Vlog 11: My first collaborative "shoot" with a friend - cookie charcuterie board and baking tarts

Hi earthlings!!! I hope you're all doing great. 

Baking and photography has a very special place in my heart even though I'm not a good baker nor a photographer. I love and enjoy doing these two. I'm glad that I'm doing these again ANDDD I'm back to the groove in posting here. 

I want to share this fun and memorable experience with a good friend of mine. Even though we only met few months ago we instantly clicked like we've known each other for so long. We have the same interests, hobbies and we almost think the same. Hence why we came up with this little "mini photoshoot/project". 

Besides chatting and enjoying our company we challenged ourselves to do this. We've been planing this shoot since November. But because she used to work at night and I work during the day our schedule was always a conflict and then COVID-19 happened..... we had to wait a little longer before we could meet up. 

Prior to meeting up we've been sending each other ideas and recipes we like to try. It's an on going thing of ours since last year. But then I realized my husband's birthday was coming up so I asked her if we could make a tart instead. And since my husband and I loves lemon cheesecake I've decided to go with lemon as the flavor. Of course he will also get his favorite cake but I thought to at least try to make something for him with a help of my friend. Besides being afraid to bake breads.. pies and tarts are one of the least things I would bake. *sigh* 

Day 1 - buying ingredients, finalizing our shoot and making the tart dough

We decided to do a cookie charcuterie board for the shoot. We thought this is something different and a bit challenging since it needs to have different elements and textures. We also didn't want to spend so much time in baking all the cookies. So we thought to buy packaged cookies in the grocery store so we could spend most of our time shooting. And we wanted to use natural lighting so shooting in the morning was the best time. I couldn't contain my excitement while my friend and I were doing this shoot. The last time I did a shoot like this was probably back in college or like 2014. I really enjoyed this one. It felt like I was in my own element. lol. After we did our shoot we ate and rested for a bit and moved on with making the tart tough. I think we finished around 11:00pm :P

Here are some of my final shots 

Making the tart dough

Day 2 - finishing the tarts

At this point my friend and I were already exhausted. We already finished the dough and the lemon filling yesterday. The only left thing to do was bake the tart dough and make the chocolate filling. I didn't expect things to turn this way. We realized the pan she owns was too big so the chocolate filling wasn't enough to fill the whole thing. So we made another batch. This is quite embarrassing to even show you guys :P :)) (but might as well so you could give us an advice on what could have possibly gone wrong). Our chocolate pecan tart didn't bake well. She told me it might be because my oven was too small. So the air was not circulating enough. This is why I don't make tarts myself. LOLS. But I'm glad the lemon tart turned out really good! It was delicious. There was a right balance of tanginess and sweetness. We glazed it with apple jam and made some lemon garnish on top of the blueberries. The recipe we used for lemon tart was from this book by Pierre Hermé. 

A sad chocolate pecan tart

Things might not look professional or perfect but you have no idea how long I've awaited to do something like this. To be working with someone who has the same passion as me is so fun and fulfilling. Of course, I enjoy working by myself but it's also nice to have a company.

I hope whoever reads my blog would be inspired to start working on their dream or a hobby that they're shy to share with friends or family. It might be a long journey ahead of us but we will not regret starting now. 

I also shared a short vlog on my channel. If you're interested to see what else we did please feel free to watch it. Thank you! :)