In The Great British Baking Show Masterclass, Mary Berry admits that she does not make her own puff pastry since it’s easier to buy it at the shops. Nevertheless, I lost my mind and decided that now would be a perfect time to make puff pastry from scratch. (I mean, now is a better time than, say, when I have a full time job!)

I used the instructions in The King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook, which have you mix a small amount of the flour into the butter instead of just whacking the butter flat with a rolling pin the way the contestants on GBBO do. The mixing process (I used a stand mixer; I may need to invest in one for myself when I return to my own kitchen) softens the butter enough to be able to spread it into a square.

Puff pastry isn’t really difficult to make. It takes time, and patience, definitely. And it requires having a decent workspace and rolling pin. Maybe arm strength–though I don’t have that. And it requires being able to accept knowing that your pastry has a full pound of butter in it.

Anyway. I made my dough, I made my butter, I chilled it all, and then the next morning I put it all together. Roll–fold–chill. After a bunch of times, I had a nice, layered bit of pastry.

I used half the pastry for salmon en croute. I didn’t do a fantastic job of rolling the pastry thin enough, so it was a bit doughy on the sides. Definitely not going to get a Paul Hollywood handshake on it, but it was delicious. Shabbat dinner, so no photos.

With the scraps of pastry from the salmon, I baked some snacks. Butter, flour, egg wash, and heat–can’t go wrong.

What will I do with the remaining half of the batch of puff pastry? Stay tuned to find out.

Follow up to season one, episode one: what to do when you have four leftover egg yolks.

What is the best thing made with egg yolks? Lemon curd. There is no room for debate here. I am right, 100%.

Except that 1. the recipe I selected to use had too much butter in it, and 2. there are a lot of recipes for lemon curd that use the whole egg. So…we may be having more lemon curd as I try to find a better recipe. In the meantime, the lemon curd I made isn’t good for eating straight, so I digged out a tart pan in my parents’ basement, and made a lemon tart.

I still had those ground almonds I mentioned in the Swiss roll post, so I searched for a Passover almond tart crust. I ended up making the crust for this pie recipe, shown here post baking, pre filling. I didn’t do a great job of making it show-worthy, but it’s my first ever tart crust. I’ll wait for perfection.

After I baked the crust and let it cool, I poured in the lemon curd. Even my “lemon curd? no thank you” mom enjoyed the tart.

Netflix arrangement, season 1, episode 1. Cake week.

Signature challenge: Swiss rolls.

The contestants made:

• lemon curd roll
• orange and aniseed sponge with honey cream
• cardamom, pistachio, and coffee
• chocolate orange with orange jelly filling
• pistachio with strawberry
• strawberry and creme pat
• raspberry and lemon
• red velvet and white chocolate
• tiramisu
• apricot and basil with a mascarpone and white chocolate filling
• black forest
• coffee swiss roll with caramelized hazelnuts

My Swiss roll:

Early in the pandemic, I bought ground almonds for Passover baking. I then proceeded to use almost none of them. The remaining almonds have been in my freezer, but in preparation for a kitchen renovation, I brought them with me to my parents’ house. I decided to use them for an almond sponge for my swiss roll.

Then I spent way too long browsing recipes on the internet for a perfect almond sponge, gave up, and ended up making a basic sponge cake (Merlin’s Magic Sponge Cake) from The King Arthur 200th Anniversary Cookbook. Don’t worry; I’ll figure out something to do with the almond meal!

I asked my dad to buy an orange so that I could make an orange filling for yeasted rolls (think cinnamon rolls, only with orange), but instead decided to use the orange zest to flavor a Swiss meringue filling. (I thought about orange whipped cream, but that would have required another trip to the store, to purchase whipping cream, and we’re in the middle of a pandemic, so trying to minimize trips to the store. No whipped cream for this swiss roll!)

So, how’d it go? My Swiss meringue was closer to orange Fluff–delicious but not peaked–and the cake was…spongy. That said, it was a good first effort at a Swiss roll. I used Mary Berry’s tip to gently score the sponge to begin the roll, and I rolled the cake while it was still warm. No cracks in the cake, and I made a pretty decent roll.

The meringue resulted in four leftover egg yolks, so next up: lemon curd.

Photos (forgive my non-food-blogger quality photography!):