Green Tea Opera Cake

Super tall opera cake layered with ganache and matcha buttercream:

Hazelnut Macarons

French macarons are probably one of the most finicky cookies to make and I've had my share of ones that didn't turn out. The ideal ones have tall "feet", a round, smooth top and have that addictive chewy texture.

Here's the recipe I used:

Macarons:

250g almond powder

225g egg whites

500g icing sugar

Method:

Sift together the almond powder and 400g icing sugar. Whip the whites with the remaining sugar till stiff peaks. Fold in the almond mixture in thirds and continue to fold till the batter sinks into itself when it is lifted up with the spatula.

Pipe small rounds with a round piping tip (the tip is very important to get them perfectly round) and sprinkle chopped hazelnuts if desired.

Let them dry for 30 mins until they aredry to the touch. Bake in a 325 degree oven with the door slightly ajar (I put a wooden spoon there) for about 20 mins till starting to get golden brown.

Cool and carefully lift off. Fill with buttercream.

Cheese and Wine

Cheese and wine are a traditional pairing after dinner so it's only fitting that they're combined in a dessert. This is a goat cheese mousse with ice wine gelee on top of a hazelnut cookie base.

The ice wine has a lot of pear notes which go very well with the mild goat cheese. The different textures you get when you eat this one-bite dessert is also very interesting. You have the crumble and sandy cookie, the soft mousse, the crunch from the sugar decor on top, and the gelee. The sugar decor is something that is super easy to make and yet looks very interesting and different. I just took isomalt, which is a sugar substitute (you can find it at gourmet food stores or pastry suppliers), and mixed it with some food colouring. I got a more speckled look by not mixing the colour very thoroughly. Sprinkle the isomalt between two sheets lined with silpat and baked it at 350 degrees for 30 mins. Cool down without removing the sheet on top. When it's all cool, just peel of the silpat and break the large, bubbly sugar piece into shards and use as decor.

Pavlova

Here's a large pavlova filled with delicious whipped cream and fresh berries. The pink baby is made out of fondant and unfortunately, the sign cracked as it was being put on the cake but I think the overall cake looks adorable and oh-so-pretty!

Bzz....

Scrapbooking

Lemon buttermilk cake filled with lemon curd and covered in vanilla buttercream and fondant. The party was a scrapbooking party for a ten year old who enjoyed ballet, musical theatre, swimming, and bunches of other activities though I couldn't fit it on the cake.

BC Day Long Weekend!

Whoever came up with the idea of long weekends is a genius! I mean, who doesn't need an extra break from either school or work. It helps you re-focus so when you do come back to work, you're in a better mood and you perform your duties better. Oh, who am I kidding, long weekends are great for having fun and just lounging around the house. The only downside is that they're never quite long enough.

I went over to Gabriola Island this past weekend which is about a 20min ferry from Nanaimo. Beautiful island; quiet, relaxing, oh and the beaches are fabulous.

Here are some of the cool rocks that have been shaped by the waves:

Outside the restaurant that my boyfriend works at were these amazing artichokes. I had no idea that this is what they looked like when they flowered:

And the sweetheart that he is, he picked me this beautiful dahlia. I don't think I've ever seen one this large before!
Basically my whole weekend involved just relaxing in the sun and enjoying the quietness that is very rare in the city. And now I'm back so I have to re-adjust again. Like I said, the long weekend is never long enough.

Quickie

What's one to do when there's a cake order to be done and you've procrastinated long enough to the point where you have a split mind in which one side is freaking out at the situation you put yourself in (yes, it is totally your fault), and the other is frantically trying to get a quick solution that will also result in an awesome product? Well, there's the quickie cake!

Now although I was given full creative freedom as to the kind of cake, I was limited slightly in that I wanted it to be enjoyed as best as one could enjoy cake so in my case, since it's been unusually hot these days, I opted for a lighter cake. Knowing the clientele would appreciate a not-so-sweet cake, I went for a mango mousse cake filled with fresh strawberries and halved fresh raspberries (amazing local ones by the way).

I already had a cake round baked from a previous order so I just split it in two and soaked each in mango puree. The sides are just chocolate spread on an acetate collar and "designed" with my trusty finger. The mousse itself took oh, 10 minutes to make. Chop up the fruit, assemble the cake....another 10 i'd say?

Amazingly, it took only an hour for the top to be just set so just a quick mango glaze and more fresh fruits. And, I still got enough sleep last night :)

Strawberry Pavlova Roll

I got these amazing local strawberries the other day at the market, and when I say, amazing, I mean really really good. You could smell right away driving by the market so I knew I had to get some.

They were very ripe so I decided to make something quick and light to offset this heat wave we're going through right not. This pavlova has an almost marshmallowy texture and was the perfect canvas for the super juicy strawberries.

Pavlova Roll:

5 egg whites

200 g sugar

2 tsp cornstarch

1 tsp white vinegar

1 tsp vanilla

-Whip egg whites till soft peaks form. stir together the cornstarch and sugar and gradually add into the whites while whipping. Whip till stiff peaks form, then fold in the vinegar and vanilla.

-Spread onto a 1/2 sheet pan and bake at 325 degrees farenheit for 30 mins.

Whipped Cream:

300 ml whipping cream

1/3 cup icing sugar, sifted

1 tsp vanilla

-Whip all till stiff

Assembly:

-Invert the pavlova sheet and carefully peel off parchment. Spread a thin layer of the whipped cream leaving a 2" blank space at the end

-Slice the strawberries and sprinkle on top of the cream

-Slowly roll the pavlova starting on the end closest to you. Trim ends with a serrated knife and serve with more strawberries, whipped cream, and or icing sugar

Opera Cake

This was a traditional opera cake with thin layers of joconde (almond sponge), coffee buttercream, and ganache. I covered it entirely with ganache as well because the sides were not as clean as I would like them to be; normally opera cakes would be made in a sheet format, glazed, and then cut and trimmed of all the sides to have that ultra-clean visual but since I had to make it in a round collar, I couldn't really trim the sides.


I have the recipes posted below.

Joconde sponge:

85 g whole eggs

60 g icing sugar

60 g ground almonds

30 g flour

13 g melted butter

-whisk together

110 g egg whites

30 g granulated sugar

- whip whites till soft peaks form, then gradually add sugar and whip till stiff peaks

-fold egg whites into 1st portion in 3rds until mixed. Spread onto a 1/2 sheet pan and bake at 375 degrees farenheit until slightly golden.

Coffee Buttercream:

100 g water

200 g sugar

- cook until 121 degrees farenheit

100 g egg whites

- whip until soft peaks form, then gradually stream in hot sugar mixture and whip till cool ot the touch.

- gradually add in 300 g soft butter and whip till fluffy.

-dissolve about 1/4 cup instant coffee granules with 2 tbsp hot water and add into buttercream

Ganache:

200 g chopped dark chocolate

200 g cream

2 tbsp kahlua

- bring cream to a boil and pour into chocolate. stir until well blended and add in kahlua

Assembly:

-cut 4 rounds out of your sponge. Place one layer on the bottom in a lined cake ring. Add on a layer of coffee buttercream, about the same thickness as your cake layer. Smooth out and place a second layer of cake on top.


-pour an even layer of ganache on top of this and add another layer of cake.


-repeat with the remaining buttercream, cake, and ganache. Freeze and remove collar from sides. Glaze with leftover ganache.

Tiny Lemon Tartst

These cute little tarts were for an 8 year old's birthday. Fresh raspberries topped onto lemon curd gave it a pop of colour and flavour.

Mango Mousse

Here's another Mango mousse cake to add to the pile. 2 layers of genoise cake with diced fresh mango sandwiched with a mango jelly and all covered in mango mousse. Sorry about the bad quality of the picture (though it's probably not too far off from my usual mediocre photography), I couldn't find my camera so I ended up using my phone camera.

Happy Birthday Cakes Aplenty

I have been very bad with updating, so here's some catchup pictures, all of which happen to be birthday cakes! I guess birthday season is upon us.

The first two are the same cake inside. Almond hazelnut dacquoise layered with a crunchy praline layer, then topped off with hazelnut chocolate mousse. Both had to be a bit masculine or gender neutral so I went with something simple and classy.

This cake is just a vanilla pound cake soaked with a rum simple syrup and layered with vanilla buttercream. The Appleton Rum bottle was much more intricate and detailed than I first thought so I was a bit overwhelmed in the beginning. I decided to simplify it a little without taking away from the total effect of it.

I'm not much of a painter and it was my first time using powdered food colouring but it turned out pretty well I think. For the "bottle" part of it, I painted it with a coloured piping gel to make it look shiny, as if it was actually the glass bottle.

Penguins and Turtles

I was at Daiso (the Japanese $2 store) a while back and found these adorable cookie cutters so I finally put them to good use. The base for these cookies are a maple sugar cookie and it's decorated with rolled fondant and royal icing lettering. I love the turtle. So adorable!

The Everything Granola

My sister has been asking for me to granola for her for over a month now I think and I finally had time to do it. I never really had a recipe to make it though, I kind of just throw in this, and that, and whatever else I have lying around the house so the "everything granola" makes perfect sense here.

Let's see, there's oatmeal of course, craisins, currants, almonds, hazelnuts, flax seed, pumpkin seeds, dried apples, honey, a little bit of butter and sugar, and...I think I'm missing something else but I can't remember. Hmm..oh well. So yeah, great granola though!

Jasmine Green Tea Delice

This recipe was from the Indulge book, which by the way is amazing! It's got great tips and amazing recipes with photos. It's got a green tea almond sponge on the bottom, jasmine infused mousse in the middle, and a green tea white chocolate mousse on the top.

In the book, she used green tea to infuse the top mousse but I opted for matcha which I love but it overpowered the jasmine tea so I think if I do it again next time, I'll either try it the original way, or infuse more jasmine into it. The bottom sponge was alright I think but a lighter fluffier one would balance it out more. I served it with some diced cara cara oranges and strawberries in some orange reduction.

Red Roses

This was a cake made for a 35th birthday for a woman who wanted a coffee and hazelnut flavour. I layered chocolate sponge cake that was soaked in a kahlua syrup, with hazelnut buttercream and coffee buttercream and covered it in a pale yellow fondant. The theme was red and the invitations had a really beautiful dark red rose on it so I decided to imitate that with some gum paste roses on the top. Below are some sugar cookies that went along with the cake:

Appy Time!

So yesterday, I completely forgot that I had to bring an appetizer for a dinner party so I had to come up with one fast. I had some frozen ahi tuna steaks in the freezer (individually wrapped too) so I defrosted them quickly and came up with this tuna and mango appetizer.

I cut the tuna into strips and seared them off, seasoned of course, glazed them with sweet chili sauce, and cubed them. Put them on top of cucumber rounds and topped it off with a mango salsa. Quick, easy, healthy.

What I'm Addicted to Now

So you know how yogurt is supposed to be all healthy and good for you and how you should eat it everyday? Well, I never did before. Actually, I always followed that for about a few days before I would completely forget and by the time I remembered to eat it, it would be expired. Anyways, now, I'm completely addicted to it. Every single day. It's such a great snack!

Here I drained some 6% fat yogurt in cheesecloth and then thinned it out a teensy bit with some whipping cream, folded in some berry compote, and voila! Delicious, healthy (albeit a bit fattening, but hey, go bacteria culture!), and filling. I made granola recently and added that in too and it's sooo good. Mmm. But yeah, the drained yogurt really does make it tastier. It's richer, slightly less sour, and it's more....dessert-y.