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. My Tasting Palette .
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. In celebration of food and dining experiences . |
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Exploring and discovering new restaurants Dining and chilling out with my loved ones Baking and cooking over the weekends Sharing my love for food with others
Vanilla bean pods (one can never have enough) Valrhona Cocoa powder Valrhona chocolate Macarons from Laduree and Pierre Herme Madelines mold Pretty cake stands (I only have one and only one) YUZU from Japan! (They taste great in almost anything) A food tour to Italy and France Opportunity to study at Le Cordon Bleu |
Wednesday, August 13, 2008 National day weekend baking I cherish every public holidays especially those that falls on Friday or Monday. Long weekends just feels great! I'll never fail to get that inspiration to bake/cook. This National day weekend, I bbq-ed, and baked, and baked again. It started off with Friday baking for J. My friend, R, gave me a biscotti to munch as an afternoon snack. That started our conversation on biscotti and how perfect those Italian biscuits go with coffee, tea or on its own. I was reminded how I have not baked them in a long, long while. This time, I was convinced to do something different, not the usually almond biscotti but one with lemon, pine nuts and raisins. I found the recipe on delicious days and added the raisins to which my dad thinks that the taste of the raisins and lemon do not quite go while the others think that it taste great. I should have baked it longer cause Nicky from delicious days actually mentioned that she tweaked the baking time as she prefer the biscotti less than "rock hard". I, however, feel that these twice-baked biscuits should be so. In any case, they were great and all finished up by the end of Saturday. I would go back to my almond biscotti recipe just because I prefer the rich flavour of the almonds as compared to the mildly flavoured pine nuts.  Biscotti loafs waiting to be sliced before baking again  Lemon & Pine nuts biscotti On Saturday, I tried a new recipe off Cuisine & Wine magazine for a pavlova. That was supposed to be the light dessert after the bbq since I could not find mascapone cheese for the tiramisu. Sad to say, after 2 hours, the pavlova wasn't meant to be. The texture was not right. You can't imagine my disappointment. In a fit of anger, I poked it all over, cursed it and threw it away. J found me quite scary at that moment. Well, let's just say that I might have overreacted. We had to contend ourselves with grilled fruits for desserts for our bbq. There are just great as well. Try grilling sliced green apples and sweet honey pineapples. You will be handsomely rewarded! Believe me! Sunday afternoon was spent in the kitchen. Chocolate two-ways. Actually, J and I only had the intention of baking the tart since we had remainder sweet pastry dough and a pint of raspberries. To cut the story short, we baked a chocolate tart and a chocolate cake in the end as a result of 'unforeseen miscalculations'. Well, who's gonna complain about having too much chocolates. And so, we ate happily and my family didn't have to worry about tea break snacks. My grandma is one big fan, always nagging at me to start up a pastry shop on my own. How I wish. For now, I'm content with the sublime moments of baking and cooking.  Close-up Chocolate cake sprinkled with raspberries and almonds  Very pretty Chocolate Raspberry Tart  I have never found a chocolate tart that I enjoy eating so much *** Pignoli Cantuccini (Biscotti) Adapted from deliciousdays Recipe source: Biscotti, Lou Seibert Pappas, p.18 Prep time: 15min., baking: 40-50min. . Ingredients (yield: ~30 pieces): 90g pine nuts 100g butter 150g sugar 2 eggs 2 tbsp lemon juice zest of one lemon 300g flour 1 1/2 tsp baking powder a pinch of salt ( I threw in raisins too) Preheat oven to 170°C (325°F). Toast pine nuts in a shallow pan over medium heat for about 6 minutes or until nuts are fragrant and (lightly) browned. Then set aside to cool. In a bowl beat soft butter and sugar until light and creamy, then add eggs, lemon zest and juice. Stir well. In a separate bowl combine flour, salt and baking powder, then add to the first bowl and mix until well blended. Finally fold in the toasted nuts. Divide the dough into two equal parts, form thin loafs and place on a cookie sheet (lined with parchment paper). Make sure they are neither too close to each other nor to the sides of the sheet. My dough was a little sticky, but when I dusted the board and my hands with flour, it worked fine. Bake in the preheated oven for about 25 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven and transfer to a wire rack, allow to cool for a few minutes. Place on a cutting board and carefully slice slantwise into 1/2 - 3/4 inch slices. Lay slices flat on the baking sheet and return to the oven for an additional 20 minutes (same temperature), turning them once after 10 minutes. Then remove from oven and let cool on the wire rack. Store at room temperature in an airtight tin or container. Note: I think that you can afford to bake it longer if you like your biscotti rock hard. *** Monday, July 28, 2008 Chocolate Strawberry Tart: Second attempt  The itch to bake started hit us as I was craving for some good sweets. Actually I was craving for good Thai food- the incredible medley of sweet, sour, salty and spicy that the Thais infuse in all their dishes, but since my grandma was adamant about cooking dinner for the family. Eating out was definitely a no-go. Strange enough, my second craving (yes sometimes, I do have a few cravings concurrently.) was for something sweet and chocolatey. J suggested that we bake the chocolate tart again, this time with strawberries since we conveniently have leftover sweet pastry dough in the fridge. How I love that suggestion! Since last week, we have stocked up the kitchen with a couple of blocks of dark chocolate so we can whip up any chocolate desserts on a whim. The power of forward-thinking! With a better control of timing this time round, the texture of the ganache was better. The only thing to note that if you are replacing raspberries with strawberries, you’ll have to bake it for a longer period of time because strawberries are tend to give out more water when being baked. We modified the recipe slightly by adding crushed almonds into the ganache mixture. It’s a good addition; I think it adds that slight crunchiness as well as nutty flavour, which is welcoming to all nut-lovers. Another desirable fact about this tart is that it can be eaten two-ways- warm or cooled. Straight out of the oven, the ganache center is warm and slightly wobbly. You’ll feel the luscious dark chocolate and the moist strawberry sliding down to the back of your throat. Lovely. Putting it in the fridge and eating it the next day is equally an enjoyable treat. The dark chocolate is firmer and richer, the tart still as crumbly. Do remember to take it out to thaw if your fridge feels like Iceland. I must sit on the fence for this once as I cannot decide which is better. Warm and custardy or cold and firm. Maybe I’ll be able to make up my mind the next time round. Maybe I won’t. *** (P.S Did I mention how great the sweet pastry dough is. Just the right texture and the perfect flavour! I still have one part left for another tart perhaps?)
One word to sum it up: Lovely Sunday, July 20, 2008 The Birthday Tart: Chocolate Raspberry Tart
The birthday tart *** My sister requested for a tart when I asked her what would she like as her birthday cake. I even allowed her to choose from my newly-acquired cookbook- Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme, written by Dorie Greenspan. Of all the mouthwatering chocolate recipes, she happily settled for the “Chocolate Raspberry tart” which she thought looked gorgeous. In any case, a tart is something that I would gladly bake any day. It definitely beats having to bake the challenging low-fat chocolate cake which she requested from her friend.
Happy, happy birthday! |
