounced NEW-GOT.  Not noug-it.  I’ll never be able to say noug-it again because it sounds like the hillbilly pronunciation.   The process of making nougat is similar to making marshmallow.  A hot honey-syrup is whipped into egg whites.





The mixture gets really thick and then you quickly stir in your toasted almonds and pistachios, trying not to deflate it too much.  Then we pressed the nougat into pans.  No picture.  You shall see tomorrow. 



We sliced our passion fruit-apricot pate de fruit using a guitar candy slicer.  Isn’t this cool?  I’ve never seen or used one before.  It uses real guitar strings.



Here they are after their sugar bath!  It turns out I’ve been eating these candies from Trader Joe’s for a few months now.  Haha.  Our candies are better.
 


Here’s our sliced marshmallows lightly coated with confectioners’ sugar and cornstarch.  Oh gosh.  So good – especially when broiled.



The French call them guimauve.  How fancy!  You French are so darn classy.