A Big Favor

This was an order from a friend who's sister was getting married the next day. I got the call at 2pm and made it as a huge favor to her. On a tight budget as well, I put this together that night and have to say that I quite like it. Simple but still very romantic. Lucky for her she called on my day off!

Mango Fruit Mousse Garden

A very large mango mousse cake. Mangoes aren't really in season right now so I bumped it up with some dragonfruit and berries for some nice balance and visual contrast. I call it a garden because the decor seems to flow very naturally and it looks as if it's "growing" with the chocolate sticking out and the fruit popping.

Mooncake Time!

 Mid-autumn festival is coming up so I thought I'd try my hand at making mooncakes for the first time. I made the traditional baked kind with the salted duck yolk and lotus seed paste, and the snowskin ones with different flavored fillings.

My first attempt with the traditional ones didn't turn out too well. The dough around the outside was too thick and ended up sliding down the sides during the baking and having a really thick base. These are part of the second batch with a super thin dough on the outside. I think the turned out pretty well!

Unbaked traditional ones up above.











These were the snowskin ones made with cooked glutinous rice flour. Clockwise from the top left hand side is: purple yam, matcha, chestnut, and black sesame

Pretty In Pink Macarons

Raspberry macarons topped off with pink fondant flowers.

Savoury Corn Panna Cotta

This is a great little appetizer for the summer while corn is in season. Corn panna cotta on the bottom with avocado wrapped shrimp corn salad, and sauteed corn. I steeped the corn kernels with milk and cream and blended and strained the mixture for the base and mixed it with gelatin to set. The salad was just cooked corn and chopped shrimp tossed with a light dressing and a bit of tabasco. Smoked maldon salt to garnish.

The Farm

This farm cake is a dark chocolate cake filled with peanut butter icing and peanut butter ganache. The fat chickens here are probably my favourite animals on this cake.

Cookie Monster

A very large Cookie Monster cake for a very lucky boy!

A Labour of Love

Three hours of royal icing piping all over this four-tier cake resulted in a beautiful white wedding cake topped with hydrangeas. It's a little hard to see but the detail is kind of an Indian lace pattern. Very pretty and worth every minute spent on it.

The top and bottom tiers were red velvet with cream cheese icing and the next up from the bottom is a white chocolate cake with white chocolate buttercream. Second from the top was dark chocolate with chocolate buttercream. All delicious!

Tennis Ball Green

These brightly colored confections were for a charity tennis tournament. Devil's food cupcakes topped with chocolate buttercream and "tennis ball" fondant with neon green pistachio macarons.

Cinnamon Buns

This "cake" was for someone who didn't want the traditional cake and wanted cinnamon buns instead. The task was a bit daunting at first but I made it work by making the cinnamon buns with a brioche dough and rolling into logs and instead of cutting them for the traditional cinnamon bun look, baked them in molds. I left one section unfrosted for people who didn't like frosting and decorated it with the birthday boy's favorite hobbies and interests which included a couple mini cinnamon buns made of fondant just for kicks.

Purple and Purple

Different shades of purple flowers to create this bridal shower cake. Accented with white dots and frosted gold dragees.

It's a Jungle Out There

 A jungle themed baby shower cake complete with a hippo, monkey, elephant, and lions. I wanted to recreate the feeling of the different textures and greens of the jungle so I went for a cut and paste kind of effect with the fondant cut outs. I really like the curly hair on the lions:)

An Anniversary Cake

Chocolate cake with an earl grey ganache and hazelnut buttercream. This was actually the second tier to their wedding cake that the bride and groom never got a chance to eat at their wedding so it's very fitting for their anniversary.

A basketball and music mash-up cake. I decided to do a "surprise" cake where the top  three quarters of the basketball will lift off revealing the birthday boy's musical side. Being a rapper, I went with a microphone, a cool pair of headphones, and his logo.

The latest wedding cake. Very simple but elegant. Fondant with white chocolate curls and truffles.

 This cake was one I had made recently where she wanted the infamous Hermes Bikin Bag with the scarf. The bag is all cake with gum paste handles and I even textured the bag to imitate the textured leather.

Wishing all the mother's out there a wonderful Mother's Day with a mango mousse cake!

Catbus and Totoro Friends

The adorable Totoro with his totoro buddies and the magical Catbus. I've loved Totoro since the first time I've watched "My Neighbour Totoro" by Hayao Miyazaki. The movie that started popularizing Japanese animation in North America and made the character loved by Japanese children is put into cake form here. The Catbus is a chocolate cake layered with praline buttercream and crunchy feuilletine.

Cereal and Milk

Froot Loop macarons with milk filling. I love the colors and texture the broken up pieces give to the top of the shell. I wanted to go for a cereal milk ganache a la Momofuku Milk Bar but I couldn't quite achieve the taste so I stuck with a very milky tasting ganache. The filling is the first hit of flavor you get but the middle and end note is the fruity cereal taste for sure!

What to do with Calamansi

Calamansi is a also known as a Filipino lime. I've only seen it as frozen puree or in juice form here before till last week when I was surprised to see fresh calamansi at the local asian supermarket. I had no idea they were so adorable! They have a lovely aroma and are quite tart. I realized after juicing them why the purees were so expensive. The pint that I had bought only gave me 45 ml of juice! I didn't have enough to make a sorbet or mousse with it so I made it into a curd and paired it with red fruits to balance the acidity, and mango. The base is a coconut dacquoise and the cake is sprayed with a yellow velvet spray. red berry fluid gel, mango discs, and raspberry powder.


The flavors worked quite well with each other and the calamansi curd really adds a punch.

Squash Agnolotti

This is my first attempt at making agnolotti. I have to say it could have turned out more disastrous than it did but it's pretty far from the standards we have at work. At least it tasted good!

The pasta dough was rolled out into strips, which took a while because my pasta roller doesn't quite clamp onto the table so I was trying to hold it down with one arm while feeding the dough and rolling it with the other. I made a puree with roasted kabocha squash and onion and piped it along the dough and formed the agnolotti. The sauce was just butter, reduced cream, sage, and cauliflower.

It's a little monotone until you cut into it:

Easter Bunny!

Happy Easter everyone!

Lavender's Blue

My friend had requested a lavender cake and I was a bit hesitant because when you're working with floral flavors, you need to be very careful not to overdo it or you'll end up with something that tastes like soap. However, the lavender still has to be the main note and be prominent enough so that you're not guessing as to what flavor it is.

The base is a thin layer of feuilletine followed by layers of honey lavender sponge and a strawberry blueberry compote infused with lavender. A layer of vanilla custard and then lavender milk chocolate mousse. I did a cold infusion of the cream for the mousse with the lavender and just let it sit for a few days before straining it.

Light purple lavender macarons to decorate with strawberry agar cubes among chocolate soil gave it a very playful and natural look.

Korean Dried Anchovy

Dried anchovies+brown sugar+sesame oil+sesame seeds+garlic=addicting snack!

Chocolates to snack on

These are great for when you need a chocolate fix but don't want anything too heavy like a chocolate bar. I took dried cherries and clustered them together with tempered dark chocolate, then tossed them in cocoa powder. Fruity, chocolatey, slightly tart.

Take 2

This was another version of the lychee raspberry rose cake. The first one I did was here. This time, I covered it in chocolate tiles and had it sitting on some raspberry gel.

Salted Caramel Coconut Macarons

Trying to use up leftover coconut buttercream, I made these:
Salted caramel is always good, but I didn't realize how awesome it would taste with the addition of coconut! Definitely a keeper!

Elegance

I had decorated this cake a couple years ago but never got around to posting it. It was one of my first wedding cakes so I was very happy with the outcome. I remember it took me hours for all the piping because it was such a large cake (the base cake was 16") but it was all worth it in the end.

Cars

The Lightning Mcqueen character from Pixar's "Cars". An airbrush machine would have done a better job with the red so I think that will have to be my next investment.

Inside is vanilla cake layered with vanilla bean buttercream and homemade strawberry jam.

Red Velvet

A classic red velvet cake with decadent vanilla cream cheese icing.

Cherry Blossoms and Tea

There's something about cherry blossoms that's always so cheerful and bright. The pink hues and fluttery petals; maybe makes the heart go aflutter too?

Fitting well with the high tea, this was the strawberry coconut cake covered in a beautiful blue green and adorned with cherry blossoms in various pinks. A little bit of lustre dust gave it that extra girly softness. I had extra flowers so I scattered them across the cake stand and was beautiful.

Lychee, Rose, Raspberry

Pierre Herme's signature "Ispahan" is the combination of lychee, rose, and raspberry put together to make a delicious dessert. This is my take on that. It has an almond feuilletine base, rose soaked sponge, lychee rose jelly, and raspberry mousse. Topped with a raspberry glaze and fresh fruit with a bit of rose chantilly and rosebuds.


Below is the lychee rose jelly. I steeped the rose petals in simple syrup, added chopped lychees and threw in some crushed freeze dried raspberries for some added color. This was delicious!

Raspberry

It's been a while and I haven't really been focused lately so today I baked. Baking always helps me get my mind off of things, focus on the baking at hand. It helps me unwind and is way more practical and productive than just sitting on the couch, watching tv.

I made teeny tiny raspberry tartlets filled with vanilla pastry cream and decorated with freeze dried apricots. I also made some chinese coconut buns and worked on some fondant flowers but I'll put pictures and recipes up later for those. I just love these adorable tartlets. Definitely a one-biter but it's quite a bite!