Leiths day 6

Today in the morning we made treacle tart, creme anglaise, and baked custard. We started with the baked custard which was relatively easy, with nutmeg, a bay leaf, and vanila, then we put it in a baine marie to bake in an indirect way in the oven! Then we moved on the sweet rich short crust pastry, which did not go to well! When the teacher came around I was about to bring it together, but thought I should add more water, but she said no it should be fine. When it came to rolling it out, it was so short it kept crumbling! The end result looked okay but was very crumbly! The filling was nice, but very sweet, so I added a bit more ginger and lemon juice than the recipe said to try and balance, but I don't think that treacle tart is to my liking! We then made creme anglaise and first time i read off of the wrong recipe so i tried to make custard! Second time around it was good, but the other teacher came and said it thick enough even though I thought it could have had a bit longer. Then we took out the backed custard and put it in the fridge overnight to set!
This afternoon we had a dem on vegetables by Michael, where he basically introduced us to lots of different vegetables and ways of cooking them! He blanched some green beans, braised some red cabbage ( I think it would have tasted really good, but he put some cloves in and that was pretty much all I could taste! Weird how the things you dislike taste so prominent!), wilted some spinach, and served some hot raw beetroot which was really yummy! He also made mash through a sieve which I thought was very clever! He glazed some carrots in butter and sugar, and steamed some broccoli!
This evening I made a tomato crumble which was really good! I cut up some tomatoes and put them in a casserole dish in the oven for an hour, then topped it with a crumble mix of flour, breadcrumbs, Parmesan and butter! Then crisped it in the oven! I also made spaghetti carbonara, which was so good! I first sweated my onions, then made a mix in a bowl if an egg and egg yolk, cream, cheese, and bacon, then cooked that with the onions with the pasta! So good!