Brioche aux fruits

The rain finally stopped, well, for today. Went for my tennis lesson. It wasn't the most strenuous session I ever had but strangely I was panting badly after only a short rally. It's probably one of those days or maybe the rain has been keeping me away from tennis, enough to undo whatever stamina I had built up over the last week. I was really hungry and tired when I got home. As my editor had a prior engagement with his colleagues, I was left to fend for myself this evening. Not very exciting cooking for myself, so I decided to bake.

Blueberry Tart

Summer is my favourite season. The sun is bright, the day is long, the fruits are sweet and abundant and the mood is uplifting! Except for the peculiarly heavy rain that dampened the mood on some days... On days like this, I just stay in and bake. Today, I decided to bake a blueberry tart.

Summer Berry Bavaroise

After a long break, I'm slowly picking up baking again. I first made this dessert for a friend's wedding. I wanted to give them something delicious and had this idea in my head of dacquoise, summer berry coulis and raspberry bavaroise. I had never made this before, so doing it for the first time as a wedding gift was rather risky. But I took the (calculated) risk anyway, putting in love and care to make sure it was done well. It paid off :) She came back wanting to learn how to make it! So we decided to organize a pot luck evening with some girls.

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.