pistachio, cardamom, and rose mille crepe (& Liebster questions)

I’ve been thinking of baklava recently and so then I decided to make a mille crepe. (Typical.)

I went with the triumvirate of cardamom, rose and pistachio as the main flavouring, flavouring the pastry cream with cardamom, rose (and a bit of rosewater) as well as a small bit of orange blossom water. Ground pistachio was added between the layers, and I glazed the top with a syrup of honey, lemon and orange juice.

In the end it still wasn’t what I wanted–so I guess I really did want to have some baklava after all.

Also, (ack–it’s been over a month–I’m afraid I didn’t see it at first!) but Angie from Angie’s Kitchen Shenanigans nominated me for the Liebster Award! Thank you! Angie blogs about her kitchen shenanigans, which, far from shenanigans, are actually marvellously delicious food adventures. They range from searching for the elusive bluefish to make the perfect sancocho de pescado (I’ll leave it to you to read more to find out whether she locates one!) or sharing incredible recipes such as this mofongo which sounds incredibly appealing with those pork cracklings!

The Liebster award process is a bit exhausting, so while I won’t give nominations again (you can see my previous nominations here), I thought I’d answer the questions because that’s always plenty of fun!

1. What is the best time of day for you?

I like mid-morning. By then I’m usually cognizant and I feel like I have a lot of the day ahead of me still.

2. Of everything on this planet, what drives you bonkers?

That’s a difficult question! All I can think of at the moment is myself. I do irritate and confound myself a lot.

3. What is your favourite past time?

Oh, that should be obvious…taxidermy! (No, I was just trying to be a bit exciting. It’s baking. Baking.)

4. Are you living your dream, what is it?

One of my dreams was to have a food blog. So yes, I suppose I am living it! Another aspect of this was to have a fantastic food blog. Hopefully I’ll get there some day.

5. Make a list of inspiration moments.

Other food blogs are constantly inspiring me. Otherwise, it’s everyday acts of kindness from the people around me. It does sound a bit cliche, but I’m afraid it’s very true.

6. Are you city, country, or a suburbs kind of person?

City!

7. Indoors or outdoors?

I like both.

8. If you were an animal, what would you be, and why?

If not human, maybe a sloth. It would be comfortable and leisurely, although also a bit dull.

9. Tell me one thing you love about yourself?

Hmm. I like that I like to bake.

10. Why do you blog?

To keep an organized and easily navigable record of what I bake. And it’s fun to be able to connect with others, so I’m very glad I started!

Recipe notes:

I also had some issues with the mille-crepe itself. It was rather pasty or floury–I think this resulted from two contributing factors. First, I need to cook my crepes more. I get a bit impatient and remove them as soon as they’ve firmed up, but really some colour and more thorough cooking would leave a less pallid and flabby impression.

Second, while I liked the flavour of the pastry cream, with the crepes, the flour taste came out. I thought I managed to cook most of the flour taste out, but apparently not, so perhaps next time I’d try using a cornstarch-based pastry cream.

Finally, while I liked how the glaze gave it some shine and finish, and it reminded me of baklava, I found it unnecessarily sweet. I also found the lemon and orange flavour overly concentrated and too sour–in retrospect, I would leave it off. It did, however, make it seem more like baklava. But really, I should just try to make baklava instead of all of this roundabout nonsense.