Lemon Bites: a Tasty Failure

During this last week of rewarming leftovers, and making basic leftover foods like Shepherd’s Pie and Turkey Noodle Soup, I’ve had time to browse through some old photos.  I didn’t post them for one reason or another, maybe the photos weren’t that great, or they were disappointing recipes, or like this one…a failure (as originally planned).

I had this vision of little puff pastry cups filled with lemon curd and topped with whipped cream. 

1. I had some leftover lemon curd from this post.
2. I had some whipping cream leftover, don’t remember why.
3. My puff pastry accidently got defrosted and needed to be used. 

Necessity is the mother of invention; I needed to use up some stuff so I invented something.  At least I thought I was going to invent something easy.  Problem is, I’m not much of a baker or a dessert maker.  Sure when I put my mind to it, I can follow a recipe exactly.  However, with my lack of experience, I don’t have enough knowledge to “wing” it. 

I have had zero, zilch, nada experience with puff pastry.  I’ve read about it, read recipes that used it, watched cooking shows that used it and even watched how it was made.  I learned enough to know that for the most part, the packaged stuff is pretty good because real puff pastry, like phyllo dough, takes a lot of work and time.  That being said, I didn’t realize that simply rolling out the puff pastry and fitting it to a mini muffin pan wouldn’t end up with perfect little puffy cups.  Quite to the contrary.  I discovered puff pastry will puff and puff until it fills your little muffin tin and there is no longer a distinguishable cup shape.

Not to be out done by my puff pastry, I simply cut them in half and made little lemon curd sandwiches a.k.a. bites.  McGyver and the Baby boy popped them into their mouths and declared them delicious.  Crispy outer shell, creamy whipped cream and a nice tart lemony filling.  I would definitely make these again, only I would skip the muffin tin and just cut out little shapes and let them puff up till they were ready for some fillings.  Or I would use pie or phyllo dough to get a nice fillable cup shape.

Onto the creation, bwahaha.  Ingredients were simple: puff pastry, lemon curd, whipping cream and granulated sugar.

I read somewhere that you should chill your bowl and beater before whipping the cream, so I did.

My muffin pan is non-stick, but I sprayed it anyways.  I’m just that kind of gal.

One of the reasons I don’t care for baking is the mess.  When you cook, it’s a cutting board, knife, pot, spoon, spoon rest and not too much else.  When you bake, there’s bowls, beaters, measuring cups and spoons, spoons and spatulas, pans, serving dishes and rolling pins.   That doesn’t include the sticky flour-y mess on the counter, which results with me dirtying up, yet another item to scrape the gunk off the counter.  Being the little McGyver-ette that I am, I threw down some parchment paper, floured and rolled the pastry on it.  When I was done, I just gathered it all up and disposed of it, ahhh, what a beautiful thing!

Cutting out the circles and shaping them in the pan.

Ignorance was such bliss.  I mean, don’t they look like they have a lot of potential.  Why didn’t they tell me they were going to rebel and refuse to be cute little cups?  Maybe I just got a batch of teenaged puff pastry?

Then out of the oven, and horror of all horrors, no cute little cups, not a one.  *Sigh* Just mounds of puffed pastry.

Sometimes you just need to take things in stride.  Besides I hate wasting food!  So I pressed on and made the whipped cream.  A tablespoon of sugar and probably about a cup of cream???  Been so long I don’t even remember!

The whipping part went just as planned, maybe it was my chilled utensils?

The little lemony nuggets were quickly assembled and even more quickly devoured!

Not too bad for a failure?

If anybody has some pearls of wisdom to share about puff pastry or what I should have done differently, I ‘d love some advice.  Please help this non-baker, non-dessert maker, pa-leeeeeese.