A=Asparagus

B=Bunoshimeji Mushroom

I’m happy with the variety of mushrooms nowadays as compared to 2 years ago, where shiitake and enoki conquers all. Now, there are lotsa Japanese / Korean mushrooms (Bunoshimeji, shimeji, Eryngii) and even Portobello and fresh button mushroom. Now that makes me a happy person cause I’m a mushroom fan.

(Photo from hereandtherejapan.blogspot.com) - because I didnt take any “before” photos; too eager to cook

Fair enough, I happened to buy some tiny asparagus from the market at a cheap price because its their last packet and I’m their usual customer. It was a huge bunch. Immediately I was thinking of some asparagus tart or some quiche. But oh well I dont think my family take “tart” as starters or a meal. Being Chinese, we like to have a few dishes on the table (meat, vege, tofu etc) and savour them with rice (uh, staple stuff)

So what happened was I blanched the asparagus in salted water. Set aside.
Heat wok with oil and sesame oil. Stir in mushrooms. Add in oyster sauce and a tiny amount of soy sauce.
Add in the asparagus, a little bit of water. Stir stir stir. Done!

No, I did not make or attempted to make it. I just happened to be invited to a *free* event/workshop by Pastry Pro some couple of weeks back. Chef Christoph Riedel was in town representing Dreidoppel from Germany to show us some new products, flavourings and inventions from Dreidoppel / Pastarom.

Chef Christoph showcased some interesting desserts and sorbets.

Limoncella - Lemon custard tartlet with cherry fruit filling

Pistachip mousse tart with cherry filling

Ok, I didnt know what that red colour thingy was..

Dragonfruit sorbet (that tasted like bubblegum to me- well because dragonfruit is naturally quite tasteless anyway… )

Dolcino Cilegia - Cherry marzipan tartlet

Mousse made with vegetable-gelatin.

Pastry Pro’s Pastry Chef demonstrated their airbrush set..

Pulled sugar display

Chef christoph and Buttermilk-cherry sorbet, dragonfruit sorbet and vanilla ice cream

English Temptation - Milk chocolate mousse with bavarian tea cream and ginger sponge

Yummy.. always good to indulge in new desserts and pastries (oh free food yay)

ps: i have a new blog

Applause on those who got it right on the trivia I posted up yesterday! The answer is….. *drum roll* Pancake Mix.  I know I know it must be question marks all over by now if you haven’t come across Nigella’s new book Nigella Express. Actually I haven’t land myself the book yet, I saw the fantastic idea from the book, and just erm, well, let’s just say, borrowed it for now. (I will get myself that book when I’m not so broke, or open for donations. HAHA)

Anyway, Nigella once again, is a genius. Making the pancake mix, store it in your pantry. and everytime if there’s a pancake craving, just scoop some flour out, add egg, milk and melted butter. Tadah, you have pancakes! It certainly saves alot of time if you’re making pancakes for breakfast isn’t it ?

So the idea is to sift together;

600g flour
3 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
40g sugar
1 tsp salt

Put into a container, label it Pancake Mix or even, give it to your friends. That mix should make abundant of pancakes!

And, for every 150g of flour mix, add in

1 egg
1 cup milk
1 tbsp melted butter

*this would yield about 10 or more pancakes depending on the size…

It’s just THAT EASY! now, the book wasn’t called “express” without any reason.

Ok so I made some pancakes, mashed peas and also some cheese sausages. oh yummy

The pancakes are fluffy yo!

What does 600g flour, 3 tbsp baking powder, 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda, 1 tsp salt and 40g sugar gives u ?

Check out tomorrow !

I couldn’t quite think of a better emoticon to describe the above combination. 1. to show, oh man! its SO GOOD. 2. to show, oh man !! all the calories !! *cries* But its all worth it.

I was on a baking-roll lately that I just wanna bake bake and bake despite the fact that I also bake bake and bake at work. Tiring but well, both are different things. One, is like a mini routine. Whereas another, is more experimental and “Oh-I-feel-like-a-chocolate-caramel-thingy-today” kinda thing if you get what I mean.

Being all so ambitious, I just wanted to bake everything. But this particular luscious tart caught my eye from Kate Zuckerman’s The Sweet Life. Almost everything from the book is so attractive. I think this is the first (but not last) dessert I made from the book. I did get alot of ideas from the book, like my self-invented caramel mousse cake with rum jelly, and the brown butter, and some macaron ideas. The next thing I wanna make from the book would be… ermm, we’ll see. Maybe some sorbet / ice creams.

OKay, let me introduce the tart. Its a chocolate tart (duh!) Wait, let’s be more specific.

Chocolate Caramel tart filling, that’s almost mousse-like in texture but at the same time so rich and fudgy. For the crust, the normal sweet pie crust. For this, I used a hazelnut sweet crust which was so good! In which, hazelnut meal substituted a portion of the plain flour or almond meal. It’s like magic!

mmm yummmyyy

Nevermind the fact that I’m always amazed with anything that contains “gianduja”. Think Nutella and Ferrero Rocher

So, after a long long time of not baking at home leisurely, I decided, alright, today is the day. Once again, I have alot running in my head on what to bake. This time around, I wanted to try on macarons ala French. Not coconut. We’ll talk about that later but lets hope into the wonderful world of hazelnut.

For me, hazelnuts are the next best thing to pistachio, if not, actually both are my favourite nuts! I can still remember the amateurish Pistachio Chocolate Cake and Chocolate Ferrero Rocher I made long time ago, pistachio ice cream, gianduja chocolate cannelloni, and the ever-cool Chocolate Croquembouche with assortments of chocolate truffle. But the problem here is that, hazelnuts and pistachios are rather expensive compared to other nuts like almond, cashew and walnuts. (Hey, there’s a price to pay for good stuff)

I hooked up with Nigella’s Torta Alla Gianduja from her How to be a Domestic Goddess bakebook. The picture looks amazingly attractive and rich. I wanted to take Hugh’s recipe when he challenged Gordon Ramsay in The F Word show going on now in 703 or 707. But couldn’t really find it. Oh no, wait. That was actually a Chocolate Chestnut cake. Not hazelnut. Anyway…

I decided to make them into mini cakes rather than a huge cakes because it’s easier to share this way. I used my canele-look-a-like flexipan mould for this cake.

Torta Alla Gianduja

6 large eggs, seperated
pinch of salt
125g soft unsalted butter
400g Nutella (1 large jar, yes you’ve read it right its 400g)
1 tbsp Frangelico
100g ground hazelnut
100g dark couverture chocolate, melted

1. Preheat oven to 180 C.
2. Whisk egg whites and salt until stiff but not dry.
3. Meanwhile, beat butter and Nutella together in another bowl. Add in Frangelico, egg yolk and ground hazelnuts.
4. Fold in cooled, melted chocolate and then lighten the mixture with a dollop of egg white.
5. Gently fold in egg whites a third at a time. Pour into prepared tin and cook for 30-40 minutes depending on size of mould or until the cake is beginning to come away at the sides.
6. Cool on rack
7. Serve with ganache and toasted peeled hazelnut.

*Tip: If you buy unpeeled hazelnuts, roast them in oven first. Then put them in between a dry cloth and rub them. The skin will peel off easily. Return to roast those which needed further roastings.

Perhaps it was a wise move to make them into mini sizes because they were so rich. SO RICH! but it was awesome.  It should replace the choc pistachio cake as my favourite chocolate-nut cake.

And with the drizzling Frangelico infused ganache. its just awesome.

Thought I should do a proper post since it’s been ages I blogged here (anywhere).

Well, I guess I’m not so updated with the blogging world nowadays knowing the fact that I hardly blog anymore because life’s just became mundane lately and there’s no interesting baking adventure lately. Just that sometimes I have crazy ideas for my desserts, it just stops in the head, not real. (I’m still secretly wanting a Paco Torreblanca book someday) [Collette Peters' book would satisfy me for just this moment, OKAY, actually I need sponsors to go Debbie Brown's class in May]

Anyway, early this month, I did a cake for my cute little niece. Its her 1st birthday. Knowing that I did a amateurish Magical mushroom cake for Faith, it would be unfair to not do one for Adira (younger sis) And the theme came out, it’s farm animals

Its actually my first time making a full-fondant cake, and it’s not often I cover my cakes with fondant because there’s just so much more other things other than fondant. But using fondant actually creates a neater finish as per buttercream and it stays the same in just room temperature. Gumpaste / fondant figurines are not advised to be kept in fridge. Best at room temperature.

Its a marble cake. Just basic vanilla cake, took 1/3 out and mixed in with some melted Callebaut Chocolate. Poured into batter and stirred with a satay stick, chopstick would be ok as well.

But the texture was fantastic. *har har*

Then I covered the cake with melted chocolate to create a even smoother finish before I spread diluted jam and lay the fondant on top. I didn’t have the smoothing-tool to make the edges tight, so I used my palm and fingers, thus a little bumpy here and there.  I learned that its not good to roll the fondant toooo thin (about 4 mm is okay for me) when there’s alot of cornerings to do. If its just a around or square cake, you can roll thinner but, just not so advisable.

As for the animals, I did them the night before so it would dry on time for me to put as toppers. I did some recognisable animals like elephant (OK its not farm animal but its cute ok!) pigs, ducks, cows, dog, cat and a fat monkey

I decided to keep things simple because of time constrains. Can’t do too many detailing stuffs.

Then, did the grass, pond, trees and placed all the animals on top. The fake rocks are actually chocolate candies. Hehe (needed to do some scouting). Then, I piped some dots at the bottom side of the cake to cover the ‘mess’. That way it would look neater because the last thing you want to see is cake crumbs outside.

piggie!

The cake.

I think it’s OKAY being the first full fondant / novelty cake i’ve done. Not the best but I still think I’m more of a dessert person. I seek different flavours and textures. Man.. I so feel like a Chocolate Chestnut cake right NOW !!!!!

more photos here

Us Malaysians like to be the biggest, the largest, the first and the …. tallest. Now, Malaysia’s very own first cupcake cafe; Cupcake Chic is now opened at The Curve, Mutiara Damansara. Cupcakes are already a big hit everywhere especially in the States, so I guess it’s about time we have our own cafe! (And REAL cupcakes)

Very chic and boutique-ish outlet, its like a new trend for cake cafes / bakeries. No longer there are rows of close-open plastic covers or the typical cake display counters. And, doesnt that cupcake-outline image looks clubbish ?

And so, there are a whopping 25 cupcake flavours to feed everyone of all ages, and preferences. Offering 12 daily, one can buy half or a dozen and be able to try all the flavours! They’re not just the same base (like doughnuts, where they ARE just only plain dougnuts with different icings on top). There’s a variety of cake textures if u’re more technical. The flavours are also very diversed, from the traditional chocolate and vanilla ones, there are things like, LAVENDER, butterpecan, pistachio and peaches and even a malaysian one; pandan with gula melaka

big BIG menu board

trays and trays of cupcakes.

*warning, writings ahead might offend, but really, its just my opinion and to make some justifications*

So, what is a Cupcake? We (Some of us) all know cupcakes were somehow made famous by a scene in Sex and the City while they were dining in the infamous Magnolia Cafe. And soon after that, its the cupcake revolution. Its small, cute and chic. Its versatile and suitable for just about any occasion, for favours, gifts, and even wedding cakes! Even celebrities like Katie Holmes and Oprah Winfrey enjoys them. Is it a trend? It is a lifestyle. People are changing and opting for a more affordable luxury. I wouldnt say that cupcakes are the answer, but a boutique-ish trendy cafe is. Even fast food are revolutionizing. So, what about bakeries and cake cafes? The cakes that I see now are not the same as how they were 2 years ago. New techniques and flavours are invented. People want to have an assurance on what goes into what they eat. That’s why, Cupcake Chic claims they use only the finest ingredients like New Zealand Butter, Spanish Vanilla essence, Belgian Couverture Chocolate and French dried Lavender, plus, the alcohol is real. Shortening, Margerine and heavy colouring does not exist in the Cupcake Chic dictionary. It is true, thats why you see the cupcakes are all natural looking. Not super-infested with colouring. By all means, I AM quite against heavy colouring

Back to Basics; Vanilla Cake with Vanilla Frosting.  One of the best sellers

Simple is the new black. Gone are the days where a million and one things go ontop of a simple cake. Or maybe some still prefers butterflies and trees on their cake. I just dont.

Often people ask or say, cupcakes are so sweet!. My dears, cupcakes are sweet, but then again, level of sweetness depends on personal preferences. Where do you think, the word icing or frostings come from then! I would rather prefer my icing to be sweet than otherwise. Frostings are made from butter and sugar and vanilla. If they’re not sweet, then one might becareful on what ACTUALLY goes into the frosting. Margerine? ew. Shortening? DOUBLE EEW!! oil ? super duper ew. corn flour? eerrgghh. superfaints.

Frostings are also meant to be paired and compliment the cake itself. So if the frosting is as high as mountain or the same size as the cake, then the ratio is just too wrong. It should just be about less than half the size of the cake so one wouldnt be jelak or have any frosting overdose. For example, take Persian Love; a pistachio cake with rosewater frosting. Just a plain pistachio cake wouldn’t wow anybody because its just a normal pistachio cake. But paired with rosewater, the whole experience just differs. It’s just like cooking and wine. Certain wine pairs better with certain types of food. So does frostings and cakes. See, it’s not a dumb-blonde thing

Tropical Bliss; Coconut Lime cake with Coconut frostings and hawaiian coconut flakes.

Cupcake Chic’s 25 cupcake flavours is really an eye catcher. There are chocolaty ones, vanilla based, fruity ones, super rich, kiddy and healthy and even a local-inspired one. The only thing missing is probably some truffle oil and gold leaves cupcake. HAHA. no pun intended. Offering only 12 daily, one can pick their favourite easier than having 25 thrown at their face at 1 time. plus, you can even choose your favourite day! Mine’s Saturday.

Peaches ‘n Cream; Peach cake with real peach bits inside the cake, topped with Cream chantilly (sweetened whipped cream with vanilla) and toasted almond flakes.

Sexy and alive, they dont look too fake with abundant colourings or pipings. Not only food on plates should look appealing, cakes too should have a distinctive look to attract and relate to people. Its not wrong to do colourings and pipings (cause elaborate wedding cake have those), it just depends on what people are looking for and what’s the purpose of the cake. If it is for display, by all means finish the whole bottlte of colouring. But if they’re meant to be eaten, then, beware because no one wants to eat colourings.

Red Velvet; An infamous cake from Southern US. It’s a cocoa cake, a cross between a vanilla and chocolate cake with cream cheese frostings.

You dont often see red velvet here in Malaysia so its pretty excited to see one!

Done with frostings and outlook, now to the cake texture. Being a trained pastry chef, I really read cake texture. I believe that cakes should be real. They’re suppose to be moist, soft, flavourful and most importantly, not dry or hard. Especially cupcakes, because of their size, they tend to dry faster than the bigger cakes because it takes no time for the air to travel into the inner-part of the cake. So, cake recipes should be created in a way to prevent cupcakes from drying too fast.

Many people say, who cares about the texture of the cake. as long as the look of the cake is nice, then its good enough. I am so against that. The texture of the cake should be the main point, looking good is a plus point cause it attracts eyes. But if the cake texture is bland or uninteresting, then there wouldnt be returning clients.  But bad looking cake that tastes good isnt that good too because one needs to try to find out, and bear in mind, we eat with our eyes too. So, looking good and tasting good is a win-win situation. Not easy, but not too hard either. With passion and love, one can do it.

On Cloud 9, Chocolate Mud cake baked with marshmallow topped with marshmallows.

So, how soft should a cupcake be? take a table knife (from the cutleries set, not chopping or chef knife) cut the cake. You can feel the texture of the cake. If its dense, hard and dry (ok lah, you need to taste dryness with your own mouth) the air bubbles are very tiny and close together or almost non-visible when you cut the cake, then higher chances that its a dense cake. Vanilla based cakes are suppose to be light and soft. Chocolate cakes are more densed and moist instead. But it could also be light and airy, depending on what kinda cake it is. Sachertorte is a dense and moist cake but Black Forest Tortes have a lighter texture of chocolate cake cause its made with sponge based cakes. Cupcake Chic’s Fatal Attraction (one of the best sellers) wins alot of hearts. Cake texture is melting and moist and CHOCOLATEY! I mean, whats a chocolate cake when there’s no real chocolate? NO, COCOA POWDER DOESNT COUNT FOR ME!

Cupcake textures are like almost melt in your mouth and not too buttery. Because if its too buttery, you will have a layer of oil on your tongue and make you feel uncomfortable. Same as icing. Butter become soft in body temperature, and shortening (animal fat) has a higher melting point. So, when you eat the frostings, it should be also melt-in-mouth kinda feeling rather than having a oily film coated in the mouth. And to be sure that frostings are made from pure butter, it should be creamy in colour instead of pure white. Because, Come on, we all know butter are not WHITE right??? Cheating and reducing cost is one thing. But causing health hazard is certainly unforgivable.

Box of 6. Top row from left, Forget me not (Lavender cake with Baileys Frosting), Butter Pecan (Burnt butter cake with butterpecan topped with caramel frosting), Fatal Attraction (Belgian Chocolate cake with Belgian Chocolate Frosting), Bottom row from left, Persian Love (Pistachio cake with Rosewater Frosting), Banoppy (Banana and Poppy seeds cake with vanilla frostings), Envy (Green Tea cake with Green Tea Cream Cheese Frostings)

Chocolates. There’s no denial that I wished everyone in the world uses couverture chocolate, instead of compound chocolates. I have written about chocolate before, and have read about chocolate. To cut things short, compound chocolate is made mainly with oil, cocoa powder and sugar, and preservatives. Couverture chocolate contains cocoa butter and cocoa mass and sugar; ratio depends on whether its dark, milk or bittersweet. Cupcake Chic’s chocolate cake is made with Belgian Couverture chocolate (hence the price) and frostings too are also made with the chocolate instead of just adding cocoa powder or adding brown colouring.

Quality comes first, then the price. Would you rather pay for something of moderate price but it doesnt satisfy you, or rather pay slight more (about 10-20%) for something that would make you go “mmm so good?” and made from quality ingredients. I would rather pay and get a good piece of cake, than to waste my money on something that would end up in the bin anyway even though its cheaper than the first. You get my point?

But if one cannot differentiate what a good or dry and bad cake is, then one doesnt deserve to have cake, or review it. Hate me, but its about training up one’s palate to differentiate good and bad cakes. Otherwise, any cow and dog can become a food tester.

I think I’ve written a really really really long post. But do go ahead and have a try at Cupcake Chic’s cupcakes. Specialty stores are booming up so, dont miss out on this one!

It’s located in The Curve, 2 doors away from Secret Recipe, directly facing Ikea.

Add them on facebook too !

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My favourite for now is Onde-onde. how about yours?

It’s been really busy AGAIN recently, thus, really no time to blog at all.

So this would be a real quick update. I made a lil cupcake tower-cake for my dear niece for her birthday last week. It’s not the usual packed with colourings with letterings kinda style. (Really, I’m not a colouring fan at all) It’s a lil more sophisticated and grown up. Yeah, so much for a 3 year old. But I was really busy to come up with mind-boggling designs so I just kept it simple, nice and QUICK!! It was nice anyway, and thats the whole point. And I really have a thing against heavy-coloured cuppies, cause all I can think of when I’m eating them is just .. colourings and nothing but colourings.

They’re just Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting and vanilla frostings with fondant butterflies.

And i’ve also made a 2-tiered barney-coloured cake for my niece (for another party) but that would be up later …

I think this is my first time making cream based soup, its been pretty interesting and easy actually.

Adapted the recipe from Donna Hay. The one thing that I dont like about her is that the chicken in her chicken dishes always looks REALLY REALLY white and overcooked; its not appealing. But anyway, its broccoli soup for now.

Serves 3 or 4

1 tbsp olive oil
1/4 white onion, sliced
2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
2 medium size potatoes, peeled and finely chopped
1 head broccoli, chopped
2/3 cup cream
salt and pepper

Toast; the way you like it.

1. Heat olive oil in a pot, sweat onions in it for a couple of seconds. There’s no need to wilt it.
2. Add in potatoes and broccoli (leave 1 or 2 or the florets as extra) and stock. Cover and let it cook for 5-10 minutes or till the vegetables are soft.
3. Puree the soup with a stick mixer or blender until smooth.
4. Return to the pot and add cream, salt, pepper and extra broccoli florets and cook over medium heat for 3 minutes or until the broccoli is tender.
5. While soup is cooking, make your toast. Sprinkle with parmesan and cook under hot grill for 2 minutes, or just plain toasted thin slice of bread would be good.
6. Ladle the soup into bowls and serve

 Yum yum..