Yesterday, we continued with our quick bread labs. We made madeleines, lady fingers, savoury ham and cheese muffins and savoury broccoli and cheese biscuits. I have made madeleines before, but now that I'm being evaluated on how they turn out, it seems much more difficult! However, they turned out just fine! Nothing too interesting to tell about those! But the lady fingers.... Oh the lady fingers! That was a complicated recipe. Before this class, I thought that lady fingers were just simple dry cookies shaped into logs... but no. They're complicated. You must first whip the egg whites until perfect soft peaks form, then add the sugar at just the right speed and then continue until you have stiff peaks. This is much more stressful than it sounds! My instructor also made a huge point on the importance of not getting any egg yolk in the whites, or else they won't whip. So what's the first thing that happens to me? I break the yolk. Not good. I managed to scoop out the majority of the yolk and prayed that it wouldn't interfere. I was having an off day. I not only broke that yolk, but broke two other eggs on my bench! After whipping the egg whites, you must whip the egg yolks separately until just the right consistency. Then you need to fold these two together while making sure not to deflate the mixture. AH! Needless to say, mine didn't quite turn out. After all that, what I messed up on was my baking time! I actually succeeded in mixing the ingredients properly, but I took the cookies out of the oven too soon! So, my lady fingers didn't work out the right way, but that's fine... I then made some savoury muffins and biscuits. Those two recipes were fairly simple and didn't require much attention. They both turned out perfectly :) When my instructor was grading me, he even told me that I was one of the strongest students! So, yay! I'm a little concerned seeing as I think that my recipes have turned out because of pure luck, but we'll see! Next, we move onto pies!

I'm only showing one lady finger in the picture...