Mini Bluebird Cupcakes

Really fluffy chocolate cupcakes filled with Nutella and topped with a cute little bluebird sitting atop some chocolate frosting? Now who wouldn't want that.

These are mini cupcakes and I used Sherry Yard's recipe for the cupcakes which results in a very sponge-y cake. After baking them I filled a small piping bag with Nutella and piped in enough into each cupcake so that it was almost squirting out. Topped it off with some chocolate frosting which was just butter, icing sugar, and melted chocolate, though I'm sure just using whipped ganache would be excellent too! The birds took me a while to figure out how to pipe them but just one teardrop shape as the body, a small round head on top of that, and small, flat, teardrop-shaped wings did the trick.
Aww...look at nest of them.....so adorable!

Strawberry and Vanilla Cream Cake

My friend's birthday was last week and I know she loves strawberries. Lucky for her, strawberries are getting so much sweeter now unlike the water-tasting ones a few weeks ago. I decided to go against my French-trained instincts and do a more "Asian" style cake. You know, the usual ones with sponge cake, whipped cream, and fresh fruits.

I made a really fluffy sponge cake with some strawberry puree, split into three layers, and filled the inside with vanilla bean whipped cream, strawberry jelly, and fresh, diced strawberries. Topped it off with more whipped cream and some delicious looking strawberries and it was done! The good thing about this cake is that once you have everything prepared, assembling and decorating is a cinch. Though it's not in this picture, I also made some spun caramel sugar to decorate which my friends loved!

Sponge Cake

7 egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar
vanilla
pinch of salt
3/4 cup puree
1/2 cup oil
2 cups all purpose flour
7 egg whites
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar

- Whip the yolks with the sugar, vanilla, and salt till it forms a ribbon. Add in the oil and puree in a stream, while the machine is running. Turn down the speed and gradually add in the flour. In a clean bowl, whisk the egg whites and remaining sugar and cream of tartar till it forms stiff peaks. Fold the whites into the previous batter and pour into a pan and bake at 350 degrees fahrenheit till springy. Cool upside-down.

Stir Fried Korean Rice Cake with Enoki Mushrooms, Carrots, and Garlic Stems

This is what I had for lunch the other day. Looks pretty good eh? Garlic stems are in season these days and for those of you who have never tried them before, you really should. They aren't as garlic-y as you'd think they would be and after it's stir-fried, it has a mellow sweetness to it.

I love Korean rice cakes. They come frozen in a small bag so you can just cook as much or as little as you want without worrying about waste. And the big plus in this; no need to defrost! Add in some quick defrosting, and quick peel shrimp and some mixed veggies and sweet chili sauce (my favourite!) and you're good to go.

Stir Fried Korean Rice Cake

Handful of frozen Korean rice cake
1/4 of a bunch of enoki mushrooms
small carrot, julienned
1 clove of garlic, minced
4-5 garlic stems, roughly chopped

2-3 tbsp sweet chili sauce
7 quick peel frozen shrimp, defrosted

- Heat up a small frying pan and add the garlic. Sweat a little till almost golden. Add the frozen rice cake and stir fry for 1 minute. Add the garlic stems and carrot and stir fry for 2 minutes. Add a little water and cover to let it stem for another 2-3 minutes. Add shrimp and fry till cooked through. Add mushrooms at the end and the sweet chili sauce. Stir till combined and sauce is heated through. Remove from heat and serve!

Melon Bread

I've always loved Melon Bread (or "Por Lo Bao" as it's also known in Chinese). It has that sweet, slightly crunchy top, and is soft and fluffy, underneath the crust. The recipe I tried out has a crust that's even more "cookie" and the bun itself is very soft. I made half with some home-made azuki bean filling and sprinkled a little black sesame on top to distinguish it from the plain ones. The plain ones here have the traditional cross-hatch design on the top.

Melon Bread:

175 g bread flour
8 g fresh yeast
115 g water
25 g sugar

-mix above ingredients and leave to proof for 2 hours

50 g bread flour
25 g pastry flour
3 g salt
45 g sugar
12 g milk powder
25 g milk
12 g shortening/lard

- mix all except the shortening into the proofed dough. When mixed, add shortening and knead till elastic. Cover and proof for 30 minutes.




-meanwhile, make the cookie dough crust:

60 g sugar
25 g butter
40 g eggs
3 g rum
10 g milk
120 g pastry flour

- cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs and liquids and mix till combined. Add flour last and form dough.



-Take the proofed dough and scale out 50 g each and form into balls. Flatten out a small piece of cookie dough and wrap on the top of the ball. Score a design on the dough and sprinkle with sugar. Proof for 1 hour. Bake at 350 degrees fahrenheit till slightly golden, rotating pan halfway.



And here's the finished product:

A Trip to Ganache Patisserie

The other day, my sister and I went to Yaletown and stopped by Ganache Patisserie to see what new items they had. Unfortunately, they were out of the Pave au Moka so I got this: a Chocolat Canneberge. It had thin layers of chocolate sponge cake and feullentine (tiny, crumbled, wafer-thin biscuits) , white chocolate mousse with dried cranberries, and a chocolate mousse on top. I thought it was good but it didn't "wow" me. Not enough cranberry taste I think.

My sister had this which their Opera Noisette. Their layers were thicker than what I've normally seen but still quite good. It has a good mix of hazelnut and pecan flavour and that feuillentine layer as well which gives it a good crunch. The Opera was also in a very generous portion.
If you do end up at Ganache, I highly recommend their Concorde Framboise. That raspberry jelly layer inside is absolute heaven!

Cheesecake Tart and Rum Cake

This was kind of a last minute improvisation because I had some mango cheesecake mousse left over from an previous cake. I added some chopped lychees to it and filled up some silicone domes to set. I had seen some really pretty tarts before where it was filled with creme caramel or some other type of mousse so I decided to try it with some puff pastry. I made kind of vol-au-vent type thing with it, sprinkled a little bit of sugar, and baked it to a nice golden crisp.

I made myself some mango compote with a pinch of orange zest and filled the tart with that first before placing the glazed cheesecake on it. The sides were showing a bit and it needed a little bit of colour so I took some strawberries that I had and made little tiny balls with my mini melon-baller, which by the way makes everything look so cute and dainty. The little tiny balls of fruit were, as my old chef used to say, "fruit caviar".

This rum cake was a request of my mother's friend due to the fact that she loves rum so much. I had warned her that the rum in here was quite a strong dosage and she said that that was what she had wanted. This is a small version with some slivered almonds on the bottom (the cake is reversed after baking) and it is injected with lots of rum glaze.

Konnyaku Jelly

Konnyaku Jelly is a popular Asian snack/dessert and is usually sold in small plastic containers. Unlike gelatin, which is animal-based, konnyaku is plant-based which makes it vegan friendly. The texture is also slightly firmer than gelatin which makes it great for filling in stiffer molds.

Here I made some lychee ones with some fresh mango, and mango jellies with canned lychee. They were very refreshing and are especially good on hot days.


Konnyaku jelly powder is sold at most asian supermarkets and come in small boxes like this:
This already contains sugar and the malic acid used to activate the power. All you need to do is boil water or whatever juice you would like and pour the powder in, stirring often for a minute or two. Then, you just pour it into your molds and poke in whatever fruits or nata de coco you like.

Another advantage that this type of jelly has to gelatin is that you can put fresh kiwi and pineapple in it without worrying about the natural enzymes in the fruit destroying the gelatin.

One warning though, it does set very very fast so be sure to have all your fruit cut up and ready to go.

Quick(er) Beef Bourgignon and Yam Fries!

Last night, I was craving some beef stew so I invited my sister over for dinner 'cause you can't really eat stew by yourself. Beef bourgignon is my favourite but I didn't have much time to fuss over it and I hadn't bought the meat the day before so I didn't marinate it in red wine like I normally do. This wasn't bad though. It's a good, quick throw together type of dish and it just needs some time in the oven so you can deal with other things.

I thought the dinner needed some sort of appetizer to snack on and since we both love ordering yam fries whenever we go out, I decided to give it a try. Mind you, it was my first time deep-frying at home so I was a little scared that I would start a fire but it wasn't as scary as it seemed. I actually fried it twice. The first time just till the yams were cooked through and starting to brown, and the second time at a slightly higher temperature to brown and crisp. I do suggest cutting the yam "batonnets" slightly thinner though as they will be more crispy. All in all, they turned out pretty well and not at all greasy. I served it with some garlic parsley mayo on the side and it was a done deal.

Beef Bourgignon
2 lbs beef chuck, cut to 3/4 " cubes
2 carrots, sliced on a diagonal
2 celery sticks, coarsely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 onion, diced
1/2 cup red wine (preferably burgundy)
4 tbsp flour
200 ml beef stock

- Heat a medium saucepan on high with vegetable oil and brown all the meat. (Do in batches if necessary) Remove meat and saute all the vegetable except the garlic. Add garlic once onions begin to turn translucent. Stir for 1 minute and add the red wine, stirring the bottom of the pot to scrape up the browned bits. Reduce the liquid till half and add the flour, stirring to coat everything. Add the stock and bring to a boil. Add back the meat and bring to boil and place in a 400 degree fahrenheit oven for 1 1/2 -2 hrs.

Mmm....Camembert

First off, a big thank you for my sister, hundrednorth who took these great pictures (and hopefully many more). Cheesecakes have got to be one of the most popular desserts in all pastry shops and where most cheesecakes use only cream cheese, I found a recipe that uses Camembert cheese in it as well.
Actually, the recipe calls for Brie cheese but I thought Camembert would be nice and it does have a very similar texture so the substitution shouldn't be a problem.

What the Camembert cheese does, other than give it a mild flavour, is give the cheesecake an extremely smooth and creamy texture. It's almost like a cross between the cheese itself and a custard. The smoothness may be, in part, due to the lack of flour or cornstarch in the recipe as well. There is no graininess at all. Just pure Camembert bliss. I topped this all off with some fanned out sliced Anjou pears and caramelized it. A few raspberries just for a pop of colour and some homemade raspberry and framboise couli.

Camembert Cheesecake:

150g graham cracker crumbs
40g sugar
60g melted butter

-mix all and press onto bottom of springform pan

2 oz white chocolate, melted
3/4 lb cream cheese
6 oz camembert, rind removed
100g sugar
100g eggs
vanilla

- cream together both cheeses and sugar. Add eggs gradually, then the vanilla, then the melted chocolate. Pour onto crust and bake at 250 degrees fahrenheit till set. Cool down.

Croissants

Croissants are definitely a guilty pleasure for me. I used to buy them all the time from the supermarket and gorge on the mini ones. There's just something about them...the flakiness, the buttery-ness...mmm.

Making croissants at home however, are a little tricky, time-consuming, and messy, unless you're using a pre-made kind that is. I have to admit the Pillsbury brand crescents aren't half bad. If I'm feeling lazy, these are great. Since I've finally bought myself a half-decent rolling pin though (It's actually not that great. It looks good and is heavy enough, but not quite sturdy. It is however a big improvement to my previous one which was very...what's the word...dinky.) making croissants from scratch aren't that much a problem if you have the time.

Here's the recipe I have for them:

Croissant: yield:6 large

250 g all purpose flour
9 g fresh yeast
5 g salt
15 g sugar
37 g water
120 g milk

150 g salted butter for the tourage

For the dough: dissolve the yeast in the water and add the milk. Add the rest of the ingredients except the salt and mix till slightly combined. Add the salt and mix on low speed for 4 mins. Turn up the speed and mix for another minute. This is the detrempe. Wrap up dough and place in the fridge for at least 2 hours before rolling in butter.

Here's where it gets tricky. The time-consuming part deals with the different "turns" you need to give the dough. You start out with the "detrempe" which is essentially just the dough. Then you have the "tourage" which is the butter. You roll the detrempe into a square and fit the tourage in and fold it like a parcel. Roll it out in one direction. Fold in thirds and repeat the process 2 more times giving the dough a rest in between each time. This is to relax the gluten that form in the dough when you roll the dough.

Once you have all that, have fun shaping as you please and fill with whatever you desire, whether it's cheese and ham, or Nutella, like I've done with mines. Really try out the Nutella one, it's absolutely heavenly. Let the dough rise till it feels less firm and egg-wash. Bake at 400 degrees fahrenheit till completely golden.

Here is a mini one that I made with Nutella: