Procrastinating

Work has been hounding me these past few weeks and I can say with finality that I. Am. Tired.   So even if I've been busting my butt at work, they still keep on coming!  They won't stop!  I actually have a deadline on Tuesday and I'm not nearly halfway done.  I said to myself that I'll work on it this weekend, but it's Sunday now and I only got to work on a smidge.  Sigh.

I really don't like working on weekends and to procrastinate, I made this:

A mixed berry curd torte. 

I got a tray of really cute organic eggs at SM Supermarket, expensive at Php 120/dozen - I usually get my eggs from Bounty Fresh at around Php 70/dozen - but what the hey. 

I thought a really nice dessert would do the eggs justice, and I've got a bag of walnuts and frozen mixed berries that I was itching to use, so a torte was a splendid idea.  Splendid but elaborate, with the curd, dacquoise and frosting that I needed to make. 

I didn't realize how hard it was to find a recipe for whipped cream frosting, but I think I found a keeper.  I got the recipe for stabilized whipped cream frosting from here.  It still softened like crazy outside of the fridge, but it did hold its shape for about 30 minutes.  I'll tweak the recipe a bit to suit our crazy humid weather.

Now that the torte has been tasted (yum!) and stashed in the fridge, I now have to work.  Ugh.

Lemon Curd Holidays

With all my spare time, I decided to make our holiday presents this year. Contrary to popular belief, handmade gifts are not necessarily cheaper than store-bought ones, but boy are they fun to make!

I made some simple, easy to make lemon curd and bottled them up in nice jars. Here's the easy-peasy lemon curd recipe I modified from the allrecipes.com site:

Lemon Curd
yield: about 2 cups

3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

1. Put all ingredients, except for the lemon zest, in a bowl and set over a double-boiler
2. Stir constantly until mixture is thick and leaves a trail at the back of the spoon (about 15 minutes), or until it reaches 170 degrees.

Important note: Don't let the mixture boil!

Keeps for 1 week in the fridge, and about 2 months in the freezer.