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FYI this story took place on 3/3/10

it’s 10:48pm and my legs are very tired.  i woke up at 6:45 am this morning to go to my favorite (non vegan…yet!?) restaurant in Santa Monica that i intern at on Wednesdays.  it’s super fun, especially since i got to practice filling éclairs with coffee pastry cream and glaze them in a perfect blend of espresso, powdered sugar, and a touch of heavy cream.  following that, i measured out the ingredients for the coconut macaroons (not the cute French ones though).  the next task was putting together mini chocolate and fruit tarts, scooping cream into the tarts, smoothing the cream, and adding whipped cream or fresh fruit, from the farmers market of course!  but the berries were pricey today and i felt bad for sneaking a raspberry in my mouth before i knew that they were so pricey this week but at least i now know that the berries were ready to go!  my favorite part of this task was going outside on the beautiful sunny day that it was and picking little purple/yellow and lavender/white flowers from the restaurants little garden, adjacent to the parking lot.  i felt like a little kid as i held the teeny tiny flowers in between the cusps of my hands as if I were carrying butterflies into first grade for show and tell.  then i moved on to putting together an amazing trifle.  Yummmmm.  (ok, fine I understand why the Y in yummy was automatically capitalized ‘cuz it deserves it but i don’t want all the sentence beginning letters and eyes friggin’ capitalized, sheeshh!!)  anyways, i got a fresh cinnamon brioche from the cooks and stripped away all the crust.  as a side note, i took home some of the scraps and my mom gobbled it down, it’s too hard to throw away tasteful scraps.  so then i sliced the brioche and painted it with maple syrup.  i then sliced up all the bananas, gave them a toss in brown sugar (only because they were on the border line of firm verses ripe) and then began the assemblage.  brioche, pastry cream (with itsy bitsy black dots of real vanilla bean that had been scraped from the pod), lots of na-na banananananananananas and finally a zig-zag drizzle of caramel on top.  i shall be working on the vegan version this weekend!*  i already made my second attempt on a great caramel and  i think this one might be pretty darn good.  it was nice to watch American Idol with Ellen and all while i was waiting for my sugar/water mixture to boil and turn to a nice amber color.  some of the girls this season seem to have some real potential.  once the caramel looked amber in color, i took it off the stove and added the heated cream mixture and it was awesome to see and hear the bubbles it made☺  after that, i let the caramel cool.  during that 10 minutes of cooling, i couldn’t decide if i should top the caramel off with either earth balance or the new coconut oil that i got that has no coconut odor.  i went on a whim and tried the new coconut oil (omega nutrition 100% organic coconut oil, i had to order it online) so we will see how it works.

in the mean time, i dreadfully did some of the dishes and then began working on my apple cake again.  i have made this a lot but i just want to perfect it before i share it with, well, my few but highly valued and appreciated readers.  i will add this soon.  but as i was doing the second round of dishes and the cakes were in the oven, i  was watching Seinfeld.  it’s so funny to see the episodes now because most of Jerry’s short-lived “girlfriends” were at the time nobodies and are now somebodies.  like tonight Jerry was seeing the Olsen’s twin’s uncle’s wife on full house!  it’s great to watch tv and bake!

*so unfortunately this vegan first attempt was not amazing.  i think it was because the vegan cinnamon swirl bread was not fresh or soft enough to really soak up the pudding and all.  but i will definitely try again.  also, as much as this sounds heavenly i might still pref the basic strawberry, pudding and pound cake trifle after all!

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