Baking Time

Baking takes more then just opening the cupboards and pulling out the ingredients, putting them together and baking.

There is the planning, I am not talking about going to buy the ingredients. I am talking about research, designing, time frame, pulling the ingredients together then baking, and then final assembly.

When talking about research, I am referring to the recipe. I grew up when we did not use the internet to pull up recipes, cookbooks, magazines, and grandparents note cards were used. You have to take a look at the recipe and does it make senses, I know that not everyone can read a recipe and know if it looks weird or not. For items that I am not familiar to baking what I do is I also compare a recipe to others like it, using cookbooks and online recipes.

Another thing to do during the research is knowing what the recipe is going to take time wise and equipment. Now most recipes do not need fancy equipment but there might be special techniques that you may not be familiar with, even something as basic as "creaming the butter and sugar" is a technique that a lot of people do not know how to do it correctly.

Then in regard to time, do you have enough time to work on this. Looking at the elements, now long they take, then assembly. Remember some elements you cannot walk away from without ruining it.

When it comes to some bakes it is important for you to know how you want it to look. It is important to do a drawing of your bake and labeling everything. Why is this important? Mistakes happen, life happens, and interruptions happen. Having a detailed design on paper will help you not make those mistakes. It will also help you organize your thoughts on the different elements you need to make and when to make them.

Time planning is the most important part of baking. You need to be sure you have enough time to do the bake. I had recently made a dessert that took me three days to make. I had several elements that had to be made. Some of them had to rest for 24 hours before I could continue, then after assembly I needed to let it sit for at least 8 hours for it to set before final presentation was completed before consumption.

This dessert I had to prepare the filling, that took 6 hours to do. Had to cook it and cool it 6 separate times. I had to make the tart dough, had to chill for 24 hours. Then there was rolling out the dough and baking. While that is baking, I made the white chocolate ganache, let that sit in the fridge for 24 hours.. While the tart shells are cooling, I am heating up the oven and making the almond nougat and then bake that. Once baked you have to punch out the nougat in the same you need.

Then finally when my shells are cool, finish making my filling and fill the shells. Those had to set in fridge for 8 hours (overnight).

Not done yet. After all has chilled and set, had to take a mixer and do a quick whipping of the ganache, but it in a pipping bag, plate your dessert pipe the ganache on top and place the nougat on top. Now this part is done right before serving, you do it too early then you have to keep it chilled so the ganache doesn't collapse but doing that you will loose the snap consistency of the nougat or put it on right before serving - which puts you at risk of forgetting since you have done half the finalization of the dessert, and if you are entertaining it would be easy to forget the final step since you already did part of the final assembly.

Cannot stress enough about the time planning. It is so important and is also an afterthought to many great dinner parties, which often times means you had to change your plans, and it ended up being a subpar dessert.

Behold the Pink Almond Praline Tart - 3 days lead time needed. It was worth the time and planning...not to mention the calories.