Seeing Green!

This was actually made a while ago, in May I think.....

It all started when a dear friend, Putu, contacted me and asked me if I would like to make a cake for her birthday, and of course I would!!! without a doubt! She knew what she wanted, and that made it a lot easier for me. She knew she wanted an Indonesian cheese cake, and she showed me a picture of a green cake that she liked.

Green is her favorite color (obviously :D), and I have become a green-fan these past few years. You see, green is used to be my least favorite color, but once my adult life had started, the love for green has been growing stronger and stronger in me :P. It was a little hard to copy the picture she gave me, not just because the picture was small and I couldn't see the detail and everything, but it's also because my lack of skill to do cake decorating :(. I was never an expert nor I was into cake decorating, like making a perfect basketweave cake with buttercream roses, making small fondant figurines, and all that. But it's not me if I just gave up and say I can't ;).

The pictures of the cake here may look simple, and it is simple. I've never said that she asked for too much or anything, in fact, she was nothing like that. She said just do what I can do, if I can't do roses, then that's fine (she's just a sweetheart :) ). The original pic had a lot more green buttercream roses and more buttercream leaves. Since I don't trust myself to make buttercream roses (plus the weather was too hot to hold my buttercream stiff enough to make the roses), I attempted for fondant roses instead. The side wall is just a simple green-colored fondant to make a smoother finish on the cake, or more like to cover my imperfect skill to smooth out the sides :P.

Overall, of course mine didn't look anywhere close to the original picture, but at least I tried my best and there are still lots of room for improvement.

Raspberry Tiramisu Cake

I warn you, with the abundant amoung of berries showing at the farmers' market and grocery storess, you would see a lot of berry-flavored cakes showing often :D. I'm such a sucker for berries, especially raspberry. It's really hard for me to resist really good-looking raspberries, super sweet strawberries, deep purple color cherries, fragrant stone fruits. I could very easily pass those things in grocery store, but when it comes to farmers' market, uh oh... I would be in a really big "trouble" :).

Again, I also made this a while back for my dear friend's birthday. I always use every opportunity I got to experiment with type of cakes I've never made before. I mean, this is the best way to learn new stuff, plus you have the people to eat it, right??? (assuming the end result is edible :D). Fortunaltely, I have friends who are willing to eat anything including failed or ugly-looking cakes (well, most of them at least).

I was determined from the beginning to make raspberry tiramisu cake. My other option was mango tiramisu cake (my two most ultimate favorite fruits or cake flavors). I believe that there are things that are meant for each other (flavor or ingredient-wise :P). This includes raspberry-mascarpone, raspberry-white chocolate, dark chocolate-rum-coffee, mango-mascarpone, I could go on and on and on about this. So here's a way to combine them, raspberry tiramisu cake.

I thought of regular tiramisu components, mascarpone, cream, savoiardi (italian lady fingers), coffee, rum, coffee soaking mixture. I want this rasp. tiramisu to have the same components that make up a tiramisu, a tiramisu :P. I decided to use the soft lady fingers, instead of the hard ones like savoiardi as I don't think that making a raspberry solution to soak the lady fingers is going to be as good as the original tiramisu with coffee. So I made my own lady fingers or what French called biscuit a la cuillere. Instead of piping the batter one by one to look like a "finger", I just spread it all in a sheet pan. It'll be stacked together anyway, so no one will notice :). The lady finger is then brushed heavily (not soaked) with raspberry solution with lots of framboise (clear raspberry brandy), just like you brush a cake with simple syrup. Then, a thin layer of raspberry jam that I thinned out a little with framboise goes on top of the lady finger, a layer of mascarpone cream, and lots of fresh raspberries inside. This process is repeated twice. I didn't use egg yolk for the mouse as I don't usually use raw egg yolks to make a fruit-based mousse/cream.

The end cake is a lot higher than I would have liked. After a quick trip to the freezer and trim all of the sides, the cake is now ready to be glazed. Now, this is where the problem started :(. I always have problem with glazing a cake, especially if I use Oetker clear glaze. I followed the direction carefully, but it just set up like a jelly in a minute after taking it off the heat. I kept reheating it, adding more water and raspberry puree, adding my own homemade glaze, etc but nothing works. You can see the really poor glazing on top. I was really frustrated, and I was already late to the dinner (hence the poor decoration :( ). I was a little disappointed with the height and the glazing and the decoration, but hey, this is an experiment, I should have expected something like this.

But unfortunately, that's not the end of the problem. The real disaster followed 30 minutes after. As I mentioned, the oetker glaze set up like a jelly layer on top of the cake that wasn't really "glued" to the cake. I wasn't really paying attention to this as I drove really fast (a little speeding and maybe juuussttt a tad "zig zag-ing" :P to the dinner place where all of my friends were waiting. When I opened up the box after I arrived, I was just speechless. The glaze/jelly layer on top was sliding down the cake and it looked like a mess!!! I just couldn't say anything at that point.

Here's a picture of the cake after the "accident":

I made a good note of the ingredients proportions (that I might need to try next time), and I will definitely make the lady finger layer thinner. But I'm not done with raspberries, I mean how can I be with lots of them lying around everywhere I go, tempting me to pick up a basket or two (maybe four). So, more raspberries or berry posts comiinnggg :)

Raspberry Rose Pots de Creme

I think it is the longest time I haven't updated my blog. My apology, and I would use the same excuse everytime :(, and I would blame it on...time of course!!! :D. But really, I wish I have 30hrs/day, and if I do, I'm sure I would have asked for 35hrs/day :).

Actually, I made this a while ago. I don't remember when exactly but I remember when I started to have my eyes on these little things. Back when I was in college, when I still had my own apartment in TX, I used to make lots of different custards and desserts, not so much for cakes though. I was more interested in fine cooking, desserts, and I would invited my friends to have a dinner together in my small one-bedroom apartment :). Pots de Creme is among all of the different custards I loved to make (and I still do). From the many times I baked different types, I started to notice the difference between all of them. Custard consists of eggs, sugar, and dairy, those are the main things. I would say pots de creme is nothing different than creme brulee, minus the caramelized sugar on top. The texture is supposed to be silky smooth and velvety.

About a few months ago, I visited my dear friend's house, Kiki and played with her adorable baby Max. The foodtv was on at that time and I wasn't really paying attention on what show is playing. But then I heard the words "dessert", "raspberry", "rose", and "cream", and you know me well that those words get to me very easily. As a HUGE fan of raspberry, rose, custard, I would be really interested in anything with those ingredients in it, among other ingredients of course. Unfortunately, the show ended before I got the change to know what was it. So I began my search immediately (thanks to internet), and finally got this Raspberry Rose Pots de Creme recipe from Giada and immediately to my "to-make" list it goes. The plan was suspended for a while because I was waiting to have leftover raspberries and cream from other cake I made and finally got the chance!

I would say the ingredients are pretty standard for custard. I baked mine in 6-oz ramekins, while the recipe stated for 4-oz. No biggie, it will just yield less amount of ramekins, that's all. I didn't mash the raspberries however, I thought that it would make the appearance less desirable. I just put whole raspberries inside and I also omit the pop rocks candy.

I didn't really eat a lot of this as my friend gulped them all down, but it has a really nice floral taste in the back ground. Be careful not to use a lot of the rose water as it can be very overwhelming. The only thing I would have done differently though, is bake it a little longer. I forgot to increase the amount of baking time, and as a result, the texture was still a little too soft even after being refrigerated overnight.

I think this is a perfect dessert after a dinner party. It doesn't take too long to make, it's easy, and it certainly will wow your guest :)

Raspberry Rose Pots de Creme
Source: Giada de Laurentiis

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup whole milk
  
• 1/2 teaspoon rose water*
• 4 egg yolks
• 1/4 cup sugar
  
• Pinch fine sea salt
• 3/4 cup fresh or frozen and thawed raspberries, mashed
• 4 packets carbonated candy (recommended: Pop Rocks)

Directions

Special equipment: 4 (4 to 5-ounce) ramekins

*Can be found at specialty gourmet markets

Place an oven rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a medium saucepan, heat the cream, milk, and rose water over medium-low heat until warm, about 4 minutes.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, and salt until smooth. Slowly whisk in the milk mixture. Stir in the mashed raspberries. Using a ladle, divide the mixture between 4 ramekins. Place the ramekins in an 8 by 8-inch baking pan. Pour enough hot water into the pan to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake for 30 minutes until the custard is almost set. Remove the pan from the oven and allow the ramekins to cool while still in the water, about 1 hour. Remove the ramekins from the water and refrigerate for at least 2 hours until set.

Serve with a packet of carbonated candy.

Spring-Themed Birthday Cake

It seems like this blog has been more like a weekly update rather than a blog. My apology for not replying your emails immediately or your comments, but I'm working on it as well as posting more posts and recipe including the past recipes that I promised on the previous posts.

I think you know pretty well already how excited I am at this time of the year (despite the fact the I mentioned it over and over again :D). I've been going to farmers' market every Sunday for the last 1.5 months or so. Not that I always needed to buy something, but I just love being in the crowd, watching the fresh produce, sampling different things, especially under a warm California sun (although it has been raining lately :( ). Strawberry has been showing up everywhere and it's always hard for me to resist them everytime I go, but I've been good so far in terms of self-control.

For the past two years, I've been buying strawberries from the same stall every summer. They sell the best, the sweetest strawberries I've ever had, but I've been disappointed this year. Everytime I visit their stall, I expected the strawberries to be the same as the year before, but they're not as sweet anymore :(. Nonetheless, I will still excited anyway to see and always eager to make something with them everytime I see them. You see, strawberry is the kind of fruit that I enjoy more when I'm making something with it instead of eating it straight. Don't ask me why, but that's just the way it is. The same thing goes for raspberries, hmm... I guess all berries?? I always think of different ways, flavor combination to use berries for dessert.

Now, last Thursday was my boss' birthday. I've always wanted to make a birthday cake for him and so I did. He was a little shy about his birthday but we all had a short little celebration for him. The cake itself is a two-tiered cake, the bottom is 8" square and the top is 6" round. I thought it's gonna take me quite a while to make this, but surprisingly it wasn't. The top 6" tier has two layers of vanilla sponge cake that I already had on hand with mango cheesecake layer as the bottom filling (from the chilled mango cheesecake leftover filling the I froze in a 6" mold). I just made a layer of strawberry flavored cheesecake for the top layer and to cover the sides of the cake. The bottom tier has two layers of cream cheese cotton cake that I flavored with lemon zest, thin layer of fragrant blueberry filling and cream cheese mousse on top of each cake.

The decoration didn't take too long either. I just made white chocolate fence early in the morning, put them on and stacked the strawberries (this turned out to be the start of a disaster later on). So I drove away with the cake, thinking that everything is gonna be alright. When I got to work, the chocolate fence were falling off the cake, some of them were broken, the strawberries were all over the place, it was ugly. I tried to calm myself down, I didn't have time to fix it as I had work to do and I was late already (as usual). When I had the chance to fix it, it wasn't as pretty as it was before. It doesn't matter how hard I try, I thought they looked ugly, the strawberries were dirty from the cream, the chocolate fence wasn't straight anymore ; ;. I knew that I shouldn't put the strawberries at home, they're just too heavy, but I did the best I can to make it look acceptable.

Despite all the mess, it was very well-received by the crowd :P. I like how it looks, it doesn't look over-the-top, but simple and clean, and definitely scream Spring! I'm submitting this cake for Spring Cake Event for Monthly Mingle #32 hosted by Meeta. You can view the event on her blog or the official page of Monthly Mingle

Another Gathering, Another Tiramisu!

Spring has been gorgeous so far, although the weather changed quite drastically lately from 95F to 65 in just two days, but I'm not complaining. It's been beautiful and I'm enjoying every minute of it. The other reason why I enjoy it so much is because Spring is when the tulip is starting to show up everywhere. It's my ultimate favorite flower (especially the white and the soft pink color :D), but unfortunately, the season doesn't last for so long. I think it's only readily available mostly on April-May. So, I'm trying to spend most of my weekend outside enjoying the warmth of the sun and the cool breeze during the day (although my allergy definitely will not do me any good). You can definitely smell the Magnolia blooming at night, what else could you ask for.

In the middle of the craziness that has been happening daily, I saw an email on Wednesday morning that there will be another gathering for a group of people at work on Friday noon, called "Dip Day". It's basically everything dips, chips, appetizer, etc. and it's clearly said in the email that except for me, I have to bring a dessert, @_@. Hmm.... it was Wednesday and that means I have to come up with something to make (which is always the hardest thing for me), and when to make. I knew for sure that I would be coming home late on both Wed. and Thurs., so a plan is definitely needed of what to make, when to buy the ingredients, when to make it, and when to decorate it.

After a careful consideration, tiramisu came to be the winner. I had some of the ingredients ready, which are the lady fingers, rum and espresso (which are staples in my pantry), all I needed to buy were the mascarpone cheese and heavy cream. Tiramisu is probably the ultimate choice everytime I need to make something quick but will still please everybody. I've never met a single person who doesn't like tiramisu so far. Plus it is fairly quick to make as no oven needed and the decoration doesn't take too long either as tiramisu has that classic decoration look already. The downside is, since it is so popular and almost every single bakery has it, each person has what they each call the best tiramisu in their life. It is quite nerve-wrecking to serve something that's probably not going to matach up their high tiramisu standard. I must admit that there are a lot of bakeries and restaurants out there that have a really good tiramisu, and trying to make something similar or at least be the same level as restaurant standard for a tough crowd, is quite a risk, but I did it anyway.

Nothing new to this tiramisu as I make it quite often. Getting bored with the square look, I decided to finally make use of my hexagonal cake ring that I bought more than a year ago to assemble the dessert. This is also the first time I used my Valrhona cocoa powder and I'm in love with it. It has a deep chocolate flavor and the color is wonderful too. I'm glad that everybody enjoyed the dessert, it is always a great pleasure everytime. And I am so glad that in the midst of the heavy work-load that everybody has, we managed to set aside some time enjoying each other's company and enjoying good food. The food has always been great, I guess it's true that there's a chef hidden inside every person :D.

Pink Swedish Princess Cake

I think I need to remind myself over and over again, no more weekday cakes please, but I just couldn't resist. There were times when I just wanted to quit when I was making a cake in a time crunch. When you only have an hour everyday to pull together a cake, your planning must be good. But I'm no quitter, even if it means that I have to wake up super bright and early for a few days to finish it, you can't quit what you have started (there are exceptions of course :D).

Now, the cake. It was a request from a friend who likes princess cake so much for another friend's birthday (talking about selfish :P, j/k). Boy, do we have lots of birthday celebrations lately. The request was that it must be pink because it is the birthday girl's favorite color, despite the fact that traditional princess cake is green. If you follow my blog, you would see that I made this cake a few times before and everytime, I kept changing something whether it's the type of the cake base, the simply syrup, the proportions of cream and/or pastry cream, etc.

This time is no difference. I decided to make my own raspberry jelly instead of the usual seedless raspberry jam used in a princess cake. I always find that store-bought jam is way too sweet to my liking. Although, looking at the economical point of view, making your own is not too beneficial though as the cost of the raspberry itself is equal to the cost of a jar of jam (not to mention the time and labor put into it). Plus, you would still have plenty of jam leftover if you buy it. But I am such a hard-headed or stubborn person if you may call it, that I'd still make it myself despite that I know all the plus and minus behind it. It's not too difficult, just a little time-consuming because you have to puree the raspberries and strain it (the part which I like the least everytime I pureed something --> takes too much time and more dishes to wash) then heat it, add the gelatin, and finally let it cool down to thicken (may take a while). I didn't even use a measurement, just kinda go for it.

I followed the traditional filling for princess cake, which is three layers of sponge cake (usually genoise type), simple syrup to moisten it (I flavored it with raspberry puree-->can't you tell how much I love raspberry already?), a thin layer of raspberry jam (made my own) and cream for the bottom filling, vanilla bean pastry cream as the second layer of filling and more cream on top to cover the cake and to form the dome, and finally enrobed with marzipan. I can never get a soft pastel color for the marzipan, it has a natural brown almond color that whatever color you color it with, it will always be darker. But I found some white marzipan somewhere online the other day, had to try it someday. It's not a difficult cake to make as each filling is pretty straight forward. You don't even need a particular recipe, you just need to know the components that make up the cake.

I wasn't 100% satisfied with the decoration as I think I rolled the marzipan too thin that the cake inside is showing (you can tell from the picture). I also did a poor job on covering it. You can probably notice it too that the bottom part has some wrinkles. I just use the leftover marzipan to make pearls for the bottom border and brush it with pink luster dust to make it shiny. I also had to hunt for the roses though, luckily we have a mini rose plant at the front yard so I just had to pick out the best ones to put onto the cake.

I couldn't make it to the birthday dinner though as work was calling. But I was so.....glad and relieved after I heard that the cake had rave reviews, everybody really liked it. Pheeww.... talking about pressure. I was afraid that I would mess up something in the proportion since I keep changing something everytime I make the same type of cake. Unfortunately I couldn't taste it myself, thanks to my friend who forgot to save me a slice :P, but as long as everybody likes it, that's all I need :D

An Un-planned Chocolate-Tiramisu Entremet and Raspberry Macarons

Why the name? Well, it's because it was unplanned indeed. The story behind it was that it was initially meant as a birthday cake for a friend's birthday. I was going to use this "opportunity" to experiment with new flavor combination that I've never tried before. At least there would be enough people willing to be "the victim" for the experiment cake, I thought. That was the plan two weeks before the birthday. But little did I know that so many things will happen for the next two weeks. From family emergency which makes me to be in charge of feeding the whole family now, including the dishes and helping with the nephew and niece, work also has its way of adding my frustration. Going home at 9-10pm from work was a regular and I came home just wanting to throw myself into bed, not doing anything else. I hardly have time to breath (this is hyperbolic but you know what I mean :D).

But I didn't give up on the cake just like that. The cake I wanted to make has about 7 components including the decoration I was planning to put on it. I originally wanted to make a cake similar to what Aran had made before. She has been my inspiration ever since I found her blog. The minute I saw her post that day, I was in love and determined to make a replica of her creation. The many components that always challenge a part of my brain, the clean-ness of her cut, the decorations, you name it. Plus I still had an enormous amount of meyer lemon juice I had kept in the freezer.

I started on the planning, when should I make the cake base, lemon cream, mousse, and stuff. I woke up super early for two days just to try to beat the time. I made the cake base that she has posted on the blog, but it didn't satisfy me. I guess I'm used to Indonesian-type of sponge cake, which uses tons of eggs (particularly the yolks), very little flour and lots of melted butter, resulting in a light cake but yet so soft. So, I made another sponge cake the day after (this is the day before the birthday), and also the chocolate mousse and the milk chocolate cream. I used Pierre Herme's chocolate mousse recipe from his book "Dessert by Pierre Herme", where I saw the combination of lemon and chocolate for the first time. He has similar cake recipe which uses chocolate cake, lemon cream and chocolate mousse. I have bookmarked the page for almost 2 years now, but never get to it :P. So, back to the cake, I literally gave up the night before. I was really tired that I couldn't make another component. At that time, I was only able to make the cake and the milk chocolate cream.

I made PH's chocolate mousse the morning after and at that time I knew that I really need to buy a cake that day from a bakery somewhere. Which is not a bad thing really, as there are quite a few bakeries that I like around here. I don't normally eat my own cake but I would definitely enjoy it if somebody else made it. So, this is the chance for me to actually eat a cake on a birthday celebration!!! how cool is that?! I quickly changed my mind to not make the chocolate-lemon combination for a few reason. So, I grabbed two 8" layers of chocolate sponge cake I had kept in the freezer (don't you just love freezer? it's just a baker's best friend). The sponge cake I made the night before was too big to be used for anything I will decide to make with the mousse :P, so I kept it save and sound in the freezer. It was enough for a layer of filling and a few mini chocolate mousse cakes (which I did not capture). I kept the partially-done cake in the fridge for a few days as I hardly had time to do anything with it. Until about three days later that I finally forced myself to finish the cake.

So, after not-so-careful consideration and observing what I had in the fridge at that time, the cake was finally done! It was composed of two layers of moist chocolate cake, brushed with strong espresso simple syrup, chocolate mousse and cocoa nibs as the bottom layer, and tiramisu cream for the top layer. Then I piped the milk chocolate cream on top of the tiramisu cream. Thank goodness for the leftover chocolate shavings that I was able to quickly decorate it with the clock ticking. The chocolate decoration on the side as also super quick to make. You only need melted chocolate and a spoon, plus parchment paper or acetate sheet. A tiny white ribbon made it extra cute :P.

The macaron however, was specially made just to decorate this cake. I only needed one pair of course. I couldn't help it after seeing Aran's beautiful macaron she put on her cake that I just had to make it too :D. I filled both the pink and the chocolate macaron with raspberry buttercream. The raspberry one has a square of raspberry jelly in the middle of the macaron. Need to practice more on macaron though, can't get that perfect "feet" and smooth top.

Brought this cake to a friend's place where we all gathered to have this cake as an-after-dinner dessert. I was really nervous at first as I had no idea how this cake would turn out, but I was super relieved when one of my friend took the first bite and quickly said "this is REALLY good". He said that a few times just so that I would believe it (cause I didn't :P), plus "from the bottom of my heart, this cake is really good", haha....Okay....., so I tasted it the day after and to my surprise, I ate the whole slice! I can definitely taste the espresso and the tiramisu cream. The mousse was light, not too bitter as well, plus the addition of the cocoa nibs for that extra texture, it was definitely far from "too rich". Yummm.......The macarons too, were gobbled up pretty quickly. My friend was like munching it and said "hmm....this is good, should make this more often". It was definitely more than good enough for an un-planned cake :D.

On the last note, I'm submitting this for "For The Love Of Chocolate" event entry hosted by Poornima of Tasty Treats