For example, the fruit salad served in a melon carved to look like a swan is a cinch and everyone at brunch was so impressed with the swan. Fruit salad is so easy, obviously. And if you follow the simple instructions, you've got yourself a melon bowl that looks just like a swan in a few minutes. The pictures and step-by-step instructions make it so easy.
The last thing I made was the stuffed salmon in flakey pastry crust. It was the main course for Easter. It was amazingly delicious and crazy easy. Big piece of salmon, mushrooms, shallot, chives, shrimp. Pastry crust. I was going to skip carving the pastry dough to look like a fish and then figured, what the heck. I'd already been cooking for 12 hours -- I may as well TRY. Again the photos and the detailed instructions made this a breeze. I used a funnel from my flask to made the indentations for the scales and the extra bits of dough for the tail, face and gills. Ten minutes later, I had a piece of pastry dough wrapped around stuffed salmon that looked like a fish. It came out of the oven perfectly browned and looking just like the picture in the book.
I'm still working up the courage to make the cream puff swans on a raspberry lake with the carmelized bird cage. I know I could do the swans and lake no problem, but am very unclear about the carmelized cage.
