Baklava, hotcross buns, apple strudel, danish pastries, donuts.

I am not getting enough sleep. I am totally not getting enough sleep. It is the dead of winter now. And it is only healthy that people sleep more during winter. Dragging yourself out of bed 6:30 in the morning in the freaking cold is no fun, not healthy. It takes away your alertness, dulls your focus, makes you irritable and almost semi-retarded for most of the day. I was semi-retarded today. I woke up at 6:30am so that I could make it in time for my French lesson at 9am in town. My four hour long French lesson. It is almost like my Biology lecture. Oui? No actually, French is more interesting.

Anyway, I am lagging in the picture updates. For this week, we had baklava, hot cross buns, apple strudel, danish pastries and donuts. I really like this week's products. Very refreshing. Especially baklava. I never even dreamed about making those in my entire life. And next thing I knew, I was making baklava even better than the ones in those specialty shops. Next week will be even better. Breads. Oh, how I miss breads.

Baklava or baklawa is a rich, sweet pastry featured in many cuisines of the former Ottoman (Turkey) and Iranian countries. It is a pastry made of layers of filo dough filled with chopped walnuts or/and pistachios and sweetened with syrup or honey. There, all these are made in class. I have never truly appreciated baklava until this day. It taste so wonderful when you make them right and eat them fresh.

Hot cross buns. Seriously, I think there is something lacking in our school's recipe for hot cross buns. Hot cross buns in Singapore tastes so much better. And it is Singapore you know.

Apple strudel. The very traditional one where the apple filling is encased and baked in very thin, large piece of rolled pastry dough, until it is all mushy inside. Eew. I prefer the modern puff pastry apple strudel. The non-authentic version that we have in Singapore. That tastes so much better.

Donuts! Real artisan hand rolled donuts. What a pity that it is for demonstration only. Eat with pastry cream and jam.

Danish pastries. Ermm, just ignore the background. Focus on the pastries.

End.