Pecan Tassies and ~Happy Thanksgiving!~

Hi everyone!!  Sorry for this late post on Thanksgiving...A day after it passed, but here goes!  Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  There are many things I am thankful for.  However, I feel like I don't always appreciate all the things I have.  This is something I have to work on.  The things I am thankful for are the usual: family, friends, house, food, and clothes.

For this year, the things I am especially thankful for is being able to find a fellowship at school that I feel like I fit really well in.  Another thing I'm extremely thankful for is meeting 4 international students who have changed my life.  I've been helping them improve their English, but I have also learned a lot from them too.  Also this year I'm living in an apartment as opposed to the dorms, so I have been cooking for myself.  I'm thankful that I am finally forced to learn how to cook because I never really liked cooking before.  I'm starting to enjoy cooking now too.  You know, the first time I actually cooked in my apartment, I set off the fire alarm.  T_T  To my credit, the alarm was really sensitive...but I can't believe I used Pam on a really hot pot and it just started smoking.  So now, I have started to use regular oil.  I'm also thankful for having a job so I can spend my own money on things I want without having to ask my parents for money.  Most importantly of all, I'm thankful for my readers!  Thanks for your support and advice.  I really do appreciate it. :D

So this year for Thanksgiving, I went over to S's house just like last year.  We had lunch at her house and the food was just delicious.  I really missed her and her family because the last time I saw them was last Thanksgiving.  Unfortunately, S. was extremely busy with her schoolwork so I was only able to see her for 15 seconds...literally... LOL.  I knocked on her day, asked her how she was doing, and then left her alone.  However, I talked to her mom instead.  It was quite funny.  Her mom was like, "I never imagined a day where I would be having a conversation with you like this."  Her mom had seen me grow up, so that's why it was so "weird".  Anyway, I really enjoyed this Thanksgiving lunch with her family and several other families present at the potluck.

I made pecan tassies for the potluck.  They were all polished off. :D  Some people couldn't resist going back for seconds and thirds.  I actually made these pecan tassies the week prior, with one of the international students (J.)  It was quite funny because he had to help me with making the crusts and stuff and I usually bake with my girl friends. XD  I brought the pecan tassies to a potluck too the past week and got rave reviews.  Whenever people say that something I made tastes good, I'm not really sure how I should react because it's not like I created the recipe.  But yea, these tarts are really good.  I ate some and had a very hard time keeping myself from eating more.  Also, even my brother ate them!  (He dislikes nuts.)

These pecan tassies are super time consuming.  They take around 3 hours to make (from the very start to the very end).  I figured out that the best way to make the crust was to make the dough, then just roll the dough into balls, use one end of my rolling pin to squish the dough into the cupcake pan and press the ball into the edges of the pan.  Everything else is super simple.

Pecan Tassies

Croissants

Notice: Since blogger went down recently, I discovered that some of my comments have disappeared. I'll reply to your comments again when I feel like retyping what I said. Also, sorry if your comments disappeared from my previous post. I didn't delete them. :( I appreciate that you left comments though.

When I first started getting serious in baking, I shared some of the goods with my Uncle's family. One day, he came over to my house, saw some croissants on the table, and asked my mom if I made them. I didn't. The croissants were from Costco, but after hearing that, I always wanted to try making croissants. I wanted to learn how to make something new and complicated like croissants. However, I never felt compelled to do so because of all the time needed to make croissants.

After taking on my senior project, it was necessary for me to make croissants because it was one of my goals. The whole process took around a day. Soooo complicated! Pounding out the butter took me a while and rolling out the dough did too. I guess I need more muscle? I had to finish this late at night because I started making the dough and such in the afternoon, after Chinese school and work. I didn't even bake it until the next day because I had to leave it in the fridge as instructed.

I was pretty happy with the results, however for some reason lots of the butter leaked out. While that's a good thing calorie wise, it's also a bad thing because I don't think that's supposed to happen. I asked my brother to evaluate the taste and he said it tasted normal...which I guess is good. My friends on the other hand, really enjoyed it. One of them even thought that I bought the croissants and was only saying that I made them, haha. I think that's all I have to say about these croissants. I'll tell you if I think of anything else.

Croissants
Recipe from America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book
It can also be found here.
(Recently, I have been making a lot of things from that book.)

Cream Puffs w/ a Cookie Topping

I am finally done writing my cream puff post. I have been very busy with school and all the other stuff I need to do. Like I mentioned in my last post, I made these puffs during the summer. However, I was too lazy to write a post until now.

I got the recipe from My Buttery Fingers. Her puffs looked so beautiful and delicious that I knew I had to try the recipe. Wendy said that it was as good as Beard Papa's. I agree, these puffs were pretty good. The chocolate cookie crust made these puffs hard to resist. Sadly, I wasn't able to make the pastry cream from scratch because I also made tuna heart buns on the same day and by the time I finished I was too tired. So instead, I made instant vanilla pudding for the pastry cream. Now, that won't compare to real pastry cream so one day I will have to try making these again.

Cookie-Topped Cream Puffs



Here are the flours.


Melt the butter with water, sugar and salt.




Add in the flours and mix.




Add in egg slowly.


Continue mixing until it becomes like this.


Place dough in bag.

Cut off that little corner. It's better to leave a little space so you won't touch the dough with your scissors.

Here's the cookie topping.


Very easy to make.


Little mounds of dough.


Place cookie topping on the dough.

Bake.


Finished baking.