Baker Wannabe

Ma is a fantastic baker. Her home based business is selling pastries and she has been doing this for several years now. She enjoys it and I know that when our home smells of freshly baked cookies and loaves 24/7, I know it's December and the orders are pouring in. Baking never really interested me. I love sweets but to make them from scratch, I don't think I'm the right person to do it. Things have changed lately. Cooking daily has been part of my routine and yesterday, I tried my hand in baking. Nothing complicated. I baked my very own silvanas with Ma's help. The whole process took 4 hours from measuring to mixing to baking to cooling and assembling everything. Surprisingly, I enjoyed it. Initially, I wanted to try baking sans rival but Ma said it was complicated for a beginner like me. The day after I told her I wanted to try baking, she thought of silvanas as this is one of my favorites and it's easier to do. I took pictures of what I baked and it looks like silvanas and most importantly, it tastes like silvanas.

Often times, we fit ourselves into different molds that we see fit based on who we think we are. It's so easy to slide ourselves into different personas and it can be a trap. Others might see something in us that we don't see and what might be accidental in nature can turn out to be wonderful. Nowadays, I believe that certain interests and acceptance to things come in stages. In time, it really kicks in. Case in point are my silvanas. I see this exercise beyond what I mix, create, taste and enjoy but really, this experience talks about how I see myself now and the different possibilities of who I can be. After all, I can wear many hats and I can choose which hat I want to put on.

These are the meringues. Meringues are made out of egg whites and sugar. After baking, it had to be cooled for around 20 minutes before I can put on the butter icing. The crunchy and chewy part that you eat in silvanas is the meringue. What I did was to put on butter icing at the bottom of each meringue so it can hold two pieces together.

This is the butter icing. I had to whip it and when the texture is light and fluffy, it's ready to be taken out of the mixer. Otherwise, if it's overbeaten, the icing will not hold and it will easily melt away.

These are the cake crumbs. Ma and I had to bake the mixture. Afterwards, we put the cake inside the food processor to make it into crumbs. After the meringue was coated with icing, I coated it with cake crumbs.

Voila! One of the 62 silvanas balls I made. Silvanas are supposed to be flat but mine turned out to be round. We didn't follow the recipe to the letter. Anyway, no matter what size or shape, it's still silvanas. After assembling everything, I had to store these in the freezer. It's best eaten when it's frozen. Yummy!

More silvanas. I fit 62 balls in one tray.