Me-ette

Whaaat?! It’s Thursday, already? This week is flying by! Not that I’m complaining, I’m so glad that the long weekend is just two sleeps away. I can’t wait!

Anyway, this past weekend was simply amazing! Korean-food-induced-food-coma, New Girl marathon, plenty of me-time, catch-up with an old friend who I haven’t seen in a loooong time and a perfect weekend dessert, a Tiramisu cake.

One of my favourite cakes in the world is the Tiramisu cake from Alexis. Although it looks/tastes nothing like your typical coffee-and-liquor-soaked-ladyfingers-layer-with mascarpone-cheese Tiramisu but it’s SO DARN GOOD! Just imagine this - light, coffee syrup soaked sponge layers with luscious cream cheese filling and grated chocolate, coated with unsweetened whipped cream and crunchy caramelised almonds and served with slightly tangy strawberry sauce. Just typing this makes me salivate! Seriously, it’s happiness in a cake form!

So I was over the moon when I stumbled upon its recipe by sheer luck. I was browsing some food magazines at Borders one day and this particular magazine named “flavours” caught my eyes because of its cover, featuring a mixed berry pavlova. I picked it up, flipped through it and I couldn’t believe what I saw - the recipe of Alexis Tiramisu cake provided by Su Chan! Needless to say, I brought it home with me.

I’ve had this recipe for a while now and I wonder why I waited so long to make it. It’s hands-down the best cake I’ve ever made. I almost couldn’t believe I made a cake that good. The husband and I shared a huge slice for after-lunch dessert and each had another slice just before bed. The perfect ending to an awesome weekend!

I’m bound to love this cake. It contains two of my favourite foods - ginger and Guinness Stout! It’s so wonderfully moist and flavourful from all the spices and the stout/molasses brew. The cake’s really sweet so I left out the icing sugar when making the cream cheese frosting. The slightly tangy cream cheese frosting offsets the sweetness of the cake really well. I love it so much! I now understand why it’s Miette’s best-selling cake!

This month’s Monthly Miettes challenge is Buttermilk Panna Cotta! I’ve attempted it twice so far and failed miserably both times. The word “gelatin” has invoked so much fear in me! I debated whether or not to join this month’s challenge but I figured I should give it another go after seeing Athena’s turned out so beautifully. Because clearly the recipe is not the problem. I am the problem. 

So I made sure I understood the recipe inside out and had everything measured out before I started. I was very careful to follow every step exactly as described. And yet, it didn’t turn out quite right. It’s very very softly set(I made some in jelly moulds and it’s not firm enough to hold its shape when I unmoulded it). Although I have to say, it’s a major improvement compared to my previous attempts(no more cream soup this time!) And while it lacks in texture, the flavour’s incredible! It’s very creamy and yet refreshingly light, with a slight tanginess. I think it’d go well with just about any fruit - I’ve tried strawberries, mango, peach and even green tangerine, all of them were great!

A few things that make me happy this week:

- My Tartine cookbooks are here and I couldn’t be more excited!
- Sharing a homemade pizza(with lots of cheese) with my dad.
- Rum raisin ice cream with dark chocolate coffee beans. SO GOOD!
- This lovely blog.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

I had planned to make Miette’s Strawberry Charlotte for Mother’s Day(It’s kinda the perfect Mother’s Day cake, don’t you think? So pretty and feminine!). And I wanted to have dinner at my favourite Japanese restaurant on the eve of Mother’s Day. But as luck would have it, I started feeling sick on Friday. I had a fever due to a food poisoning and slept most of my Saturday away. So, no Strawberry Charlotte and no sashimi for me.

I felt much better on Sunday so we went out for a little family lunch and I had a huge, greasy burger(not exactly the kind of thing you should be eating when you just recovered from a food poisoning but it was so yummy!). Then we came home and J decided to take a 5-hour long nap(he was really tired because he woke up almost every hour the night before and didn’t take a nap all day long). By the time he’s wide awake, it was already late at night so we decided to go grab some McDs for dinner/supper. We haven’t had fast food in a very long time and the husband was so happy. It was so cute to see! And although nothing went as planned, I still had a really great day.

I still wanted cake, so I made this Princess cake yesterday, as I didn’t have enough strawberries to make the Strawberry Charlotte. The recipe called for white chocolate fondant but I used this white marzipan instead(The label is so deceiving! It says white marzipan but the colour is really more like pale yellow/light brown). My princess cake ended up looking really funny, with the fuchsia rose topper and neon pink ribbon. While it’s not the prettiest princess cake, it’s most certainly delicious(except for the marzipan - I’m just not into fondant or marzipan this sort of thing)! I especially like how the raspberry jam adds a touch of tanginess to the otherwise really sweet cake. And pastry cream! Oh, how I love pastry cream!

So incredibly blessed to be this little guy’s mama!

I couldn’t stop thinking about caramel corn after reading my baking buddy’s post about Garrett Popcorn. I’m not usually a popcorn person but I haven’t had it in a very long time(I only eat popcorn at the movies and I haven’t been to a cinema in two years)! The craving became so intense that I just had to make some caramel corn. And I didn’t need to look any further because there’s a caramel corn recipe in the Miette cookbook!

I only managed to find white popcorn kernels at the supermarket. I wasn’t sure about the difference between them and the yellow popcorn kernels that I know of but I decided to grab a bag anyway. Turns out, white popcorn is smaller and more delicate than yellow popcorn. Have you ever pop popcorn on the stove? You should try it. It’s fun(and a little noisy)!

Making caramel is such a nerve-wracking process(especially so when you have a toddler running around in the house. J goes down for a nap at noontime everyday but of course he would refuse to nap on the day I was going to make caramel corn. Damn you, Murphy’s Toddlers Law!), the mixture is extremely hot and it hardens so quickly!

It’s all worth it though. This caramel corn is so good! It’s crispy, buttery, sweet-salty and the peanuts add a nice crunch to it. I can not stop eating it! Seriously, I need someone to take it far, far away from me. I don’t know when will I watch a movie at the cinema again but at least I can always make this caramel corn to go with How I Met Your Mother reruns.

Ahhh I’ve missed baking so much! I’m still recuperating from the vacation(because you know, travelling with a toddler who seems to have infinite energy basically means no rest for this mama and don’t even get me started with the laundry..) and we’re slowly easing back into our routine. I haven’t done much baking last week, although I did manage to make two loaves of sandwich bread and a cake. But this week, I’m in full-fledged baking mode - I just want to bake up a storm! I already have a few recipes that I’d like to tackle this week and I’m especially excited about the cake that I’m going to make for the upcoming Mother’s Day!

Okay, let’s talk about this cake. It’s named the “Bumblebee” because its cross section looks like the midsection of a bumblebee(how cute is that?). It’s basically a butter cake moistened with plain syrup and layered with bittersweet chocolate ganache.

I’ve made the butter cake once before but it turned out quite badly. The cake was so pathetically flat that I couldn’t even cut it into two layers. And it was a little underbaked(although the tester came out clean but the center of the cake still looked too wet to me). So this time around, I made sure I took my time to cream the butter and sugar and confirmed the oven temperature with an oven thermometer but still, the cake didn’t rise too well. I could barely get three layers out of it. The recipe says that the cake should take about 35 to 40 minutes to be done but mine took more than an hour.

Despite a few hiccups here and there, the cake still turned out pretty darn tasty. The husband really liked it but I thought it’s a bit too dense(I like my cake light and fluffy!). If you were to make this cake, don’t rush to finish it because the flavour actually got better the next day! And please, please remember to eat it at room temperature! I ate a slice straight out of the fridge(because I’m impatient like that) and it wasn’t half as good as the one I had at room temperature. I know it’s not gonna be easy when there’s a slice of cake staring back at you but trust me, it’s worth the wait!

I just got back from a little family trip to Melbourne(a week without the Internet was both rejuvenating & torturing!). Melbourne is such a kid friendly city and that makes travelling with a toddler a lot easier. I had so much fun seeing J running around taking it all in. 

A few highlights of the trip - getting real close to some ridiculously cute penguins, macarons from La Belle Miette, pizzas from 11 inch pizzeria(so good that we had them two nights in a row), beef pho at Mekong Vietnamese Restaurant, breakfast at MART 130(crazy delicious grilled bacons) and fresh figs from Queen Victoria Market(oh, how I wish we could get some fresh figs here in Malaysia). 

It was a tasty trip but it’s good to be home. And I can’t wait to start baking again!

Here’s a random fact about me - I don’t like lemon desserts. I just don’t get them at all. I like a good squeeze of lemon juice in my salad, or tea, but not in my dessert. In a way, they just don’t feel as indulgent. I mean, why would I choose lemon when I can have chocolate? And I’m starting to think that maybe the feelings are mutual. Maybe lemons don’t like me either. Everything involving lemon that’s made by me always come out a little disappointing.

This is my third attempt at making the lemon curd. The first time I made it, I didn’t cook it long enough so it was a wee bit runny with a faint raw egg smell. The second time I didn’t stir the mixture as frequently as I should, about one-third of it got overheated and turned into scrambled eggs. And this time? It has a strange bitter aftertaste. I thought of making a new batch, but I didn’t. I guess I just wasn’t up for yet another lemon curd failure.

The hot milk cake, on the other hand, turned out beautifully. I’ve made it a couple of times before, but I always struggle to get three solid layers out of one cake. Turns out, it’s all about the temperature. I recently got myself an oven thermometer and an instant read thermometer so I managed to follow the specified temperatures. And voila, two perfectly risen cakes! I really like this hot milk cake(although it’s a little complicated to make), the delicate crumb reminds me of Japanese style sponge cake(I love, love, love Japanese style sponge cake. Seriously, the Japanese are really good with cakes and pastries!)

I’m not sure if my cake is even qualified as a Debutante cake(it’s supposed to look like this). I did try to achieve a perfectly smooth final coat but it’s so hard for a clumsy person like me(plus, I was really sleepy that time). Also, I don’t have candied sugar flower on hand so I made some candied lemon peels to decorate the cake instead.

The cake would have been really nice, if not for the lemon curd. I don’t know, maybe lemon and I are just not meant to be?

When I was in San Francisco, Tartine was on top of my must-go list. I’d read so many good reviews about that place so I was really excited about visiting it. And sure enough, I loved it(then again, it’s impossible to not love that place)! The husband and I shared a morning bun, an almond croissant and the brioche bread pudding, and everything was so crazy delicious! I wish I had a bigger stomach to try everything!

I’ve been wanting to get the Tartine cookbook and the Tartine Bread cookbook for a while now so when Emily mentioned that she’s giving away the Tartine Bread cookbook via the Food Scavenger Photo Hunt, of course I jumped at the chance! Plus, I love taking photos of my food.

So here are all of my photos. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

I hardly eat candies anymore these days. I don’t feel excited about jelly beans or M&M’s like how I used to(they just scream food colourings to me now). I am over them, really. But caramel is different. Caramel has always had a special place in my heart ever since I tasted my first homemade caramel in Japan(well, technically not in Japan but more on that later).

So right after I graduated from high school, I went to Hokkaido to stay with three Japanese families for a month(you know, cultural exchange). I love Japan and my host families so much that I went back to meet them five years later. I had a great time with them and then it was time to go home. One of my okachan(that means mother in Japanese) gave me a box of caramels from Hanatabake Bokujo just before I boarded the plane. And the moment I bit into that soft caramel, that was no turning back - my love for caramel was instantly developed. They were incredible! I ate one after another and before I even realized, I’d finished the whole box. The whole box. All by myself. Within a six-hour flight. Yup, I have no self-control whatsoever. But they’re so hard to resist! Soft(but not sticky), creamy, buttery and just the right amount of sweetness - so good!

And salted caramel? Oh yes, please! Are you a fan of the sweet and salty combination? Because I am(c’mon, candied bacon?!!). The first person who thought of adding salt into sweet stuff is a genius. Period.

Now let’s talk about these caramels that I made. I’ll be honest, they are not very good. It has nothing to do with the flavour though. To me, the flavour is spot-on. The culprit is the texture. It’s too soft(it sticks to your teeth and we all know how annoying that can be)! I think I took the pan off the heat too soon(I like soft caramel so I placed my emphasis on making sure it didn’t go over 246 degrees F). Another problem with these caramel is that they became a tad powdery a few days later. Is that normal? Well, I might just have to made another batch to find out the answer.

p/s: When the recipe says be sure to use a medium saucepan, use a medium(or even large) saucepan. Cleaning a stove with overspilled caramel is no fun at all!

Pumpkin is one of my favourite foods. At one point of my life, I was so obsessed with it that I’d sometimes eat pumpkin for three meals a day. You know, like, pumpkin oatmeal for breakfast, roasted pumpkin salad for lunch and pumpkin soup with bread for dinner. I was eating so much pumpkin that I thought I was gonna turn into a walking pumpkin(hey, my friend did say that I looked a little orangey!).

This is actually my second time making this pumpkin-walnut cake. The first attempt was a mess and it was entirely my fault. I found out that I was out of vegetable oil halfway through(and this, my friend, is why you should always get all the ingredients measured before you even start). A frantic search on Google gave me these results - vegetable oil and melted butter are not interchangeable; vegetable oil could be replaced by an equal amount of apple sauce or mashed banana. I had some bananas so I ended up replacing the vegetable oil with mashed banana. But umm, no, that wasn’t a good solution. And to make it worse, the cake was a little underbaked so it was slightly damped and fudgey(not in a good way) with a lingering banana taste. It was so horrible that I stayed away from pumpkin for a while. 

This time though, the cake turns out beautifully. I use Kabocha(my favourite pumpkin variety!) because I like its natural sweetness. The cake is very moist and packed with this ah-mazing cinnamon smell. The chocolate glaze’s optional but as a chocolate lover, naturally I wouldn’t leave that out. And you know what, pumpkin and chocolate are so right for each other!

{a bagel tower!}

{wrinkly bagels}

{toasted bagel + cream cheese = happiness}

{toasted bagel + avocado = the perfect breakfast}

Recipe here.

I found Athena’s gorgeous blog via Pinterest. I thought this pin was so awesome that I had to check out the source(so glad I did!). And I found out that Athena’s doing a baking challenge called “Monthly Miettes”. The great thing about the challenge is that it’s supported by Meg Ray herself. Feeling rather intrigued, I decided to find out more about it.

The “Monthly Miettes” challenge was introduced by Aimée of Food, Je t’Aimée. The rules are simple. Buy the Miette cookbook. Bake the challenge of the month and eat a slice of it for breakfast. The first challenge was Tomboy Cake(see the round-up here). This month’s challenge is tarts - any of the tarts in the Miette cookbook. I don’t know about you, but tart for breakfast is pretty much perfect in my book so I just have to join in the fun!

Here comes the difficult part, the fickle-minded me couldn’t decide which tart to make. I’ve already made all of them before and I thought they were all great. And it doesn’t help that I have all the ingredients needed for all of the tarts, except the lime meringue tart. I finally settled on the banana cream tart, the bananas are perfectly ripe and I need to use up the leftover chocolate ganache from the eclairs before it goes bad. Plus, I love having bananas in my breakfast!

I’ve made the pate sucree tart shell and pastry cream a few times now so I’ve become quite familiar with them. Everything went smoothly, and once I got all the components ready, it’s time to assemble the tart.

First, spread the chocolate ganache onto the cooled pastry shell and refrigerate until set.

Then, arrange a single layer of banana slices over the ganache.

Next, spread the pastry cream over the banana slices and smooth the surface with an offset spatula. And then I was supposed to pipe the whipped cream over the surface of the pastry cream but my 14mo toddler was screaming at the top of his lungs for my immediate attention at this point so I just had to quickly spread the whipped cream all over.

Lastly, sprinkle some chocolate shavings on top.

And there you have it, a banana cream tart!

Hmmm, SO GOOD!