Baking Frenzy

After taking the bread out of the fridge and letting it begin its primary fermentation, alex and I began making homemade strawberry jam! All the ingredients are simply thrown together in a pan and allowed to come to a boil, the tricky part is knowing when you're done. There are a variety of methods for this, and it will take a bit of experimentation to decide which one I like most. Below, the finished product. We used jars from Heath. They worked out well, and equally as important, they're aesthetically pleasing! We ended up preserving one (more on that here). Overall, very satisfied with the results!
Back to the Brioche (see previous post for more info). This "log" is actually quite heavy, and it was delicate to form. I could see why it needed to be cold to properly shape, similar to pie crust! More reason this bread may more appropriately fall under the "pastry" category.
After rising and baking here's the end result! the crust was very flaky, and when you bite into it, you know its brioche, meaning, it tastes like butter (delicious!).
Using the bread I made a grilled cheese with pilota cheese and strawberry jam from earlier. All the flavors melted together this tasted similar to a strawberry cheese pastry, but a bit less sweetness. I think these may fall under the category of consuming "rarely." My poor taster, hopefully all this rich food won't kill him...
Finally, since I've been meaning to attempt tempering chocolate, I made dark chocolate truffles with Grand Marnier. Coated in toasted coconut (left) and traditional cocoa powder (right), plated of course with strawberry jam (needed a theme after all!)
There are few chocolate deserts that can compete with a well done truffle, except maybe molten chocolate cake...anyway, it's a classic, and one of my favorites. While simple in terms of ingredients, they are relatively difficult technically. Mostly in terms of timing and temperature sensitivity. I still need to improve my tempering skills (for more info see here).

Overall, a productive day I would say.