Hello ~ The winter season has finally come to an end for most of the shows. I can already picture myself showing withdrawal symptoms because of a couple of them, and Heaven’s Design Team is surely one. Due to its episodic nature and lack of a conventional plot, what I basically did while reviewing it was to just summarize and have fun. I hope it was amusing reading them as well.
Touching on how Shimoda came to be a part of the team was such an emotional and a fitting way to finish the season, and I didn’t expect that kind of a turn from the series for some reason. When I tell you I teared up when the team revealed that design was the rough draft of Shimoda and told him how they came to love and depend on him! How dare they play with my heart like this…
But Shimoda’s enthusiasm, cuteness, and supportive nature captured me as well, and I think I can say that he’s my favorite character in the cast. I’m glad he also got to openly hear the love and gratitude the team feels towards him.
To commemorate the ending of the season, I wanted to try my hand at baking, insert drum rolls please, cream puffs! Shimoda always bakes them for the team. I’ve made churros from scratch before and you use the same dough for both of the recipes so I thought it wouldn’t turn out a huge disaster. Probably.
The problem with this type of sweets is that you have to make a whole batch. And for some reason, recipes don’t work the same way if you halve the ingredients, even if the measurements are divisible by 2. The reason why is a huge mystery to me, but that’s what I’ve experienced. Anyways, I rambled on solely to say that I halved the recipe I used because I can only eat so much and I shouldn’t be the one to blame if things go south. Promise me you won’t send the photos to Gordon Ramsay so he’d rate my skills, and you may continue…
First things first, the choux pastry. The ingredients go like this.
I got too confident right from the start because the dough turned out okay. I let it cool for a minute and then added the eggs. I was more afraid of my oven because it acts up sometimes, but a more serious problem was lying ahead… After adding the eggs and mixing, my batter didn’t turn out as runny as it was in the video I was following. I was afraid I’d ruin it if I were to add milk or water, so I went with it. When it’s my first time trying out a recipe, I’m honestly like this:
Scientific meltdown asides, what I have is something like this, and I’ll put it in a piping bag and shape them. Oh holy Client, help me so I won’t embarrass myself to a point of no return.
… Okay, so things don’t look very good. I’ll save you from seeing what kind of abomination is going into the oven. But! I haven’t given up yet. I’ll bake them and see what will come out. That’s what Shimoda would want me to do, to believe in myself and keep going.
20 minutes have passed and hmm… they don’t look THAT bad? They look a bit brown-ish because of the light but they are golden brown and hollow inside. I waited for an hour for them to cool down, they haven’t depleted either. Fellas, we might be onto something.
The next course of action is to be a proper adult and have an existential crisis over the mountain of dishes I just created. But thankfully I’m not a proper adult, so I leave it to later, make myself some camomile tea with a dash of lavender, and watch the season finale of Dr. Ramune. Because why not.
What’s left to do is to cook the filling. Here are the ingredients.
This is done as well, but it also needs to cool down and become firmer. If you hate the texture of the dried surface on puddings as I do, you can immediately cover them up when it’s hot with plastic wrap like that. It’s a great way to cut its contact with air!
As you can see from the light, it’s getting dark here and the cooling’s taking longer than I anticipated, so I’ll be wrapping it up for today and do the dishes while crying.
Monday
Apparently, not making the filling before the pastry part was a mistake. But we learn from our mistakes, right? Shimoda would be proud of my growth. While they haven’t depleted, the pastries got kind of soggy overnight. I’m alright with soggy stuff though, just like Raziel, I leave my noodles in the soup a little. On to creating more dishes!
I cut the pastries in half and added the filling. They are looking okay-ish.
Powdered sugar, applied! The most unsettling part has arrived; the decoration. The ones Shimoda bake have cute angel wings on them. They seem like are either made with cocoa powder or cinnamon. I had cinnamon at home, so cinnamon it is. I don’t have any wing stencils, I’ll give it a shot by folding the paper in two, and hopefully, I’ll be able to ‘draw’ on the puffs.
This seemed like a good idea, but it didn’t work… Then, I thought about cutting a stencil myself but I watched enough coffee art fail videos to know that would probably just waste my time further. We’ll have to do without the wings. The grand finale has arrived; taste testing!!
I have to be honest with you, I expected nothing from the cream puffs but?? They taste more than okay! Well, the bar was already on the ground, but they are more than just edible. That’s a good sign!
The moral of the story is:
If you’re not baking it for the people you love, just get one or two from your local bakery. ଘ(੭ˊᵕˋ)੭ ̀ˋ
Thank you so much for joining me on my weekly reviews and the final baking misadventures. It was fun, and stressful at times, to bake for you even if I can share them only virtually. Take care, eat well, and see you tomorrow!
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