Cornish Game Hen

Eating alone tonight so this was a good night for trying something new. It was my first time cooking a Cornish game hen so I just stuffed it with onions, lemon, and parsley and roasted it. Had it with some braised savoy cabbage and butter sauteed chestnuts. I was very full and satisfied after all of it:)

Christmas Fruitcake?

Ok, I was a little misleading when I labeled this as "fruitcake". It is Christmas though, and this is a fruit cake.

This has a coconut macaron base, a coconut sponge, mango mousse, and diced mango and coconut jellies. Lots of fruit on top for decoration, and sprayed with a yellow velvet spray. One mistake I made though was that I "glued" the macarons on the side of the cake with whipped cream instead of buttercream. They ended up weeping a bit so now I know not to do that again.

By the way, I hate traditional Christmas fruitcake. Dense cake with candied fruit crammed in. Not appetizing to me. I do admit I had a very good panettone one time though that was very light; and I hear Thomas Haas makes an excellent stollen!

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas!

Chocolate-y Christmas

A chocolate hazelnut cake for Christmas. I put on some red and white swirled macarons and red isomalt, as well as the marzipan snowflakes for a holiday theme.

Christmas Baking

Yes, I've been totally M.I.A. the past 2 weeks. The combo of all the birthday dinners and christmas baking left me exhausted. Hopefully this will make it up a bit. A few pictures from my holiday baking.

These were molded chocolates brushed with gold tinted cocoa butter filled with a baileys ganache:

Pink Macarons filled with Lychee pate de fruit and rose buttercream (pre-sandwiching):



White chocolate mendiants topped with pistachio, apricot, praline almond, dried blueberries, and craisins. I also did some dark chocoalte ones with dried pineapple but these had looked prettier:


Gingerbread reindeer!


Chocolates that I boxed up. I have salted caramel, chai, and the baileys:

New Bakeries in Town

Two new bakeries have opened up in town in the past month. There's Faubourg in Kerrisdale, and Steeve Raye in the Kitsilano area.

First up is Faubourg. It was packed when I went on a Wednesday around 1pm. From everyone I've heard too, it's always been busy. They have a nice design to the store. Clean, and well organized. Lots of employees. 6 that I could count that worked in the kitchen, and 5 front of house. Considering that this is maybe an 1800 square foot place (including the kitchen), that is a lot of staff. They have 1 display case up front that faces the street which I'm still unsure as to whether or not you can actually buy items from that or not (they had 3 large cakes in it and a high tea board), 1 large display case along the counter with pastries, and a tray of viennoiserie by the cashier.

Pastries looked alright. They were decent but decor was a little amateur. It wasn't interesting enough for me to try any. They had some breads in the back that looked great. Nice baguettes. Viennoiserie was disappointing. I forgot to take photos when I got there but they have tons of photos on their website which is great. You can kind of tell from the photos of their croissants that they aren't that flaky. I had the pain au chocolat and although the chocolate flavor was great, it was pale, not flaky at all, and deflated looking. Coffee was very standard. Considering the prices ($2.80 for the pain au chocolat, $5 for the small desserts, and almost $5 for my Caramel Macchiato), I wouldn't go back. You're basically paying for the nice hangout spot and packaging which I do comment them for. They do have a separate dining area though with a different menu and I'm guessing high tea so I would be more inclined to try that.

Next stop was Steeve Raye on West 4th. The shop itself was so different from Faubourg. Darker, location wasn't that great (my friend and I were the only 2 people there), and only 1 person working there: the chef. No breads, but tons of viennoiserie and a few desserts. They have daily features too that sound great; Strawberry croissant anyone? Or perhaps a pear and blue cheese tart?

Desserts looked great. Polished, modern, it definitely looked like more time was spent on them. I had the Tutti Frutti which got tipped over on the way home so please ignore the finger marks on top. This was a little sweet for me. The top was very nice. Strawberry glaze with shimmer dust, layered with almond sponge, vanilla cream, and a fruit layer that had apples in some sort of jam.

I also bought the Xocolatl that looked really nice. Now this is how you do chocolate decor! This was okay. The top was a little sweet as well but overall it was pretty good, nothing wow, but decent.

The croissants are what I would go back for. Flaky, nice and browned, buttery, yum! This is what I expect from a croissant! They had some with pistachio praline rolled in, a nutella chocolate one, mmm. Many different kinds.

They also have some prepackaged items: macarons, marshmallows, mixed praline nuts, truffles.

The Chef is the son of the owners of La Regalade and apparently worked at Robuchon as well and the products definitely show this off. With prices more reasonable ($2.55 for my pain au chocolat and $4.95 for small desserts), I'd go back. The only sad thing is that the products here are far superior to Faubourg yet there was nobody in here and Faubourg was packed! I'm guessing location is the probable cause here but I really do hope this place succeeds.

Some Warmth

The past few days here have been quite cold and it's not even December yet! With below zero temperatures and snow coming down hard today, here's something to warm up with. A bowl of hot stewed beef. Chock full of beef, carrots, celery, mushroom, and onions in a red wine sauce, it definitely warmed me up.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake

This is a recipe from Johnny Iuzzini's book, Dessert FourPlay. It has a peanut sponge base, peanut ganache made with milk chocolate, a feuilletine centre, and a caramel chocolate mousse. I tried spraying the top with a chocolate velvet spray but I only have the manual mouth-blown airbrush and I got a little out of breath so there's only a very faint spray of it.

Other than that, I'm really happy with the result and I recommend his book highly. It has a lot of great base recipes that I use in my repertoire and the instructions are clear. Pictures are great too which is always a bonus.

Peanut Butter Jelly Time!

I know I've done peanut butter jelly chocolates before here but it's been a few years and I am happy to say that I've learned a few things since then. Instead of filling cavities with just peanut butter and jam, I made a grape pate de fruit (from Welch's juice surprisingly enough) and a peanut butter ganache and dipped them. The result:
The ganache was very creamy and smooth. The pate de fruit was not as sweet as I thought it would be. I do need to work on my dipping skills though.

A Light Dinner

Pan fried sablefish on top of chayote squash, served with roasted beets (mmm...I love beets!) and a yam puree. Delicious and quick.

Coconut Mango Cake

This is something I came up with doing double duty as a friend's birthday cake, as well as a cake for an "Asian-inspired" cake contest; the contest one being in a different format of course.

Inside is a coconut syrup soaked brown butter genoise, with mango chunks, mango pudding, and coconut cream. Outside is finished with an italian meringue and decorated with some black sesame macarons, gold spray, and white chocolate decorations.

Seasonal Salad

Super quick salad made with mixed salad greens, brie, diced pear, and candied pecans.

Nut-Free Macarons

People with nut allergies can enjoy macarons! I've found recipes online using coconut in place of the ground almonds and some with a small ratio of coconut and sesame seeds. Although many people with nut allergies can eat coconuts, they are still considered a tree nut so I wanted to try out sesame seeds.

I was a bit wary as I haven't seen any recipes that use sesame seeds as the full amount but these turned out beautifully! I used roasted black sesame seeds and ground them in a spice grinder (ground to the same consistency as one would for ground almonds) and used that in place of the almonds. Everything looked the same; same consistency, same lift, same feet. The taste was amazing also. The only downside would be that it would be hard to flavour as the sesame taste is quite strong. I've tried it with white sesame as well and it works. Next up is another nut substitute that has a more neutral flavour and colour as well....quinoa perhaps?

Warm Apple Crumble

Apple chunks tossed with some brown sugar, cinnamon, and flour, baked with a brown sugar crumb topping. Delicious with Haagen Dazs ice cream (the best vanilla ice cream ever!).

Bubur Cha Cha

Bubur Cha Cha is a popular Malaysian dessert soup mostly consisting of sweet potato in a coconut milk base. It's great served hot or cold though I prefer it hot, especially with the kind of weather we're having right now in Vancouver.

This would be my first attempt at a Asian dessert and I was happy having it not be a total failure. I cooked the sweet potato and purple yam in the microwave ( a steamer would be better if you have one), and then boiled the taro root. I got a package of mixed beans and soaked those and cooked them separately as well and cooked some large tapioca pearls. Mixed them together with the coconut milk, syrup, and some coconut cream and it was done. Very happy with the result:)

Macarons....Again

366 macarons baked for a school fundraiser. Dulce de Leche, Raspberry, and Chocolate. These batches came out better than ever in that they had the correct feet and didn't have the hollow shell that sometimes happens. I think I wasn't mixing the batter enough before so the feet weren't as high.

Also, thank god for air conditioning or else I would have spent so much time waiting for the shells to dry.

Mocha Hazelnut

Almond dacquoise sandwiching coffee buttercream and topped off with chocolate sponge, mousse, and hazelnut nougatine. I later dusted the lettering with gold lustre dust to create more of a contrast.

More Macarons

I've been on a bit of a macaron binge lately. Here's pistachio on the left and coffee on the right. I've got a big order coming up too so I'll be up to my ears in macarons!

Crispy Skin Salmon

Salmon cooked with the skin side down till crispy, sitting on brown rice and sauteed spinach, garnished with cooked and raw radishes.

Chocolate Dipped Candied Ginger

So this was my attempt at candying my own ginger at home....in 3 days. Normally this would take at least a week, and with the help of a syrup density meter as well. Seeing as I had neither the time nor the tool for it, I was very skeptical that this would turn out. My hopes dropped a little more when there was no young ginger available at the store.

I tried anyways and it actually turned out better than I thought it would. The ginger on its own is quite spicy, but dipped in chocolate, it was great! So now I have about 3 dozen pieces of chocolate dipped ginger and some awesome ginger syrup for use later on. I will say a few things though, next time I do this, I'll use young ginger so it is less fibrous, and I'll candy a whole lot more ginger. No point in spending all the time and effort (and about 2 kg sugar) with just 3 dozen.

Cravings

I don't know why but lately, I've been a bit of a sweet tooth. A little cheesecake here, some macaron leftovers there. This morning, I made some brownies which I haven't made since my product developing days. I threw in some toasted hazelnuts I had lying around just for some texture and had a great time snacking on the trimmings. For dessert tonight, some homemade coffee ice cream topped it off.

Hors D'oeuvres Part 2

Another housewarming, another set of appys.

Cheese puff swirls:




Beet and Corn salad on pumpernickel bread:



Salmon tartar on endive with pea shoot:
Roasted Lamb racks with a rosemary panko crust:

Polenta cakes with sausage and roasted pepper along with roasted mushroom on bacon and sunchoke puree:

Prawns with pesto sauce:

Caramelized onion with roasted tomato and basil:

Beef carpaccion with parmesan:

Hors D'oeuvres

Three months after the actual move, I've finally had an official housewarming. Now I'm sure most people are wondering why it took so long. Well there's the initial "settling in", scheduling conflicts, and then I got to thinking, "Ok, if I don't get this thing planned out and organized, it'll never happen".

So this past weekend, I got to cooking away and here's what I served:


Kataifi wrapped bay scallops with a pineapple salsa:



Crab and avocado salad on Pan-fried rice cakes:

Roasted mushroom with parsnip puree on a puff disc:



Salmon Tartar with orange creme fraiche on crostini:

Crab, mango, and tomato salad on endive spears:


Fruit platter:

Salmon and green onion sandwiches:

Smoked Salmon and cream cheese on buckwheat blini:


Raspberry Chocolate Ganache Macarons:

Ginger Chocolate Madeleines:

60's Themed Cake

This cake was made for a few people who shared the same birthday. They were all involved in the Theatre Under the Stars' production of Joseph and the amazing Dreamcoat. Their version of the play is centered around the 60's so this cake had the usual hippie flowers, some lava lamps, nice bright colours, and my favourite, the Warhol Campbell's soup can.

I'm not typically too fond of using buttercream to finish a large cake because it usually isn't too fond of me in terms of getting the neat sides and corners but the client didn't want fondant to cover. This worked out well though. I made the decorations with royal icing and just placed them on the cake after it was iced. The interior is a hazelnut sponge cake with chocolate buttercream.

Peach and Hazelnut Cake

Hazelnut cake topped with roasted peach and brushed with red currant jelly.

I Love Puff Pastry

Puff dough is a wonderful thing. Flaky, buttery, and what's most important, it makes practically anything taste good. Although I don't make my own puff pastry ( I still haven't even mastered croissant dough yet), it's easily bought in the grocery store and work very well.

These are just stuffed with apples cooked with some sugar and a vanilla bean. Sprinkled with more sugar, they make a good breakfast or snack.