Gourmet Baking

Tarte aux Fruits Rouges

2011-12-01T16:10:00.000-08:00

Fall is here and even though I kept going on and on about how I love Summer, something is also magical about the beauty of Fall season. The leaves are turning from green to yellow or bright red, it is amazing. The weather has turn cold earlier in California this year and we also have a lot of rain, all this makes me long for a cozy couch in front of fireplace with a slice of brownie and a cup of milk (someday...)

I just came back from a week trip in Louisiana, to visit M's family. It was quite a relaxing week, that I almost felt unproductive, but it was nice and enjoyable. We definitely got plenty of sleep for sure! I experienced an interesting Thanksgiving tradition in South. Apparently, it is very common to have the Thanksgiving feast in between lunch and dinner, we had ours at 3pm and football game is on all day long. Here in California, I am so used to having a feast during dinner time, so it was interesting to see something different.

Now that I am back, I have to get ready for my next trip. My company is sending me to China for a work assignment ASAP. I will be there for a few months and during that time, I won't be able to bake or post anything. I am trying to go through my back log of posts before I leave, but it will literally be an adventure in China as I don't speak Chinese (despite being one) and they don't speak English. Nice. I guess we will see if I will survive

The sad part is that I won't be here for the holiday, all the Christmas trees and the joy being with your loved ones. Instead, I will be busy working since we will have no break in China for Christmas.

So while I am welcoming the warmth of Fall, I will be talking about the Summer berries I talked about a few months ago.

Every year, I would make a list of what I would like to make when Summer time comes, and they all involved some kind of berries. In reality, when Summer does come, all of a sudden I will have so many plans, travel, birthdays, weddings, BBQ, trying to fit all of them before the warm weather is gone. This is why most of the summer dessert I make might be a little "late" in the season.

Like this one here. I mentioned a few months ago then I bought TONS of sweet raspberries in the market. At $1/box, I was so tempted to just buy the whole thing if I didn't consider the other costumers, but I did bring home 12 boxes full of them! I made brandied raspberries with some, freeze some, eat some, and make this. I am excited about the brandied raspberries (I also made brandied cherries) but it won't be ready until December, this waiting is killing me! I also happily brought home some strawberries, heirloom tomatoes, and other goodies from the market as well.

Seeing the different berries I had, I wanted to showcase them in some form and I immediately thought of this tart I've always wanted to make since last year after seeing this gorgeous post by Adam. He is quite an interesting guy and I enjoy reading his pastry review, if only those pastries are within reach... oh well. His review on Sadaharu Aoki's take on fruit tart exceeds other reviews of the same kind. Alan of the travellingfoodies also made a beautiful rendition of the tart a while back, which made me more eager to replicate it. The components are:

Pate sucree
Pistachio creme frangipane
Vanilla bean creme patisserie
Assorted berries and a macaron

I don't have Mr. Aoki's recipe, but Adam kindly gave a list of the components and a close up picture of the inside, which makes it easier. I do have pate sucree dough ready in the freezer, so that's ready to be used. Berries, checked. Macarons, checked (I have a couple of pink macaron shells in the freezer as well). All I needed to make was the pistachio creme patisserie, and creme frangipane, which also uses the creme patisserie in it. I used Mr. Hidemi Sugino's recipe for the creme frangipane, and added some pistachio paste to it, pretty straight forward. I made strawberry mousseline cream with the same pastry cream for the strawberry macaron filling.

So here it is, my version of Sadaharu Aoki's Tarte aux Fruits Rouges. I won't be able to tell how it is compared to the original (I am sure that his is far and beyond my version), but in my humble opinion, this tart tasted awesome! And it certainly looked pretty!

I made a different version of tart too with white chocolate mousse I had left from different cake. I pour some of them on half-circle silicon mold and froze them. Both are equally good. One thing I would change in the future for the strawberry tart (this actually comes from the bf, the strawberry connoisseur) is adding a layer of strawberry garniture in the bottom layer to accentuate the strawberry flavor even more. Great Idea!

I still have some summer posts I need to post, but the chocolate craving has kicked in. So far, I've baked brownies, some chocolate-hazelnut cake, and I hope a lot more. Right now, I am just trying to use up some stuff in my fridge before I leave next week. Eeekk..!!

Note: I will do my best to type the recipe as soon as I can, but it wont be in a few weeks or so once I am settled in China.

A Pool Party for Joan's Birthday and A Strawberry Pistachio Mascarpone Mousse Cake

2011-11-14T13:55:00.000-08:00

Wow, I completely missed the month of October and I've never missed a month before! How bad :(. Not that I did that on purpose but so many things have been going on.

There were so many birthdays, lots of cooking (everyday cooking), and other stuff, it is amazing how little time left you have after. In fact, we went to San Diego this past weekend just to getaway from everything and to celebrate M's birthday. Nothing fancy, in fact, we both got sick the day of our departure. He's holding up quite well, but I feel bad for sleeping all the 7-hour driving! San Diego was raining too, quite hard and COLD! It was definitely a getaway full of sleeping (about 11 hours average, we needed the rest) and eating. I can safely say that all 3 days were spent eating and eating and only tacos (plus cheese quesadillas).

There's this one taco place in SD that we both think is the best of all. In fact, I got panicked not being able to enjoy them after I go back, we got 20 tacos and 4 cheese quesadillas to go!!! I have now a large tray full of meat and the different components sitting in my fridge. I thought cheese quesadillas were boring and bland but who knows that they can be so good! The tortillas are very flaky and buttery and that cheese... Hmmpphh... I am not on a quest to make my own tortilla and about to purchase a tortilla press. Yup, that's how serious I am with these Mexican food :).

I could go on and on about those tacos but let's get to the "baking" part of the story now.

One of my sister in law's birthday was in mid August. We didn't really have any plan on how to celebrate it, one thing we know is that she LOVES surprises. We didn't really decided a set plan until one day before and that we decided to have a pool party!

Although weather here is perfect during summer, it gets pretty chilly when the sun is down, making swimming at 5pm outdoor a pretty cold experience. Only a few of us dare to get into the water (including a baby) and the rest of us just chilling or prepping the food.

It didn't leave me much time to make the cake, basically only had less than a day to make. I decided that I am going to make a simple cake with whatever I had on hand (this seems to be my strategy for a last-minute cake), which I'm never happy to do cuz it doesn't give me the freedom to experiment with it.

So I made some kind of pistachio joconde, mascarpone mousse, red berry gelee, and white chocolate mousse. I had the pistachio joconde readily available and I always have frozen fruits in the freezer for the gelee that I froze during the peak of their season. I even had the pink macaron too, everything seems to be right in place.

The components of the cake are:

pistachio joconde, moistened with kirsch syrup
mascarpone mousse
fresh strawberries
pistachio joconde, moistened with kirsch syrup
thin white chocolate mousse
red berry gelee (strawberry and raspberry)
white chocolate mousse
pink macaron decor

We had a BBQ by the pool and we prepared korean BBQ, sausages. I made caprese salad and tuna dip to go along with the lemon garlic pita chips I bought at the farmers' market that morning. The bf also made a turtle and a pic watermelon carving to hold the watermelon cubes.

The cake turned out quite nice, the gelee was a bit thicker than what i wanted, but it's not a big deal. I will definitely use less in the future.

Strawberry and Pistachio Cake with White Chocolate and Mascarpone Mousse Cake
yield: one 8 3/4" round cake

Pistachio Joconde (from Hidemi Sugino's recipe)
90g almond paste
37.5g pistachio paste
45g whole eggs
40g egg yolks
25g egg whites
80g egg whites
50g sugar
45g cornstarch
20g melted butter

Combine almond & pistachio paste in a mixer bowl and mix it to combine
Add the egg yolks, 25g egg whites & whole eggs gradually and beat until thick
Fold in the cornstarch
Fold in the melted butter
In another bowl whisk 80g egg whites and 50g caster sugar until stiff peaks and fold it in 2-3 additions
Pour mixture into two 8" round pan and bake at 445F for 5-6 minutes

Sliced fresh strawberries

Kirsch Syrup
20g sugar syrup (made with 1:1.3 water:sugar ratio)
15g water
10g kirsch

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl

Red Berry Gelee
125g raspberry puree
125g strawberry puree
80g sugar (adjust depending on the sweetness of the fruits)
1.5 tsp. gelatin powder (mixed with 1 Tbs. water)

Heat the raspberry, strawberry puree and the sugar in a saucepan
Meanwhile, bloom the gelatin and the water, let set
Once the puree almost reaches the boiling point, melt the gelatin in a microwave for a few seconds
Add to the puree mixture and let it boil a few seconds
Let cool in an icebath and pour into 8" round pan that has been lined with plastic wrap
Harden in the freezer until ready to use

Mascarpone Mousse
8-oz mascarpone cheese, at room temperature
200g heavy cream
40g sugar
1/2 vanilla bean pod, seeds scraped (optional)

Heat the heavy cream and vanilla bean seeds in a saucepan until simmering
Turn off the heat and let it steep for a few minutes
Put it in the fridge overnight
If not using vanilla bean, use the cream directly without steeping
Whip the cream and the sugar until soft peak and fold it into the mascarpone cheese
Use immediately

White Chocolate Mousse
150g white chocolate
150g heavy cream
350g heavy cream, whipped until soft peak
3/4 tsp. gelatin (mixed with 1 tbs. water)

Make a ganache with the white chocolate and 150g heavy cream
Melt the gelatin and add it to the hot ganache
Let cool in the refrigerator or on an icebath
Whip the cream until soft peak
Fold it into the cooled ganache
Use immediately

To Assemble

Place one layer of pistachio joconde inside of a 8" 8ound cake ring and moisten with kirsch syrup
Spread about 1/2 of the mascarpone mousse
Arrange strawberry slices on top
Spread the rest of the mascarpone mousse
Place the second layer of pistachio joconde and brush with the syrup
Refrigerate overnight
The next day, remove the cake ring and place 8 3/4" round ring around the cake
Pipe white chcolate mousse on the side of the cake and a thin layer on top
Place the frozen gelee on top and cover with more white chocolate mousse
Refrigerate for at least overnight

Passionfruit Posset with Mango and Passionfruit Sorbet

2011-09-27T10:46:00.000-07:00

Hmm.... nothing really interesting is happening lately. If you must now, I moved cube to a different building and environment, lots of birthday celebrations happening and coming (mean more cakes to make), work is not as crazy as it's used to, I guess everything is going pretty well.

Some downsides are that more of my friends are leaving the country to pursue their dreams somewhere else. More friends will be leaving in a few months, it is bittersweet really. I am sad that they are leaving but more importantly, it has been a real blessing to have known them. The other downside to life lately is that the bf is literally working day and night (dawn really) 7 days a week, leaving me feeling like a single woman sometimes, so I guess keeping busy with cakes helps too. Another thing I could do to distract myself is playing Wii!!! Mario Kart to be exact. I started playing Wii for the first time about a week ago and I'm loving it! A bit too late I know, but hey, as long as I'm having fun I think it is quite alright....

Moving on to a different subject, I just want to say that I love passionfruit! I really do. It has a really bright and very tropical flavor and makes everything even better. Everything with passionfruit in it always catch my attention and I think I have about a million of ideas on what to pair it with or how to incorporate this flavor into pretty much anything.

Passionfruit is commonly paired with mango, which I think goes really well together and it it great cuz I do love mango as well. I had made mango passionfruit cheesecake, mango passionfruit mousse, macarons, now mango passionfruit sorbet, and many more.

I used to have a difficulty locating passion fruit puree and I could finally order it from a local warehouse, about 45 minutes away from my place. So, it was no surprise that it was even more precious to me. I rarely found it fresh in the store but when I do, they come with a ridiculous price tag! But ever since I found passionfruit puree at a local Asian grocery store, the possibility of passionfruit dessert is pretty much endless, and it is SO MUCH cheaper too! So, don't be surprised if you see a lot of passionfruit desserts in this blog, even during winter months (who knows it could brighten someone's day in a dark and cloudy winter), cuz this passionfruit is available all year round, yippie!!

I had this recipe bookmarked for the longest time, always trying to find the perfect time to make it. But after a year being on my list and never get around to it, there will never be THE perfect time. I was actually really excited and curious to see how the recipe would come out, but there was no doubt in my mind that I would not like this. It has all of my favorite ingredients in it and the different layers of texture, I knew that I'm going to love it. The recipe has 5 different components (or layers), which is a bit intimidating considering the amount of time I have to spend on making each one.

Now that Summer is almost gone (if it hasn't been already), I decided to make this a few weeks ago to celebrate the bright warm days we're still having. It took me a few weeks to finish the whole thing. No no, don't be alarmed by it, it didn't take that much time. It was just that I was so darn busy it was so difficult to find time to make them. I made the sorbet first and kept it in the freezer for a while, then I would make the bottom passionfruit posset layer on one day and made the mango champagne jelly the next day.

I had to freeze the whole thing at this point cuz I was gone for a week followed by many many events and birthdays after that. I finally decided to finish this dessert and made the tapioca layer. I actually had to make it twice because again, I was lacking on time to finish assembling after I made the tapioca, so it was a bit dry and I had to scrape it off and made it again :(, but no worries, everything was good.

So here it is, after probably a month total of making, it finally came together. I have to say that it is very passionfruit-y, which I LOVE! It tastes very tropical! I would definitely make this again after making some adjustment to the recipe to suit my taste. Another thing that I would do differently would be making them in much smaller portion. The combination of the sour tang and the sweetness can be overwhelming in large portion, but it would leave you wanting for more and even addicting if served in smaller portions, which I prefer. I love the different layers and different texture of this dessert, and it will definitely appear again in the future.

I have to make comments about the sorbet though. I made mine and kept it in the freezer for about a month or so. When I was assembling the dessert, the texture was more like a jelly instead of sorbet. I am not too sure why although it seemed fine when i tasted it right after making it. This is making me really curious. The photo didn't do any justice, it was a really warm day and it melted within seconds after taking it out from the freezer. I changed the recipe slightly to my taste, please refer to the website if you wish to have the original recipe.

Passionfruit Posset with Mango and Passionfruit sorbet
Adapted from: gourmettraveller

Mango and passionfruit sorbet
265 ml mango puree
175 ml passionfruit puree
35 g glucose
45ml water

Combine mango purée and passionfruit juice in a large heatproof bowl and set aside.
Combine glucose and 45ml water in a saucepan, bring to the boil, whisk in caster sugar until sugar dissolves.
Pour over purée mixture, stir to combine, pass though a fine sieve.
Refrigerate until chilled, then freeze in an ice-cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions. Makes about 500ml.

Passionfruit Posset
400 ml heavy cream
180 g sugar
160 ml passionfruit puree

Combine cream and sugar in a saucepan, bring to the boil over medium heat and simmer, stirring continuously, until sugar dissolves (4 minutes).
Add passionfruit juice, simmer to infuse (4 minutes), remove from heat, cool slightly, divide among glasses and refrigerate until set (1½-2 hours).

Mango Jelly
100 ml sparkling wine
50 ml mango puree
30 g caster sugar
20 ml passionfruit pulp
1/4 vanilla bean, seeds scraped
1/2 tsp gelatin powder, soaked in a little bit of water

Combine sparkling wine, mango purée, sugar, passionfruit pulp and vanilla in a saucepan over medium heat, bring to just below the boil, remove from heat.
Melt the gelatine in a microwave for a few seconds, add gelatine to pan, stir to combine, then pass through a fine sieve into a bowl.
Cool to room temperature, then carefully pour over set passionfruit posset and refrigerate until set (1-1½ hours).

Coconut Tapioca
125 g tapioca pearls
200 ml coconut cream
50 ml heavy cream
50 g granulated sugar
1/2 vanilla bean, seeds scraped

Bring a saucepan of water to the boil and, stirring continuously, add tapioca in a stream, then stir occasionally until transparent (30-35 minutes).
Drain through a fine sieve, rinse under cold running water, set aside to drain.
Combine remaining ingredients in a saucepan, bring to the simmer over medium heat, stir in tapioca to combine, cool to room temperature, then spoon over jelly in glasses and refrigerate until firm (1-1½ hours).

Mango and Pineapple Mixture
mango, diced finely
pineapple, diced finely
passionfruit pulp

Combine all ingredients

Top the coconut tapioca with fresh fruits, then top with a scoop of sorbet. Garnish with mint leaf

Tartelettes Croustillantes Abricots et Cerises (Apricot and Cherry Crumble Tartlets)

2011-09-19T10:55:00.000-07:00

Some people like changes, and some don't. I am the second part of the group, I don't like changes. I recently move cube to a different building. I was in that previous building for about 4.5 years, I made friends and become close to a lot of them. Being in a completely new environment scared me. Although I have to say that my current work schedule is not as crazy as before, which is always good.

Speaking about changes, I don't know how many more weeks I can talk about summer here as we can definitely feel the change in the season here. The sun sets earlier, temperature drops to mid 70's (still gorgeous), more chilly at night and in the morning. But in the meantime, I will still talk and post about my summer dessert at least for a couple more weeks.

About two months ago or so, I found what they called black apricot at Costco. I don't normally buy my fruits at Costco, in fact, I try to avoid it but I couldn't resist when the box says "the sweetest fruit on earth". Now who can resist that! I, of course, felt challenged and immediately grabbed one container full of them.

They look a lot like plum, but the skin is not smooth like plum, it has a skin texture like an apricot. I opened one to taste it and it did taste a lot like plum, very sweet! But the sweetest fruit on earth? I don't think so. I do however, enjoyed this a lot, it is sweet and gives a lot of juice, which is perfect for a hot summer day.

After days (or even a week I think) went by, I still have quite a few left. Our fridge is always loaded with fruits, more so during summer time. Apple, orange, banana, are the usual residents, but you will see a lot of summer fruits like cherry, watermelon, mango, yellow kiwi, apricot, pluot, plum, berries, etc.

I flipped through my cookbook and found this "apricot or cherry tartteletes" in this book by Laduree. I thought this would be perfect to test the book. The recipe is not too difficult at all. It has basic components such as pate sucree, almond cream, slices of apricot or pitted cherries, and topped with crumble before dusted with powdered sugar. I had some pate sucree dough ready and the crumble in the freezer, so all I need to do is make the simple almond cream and the crumble. Easy (I Love leftovers!!)

The tart turned out really well, not too sweet at all. Instead of yellow apricot or cherry like the book suggested, I used a combination of black apricot, yellow apricot, and cherry. I served some with vanilla ice cream too, but it was great on its own.

Tartelettes Crouistillantes Abricots et Cerises
Adapted from Laduree Sucree

Pate Sucree (from this recipe)
Crisp sweet pastry for crumble topping (from this recipe)

Creme d'Amandes (Almond Cream)
100 g butter
100 g confectioners' sugar
100 g ground almonds
10 g cornstarch 2 eggs
1 Tbs. rum

Cut the butter into small pieces and put in a large heatproof bowl.
Place over a pan of gently simmering water or in the microwave to soften until creamy, without allowing it to melt
Incorporate the following ingredients into the butter, making sure to mic well after each addition: confectioners' sugar, ground almonds, cornstarch, eggs, rum

Pistachio Almond Cream
250 g almond cream (recipe above)
3 Tbs. pistachio paste
15 g shelled raw pistachio + 5 g shelled pistachio for decoration

Chop pistachio and add to the almond cream, along with the pistachio paste.
Preheat oven to 340F.
Remove tartlet shells from the refrigerator. Using a fork, prick the surface of the dough to keep from pulling up during baking.
Fit a round piece of parchment paper over the dough, carefully pressing into the corners and working up the sides so it will stay in place in the oven.
Place dried beans or pie weights on top, spreading them out in an even layer.
Bake for approximately 20 minutes until lightly colored.
Take tartlet shells out of the oven and remove pie weights and parchment paper.
Leave the oven on

Wash and pit the apricots, cut them in slices. Remove pit from cherries.

Filling:

Transfer the pistachio almond cream to the piping bag fitted with a plain tip.
Pipe cream into tartlet shells and arrange fruits in a decorative pattern on top
Cover with crumble dough, using piece of various shapes and sizes.
Return tartlets to oven and bake for approximately 40-45 minutes.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool
Dust with confectioners' sugar and sprinkle a few crushed pistachio on top.

Popsicles Two Ways: White Peach and Raspberry Swirl Popsicle and Mango, Pineapple and Raspberry Popsicles

2011-09-06T14:25:00.000-07:00

So, I am in the middle of a super frantic mode currently. My trusty computer got infected by a virus, which resulted in the performance being really slow, almost impossible to use. The first thing I did when that happened was to check my "Pictures" folder, and they're gone! Basically, all of my data was gone, what a nightmare! I am trying to find help and crossing my finger that the data can be recovered, but we'll see... :(

In the midst of all that this past weekend, I spent some time freezing raspberries, making fruit salad and yogurt sherbet for my niece's and nephew's dessert, and the last thing I did was making brandied cherries and raspberries! It wont be until 3 months from now that they will be ready to use, but I can't wait!

Putting the computer problem aside, I actually had a really good long weekend. We took a nice walk around Stanford mall and campus, which was really nice with the constantly perfect California weather. We took a drive to the Santa Cruz mountain on the mission to find the best taco place here in northern CA, dinner with friends, and I found white currants!! I've always wanted to use red currants for cake decoration but they are very rare around here. I was happily shocked when I saw the white version and even though not as pretty as the red sibling, I bought it anyway and thought I could really use it as a garnish for something. Now all I need to do is make something.

Before the computer crashes, I managed to type this draft of post. Here is another summer treat I made a while back, while we were still in "real" summer time. I've never made popsicles before, despite it being really fun and easy, but this year, I was always in the look for something quick and easy dessert to make.

It is not surprising that during summer time, my fridge is always full of different types of berries, different type of stone fruits, anything you can think of. Every weekend when I go to farmers' market, I just couldn't resist buying everything (and I mean everything), but they get forgotten really quickly once they're stored in the fridge due to my lack of visit to the refrigerator :(. As a matter of fact, I have 12 punnets of very fragrant raspberries, a big case full of strawberries, and a big bag of black cherries. They make the fridge smells so good everytime i open it up.

I am still working on summer desserts, still trying to grab on the last summer produce I can find. Not quite ready yet for the chocolate, coffee, caramel, chesnut, and the like, but I think I will be soon ;)

Popsicle is a fun treat, and not to mention healthy too for the kids after school or after an afternoon in the park under the sun. My nephew Tobias, which is only 1.5 years old (almost 2 now), couldn't get enough of it. He cried for more everytime he finished one portion.

I have a few events coming up, and that means I will be drown in sugar constantly, but in the meantime, at least for another week, I get to enjoy my day and make whatever I want in the kitchen. It is still going really slow for one easy dessert to make, but I'm trying my best.

White Peach and Raspberry Swirl Popsicles

Raspberry Swirl
125g fresh or frozen raspberries
40g sugar

Cook the raspberry and the sugar until boiling. Strain the mixture to get as much liquid as possible

White Peach Yogurt Layer
2 peaches (about 200g), cut up
175g whole milk yogurt
40g sugar

Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth

Prepare your popsicle molds
Pour a little of the raspberry mixture in the bottom of the mold, then add some peach yogurt mixture.
Continue layering until full
You can swirl it using a toothpick or a skewer if you want to create a swirl pattern
Put it in the freezer until solid.

Mango, Pineapple and Raspberry Popsicles

Raspberry layer - use the leftover from the white peach popsicles

Pineapple layer
175g pineapple puree
sugar (I forgot to measure it. Put enough sugar to sweetened it, the amount depends on the sweetness of the pineapple)

Blend the pineapple and the sugar until smooth. Strain.

Mango Yogurt Layer
175g whole milk yogurt
50g mango pulp
30g sugar

Blend all ingredients in the blender until smooth

Assembly:

Pour some mango yogurt layer in the bottom (that will become the top of the popsicles)
pour some pineapple layer
Freeze for a few minutes until the pineapple layer set for a bit
Pour a thin layer of raspberry layer
Freeze until solid

Enjoying Summer Bounty with Summer Fruit Crumble

2011-08-29T14:49:00.000-07:00

Just when I am about to post about summer fruits, summer is officially over. While East Coast is hit by hurricane Irene, and Texas and other states are scorching hot, weather here in northern California is great as usual, about 80 F constantly during the day, and low 60's F at night. This is exactly why people love California, cool and gentle breeze, not humid and not dry. Perfect.

I am now in a week break from all the baking duties. I was really busy with quite a bit of cake stuff including 90th birthday cake, sorbet making frenzy (and still going), putting use of all the beautiful summer produce we have here in tarts, ice cream, and more cake.

There was my niece's first birthday party involving a full dessert table and a two-tiered cake. There was also a dessert table and wedding cake I made for a wedding 1.5 weeks ago. In between all this craziness, I also went for a few-day trip to Boston for a different wedding and very quick "vacation" (it ended up not being a vacation at all due to lack of sleep and food the whole time we're there, lots of walking too!). I was back mid week last week and immediately planning for my sis-in-law birthday. I feel dizzy just writing all these stuff, but just in case you're wondering where I have been, well... there you go.

I have no plan for this coming labor day weekend really, I am thinking of spending the time in the kitchen baking for my pleasure (not for any particular occasion), although I need to make more cakes for the following weekend (it never stops). Taking pictures is now a lower priority, as long as everything gets done, and most of the time, they're done in the nick of time, cutting it really close to the due timing. But I do have quite a bit of desserts I managed to squeeze in about 1-2 months ago and I will post them one post at a time.

Like this dessert for example, not planned at all. I opened my fridge one day and found a lot of different type of fruits, apricots from church friend, plums from my coworker, cherries I bought at farmers' market, peaches I bought when I passed through a fruit stand, you name it, it's there. I decided to make a quick summer fruit crumble with them, probably the easiest way to use up all of them all in one dessert.

I made the crumble first and refrigerate them until I was ready to use them. I made more in advance and keep the rest in an airtight container in the freezer and you can use them for other tarts, or even cake or parfait and ice cream topping.

It was fairly quick and easy to make this dessert. I served it with vanilla bean ice cream that I made a while ago and fresh apricot slices.

Speaking of summer produce, my fridge is now full of pounds of fresh sweet raspberries and strawberries, a few pounds of cherries too. I am too excited (and a bit overwhelmed) just thinking of the possibilities of their destiny in a cake/dessert form. A suggestion of your favorite summer cake/dessert that includes berries and/or cherries is greatly appreciated :).

Enjoy!

Summer Fruit Crumble

Crumble Topping
100g unsalted butter
100g flour
100g granulated sugar
75g almond flour
pinch of salt

Mix all of the ingredients in a mixer with a paddle attachment until crumbly, or mix by hand.
Crumble on a baking sheet and refrigerate until ready to use

Fruit Filling

400g Summer fruits (apricot, peach, nectarine, raspberry, blueberry, strawberry, plums, cherries, etc.)
10g flour (you can add more if you're using fruits that release a lot of juice like strawberry)
25 g sugar (you can adjust this too if your fruits are more on the tart or sweeter side)
lemon zest ( a bout 1/2 tsp-1 tsp or so)
1/2 pod of vanilla bean, scrape the seeds (optional)

Cut up the larger fruit into pieces and toss them together with the flour, sugar, lemon zest, and vanilla bean seeds (if using)
Divide between ramekins
Bake in a preheated oven at 350 F for about 30 minutes or until it's bubbly and the crumble topping is nicely browned.
Enjoy with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or just plain sweetened whipped cream

Meyer Lemon Tart

2011-08-05T21:45:00.000-07:00

Ah.. finally this post is up!!

Every year around Spring time (it is kinda late this year), I am always loaded with a whole bunch of meyer lemons, mostly coming from neighbor's tree, friends, and also from my coworker's too. The coworker has a meyer lemon tree that is producing all year around (yup, I now now where to get my source all year!).

The temperature here is staying around 80's on average, cool in the morning and at night. I guess making lemon tart is really appropriate to finally celebrating the hot summer days! I LOVE SUMMER!

Life is still crazy busy, it seems like there is never enough time for everything, I am sure it happens with most of you too. Lack of sleep is becoming a regular now, so between work, baking, personal life, social life, errands (or chores), sometimes you really just want to sit back and relax.

anyways, if you've been following this blog for a while, you probably notice that I would make meyer lemon tart every year and this year is no difference, just a bit later than usual (I made this about 1.5 months ago). I have been trying to use them fast since they have been in the fridge for quite a while and I would hate it if they're going to waste. So, I managed to make this lemon tart and macaron over a span of a week, one component at a time.

LOVE LOVE LOVE this tart (that is really the primary reason why I make them every year)! As usual, the recipe comes from Pierre Herme and I am pretty sure any lemon lovers are well-informed about his brilliant lemon cream. It is always satisfying everytime I make it and it will continue to appear every year.

So if you still have some stash of lemons, please try this. And even if you don't, you might want to go get it to make this tart.

Pierre Herme's Meyer Lemon Tart

Pate Sucree
yield: three 101/2-in crusts or four 8-in crusts

300g unsalted butter, cubed, at room temperature
190g powdered sugar
60g ground almonds
1 vanilla bean, scrapped
2 eggs, room temperature
500g all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt

* Put the butter in a mixer bowl and cream until smooth and creamy using a paddle attachment.
* Add the sugar, ground almonds, and vanilla bean seeds. Mix until combined.
* Add the eggs one at a time, fully incorporating the previous one before adding the next one (the dough might look curdled at this point but don't worry, it'll come together once you add the flour)
* Combine the flour and salt. Add to the dough in about three addition. Mix until just it comes together. Do not overwork! Like Pierre said, "it's better to have lumps of butter rather than to have an overworked dough".
* Divide the dough in the portions you need. Form each one into a ball and flatten it into a disk. Wrap each disk with plastic wrap and store in the fridge overnight (you can also freeze the dough at this point and thaw it in the fridge overnight).
* Remove one disk from the fridge, and roll it either between two sheets of parchment paper, or just well-floured surface. You need to move quickly though. You don't want the dough to be soft and overworked.
* Line your tart pan with the dough and put it back in the fridge for at least 1-2 hrs to rest.
* Preheat the oven to 350 F.
* When you're ready to bake, put a parchment paper on top of the dough and fill the bottom with either rice or beans.
* Bake for 20 minutes. Take the parchment paper and the beans/rice off, then continue to bake for another 5-10 minutes until it's golden brown.
* Let cool in the ring.

Lemon Cream

200 g whole eggs (4 eggs)
240 g granulated sugar
160 g fresh Meyer lemon juice
zest from about 5 lemons
300 g unsalted butter, room temperature and cubed

* Rub the zest with the sugar using your finger until the sugar is moistened with lemon oil.
* On a double boiler, combine the sugar, eggs and juice .
* Whisk/stir constantly until the mixture reaches 85-86 C.
* Strain the mixture and let cool to about 55-60 C and put it in a blender (if you don't have a hand-held blender)
* Add the butter a couple of pieces at a time, to make an emulsion. The mixture will lighten in color. Continue running the blender for a few minutes after all of the butter has been added to ensure the airy and light cream. Make sure stop and run the blender a few times to avoid over-heating.
* Pour the mixture into prepared crust and refrigerate.

Randomness: Blue Macaron Wedding Favor, Little Girl's Birthday Cake, and Sadaharu Aoki's Macarons

2011-07-25T23:11:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to say a quick hi and to let you guys know that I am still alive here.

Summer has always been a really busy time for me (and everyone). I was in the middle of house-moving these past month, some weekend trips in between, and a-week-long vacation (it was GREAT!) and they're pretty much eating all of my time and I hardly have time to bake as weekend is pretty much the only time I could bake. Other than that, I have no internet connection at home for almost a full month, didn't realize how important internet is until it's gone.
I didn't realize how much baking stuff I have until I have to pack them, I have at least 15-20 big boxes easily for tools and ingredients!!!!

Anyways, I have been baking quite a bit lately, mostly involving stone fruits and I've also been churning some sorbets and making popsicles! There are still definitely a long list of things to make for me this summer and I am trying to get to them one at a time, whenever I have time. Currently, I am busy with my niece 1st birthday for this coming weekend. You will find out soon about that :)

Just thought to give you a quick peek of what I was up to before the moving and the vacations.

Image above is courtesy of Mey Saetern

One of the things that gets me excited about baking is when someone asked me to bake something for their special occasion, especially for a wedding. At first, the thought of baking hundreds of macarons with my schedule sounds really impossible and each time, I just can't say no for most of them. There is something about wedding that is just so magical and being asked to be a part of that is such an honor for me.

I have never met Corrine before, we were introduced to each other by a mutual friend and we started emailing each other back and forth about macarons and how she'd like to have macarons for her upcoming wedding for the favor. We didn't really have any trouble communicating to each other and everything seems like a breeze to decide. She is so easy to work with and sounded like a really nice person (we've never met before) and it was definitely a joy to work with her.

When it was the time for me to start making it, of course it didn't come easy. First off, I was on 10-day trip the two weeks before the wedding and I hadn't ordered all the necessary ingredients I needed for the macarons. So I hurried and ordered them online after I got back but they took so long to ship (very unusually long) that I had to call a few times and had to changed the shipping to 2-day shipping. Yup, it comes with a lot higher shipping cost too, possibly the most expensive shipping I've ever paid for. Secondly, it was raining non stop for more than a week and with my previous bad experience baking macaron in a humid weather, this was no exception either.

The first 5 batches failed miserably (yes, 5 batches! which equals to about 150 macarons or 300 individual shells), I had no idea what went wrong. Out of desperation, I switched to French Meringue method and see if it would make any difference and it came out perfect! Although the texture is somewhat different that IM method, but they've got to be done no matter what. It was a crazy time indeed and I still remember how everything was rushed in the middle of the night. The macarons were filled with rose-flavored buttercream.

Now, onto the sweet thing. When the bf came back from 5-week business trip in Taipei, he came back bringing back this.. Sadaharu Aoki's macarons!

When he told me that he was leaving for Taipei, these macarons were the first that came to mind, hehehe... been wanting to try them for ages, well..Pierre Herme's, Laduree's and a lot more in Paris too, but the is more accessible... for now.

Other than that, here is also a cake I made for little girl's birthday cake, Olivia. I feel privileged to be able to bake her birthday cakes for the three years of her life so far, even though I have never met her. The theme for the cake is "Olivia" the pig, first time I've heard the character that I had to google it to know what it is :).

Now that I have my internet back, I have quite a bit of typing and photo editing to do. Stay tuned!

I used Aran's recipe for the macarons:

French Meringue Macarons
taken from Aran at Canelle-vanille

140 gr egg whites
3 gr egg white powder
80 gr sugar
180 gr almond flour
240 gr powdered sugar

Make sure that the egg whites have been separated from the egg yolks at least the night before. This bit of aging really makes a difference in the macarons.

In a large bowl, sift together the almond flour and powdered sugar. Set aside.

Whip the egg whites with the egg white powder until very fluffy, almost fully whipped. Start adding the sugar slowly and whip to stiff peaks.

Add the dry ingredients to the meringue and fold with a spatula until a shiny mass forms. We want to achieve a batter that makes ribbons. You might have to test it to see if it's done. Pipe a small amount on your sheetpan. If it keeps a little bit of a top when piped, then you have to mix it a bit further, if it spreads really fast, you have gone too far and your macarons will turn out flat.

When you have the right consistency, place the mass in a pastry bag with a number 5 tip and pipe small rounds onto sheetpans lined with parchment or silpat. Let them dry at room temperature for at least 45 minutes to an hour. The tops must be dry when you touch them.

Have the oven preheated to 350F degrees. Place one sheetpan in the oven at a time and reduce the temperature to 300F degrees. Bake for 8 minutes and rotate sheetpan and bake for another 5 minutes.

Let the macarons cool on the sheetpan.

Spring Cleaning Part 1: Cassis Chocolate Cake

2011-06-15T14:34:00.000-07:00

I opened my freezer a few weeks ago and started listed out what pastry "leftovers" I have in there. You can bet that I have different flavors of joconde, baked cheesecake, mousses, some sponge cake layers among other common things such as frozen berries that I froze last year (red and yellow raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries), as well as frozen purees (passion fruit, guava, apricot, cassis, mango, etc), cherries. That's a whole lot of stuff! I can make half a year worth of desserts without having to buy most of the ingredients. And now that Summer is here, I have to start "cleaning" them up so that I would have space for a new stash of every fruit I can find in farmers' market.

If you follow this blog, you might know that I hate wasting stuff away. I am a firm believer that you can make something completely extraordinary with leftovers and maybe with a bit of extra work. So the spreadsheet planning began. So many things I could make with them that I am almost overwhelmed with excitement, can't decide which one to make first and when I will actually have time to do them.

Like this cake for example. Most of the components in this cake are leftovers from this cake. I had some leftovers for most of the layers from previous cake, so I partly assembled them and put them in the freezer until I can figure out what I can make with them. So here are the dissected components for this cake:

chocolate joconde
raspberry soaking syrup (to moisten the joconde)
dark chocolate mousse
chocolate joconde that has been moistened with raspberry syrup
thin layer of raspberry garniture
cassis mousse
decoration: mini chocolate macarons, blueberries, and chocolate decoration

The only thing I needed to make for this cake is the cassis mousse, which was a very quick and easy mousse. Even the macaron shells were available in my freezer, I just needed to make a quick chocolate ganache (not even a real measurement) and I was all set.

Fortunately, chocolate and cassis mousse is one combination I'd like to try in my list, so I can cross that off now, killing two birds with one stone. Smart.

This is just an idea of how you can transform leftovers to something completely different, tasted great and a lot quicker too! I have been feeding this cake to my nephews and niece every night and they always asks for more, a good sign! Although I think they are a bit spoiled with non-kid desserts they have been getting these past few years :). So please don't throw anything away as you'd never know what you can turn it into someday :).

Old-Fashioned Banana and Chocolate Chip Muffins

2011-06-13T14:54:00.000-07:00

I might not have blogged about this one particularly simple cake (I might have posted some pictures in the past though) but that doesn't mean that this cake doesn't deserve a highlight and its own blog post. This humble banana muffin in particular is very special to me and it goes back to my early college days in TX.

I started baking at the last year of my college days I think. I was more of a cooking type of girl, Indonesian home-cooked meals, Chinese, American, Italian, a little French, and for a student, that was something. I never really interested in baking world until I met this little sweet cake. I was at my friend's house for a bible study and she just made this cake. She served it right out of the oven and it was love at first bite, I immediately asked for the recipe. She got the recipe from a missionary and she's been using the recipe ever since.

I adapted the recipe to adjust the sweetness to my liking and adding chocolate chips to it. This recipe has become favorite in my baking repertoire and it is the most baked cake in my kitchen, not to mention very easy to make, it will take me 30 minutes probably from start to finish (and I mean, cake out of the oven). Everyone from little to old loves this and this is also the first and possibly the only cake I think of whenever I see over-ripe bananas. It is easy to make but the reward is great, even my non-baking brother asked for the recipe. Once, a good friend of mine asked for a dozen of this for her birthday present, it was that special. It is more special for me because it has some nostalgic value I think. I baked a lot of different banana cakes in the past but I always go back to this one, and I've been sharing the recipe with friends. I can't believe I haven't shared with you guys.

I made this particular one for my baby nephew, Tobias, with the help of my niece's (Tobias' big sister) help. He's just gone through a very painful throat surgery and wouldn't eat or drink for days cuz of the pain. He is a really energetic 1.5 year old boy and it broke my heart to see him lying in the hospital bed with tubes and everything on his body for a week. I baked this as soon as he came home from the hospital and hoping that he would eat it, he liked it when I made it before.

I jumped with joy when he actually ate the whole thing! He refused to eat anything else, even the milk he loved so much but he'd eat this. I baked it in two different molds, standard and small and he could eat 2 small ones in one sitting, yay! He is doing so much better now but poor thing, he had to go through the same surgery again in a few weeks, and I am hoping to make these again for him.

You can add anything you fancy to this recipe, it is so versatile. I usually just add chocolate chip muffins, sometime walnut too and the amount is really up to you. It makes the whole house smells really nice and I hope this will be your favorite too. This is the only recipe that I would make using cup measurement. I usually will convert everything to metric, but this one will stay :)

On a completely different topic, San Jose is finally starting to show some warmth. Today, I drove to work and lunch with a clear blue sky with no single white streaks, gentle and cool breeze and warm sunny sun, a fine California day. Farmers' market is one of my favorite place to visit, I saw lots of cherries yesterday and stone fruits are beginning to appear everywhere. I am excited!

Banana & Chocolate Chip Muffins
Yield: 12 standard muffin cups

Wet Ingredients:
3 overripe bananas, mashed with a fork
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 egg
1/3 cup melted butter/vegetable oil

Dry Ingredients:
1.5 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
pinch of salt

Semi-sweet chocolate chips and/or toasted nuts

Preheat the oven to 350 F (325 F for the mini version)
Combine the dry and wet ingredients into separate bowl (don't forget to sift the dry ingredients)
Mix the dry into the wet and mix until just combined, do not overmix
Fold in the topping (chocolate chips and/or nuts)
Divide the batter into 12 standard muffin cups
Put it into the oven and bake for about 15 minutes or until golden brown on top

Celebrating Friendship

2011-06-06T13:53:00.000-07:00

I have known my friend, N, for no less than 9 years I think. We went to the same college in Cupertino, we go to the same church, we hung out and laughed together, we stayed up late together, usually it's me making a cake, and her helping me making little fondant figurines, we get very excited over food, and many many more. She is the type of person who can bright up your day instantly, she's always full of smile in any circumstances, always willing to help, very kind-hearted, there is no single negative thing I can think of when I think of her.

I was surprised and very sad when I heard that she's going back to Indonesia for good, but I was glad at the same time too. I knew that Indonesia is her long-term plan, and I am glad that she's finally stepping to the next level of her life. I guess being sad is inevitable when it's a real good friend that's leaving.

Instead of being all tears, we decided to throw her a party to celebrate the friendship we've shared over the years. With everyone talked about Prince William's and Kate's fairy tale wedding, the theme for N's party is "Royal Ball", with blue and silver as the color theme, as N is too a fan of anything magical (can you imagine she's been to Disneyland in LA for 10x?!!)

I wanted to make something for her before she left and I only had a few days (workdays) after my previous trip to plan, shop and to make it, so there wasn't much I could do. I decided to make a display cake with the blue/silver theme to get that "fairy tale" feeling and make verrines for the dessert. N loves the rose-lychee combination, and so I decided to make a verrine that incorporates raspberry, rose, and lychee. You might think that I make this combination too often, but I do love it that much, the combination of flavors and the appearance, again, Pierre Herme is a genius for coming up with this combo among many others.

Here's a list of the components that go inside the verrine:

Raspberry gelee
Pistachio joconde (I used pistachio joconde leftover from this cake)
Raspberry soaking syrup
Rose bavarian cream
Repeat the layering twice, ended with a thin raspberry layer on top

I was originally planning to make mini pink macarons with rose filling, but unfortunately I didn't have time for it, maybe next time as I think it would look very pretty.

The party was indeed filled with fun and good food. Our friend, Y, made some very tasty Indonesian meal for us, and most importantly, people got to spend one last time with N. I know this won't be the last time we meet, but until next time, I will miss her dearly and everything about her.

Me and my little niece

Some game we played at the party :)

It is "unofficially" Summer already and surprisingly, CA is taking its time to get summery. It feels more like early Spring with the rain and cloudy weather in mid 60's. Really cannot wait now for warm weather.

Have a blessed week!

Rose, Raspberry, and Lychee Verrine

Lychee pieces
Pistachio joconde (or lady fingers), cut a bit smaller than the size of the glass

30 Baume Syrup
50 ml water
65 g sugar

30 ml water
30 ml framboise eau-de-vie

Bring the water (50 ml) and the sugar to a boil. Let cool
Measure about 60 g of the syrup and mix with the water and eau-de-vie

Raspberry Gelee
500 graspberry puree
sugar (I didn't measure how much sugar I used, but start with probably 100 g and keep adding until the desired sweetness)
2 tsp. powdered gelatin (mixed with about 1 Tbs. of water)

Mix raspberry puree and sugar in a saucepan and bring it to a gentle boil
Melt the gelatin mixture (in a microwave for a few seconds) and add it to the raspberry mixture
Stir well and take it off the heat
Let cool to room temperature (ice bath would make it much faster)

Rose Bavarian
500 ml milk
6 egg yolks
150 g sugar
4 tsp. powdered gelatin (mixed with some water)
600 g heavy cream, whipped to soft peak
4-6 Tbs. rose water

Pour the milk in a saucepan and bring it to a gentle simmer
Meanwhile, whisk the yolk and the sugar without introducing any air
Once the milk is ready, temper the yolk with the milk and pour the mixture back on the heat
Keep stirring the mixture on a low heat until it reaches about 82 degree C
Meanwhile, melt the gelatin in a microwave and add to the milk mixture
Take it off the heat and cool on an icebath and strain it to remove any lumps
Keep stirring until it reached room temperature, then fold the whipped cream in and the rose water

To Assemble

Pour a thin layer of raspberry gelee in the bottom of a verrine glass (or any glass) and freeze for about 10 minutes until it's almost set
Place a thin layer of the pistachio joconde (or lady finger) that has been moistened with the syrup
Put some lychee pieces in the center
Pour some bavarian cream and again, let it set in the freezer for about 10 minutes (the top should not be liquid before you pour anything on top of it)
Repeat the layering

Ambroisie

2011-05-18T18:42:00.000-07:00

It all started when I went on a snowshoeing trip back in mid February with a couple of coworkers. I promised my friend, Elaine, that I would bake her kids some cake if she'd go with us (the plan was that she was supposed to go anyway without my cake offer), so that she wouldn't feel so bad leaving the family for the weekend. Long story short, she had been "reminding" me about it a few times a week for 2.5 months! Yeah, she is not the shy kind or anything, she would definitely do anything to get her way to the cake. She even made request that it has to be chocolate, chocolate, and chocolate, and no alcohol please (demanding, I know). I had persuaded her to opt for the fruity one, but she was firm on chocolate. While the rest of the world (or US) is putting their best effort to showcase the summer jewels (read: strawberries, raspberries, rhubarb, lemon), here I am making a chocolate cake in the middle of Spring. But if I'm making a chocolate cake, there's no way that I would make a plain chocolate cake without putting some twist to it.

It "only" took me a few months to finally get to it, and I didn't pick the easy one either. I have been in love with Hidemi Sugino's creations for the longest time, along with Pierre Herme, Sadaharu Aoki, and a few others. One of his most popular dessert, which is also the cover of the book is Ambroisie, a chocolate mousse cake layered with two different kinds of joconde (chocolate and pistachio), raspberry garniture, pistachio mousse, and covered in shiny chocolate glaze. It sounded pretty intimidating looking at the many components, given the fact that I haven't been making much entremets lately due to time constraint, and indeed it took me no less than two weeks to finish the whole thing! No, it is not that hard really, but since time is so difficult to find lately, I was just proud to be able to even finish this cake. I would say the difficult part was trying to figure out the how-to's since the instruction is in Japanese and my skill level in that department is pretty much negative, I can only rely on my very-limited-to-baking-ingredients French, but if you know the basic preparation to make mousse, bavarian cream, joconde, it is doable.

Each joconde, chocolate and pistachio, was made differently. The chocolate joconde was made with regular almond powder and powdered sugar, while the pistachio was made with 50/50 almond paste. The chocolate mousse was made without gelatin and rely solely to set from the chocolate itself, I should have refrigerated it in the mold a little longer than overnight, but it was my last day before vacation, so it had to be done.

The layering could be more straight, and I probably should have a thicker pistachio mousse, but overall, the cake was delicious! Just like any other Hidemi Sugino desserts, even though it has a lot of components, it is so light. I didn't get to taste more than a spoonful but it was enough to convince me that Mr. Sugino is a genius in the pastry world, even the pickiest eater of all time (read:M), said that he would eat the whole thing if he was given the whole individual cake, that itself making all the effort worth it.

It only makes me more eager to get back to making entremets, especially now that strawberry season is here! I started to go farmers' market almost every Sunday now when the weather is nice, and I was so delighted to see that my favorite strawberry stall was there! Immediately I bought 6 baskets of strawberries last week, sweet and tasty as I remember it to be. I also found blueberries, and cherries! A little early maybe for the cherries, but hey I am not complaining. I also got those tulips from the most gorgeous flower stall called "super tulips" and they are indeed SUPER! So many good stuff floating around, I haven't even had the time to play with blood oranges, meyer lemons, now add strawberries and cherries to the list. But anyways, I'm trying to savor every minute of the wonderful days we've been having, although the weather here has been back in Winter mode again for the past week and rain too. I still hope I can get more free time in the kitchen by myself to play around.

I am now buried in blue macarons and have made no less than 500 macarons in a few days (including the failed ones), more on this on later post. Other than that, it seems like we're back in Winter weather, temperature dropped to low 60's max during the day, it's been raining for 5 straight days and I cannot wait to start wearing shorts, skirts, mini dresses, without having to worry about freezing.

As far as recipes, I am really struggling to find the time and try to write it down, especially since the book is in Japanese (and I have no idea how to read it). I start planning on the Spring Cleaning of my freezer though and I cannot wait to get to it!

Cakepops for M's Baby Shower Favor

2011-05-04T00:27:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's May! I wonder where did time go. I have been out of town for the past two weeks, and before that, I was also out for a few weekends, life's been really crazy. A little warning, this post might be more of an updates rather than cake in details :)

I started this draft about a month ago or so and yes I know I have not been very proud of myself in keeping this blog updated as often as I wanted to. I had to keep changing the content as the week passed by because so many things are happening. In fact, I was writing part of this post on my "vacation" somewhere in Prairieville, Louisiana where thunderstorm and wind warning are so common. Yup, that's right! I went away from the beautiful California to Houston for a few days to visit my sister, then off to Louisiana, for a good reason. In a way, San Jose reminds me about the long hours at work and thinking about that is exhausting sometimes. So, it feels really good to be away from that at least.

I must say that I am now having so much more appreciation towards California weather and nature. Not to say that I didn't enjoy the trip (heck, I came back home with a temporary tattoo of tigger with a soccer ball on my thigh), in fact, it was nice that I could feel real Summer earlier, and also humid at the same time. It really reminds me of the time I spent during my college days in Texas. But really nothing beats California road scenery especially these days where green hills/mountains, happy cows, field of flowers, cherry blossoms, the gentle cool breeze, these little things seem to make my days a little brighter. It was one of those little pleasures in life that I appreciate so much.

The weather here is very nice now that I am back, Spring is definitely here, my favorite time of the year. I love it that cherry blossoms are blossoming everywhere. First, it was the pink plum blossoms, then the white ones, now the other pink cherry blossoms, it is so exciting that there's always something to admire and seeing the bright green leaf on the trees just somehow makes me happier. A little part of me is hoping that Summer wouldn't come so fast, just so that I can have this feeling of anticipation that Winter would not come anytime soon.

I am back now to my routine. Some part of me is happy that I am now back home and getting my regular life back, but on the other hand, it is also sad for the same reason. Getting back from a vacation is never easy I guess. It is so unfortunate that I spend most of my day time inside the office but I tried to soak as much sun as possible during the weekend including a farmers' market trip. Oh how I love this season, soon, I will sleep with my room window open, with the gentle breeze bringing the scent of the flowers from the backyard.

Anyways, enough of the ramblings, lots of things are happening lately. My friend Kiki gave birth to her second son, Wesley, which I have yet to pay a visit. My dear friend Nana is about to go back to Indonesia for good, people come and go in our life and although it is sad to see them go, it was also a privilege to be able to know them.

With everything that's happening at the moment, I could hardly have any time for myself and my kitchen, as you can probably tell that I don't post new stuff as frequently lately (not to say that I did anyway previously). It is killing me that while I got really excited seeing a whole bunch of meyer lemons in the backyard that's slowly falling off the tree and got rotten, seeing the first strawberries of the season, blood oranges, mangoes, and rhubarb among other things, I could hardly find time to do anything with it.

I did manage to make these cakepops for M's baby shower for her coworkers though, about a month ago.
It sounded impossible at first with my schedule but thanks to my dearest friends, brother, and sister in law who were willing to help in any way to make it possible, you guys are the best! The inside is red velvet cake with cream cheese icing, covered in white candy melts and purple polkadots. I was dying to make a sheep or a cow or anything farm animals for these cakepops, but they take so much time to do, so maybe next time. Anyone having a baby anytime soon?

M made the thank you tag and they are perfect (she did it quite fast too :D)! I love how everything is so well-prepared and she made it looked like it is so easy to make them. Congratulations for the upcoming baby girl "blueberry", I'm pretty sure she will grow up to be as beautiful as you inside and out.

Other than the cakepops, I also managed to squeeze in this birthday cake for little boy named Ansel. Funny thing is, I made cakes for their family a few times already for the past few years, but I have only met the dad who always picked up the cakes from me, I have never met the mom or any of the kids, and I felt so privileged for the trust that they give me. I finally met the mother last time when she went and picked up the cake, so yay, curiosity met! :)

This cake was for her son, Ansel, who turned 7 years old a few weeks ago. I also made some red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, and chocolate cupcakes with Nutella frosting, but didn't get a chance to take any picture.

I am working REALLY hard to squeeze in a little time here and there for baking, even when that means that I have to sacrifice my sleep time, but it's worth it! In fact, I made some cake last week, which took me no less than two weeks to finish, but anything is better than nothing. Will post that one up soon. Have a blessed week!

Della's Birthday and Some Chocolate Cake

2011-03-22T22:33:00.000-07:00

Apology for the rather long break on posting, I was out of town for the past two weekends. I had a chance to go to Napa two weeks ago with a few girls, it was a beautiful day, a bit chilly still but quite warm under the sun. It was nice to get away from everything, from work, from chores at home, from baking, from everything and just enjoying the view. Fortunately, we are all foodies, so it was only natural that food was one of the highlights of the day, lunch, dessert, ice cream, dinner, wine, it was all good.

Last weekend was San Diego, it was quite a long drive but good thing I wasn't driving. It was supposed to be raining all over California that weekend and we were a little bit skeptical in going, but again, it turned out to be a beautiful Saturday in San Diego. The trip was indeed filled with food and more food, beach too, but more food later :)

Although now we are back to the cold and wet San Jose weather, it only makes me crave for summer to come even more. I'm already making a list of cake/dessert for summer and I cannot wait! BBQ, berries, cherries, stone fruits, sangria, watermelon, ice cream making frenzy, ...

It was also my dear friend, Della's birthday about two weeks ago. She actually spent her birthday in Canada with some friends but she "demanded" that I made her a cake for her birthday, especially since I missed doing it for the past two years, which she kept bringing up :). We planned on having the birthday dinner among a group of friends the weekend after she got back, and there was only so little time to make the cake. She didn't even bother requesting what cake she would like as she knew that the chance of she's getting any cake at all is pretty tiny if she starts requesting stuff. It'd have to be whatever I can come up with, in just a short period of time. So there I was combining stuff and stacking them to make it at least a decent one, and I don't think I did a too shabby job at it given less than a day time frame (in my humble opinion of course), although I could probably do a neater job at stacking and trimming it, oh well...

I didn't want to make a chocolate type of cake because I think I made enough lately and craving for something lighter and a bit summery, but I've had a layer of tiramisu cream on top of espresso/rum soaked chocolate cake already assembled in the fridge. So what I did was, I made another layer of chocolate cake, soaked in espresso/rum mixture, dark chocolate whipped cream, rice crispy with hazelnut paste and milk chocolate layer, and a thin plate of just dark chocolate couverture. I made it into a square cake just for a change, and so that I won't have to decorate the side. Luckily, I also had some unfilled macarons in the freezer (which I filled with ganache later on), great time saver for decoration, and the cake was done! I even had time to babysit my baby niece which I don't get to see everyday.

It was nice to gather with friends, it's been a while we haven't done that. We used to just gather and eat almost every weekend, and I miss those days sometimes. What about the cake you might ask? Well, I was a bit disappointed that the crispy layer got soggy because I put the chocolate cream right on top of it. I guess I should pay more attention to the layering sequence in the future to avoid this to happen again., but other than that, it went well, and more importantly, the birthday girl got a homemade cake! Cant imagine the hard time I would get until the next year if I didn't :).

Here is the components that go inside the cake (no recipe sorry, it was just sorta add and mix without any weighing or much thoughts put on it), but I guess this cake is more like an idea of how you can make a decent and tasty cake with what you've already had. Which reminds me that Spring is just around the corner, and that means Spring Cleaning! I have quite a bit of different stuff in my freezer and it's time to clean them up and come up with something.

So here goes:
- chocolate cake drenched in espresso-rum mixture
- rice crispy layer with milk chocolate and hazelnut paste
- chocolate whipped cream
- more chocolate cake with espresso-rum mixture
- tiramisu cream
- chocolate ganache
- chocolate whipped cream (piped in the middle to support the chocolate sheet)
- thin plate of chocolate couverture
- decoration: macarons, gold leaf, chocolate sticks

It sounds a lot and complicated, but it's actually not, some of the layer is repeated.

I have to say that I haven't been baking as much as I used to lately. That doesn't mean that I stop making a list of the things I want to make. St. Patricks day might be over but that does not stop me from wanting to make something with Irish twist, Spring-inspired desserts, Spring-cleaning cakes, oh the list could go on and on, and lastly I want to make something in honor to the tragedy that just happened in Japan.

I'll leave it at that for now and I'm wishing you a great week ahead, don't forget to live your life to the fullest and make it as meaningful as possible as you will never know when the time will come. And lastly, I'm hoping that Spring (real Spring) will come soon.

Jewelry Party Dessert Table

2011-03-08T14:27:00.000-08:00

San Jose is cold, wet, and windy at the moment. Definitely the least favorite weather of mine, it makes me want to curl up in bed and not doing anything. The fact that I still have to get up in the morning and go to work is really not exciting. I am longing for the warm weather even more than ever maybe.

Remember when I said I made a few dessert table in the midst of all the chaos that's been happening? This one was made about three weeks after the previous one. It was a smaller dessert table with about 80 desserts total for a jewelry party, four different types for yet another event by Le Amour Events. The theme color for the party involves white, green, and brown, so I tried to come up with a menu that showcases these color scheme.

Dessert Table Menu:

Tropical fruit cheesecakepops
Tiramisu verrines
Salted caramel macarons
Green tea eclair with chocolate glaze

It seems like each dessert had its own challenges, I didn't know what happen, it just did. I've never made cheesecakepop before and let me tell you, it is so much harder to shape up compared to regular cakepops. It was expected really as the texture of cheesecake is soft, it helped a little after a quick trip to the freezer, but it was still difficult. I might go crazy if I was making hundreds of them.

I was also having trouble with the macarons, completely not expected. You see, I always make a schedule, detail plan as to when I need to make certain component, when to decorate, when to buy ingredients, etc. This is very important because my free time is very limited and so everything needs to be planned well, especially in this currently impossible schedule, and I really didn't account for failure at all!. It was raining non-stop here for days or maybe even weeks, I really forgot when was the last time we had sunshine (a bit exaggeration here). To my surprise and disappointment, the first batch of the macaron failed, all of them. The macarons on the first tray looked like an exploded volcano, the others had uneven feet, and all of them weren't as crispy as the ones I made in the past. I would blame it on the humidity from the rain.

I was shocked, alright. Didn't quite believe what had happened, it also happened in the morning before I went to work, which then left me thinking for the whole day what could have gone wrong and how I can find the time to make another batch. Somehow I managed to bake another batch, and the same thing happened! Although this time was slightly better, but I still couldn't help but thinking what have I done wrong. I only needed at least 18 pairs, or 36 individual shells and fortunately I did. I wasn't completely satisfied with the texture and all but I was so glad when I heard that everything turned out great, what a relief!

I made tiramisu hundreds of time before, I know the steps, the measurements and everything by heart so the chance of I messed it up is pretty small. What I didn't know is that I could be so tired that I miscounted the glasses. I needed 18 but I only had 16! I don't know what I was thinking but long story short, I had to make another batch to account for the other 2.

I definitely learned some lessons from this dessert table, one of them is that always take into account some failure in your schedule, very important, so note to self, don't do everything at the very last minute.

All in all, everything was done on time and that I did manage to take a few pictures, not that great but better than nothing. And what makes it all worth it is that everyone is pleased with it :)

I feel like this post has a lot of complaining, please don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the process of it, I guess I was just making a note to myself of what's not to do in the future :D. Ugghh... and I really hope this weather can change soon and then comes Spring, cannot wait!

Onto the giveaway winner now. The winner is ...... (drum roll please) Hengky in San Jose, according to random.org. Congratulations and enjoy! I will send you the detail of the gift card shortly.
Thank you to all who participated.

A Dessert Table for Bridal Trunk Show and A CSN Giveaway

2011-02-24T23:13:00.000-08:00

It's been raining, more rain, and more rain here in San Jose, temperature dropped more than 20 degrees since my last post. It's sad that I can't enjoy the peak of cherry blossom season in warm sun and stroll around the park full of them. The weather site also predicted a chance of snow in the bay area! How cool is that!

I've also been working on 12-16hr/day of work schedule every single day for the last two months or so. It is not fun at all indeed, and I haven't had sleep deprivation in so long until these past few months. I was seriously thinking of just bringing comfy sleeping bag to keep in my cube. So, forgive me for lack of updates. What makes things worse is that my mom is here for the last 3 months and I feel so bad for not spending enough time with her. She's going back to Indonesia this Saturday, and I'm determined to take one day off tomorrow from work, hopefully everything goes well and I can do that with no problem. I let myself think that this timing for crazy work schedule is "perfect" for this bad weather, because if it's all sunny and nice outside, I would be really bummed having to spend the whole day inside the office. Sad, I know, but anything to make me feel better is certainly appreciated nowadays :)

With that, I haven't been able to bake for experiment at all, although I did manage making some desserts for a few dessert table and this is one of them. This dessert table, which fell on my birthday, was for a bridal-opening party for around 100 people, about 350 desserts total. In all craziness that's been happening, I was actually very happy that everything finished on time, even when that means only 3 hour of sleep that night. Special thanks to Randi from le Amour Events who organized this and BoLee Bridal Couture who hosted the event. It is surely an honor to be able to take part.

Sure there are a lot I wish I can do differently if I had more time but I couldn't be happier when I received the positive feedback, making all the sweat and the lack of sleep worth it. Many thanks to my mom and my brother who helped me out in the dawn of the night to make this happen. Wouldn't be able to do it without them.

Dessert Table Menu:

Fromage Fraise Verrine
vanilla sponge soaked in red berry coulis - red berry gelee (raspberry & strawberry), cheese mousse
Red Velvet Cakepops
with cream cheese frosting, dipped in white candy melts
Silk Pudding with Passion Fruit Coulis
White Chocolate Mango Cheesecake
with jellied cream on top and almond crust
Raspberry and Rose Marshmallow

This was also the first time I made homemade marshmallow. I chose raspberry and rose flavor because it suits the color theme (pink) and anything with rose is gotta be romantic. I love the texture of homemade marshmallow a lot better than store-bought, although I have to say that it was still too sweet for me, but now that I know, it should be perfect next time :). I'm already thinking passion fruit marshmallow, strawberry & orange water marshmallow, endless possibilities!

I didn't have the chance to take any pics, all pictures for the dessert table are courtesy of Daniel Lee.

I baked the leftover cheesecake batter into individual cake ring mold and topped it with mango gelee and decorated with raspberry coulis. And as you probably have guessed, I went to take 3-hr nap immediately after the desserts were picked up :), a very-much needed nap indeed before birthday dinner :).

Now, onto the giveaway post. I have had the privilege to host CSN giveaway for three times and this is gonna be the forth time for $40 CSN Gift Certificate. I can't stress enough how generous they are providing all this wonderful giveaways and with hundreds of sites, they definitely have E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G you would ever need. I especially love this adjustable bar stools to put around the kitchen island or bar area. Oh I cannot wait to have my own place, I've always had this dream of having a real modern yet warm house with lots of windows for natural light to get in. This bar stool definitely going to make a great addition to my dream house :)

How to enter:

Must be US or Canada resident
Leave a comment on this post between now until Sunday, March 6, 2011 at 12am (PST)
Winner will be drawn randomly through random.org
No anonymous comment please. Please also enter in your email address if you disable your profile view.
One comment per person, multiple comments are welcome but only count as one entry

Have a blessed weekend!

White Chocolate and Mango Cheesecake

Crust:
95 g almond powder
55 g graham cracker crumbs
30 g sugar
3 Tbs. butter

Cheesecake Batter:
3 (8-oz) cream cheese, at room temperature
100 g sugar
1/2 vanilla bean seeds
3 eggs
5-oz white chocolate
150 g mango puree/pulp

Prepare the almond crust: Mix all ingredients together and press it onto the bottom of 8" round springform pan. Bake for about 10-12 minutes or until slightly brown. Let cool while you prepared the cheesecake batter
Prepare the cheesecake batter: With a paddle attachment, mix the cream cheese, vanilla bean seeds and sugar until smooth.
Add the egg, one at a time. Mix well
Melt the white chocolate and mix it into the batter
Lastly, add the mango puree/pulp and mix well
Pour onto the prepared crust
Bake in waterbath at 300F for about 50-60minutes, or until the edges are set but the center is slightly jiggly when shake gently.
Let cool and refrigerate overnight.

Valentine Dessert Idea: Strawberry and Pistachio Mousse Cake with Red Berry Gelée

2011-02-07T10:30:00.000-08:00

I'm going to begin this post with the weather forecast, just because I'm too excited over it :). While the rest of the country is covered with deep snow, even ice, when Texas is snowing, when midwest is hit with very cold temperature and storm, when everywhere in radio or TV talks about how to stay warm and all, here is low 70F in CA! Spring arrived a bit early this year, not that I'm complaining, in fact, I'm way too excited! It's usually raining the whole time in January and February and very cold, while we had our share of rain in December or early January, we're having sunshine ever since! For the first time since last Summer, I opened my window in the afternoon, I worked in the garden a little bit, I even wear shorts last night because it was too warm in my room! I'm planning to wear a cotton dress today too!

Last Friday night, when I was heading out from work at around 9:30pm (yes, this has become regular, even 11pm :() to grab some dinner with coworker, I managed to give him a slight heart attack I think. I saw the plum blossom (or cherry blossom) tree in the parking lot and they're blooming! I immediately squealed out of joy, I think he gave me this you're-a-weird-woman type of stare, he must have thought I'm some kind of a mad woman probably. If you know me, I wait for this time to arrive each year, just to see the cherry tree blossoming, covered with beautiful pink/white little flowers. It is not fully bloomed yet, but it made it looks more exotic and zen that way :). I think if I were by myself and out in the day, I would have picked a few branches to preserve it at home, take a gazillion picture of it, decorate cake with it, and stare until the flowers felt creep-ed out by me (if it's even possible). Yes, I love cherry blossom that much! Each year when it's blossoming, I always manage to make some fondant cake and decorate with cherry blossom theme here and here, both for my brother's bday. He did complain why does he always get this girly cake on his birthday, but hey the baker gets all the power to decide how she wants to decorate it, right? It was always raining in the previous years and it was always late in the season by the time I have time to make cake, so I haven't been able to decorate with real flowers in the past, but hopefully I will this year

Now that I got that out of my head, let's go to the real post. I am not much of a Valentine type of girl, well maybe not yet, but when the rest of the world gets excited over the most romantic day of the year, I just have to participate. Besides, I am such a sucker for any pink/red type of dessert (naturally colored is preferred) and who needs a reason to make a pretty pink cake anyway?

I received an email from California Strawberry a while ago, informing me that they are hosting a "Romantic Recipe Contest" for Valentine's day that would showcase strawberries and asking me if I would like to participate. My immediate first thought was "absolutely!". First, it's an excuse for me to go all the way (or almost all the way) and be creative; Second, it's a contest. Although I wouldn't say that I'm a highly competitive person, but when I am in a competition, who wouldn't want to try hard to win? Third, it's strawberries, which means pink. Enough reasons.

Sure enough, my mind was full of different ideas for this, all sorts of combination, texture, and decorating ideas are floating around my brain and I just had to put in in a spreadsheet (can't live without spreadsheet) so that I can keep track. From the easy desserts to the most complicated desserts, it seems like the longer I think, the more headache I get, but I finally nailed it down to one, strawberry and pistachio. This combination of flavor is one of the classics and it makes a really nice couple, you can see this combo all around Pierre Herme's and Laduree's creations too just to name a few. To show the different layering of the dessert, I made it into a square shape; and since it's not a Valentine without anything heart-shaped, I also made heart-shaped pink macarons to go along with the cake. There are quite a few components of the dessert including pistachio joconde, red berry gelée (from raspberry and strawberry), pistachio bavarois, strawberry mousse, and also the pink heart macaron, but dividing it into few days will make it a lot easier to execute. I made a slight mistake calculating the time needed for each layer, which resulted the red berry gelée not having enough time to properly chill. You can see that the layering of that is not perfect, which bothers me, but I'll make it right next time :)

I submitted my photo and recipe just one day before the due date, and there are lots of gorgeous entries already! You can check them out at their fan page. The winner hasn't been announced yet but even if I don't win anything, I would still be grateful for the opportunity to participate. Without the contest, I wouldn't have any excuse for myself to make anything Valentine, of course winning is not so bad either :).

Valentine's day is a week away and even though I will be gone somewhere out there in the snow going snowshoeing in Yosemite (possibly meet a bear or two) on the Valentine's day weekend, I'm hoping I can make at least another Valentine dessert this week, an easier one I hope, if I can juggle between a birthday cake, snack for the trip, and more :)

Pistachio and Strawberry Mousse Cake

Pistachio joconde:

2 whole eggs
75 g almond powder
75 g confectioners' sugar
30 g pistachio paste
20 g flour
70 g egg whites
20 g granulated sugar
15 g melted butter

Preheat the oven to 400 F
Combine the eggs, almond powder, confectioners' sugar, and pistachio paste in a mixer bowl.
Beat the mixture for about 10 minutes until it's thick
In another bowl, beat the egg whites and granulated sugar until it forms a soft peak, set aside.
Sift the flour into the almond mixture and fold well.
Add a little bit of the meringue to the almond mixture, fold lightly.
Add the melted butter, fold.
Finally, add the rest of the meringue in two addition and fold carefully until it is well-combined
Divide the batter into two 8" square pan, it'll be thin
Bake the cake for about 10 minutes or until the top is slightly brown

Red Berry Jelly

50 g strawberry puree
50 g raspberry puree
75 g sugar (adjust depending on the sweetness of the fruit)
1 tsp. gelatin (bloomed with 1 Tbs. water)

Combine the two red berry puree and sugar in a small saucepan and bring it to a gentle boil
Melt the gelatin in a microwave for a few seconds, then add it into the puree.

Let cool slightly and pour into 8" square cake ring that has been lined with plastic wrap (for easier removal

Pistachio Bavarian Cream:

2 egg yolks
30 g sugar
20 g pistachio paste
80 g milk
1/8 vanilla bean seeds (or used vanilla pods)
3/4 tsp. gelatin powder (bloomed with about 1 Tbs. of water)
90 g heavy cream

Bring the milk and the vanilla bean to a gentle simmer in a small saucepan.
Meanwhile, whisk the yolk, sugar, and pistachio paste until thick and pale
When the milk is ready, temper the yolk mixture by pouring a little of the milk into the yolk, mix well.
Add the rest of the milk in a steady stream while whisking it.
Pour the mixture back in a saucepan and put it back on the stove under low heat
Bring the mixture to about 82 C, stirring constantly (or until the mixture coats the back of a spoon)
Melt the gelatin in a microwave for a few seconds (5-10 seconds), then add it into the milk mixture
Run it through a strainer to remove lumps, if any
Let cool to room temperature (use icebath to speed up the process)
In the meantime, whip the heavy cream until soft peak.
When the milk is no longer warm, fold the two together.
Pour the mixture on top of the frozen red berry jelly (still in a cake ring), and put it back in the freezer

Strawberry Mousse

325 g strawberry puree
130 g sugar (adjust depending on the sweetness of the strawberry)
1.75 tsp. gelatin (bloomed with approximately 2 Tbs. of water)
240 g heavy cream
25 g granulated sugar
Bring the strawberry puree and the sugar to a boil
Melt the gelatin in a microwave, and add it to the hot puree
Remove from heat and let cool (use icebath to speed up the process)
Meanwhile, whip the cream and the sugar until it forms a soft peak.
When the strawberry puree is no longer warm, fold the puree with the cream
Use immediately

To Assemble:

Grand Marnier/Kirsch/Framboise eau-de-vie/any alcohol of your choice (fruit flavored is preferred)
8” square cake ring with 1.75”-2” high

Put one layer of pistachio joconde in the bottom of an 8” square cake ring
Moistened with enough alcohol (you can also mix the alcohol with simple syrup if you want). Don’t over-soak it as you don’t want the cake to taste like alcohol
Spread a thin layer of strawberry mousse on top of the joconde, then put the frozen pistachio cream/red berry jelly on top with the pistachio cream on top.
Spread another thin layer of strawberry mousse on top
Layer the other pistachio joconde, brush with alcohol
Pour the remaining strawberry mousse, and level the top with a metal spatula
Put the whole thing (with the cake ring intact) in a freezer and leave it overnight
When it’s completely frozen, warm the cake ring either with a blow dryer or a torch and remove the ring from the cake
With a hot knife, cut the cake into rectangles, wiping the knife before another cut.
Decorate

Decoration:

Red berry jelly
Pink heart macaron
Halved pistachio pieces
Fresh strawberry

Accompaniment: Champagne

Update: My entry came in 2nd place, yay!

Assorted and Colorful Macarons for Christmas

2011-01-11T12:20:00.000-08:00

It seems like Christmas has been long gone, and with the New Year when everybody is busy trying to make resolutions or goals, or anything at all, who would remember anything about Christmas? Well, at least I do, especially when you had to make 5 batches of macarons with 6 different fillings in a half a day right before Christmas eve. It might sound "ah, that's nothing", but this is the first time for me making so many different kinds in such a short time.

Everytime I see a blog post when people are baking such pretty and oh-so-colorful macarons, it always left me wondered how can they make so many different ones and how would they find the time to do it, especially if you have to rest your macaron batter for some time and bake it one tray at a time? And what do they do with so many of macarons if they make one batch for one color? I tried to think and see if maybe they color the same batter a few different ones, but I don't think that's possible as the batter would be overmixed. In the end, I just thought that they made each color as different batch, which was what I did.

I made lots of macarons before, the last one being 200++, but they're different, they're for a wedding and the same flavor. I don't have to worry about making different batch of fillings, and what different flavors I want to make, but I've always wanted to make pretty colorful macarons too so that I can put them side by side and arranged them like little colorful soldiers just like those in a patisserie.

One of my friends asked me a month before Christmas (or maybe a bit before), if I would be willing to make some macarons for him to give as a Christmas and thank you gift for another person. That person happens to be a macaron fanatic (so I've heard) and she's been getting different macarons from different places every Christmas time. I couldn't commit at first since my December baking schedule is pretty full, leaving me no time left for just my personal baking. Besides, the thought of me making different batches of macarons scared me, and what would I do with so many leftovers? He persisted and tried to convince me every single day until I said yes (and it's not that hard really :D).

I decided to make four different flavors for him, and one more the next day just for me using the un-filled macarons:
1. Pink macarons - rose buttercream, lychee, and raspberry gelee cube
2. Yellow macarons - cream cheese frosting with tropical fruit puree added
3. White macarons - dark chocolate and gianduja ganache with hazelnut praline
4. Orange macarons 1 - salted caramel buttercream with vanilla bean fleur de sel
5. Orange macarons 2 - milk chocolate passion fruit ganache

If you notice, I tried to make each one to have different characteristic, sweet and floral, a little tart note, bittersweet, salty, sweet and sour. I was so tempted to make another one with green color, but I had no more time and had to stop. It was hard to decide which one I like the most as each of them is so different and I love them all!

This is my first time making salted caramel buttercream and I had no idea how it should taste, or how salty and sweet it should be. I was using salted butter and whipped it until light, then added the caramel I made. I think the sweetness is there, but it was a tad too salty, so I need to add more caramel next time. The tahitian vanillie fleur de sel on the top of the macaron added more saltiness to it, so I guess I really should add more caramel. I'm loving this combination and you bet I will make this flavor more in the future, maybe in the cake form.

I made the passion fruit milk chocolate ganache before, but ended up throwing it away because I thought it tasted weird. The passion fruit puree was so tart and that even the sweetness of milk chocolate couldn't compromise for it. I really want to try it again ever since, especially knowing that this flavor combo is so popular, even in Pierre Herme's shop! I added some sugar to the ganache this time and I think it was perfect! Love it!

I ended up with lots of leftover of course but my friends and family were at least more than happy to gobble them up during our Christmas Eve dinner. I recall one of them at least had ten in one sitting and wouldn't stop if we didn't stop him. We brought the leftover macarons (that we specifically reserved on purpose) on our road trip a few days after.

After this, I'm more excited to see what other flavor pair I can come up with and the possibilities are endless! So stay tuned to see what's next. How exciting!

Basic macaron recipe:

150 g almond powder
150 g confectioners' sugar
56 g fresh egg whites, room temperature
150 g granulated sugar
40 ml water
55 g old egg whites, room temperature

Sift the almond powder and confectioners' sugar together. Set aside.

Combine the granulated sugar and the water in a saucepan and cook until it reaches 245F. Don't stir the syrup as you will end up with crystallized mass.

Meanwhile, while the sugar is cooking, start whipping the aged egg white on medium speed until it forms a soft peak. When the sugar is ready, pour the cooked syrup in a steady stream over the meringue with the mixer running on slow. It will splatter, but don't try to scrape them into the meringue as you would get lumps. Increase the speed to high and continue beating until you have a stiff glossy meringue.

Mix the fresh egg white with the almond-sugar mixture and blend together. Fold in the meringue into this almond mixture in addition. Add about a third of the meringue and fold progressively, then proceed with another third of the meringue and fold it in. Don't overfold the batter as you would have a gloppy mess. Consistency is really important at this point, some people say that it should flow like a lava (I don't know how lava flows though). If you're not sure, try piping a little dollop and see if it leaves a peak that will not spread or if it spreads too fast. You should still see a little peak after you pipe, but the peak should disappear or almost disappear after you pipe a row of them.

Put the batter in a piping bag with round tip (I used a tip with approximately 9mm in diameter) and pipe the macaron batter on top of silpat or parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Bake at 325F for about 14-15 minutes. Once baked, slide the silpat or parchment paper onto a wire rack to cool slightly. Peel each macaron shell carefully.

You can fill them with ganache or flavored buttercream. Keep it in an airtight container in the fridge and let it sit at room temperature for a few minutes to soften up before consuming.

Milk Chocolate Passion Fruit Ganache
adapted from here

100 grams milk chocolate
40 grams passion fruit puree
20 grams heavy cream
sugar to sweetened it slightly
15 grams butter

Chop the milk chocolate into small pieces. Boil the passion fruit, heavy cream, and sugar together and pour over chocolate. Stir until incorporated and the ganache forms. Wait a couple of minutes for the ganache to cool a bit and add the softened butter. Stir to create and emulsion. Let it harden a bit until it is pipeable and fill the macarons.

Rose Italian Meringue Buttercream:

1/2 cup plus 1 Tbs. sugar (115 g)
1/4 cup water (60 ml)
4 egg whites, at room temperature
4 sticks unsalted butter, cut in cubes and at room temperature
rose water, to taste

Combine the water and the sugar in a small saucepan and boil on medium heat until the temperature reaches 235 F (softball stage)
When the temperature reaches around 230 F, starts whipping the egg whites until it has somewhat a soft peak in a stand mixer
When the sugar syrup has reached the desired temperature, turn off the heat and poor into the egg whites with the mixer still running on a medium-high speed (don't pour the syrup on the beater as it will splatter)
Keep on whipping until the bowl has cooled down to about room temperature
Add the cubes of butter a little at a time, waiting until the previous one is fully incorporated before adding another
Whip until the buttercream is soft and creamy
Add rose water to the taste and mix well.

Gianduja Ganache with Hazelnut Praline
no measurement was used when making this

dark chocolate
heavy cream
sugar
gianduja paste
hazelnut praline

Salted Caramel Buttercream
100 g sugar
115 g heavy cream
15 g + 70 g salted butter

Add some sugar in a saucepan, let this melt and add more sugar until you've used all of it
Let it caramelized until it has a dark amber color
Add 15 g of unsalted butter
Add the heavy cream. Be careful when doing this as the mixture will bubble and splatter
Continue cooking until it reaches 108 C
Remove from the heat and let it cool to room temperature (putting it in an ice bath helps the process to be faster)
Beat the remaining 70g of salted butter until creamy, then add the cooled caramel. Note: I didn't add all of them because I was afraid it's gonna be too sweet, but in the end, I should have added a little bit more because the end result was a bit on the salty side

A Birthday and A Farewell for J

2011-01-06T22:48:00.000-08:00

I'm so grateful to be surrounded by loving family and friends and to see one of them leaves is a sad experience. Some people say that you'll get used to it to see people leave to the point that you won't feel sad anymore. Well, it doesn't happen to me, maybe not yet. I still remember crying like a baby at the airport everytime I say goodbye to the person I cared the most a long time ago, and even though we met and said goodbye again a few times a year, I still couldn't get used to it, it was rather embarrassing to not be able to control the tears and having one of the airport person trying to cheer me up sometimes, but hey I was still a kid a few years ago and it happens to everyone, right? :). It gets a lot better now, I'm not a crying baby anymore, but I still can't get over the feeling of loss everytime I say goodbye, which is why I always try to avoid going to the airport to see them for the last time. I'd rather take it as "they just leave temporarily and I'm still going to see them soon".

My friend, J, who I've known for several years now was going back to Indonesia for good. To describe him, he is such a kind-hearted person, for real. I don't think I've ever seen him mad and I think everyone would agree with me. He's really tall and is a basketball snob and really good at it too. He's willing to help anyone in need anytime you need it, and to lose such a friend is a great loss for us. Well, I guess I should revise that, we're not losing him as a friend, but losing him in our community. I hope we'd still see each other when he visits or when I go back to Indonesia for vacation.

He left just one day after his birthday and we had a small gathering with close friends to celebrate it and to say goodbye. The gathering turned out to bring a really good news with his engagement announcement with his years-long girlfriend (one of our friends too)! I re-made this exotic cake for the birthday occasion since the first one was for different group of people. I had to make some sacrifices to the cake being different than the one I made before due to time limitation, but at least it came together as a cake :). The pineapple wasn't as ripe as I wanted to be before I used it, but I had too anyway, making the cake a bit sour in my opinion, but nothing major.

So, instead of being all sad and all, we celebrated the friendship we've had and the time we've had together. We are so blessed to know him and we wish him the best for his future in Indonesia or wherever he might be. I'll see you next time J and Happy Birthday! :)

Another Mascarpone Cheesecake with Chocolate Sauce and Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T14:24:00.000-08:00

I would start off this post by wishing everyone a Happy New Year! I'm so grateful for 2010 that I'm still doing work that I enjoy and doing my hobby (baking that is) at the same time. Although I must say that compared to 2009, I baked A LOT more in 2010 and I'm glad that at least I think I'm growing in terms of knowledge. I also get to see and spend time with my mom, twin sis, and my other brother that I haven't met for years.

We just got back from a 5-day road trip this morning at 4am. I must say that the trip was very tiring, lots of driving (it is a road-trip) and coldness, but we got to see and experience quite a bit of stuff. We started the trip by driving down to Death Valley, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere I think. The weather was quite warm in there too, about 60 F while the rest of the country is blistering cold. We also went to Utah and saw Bryce Canyon, the trip wasn't quite as we anticipated as there was a snow storm on the two days we were in the area. It was literally hurting when the freezing wind of snow hits your skin, we had to cover our entire skin including the eyes (by wearing glasses) to protect it from the harshness of the wind. Because of that, we didn't get to see much of Bryce Canyon and most of the area are covered with strong winds carrying snow that looked like a thick fog. This whole experience reminded me when I was staying at Michigan for a short period of time. Snow can be real pretty like in Lake Tahoe when it's calm and white, but not so pleasant this time :). I think we got back at the right time because my body almost gave up on me on the last day, I started to feel the sign of sickness all over and I can feel it's crying for a rest. I was so ecstatic to finally being able to sleep in my own bed, back to civilization where I can have internet access and my favorite coffee back, oh the joy.

Okay, after that long talk about my trip, it's time to dig in to the real meat of this post, the cheesecake. I was trying to clear up my back log of posts before the New Year, but I can't seem to keep up with time, this is one of the desserts I made in December, more to come. When I started this blog, actually my friend Kiki made it for me because I wouldn't made one, it was purely for my own journal. Little did I know it would grow up to this point, this blog is also one of the reasons I want to push myself in every dessert or cake I make "just so that I can have a really nice pictures and cakes for the post". One of the great things I've never imagined when I first started is how I can meet new people, complete stranger from this blog.

I received an email from a blog reader that lives fairly close to my area and asked if I would be willing to make mascarpone cheesecake for his family Thanksgiving dinner. I had to say no that time due to many reasons, one being time constraint. He persisted and send another email if I could do it for his daughter graduation party, where she will be back from LA. Even though my schedule was pretty crazy and hectic, I tried and squeezed in some time to bake this, he specifically asked for this Mascarpone Cheesecake with Chocolate Sauce. When he came and picked up the cake, I was so delighted to meet a really nice and down-to-earth person. He sent me another email afterward to say how everyone enjoyed the cake and even sent me pictures. Nothing is more rewarding to me than to be able to be a part of such joy in other people's live and I hope that I can continue to at least make a difference one cake at a time in the future.

To close this post and to start off the new year with a great start, here's a recipe for the mascarpone cheesecake. I don't have the recipe for the chocolate sauce as I didn't measure how much cream and chocolate I used, but I can say that it is just a simple sauce made from a thinner ganache. You can add liquor, nutella, or anything to the sauce.

Mascarpone Cheesecake
Yield: one 9" round springform pan (or equal size)

Crust:
125 g slivered almonds, toasted
75 g graham cracker crumbs
35 g sugar
4 Tbs. melted butter

Cheesecake Filling:
2 (8-oz) packages of cream cheese, room temperature
2 (8-oz) mascarpone cheese, room temperature
100 g sugar
1 tsp. lemon juice (you can add some zest to it too)
1/2 vanilla bean seeds or 1 tsp of vanilla extract
4 large eggs, room temperature

Preheat oven to 350 F
Wrap the outside of the pan with aluminum foil (you can triple-wrap this to make sure that the water doesn't seep in)
To make the crust, grind finely the almonds, sugar and graham cracker in a food processor.
Add the melted butter and process until moist crumbs form.
To save time, I usually use ready-use almond powder (the one I used to make macarons), this way, I don't have to use my big food processor to do the job
Press the mixture onto the bottom of 9" springform pan
Bake until it is set and beginning to brown about 12-15 minutes. Let cool
Decrease the oven temperature to 325 F

To make the filling, beat the cream cheese, mascarpone cheese, and sugar with a paddle attachment until smooth and creamy, occasionally scraping down the sides of the bowl
Add lemon juice, zest (if using, or you can also rub the zest with the sugar in the beginning), and vanilla bean
Add the eggs one at a time, beating just until blended after each addition
Pour cheese mixture onto the cooled crust
Prepare a waterbath (classic method for cheesecake and custard preparation)
Place the springform pan in a waterbath and bake until the center of the cheesecake moves slightly when the pan is gently shaken, about 1 hour and 10 minutes (the cheesecake will firm up after cooled)
Transfer the cake on a rack and cool for 1 hour. Refrigerate until the cheesecake is cold, overnight and up to two days.
Serve it plain or with any condiments you like.

Looking forward to what 2011 will bring and I have nothing to worry about as I know that my God has planned everything well for me :)

A Series of Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse Cake (a.k.a Ferrero Rocher Cake)

2010-12-25T12:08:00.000-08:00

First of all, I'd like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and the coming New Year. May this Christmas and New Year be the time for us to think and reflect all the blessing that we have been given and that we can channel those blessings to other people as well.

Christmas is coming too soon, so fast in fact that I'm not prepared to it, not at all. It's not just me that has crazy holiday schedule (in my case, it's work and lots of birthdays), but I'm sure that everybody experience the same thing, and I hope in a good and jolly way :). I see a lot of Christmas dishes, Christmas desserts, Christmas parties, Christmas decors, Christmas everything and it is very exciting! It is Christmas morning when I typed this and although the weather is somewhat crappy outside, so cloudy and windy, I have my morning cup of Cappuccino and also a very good freshly-baked chocolate croissant on my side :)

With my mom, my twin sister, and three of my eight brothers are here (it's usually two brothers and their family), we plan to go on a road trip this holiday break. It's been a while since I've been on a road trip and this time, we're going to LA, Vegas, and Utah. There's going to be A LOT of driving involved and with that long drive, I think we need lots of snacks, but let's see if we can actually manage to squeeze in some time to do it.

I almost ran out of new things to post on this blog lately, not that I bake less (it's more like the opposite), but I find myself baking mostly the same thing for the past few weeks.Ever since the wedding had passed, I received quite a number of request to bake the chocolate and hazelnut cake I baked for the wedding. At first, I wasn't planning on making this cake so often, more so by request, mostly because how time-consuming it is to make and the ingredients I used are pretty costly. If you recall this cake, it has about 8 different components. I made a simple version of it for the wedding, which only consists of about 6 components, but it is still a complex one to make.

I bake this same cake four times in a row just in two weeks, and I think that breaks the record for me. I did bake some other cake for different occasions, but I thought I'd combine this one in one post so that I won't post the same thing over and over again.

Most of these are for birthdays, different ones of course, and even though I always reluctant to make this cake due to the above reasons, it's always a joy when they come back and tell you how much they enjoyed it, makes me want to bake some more and more :). Since I don't like making the same exact cake multiple times, at least I tried to decorate it differently, I see this as an opportunity to practice my poor decorating and glazing skill. Some of the glazing looks very poor and not shiny, this is because I was re-using the leftover glaze from the previous cake, which is something new to me.

Again, have a joyful Christmas everyone!!

A Display Cake, Wedding Cakes, and Favors for M&J's Wedding!

2010-12-20T22:05:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since the last blog post, and I surely didn't do enough of a good job keeping up with the blog updates :(. Holiday season is crazily busy for most of us, holiday shopping, holiday baking, family members visiting, etc.

Good thing for me, that me and my family has never been big on Christmas gifts, it was never a tradition for us to exchange gifts, but I did try to at least bake some Christmas goodies to give for friends. Last year, it was extremely last minute, I baked some stuff the night before the last day of work to distribute to some coworkers. Then, I promised myself to plan better next year (which is this year) and bake lots of different goodies, I've already had a list of what I want to make and believe me, there are tons and they're all sounds so good! Now that "next year" is finally here, here I am being in the same situation as last year, if not worse. It's only days before Christmas and here I am typing a small part of this draft post on Sunday at work in between firmware builds, so sad I know.

Anyways, back to what this post is all about, I must have mentioned about working on a wedding project a few times now and this is it!
It doesn't feel like too long ago I made this bridal shower cake, and now they're husband and wife!

When M asked me if I would be willing to make her wedding cake (and favor later on), I immediately said yes. Not because it's a challenge (this would be my second time), but how can I say no when it's your good friend who's getting married? This is the least thing I can do to show how happy and excited I am about their marriage.

The word "Wedding" never comes easy. Everything that has that word in it has to be big and special, and unfortunately that also means stress and a lot of work for many people too. As usual, I prepared a giant spreadsheet containing very detail budgeting information, which online store I should ordered from, every single item I need to buy from 10 different stores, details as for how many servings, decorating details, recipe conversion for each size of pan I used, timetable, you name it, heck it has 6 huge different tabs. It took me about a month getting everything together and even during the last week, I'm still updating the spreadsheet every single day.

I asked M from the beginning if she's ok with having display cake and having the real cake in the back, not for budget reason though because having it this way is more expensive, but it serves a couple of advantages:
- I don't have to worry about transporting four-tiered cake to the reception
- No need to worry about refrigeration or the cake being unrefrigerated for hours
- You can be creative about the decor as it is more sturdy (although in my case, it's just a simple decor)
- The last reason which is the most important one for me is that you can be creative with the actual wedding cake and you don't have to be limited to buttercream cake!

The cons are that it's more expensive more labor-intensive, which is something I always try to avoid whenever I make cake, but this time, it's special. I decided to make two flavors on the actual wedding cake, chocolate-hazelnut (a.k.a Ferrero Rocher cake) for the chocolate lovers and white chocolate raspberry cake for the fruit lover. It might sound like a disaster waiting to happen when you're trying to serve individual cake to 200 people, and you can never please anyone, but I can't help it.

The display cake is very simple-decorated, I'm very fortunate that M is a very laid-back person, she's not picky, she's basically ok with everything as long as it won't add more work on my plate. She picked a design based on a magazine we saw and I think it was pretty easy to execute, I just have to match the color and add some flowers to match the theme of the wedding. She didn't request anything for the cake and favors (except for the budget of course), but she left all the flavors, and every single detail up to me, which makes it easier on my end. The hardest part was to constraint every single expense so that it would fall under the budget (or at least close). I wouldn't have so many problems if it's just a buttercream cake but since I wanted a nice (and complicated) cake, most of the ingredients are special-orderred, so it was quite a challenge.

The three goodies for the wedding

The last week of the wedding was insane, intense baking for 7 days, day and night, constant dish-washing, it was hard to imagine that I actually went through all those. Making multiple desserts for large scale in a home kitchen (a messy one at that too) is quite a difficult task. My mom and brother were coming in that week too from Indonesia, busy work week as usual, it was crazy! I think my biggest problem was not having enough refrigeration space for all those cakes and desserts! I really wished I had at least two very large fridge and freezer that can fit multiple half-sheet pans!

The favor: Macaron with rose buttercream and lychee filling

The favor was purple macaron that I brushed silver streak on with rose buttercream filling and lychee center. I finally got some help to fill the macarons and put them in each favor box, thanks A and S! I bought a new silpat mat for this (I used to have only one) but for some reason, every batch of macarons that I baked them on, it always failed, always, and it drove me mad especially when it happened three batches in a row in the middle of the night, and you still have more than 100 macarons to make. All you wanted to do was cry, I almost gave up for quite a number of time to be honest.

The assembly line

Fortunately, everything went very well, everything was done on time. There were some minor glitches such as the catering didn't have a dessert plate, all they had was China plates for the entree, I freaked out. They finally came with a backup plan and although we had to settle with less, I was happy to have a plate for my dessert at least :).

I learned quite a number of things in this experience, one of them is that making cake for large portion is very different than making a small one. I converted each ingredients needed but the result was different for some reason. I was so scared that the taste would get impacted and that it wouldn't taste as good as I wanted to be, but my worries didn't come true. Yes, it tasted different than the small version I usually make and I hoped that it would be better, but as soon as I got a lot of people going to the kitchen asking for seconds, I could start breathing peacefully :). I even heard that some people are going around the tables after the reception to find more unopened favor (the macaron), yay! Mission accomplished!

We had a thunderstorm and a VERY COLD weather that day. We even had a blackout for about an hour in the middle of reception! Yeah, it was unprepared and pretty hectic at first, but I think it made the whole wedding memorable and quite casual as candles were lit everywhere, making it very romantic. The songs that some of the guests were singing had to be improvised to acapella too and they sounded great! Not to mention that M looked absolutely beautiful, she looked gorgeous! Jefry has got to be one of the luckiest men.

The beautiful bride and groom

So cheers to you both and I wish you both a happy and wonderful journey together. As Linda (the maid of honor and also the sister) said "may this day be the day where you love each other the least" --> not sure where she got the quote from but I love her speech! :). CONGRATULATIONS to you both!!

I don't have too many pictures of this as I didn't snap a thing during the reception and the cake-in-the-making, but I'm glad that at least I have something to show you in this post :). Won't show too many of the wedding pictures since they haven't been published yet :)

Happy to get two pieces :)

Dark Chocolate Mousse Cake with Earl Grey Crème Brulee Filling

2010-12-06T22:50:00.000-08:00

Still with the cake marathon, this was made just a few days after the previous cake, and only a week before the wedding I prepared the cake and favor for! I still can't believe that I actually executed it in the middle of the insanity that was going on due to the wedding preparation, packing up some stuff for moving, my family coming from overseas and other state, Thanksgiving dinner planning just a few days after the wedding, and let's not forget about work, oh it was an extreme chaos alright.

Speaking about cake, gourmetbaking is participating in CAS (California Against Slavery) by donating a cake of selection for the winner who won the bid. All of the money will benefit the organization to stop slavery (in any kind of form) in California. You can go here to read more about this. There are plenty of items that other people donated, which you can bid too, for a good cause! The bidding will end on Wednesday, December 8, only in two days. Not so much time, but hey... again, it's for a good cause :)

Anyways, when you're making this many cakes in a year, and 90% of your family's and friends' birthday cakes, it feels unusual (at least to me), if you need to buy a cake from a store. Not that they would mind, especially if it needs to happen to keep me sane, sure why not and I was tempted to do so too for this one birthday. It was actually a combined birthday for two of my good friends, H and E, but as stupid (or nice) as I was or maybe just the fact that they kept on hinting that they "expect" me to bake them the cake, I decided to just make it (I guess it's easier to have lack of sleep rather than being "reminded" everyday for a few months that I did not actually bake them a cake on their birthday).

I knew it from the beginning that I will be making a chocolate cake since E is a true chocoholic while H is pretty much fine with everything. So, the usual process where I need to think hard of what cake I want to make that would please me and them was pretty much skipped as I knew what I wanted to "experiment". Being not so much of a chocolate fan, I always try to sneak in some other flavor to compliment the chocolate rather than having a true 100% death by chocolate flavor (unless requested). I've always curious to put both chocolate and earl grey in the same cake as I think they would make a really nice pairing. To me, Earl Grey has that warm feeling kind of taste that reminds me of the cold Fall/Winter, not that I'm an expert on tea but that's the impression I got when I have warm Earl Grey milk tea.

I love texture in a cake, and I especially love crunch in a chocolate cake, just to have that textural balance. I did that in this cake and I LOVE it! Trying to create the same type of crunch, I made a paillete feuilletine layer in the bottom layer, but instead of using hazelnut praline and gianduja paste like the other cake, I decided to make it using milk chocolate, butter, and cocoa nib. I wish I have some praline paste on hand, but I didn't and I don't know where to get them (suggestion is well-appreciated).

The component of this cake is:
- 2 layers of chocolate sponge brushed with brandy (I wish I had whisky on hand) for the bottom and middle layer
- pailette feuilletine with cocoa nib
- dark chocolate mousse
- earl grey creme brulee
- dark chocolate glaze

I cheated and used ready-made crunchy dark chocolate chips for the decoration. I didn't have much time to take pictures too as I was gearing up and was baking some cake base for the wedding cake prep.

We also had some Korean-themed dinner that night which was really good. I loved how the earl grey creme brulee provides a nice creamy surprise in the middle and it certainly provides good textural as well as taste balance to the whole cake. I really wish I have some cross-sectional picture for the inside of the cake, but everything always happens so quickly :(

A Late Little Taste of Summer - Sous Bois

2010-11-29T10:58:00.000-08:00

I'm working on my way to post each cake/dessert (almost) on this blog, so bear with me. This cake was made about three weeks ago, wedding cake & favor and also Thanksgiving feast are coming too and I hope you had a wonderful blessed Thanksgiving. I enjoyed my Thanksgiving with my family and friends and Turkey dinner! I'm so thankful to have four out of 7 siblings with me at this time, and also my mom. It's been a while since I've seen her and in this holiday season, there's nothing I want more than to spend time with them. How did you spend your Thanksgiving? Would LOVE to hear them :)

I hope you're not bored yet with cake after cake after cake, because that's all I'm doing mostly for the past few months. It seems like each year, the number of cake I'm expected to make (by friends) increases or it's just me who can't stop making one after another :).
I think I mentioned it before that I rarely follow any recipe from any book when it comes to cake. I don't have that many baking books, but I do have a couple that I really like, such as Pierre Herme, Alain Ducasse, and Hidemi Sugino. I've been wanting to try one of their cake recipe to the tee, without altering anything and I had the perfect chance to do so.

I was first introduced to "food-blog" when I was in college, I didn't know that there are blogs out there dedicated for food only, accompanied with such gorgeous photography. I don't know how but I found myself on this site. I wasn't into baking yet at that time (I was more into cooking), but the pictures in that site were enough to make me dream about the cakes she made. I even made one of the cake picture my desktop background, which happens to be her miroir cassis picture. I found myself reading and re-reading every single post she has and admiring her skill. Unfortunately, she doesn't post many recipes, especially the cake recipe, but she always mentions which book does the recipe taken from. And that's how I was introduced to Hidemi Sugino, a Japanese pastry master, more like the Pierre Herme of Japan.

When I was more knowledgeable about cake a few years after, I was determined to hunt for that book even though I knew that it only comes in Japanese translation with Japanese/French ingredients, but it doesn't stop me from ordering it straight from amazon japan. I had his other book also, The Dessert Book, which is written in English and covers some simple desserts, but I don't look at it as much as the other one. I own the book for almost two years now but not once did I make any of his recipe, until now. I was using it more for inspiration and admiration of his perfection, clean lines of the dessert.

Since I was first in love with Hidemi Sugino through Nordljus' Miroir Cassis, which is Sous-Bois in Hidemi's book, I decided that if there's any recipe I would try from his book, this gotta be the first one. It doesn't look too complicated though, it looks like something that I would make normally, except for the fact that most of his fruit mousse has both italian meringue and heavy cream in it. I think this is one of the drawbacks (other than the fact that his recipes are in Japanese and I score 0 on that) from me trying his recipes, because that's mean an extra step I need to do. So, armed with the very minor knowledge for French (only limited to baking ingredients) and my basic knowledge to make mousse, bavarian cream, joconde, and other stuff, I was ready to tackle it.

I ordered the frozen blackcurrant puree a few months ago and I was never bothered to try it. I have never had blackcurrant before, not the real one at least. Sure I had those boxed blackcurrant juice, blackcurrant tea, and I LOVE them! In the drink form, it has a very aromatic taste that I like. I was a bit surprised though when I found out that the real one (the puree at least) doesn't taste anything like that. It was mostly tart without the strong taste I expected like in the drink, a bit like blackberry, but the color was gorgeous! Reminded me so much of black raspberry. I haven't had the time to take a picture of the blackcurrant puree I'm using, but I'll add it once I have the chance to.

This cake consists of:
- joconde base moisten with raspberry syrup (He brushed his joconde sponge with creme de cassis syrup, but I brushed mine with the raspberry liquid used to marinade the blueberry. I don't fancy creme de cassis that much or maybe the one I have is the cheap kind?).
- Blueberry mixed with raspberry coulis (His recipe calls for black and red currant but I didn't have fresh or frozen blackcurrant (I don't think you can get them in CA), so I substituted with blueberry for the compote or what he called "garniture")
- Kirsch bavarian cream
- Cassis mousse
- Patterned joconde on the side with black raspberry jam (he used homemade blackcurrant jam, but again since I don't have it, I used black raspberry jam)
- Clear glaze ( he mixed his with blackcurrant puree but when I did that, the two won't mixed well, so I just used a clear one)

His recipe calls to make another joconde with no pattern for the base, but since I already had some extra from making the previous cake (it was taken from Pierre Herme's recipe), I used that instead. I also added another layer of joconde in the middle for the big cake, not for the smaller version.

The verdict? I was pleased with the way it turned out. I love the combination of the tartness of the cassis combined with the creaminess of kirsch. I don't normally use kirsch in my baking, particularly because it reminds me so much of the cherry-flavored cough medicine I used to take when I was a kid, but after using it in this cake (which I hesitated at first), I think I might have to reconsider my statement again :). Some friends said that it's too tart but it's something you inherit from the fruit itself. Just like lemon or raspberry, no matter how much sugar you put, you will still taste that pleasant tartness in it (well, maybe not if you put a ton of sugar in it), so I won't worry about it. This cake can be adapted to so many different variation, I don't see why we can't substitute blueberry or raspberry for the blackcurrant.

Now that I've tried one, I think I'm ready for the next one :)

The winner of the previous giveaway from random.org is ......... HARI!! I'll send you email shortly for the coupon code that you can use. CONGRATULATIONS!!

Tropical Cake with Exotic Fruits and A Giveaway!

2010-11-22T11:00:00.000-08:00

When most places are covered with snow now and most people are preparing the perfect Thanksgiving meal, here I am posting some tropical cake that seems really out of place and time at the moment. Well, this cake was made a few weeks ago when the weather was still warm and although it is freezing cold and raining, it feels nice to look at this cake and have a glimpse of the warm sun we've had.

When I was back from Hawaii (yes, it was a while ago but I still can't get over it :D), it was a bit sad to find that San Jose was all cold and rain, really missed the warm sun and beach there. I was trying to find some way to reminisce the warm tropical weather we just had and it also happened that my friend, Tony's birthday was coming up!

Before I went to Hawaii, there was this dessert competition in the company that I was supposed to participate. But since I was very weak to say no to Hawaii (it was super last-minute) deal, I had to back out just two days before the competition. Yes, they really gave me a hard time on that and can't stop calling me chicken from being scared and had to run away to Hawaii (tough love). Before I knew that I was going, I have already composed of what I would want to call "the perfect tropical cake", at least in my opinion. I wrote down the components and the layering to the very detail but didn't get to actually made it happen. So, in the spirit of tropical weather, despite the rain we've been having, I thought it would be perfect for Tony's birthday, especially since the birthday boy is a fruit type of guy, not the chocolate kind of guy.

The cake was also perfect due to the fact that I had some fresh passion fruit, thanks to my cube neighbor. The story began a few weeks ago when I was walking toward my cube and I smelled something really familiar but couldn't remember what, when I peeked in her cube, she was eating fresh passion fruit out of hand! I think I squealed a little when I saw that and immediately asked where she got that. I've been looking for fresh passion fruit here in the US for forever! I saw it once in a grocery store, but they're all wrinkly and ugly, and I just couldn't pay $3 for a very small size fruit, especially when I was so busy with birthdays that week, so I had to pass.

Ever since I discovered the passion fruit my neighbor at work has, I've been getting quite a few of them but didn't manage to make or decorate anything with it. I let it all get wrinkly and put them in the freezer hoping that they would last, they're like a gem to me. I also happened to have some starfruit on hand, first time ever here. I used to have the tree back home (in Indonesia), and now it is so hard to find them here. Seems like everything was in place for the tropical cake!

The cake consists of:
- Almond dacquoise
- Creme aux Ananas (pineapple cream)
- Sauteed Pineapple (with rum)
- Grand Marnier bavarian cream
- Joconde
- Exotic fruit mousse (pineapple, passion fruit, mango, and lime)
- Exotic fruit glaze

I hope you haven't got lost in that layering yet but I love playing with flavor combination and texture, trying to achieve that perfect bite. Being a tropical-flavor fanatic, I spent so much time trying to build the perfect cake and I got too excited in incorporating too many layering and I had to trim it down to the ones above.

It was a bit nerve-wrecking to find out how the cake would taste like, is it gonna be too sweet? too sour? too soft of a texture? I think I was too scared that this disaster would happen again, where the cake was waayy too tart (luckily the birthday girl loves tart). It was my first time dealing with passion fruit puree and I was surprised to find out how tart it is.

The kitchen smelled so good when I was making the exotic mousse, you can almost imagine being in an tropical island, just listen to Jason Mraz song or "Hey Soul Sister" song and you're good to go.
I can safely say that I think this cake worth all the effort and time making it. Although it took me four days to make, everything was paid off by the satisfaction of the people eating it. Glad that the birthday boy LOVED it, even though he only got a small piece of the cake (people are butchering the poor cake).

I also made a smaller version the week after for different occasion, Kiki's birthday! Her ultimate favorite cake is actually the Ispahan cake (lychee, rose, and raspberry), but I really don't have time making it, especially when I am in the middle of committed birthday cakes and wedding cake preparation. I can't just let her birthday go by without a cake, at least not without me trying to make it happen, so I decided to make this cake again since I have a few components ready. It is slightly different though, instead of covered with the mousse, it is covered with bavarian cream, with the mousse inside (I had the leftover mousse that I kept in the freezer). There is no alcohol in this cake either as Kiki is expecting a baby boy, except the rum in the sauteed pineapple, in which case the alcohol got burned off completely.

Unfortunately, I couldn't attend the birthday as I was sick, but I hope this cake can make it up for her.

But anyways, I have had done giveaway from CSN store twice before and the last one was not too long ago. They have been so generous and offered me the third one, a $45 giftcard! If you haven't noticed, CSN store is probably the largest online shopping company I've known, it has everything, and I mean E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G! In this holiday season, I thought their suitcase is perfect for those of you who are traveling, the kitchen stuff definitely makes a great holiday gift, accessories, anything you can think of, heck they have 200++ online stores!

As usual, the rule is so simple, just leave a comment on this post between now until Nov 28, 2010. Only US and Canada residents are valid for the giveaway (but of course anyone can leave a comment), no anonymous or no name comment (I won't have a way to view your profile to see where you are or if you're not some automatic machine typing), only one entry per person. Multiple comments under the same name will be counted as one entry. . The winner will be picked through random.org as usual. Good luck and have a GREAT Thanksgiving week!

Bridal Shower for Soon-To-Be Wife, Merry!

2010-11-11T22:04:00.000-08:00

I was so happy when I heard that Merry, one of my close friends and certainly one of my first friends in the US, got engaged to her boyfriend, Jefry. Merry has always been that boyish kinda girl, which is cool. I still remember the time when all of us with her brother and sister and my twin sister (did I tell you that I have a twin?), would hang out together after school and we'd go to a bubble tea places, cheap Chinese restaurants and all. We don't do that (at least not that much) anymore since we've all grown up now, but we would still go way back.

So, imagine how excited I was when I heard this, so excited that I started thinking about her bridal shower immediately (and wedding cake too but that's for later), which kinda made me the default to coordinate it. I wanted to make it look as nice and as pretty as it can get. I kinda enjoy all the planning for events like this, I've always been the kind of person who loves spreadsheet, timetable, and everything, I love to see visually how things would flow and such. So, there I was planning, budgeting (the hardest part), arranging the bridal shower on a giant spreadsheet that contains everything you can possibly imagine, from very detail budgeting and pricing, menu, person who's in charge, favor, table setting, centerpiece, guest list, you name it, it's all there.

The original plan was to have an outdoor garden lunch but unfortunately, we found out earlier in the week that it would rain that weekend, bummer! So, the plan has to be changed to an indoor lunch. It also happen that in the same week as the bridal shower, I "had" to go on a last-minute vacation to Hawaii, which left me only two days to decide what cake I would make, the decoration, what favor, buy ingredients, gifts, and finalizing everything else. Oh yes, it was hectic, not a pretty situation, but thankfully there are always friends who are willing to help.

note: above photos are courtesy of nana

It was raining and a bit windy, but it didn't stop us from gearing up for the party. We had a wonderful decorating, thanks to Irene, the master of all creativity. The color theme for this shower is white, green and brown. The wedding itself is gonna be in bright purple and silver but we wanted the shower to have different color scheme. I think white, green, and brown has a warmth feeling to it, especially in the Fall season. We also had a very satisfying pasta lunch made by Merry's aunt. It was a bit sad when we had to tear down the decoration when the time of renting the place was up, it was too pretty. Merry looked wonderful that day, she had a trial make-up session with her salon for her wedding, so it was the perfect timing!

I made a traditional Indonesian cake, also known as "Lapis Surabaya" or "Spiku", as seen here, and brownie for the favor. I don't have a picture of the brownie inside the box as we had no more time, but I was determined to make it again, this time all dressed up with the ice cream and sauce! I'll post the recipe then as I had quite a number of people requesting the recipe for the brownie after the shower.

passion fruit drink

So there Merry, I wish you a wonderful beginning for your journey ahead, so sad that you will have to move after getting married, but hey, LA is not that far anyway :), we'll go visit :). Congratulations and big hug for you!

Double Princess Cakes for Two Birthdays and A Chocolate Hazelnut Cake!

2010-11-03T22:40:00.000-07:00

What a week! Remember when I said in the previous post that more birthdays are coming up just a little over a week from the previous birthday? Yup, this is it. I had to make three cakes earlier this month and it might be the most cake I make in a week and they're all for Friday and Saturday.

After the older brother's birthday, it is now the sister and she's turning 5. She's the only girl among her siblings and just like every other girl, she LOVES anything princess and girly stuff, long dresses, hair bands, kids jewelry, heels, you name it. Being a good aunty as I am, I made her a barbie cake on her 2nd birthday, the first year I moved back here in CA, then I made her a castle cake on her 3rd birthday, a tinkerbell cake on her 4th birthday, and I'm running out of ideas for the 5th one. I asked her what she wanted for her birthday cake and as usual she answered "princess cake! A princess in a park!" Hmm.... okaaayyyy......

I didn't have much time to think about her cake as I have two other cakes I needed to make, but I asked her if she has a small princess plastic figurine I can use for the cake topper so that I don't have to make it out of fondant, a huge time saver! It turned out she only have one plastic girl figurine, not a princess, just a girl wearing a t-shirt and a short, hmmm.... I guess I could tailor it, put some fondant skirt and call it a princess, simple and fast. She'd be happy with anything that just look like a princess, she's pretty easy to please :).

The cake for her birthday cake was a couple layer of vanilla sponge, with baked cheesecake filling in the middle and raspberry mousse (made from a mix due to time constraint), covered with thin buttercream. Since she mentioned "a princess in the park", I decided to put some grass all around the cake to make it look more like she's in a park, don't know if it really succeeded what it was meant to be. The other accessories were from her birthday presents that night.

The next cake was for her grandma and she's turning 70! What a milestone! I admire her for who she is, she's really kind at heart, willing to help, and the sacrifices she made for her kids are just unconditional. I decided on the D-day that I would make her a Swedish Princess Cake just because I have everything on hand, so that I don't have to do to the store to get the ingredients. I thought the Princess theme really shows here although she might not have believed that this cake really is a princess cake.

We had a join celebration for these two birthdays and we enjoyed the Swedish Princess Cake that night. The other princess cake was brought to the church the day after for her to celebrate it with her sunday school friends.

The last cake was a small cake for a coworker's birthday. She's been requesting me making her a cake since two years back, and I had not able to fulfill her request until now. I decided to make her the same Chocolate Hazelnut Cake, the smaller version, since I have a couple of the components left in the freezer from the previous one I made. Plus, she's a chocoholic so this was perfect! Nonetheless, she was beyond happy when she knew I really made it for her and that's just makes every sweat and every second of that lack of sleep worth it.

At the end of the week, I was just thankful that the crazy week had past and everyone seemed to be happy. I guess cakes always put a smile on everyone's face and that's just priceless :)

Triple- Layer Ice Cream Cake

2010-10-28T15:45:00.000-07:00

I know I have been posting lots of ice cream posts lately, but exactly a week after my nephew's, Toby, turned one, it was his brother's turn, Nathaniel (although we call him by his Chinese name). It is definitely one of the busiest weeks full of family's birthday, two more was coming just a little over a week after that. His birthday was actually a month ago and yes it took me this long to post it.

Children are usually sold on the cake based on the decoration, they need to be colorful, cute, or has a theme according to the child's liking, but not for this nephew. While he definitely would appreciate well-done decorated cake, he would care more about how it tastes. Yup, he's definitely a foodie, he's been trained well :D.

When I asked him what he would like for his birthday, without thinking, he replied "ice cream cake!" "Why?", I asked. "I love ice cream and I want pineapple!". Well, he surely knows what he wants and good for me too as I don't have to think so hard on the cake :). Pineapple is his absolute favorite flavor of anything, even when it is made with pineapple flavoring, he still loves it. Since the sound of pineapple ice cream cake sounds a bit boring to me, I proposed to him to make a three-layer ice cream cake instead and he agreed as long as there's pineapple flavor in it :). He picked blueberry for the next layer and anything up to me for the third one, easy peasy.

Making ice cream is easy, but it is very time consuming, mostly on the waiting for the ice cream bowl to be frozen. I need to freeze the bowl for 24hrs before using it for the next batch so that it's completely frozen. I bought the pineapple a few days earlier to let the fruit to fully ripen before making it into a delicious sorbet. The birthday dinner was supposed to be on Saturday night, but when making the last batch of ice cream, I ran out of time and just use the ice cream bowl only after 12 hours freezing it. I guess it wasn't so good of an idea because the bowl was not frozen enough, causing the ice cream batter to never thicken. So I had to start all over again, and freeze the bowl for another day, the dinner had to be postponed to the following Sunday.

This cake has a layer of vanilla sponge cake as a base, blueberry ice cream, pineapple sorbet, and black raspberry vanilla ice cream. The last layer sounds fancy, but it wasn't really. I had a tub of vanilla ice cream ready in the freezer and since I ran out of time, I decided to melt it and re-churn it, then swirl the black raspberry jam into it. It didn't turn quite like a swirl, instead it's just mixed all together, oh well.

I learn some things while making this cake. To be honest, I've never pureed fresh blueberries before and when I did that and strained it, the puree becomes like a jello with unappetizing color. I didn't know what went wrong as I was expecting a bright purple hue, but what I got was far from that, so I froze it expecting that the texture and the color will get better. After a few days, I strained it again and it wasn't much difference than before freezing, but I only used the purple liquid coming out. I bought a bag of frozen blueberries after that and cooked it with a little sugar and lemon juice before pureeing it all together. The color was much much better, it was actually what I was looking for! the texture wasn't jello-y anymore. So, no more pureeing fresh blueberries for me in the future. Same thing happened with black cherry a few months ago though but that's different story :). Oh well, you learn something new everyday and I'm glad I learned this.

Since I've always have difficulty decorating ice cream cake, chocolate is always the best option and that's what I used. The original idea was to wrap the whole thing in white chocolate while forming some sort of "flower" in the middle. It looked pretty in my head, but of course it's different in reality. I used parchment paper to wrap the whole thing and I wish I had an extra hand or two to help me do it, since the parchment paper is pretty flimsy. The resulting finish looked like it has "plastic bag" look to it. I filled the middle with raspberries for the color to pop and dust some powdered sugar.

The cake certainly doesn't look like a child's birthday, it looked like an adult cake instead of children cake, but this nephew is a bit different anyway. He might turn eight this year but he's a lot more mature than his age. I can talk to him seriously as if he's an adult, I can ask his opinion, I can ask him to accompany me. He LOVES reading and math is his hobby, yeah go figure. Of course he's still a kid too at heart, he can be a pain sometimes, but he's a good kid. The parents (a.k.a my brother and his wife) let him pick which restaurant he wanted to go. We weren't going all out, it was just a simple family dinner with my other brother's family. And guess what he picked? He picked Texas Roadhouse steakhouse! I'm not complaining with his decision though, in fact I'm very pleased, hehehe.....

We cut the cake near midnight on Sunday after we came back from the restaurant. We were so full, there wasn't any desire to eat a cake but for some reason, everyone had a slice. I guess ice cream cake is not so filling or rich afterall, it was like a palate cleanser or some sort. I take it that my nephew loves his cake so much (and the other family member) as the cake disappears the next night and there weren't many of us in the house. We don't usually finish a cake in a short period of time, heck we barely have an appetite for cake when we finished dinner at 10pm and that happens quite frequently. So, Happy 8th Birthday my beloved nephew!

Pineapple Sorbet
adapted from Grand Livre de Cuisine by Alain Ducasse's Desserts and Pastries

1000 g pineapple pulp
240 ml water
240 g sugar
30 g atomized glucose
6 g (1 1/2 tsp.) sorbet stabilizer

Cook water, sugar, stabilizer, and glucose to make a sugar syrup. Let cool.
Stir in pineapple pulp
Cool to 39 F (4C), let sit and process in the ice cream maker

Note:

My pineapple was really sweet so I don't really need much sugar, adjust the sweetness to your liking.

Blueberry Ice Cream

250 ml heavy cream
125 ml whole milk
75 g sugar (see note)
3 egg yolks
350 g blueberry puree (cook the blueberry slightly with lemon juice and some sugar if the blueberries are not sweet)

Combine the cream, milk and sugar in a saucepan and bring it to a gentle boil
Meanwhile, break the egg yolks and whisk it until it blends well
Temper the egg yolk and the milk mixture, and put it back in the saucepan.
Bring the mixture to 84C over low-medium heat, stirring all the time
Remove it from the heat and strain it to avoid any lumps
Cool it until it reaches room temperature
Add the blueberry puree, mix well. You can use more or less puree, suit your taste.
Refrigerate overnight, and process in an ice cream maker

Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
I'll post it on another post since I'm planning to make another simple dessert using this ice cream :)

Mascarpone Ice Cream Two Ways: Peach and Raspberry Swirl

2010-10-25T00:50:00.000-07:00

I don't realize how I have abandoned this blog for two weeks! so much for wanting to update more, but I have good reason this time other than the usual excuse I gave, which is bake, work, and more bake. My friend found a really good deal to Hawaii last week, but we had to go in like two days after. We found the deal on Tuesday, bought the ticket for 10 people who signed up on Wednesday noon, and off we went on early morning Friday. It's surprising how spontaneous we can be at times :).

The vacation was so much needed and Hawaii, Honolulu to be exact, is such a beautiful place. The first thing that came to mind when we landed was how similar the island is to our home country, Indonesia, with American influence of course. I love the warm beaches and its breath-taking views and all the water activities. You've got to love how laid-back people are, it's like they have all the time in the world. Love those snow-cones, passion fruit and guava-flavored desserts (my all-time fave), and let's not talk about those hunky guys ;). I love how people in Hawaii start the day early (just like in Indonesia), I woke up around 6-7 in Hawaii and the sun was already up and you can hear all sorts of busy sounds in the street. I love my walk in the morning to get a cup of Kona coffee in a nearby store, oh how I miss the slow pace there. When I came back home, it was still pitch dark at 6am, even 7 (maybe not as dark), but you can clearly feel the difference.

The view on the highway on the way to north-shore

Now that I'm back to the fast-moving life and all the activities that comes with it, I have to catch up on my routine, doing my blog-reading round and see what I've missed on Tastespotting and Foodgawker, replying lots of email, catching up with work. I was welcomed back to California with rain, in fact, it's been raining for a few days now. It's been really cloudy and sad here (can't you tell I miss the sun? :D), but anyways....

I know Summer has officially ended and Fall is happily getting its way out here, but I still have so much items on my Summer list that I haven't get a chance to do, such as this one (and many many more). It's like secretly hoping that even though Fall is officially here, but I just have that tiny tiny hope that the Summer temperature would stay a little longer. I still see lots of peaches, nectarines, and strawberries in the market, which always makes me smile everytime, but I know that they won't be here long enough for me to get through all my list and my usual Summer-fruit freezing time.

Leaves are starting to turn red here and there, the wind is breezy, rain falls here and there, and I started to find myself waking up early in the morning because it's too cold and ended up curling up under my blankie. I started to close the window again at night because it's getting really cold at night. I am so used to let it open in the Summer time as I love the gentle breeze in my room and especially the smell of that fresh air in my room, but I guess it is almost the time to back in Winter mode. I saw lots of chocolate post, pear and apple goodies popping up on multiple blogs already.

Just to celebrate the season, or more like hanging on to the Summer a little longer, I decided to make more ice cream in the middle of the birthday month crazyness when the temperature was a bit warmer a few weeks ago. Mascarpone ice cream to be exact. Some of you might have already known my love toward this one ingredient and I especially love the combination of mascarpone and raspberry such as in this one and I want to recreate the same taste in the ice cream form.

I made one batch of basic ice cream and added a full 8-oz tub in it, then divide the batter in half, one for peach, and one for raspberry swirl. I feel like I have never given yellow peaches a fair share of its beauty in dessert form or anything at all, I barely eat it fresh. I always opt for the white type because I think it's sweeter and more fragrant. Other than that, I think what contributes the most to my hesitation towards yellow peaches is the canned peach. I am not a fan of those canned yellow peaches and back when I was still in Indonesia, we didn't have fresh peaches and all we know about peach is the canned one, and I think it tasted horrible. But before the season really ends, I decided to give these yellow peaches another chance and bought a whole basket of gorgeous yellow peaches in the farmers market. It was actually a lot better than I thought it would be, it was so sweet and juicy and I just couldn't turn it down, very different than the canned version (duh!). Although, I did try and bought a couple from grocery store, it looked ripe to me and fragrant too, but they weren't sweet at all, kind of tasteless and so mealy. So, I'll stick with my farmers' market for my source of fruits.

I blanched my peaches briefly to loosen the skin and the color was just gorgeous, I couldn't help but just taking a shot even though some parts are bruised from me squeezing it, but the color was just so vibrant and bright!

Talking about a farmers' market find, I also bought half a case of raspberries, my favorite berry of all time! I didn't have the chance to play a lot with it this summer because I thought I still have a few months to go, but I just couldn't resist getting some in the market. I froze 98% of them because I knew that I won't have time to do anything with them soon and we all know how fast raspberries go bad, although my mind was completely full of ideas when I saw the sweet sweet berry. I used a little of the berries to make the swirl for this ice cream.

To me, the taste of peach is subtle and it's hard to make it stand out, even after I put a huge amount of peach puree in it, making the mascarpone taste somewhat disappear. It's definitely peachy and I also put some cubed peach as well, but for some reason, the flavor is not very bold, unlike the raspberry one. It's not the ice cream though, it's just yellow peach in general, I guess peach is better in it's original form rather than processed into something else (in this case, it's ice cream). I barely taste the mascarpone in the peach version as I put a lot of puree in it. However, I love the raspberry version! You can never go wrong with mascarpone and raspberry anyway, LOVE IT! These two will always be one of my favorite flavor combination.

There are still a couple of frozen treats I want to try, but hopefully the warm temperature hangs long enough for me to make all of them, juusssttt a little longer :).
Mascarpone Ice Cream (peach and raspberry swirl)

500 ml whole milk
250 ml heavy cream
150 g granulated sugar
6 egg yolks
8-oz mascarpone cheese

Combine the cream, milk and sugar in a saucepan and bring it to a gentle boil
Meanwhile, break the egg yolks and whisk it until it blends well
Temper the egg yolk and the milk mixture, and put it back in the saucepan.
Bring the mixture to 84C over low-medium heat, stirring all the time
Remove it from the heat and strain it to avoid any lumps
Cool it until it reaches room temperature (or almost to room temp).
Add the mascarpone cheese and stir well. This is the base of the ice cream
For peach: Add about 500 g peach puree to half of the ice cream
For raspberry swirl: Make a raspberry coulis from about 75 g raspberry puree and some sugar (depending on the sweetness, I didn't weigh mine). Heat the two together until the sugar dissolves, let cool and set aside.
Refrigerate the ice cream batter overnight and process in the ice cream maker
For peach: Add some chopped peach in the final ice cream and churn for a few more seconds to mix
For raspberry swirl: Layer the ice cream and raspberry coulis alternating in the container (swirl it with spoon). Don't add the coulis in the ice cream maker as the churning will make the raspberry sauce to be incorporated completely and makes the ice cream pink instead of swirl

Toby Turns One!

2010-10-11T23:40:00.000-07:00

Some of you might seen this face a few times before in this blog and yes, he is my beloved little nephew and he just turned one year! Oh, how time flies really fast, it feels like yesterday when he was born and now he's just so full of cuteness!

I did say in the older post that June/July is one of the busiest months for me, but nothing can beat September to early October for me. I live with one of my brothers' family with three kids and one mother in law, and all the three kids and the mother in law's birthday are one week apart, some even two days apart! Not to mention other friends and events happening at the same time that require cake, so you can imagine how stressful I am during that time. My niece and nephews are so spoiled with desserts, the older ones can request the flavor of the cake now, even the decoration! They watched me making cakes and decorate all the time, so they know what they like, most of the time.

Celebrating with big sister and Sunday School friends

Not for this nephew though, at least not yet, he's only one now but who knows what he'll request when he gets older. First birthday is a big deal, not so much for the years after except maybe the 18th or 21st but that's waayy in the future, so I tried to make it special this time. I came across this design when I was browsing for a wedding cake (another event for later) and immediately fell in love with it! I love the color, I love the simplicity-but-cute design, I love the 2D cutouts, a change from the normal 3D figurines that takes me hours to make. Coincidentally, my nephew has this zoo-animal-themed toy hanging on top of his crib, which resembles the cake so much, so it was set then.

There were two celebration for this birthday, which fell on the same day, at his Sunday school class at church in the morning and with family and close friends at home at night. It was a bit complicated deciding how the cake would work as I certainly don't want to make two smaller cakes and having to decorate them separately. I would rather make a tiered cake for appearance and divide the portion (somehow). After much deliberating, I decided to make a two-tiered cake 9"-6", and an additional 8" square cake. The 9" cake was chocolate cake with chocolate mousse, caramelized banana, and a layer of creme brulee in the middle (supposedly for the night party for the adults), while the top 6" tier and the 8" square will have the same flavor, fromage fraise (for the morning party which if for kids mostly). Everything got changed though when I found out that one of my tires went completely flat when I was about to go home from work, buy ingredients and make some of the components. To make a long story short, I can only make 8" fromage fraise and the top tier is the classic Indonesian cheesecake. (I got bored of making it but it seems like no one got bored eating it).

Making 2D cutouts is so much easier than making 3D figurines, although it still took me a good amount of time decorating the whole thing. Even though it's not perfect, I'm quite satisfied with how it turned out and I hope Toby would too when he get's older and look at his 1st bday cake pictures :). Happy Birthday my dear Toby!

Onto the giveaway result now, the winner is Lynne. Congratulations!! We'll send you an email shortly for the gift card :)

Baby One Month Celebration and A Birthday, And 25th Wedding Celebration

2010-10-06T13:41:00.000-07:00

I decided to combine these two cakes in one post mainly because they have similarities in terms the disaster I was facing when making them :).

Remember my newest niece? She turned one month on August 25th (yup, this post is long overdue). It may not be a big deal for most of you, but in our tradition, we celebrate this special occasion. I think (I might be wrong) babies are still weak in that one month period since they still rely on the mother's immune system. They shouldn't leave the house during this one month due to the exposure to a lot of viruses. a lot of families would trim the baby's hair completely to let go anything that he/she carried from the womb, or something like that. It is also the time when you can cut the fingernail of the baby.

The one month celebration coincidentally falls on the same day as the mother's birthday, how awesome is that! They threw a party of 60 people to celebrate this special occasion and what is a celebration without a cake!

It was sorta last minute when the request for the cake came, and it took me quite a while to figure out how to incorporate the two theme into one cake. I browsed though A LOT of baby's cake pictures until finally decided on one I like. It was a three-tiered cake with pink and brown color combo, one of my favorites. I decided to just put a figurine of a mother holding a baby, which my friend, N, helped out with (Thanks!). She stayed for 4 hours until midnight to make the figurine while I was busy with the cake, fill, frost, cover, etc. It was a crazy crazy time, not to mention that it was on a weekday too!

We didn't really need a three-tiered cake to feed 60 people but we decided to do so anyway because it looks better with the color contrast. I made the second tier from dummy so that we won't end up with lots of leftover. The cake was a basic vanilla cotton cake, layered with fragrant blueberry preserve, and very cheesy cream cheese frosting.

I had to mention though, that San Jose was in the middle of a heat wave during the 3-4 days I started making the cake and to the actual celebration day itself. We do have AC (Thank God) but it wasn't enough to keep the house cold. It was quite a disaster as for some reason, the fondant I used to cover the middle tier cracked everytime I put it on the cake and I had to re-do it 6x before I finally decided to start with a new fondant (talking about being stubborn)!!! I don't think my wrist was functional after the 6th time, it was very exhausting and I think my wrist was about to crack anytime. Everything seemed ok that night, except that our fridge won't fit the 6" cake in, so I put it on the dining table unrefrigerated overnight, thinking that the weather at night and in the morning should be cool enough to keep the frosting in place. Oh, how I was so wrong. The next morning when I came down to check, the 6" layer was a disaster! The frosting went soft because it was too hot, making the cake very poor-looking. Oh yes, I almost cried that time, believe me. I almost didn't want to post this cake in this blog, as I don't want to be reminded of this nightmare but oh well, not everything always go smoothly and there's always a lesson to learn.

Other than the cake, I had to cook the Indonesian yellow rice and also a side dish. I don't know how, but somehow we managed to get them all done , just 30mnts late, which is a surprise really considering it was a weekday. But yeah, the cake went soft very quickly due to the hot weather, not to mention it had to stand outside on the table for a few hours before it was cut. It was messy but everyone doesn't seem to care or mind the appearance, fortunately :)

There was a lot of REALLY good food in the party, it was as authentic Indonesian as you can get here in the US, yumm!!

Speaking about making a cake during a heat wave, it happened to me once before, a few months ago. This cake was in my folder was so long and I never intended to post it, but since this other cake gets posted, it doesn't seem fair if I keep the previous one in the back. It was for a 25th wedding anniversary cake. I tried my best to keep it cool and perfect but it was so hot (100-ish), my AC was broken at that time, and the fridge was so full (bad combination). Despite all these imperfections, thankfully they still appreciated it and the cake still tasted good, which what matters the most really.

The 25th wedding anniversary celebration was held in their beautiful home, just checkout the landscape in the back! They set up tables in the backyard and put the food in the gazebo, it was truly beautiful. The flower topper for the cake is peony, back in the Spring when Peony was in season. Yes, it was that long ago and I'm too embarrassed to post this. See that wrinkles and unsmooth-ness of the fondant? It was similar to the baby and birthday celebration cake, the frosting gets really soft and it doesn't matter how much I tried to smooth it out, it won't be perfect :(. But there it is now, I'm showing it to the world. The wedding celebration cake has Swarovsky crystal on the cake, which makes the cake looked a little sparkly when the light hits it, but I don't think the pictures are doing it any justice.

I just bought a refrigerator a few months ago, but hasn't been used yet. It has fridge for times like this, and also freezer to stock all of the berries for Winter time, so I hope I learn enough not to let this incident from happening again.

A Welcoming-Back Cake: Chocolate and Hazelnut Mousse Cake

2010-10-01T10:57:00.000-07:00

We're on a transition from Summer to Fall currently, and believe it or not, with this unpredictable weather (there is another heatwave now here in SJ, and a cold week last week), my life or my routine has been affected a bit. For example, my sleep. Sometimes, it is super hot in the afternoon but cold i in the morning and at night. A lot of time too I had to sleep with my window open at night because it was too hot and I find myself waking up in the middle of the night feeling really cold. I blame the weather, the bed, and the comforter too on this one :)

This is the time when I would dream for a new comfortable bed set s, modern and comfy. You see, for these past few years, I've been sleeping in an open futon with a really comfortable foam mattress next to a window. Not that I have too much complaint about it as it serves me pretty well, especially when it is not my own house, but I would really love to have one of this when I finally have a house of my own.

Anyways, just for some background information, I volunteered to order the food for my weekly lunch team meeting from the catering company for our company, mostly because no one didn't seem to want to doit and also so that I can choose the food I like :) (this is probably weigh more that the first reason). From doing so every week for more than a year, I somewhat knew the people I interact with, and although we can't be considered good friends (yet), but we have a good relationship.

There's this one lady that I used to see almost everyday down at the cafeteria, but I hadn't seen her for quite a while. I found out from the other lady later on that she just had a brain tumor surgery recently and needed a month to recover. She also asked me if I would bake her a cake to welcome her back in the workplace after so long and to celebrate her healthy comeback, and how can I say no to that?

This cake wasn't in my original schedule of cake making, but it was all well worth spending all the times and effort to make it for that very special joyous moment. It didn't take me too long to decide what cake I wanted to make for her. After a few questions of what she likes and doesn't like, I decided to make something with chocolate (yes, two chocolate cake in a row, during summer time! very unusual), more specifically a chocolate and hazelnut cake.

Do you remember this? It was the time when I would try so hard to recreate the flavor and the crunch of ferrero rocher in a cake. I would say it was very successful at that time, based on all of the feedback and request for the same cake from my friends. I used nutella and also some rice krispies in the cake, which was great, but maybe you would remember too that I lost the notes where I scribbled down all of the measurement I used. I've been wanting to recreate the cake ever since and this time, I also wanted to make it with the "correct" ingredients, for example, gianduja paste/hazelnut paste instead of nutella, feuilletine instead of rice krispies, and perfected the component layer that goes inside the cake.

I ordered all of the ingredients from one of my favorite sites a few months ago and they've been sitting in the box for quite a while now. After much thinking of what a "perfect chocolate and hazelnut cake" consist of, to me, I came up with this:
- Hazelnut dacquoise with scattered hazelnut on top
- Hazelnut paillete feuilletine with milk chocolate and hazelnut praline
- Gianduja mousse
- Dark chocolate sponge
- Brandy
- More gianduja mousse
- Thin milk chocolate plate (in between the mousse)
- Milk chocolate cream
- Dark chocolate glaze
- Chocolate Macarons and gold leaf decoration

It sounded like a lot of components and complicated but if you spend a couple of days making some component, it is not impossible. I usually avoid using dacquoise when making cakes, mostly because it is so sweet, but wanting to have that textural balance, I tried reducing the sugar by a lot!

There are a lot of ingredients that are new to me such as the gianduja paste, hazelnut praline, feuilletine, and I was scared to mess it up at first but thankfully it turned out fine. I LOVE the hazelnut praline, it tasted like the outer shell of ferrero rocher with that bits of hazelnut in it, so good.

I did try a slice of this cake just to see what improvement I need to make, if any and to my surprise, I think I've found what I've been looking for in a chocolate and hazelnut cake. If I can say it myself, it tasted very very similar to ferrero rocher, only better!! There's definitely lots of crunch when you bite into a spoonful of it and the different texture provides the perfect balance. I still need to work on my glazing technique, it is still very poor :(, but practice makes perfect? The most important thing is that the lady who came back from the surgery LOVES it, and that's all that matters to me.

This cake is a little bit involved than many of the cakes I made and I realized that the ingredients are not things that you could find in a grocery store or even whole foods, but some substitution can be made. I guess I need to make two versions of this, the complicated one and the simpler one, just like the first ferrero rocher I made before, using rice krispies instead of feuilletine, and nutella instead of gianduja paste. The amount and the recipe is definitely different but you can get the same textural balance and same great taste. I still need to work on the "simpler" recipe as I lost it when I made it last year, but I'll try to post the recipe whenever I make another one (and not losing it) :). The "complicated" version is still on my scratch paper somewhere, with little notes here and there, no direction even. I don't have the picture of the inside and forgot to take a quick snap on my slice, so this is all I got. I realize there's not much variation on the pictures, but I was lucky to at least got a few minutes to take pictures :)

Let's move on to the giveaway now. I did a giveaway for CSN store just a few months ago and they kindly offered me another giveaway for $45 that you can spend on their 200++ online stores. It won't be enough to get that bed set I was eyeing on, but I'll dream about it :). The rules are simple:
- Leave a comment on this post anytime between now to October 10, 2010. I will draw a winner randomly using random.org and announce it on the next post when the giveaway has ended.
- No multiple entries
- For anonymous (preferably none), leave your email address and where you're located at
- If you disable your profile view, please do the same as item #3. I won't be able to email you or find out where you are if I can't view anything.
- This giveaway only opens for US and Canada residents only.

A Farewell Cake: A Combination of Chocolate and Tiramisu in A Cake

2010-09-22T13:38:00.000-07:00

I've never liked saying goodbye, who doesn't afterall, especially if it's to the person you dearly cherished like parents, dear friends, families, it's never been a pleasure. I've had my fair share of tears at the airport for a few years back saying goodbye to my parents and loved ones when I used to travel back and forth between states and countries, and you would think that I would get use to it after some time, but I didn't. I don't travel much anymore, and if I do, it is for a vacation, so it's a whole different story.

It was such a short notice from my fellow teammate at work, H, that she would be moving to East Coast to join her husband there; I mean, it is only natural and normal that a man and a wife should be together. They've been living their separate live as husband and wife for a few years due to work reason and they've decided that they need to be together, and as much as I'm happy for them, there's this sadness I can't seem to get away from. I've been blessed by so many great people in my life and H is definitely one of them. It makes it even harder to say goodbye when they're no longer just "a coworker", but "a friend" instead.

We had dinner for her farewell, and also lunch on her last day at work, I regret not hanging out with her more often, I guess a lot of things in our life, we take it for granted. I could only think of making her a cake to send her away and I thought it could be a nice gesture.

The girl loves chocolate, anything with chocolate she would eat and it seems like she has quite a sweet tooth. She eats so little during our lunch break and I often tease her about it, sometimes I feel embarrassed for eating twice as much as hers, or more, but she has a hard time saying no to dessert I observed :). It is not the season for chocolate yet, at least in my season but I'll bake anything for the girl and I finally decided on this chocolate mousse and tiramisu cake. She can never turn down coffee too, she ordered mocha shake at Costco, Starbucks, McDonald's, anywhere with coffee, she'd get it. I made this cake the first time out of coincidence and it turned out very good, and I've been making it for a few times ever since, changing it a little each time and this time I added a layer of Valrhona crunchy pearl in the middle of the cake for the added texture.

Just like the previous ones, this cake consists of two chocolate sponge cake, brushed heavily with espresso and rum solution, with dark chocolate mousse in the bottom layer, mascarpone tiramisu cream on the second layer of filling. The whole cake was then covered, top and sides, with milk chocolate whipped cream, and finished off with dusting of rich cocoa powder (I used cacao barry). From the three times I made this cake, I experimented with different chocolate mousse recipe and I think I'm pretty happy with this one, using pate a bombe batter. I need to work on the proportion of each component though so that I don't end up making too much or too little for each component.

This cake wasn't so big, it was only 12x10" but it seems like the surface area is too large for me to decorate. I admit that I'm not very creative in the decorating department, but nothing a few berries can't fix :), you can almost guarantee that berries and chocolate would make a great presentation on a cake.

There was a little cake accident during the transporting process to the office. The chocolate fence was starting to melt in the car, it had to sit unrefrigerated for two hours due to some unavoidable circumstances, but it didn't stop the people from devouring it I guess. I was just glad that I didn't pass out on the spot when I saw my cake almost got destroyed by unrefrigeration.

I got some of the components leftover and I used them to make this mini cake. I used chocolate glaze to cover the top just because I've already made some, and I just realized how hard it is to take good shots with shiny glaze. You can see all kinds of reflection on the cake, making it look not very smooth, but anyways.... The mini cake has the same components as the big one, but only have one chocolate sponge instead of two and dark chocolate glaze instead of cocoa powder just because I wanted to practice glazing, which I found that I am not so good at :(

The pictures of the final cake didn't turn out so good, it was so dark and I didn't have time to play with the camera, so I'll take what I've got :)

So to H, I wish you the very best in life for you and your husband. Thank you for being such a good friend all this while.

Mascarpone Cheesecake with Chocolate Sauce

2010-09-14T09:24:00.000-07:00

I should have posted this three weeks ago or so, because I made this mid august and I have this post on draft for so long and never had a chance to come back to it. It's not that I haven't been baking, trust me because I've been baking up a storm and the posts and pictures just piling up to be done, so I'll get to it slowly while baking for the next one :).

This is at least the third cheesecake I made in just a month (this was made a few weeks ago) and that surely is a lot of cream cheese. What I love about making cheesecake is that (given that you understand the basic method of making a good cheesecake), they're pretty straight forward, it is very versatile, you can modify it all you want and they will come out good, and it's always a crowd-pleaser. It takes longer for cheesecake to bake, and more time resting in the fridge, but technically, there's nothing you need to do really at those time, unlike the multi-component cakes which takes a few days to finish due to the many complicated components that go inside the cake.

This cheesecake however, was made by request from a friend for his wife's birthday. They're both a cheesecake lover and they (more like the husband) want nothing else than cheesecake on the birthday. I was a bit disappointed and relieved at the same time when this request came, disappointed because cheesecake=no challenge=can't experiment with new stuff; relieved because cheesecake=easy=quick=works great with my schedule which means that I don't have to slave myself in the kitchen early in the morning and late at night, besides, I can always try something different with the accompaniment or the decoration for that matter. It worked for the best actually as I was out the whole day before the birthday, so cheesecake was the perfect choice :)

Even though I made a lot of cheesecakes in my baking life, I don't normally use the same recipe each time. When I was in college, I used a lot of recipes from foodnetwork, and let me tell you, I made quite a number of cheesecake during that time, from regular dense NY cheesecake, cheesecake using whipped meringue, you name it. They were all very good and gone in a few minutes, but for some reason, nothing quite stick in my head.

When I started baking more seriously and from the many simple experiences I have with cheesecake, I began to understand how cheesecake works, not saying that there's a whole lot to it, but why some cheesecakes have flour in it, why some have cream, sour cream, etc and I develop my own preference toward cheesecake. I also learned that basically, all base cheesecake recipes are very similar and that you can flavor and play with them in hundreds of different ways. So, that's why I've never stick with one recipe for cheesecake because it is so versatile, you can change it up any way you like.

This mascarpone cheesecake though, is based on just a very basic cheesecake, and substitute half the amount of cream cheese with mascarpone cheese. This is the only cheesecake recipe I stick to whenever I want a very good and creamy cheesecake, not too dense, which is the way I like it. I love mascarpone cheese so much that I'm trying so hard not to use mascarpone in all of my baking. The creamy sweet taste and texture just makes everything tastes better. I reduced the sugar from regular cheesecake because mascarpone is not as tangy as cream cheese, I'm still using the same basic almond crust that I'm always using.

I don't usually make cheesecake with a sauce accompaniment, mostly because I'm too lazy. Most of the time, I just used some jelly on top, or fresh fruits, but I thought it would be so good to eat this with just a simple chocolate sauce drizzled on the top and with fresh sweet strawberries.

Oh, I gotta tell you this, I went to farmers' market at the Ferry building in SF the day before I made this. I went there a few times before during winter and spring time but there wasn't much around, and I really wanted to go there during Summer and see what they have to offer, and I'm loving it!! The price is a little more expensive that the ones we have here in San Jose area, but I found some interesting thing I never found here. For example, I found this cute little organic strawberries (the one I put on top of the cheesecake), they're a lot smaller than regular strawberries, the shape is different too, a little pointy, but let me tell ya, they're one of the sweetest strawberries I've ever eaten. When I cut the strawberries open, most of them doesn't have a tiny bit of white flesh showing up and they're very tasty! Too bad SF is not very close to me or else I would go there every week. I also bought some zucchini flower, and I was very excited to cook with it, but unfortunately, little did I know that they go bad real fast. They turned brown and wilty after one day and molds grew on the second day :(.

So back to the cheesecake, I was keeping it simple with the decoration. Well, to be honest, I was trying to find the fastest decoration I can do since there was really no time to do anything else :).
I apologize for the poor shots, these were shot just before the cake was butchered by 20 people, talking about being under pressure.

Anyways, Fall is starting to creep in here in San Jose. We still have gorgeous weather, mid 70's mostly, chilly in the morning and at night, we've also had a few heat wave not too long ago (more on this on the later post of how it destroys my cake :( ), I'm not sure if I'm ready to welcome Fall yet, as I don't think we've had a real summer here in Bay Area, except for a few very hot days, but I'm trying my best to get a hold of the last stone fruits, and fill the already-overflowing freezer with assorted berries. I haven't had the chance long enough to make all the frozen treats in my list, or even had the chance to make some sangria or cocktail :(

I hope you're enjoying the last summer wherever you are, because if you're like me, who gets excited easily just by seeing assorted berries laying in front of you like jewels, or the smell of the air early in the morning at at night, or just the joy of wearing flip-flops, shorts, or pretty dresses, you'll be dreading waiting for the next summer to come. I hope all these projects (work and non work) scheduled around me for the next few months will keep be distracted from the weather, at least then I can start baking with salted caramel, banana, chocolate, citrus, back again. There's surely something special in every weather you got :)

Giveaway Winner

2010-08-23T08:45:00.000-07:00

I didn't mean it to be this long to post the winner for the giveaway from the previous post, but it was busy busy busy. I'm typing this while sipping my coffee in the morning after baking a batch of cake base (more batches later), and hurrying to get to work.

Anyways, without further a do, after filtering unqualified comments (double comments, people residing outside US & Canada, etc), using random.org., the winner is (drumroll please) Cynthia

Congratulation Cynthia! CSN will contact you for the information directly to send the gift card.

I have to leave this post at that now, cake and more cakes are coming soon. I wish I have 48 hours in one day and only 8 hours of working hour or none at all :).

Have a great Monday everybody!

Strawberry Ice Cream Cake and Max's 2nd Birthday!

2010-08-13T08:18:00.000-07:00

I hope you haven't gotten tired of seeing red in this blog just yet, because I still have more coming :).

Do you remember this little boy? It feels like it was just last week that he turned one year old, can't believe how time flies really fast, makes me feel not to take time for granted. Well, this little boy now turns two and he is definitely one of the cutest boys I've ever known. He's so bubbly, seriously, he loves to smile and you can see it in his eyes. His eyes are smiling with him everytime, and I can't help but to smile each time he's doing it. You will love being around him, makes you want to hug, kiss, more hugging and kisses, and more. He is so gentle with babies, unlike most kids, he is so precious indeed and when he does his little dance, I always feel like spanking him (jokingly and gently of course), it's cuteness overload.

Our family (me and my brothers' family) is very close to Max's family and we have been so blessed to know them. They've been one of the greatest blessings in our life, they've been such a huge help too with the kids when we needed them, I could go on and on without getting tired.

When Kiki, Max's mom, reminded me that Max's birthday was coming up, I was so unprepared. I completely forgot about it with all the things that are happening lately, it seems so hard to remember things anymore :(, thanks for calendar in my iPhone that I can pretty much keep up with things.

If there's one thing that little boy loves other than his parents, it would be his strawberry. Yup, he adores strawberry ever since he was so little (he still is), whether it is super tart or sweet, he'll gulp them down in no time, no joke. The parents have to limit his strawberry intake or else he would finish a whole pound in one sitting. Unlike other kids, Max doesn't like sweet stuff, or more specifically cake or dessert, he's starting to develop his fondness toward ice cream in the past few months though. So when I asked K, what Max wants for his birthday, K suggested strawberry ice cream cake, and who am I to argue?

Max would be more than happy with just plain ice cream covered with strawberries, his eyes always lit up whenever he sees those red jewels, but I decided to make homemade strawberry ice cream. I'm never a fan of store-bought ice cream really, mostly because it is too sweet, and the taste is not as real as I would like, and so I decided to make homemade ice cream despite the crazy schedule. This is gonna be my first time making it, so I wouldn't promise it would be perfect, good thing it was for Max who will eat anything strawberry, be it good or bad, perfect victim I say :)

I bought a box full of ripe strawberries at the farmers' market the week before, hulled, washed, dried, and froze them. If there's one thing I learn from experience and not from book, it would be that frozen berries have deeper color and stronger taste if you puree it. This is true mostly for raspberry and strawberry, which is another reason why I love freezing fruits at its peak. I did use some fresh raspberries for mousse, sauce, coulis before but the color is somewhat pink and not deep red color like the frozen ones would produce, it also has some "raw" taste to it, which is great in fruit tart, or for decor, but I prefer the deeper taste and color for puree.

I used the basic custard recipe from the previous green tea ice cream cake (with different method), added some sugar and strawberry puree until I was happy with the taste. Most strawberry ice cream recipes I saw uses vanilla (bean, extract, or paste) to flavor the custard but I omit this because I want the taste to be pure strawberry, not strawberry-flavored vanilla ice cream. I ended up using quite a bit of puree to get a strong strawberry flavor and pretty pink hue. A squirt of lemon juice would probably brighten up the flavor too, but I didn't have one at that time, you can try it if you want. I also have some sponge cake in the freezer so I used that instead of making another one. The dome-shaped has two layers of sponge in it (8" and 6"), while the other one has only one 8" round cake in the bottom.

One great thing about making ice cream or frozen desserts for that matter (among other great things of course) is that you can add anything you like to the base, you can use mint or any other herb (lemon-thyme, lavender, etc), you can combine ingredients, you can mix some flavor, add this and that but still have a good result, it's very forgiving. I added roughly chopped strawberries into the leftover ice cream after assembling the cake to enjoy on its own too.

I made two ice cream cakes, one is for Max's birthday and the other one I was planning to bring to a housewarming party at a friend's house. The one for housewarming didn't quite make it there because we lived about an hour away. I stopped at my brother's house on the way to take a picture really quick but it was melted (as you can see in the picture). A quick trip to the freezer didn't seem to help either as it was so hot in the house. I guess I wasn't very smart in deciding what to bring to the party this time :(. So, it was my brother's luck that I had to leave the ice cream cake there for him and his family as I wouldn't possibly drive another 40 minutes with semi-melting ice cream in my car.

Anyways, Happy Birthday dear Max, wishing you another blessed year ahead and many many more and may you grow to be a man with faithful and humble heart and that you will be a great blessing to others just like how your parents is, we love you :)

I'm off to LA this weekend for Disneyland for the first time. Yup, my first time ever after 9 years living in CA. I know, I know... but for some reason I've never had the urge or passion to go. I'm never been a fan of disney, cartoon, or deathly roller coaster ride anyways. While all of my other friends are super excited about the Disney, I'm a lot more excited of eating good food :), so we'll see if I can bring the kid in me this weekend. Have a good weekend and see you all next week!

Strawberry Ice Cream

500 ml heavy cream
250 ml whole milk
200 g sugar (see note)
6 egg yolks
1000 g strawberry puree
a squeeze of lemon juice (optional)
chopped strawberries (optional)

Combine the cream, milk and sugar in a saucepan and bring it to a gentle boil
Meanwhile, break the egg yolks and whisk it until it blends well
Temper the egg yolk and the milk mixture, and put it back in the saucepan.
Bring the mixture to 84C over low-medium heat, stirring all the time
Remove it from the heat and strain it to avoid any lumps
Cool it until it reaches room temperature
Add the strawberry puree, mix well
Refrigerate overnight, and process in an ice cream maker

Note:

My strawberries were very ripe and sweet, adjust the amount if your strawberry is just so-so or not very sweet.
If you're adding chopped strawberries, add it when the ice cream is almost done

Vanilla Bean Cheesecake with Jellied Cream, Raspberry Gelée, Yogurt Sherbet, and a Giveaway!

2010-08-10T22:18:00.000-07:00

Did I tell you how much I LOVE Summer (often enough?)? I went to a different farmers' market than the one we usually go to two weeks ago, and to my surprise, I found some lovely yellow plums and it was bursting with sweet juices on my first bite. I fell in love on the spot and bought a bag full of them, not sure what to do with them but I bought loads of them! Plums usually don't have that much flavor, it's basically sweet juice, so not sure if it would be any good to turn them into something. I was planning to make a simple tart with it, maybe accompanied by a good vanilla bean ice cream, but I found myself eating it everyday out of hand, it was too good to be turned into something.

I've also been taking advantage of the corn season and make corn fritters from fresh corn. My little tomato garden is also producing so many different tomatoes with different colors and sizes, so exciting, not to mention the basil too. At this time of the year, you can be sure that my fridge is full with so many different varieties of fruits. Soon, it's my freezer that will be loaded with sweet juicy fruits :).

Do you know that I cook too :D? My friends and I watched "Julie and Julia" a few months ago and we've been trying to imitate the way Julia talks. I've always loved movies about food and ever since we watched that movie, we can't stop talking about when are we going to make the famous beef bourguignon, the last and famous dish on that movie and there I was in search of the perfect cast iron pan (you see, when they said "we", they actually meant me). When I was in college, I had a dream that someday, I would own my own le creuset pan (for real!) and cook so many dishes with it including the beef bourguignon, it is somewhat a weird wish for someone who doesn't major in culinary, but chemical engineering instead and of course it didn't come to reality as it was pretty costly for a college girl, especially when one book costs around $200.

It's funny how find myself baking and posting more and more dessert at the time when I am at one of the busiest moments lately.

Every Summer, I notice that instead of becoming more relaxed, I seem to be in a very fast pace of life, it's like I'm in race with the time all the time, it's one of those time when you wish that there are 48 hrs in a day. There are so many birthdays in Summer and if you're like me, you're more excited making birthday cakes with those lovely fruits compared to the Winter time, plus the ice cream season, the stone fruits, the berries, the sun, it's like even if I bake everyday, I still wouldn't be able to make every item on my list.

I was pondering for inspiration of what I should make on the weekend a few weeks ago. Planning is the key since time is so valuable so everything has to be planned out first to have a success baking time :). I was looking at my fridge and I saw some leftover cream cheese that needs to be used up pretty fast. I like to buy big blocks of cream cheese whenever I go to Costco, but I can never use it in one go. Once it's opened, you need to use the remainder soon before it starts to go bad. It is actually perfect this time to have cream cheese leftover as I have been wanting to try one of the cheesecake recipe from Alain Ducasse's book. I've been referencing recipes from this book for the last few posts in my blog and I fall in love with this book all over again. If you look closely to the recipes, a lot of them are actually manageable to make, it just has a very long step and components, which can be a turnoff.

There's this one recipe for cheesecake under plated dessert. There's nothing too fancy about the recipe, it looks pretty standard to me except that it uses grounded pate sucree as the crust because apparently they don't have graham crackers in France. The thing that caught my eye was the amount of time it needed to go into the oven. The recipe requires the cheesecake to be baked at a very low temperature for 3 whole hours!!! Yup, I couldn't believe it at first, but the picture next to it showed a slice of cheesecake with what looks like a very smooth and creamy texture. To be honest, I'm not a fan of the thick and dense NY style cheesecake. I can probably eat a small spoonful but that's about it. When I saw how creamy and soft the cheesecake looked in the picture, I was sold. Besides, I'm a little curious how French top pastry chef interprets this classic American dessert.

I don't have the amount of cream cheese required to bake a full cheesecake, so I re-sized them according to the amount that I have and it's perfect for 8" round, which is more than enough for me. He paired the cheesecake with yogurt sherbet and berry compote. I decided to skip the berry compote and just topped the cheesecake with raspberry glaze and served it with fresh berries. The top is actually a raspberry jelly that I planned to make a pattern on top of the cheesecake with but it wasn't 100% successful, the pattern smudges out and doesn't look so cool anymore, so I just covered the entire surface with it and applied some clear glaze to get the shiny effect.

As I mentioned in the previous post, San Jose has been pretty cold for Summer this year. The temperature just stays around 70-75F during the day and mid 40's-low 50's in the morning and at night. I was hesitant at first turning on the oven for 3 hrs in a Summer day but I guess this is the perfect timing because it didn't feel hot at all. The outside temp was nice, the house is also nice and cool at 75 F even with the oven turned on. It seems like forever waiting the cheesecake to be baked for 3 hours! I was so tempted to take a nap at the second hour but I didn't. I even thought that the cheesecake will never ever set at 195F because it still looked wet after the second hour. But in the end, it sets beautifully, so creamy without being dry or dense at all.

The yogurt sherbet was also delicious! It tastes exactly like the original flavor of my favorite frozen yogurt place when I tried it soft-serve straight from the ice cream maker, and it was pretty simple to make too. Too bad I wasn't making a lot of it, or I would have eat it straight with my spoon.

The combination between the soft and creamy cheesecake, slightly tart and refreshing raspberry jelly on top, paired with yogurt sherbet was outstanding! I'm not sure if I'm ready to wait for 3 hours everytime I'm making cheesecake, but maybe I will :)

Now, onto the giveaway. The CSN store, which has 250+ different sites, is graciously offering a $40 gift certificate that you can spend anywhere in their hundreds of store. They have HUGE selections of outdoor and kitchen stuff that you would absolutely love. An idea would be to use to it toward the le creuset pan that I've always wanted :).

How to Enter: All you need to do is just leave a comment here and tell me what do you bake/cook/make to make use of the Summer produce to the fullest. I would LOVE to know what people are up to in Summer :)

The giveaway is open to US and Canada residents only. The giveaway will open for a week until Tuesday, August 17th 2010 and I will pick one winner randomly on the following day.

Vanilla Bean Cheesecake
adapted from Grand Livre de Cuisine: Alain Ducasse's Desserts and Pastries
yield: 8" round cheesecake

Cheesecake
Crust:
75 g toasted slivered almonds (or almond powder)
45 g graham cracker crumbs
20 g sugar
3 Tbs. butter, melted

Cheesecake Filling:
24 oz cream cheese (three 8-oz blocks)
200 g sugar
3 eggs + 1 yolk
2 Tbs. flour
95 g heavy cream
vanilla bean seeds

Jellied Cream:
200 g heavy cream
25 g granulated sugar
3/4 tsp powdered gelatin (add about 1 tbs of water)
seeds from 1/2 vanilla bean

Yogurt Sherbet:
150 ml whole milk
90 ml heavy cream
50 g atomized glucose
140 g granulated sugar
550 g plain whole milk yogurt
4 g (1 tsp.) sorbet stabilizer
25 g (6 1/4 tsp.) powdered milk

To make the yogurt sherbet:
Combine all ingredients, except yogurt, and heat until it reaches 183F (84C). Remove from the heat and chill to 39F (4C), then add the yogurt. Mix well and let sit (I refrigerated mine overnight to one day). Process in the ice cream maker

To make the Cheesecake:
To make the crust: if you're using slivered almond, pulse it in a food processor until fine, if using powder, just combine it with the rest of the ingredients. Press the mixture in the bottom of a springform pan (I lined mine with parchment paper too, but you don't have to). Bake the crust on 350F for about 10-15minutes until the crust is slightly brown. Let cool.

To make the cheesecake filling: combine the cream cheese, vanilla bean seeds, and the sugar and mix with paddle attachment until soft and creamy. Add the eggs and egg yolk one at a time, then add the heavy cream and flour. Pour onto the cooled (or slightly cooled) crust and bake in a waterbath for 3 hours at 194F (90C). Let cool, leave to sit in the refrigerator for 24 hours. Spread the jellied cream on top of the cheesecake and smooth out with spatula, let it set. Remove the cheesecake from the pan.

Note:

If you want to make it into 9" round springform pan, use five 8-oz blocks and re-size the rest of the ingredients for the cheesecake filling and the crust accordingly. You can use the same amount of the jellied cream and the yogurt sherbet.
The book uses grind tart crust to make the base crust for the cheesecake. It also suggests using regular plain graham cracker crust if you have it available, but I'm never a fan of the regular graham cracker, and I've been using this almond crust for every of my cheesecake. You can use any type of crust you want.

Mango Chocolate Mousse Cake and Macaron

2010-08-02T10:53:00.000-07:00

First of all, I want to apologize for yet another mango cake in this blog. It was only two weeks ago that you saw some yellow cheesecake but here I am presenting you with another one. I hope you'll bear with my mango madness for a bit.

Strangely, California has been under a lot of clouds lately, very unusual in Summer. The temperature dropped to mid 70's and it is breezy in the morning and at night, but it's all perfect in the afternoon. I always try to sneak in some walk around the office building around 4pm when I have the time, just to enjoy the sun.

Anyways, it was yet another birthday for my coworker in the same team. I didn't know what he likes, I just assume or more like forcing myself to believe that he likes anything just because so that I could make whatever I want :). I was still curious a lot about mango and chocolate combination, I made it a few times in macaron, cheesecake and brownies, etc, but it always seems like the mango flavor is easily lost in the midst of chocolate, chocolate overpowers almost everything basically. So, I was determined to once again, try this combo with mostly mango mousse and a layer of chocolate mousse in between, hoping that this time, mango will rule.

It just seemed like a perfect idea and combination when I pictured the cake. I imagined a perfect layering, with a little crunch in the middle, and definitely chocolate macaron decoration, secretly hoping that my coworker is not allergic to one of them.

This cake has quite a few components, it has two layers of chocolate sponge, mango mousse, chocolate mousse, a thin layer of feuilletine, clear glaze, and of course the macarons. The macarons are filled with mango buttercream, except the side decoration. It took quite a bit of time to make each one but once you've got it all, it's relatively easy to assemble. I took a shortcut and used my last batch of instant chocolate mousse though, it was Alaska-Express chocolate mousse mix just because I have enough leftover to make one 8" layer (will have to make it from scratch next time), everything else was pretty straight forward too.

I finally ordered some pectin NH online and I made my glaze using that. In the past, I used just regular pectin that I get from the grocery store, but I could never get the consistency I wanted. The resulted glaze was so runny at first even after refrigerating it overnight, thinking that I should have put more pectin, but after longer refrigeration, it thicken beautifully, just perfect consistency.

The cake was definitely a hit when I brought the cake in the office, it's very light, refreshing without being too heavy and definitely far from too sweet :)

The cross-section picture above was taken with my point-and-shoot camera, not very good quality, but just to give you guys an idea of how the inside looks like, it wasn't a clean cut either but it works :).

You know, I should really restrain myself from buying fruits all the time. I can't resist in buying lots and lots of gorgeous cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, mangoes, but then I'm left with all these wonderful fruits without knowing how do I have the time to play with them. I have so many varieties of fruits that I'm confused of what to make. I just finished making some healthy and tasty fruit smoothie with peach, raspberry, blueberry, and some mango, yumm... Fruit crumble using all the different summer fruits might be in the menu a few weeks from now if I ever managed to squeeze some time to make a vanilla bean ice cream. I haven't been playing too much with raspberry this year, knowing that I still have a few months to go, but not for the stone fruits, their season will be over before you know it. I already have some list of raspberry dessert I want to make, hmm cannot wait. In the next few weeks, you will find me busy buying and freezing each one of them though, for my winter stash this year. Oh how I wish they would be available all year long.

Verity Joy Rediawan

On a side note, I'm officially an aunty of 13! Remember this baby shower? Yup, I have 13 nieces and nephews now, and the 13th was just born a few days ago and I am officially in love with her. This cake was actually made right before the baby was born. Can't wait to see her grows up and feed her cakes to maintain those chubby cheeks :)

Green Tea Ice Cream Cake

2010-07-29T12:41:00.000-07:00

July is usually one of the busiest months for me. Apart from the fact that it's summer and I'm crazy about all things summer, it is also the month with so many birthdays. This particular friend of mine knows exactly what he wants for his birthday and that is a green tea ice cream cake, heck he sent me a reminder a few times starting from 3 months before his actual birthday, I couldn't even pretend to forget even if I want to.

It was simple enough that I actually wasn't worried about it. One of the hardest things I encountered when making cake for other people is to decide what cake to make, so many choices, so many combination, but yet only one that's supposed to be the right one, it's sort of the same as finding your soulmate... in a way (cheesy I know). So this time, I was so glad that I didn't have to go through that phase. The cake coincidentally falls into the theme of the month of July, National Ice Cream Month, how perfect!

Now, believe it or not, this is the first time I've ever made an ice cream cake. The reason? hmm.... I don't know, maybe I thought ice cream cake is just a boring cake with layer of sponge cake and ice cream alternating, nothing interesting? Besides, I don't normally eat that many frozen stuff due to my sensitive teeth, so it never occurred to me that making ice cream cake can be a challenging project especially if you're making your own ice cream.

It may look simple, but there were actually a lot of consideration going on to make this cake happens. Since this is my first time making an ice cream cake, I wouldn't know if the ice cream would be able to stand on it's own if I put it around the cake, would it melt under California heat, how do I decorate ice cream cake? The last question might be the most challenging one, I am so used to use fruits to decorate cakes, especially in the summer but I don't want the cake to be frozen if I decorate with it. Chocolate would be a good thing to use but again, it is so hard to work with chocolate during summer, unless you have a temperature-controlled kitchen. I did use white chocolate to decorate the sides, which was pretty messy too, but I've always wanted to brush something on chocolate and I'm loving the look of it.

There wasn't many interesting layer in this cake, I used two layers of matcha chiffon cake, and two layers of green tea ice cream. And since texture is so important to me, I was planning to put a layer of Valrhona crunchy chocolate pearl in the middle but it got left out! I was so in a rush to finish the layering before the ice cream melted and became a mess everywhere that by the time I finished the last layer, I remember the chocolate. It was too difficult to scrape the layer off to put the chocolate in, so I gave up that idea although I still think it would make a pretty awesome addition with the added crunch.

The green tea ice cream cake however, was delicious by itself! I used a recipe from "The Perfect Scoop" by David Lebovitz, it's pretty much a basic vanilla ice cream cake with addition of matcha. Luckily, the recipe makes enough for 8" round with enough leftover to enjoy on its own. I'm not usually a fan of matcha everything just because often times, I would buy a matcha cake or matcha ice cream that taste anything but matcha. Some of them have a fake or cheap matcha taste, some of them look so green but the matcha flavor is hardly there. I did however tasted a really good matcha ice cream in a cafe a few weeks ago with strong matcha flavor and was in love with it. I added a few more tsp of matcha powder than what the original recipe calls for and I think it's just perfect.

I'm submitting this green tea ice cream cake post to Matcha Madness event hosted by Catty for the month of July. You can go over to her site after the event ends to find out how mad people playing with matcha and you'll be surprised to find so many matcha goodness out there.

Green Tea Ice Cream Cake
Yield: one 8" round cake

Green Tea Chiffon Cake
4 eggs (separate the yolk from the white)
100 g sugar (divided)
75 g cake flour
10 g green tea powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
50 g milk
50 g vegetable oil

Green Tea Ice Cream
adapted from "The Perfect Scoop"

500 ml heavy cream
250 ml whole milk
150 g sugar
6 egg yolks
6 tsp green tea powder (original: 4 tsp)

Decoration (optional):
Heavy Cream, whipped
Matcha paste (made with matcha powder and a little water to form a paste)

To make the chiffon cake: Preheat the oven to 350 F and prepare two parchment-lined 8" round pans
Whisk the egg yolk and 25 g sugar until it becomes a little pale.
Add the milk and the oil and whisk well
Combine together the flour, green tea powder, baking powder, and salt and sift them. Set aside.
In another bowl, whip the egg whites until frothy, then add the remaining 75 g sugar gradually and continue whipping until it forms a glossy stiff peak
Add the flour to the yolk mixture and whisk well
Fold in the egg white in addition (about three), making sure there is no big lumps of meringue and don't overfold either.
Divide the batter between the two pans and bake it for about 20 minutes or until done.
Let cool until ready to use
To make the green tea ice cream: Combine the sugar and the milk in a saucepan and bring it to simmer
In a large bowl, combine together green tea and heavy cream, whisking lightly, then put a strainer on top. Don't overwhisk it as you would have whipped cream instead
In another bowl, whisk the egg yolk and temper it with the hot milk, return it back to the heat
Heat the mixture to about 85 C on a gentle heat, stirring non-stop
Once the mixture reaches the temperature, take it off the heat on pour in over the strainer.
Whisk the cream+milk mixture vigorously until the matcha powder dissolves (it will be frothy)
Chill thoroughly and churn in the ice cream maker.
To decorate: Whip the cream and the matcha paste
Cover the cake with the matcha cream and decorate.
If you decided not to use the whipped cream to cover the cake, you can also cover the cake in green tea ice cream just like a mousse cake.

Note:
I followed the method stated in the recipe, but personally, I would do it differently next time. The matcha powder is harder to dissolve in a cold liquid. Even after you added the hot milk mixture, the matcha didn't dissolve completely. I whisked the mixture for quite a while until most of the green tea has dissolved and I warmed it a little.

I think it would be better to use the normal "creme-anglaise method":

Combine the cream and the milk together in a saucepan and bring it to simmer
Meanwhile, whisk the yolks and the matcha powder, and temper it with the hot milk
Bring it to 85C, stirring constantly
Strain to remove any lumps (if any) and chill thoroughly
Process in an ice cream maker

Mango Passion Fruit Cheesecake

2010-07-26T22:23:00.000-07:00

I think you've realized by now that I have a serious weakness over mango and passion fruit. I used to underestimate these two fruits when I was back in Indonesia, we had so many varieties of mango and you can pretty much find all of the exotic tropical fruit there, some I don't even know what to call or if they have any name. It was only after I moved here, especially after I started baking, that I realized how precious they are, but I guess it's a trade off because you can't really find fresh raspberry or blueberry in Indonesia, it is like finding needle among hays if you try. They have strawberries, but nothing like sweet California strawberry in summer time. I think they have this mindset that strawberry is supposed to be that tart. Yes, strawberries in Indonesia are so tart that it is so painful to eat it fresh. People usually use them in smoothie or cake decoration.

It is no secret that it runs in my family for our love for mango. I could probably survive the whole day just by eating mango. Too bad US doesn't have as many variety as in Indonesia for mango, but I think it's a fair trade since we can find all the gorgeous stone fruits and berries here.

I've been in charge for feeding the whole family for the past month because my nephew's and niece's grandma who usually cooks for us, she went back to Indo for a few months. So technically, I was half-mom, sometimes playing the role of a full-time mom these days, that includes taking care of the baby, cook for the whole family and making sure they're well-fed, cleaning up, bathe them, etc on top of my full-time job. So my poor niece and nephew now have to eat dinner at 9-9:30pm because by the time I got home at 8pm from work, I need to start cooking and cleaning up.

I was actually making this to celebrate my brother's birthday two weeks ago. I've been making mango cakes for the last two years for him or the wife or the son. The birthday fell on Friday, which was actually perfect since we celebrated it on Saturday, but the cheesecake wasn't done until Saturday evening and it needed a good few hours in the fridge. So yeah, we didn't have any cake after dinner that night, so we just ate it as dessert, which is good in some way I guess because I can cut them up and decorate them individually to make them look more cute.

I used almond crust for the base, it's actually a mixture of almond powder and graham cracker crumbs. I love this type of crust a lot more than the plain old graham cracker crumbs, and I keep coming back to them everytime I'm making cheesecake. As usual, I kinda mix and weigh at the same time to find out how much stuff I put it. The end result was slightly tart due to the passion fruit pulp addition (it was so tart, remember the story of this cake?). I wanted the cheesecake to have both mango and passion fruit together so I kept tasting it until I was happy with the result.

I was really happy with the result though. The texture is not as dense as regular NY cheesecake due to the addition of the fruit puree and I'm loving the tropical flavor! One thing I learn about making baked fruit-flavored cheesecake (at least for mango or mango passion fruit) is that the flavor concentrates and the color becomes stronger after baked. I'm making notes of all the things I need to modify for next time but until I get it perfected, I won't post the recipe just yet.

For those of you who wants to make this, you can use a basic cheesecake recipe, add some mango pulp/puree as well as passion fruit to the batter. Adjust the amount depending on your taste. Ah.. one more item I can cross off my list now, onto the next item... :)

4th of July BBQ and Trio of Sorbet

2010-07-25T16:08:00.000-07:00

I know 4th of July is over three weeks ago, but I just can't let the occasion pass without any sort of contribution to the event.

When summer rolls around and the hot weather started to soar, all I can think of is BBQ, BBQ, and BBQ, with cold drinks or cold desserts to fight the heat (don't get me started on the fruits). After a slow transition from Spring to Summer, we finally got a feel of what real Summer in California is. The temperature rises to maybe low 90 under the sun, which might be nothing compared to other states, but yeah it was pretty darn hot, but perfect for BBQ!

It's like a tradition to have a BBQ on 4th of July, American way and I was so ecstatic about this. You see, we usually buy ready-grill stuff at Costco or just marinated Korean beef/pork, but this time I wanted REAL BBQ. We made most of our own food this time (well, mostly). So here's the rundown of the menu:

Entree:
- baby-back ribs
- chicken kebab with red onion and bell pepper
- marinated pork (YUM!)
- three different kinds of sausages (store-bought)

Sides:
- roasted-garlic mashed potatoes
- grilled asparagus
- different kinds of chip and tortilla with salsa and artichoke dip
- grilled corn with mayo, lime and parmesan cheese

Drinks:
- mango and orange punch
- sodas

Dessert:
Trio of sorbet (pineapple, strawberry, and white peach)
Fruits (watermelon, cantaloupe, and honeydew melon)

It wasn't too hot that day, in fact, it was perfect. We had the BBQ at our house and the way our house is facing, it's cooler in the evening, the sun moves to the front part of the house. We got a warm weather with slightly cool breeze.

I was so excited about the dessert (read: the sorbet) because I think it was the perfect choice. The days were so hot that you're craving something to fight the heat. It happened that I was on a frozen dessert making frenzy after making the previous sorbet. Given that July is a National Ice Cream Month, this makes it even more perfect! I opted for three kinds of sorbet this time, strawberry (made on a previous post), white peach, and pineapple.

I really love the flavor of white peach, it's fragrant and subtle. I tried to use it in a cake once but I don't think that was a good idea, the flavor was so subtle that it gets lost easily among other flavors. So, sorbet was the perfect choice as it capture the pure flavor of the fruit. The only thing I wasn't too satisfied about was the color. I used white peach and it gets discolor rather fast. It turned brown within seconds after peeling, I wish someone can tell me how to keep the white color of the peach. I saw some blogs posted their white peach sorbet with pretty pink color (I'm dying to be able to get that color), or clean white.

The pineapple however was a request from my little nephew. He loves pineapple (I mean, who doesn't?), and as I mentioned before, we share the same love for sorbet over sweet ice cream (disclaimer: he hasn't tried homemade ice cream that's why). He kept asking me when I would make it everytime he saw the two pineapple sitting on the counter to ripen. He was beyond happy when I finally made it and he kept coming back to have a bowl of the soft-serve pineapple sorbet while it's still churning.

The three sorbet turned out really good. I mention about how good the strawberry sorbet was in the previous post, the strawberry flavor was so strong and fresh, the white peach is subtle with floral taste, the pineapple was so good that it was just bursting with flavor when you put it in your mouth, it was that good. One thing I noticed though, the texture of pineapple sorbet was different than the other two. I used the same recipe, adjusting the amount of sugar for each one, and the amount of puree depending on the sweetness of the fruit. It wasn't as compact as the other. I'm not complaining though, but just curious. I flipped through the same book and it has different recipe for pineapple sorbet, hmm.... curious why it has to be different.

For the next few days after the BBQ, me nephew kept asking me for the three sorbet for his dessert after dinner. I have a feeling he will grow with a fine tastebud :)

It was a relaxing and fun time surrounded by family and close friends, really good food; we played game and we even had a small firework in the backyard! Talking about back to the past, reminded me when I was still a kid.

Strawberry Sorbet -- recipe here
White Peach Sorbet -- same recipe as strawberry, but reduced the sugar to 100 g
Pineapple Sorbet -- same recipe as strawberry, but I used about 1000g-1200g of puree instead

Strawberry Obsession: Strawberry Shortcake, Strawberry Sorbet and Strawberry Lollipop

2010-07-05T10:29:00.000-07:00

I'm in some sort of strawberry madness lately, as you can tell by all three strawberry desserts in one post. Everytime I go to farmers' market almost every Sunday, I try so hard not to stop by my favorite strawberry stall, I even try not to stare! But when you see bright red color in the corner of your eyes, you just gotta look, and that's very dangerous as I can hardly contain myself from tasting a sample and ended up buying it. It happens everytime, classic. Does it happen to you too? Please tell me that I'm not weird :(

But anyways, here I am, always overloaded with fresh juicy strawberries almost every week. Ever since we went strawberry picking last time, I kept thinking of how to make the best out of the strawberry season this year, and that's when I started writing my list of things to make this summer. At least now I can be glad and proud that I can cross two out of a hundred items (and still growing) on that list.

Started out with strawberry shortcake. If you notice, I make strawberry shortcake every year at the peak of strawberry season. I think this is one of the best ways to highlight the sweet strawberries at its finest. I'm not talking about the all-American strawberry shortcake which is made with flaky scones, but I'm talking what most people referred to the Japanese-style strawberry shortcake, which uses soft genoise or sponge cake instead of scone. Strawberry plays one of the most important role in this dessert, and that it has to be sweet. There's nothing more horrifying that eating strawberry cake with sour strawberries.

I like to use orange liqueur such as Cointreau or Grand Marnier with my strawberry shortcake as I love the combination of strawberry and slight orange taste in the background. Many people use Kirsch as well, but I am not particularly a fan of it, it's all a matter of taste.

Before I'm moving on the sorbet subject, I have a confession to make. I own some cookbooks (or dessert books), not so many, but there a couple of them (I should take a picture of them sometimes), but I rarely or almost never followed any recipe from them. I don't know, I've always been put off in trying one of their recipes because I'm afraid that I won't like them or the recipe is just too lengthy. Most of the cookbooks that I own (or all of them) are the kinds that have a very long recipes page with multiple different components, a lot of them has some bizarre ingredients that I've never heard before or the ones that would cost me a fortune.

If I have to choose between ice cream or sorbet on a hot summer day, I would probably opt for sorbet. I don't eat frozen stuff that often (I have very sensitive teeth), but when I do, it has to be good. Sorbet is also one of the best ways to bring out the best flavor of the fragrance of the fruit, so simple and so pure.

When I was looking for a sorbet recipe, I have a few recipes I can try with very similar ingredients from French magazine and from one of my cookbooks, but I finally settle on the later, which is from this book. The picture of the sorbet looks so smooth and has a great texture, but it has some unfamiliar ingredients such as atomized glucose and sorbet stabilizer. This is one of my favorite books together with this and this. The book explains what each ingredient is and what their role is in the sorbet, love it! Luckily, one of my favorite baking sites carries it! I had to order it twice because I missed one ingredient the first time, but now that I got them, I'm all set to go.

The resulting sorbet turned out to be so delicious! It's all I've ever wanted in a sorbet, strong flavor, great texture, just perfect! It's like strawberry explosion in your mouth, just pure and intense strawberry flavor. The strawberries you use need to be tasty, I won't recommend making this using winter strawberries, even in California. I had to make two batches of this sorbet because my nephew loves it and he constantly asked for it. He and I share the same preference in frozen stuff, sorbet over ice cream. I was going to save the sorbet for dessert for something else with other sorbets I'm going to make (more on that later), but I just can't say no to my nephew when he "begged" me for it on a really hot California day. So, I decided to make more using my last fresh and frozen strawberries I have, I guess it can be considered as another Spring Cleaning? :)

So, what's up with the strawberry lollipops? Umm... nothing really. I just thought that they look so cute on a stick :), don't they?

Strawberry Shortcake

Sponge Cake:
4 whole eggs
4 egg yolks
100 g sugar
80 g cake flour, sifted
60 g melted butter

Filling:
100 g mascarpone cheese, room temperature
50 g sugar
250 g heavy cream
Cointreau or Grand Marnier (or Kirsch)
fresh sweet strawberries, sliced (set aside some whole ones for decoration)

To make the sponge cake: Preheat the oven to 350F and lined two 8" square pan with parchment paper
Beat the eggs (whole and yolks) with the sugar on a med-high speed until the mixture is very thick and pale (ribbon-stage)
Incorporate the flour in three addition and fold carefully as not to lose too much air
Fold in the melted butter until well-mixed
Divide the batter between two prepared pans and bake it for about 20 minutes or until done.
Let cool on a wire rack
To make the filling: Combine the mascarpone cheese, sugar, heavy cream, and liqueur, and beat until it forms a semi-stiff peak but still has its shine. Use it immediately
To assemble: Put one layer of cake on a base and spread the filling on top.
Arrange the strawberry slices and top it with the other cake.
Spread another thin layer of filling on top and decorate all you want
If you don't have enough filling for the top layer or to decorate it with, just simply whip fresh whipped cream with a little sugar (you can add liqueur if you want).

Strawberry Sorbet
adapted from Grand Livre de Cuisine: Alain Ducasse's Desserts and Pastries

750 g strawberry puree
60 g atomized glucose
120 g sugar
80 ml water
3/4 tsp sorbet stabilizer

Put the water and atomized glucose in a sacepan and bring it to a gentle boil.
Mix the sugar and the sorbet stabilizer, and add it to the water mixture and bring it back to a boil.
Let cool completely (you can put this mixture in a fridge overnight)
Mix the cool syrup with strawberry puree and let it the mixture "mature" in the fridge for 24 hrs
Churn it in an ice cream machine

Note:

The book says to mix everything (except the strawberry puree) without boiling them first. I boiled mine to dissolved the sugar.
The book also suggests another alternative, which is to boil all ingredients to a certain temperature, and cool it for 24 hrs before churning.
The mixture needs to sit for a long time to let the stabilizer develop its role, but I also read a few other recipes (not from the book) which only matures the sugar syrup overnight and churn it immediately after being mixed with the puree. Some doesn't even require maturing, just mix and churn.

Spring Cleaning Part II: Mango Tart

2010-06-28T10:45:00.000-07:00

The Spring Cleaning is taking a little longer than expected, it was three months ago since I started my first one. I did have quite a few list of things to make from the "leftovers" but for some reason, a lot of them did get used up for something, which is good, I guess. It's not Spring anymore, it's Summer (yay!), but I still call it Spring Cleaning as I've never heard of Summer Cleaning before :)

This time, everything seems like it was meant to be for this tart. You probably guessed it right that I have just two 4" baked tart shell from making key lime tartelettes (not featured in this blog), one ripe small mango, two 3" of frozen mango mousse. I did have to make the custard filling for the tart which was a breeze to make, it was just a simple custard made with whole egg, a little cream, and sugar, baked inside the tart shell. Then, I put slices of mango on top of the cooled custard, placed the frozen mango mousse on top, put a strawberry for decoration and color and voila! you got one of the tastiest and simplest mango tart ever! A pile of raspberry, mint leaf, and white choc decor would probably look great on these, but strawberry did the justice just fine.

I love the yellow color of this tart! It reminds me of sunny warm summer day, sitting on the back porch with a cup of tea, hmm....

So, please don't throw away those leftovers you have, be it just a little of any mousse, jelly, sponge cake scraps, cream cheese frosting, sugar syrup, or anything at all, you can always transform them to something totally delicious with just a little extra effort!

I'm enjoying the best of California weather at the moment, clear blue sky with a little streak of white clouds here and there, warm sun, birds chirping and crisp weather in the morning, ahh... simple pleasure :)

Components:
- Pate sucree (leftover from this, don't poke holes on the tart if you will bake a runny custard in it)
- Custard (made with egg, sugar, and cream, baked inside the tart shell until set in the middle)
- Fresh mango slices
- Mango mousse (leftover from this)