Banana Cinnamon Filling: Making the best out of a Profiteroles FAIL

Yesterday, I made some adorable looking Profiteroles. Inspired to make them bigger, I decided to make another recipe of Profiteroles today. I got too excited and went on making the recipe of Choux pastry from memory. I had a song in my head and was bobbing my head to it the whole time. Bad idea. 

While piping the second batch of pastry dough onto the baking sheet and waiting for the first one, already in the oven to bake, I felt something was off. I noticed the batter was easier to squeeze out than yesterday's. I decided to check and see if the first batch are done. There was definitely no puffing and the undersides of the pastry was turning brown too fast; it had some sort of foamy bubbles forming around each pastry. PANIC.

What the heck happened? Why is there oil in the pan? Fudge.

Julie Powell was wrong: You CAN have too much butter.

I didn't realize I placed a bar of butter (equivalent to 2 sticks) instead of halving it to put into a recipe of  which resulted to an oily mess in the baking sheet and a flat dense pastry.

Also, I think I have a problem with eggs. In the French Macaron fail, it got whisked too much; I was heavy handed with them. Now with today's Choux, I added 1 too many. I pray I won't have any egg-related disasters anytime soon, my dad already complained about me using up the egg supply in the house.

I told my boyfriend about how I got so pissed at myself for messing up the eggs again and he couldn't resist cracking these lines:

"Don't beat your eggs too much, I mean, yourself too much."

"I know you want it perfect, but you gotta spill some egg, I mean milk to make a good one."

 What a supportive boyfriend I have noh?

Anyway, I had no other choice but to find a way to make them at least palatable. The pastry were dense and had the strong taste of egg and butter. It was crusty on the outside and very dense inside. The crust reminded me of egg tart... hmm... what if.... LIGHTBULB!

I scurried through the kitchen and looked for ingredients. Remembered a cooking show making custard cream by combining milk, sugar and egg yolk. Whatelse? whatelse? Oooh, nice bananas... Wondered if there were any banana filling recipes, so I researched on the net. Too many of them, so I decided to derive from them a pretty basic recipe which I had the ingredients for.

So I made Banana Cinnamon Filling. Originally, I made just a plain banana filling, but it lacked warmth, it was just, well, boring. We only had local bananas, a Cavendish variety would've done a better job. And so I got some cinnamon powder, mixed it in.

Thus the impromptu Banana Cinnamon Filling turned these sorry looking pastries, from this:

Looked like dried up p---... oh, nevermind.

To these (of course, with the help of chocolate Ganache and powdered sugar)...

Pastry sandwich?
Scoop out insides thru the bottom. Fill with filling.
Assemble sandwich. Drizzle with Ganache and dust with powdered sugar.

(Piped these ones into bee-hives.)
Cut off the top. Scoop out the inside.
Fill with filling. Replace top.
Drizzle Ganache and dust with powdered sugar.

My nephew ate one... and another... and another. Mom ate the scooped insides, licked off the spoon I used for the filling. My dad had his mouth full with one as soon as he arrived. Even dogs even liked the burnt ones!

As for me... knowing it's a FAIL made it look less appetizing, because I know how this should taste like if these were puffy and light. I've gotten my dose of humble pie.

Here's the recipe of the filling I made that somewhat saved the day. Be warned it's very simple as I had to make it from scratch.

BANANA CINNAMON FILLING

INGREDIENTS
1 cup evaporated milk
1/2 cup white sugar
2 tbsp of cornstarch 
1 tbsp flour
2 egg yolks
1 ripe banana
1/8 scant tsp fresh kalamansi juice
1/8 tsp vanilla
a pinch of cinnamon powder


PROCEDURE
1. Mash banana in a bowl. Mix in kalamansi juice to prevent the bananas from browning.
2. Sift together cornstarch, flour, sugar and cinnamon.
3. Scald milk in a saucepan. Stir in the sifted dry ingredients until no lumps appear.
4. Beat in egg yolk, one at a time. Continue stirring until thick and smooth. Remove from heat.
5. Pour in mashed banana and vanilla. Mix well. Let cool before using.

Upside: There were still some Ganache left, so I sliced some bananas and apples. Et voila, faux-fondue as consolation. ;)

Fruit Flavored (Orange) Chiffon Cake: So-so, Needs Improvement

For the past few weeks, I was baking everyday... well except if I ran out of ingredients, which by the way makes me restless and somewhat anxious.

It started when an aunt came for my grandfather's funeral and stayed with us. At the stretch of her stay, I guess she was feeling homesick and wanted us to taste how they cook in the US, she took over the kitchen from my mom. One of the things she made was Banana Bread. The whole process was a no-brainer, just dump everything in a bowl then turn on the electric hand mixer, place it in the oven and wait until the whole house smelled like sweet buttery bread with bananas.

After my aunts left, we had an unusual excess of instant oatmeal and bananas nearing expiration. My mom and dad ordered (yes, ordered) me to make use of them. I baked before, mostly cookies and red velvet cupcakes as my sister's give-aways during holidays, and since I'm their housed bored bum, I was happy to oblige. Batch after batch of cookies and breads being made, I got hooked. I tried to improve their flavor by adding spices and whatnots, so far, nobody really complained other than sometimes the goodies were on the sweeter side of the spectrum. And I guess the best compliment would be that just a few hours after I'm done baking them, they disappear.

So came the week of my birthday, I asked mom if I could make my own cake. She said OK and lent me her recipe book. You've got to love those old molten yellowish type-written sheets with scribbles, it's a sign that the recipe is a tried and tested one. I was checking out the kitchen cabinets and found a Wilton Deluxe Tip Set, which apparently was given to us by my cousin from the US. Thanks very much cuz! :)

So I made my very first legit cake. It was an Orange Chiffon Cake with Orange Marmalade filling and Orange Frosting. I think I went overboard with the orange, but mom said it's best not to experiment much on the flavors. Though it was a refreshing taste, the orange cake needed a bit of contrast. The bottled marmalade as filling (mom wanted the marmalade filling) and thick frosting (I didn't have a proper metal spatula) made the sweetness level too overwhelming. Should've trusted my own instinct and made a bittersweet ganache as frosting and just a small batch of not-too-sweet buttercream icing for decorating.

Anyway, said and done The only thing left for me to do is to decorate the cake. I added a mix of yellow and red McCormick food color in the frosting which resulted into a nice orange color. After covering the whole cake, there was still a cup of frosting left, so I gambled by adding cocoa powder and created a dark hue of brown. I was trying to create spirals covering the entire cake and small flowers which turned out difficult since I had chopped orange zest pieces in the frosting.  :(

So, after much huff & puff:

Forgive the picture, taken by a very tired baker at 12mn.

Not bad for my first try right? My boyfriend said it looked really good and was almost arabesque in design. That made me smile, at least that's one of the very few happy things that happened during my birthday. I guess I've become too much of an uncool hermit that people forgot about me and all they wanted is the cake. Sigh.

FRUIT FLAVORED CHIFFON CAKE

INGREDIENTS

*Makes one 8x12-3inch pan.

*Works well with pineapple, orange and mango.

Batter:

8 egg yolks

2 ½ cup cake flour

1 cup white sugar

¾ cup fruit juice diluted

½ cup corn oil

1 ½ tbsp baking powder

Egg White Mixture:

8 egg whites

1 tsp cream of tartar

½ cup sugar

PROCEDURE

(note: grease the pan with margarine and line with wax paper)

1. Pre-heat the oven at 350F 15 minutes prior to actual baking.

2. Separate the egg yolk and egg whites.

3. Sift the dry ingredients.

4. Mix in bowl the egg yolks, sugar, flour, oil, liquid and etc. Beat until smooth. Set batter aside.

5. Beat the egg whites with cream of tartar. Adding sugar slowly until stiff, but not dry.

6. Fold in the batter to the beaten egg white mixture using spatula.

7. Bake at 350F for 40 minutes or until done.

ORANGE MARMALADE FILLING

INGREDIENTS

1 1/4 cup orange marmalade

1/4 cup finely chopped walnuts

PROCEDURE

1. Mix marmalade and walnuts well. Spread on middle layer.

ORANGE FROSTING DELUXE

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup butter

1 pound (about 4 cups) confectioner's sugar, sifted

1/2 tsp salt

2 tbsp grated orange rind

1 tbsp orange juice

1 egg

PROCEDURE

1. Cream butter until softened; add 1/3 of the sugar and beat well.

2. Add in salt, orange rind and juice while beating.

3. Beat in egg until smooth and fluffy.

4. Add remaining sugar, a little at a time, beating after each addition. If too thick, add a tsp of orange juice, more if needed.

Yes, I'm thinking what you are thinking, raw egg in frosting? I feared the same, so far, nothing happened to anyone who ate a piece of the cake. If ever I'll be making frosting though, this would be my last option. I wanted to try the buttercream frosting found in Wilton's website, but Crisco shortening is a bit expensive here; I looked for vegetable lard but it seemed to be out of stock the time I went to the store. 

Try it if you like, but I would recommend cutting down on the frosting or trying a different frosting all together.