69/99: Caramelized Pineapple Pudding Cakes

 

Either my baking skills are rapidly declining or these little things were just mean. I started making these back in August when I made the Brioche that goes in it.  I made the Creme Anglaise that the brioche cubes have to sit in and never got around to making the rest of it.

Ever since then, the recipe has been staring at me from the index.  The thing is, I didn't want to make another brioche.  A few months ago I called several bakeries in town and one of them had brioche. I went to grab one but when I got there I was told that someone had just come and they bought the rest of them.  All that to say, these have been cursed since the first time I opened the book.



This past week, I've started studying at Lusa, a Lebanese Bakery in town, and discovered that they make brioche! I special ordered one (it was only $6 for a huge loaf! That's probably cheaper than making it myself) and happily picked it up yesterday. I cut it, let it dry out, made the creme anglaise, and then let it soak up the creamy goodness.

Last night around 10:30 I started making the rest of it.  Finals are this week so I wanted to go ahead and get it over with so I could spend all day today studying.

Here's where I suck. I didn't have a digital candy food thermometer so I used the old fashioned kind.  I think this one is so old that it doesn't register the temperature quite right.  Needless to say, on my fourth batch of caramel I finally got it right.  I HATE making caramel. It's official.  The final batch was still not totally normal.  My roommate kindly suggested that I watch some tutorials online and then pulled up some pictures for me.  That's how bad it was. But in the pictures online, they aren't putting water in their caramel. I'm convinced that the water is just not normal.  I'll blame the recipe.

But about 10 minutes later it obviously wasn't the recipe because I had to make a second batch using turbinado sugar. Attempt 1: burned. Thankfully this one only took me two attempts.

It finally went in the oven and was ready (because of all the caramel issues) a little before 1. Should I mention again that I have finals this week?

I wasn't up for eating it last night so I woke up this morning and stuck them back in the oven to re-heat them.

I don't know if they really didn't taste that great, if somewhere along the way I messed up (probably most likely option) or if I had already made up my mind that they weren't good. I took a bite and threw the rest away.

But the good news is that they are done. The bad news is that finals are not.

I went to a coffee shop down the street to post and to start studying (ah!) and my friend who works there started asking me about the cakes. Then she said that this sounded really weird but that she had a dream about me last night.  In her dream we were all hanging out but for some reason I had gained about 40 pounds.  They were a bit concerned and asked if I had just been eating junk food or if something was wrong.  I said that it was the cakes! She said in her dream I had to start seeing a therapist because the weight gain from all the cakes was making me psycho.  I thought it was hilarious.  I'm just hoping that it wasn't some strange prophesy haha.

Anyway, on to studying! Wish me luck!