Baking

Yesterday I made the Chocolate Hazelnut Tart from Cook's Illustrated. The crust was good, but the chocolate filling was way too bitter, and the hazelnut whipped cream was horribly salty. If I decide to do this again, I will go with a ganache made with cream, and add no salt to the whipped cream. Came out looking nice, but what a waste of an afternoon!

Today was the Swiss Hazelnut Cake. I did not have two identical cake pans, but the cake turned out alright. Next time I use the stand mixer for whipping egg whites, I will make sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl a couple of times.

For the icing, I made half a batch, and that was plenty- maybe not aesthetically,  because I didn't get a nice even finish, but a full batch would have been WAY too sickly sweet. Used a bit of almond extract, as I did not have hazelnut extract.

Grating the chocolate using the food processor was fast, but made a noise like a jackhammer, and made a horrible mess, so I grated the other half of the chocolate by hand (used less chocolate, too).

I was happy about my "hack" of putting plastic wrap under the top of the processor when grinding the nuts.

Not the prettiest pictures, oh well! Fun to watch Bake Off and An Extra Slice while baking.