Strawberry Tart (Tarte aux Fraise)

Strawberries were on sale the other day when I went to grocery store and it was the last day of the sale. I just couldn't help picking two boxes full of ripe strawberries. Although I'm never a fan of strawberries from grocery store, I couldn't resist at that time.


I didn't have any plan to make anything really, but since these strawberries were too pretty to go to waste, I had to make use of them somehow. So here's what I made today, strawberry tart. I used pate brisee for the crust, or what we often heard of sweet short pastry, but you can also use pate sucre (or sweet cookie crust dough). I brushed the inside of the tart with melted chocolate to prevent the moisture from the cream to soak in the pastry crust and make it soggy. While you can use any fillings you can imagine (think of creme chantily, lemon/orange curd, pastry cream, etc.), I'm using cream diplomat for this tart. It is basically pastry cream that's lightened with whipped cream. This is the cream of my choice when it comest to any kinds of fruit tarts. It's not as stiff as pastry cream and not as light as whipped cream.

Strawberry Tart

For the pastry
Modified from this recipe
Enough to make two 8-in round tart shell

250g flour
pinch of kosher salt
125g unsalted butter, chilled and diced
25g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
50ml ice-cold water

• Sift the flour, salt and sugar into a large bowl.
  
• Using your fingertips or pastry cutter or better yet, food processor, rub the butter into the flour until it resembles coarse oatmeal.
  
• Mix the egg yolk and water together and pour over the flour mixture.Gently knead until it all comes together.
  
• Divide the dough in half and flattened into a ball.
• Wrap in clingfilm and chill for 30 mins-1 hr.
• Remove from the fridge and roll out one dough to fit the desired tart pan.
• Put it back in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
• Preheat the oven to 350 F. Prick the dough with fork.
• Blind bake the tart shell for about 20-30 minutes (depending on the size of the pan) until golden brown.
  
• Remove from the oven and let cool.

Filling
Cream of your choice:

• 1 cup heavy cream sweetened with some sugar with or without any flavorings
• pastry cream
• creme diplomat
• lemon curd

I can't really give a recipe for my tart filling because I don't know the correct amount for the size of the tart. The cream I made yield a lot more than enough for this tart. Use any of your favorite recipe. You can even omit the filling and just stacked the strawberries drizzled with some melted chocolate. The highlight of this dessert is the bright and fresh flavor of the strawberries. The most important thing is to make sure you use ripe strawberries.

This is also my other post for the Strawberry Seduction hosted by Mike.

I also made the mini version of the tart

I was out of strawberries, so each tart only has one slice :P. I know it would be better if there are more fruits or color, but this should be just fine. This would be great for a dessert in a large party or as petit four or as a party snack.

Rouleau Chocolat au Banane

I've been wanting to make this rouleau after reading this post. Chocolate and banana are classic combination. I forgot that I used to love eating anything with this combination when I was a kid. Whether it's a choco-banana bun, on a toast, or better yet, in a crepe, I love it all.

I had some leftover chocolate cream filling after making the choc. tiramisu cake. So I thought. hey why not make this chocobanana roll cake. Besides, I had some almost-over-rippen bananas that I bought specially just to make this roll cake, but never got to do it. So, no more excuses.

I played around with a cotton cake recipe that I had. Replacing some of the flour with both regular and Dutch-processed cocoa powder (for the color), adjust the amount of sugar and the egg, and also the other amount so that it would fit the roll cake pan. It was a little too thin, but nothing important.

I piped some of the filling on the top but I think it melted a little because I left it at room temperature for quite a while (I was busy doing something else and forgot). I sprinkled some cocoa powder on top and sliced some bananas and brushed it with neutral glaze.

Of course it's nothing compared to the one in the picture that I was inspired with. I should have cut it an smaller size to make it prettier, but I was too tired doing all the clean up that I didn't even bother with the appearance too much.

My friends said it was really good. I only got to taste the scraps that was left at home :(. I will definitely make this again some time with prettier look, and better cotton cake. I'm dying to make some other rouleau (inspired from the same blog too) and hopefully, I'll have enough time to really do it all.

Chocolate Tiramisu Cake (Part II)

Remember this cake I made as an experiment for a request from a friend? It turned out that she and her husband liked it so much that they decided to go with this cake for her husband's birthday today. I thought the chocolate and the rum were too strong, but they loved it. They even like the 75% dark chocolate I used for the decoration!!! They're indeed a true chocolate lovers.

So, here is the cake for the birthday dinner tonight. She requested the sides to be decorated the same way as the one before, with a chocolate plate saying "happy birthday", and two red cherries.
But, I really thought it would be better with strawberries instead of cherries, since I have some beautiful red strawberries available in my fridge. I was actually planning to put some chocolate decoration on it, but I just had no time.

Psstt... to be honest, I changed the recipe a bit. I know they liked the cake the way it was, but I just couldn't help it. I reduced the amount of chocolate in the filling slightly so that I can taste the wonderful taste of the mascarpone and also made some minor changes. I really think the changes I make, made it a lot better, at least for my taste, but let's cross our fingers and wish that they would love it as much as the one before or maybe more (well, I can only wish :))

Raspberry Mousse Cake

This is what I did with the leftover raspberry mousse from the previous cake. Nothing fancy here for the decoration, just some clear glaze that I recently made for the first time instead of using the ready-made neutral glaze, and a raspberry on top. I turned out that it was pretty easy making the glaze. I just had to re-heat, and re-cool the glaze to get the right consistency.

Mango and Raspberry Mousse Cake

It was one of my brother's birthday last sunday and we decided to have a small dinner with some family members. It didn't take me too long to decide what cake I wanted to make. I quickly decided to make mango and raspberry mousse cake. I bought some Alphonso mango pulp a couple of weeks ago at an Indian store and the guy told me that Alphonso mango is very expensive in India. It costs about $4 each. Although the pulp was a little on the pricey side compared to the other type of mango (I forgot the name), I bought it anyway.

I've never tried mango and raspberry combination but I think it would be great. Besides, I really think that the color combination between pink raspberry and bright yellow mango would be very pretty, don't you think?


The morning I was planning to make the cake (I baked the cake base the day before), I was stucked with what recipe I will use. I read a lot of recipes for raspberry mousse from my cookbooks, internet, blogs, and yet I couldn't decide which one that I want. Same thing happen with the mango mousse. I made mango mousse cake once before, a long time ago (in fact, it was the first birthday cake I've ever made) and it was pretty good, but I forgot the quantity I used for that.

Long story short, I had to repeat the raspberry mousse three times and two times for the mango mousse, to get what I wanted. By the way, I didn't use any recipe that I read earlier. I ended up approximating the amount of raspberries/mango, gelatin, sugar, cream, etc. myself. That is why I had to repeat it so many times. I threw away the first raspberry mousse. The second attempt was already completely assembled, but somehow, I wasn't satisfied enough. I thought the raspberry layer was too thick. So, as crazy as I would get sometimes, I decided to make the whole thing all over again. I baked the cake base and start from the beginning for the rasp. and mango mousse. The third one was better. So, what did I do with the first completely assembled cake? I called my friend and asked him to pick it up :).

I decorated it with some fresh berries and mango. The glaze on top of the cake was also flavored with mango pulp. For the sides, I brushed some melted chocolate on an acetate strip using a paint brush and wrap it around the cake. When the chocolate is set, peel off the acetate sheet, then wrap a chcooalte ribbon around the base to cover some imperfection.

Everybody liked the cake (I think). I was pretty happy with the result, tastewise and appearance-wise. I love the bright yellow color of the mango. This is the kind of cake I would choose if I were to buy a cake from a pastry shop. The amount of gelatin I put was just right. The mousse was still soft, and yet still strong enough to hold it's shape. The only thing I would change next time would probably adding a tad more raspberry pulp. Everything about this cake really shouts summer. I just wish that I had better lighting when I took the picture to show you how pretty the color is. It's a little dark on the pictures above. Unfortunately, I didn't have the chance to capture the cross section view of the cake, so you can't really see the raspberry mousse that's hidden inside the cake. I can tell you that the color was very pretty though.

Shortcake aux Fraises

It's not quite summer yet here in California, but strawberries are starting to show up everywhere. Although, it's true that you can find fresh berries all year around in CA, but they taste best in Summer.

I had a box full of over-ripened strawberries in the fridge. I have sooo many ideas of cakes and desserts when it comes to strawberries, strawberry tart, strawberry mousse cake, strawberry cheesecake, strawberry shortcake, you name it. They even look fabulous as garnish. They definitely contribute to the "wow" factor of a cake. Its vibrant red color, the fragrance, the shape, just make anything stands up among others.

I wasn't actually planning to make this cake. I just didn't want to waste the beautiful strawberries. I'm sure they'd go bad if I let them sitting in the fridge for a day or two longer. I had to use it up by using whatever I had in the fridge the other day. Since I didn't want to make something that requires multiple layers of filling, I decided to make this shortcake aux fraises, or what we would normally know as strawberry shortcake. Not the regular American shortcake, which uses shortcake as a base.

Nothing fancy, it's just two layers of vanilla chiffon cake, chantily cream flavored with Cointreau (orange liqueur), fresh strawberries, and clear neutral glaze on the top surface. I decided to decorate it like the traditional fraisier (French strawberry cake with Kirsch creme mousseline filling) decoration because I didn't have enough cream to cover the whole cake. Besides, I love this decoration. It's simple, elegant, and doesn't require much effort.


I also made chocolate leaves for the first time using fresh mint leaves. It turned out that it wasn't too difficult to do.

I get to taste the cake a couple of hours ago with my nephew. The chiffon cake was soft, with a light orange taste in the background, combined with the fresh taste of sweet strawberries. My nephew ate two slices by himself, and he doesn't normally like to eat. It doesn't have the complexity flavor of many other multilayer cakes, but yet tastes so simple and refreshing. I really can't wait for summer to come. I'm so looking forward going to farmers' market just to buy a couple boxes full of sugar-sweet strawberries. Seriously, I've never thought before that strawberries and even raspberries could be so sweet. All this time, I thought they're supposed to be tart and sour, but oh boy, what have I missed all these years. I would think twice, well maybe ten times before decided to buy berries from grocery store.

This is also my entry for the "Strawberry Seduction" event hosted by Mike. You can find the complete information about the event here.

Vanilla Chiffon Cake

100 g cake flour
20 g cornstarch
pinch of salt
50 g sugar
75 g oil
100 g milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
4 eggs, separated
1/8 tsp. cream of tartar
50 g sugar

• Line the base of two 9-in round pans with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 350 F.
• Sift together cake flour, cornstarch, and salt. Set aside.
• In a large bowl, whisk the egg yolks and the sugar until well blended.
• Add the oil, milk, and vanilla extract. Mix well.
• Mix in the flour mixture.
• In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until frothy, add the cream of tartar. Keep whisking until the bubbles are smaller. Add the second half of the sugar gradually and keep whisking until it reaches soft-peak stage.
• Fold the egg white mixture into the yolk mixture in addition carefully so that you won’t deflate the air.
• Pour the batter into the prepared pans . Tap each pan gently against the countertop to remove the excess air bubbles.
• Bake for approximately 30 minutes. Let cool.

Filling:
500 g heavy whipping cream, cold
4 Tbs. sugar
3 Tbs. Cointreau (or other orange-flavored liqueur)

Fresh sweet strawberries for filling and decoration
clear neutral glaze (optional)

• Whip all of the ingredients until it reaches medium-stiff peak, but not dry.
  

To Assemble:

• Prepare an 8.75 in round cake ring (or use smaller size) and cut the chiffon cakes to the size of the cake ring. Use cake ring only if you want to make it like the decoration in the picture. Otherwise, don't bother
• Spread a layer of orange-flavored creme chantily and scatter the sliced strawberries on top.
  
• Top with another layer of chiffon cake.
  
• Cover the whole cake with the leftover cream if you prefer. Or if you want to decorate it like what I did, spread a thin layer of the filling on top of the cake.
• Decorate all you want.

Easter Cookies

Easter is tomorrow. I don't normally make something for every occasion, but I always get excited when special holiday or occasion is coming. That mean's that there's an excuse to make dessert or cake :). But, most of the time, although I have planned the cake I want to make, the decorations, and everything, it always ended up not baking anything. I don't know why or how, but when the day is getting closer, I'm always loaded with a lot of activities.



For Easter this year, I've been planning to make decorated easter cookies and an easter cake decorated with basketweave, bunny, easter eggs, grass, flower,..... In my mind, it looks so Easter-y. So today, I made some time to make this easter cookies with my nephew. The cookie part was fine, but when it comes to decorating it, I barely have the patience to finish all of them. I ended up decorated 80% of the cookies and threw away the leftover icing. You need to be a verrryyy patience person to be able to decorate a cookie perfectly. Me?? no, I'm not that kind of a person. As you can see in the picture, they look like cookies made by children. It's so far away from neat. I like the pastel color though.
Anyways, I don't think I will be decorating cookies like this for quite some time now

For the cake, I don't think I would have time to do it by tomorrow. My biggest concern is who would finish up the cake? I really think my friends are getting tired of all the cakes I've delivered to their door. It's only yesterday that I gave them chocolate tiramisu cake. Although, it's gone now, but still, three cakes in a week??? who wouldn't be sick of that?
I might still make it though, since I have the chocolate easter eggs and the bunny for decoration, but not today or tomorrow. We'll see