Profiteroles

Profiterole - it’s a choux pastry ball filled with pastry cream (whipped cream, ice cream etc.) garnished with chocolate sauce or caramel sauce. To prepare good profiteroles is rather tricky; it’s sensitive to the amount of liquid (water, milk or eggs) in it. Too little liquid the pastry won’t rise, too much of it the pastry will just collapse. I’ve made profiteroles a couple of times in class. Each time, the amount of eggs added varied, depending on how long the liquid had been boiled, to adjust the consistency. 

Chocolate Soufflé

I invited some friends (a jazz singer, a musician and a boxer) over for dinner today. I was having trouble deciding what to cook. My menu changed from lamb, steak, fish... finally my editor decided for me - chicken rice, a typical food you find in Malaysia and Singapore, should be nice for my Hungarian, Venezuelan and Dutch friends ;) For dessert, I chose chocolate soufflé.

Croissant

Waking up to freshly baked croissants is heavenly ;) It’s all I want on some Saturday mornings ;) This was my first attempt after procrastinating for months, well, nothing new. Never mind, procrastination and hesitation are history now and I started getting my hands dirty. First, the dough. Happily measuring all the ingredients in the mixing bowl according to the recipe, some time passed, my dough was still very wet and sticky.

Macarons!

Oh macarons, macarons… so what’s the fascination with these French meringue-like cookies? The first time I had them, well, I honestly don’t quite remember when (who does? It’s irrelevant), but it was quite heavenly. I was fascinated by the assorted macarons displayed in the shop window - so delicate, so cute, so colourful. I was very excited that I finally got to learn the secret behind the macaron!

Custard Cream Pastry

I have been procrastinating to bake millefeuille, meaning thousand leaves, because I was afraid that I’d get disappointed if the puff pastry didn’t rise, also I was more interested in playing tennis in the sun than to stay in-door to bake ;). Well, I think I have put it off long enough, it’s time to confront it!

Carrot Cake

I have been lazy since coming back from Cuba. Still trying to recover from the surreal holiday. I had such a great time in Cuba! It was unpretentious, laid back, rough and exciting! The scenery changed from one city to another - from lush Vinales, to pretty Trinidad, charming Camaguey and beautiful and lively Havana. Coming back to normality was a little difficult but

Orange Day

* Why Orange? see previous post on "Orange Toque? Find out on Queen’s Day"

It took me a while to get up this morning, was still recovering from jet-lag after two weeks in exotic Cuba. Or perhaps I was trying to escape from the Queen’s Day sale that I had been planning for weeks. I was a little bit hesitant; I had nightmares thinking that I just may have to eat all the financiers myself!