Another Sheldon solo - the next several weeks are going to be hit or miss for Alison as her work is needing her to focus on some things - but no fear! Sheldon will do his best to keep the squad entertained. This week we dive back into Season 2 for the second Master class episode - S2E10. Four bakes in this one, all were technical challenges in the season and lots of lessons. Pork Pies using Paul's hot water crust - key tips: lessons in the power of flour. Lard and butter - a match made in flavor.Importance in getting thickness right and working this crust when warm. Be careful with your choice of bacon. Don't refrigerate pork that hasn't cooled first! Next we move to chocolate roularde. A delightful rolled cake that intentionally has a cracked outer surface. key lessons: butter below the parchment keeps it from slipping. Whipping egg whites - be careful not to OVER do it or they get dry. Add whipped egg whites in TWO stages, the first third to "slacken" the batter, otherwise you will lose a lot of your desired air.Put down confectioners sugar when you flip the cake onto parchment or else it will stick and you'll have a mess.Must be COOL before rolling with whipped cream. Mary had an interesting trick of intentionally breaking off about a 1"strip to make rolling easier. A lot of contestants thought the cracking meant they messed up - joke was on them! On to another British treat that we've never heard of - Iced fingers. These are a bread based delight and we got to see Paul in his element. They are filled with whipped cream and jam.For this he used strong (bread) flour as it gave the yeast more to eat. Tricks learned: be careful not to let your salt directly land on your yeast or it will kill it. Mix the salt in first. when adding milk, warm it a bit as cold milk will also slow the ability for the yeast to do its job. this recipe had two proof stages and he showed what a proper proof looked like. Finally, the sacher (maybe pronounced "sacker"?) torte. A dense cake with a nice mirror glaze and scripted writing on top. Mary used a special tinthat the bottom popped out - would certainly make this bake easier - but the cake is robust so as long as you grease well it should turn out ok. she also used a parchment round in the tin - these can be purchased! If you are making lots of cakes - a good choice for sure. Other tips: use caster sugar - finer granules that will completely dissolve more easily. FIVE eggs in this one and again Mary demonstrates the egg while fold in method to slacken the batter. she uses lower cocoa chocolate to prevent bitterness and ads ground almonds for stability.... I am assuming this is the same as almond flour? Her ganache method is perfect - but the one question I am still having is "how cool do you let it get before pouring". I'd like to see a number for temp. The piping on top to me is the most intimidating part, apparently the key is to just continue to roll with it like handwriting. I see a disaster in my future hahaha.