Flour Reaching

2008-05-26T02:02:00.000-07:00

I had the great fortune to attend two of the master classes held during the recent World Gourmet Summit. One was by Fabrice Danniel from le Cordon Bleu school in Thailand, and the other is by the Picasso of Dessert - Monsieur Pierre Herme! I have heard so much about him, and have written as much, if not more about him too, so it was quite exciting for me to see him in action.


	Le Cordon Bleu just opened a school in Bangkok and so they were trying to do a lot of publicity. This is the only class that gave away door gifts. I got a towel and a wooden ladle from Le Cordon Bleu!


	Ha! Ha! The man himself - Monsieur Pierre Herme. A very quiet unassuming guy, but quite funny too. Apparently Madame Herme was in the audience too and that was why he was smiling and chatty all the time.


	Tres bien! I got my cookbook signed by Pierre Herme. Now I just have to find a buyer tee hee hee.


	Have been baking a lot nowadays, basically every Sat, Sun, Mon and Tue. The problem is I get too tired to take photos of the things I make everytime. Tsk Tsk. The above is an apple torte with walnut crumble. It was popular and was finished within half an hour reaching the office.


	Really, it is very nice, if I may say so too.		A friend wanted strawberry shortcake. I decided to invent my own. Tah dah!		A square shortcake with strawberries baked in a cloud of "meringue". Meringue in "" because I added cream to make it more custard-like.


	I did a strawberry salad with passion fruit dressing to go with the tart.		The feedback was that the passion fruit was too sour. I thought it helped to tone down the sweetness of the custard.		I broke the custard to show you the huuuggggeee strawberry in the center.

BingBingBang What's That? Galapong!

2008-01-03T01:37:00.000-08:00

I had 4 days off during the new year period. It started on the 29th and ended on the 1st. As usual, per the custom, we attended muddynights new year's eve party. And because I lurve that guy so much, I decided to make some Filipino desserts, a slice of Manila so to speak, so he won't be homesick. I made Bibingka Galapong and Ensaymada.

And what pissed me off so much is that as usual I forgot to take the pictures I need of the things I baked. I only have a picture of the Bibingka. The other pictures you see here are not mine but I wanted to show them so that if you are not familar with some of the items, you have an idea as to what it looks like. The Bibingka I made:

Wrapping it with banana leaves when baking infuses the whole cake with subtle scent of bananas.

And why I am pissed is because I actually bought this pretty nice camera and the required paraphernalia several months ago. I wanted to take professional grade photos of the things that I bake. And until today, a new year, I have yet to take a single picture with that darn camera.

Anyway, I was told that a bibingka is not like that. Apparently there is salted egg inside and it is baked very flat like a pancake. Because I baked the whole thing at one shot, it became a very light sponge cake. The top has to be brushed with coconut cream and sugar, baked until it is golden and then sprinkled with coconut. But my version I was told is delicious. Thus I shall rename this BingBingBang. LOL. I'm sorry it was not my intention to create a new dessert item for the Philippines.

I also made Chinese steamed glutinous rice for the party, and since I lurve muddynights so much and he asked for the recipe, you can find it after the picture.

Recipe for Chinese Glutionous rice:

250g Glutinous rice, 2 whole piece of dried cuttlefish (cut into floss), mushrooms, dried shrimps, dried peanuts, sausage (omit this if you want to make halal), minced shallots

Soak rice overnight.

Fry minced shallots until fragrant.

Add cuttlefish floss, mushrooms, dried shrimps, peanuts and sausge. Fry for about 30 seconds.

Add 2 Tbsp Oyster Sauce, a dash of sesame oil, white pepper, black thick soya sauce, salt to taste.

Fry about 1 minute. Transfer to steamer.

Prepare 2 Tbsp Oyster Sauce with a rice bowl of water.

Every 15 minutes, sprinkle the oyster mix over the rice, mix everything up a bit, and continue to steam. Do this every 15 minutes. After about 45 minutes, taste the rice. If it is the texture that you want, then it is ready.

Sprinkle some deep fried shallots, diced spring onions, julienne fried egg on top.

Monsieur Hermé, Je t'aime encore.

2007-12-27T21:20:00.000-08:00

My faith was restored. I guess it was either to blame Monsieur Hermé or to blame my lack of skills. So I chose to blame him. But now with these Korova cookies, I am in awe of Monsieur Hermé again. These are truly delicious. They are to die for. The chocolate taste is so intense and they are so buttery that one bite is equivalent to 3 hours on the threadmill. And they are so simple to make. And I am going to town with these cookies for the next few months which means I am going to try out drastic experiments with them by adding all kinds of unimaginable things to them.

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-21T21:01:00.000-08:00

I have no idea on the origin of log cakes. I understand that it is a European tradition and is known as Buche de Noel in France which means er .. Christmas Log. I have been putting off making any log cakes this year until I got an order for one last week, and I was informed that I promised to make one for a friend when I was tipsy from too much wine LOL.

These are tiramisu log cakes with a chocolate ganache 'tree bark'. I thought I would make it a bit more tropical by piping grass at the bottom of the logs. Imagine the beginning of winter before the grass dies off ....

Eric's Tarts

2007-12-16T21:05:00.000-08:00

I got a book on tarts from Eric Kayser. Previously I was making tarts from The Tart Bible, an excellent book from Rose Levy Beranbaum. And since I was ordered to make tarts for a friend's birthday, I decided to give Eric Kayser's recipes a try. Eventhough, everyone tells you that you should not prepare any food for the first time if you are catering. Always go for the tried and tested. But it was a time for daring do. So I risked it. I wanted to do 6 different tarts! LOL. And as you know, .... the best laid plans of men and mice .....often go awry. I ended up with 3 different tarts. A chocolate ganache tart with chocolate almond crumble, a blueberry tart with franginpane

and a mango tart with pastry cream. A few days later, I also made a franginpane tart studded with fresh cherries for a company event, also from Eric Kayser's recipe.

I must say that Monsieur Kayser really rocks. The tarts are delicious and I like the rustic look they have to them. And I love my tarts square, and apparently so does Eric :-)

An affairé with Pierre Hermé

2007-11-29T19:37:00.000-08:00

Pierre Hermé! Pierre Hermé! Vous etes mon héros! Mon idole! Vous etes le maître des desserts. Je ne suis pas digne pour mentionner même votre nom. LOL. Pardon my french. It is atrocious. This is how I feel about this man who is acclaimed as one of the best and most creative patissiere in France, if not in the world. And his cookbooks are so difficult to get that when I saw the 'Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé' at le Borders de Parkway Parade, I grabbed it like I would have grabbed a float when drowning and rushed home to pore over and intensely study every single page.

Décisions! Décisions! Hmmmm.... What should I make first? I was filled with trepidation. How dare I, a mere mortal, even try to make something that the revered Pierre Hermé created? C'est impossible! C'est une parodie! Anyway being the brave and foolish person that I was, I decided to make les sablés de chocolat et noisette (hazelnut chocolate cookie) and the la tarte de chocolat chaud et framboise (warm chocolate and raspberry tart).

However, you would need a fortune to buy raspberries and hazelnuts in Singapore. So I replaced the raspberries with cherries (which also cost a fortune but which I happend to have a punnet of in the fridge) and hazelnuts with almond slivers. And I make the tarts really small.

Voila! Here are the results. And again, forgive me for my French, s'il vous plait. Oo la la.

I think hazelnuts look very good on this cookie. The almond bits make the cookie looks very 'stingy' if you know what I mean. I followed exactly all the ingredients even using the terribly expensive Valrhona cocoa powder. Although it came out looking like the original, I find the taste too bland. So we ate it sandwiched between a layer of Nutella!

The tarts are quite delicious if you are not expecting a custardy chocolate filling. The chocolate filling is exactly like a fudgy brownie and even the method of making it and the ingredients are very much like for a brownie. We prefer this pastry than the one that I used for the other chocolate tart. But prefer the chocolate ganache to this brownie like filling.

My take on his recipes after trying two of them? Well. Let's just say that I probably need to look for another idol. This one did not live up to the promise.

Feeling tartish

2007-11-26T00:47:00.001-08:00

Tarts are probably one of the easiest item to bake and yet one of the toughest to master and get right. Tart dough is a little like a sensitive person - one that you have to handle delicately because it is so fragile, before and after baking.

And getting the tart dough correct is just half of the story because the filling either makes or breaks the tart. And so a tart is actually like a sensitive person who is vain too, because you need to dress up the tart shell with something that looks tasty too.

More challenging also is that you need to pair the type of tart pastry correctly to the filling. So a tart is more like a sensitive and vain person who is also picky. And you have so many to choose from. There is shortcrust pastry, rich shortcrust pastry, cream cheese pastry, pate sucree, pate brisee, pate frolee, pate sable or pate a pate. And from these basic pastries you can add unlimited types of flavouring and nuts.

I decided to make the famous Pierre Herme's lemon tart and a chocolate ganache tart last weekend for a thanksgiving dinner. The lemon custard for this tart is incredibly rich as it uses a lot of butter. But because of that, it also melts in your mouth. The original recipe is incredibly tart (sour) because of the lemon but it is a good counterpoint to a rich meal. The tart base is made from a shortcrust pastry but mixed with toasted almond flour. I thought it would be a shame to cover the gorgeous yellow colour with icing sugar, so I did a simple design that allows some of the yellow custard to peek through.

The chocolate is an incredibly rich tart as well. It is a Rich Shortcrust Pastry filled with ganache made from a 65% Valrhona dark chocolate. The filling is layered to provide a contrast as you bite into the tart. There is a ganduja feulletine layer topped with orange peel and then with the ganache. I decided not to use a chocolate tart shell because I think that would be just a little too much chocolate.

Now I really like to make my tarts small, bite-size. But I am lazy too.

Mad, Loco, Fruitcake

2007-11-15T01:04:00.000-08:00

For some strange reason, my mom's favorite cake is fruit cake. You either love or hate fruit cakes. Most people cannot stand the taste of molasses and the incredibly sweet candied dry fruits. As my mom got older, she is finding it more difficult to stomach fruit cakes. And most of those that she bought were too dry and it was hard for her to eat.

So I decided to experiment with fruit cakes. And my goal is to make it moister without having to soak in brandy and creating a healthier version by reducing the use of candied fruits. I decided to use dried fruits but not the candied ones. Instead I used dried blue berries, dried cherries, dried apricots, dried blackberries, dried prunes and dried cranberries. The only candied item I used is the orange peel. And I used a combination of walnuts, almonds and pine nuts. I used rum instead of brandy.

The cakes turn out well. The only improvement I will make is to use less molasses and probably higher quality molasses. And for my mom, it would have to be in the shape of a loaf with lots of glazed fruits on top. This version I made is in the shape of cupcakes with a fondant decoration on top.

Baking for neighbor

2007-10-26T01:13:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the neighbors ask to buy cakes for special occasions, like a birthday. I am quite bad with cake decorating especially decorating for children. But I have to be neighborly and make that effort. This is a strawberry chocolate cake ordered by the neighbor for the daughter's birthday. There was also an order for 50 almond teacakes and carrot walnut cupcake. And because I had so many egg yolks left, I decided to make a butter cake too, and tried out the middle eastern flourless orange almond torte. This cake is interesting because you actually have to boil oranges for two hours! I think the variety and diversity of cakes in the world is just incredible. Like the world population, all colors, race and beliefs. This is a chocolate ganache cake with a fresh strawberry layer. There is also a layer of feulletine (I mixed the feulletine with melted chocolate and hazelnut paste) to give the cake a bit of crunch. These are my favorite cakes. I make them very small and fill them with all kinds of fresh fruits or custards. They are an adaptation from friands (financiers as well I think). I need to make them lighter and fluffier to suit the Singapore palette This is a marble butter cake that is incredibly light. There is a secret to making very light butter cake that melts in your mouth. It has to do with the way you mix two of the ingredients. The carrot cupcakes probably are the healthiest stuffs that I bake. Containing no butter and filled with fresh grated carrots, and a topping made from light cream cheese, they make for a healthy snack. The carrots are made from marzipan. This is the orange almond cake. It is incredibly moist. I seldom make this though because I have to boil the oranges for almost 2 hours! And also, generally, the people here do not like moist cakes too much. I mean this is really really moist. But the orange taste and fragrance is incredible!

Black Bottoms

2007-09-26T01:10:00.000-07:00

When you see a cupcake named Black Bottoms, how can you not try making them? They sound so quaint. Especially when they are concocted from chocolates and cream cheese, two of my favourite baking ingredients. The only problem was that almonds were nary in sight in the ingredient list and I made a promise to myself that I will only bake stuffs with almonds. So I attempted some risky substitution of the flour with almond meal. The verdict? Good stuffs. The chocolate cake is powdery and the cream cheese topping adds sweetness and a custardy feel to the cake.

Renovation ....

2007-07-17T20:25:00.001-07:00

Will be transferring some of my baking posts here soon.