Spring-Inspired Birthday Cake for Two!

Yes, I am still on a Spring fever just in case you're wondering :). It was only natural when two people had their birthday on the same exact day, one is my brother, and the other one is one of my friends, S, I immediately thought of a Spring cake! The gorgeous weather we've had for 2 weeks (it's back to rain and cold now) is also worth a celebration in a form of a cake.

The birthday fell on last Wednesday, and yes they both were born at the same day, which is an advantage for me really so that I don't have to make two cakes :). Well honestly, the Spring theme wasn't the first that came in my mind at first. It was so hard finding a design that fits both guy and girl, I wanted something natural and since I was so in the mood of the warm weather, I decided to once again go for the Spring theme! It is a bit weird that I used to dislike green color, one of the least favorite color, but now it is definitely one of my favorites. Same thing with polkadot, I used to hate it so much (yes, hate) but now I think they're really cute and I'm loving them! It's interesting how preference change by age :).

Anyways, I probably didn't do a really good job covering the cake with fondant, especially the top tier. My excuse? well, it was on weekday, it was late at night and I was super tired, bla bla bla.... but bottom line is, I didn't do a good job with the covering :(. The butterfly was made from royal icing that I've already had (make my life a lot easier) and so was the bee. It is a very very simple design, but I love it! The finished cake looks somewhat girly still, probably it's because of the pink flowers, but I don't mind (and I hope the birthday boy didn't either :D)

We brought the cake to the restaurant and it is so sad to think that the cake was destroyed (read:cut) in a matter of minutes after 6-8 hours of work, but I guess that's the way it works, unless I want to preserve it forever :). This is gonna be a short post since I'm exhausted with too many events at the moment. It is exciting and exhausting at the same time.

You know what, come to think of it, I made a similar birthday cake for them last year here. It was a cherry blossom theme which was so much inspired by the Spring weather. I guess I'm that predictable, huh? and they will just have to live with Spring cake every year then :). I mean who would not be excited to finally wear sandals and shorts outside? Certainly not me :). I will post the picture of them both later here, they looked almost like a twin :)

Spring Cleaning Part I: Tiramisu and Chocolate Mousse Cake

If you read my previous post, you will know that I like to store things in the freezer, leftover sponge cake, tiramisu cream, mousse, glaze, puree, fruits, buttercream, cheesecake, you name it and it's there. It does save time here and there when I need to whip up something quick, especially the sponge cakes, but it also makes the freezer full. Besides, storing stuff in the freezer doesn't mean that it will last forever, it can only last for a limited amount of time before it goes bad (freezer burn, freezer taste/smell, etc.). So, now that it's Spring, it's time for Spring cleaning! or more like freezer Spring cleaning.

You could probably guess that I had some chocolate sponge, some tiramisu cream that has been mold to 6" round, and in an attempt to clean the refrigerator, I decided to remake this cake. It was created out of an accident, but it turned out so good and was a big hit that I knew I had to make it again, so it was automatic and instant that whenever I had tiramisu and choc. sponge leftover, I would think of this cake. It doesn't mean that you should make it only when you have leftovers though, trust me, this cake is good!

But as the title says "Spring Cleaning", I wouldn't have the exact recipe for it, so I will just tell you what the components are. This cake has two layers of thin chocolate sponge cake moistened with coffee solution (add rum to make it better :D), with a layer of tiramisu cream in the bottom layer, and dark chocolate mousse on the second layer. On top of that, I made milk chocolate cream as well over the dark chocolate mousse (it's very hard to see the line of dark chocolate mousse and the milk chocolate cream from the picture), and a heavy dust of cocoa powder finish it all. I didn't make the dark chocolate mousse from scratch either, I have a pouch of Alaska Express chocolate mousse mix given as a sample a few months ago and I've been wanting to give it a try, plus it's quick and easy! I didn't want to make an over-the-top decoration for this cake either, so I simply melt some dark chocolate, spread it on an acetate sheet, and broke it randomly, it looks rustic, but it's okay. I didn't even bother to decorate the mini ones, that's why the sides look kinda ugly, but it doesn't matter when "leftovers" taste this good :).

This is only part I, stay tuned for the next part, hopefully I can get to it as soon as possible :)

Fromage Fraise

It is officially Spring!!! The weather has been gorgeous the whole entire week last week, too bad I'm stuck in an office on weekday, but I did manage to get a few sunlight on my skin when I had lunch outside for a few times last week. I wish the weather could stay this way and never change :D. Other than that, I was super busy too, you can probably tell that I didn't update this blog for two weeks now. Work has been busy, there are a few gatherings and also I got to watch "Wicked", the broadway show! It was my first time for me watching that kind of show and I was so excited! The show we chose was on Thursday night, there were so much things happening that day that I didn't think we're gonna make it to San Francisco on time for the show. But thank God, we arrived exactly at 8:02, while the show is supposed to start at 8pm. It was warm too at night at SF, very rare occasion if you know the weather in SF.

For the whole week, I couldn't wait for the weekend to arrive so that I could catch up on my sleep, which I proved on Saturday when I woke up at 10am! This was the first time in so long that I woke up this late, especially on Saturday. It was a lazy Saturday, I did not make any plans on going out, I was planning to catch up on my errands too. It seems like a few months is too long to postpone stuff :D. I was determined to do a Spring cleaning for my freezer and my fridge. The refrigerator at our house has always been so full that it would be a challenge to organize the groceries almost everytime. So there I was making a cake as a result of the freezer Spring cleaning process. More on this on the next post.

For today, I'm just going to talk about this simple cake. The name might sound complicated for you but it's only a fancy name for cheese mousse with red berry gelee, topped with a bunch of fresh strawberries and cream. It was Saturday afternoon when my friend, D, called me up and asked if I would be able to make a cake for her coworker's birthday on Monday, and it needs to be ready on Sunday morning, because that's the only time I would get to see her to give her the cake. Hmm... as much as I don't like last minute thing, and as much as I advised her to get a cake from a bakery, I couldn't stand firm due to her sweet talk :D, I guess I don't have much ground to begin with :). So I agreed, and that I couldn't make the particular cake she asked for and I suggested her this cake instead. The reason? well, because I think it's simpler and I think I could manage it in a day, because I have frozen berries from last summer, and because I have been wanting to try this (the last reason might weigh more than the others :P), but she did say that it has to be some berry-type cake. So, I did grant her wish.

I used cotton sponge that I have on hand because I didn't want to or I didn't have time to make a sponge cake. In the future though, I don't think I would use cotton cake as it it too light for this kind of cake. And since I was on a Spring-cleaning madness, I was happy that a few more things are gone from my fridge :). I had some frozen raspberries and strawberries as well, a quick trip to Trader Joe's and Lucky for heavy cream, cream cheese, and a few other things, and I was ready to go to make the cake. I couldn't help to squeeze in an afternoon nap in between as it seemed to be a perfect quiet afternoon.

This cake has an 8" round cake as a base (moistened with Grand Marnier), pate-a-bombe base cheese mousse, a mixture of raspberry and strawberry gelee in the middle of the mousse, 6" sponge cake, covered in Grand Marnier whipped cream, and strawberries. It smelled so good when I pureed the raspberries and strawberries, they are really sweet, frozen when they were at their peak last summer, oh the smell of Spring. I got excited just by inhaling the fragrance of it. There were no mishaps in making the cake other than that I wasn't really satisfied about the overall look of the cake, it might be the white chocolate, I don't know. The pictures are poor, but I guess I'm lucky to still have a picture at all as I was rushing this morning. I think this cake is a perfect Spring/Summer cake as berries are plenty and succulent and not to mention the lightness of it, nothing close of being too sweet. Too bad I don't get to see the inside of it as this wasn't for me.

Speaking of berries, I saw the first harvest of strawberries today at the farmers' market. Usually, the first pick doesn't taste as sweet as I'd like it to be, but surprisingly, the one that I sampled today was very sweet. The color was vibrant (no orange, green, or white tip), tastes very sweet, and the texture is firm. Too bad I bought a case of strawberries the day before at the supermarket already for this cake, which left me feeling heart-broken seeing not-so-ripe strawberries being sold. It was a relaxing Sunday, I was torn between spending the day outside in this gorgeous weather, up and awake in the kitchen, or just take an afternoon nap. Yup, you guess right, I chose the last option. It was a very quite, warm Sunday and I was just too weak to resist.

Happy Spring everyone! Cannot wait to see what everybody makes to welcome the warm weather :)

Hachiko Turns 2!!!

Who's Hachiko? It's the name of my brother's dog. Yes, a dog. Remember this post? She turns two last Tuesday!! which is 14 years old in human years. You might wonder, what's the huss and fuss about a dog's birthday? well, truth be told, so do I :D. They said last year (my brother and my SIL) that this is ONLY for her first birthday and that's it, no more celebration after that, but guess what? I guess they can't help it :). It's probably another excuse for us to have a fun gathering in a weekday, and a cake of course!!! Hachiko is a really sweet dog, she's really cute, smart, curious, and she likes to pretend to be brave :), no wonder we love him so much.

Can't you tell that I'm in a spring mood lately? The lemon tart, the pink cake, and this yellow-green cake! I am definitely excited for Spring to come! Although we still haven't had the perfect spring weather yet, but we're starting to see more sunshine, the day is noticeably longer, daylight saving time begin next week . I picked the yellow and green theme on purpose too, for spring theme! I also thought it would make the cake looks brighter and more cute :). I think this design would be great for little kids' birthday too with probably a little kid figurine as well.

I was planning on making a simple cake, nothing complicated since again, this is for a dog, it falls on Tuesday, I only have Monday early morning and night after work to make it. At first, fondant seems to be impossible considering the time, but last weekend, a bunch of us girls were trying our hands on making Hachi figurine, while the guys are watching a movie in the living room (what a bunch of slackers :D). So, after all the time spent making the figurine, it was only appropriate to make a fondant cake, a 6" round probably, but then I thought it won't be enough to feed about 15 people. So, change of plan, I made 8" sponge base and the buttercream on Monday morning and trying to get off work as early as I can in the evening and start assembling, fill and frost, fondant, etc until it finished at midnight. It is a big cake, and probably too much for a dog (size and decoration-wise), but why not as well make it better if we can do it with a little extra effort, right?

We had lots of fun enjoying Hachi's cake, and a really yummy meal made by our beloved friends. Special thanks to Nana, Marlene, and Annette, Della, and Irene for helping out with the hachi figurine, alf-looking and bear-looking dog figurines. And no, the sheep and the mummy figurines don't belong in this cake guys, that would be for some other cake in the future :). We also watched movie "Hachiko-a dog story", a very sad story about a faithful dog, that's where my brother's dog's name came from. The DVD came out yesterday, the same exact day on Hachi's birthday! What a nice coincidence! Most of the girls were tearing up watching the movie, the guys were probably just pretending to be strong and make excuses to go to the restroom and go upstairs :D.

Hachiko and the proud parents

Surprise!!!

Pink Stripy Cake

My friend, D, had just undergone lasik procedure and I couldn't have possibly imagined if I were her. Fortunately, my eyes have always been good. I can see pretty normally in the day, I just need to wear my glasses at night, when driving, or when I'm outside, basically my vision at night is not as good as in the daytime. While she is okay now, I decided to make her a get-well-soon cake on last Saturday to make her fell better since it wasn't so busy that Saturday afternoon either. Other than that, I was also planning on make a mini or individual cake for my friend L whose birthday falls today on Monday. Just for fun, or maybe because I have been craving some cake for a while, I was also planning on making Indonesian cheese roll cake, so much planning in one day, eh? I always try to make my Saturday really productive and try to make as many baking done as possible as this is the only day I can do this. But little did I know that something unexpected or unplanned could be happening.

When I was preheating my oven to bake my roll cake, I smell something funny coming from the oven. It turned out that there is an acetate sheet in the corner of my oven and it has been transformed to a gooey liquidy mess. Since the temperature of the oven is ready, and the batter was also ready, I had no choice other than just sticking the pan inside the oven and hope that the melted acetate doesn't get worse. I worried so much and I became impatient of the baking time. I guess the cake wasn't completely done when I took it out because when I attempted to roll it, it breaks. Frustrated, I just cut the broken sheet of roll cake using 3" cake ring to make two individual cakes for D and L, killing two birds with one shot :). Plus, I think they will love it more if it's Indonesian cheese layer cake instead of some sort of French/American cake (trust me, it never gets old in my circle of friends :D)

So, after cleaning up the oven by removing the base of it and trying to get the melted acetate off completely, I began to decorate the individual cakes. Ever since I owned Peggy Porschen's book a while ago, I immediately fell in love with her design for her stripy cake. It was so beautiful and neatly done. I've been trying to find the perfect occasion for more than a year to replicate it, but it's either than the occasion was never suited this kind of design, or I that I didn't have the confidence to make it, until last weekend.

What I didn't know is that decorating mini cakes is a lot more difficult than decorating a big cake, at least for me. I think it took me longer to finish these two mini cakes compared to decorating a 6" or 8" cake. The fondant is harder to smooth out on the edges since the surface area is smaller, etc. Peggy uses royal icing to pipe the lines, but I decided to use fondant instead, knowing that I wouldn't be able to pipe that straight of a line. This was also the perfect time for me to try out the clay gun I have been having for a few months now.

In the end, it turned out okay, I was pretty pleased, although the stripe could have been closer, that's my only regret. I put each cake inside a mini white box with window on top and most importantly, D and L were so happy to receive it, and that's the most important thing :). I still want to make probably an 6" version next time and this time, I'll be sure to put the stripe closer together :).

Welcoming Early Spring with Bright Meyer Lemon Tart

The official spring date is only three weeks away, and even though it has been all rain and cloudy in the past month here in San Jose, we finally get a little sunshine this weekend and a glimpse of Spring! Oh, how I miss the sun and the bright Saturday morning, my favorite time of the week. You know Spring is just around the corner when tulips start showing up everywhere, my favorite flower! I got to take my niece and my nephew to their Chinese school this Saturday morning at 9am. While I was a bit lazy driving up north on Saturday morning without having my coffee first, I was really enjoying the drive. I live in the south area, where you can see the mountains up close and in this time of the year, the mountains look very green, especially with all of the rain we've been having. I always have to take highway if I want to go everywhere and I always go pass a huge empty field which is now filled with yellow weeds, creating the most beautiful yellow carpet you'll ever see on a bed of bright green grass. You can also see cherry blossom tree in half and full blossom everywhere, lemon tree and orange tree are so common here in people's front and backyard.

I almost forgot how enjoyable and amazing it is the beauty around us, that we often take for granted. Little things that put a smile in your face, that make your heart filled with joy, and that brighten your day, just like this meyer lemon tart. My fridge is always full of lemons (meyer lemons in particular) this winter, and I don't even have a lemon tree. I got some from friends at church who have lemon tree in their backyard, from my coworkers, from everywhere that I don't have to worry about this particular citrus whenever I need it. Unfortunately, I haven't been doing them some justice this season; notice that I haven't made anything citrus-y this winter. I do have a long list of lemon desserts I want to make, but it's just so hard to find the time here and there, and if I do have the time, something else always come up last minute.

If there are little things that could bring joy for me, one of them is gotta be the smell of fresh-cut lemons in the kitchen, on Saturday morning when I don't have to rush things. The smell just can't be beaten by anything else, well maybe equally satisfying as the smell of fresh-sliced strawberries and peaches in the summer, but oh, it was so refreshing, nothing like lemon-scented dish soap or air freshener can ever compete with. The first thing that come up to my mind when it comes to lemons, it's Pierre Herme's lemon tart. It was almost exactly a year ago (one week shy) since I made this lemon tart here. Despite the not-so-pretty looking meringue decoration that I did, it tasted wonderful and I'm sure many of you agree with me that PH's lemon tart is indeed extraordinary.

I made the pate sucree two weeks before and I kept it safe in the freezer, thawed and baked just when I need it, a great time saver since the dough needs to be rested for a few hours after making and after rolling. The lemon cream is also pretty straight forward, you will need to whisk it constantly for about 10-15 minutes to prevent the eggs from curdling. After that, the blending of the butter that will make the curd the velvetiest and the smoothest cream ever.

I layered one of them with ganache underneath the lemon cream since I happen to have a little ganache in the fridge. This is the first time I ever paired lemon with chocolate and I'm excited to put this combination in another form!

I use a little more lemon juice than the previous one I made before, just because four lemons gave me this exact amount and I also increased the sugar a bit. Instead of topping it off with Italian meringue like what I did before, I simply pipe some whipped cream on top of it. I don't really prefer the added sweetness from the meringue and I much prefer whipped cream instead, but it all really depends on you. I also brushed some clear glaze on top of it, you can't really see it because of the lighting and the angle probably, but it made the tart shiny!

Have a blessed week! :)

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

4 eggs
175 g fresh Meyer lemon juice
225 g sugar
zest from about 3-4 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.

Silk Pudding With Passion Fruit Sauce

You would never believe what I did last weekend, well, I wouldn't. I did trapeze! It's not because that I know I would get sores in all of my body parts like what I have now, but because it's trapeze! I'm not the most adventurous person, although I won't say that I'm boring either, but I do like to try new things within a reasonable limit :P. Even though it is not a life-threatening experience like sky-diving, but still, everyone's scared of heights, and add some swinging to that while you're holding your body with your hands on a bar. No, I don't regret it at all, it's a different experience, yeah... and maybe unenjoyable too, but I'm proud of myself to be able to have the courage to do it. Although it was really hard and scary climbing what seemed to be a never-ending ladder, I did find myself enjoying it at the end and I was even thinking that I could probably do another swing or two.

It is a great experience, and a cold one too. I wish the weather was a little warmer as it was super cold that day in Sonoma, California. It hasn't been sunny at all around here. Cloud, rain, wind, coldness are what we have been seeing for the past few weeks, very unusual for California I would say. My feet were freezing cold and it didn't help when I climbed the ladder too as I couldn't feel my toes anymore.

I miss the sunny weather so much now and seeing the cherry blossom trees blooming with their soft pink flowers, just blew me away. Cherry blossom season are very quick, about two weeks probably and for me, this is the most beautiful time of the year. They bloom a little faster this year, it was probably caused by all the rains that we got, but I'm not complaining. I'm just waiting patiently for the sun to come up again :)

Now, let's talk about dessert. In the midst of the cloudy weather and rain, I feel like a little sunshine in a dessert won't hurt. Besides, I promised you already that I would post the recipe for the silk pudding I made a few weeks back. I made this dessert for a potluck gathering for another family member. Every year, they have a potluck celebrating the Chinese New Year and have a fellowship together and every year too, I make a dessert for her to bring to the gathering and this year is no exception too. I knew that I would make this pudding again ever since I made it the first time at San San's farewell. It is so easy to make, simple, tastes wonderfully light and soft and I knew that they're gonna like it.

For the syrup, you can actually use different flavor, but it just happen that all Asian grocery stores that I visit, only carry this one flavor. Not that I'm complaining as I love passion fruit flavor, but it's better if I have more options. Mango would be good if it's available. You need to use syrup that's not very thick or sweet, this one I'm using is pretty thin in consistency and this is good since you would use the syrup as the sauce for the pudding. The texture of this pudding is similar of not the same as the almond pudding you would find at Chinese dim sum places, but better (note that I don't like almond flavoring in all kinds of dessert :D). No need to use your teeth to chew as it would just melt in your mouth. Yes, it is soft like that.

The ingredients are very simple, but they might not be familiar for non-asian.

Silk Pudding with Passion Fruit Sauce

1 package (7 grams) agar-agar (Indonesian agar agar)
1 can of sweetened condensed milk
1800 ml water
Passion fruit syrup

Mix the water, condensed milk and agar2 in a saucepan and bring to a boil over a medium heat. This will take a while, stir often as to prevent the milk mixture to be separated. When it comes to a gentle boil, remove from the heat and pour in a mould. I use 9x13" pyrex glass mould and it fits perfectly.

Let the pudding sit at room temperature until at least the steam has gone. Transfer it to the refrigerator and chill until set, about 3 hours at least. Cut into squares using knife, or if you're using small/mini mould, no need to cut them.

Pour enough syrup to cover the surface of the pudding. Shake the pan gently to let the syrup to go down in between the cuts. Add more syrup as needed, but don't go overboard as it will be too sweet. Put the pudding back in the fridge and chill for at least another four hours to let the syrup penetrates the pudding. You can scatter some fruits on top. I used raspberry but mango or any fruits should work well. Serve cold.