buche de noel

Would you look at that gorgeous thing! Possibly the most impressive cake ever. This is from the Dec 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge. I made it FOUR times over the Christmas period - 2 were for dinner parties, and 2 were given away as presents.

Layers from top to bottom: dark chocolate glaze, dark chocolate mousse, coffee creme brulee, praline feuilletine layer, caramel ganache, almond/hazelnut dacquoise.

This wasn't that difficult since these are all pretty standard entremet elements. But doing six of them at one go was no joke. AND it took me ages and ages to find the mould - I must have gone to almost every bakery supplies store in Singapore before I finally found it.

mille crepe

Green tea and white chocolate mille crepe for my sister's birthday. This wasn't difficult, but was very time-consuming. And the crepes turned out somewhat rubbery..

Hidemi Sugino's Charme

Based on Hidemi Sugino's Charme. The original recipe called for griottes (morello cherries soaked in kirsch), so I went out and got some. They were freaking expensive (almost $30 for 400grams, of which only about 220g was the actual cherries) - and awful in the cake! way too alcoholic. So i chopped up some, and mixed it up with chopped canned dark cherries.

Layers from bottom to top: chocolate biscuit joconde soaked with kirsch, dark chocolate chantilly cream, layer of cherries, milk chocolate chantilly cream, another layer of soaked chocolate biscuit joconde, then finally a layer of white chocolate chantilly cream. Topped with cocoa powder, chocolate shards and griottes dipped in chocolate.

quinoa for dinner

Quinoa with carrots, mushrooms and cashew nuts. I ate it hot; it was more like a very healthy version of fried rice than a salad. I would make this again, but perhaps with grilled root vegetables instead of the carrots (I don't like carrots)..

chocolate zucchini cake

something uncomplicated today, after all those fussy french pastries.

i think i have new muscles from grating all that zucchini. the cake turned out a little bitter (cos i ran out of 56% chocolate couverture and had to use the 70% kind) - couldn't taste the zucchini at all, though it was slightly fibrous/chewy. But that could have been because of the wholewheat flour.

this was very addictive when it came out from the oven - warm, dense, with pockets of melty chocolate. we'll see how it is after it has a day or so to sit in the fridge. 

tarte infinitement cafe

This week's project was pierre herme's infinitely coffee tart. Started with the pate sucre tart base, then a layer of coffee white chocolate ganache, then a lady's finger soaked in coffee, covered with more ganache, then topped off with a coffee mousse.

It was pretty incredible how awful everything was on its own, but came together so well. the mousse was very, very bitter, and the coffee ganache was too sweet - but together, it worked.

Also made a batch of his lemon cream for the citron tart. it was not bad, but the amount of butter in it is shocking. I've made something similar (lemon curd + mascarpone cheese) and far easier, that wasn't quite as sour, and was creamier - think I'll stick with that next time.

frustrating cream puff

this was seriously more trouble that it was worth.
this is from the third batch. the first two batches didn't rise well - the roux was made with half milk, and half water, and it only worked after i changed it to just water.
and nothing would keep the damn things crispy! even the biscuit topping!

... at least people liked it... :D

coffee macarons

OMG these turned out alright!!! Feet and all!
The first batch of coffee buttercream curdled so i ended up using the pate a bombe version I made for the opera cake. Was too sweet with the macarons - should have reduced the sugar (or increased the coffee..)