Baileys Tiramisu

Having good friends is a wonderful thing and lately, there are so many things worth celebrating. A friend of mine and my sister in law (which happens to be in the same circle of friends) were pregnant and we're throwing them a get-together to celebrate it. Unfortunately, as much as I want to, I couldn't make a cake for them :( due to some reason. But I guess it was okay since there were so many food that night, good food that is.

Holiday season also means more celebrations. We had thanksgiving (for which I didn't cook or bake since I was away), Christmas for sure, and lots of birthdays! This time, it's John's turn, one of my good friends at work. I literally had a headache for two days trying to come up with a cake, preferably something I've never tried before and something I've been wanting to try, but not so overly complicated, and the most important thing is, it has to taste great!

I know him pretty well to know that he doesn't like chocolate, so chocolate cake is out of the list. He loves coffee and fruit-flavored cake. We're pretty much shared the same taste in food. I thought of making a light cake with yogurt mousse, white peach, strawberry mousse, along that line, but the weather wasn't really supporting at all. It has been really cold here in San Jose, dark, cloudy, and rain at times, typical winter weather. I dont think that yogurt mousse cake would be suitable for the weather. As much as I adore light and fruit stuff, with this kind of weather, all I was thinking was something with coffee, chocolate, banana, caramel, tea, citrus flavor. It's interesting to know how weather can affect your mood and your selection of food :).

It wasn't until Saturday evening that I decided that I'll just make tiramisu. You would probably know by now that I'm such a sucker for tiramisu, really. I don't know how many times I have declared my love for tiramisu in this blog, but I'm pretty sure you got the idea :). But don't get me wrong, I didn't decide this solely for this reason, but one thing for sure, if the guy loves anything other than his family and friends, it would be his booze (no worries, he's not an alcoholic though)! Plus, there will be no baking involved since I can just buy a store-bought lady finger (Savoiardi). I was thinking of making it a cake version with chocolate cake (he wouldn't mind), but the idea went away when I thought that I had to bake some :). I'll blame it on the weather for this as it makes me want to cozy up under my blanket the whole day, not doing anything. So tiramisu was perfect as it was quick, boozy, and who doesn't like tiramisu anyway? To make it different, I used Baileys Irish Cream instead of the usual rum. I've always wanted to try this, but ended up using rum everytime. I guess I was too scared :(.

I was also using this opportunity to try out my new baking tool, cake textured sheet. I just spent a lot buying some baking stuff online. While they definitely would add to my growing baking tools at home, I felt kinda bad for it :(. This one is one of the things I bought. Cake textured sheet is basically just like a textured sheet plastic. It comes in probably a little bigger than a half-sheet pan size, so I had to cut it to fit 8" square pan. I used my 8" square pan for this as my square cake ring is too short. The cake has to be completely frozen before you can peel the plastic off. I tried removing it after about 3 hours in the freezer, but some of the the cream stuck on it. I really like the look of it after I dusted cocoa powder on top and put some gold dragees. Ever since I used Valrhona cocoa powder and high quality chocolate (I use Valrhona, Callebout, or El Rey), I'm never going back to the standard grocery store chocolate and cocoa powder. Valrhona cocoa powder has deeper cocoa taste to it, it's rich in flavor. Tiramisu is definitely one of the more expensive cakes in my repertoire :D.

Fortunately, everybody liked the cake and the appearance of it (phew!). It's a little sweeter than the one I made with rum, I guess it's because Baileys is sweet and it's adding some sweetness to the overall cake. I'm glad that the cake wasn't too boozy as the last time I made tiramisu with rum, I went overboard with the rum and almost got everybody at work drunk :P. Overall, the tiramisu is equally good with Baileys, but if I have to choose, I think I like the rum version better :)

I made the leftover cream into this mini version with chocolate sponge drenched in the espresso/baileys mixture

Taking Red Velvet to A New Level: Red Velvet Cake with White Chocolate Cheesecake Filling and Mascarpone Frosting

When my friend Yanni called me the other day (more like a few weeks ago :P) and asked if I would be able to make a birthday cake for two of her bible study group friends, I couldn't say no (I don't think I'd ever could). She specifically asked for a red velvet cake, which was making me paused for a second there as I wouldn't expect her to pick that cake. Red Velvet Cake is a type of American cake and I was never a fan of a dense (although it's moist) cake, with loads of food coloring added, encased in painfully sweet cream cheese frosting. If you read my blog regularly, you would know that I'm all about soft, spongy and light cake that won't make you feel sick after eating it, but more like a palate cleanser. Nothing against American cakes though as I really think it can be good as long as it is not super sweet (blame my Asian heritage :D).

So I asked her if she would be okay if I put some twist on the cake, meaning that it won't be the traditional red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting, but something lighter and hopefully better :). She gave me all the freedom to twist it all I want (thanks Yanny, you're the best!) since her bible study group is a dessert lover, they will gobble anything as long as it tastes good :).

As soon as she said ok, my mind started to work hard trying to come up with something good. I googled red velvet cake and see what other people had came up with. While most of them made it with the traditional cream cheese frosting, I found one or two people that were trying to replicate "Stefanie's Ultimate Red Velvet Cheesecake" from Cheesecake Factory. I have never had it before but the idea sounds really intriguing. Imagine a cheesecake layer sandwiched in the middle of two moist red velvet cake. So I took the idea and tried to come up with my own twist, but still not taking all of the traditional elements of red velvet cake. I wanted to incorporate white chocolate, cream cheese, mascarpone, and heavy cream instead of butter for the frosting, but it sounds like there's a lot going on in one cake. But I made it anyway :D and finally came up with red velvet cake with white chocolate cheesecake filling in the middle and frosted with a combination of cream cheese and mascarpone frosting lightened with whipped cream.

This would be the second time I'm making red velvet cake and after a few days of research of the history and quite a few different recipes, I decided to recreate "Cakeman Raven" RVC recipe. I actually watched the episode where I think it was a throwdown and he won. I made the RVC the first time using the same recipe actually, but it wasn't what I expected since it turned out to be a salty RVC. Yes, I totally forgot to put the sugar in :P and everything ended up in a trash. But from what I have remembered, the textured was actually pretty good, not too dense and moist. I baked the white chocolate cheesecake first and after cooling in the fridge overnight, I transferred it to the freezer so that it would be easier to unmold (I used regular cake pan to bake the cheesecake in).

Since it was pretty cold lately, the frosting firmed up quickly. The cream cheese won't soften as much as during summer time and even after I microwaved it and beat it for a few minutes, it was still cold and it makes it harder for me to fold the whipped cream in. The end textured looked like a firm cream cheese frosting which makes it easier to frost as it's not runny. I thought I would need a cake ring to hold it in place until the frosting firmed up in the fridge overnight, but no need. I covered the sides with white chocolate shavings and topped it with white chocolate curls. It's my first time that I was successful in making white chocolate curls (thanks to winter weather :D). I used my marble board to do it although you can also use the back of a sheet pan. I didn't even have to refrigerate it, I just let it sit at room temperature (which as about 60-63F in my kitchen that morning) until I felt it was the right texture. It needs some trial and error for you to determine the right consistency or temperature of the chocolate to be curled up. I can't wait to do this with dark chocolate when I'm making something chocolaty.

I added red maraschino cherry to add some color to it. The idea was to make it christmas-themed. The white chocolate was supposed to represent the snow, and the red cherry was just a christmas color and to make the whole thing popped. I don't know if I executed correctly though :). I really don't know what the inside looked like as I forgot to ask Yanni to take a picture of it. But I have some red velvet cake left and some cheesecake filling that are now sitting peacefully in the fridge. I'm just waiting for the right time to make it :).

Espresso and Chocolate Mousse Cake with Cheesecake Filling

This was a week before Thanksgiving a few weeks ago that I received an email asking if I would be willing to make a cake for birthday party. Long story short, what I thought to be "a cake" turned out to be "a couple of individual cakes". They wanted 8 individual cakes with espresso and cheesecake flavors in one cake. I had to think really hard for a combination of the two that would actually work and how to incorporate it together and I finally suggested this cake, espresso and chocolate mousse cake with cheesecake filling and they agreed.

Little did I know that I would be really busy at work before Thanksgiving holiday, and I was gone the whole 3 days of the holiday for a retreat. The cakes were for Sunday afternoon and I came back home on Saturday afternoon. You would think that I would have plenty of time to make everything, and I thought so too, but flu came without notice. It was probably because I was out in the cold and slight raining for about two hours on the day before and my roommate was sick too, not a good combination I tell ya :). I did took a nap for a few hours after I got back home, but it didn't help much. It wasn't a fever, it was a sore throat, congested nose, headache, and ache all over my body (we had days packed of activities in the retreat), but don't worry, none of the virus was transferred to the cake in the making and I was really making sure of that :).

Fortunately, I already made the chocolate cake base and the cheesecake filling before I left and wrapped them really well in the freezer. It would make it easier for the cheesecake to be inserted in the cake as well. The sponge base was moistened with brandy mixture. I wasn't going to put the chocolate fence around the cake because I wanted the cake to show the different layer of chocolate mousse and espresso mousse, you can't really see the cheesecake filling since I put it in the middle of the mousse, smaller in diameter. But as wish would have it, there are some air bubbles showing and making it not perfectly smooth. So, the chocolate fence was a last minute decision. It wasn't what I envisioned it to be but I guess it was ok.

I was just glad that I could finish the cake in time and maybe I was also glad that it was for Sunday and not Monday because I could hardly stand that day. I'm so glad to hear that they all loved the cake afterwards. In the end, that's just all I wanted to hear :). Happy belated Thanksgiving!

Blueberry and Cheese Mousse Cake

I hope I haven't bored you with cakes by now as I still have a couple of other cakes on my archive to be posted. I know I should have posted it as soon as I made it as it's still fresh in my mind, but most of the time, it's very difficult to do.

Anyways, onto the cake now.
It was my good coworker friends, Tony's and May's birthday a few weeks ago. It was actually two weeks apart but due to time limitation, I combined the cake on the second birthday. I feel grateful to have such good friends at work. They're not just coworkers to me, in fact, I don't work often with some of them at work, but they are my good friends and I won't take it if they order a birthday cake from somewhere else :D. Well, with exception of course, but I do want to bake their birthday cakes if I can and I'll try to. We don't usually see each other at work, other than lunch time, but it was the time where we "bond" I think, that includes joking, story-telling, even arguing. We are completely different individuals but for some reason we became good friends and I'm thankful for that.

It was one of busy weeks and I had to come up with something quick and doesn't need a long time to make but still tastes good, a new cake I've never tried before is preferred :). But one thing leads to another and I decided to make this cake. I always love the combination of cream cheese and blueberry. I made the combination a few times before but I wanted to make something different with these two flavors, in terms of texture.

So here's what I came up with. I made blueberry compote with lemon juice, zest, sugar, and gelatin. The blueberries I had was very sweet and didn't need much sugar, it was very fragrant as well. Next, I made cheese mousse, which was based on pate a bomb. I usually made a quick cheese mousse with just cream cheese, sugar, gelatin, and cream, but I wanted to try something different and see if I can notice the difference. I think mousse made with pate a bomb base has better texture, although it is definitely more time consuming to make, involving boiled sugar syrup. I had some difficulties when I made this cake. Other than that I burnt my hands twice, it was cold in my kitchen that night and after beating the cheese until soft, I let it sit at room temperature for a while, about two hours because I needed to do something else. When I was about to fold the cream with the cheese, the cheese was cold and was harder to mix with the whipped cream. You can see little bits and pieces of solid cream cheese in the picture. Oh, and I forgot to put the gelatin in!!! First time I've done this. It was late already and I couldn't wait to rush to bed, but fortunately, the mousse held up well. The base was two layers of cotton sponge cake which I always use with blueberry and cheese combination.

The farmers' market was out of blueberries the day before when I was looking for it to decorate my cake with and I only had a handful of frozen blueberries left in my freezer. I thought hard of how to make it look nice, but it was one of those days when you really can't think of anything, you just run out of ideas. As you can see, the decoration is very poor and I'm not happy at all. Even the chocolate on the side had problems. Originally, I was about to do woodgrain pattern on the white chocolate sheet, but the dark chocolate set up too quickly (again, it was cold and this time was early in the morning) that it clogged the woodgrain pattern tool. So I scrapped everything off and started everything again and did a plain white chocolate sheet. I wrapped it in ribbon to make it more "colorful", and not too plain and boring.

There was another friend that has ordered a guava cake from a bakery. I couldn't actually make it to the celebration as I has my weekly meeting that day but I made it clear to them to save me a piece (a big one) of the guava cake as I was SUPER eager to try it. Sure enough when I came back to my cube, there was a HUGE piece of hot pink-colored cake waiting in my desk. From what I heard, my cake was gone so quickly and everybody loved it as it was really light and not too sweet at all. Phew... I was relieved, and I actually ate a little spoonful of it from my friend's plate. I definitely need to work on my cake decorating skill, but as long as my friends like it, that's all that matters the most right? Happy Birthday dear Tony and May!

Gift Box Cake

This one is another cake I made for a friend's birthday. It was actually requested by the wife for her husband. The birthday was on weekday so I had to pull an all-nighter and early bird to complete this cake. It might look simple to you, but fondant cake is never simple to me. If you're here in my kitchen, you would see that all tools are out and the table is full of fondant stuff and covered in white powdered sugar.

She wanted a gift box cake, which I thought was pretty simple, round with simple bow on top. I always thought that gift box cake is a really boring cake. It is simple but it's boring. It's just my thought, so I decided that I'd make it not too standard at least. Knowing that I didn't have much time to spare (I don't usually do fondant cakes on weekdays for a reason :D), I had to manage my time wisely and decide what did I need to make at night, or in the morning, making sure that I gave enough time for the bow to dry out and everything.

I was always curious of those gift box cake that has "lid" on top of them. I don't know how they can make it so perfect, perfect cut and finish, and perfectly straight. This is something about fondant, you have to make it perfect for the expected look or it won't like nice. I gathered my strength and decided to make one of those even though I knew exactly nothing about how to do it. I also wanted to do a diamond pattern in the middle because I felt like I needed to practice this as well. The one I did before for a wedding cake wasn't really satisfactory to me, so I wanted to learn more. I used a diamond cutter before to embose the fondant but this time I used a stitcher (I don't know what the exact name) with a roller to make the pattern. But I made it too big and I couldn't re-do it since the fondant was already applied on the cake. Oh, and for some reason that night, I had to roll and re-roll the fondant for four times!!! It wasn't enough the first time, and for a couple of times after that, the bottom sticks and torn up. I don't think I had energy left to finish the cake but I did fortunately.

I made two kinds of bow actually, the regular ribbon bow and this kind of bow but I felt like the ribbon kind is way too girly (and this is for a guy) so I decided to use this instead. I didn't make enough loops so I can only do a layer of it, and not a full loop ribbon (if you know what I mean), but I guess it turned out okay. It was simple and nice I think. The inside was Indonesian cheese layer cake that seems to be a favorite among my Indonesian friends :). I hope the cake adds up a little more joy to the birthday celebration. It's always a joy and a blessing to be a part of something special even if it's just through a cake :)

Guava and White Chocolate Mousse Cake

This cake was actually made short after the previous cake for another good friend of mine, Hengky. Their birthday is only three days apart and every year, we always combine the celebration including the cake. So we usually pick the day in the middle of the two birthdays od pick one of them, depending which one falls on weekend. They were always okay with it (I think, it's not like they have a say in this :D), but this year, they clearly said that they wanted a separate birthday a few weeks prior to their birthday. So, that means two cakes, two celebrations, two everything, sigh..\. One of the reasons that I got from them is that they wanted two cakes, they don't want a combined cake (talk about spoiled again :P). H like cheesecake in particular, while A likes pretty much everything.

This one was no different than the previous one, I mean he literally said that I need to be creative and surprise him with something that he didn't expect. I thought he was going to say that he wanted cheesecake for sure because he's been talking about it for several times already. So I wasn't really worried since cheesecake is easy, but after he said that I should be creative, my brain started to work hard. When someone gives me that opportunity to be creative, I'll think of something that I've never tried before, but this time, I chose something that I've already made previously, twice!

Remember the two guava cakes I made before, here and here? If you read those posts before, you would know that I wasn't satisfied with the result. I mean the cake tasted great, it's just that I barely tasted the guava flavor. I used guava extract for the first one (which tasted like candy), and guava juice concentrate for the second one (this one has a bright pink color but nothing taste like guava). I think I mentioned this before, but I brought back some pink guava puree from Indonesia that I pureed myself. The color was so vibrant and sweet, and strong and I was saving it for special occasion. Well, I think it's time for me to use it. Things didn't go as well as I thought, mainly because of the grainy texture of guava puree. If you've had guava before, you would understand the "grainy texture" that I'm talking about. I didn't notice it when I pureed it back then but when I thawed the puree, the juice actually separate from the pulp and I ended up using the pulp only. You can see from the picture above the grainy bits in the mousse. This is not what I had imagined. I imagined a soft pink mousse that smooth and creamy and light. The texture was really bothering me, and I mean REALLY bothering me the whole night and the whole day after, but there's nothing I can do about it. All I could do was just wished that the taste is fine. Oh by the way, the inside is a base of joconde with white chocolate mousse in the bottom layer, then goes the second joconde with smaller size 6" (I had this in my freezer :D), and on top of it is thin guava jelly, and guava mousse on top of that. The top surface was glaze with clear glaze.

I brought it to another friend's house, where the dinner was held and gave it to someone to put in the fridge. When the dinner was over, I was looking for the cake because it hasn't even decorated yet, the cake ring was still intact (yes, I was that busy) and I was gonna finish everything off before the cake cutting. I couldn't find the cake in the fridge and to my surprise, they put it in a room temperature under a hot lamp for about one hour!!! I almost passed out. I knew that the white chocolate mousse needed more gelatin and that it's not firm enough, let alone letting it sit under hot lamp for an hour??? Luckily the cake ring is still there and so there's something that hold it in place. After giving a short "speech" to some people not to let a mousse cake sitting at room temperature, I began decorating it. As expected, the mousse was really soft even after I put it in the fridge for ten minutes. I know it won't help, but that's the longest time I can put it in there since everybody was waiting.

The cake was still super soft when cut, and thus making it look ugly. I couldn't stand watching it butchered but I'm still glad that everybody liked it, except one person that's skeptical about anything irregular (he didn't even taste it). Oh well, his loss as the cake was well-received by everyone. Well, we come from the same tropical country and I know for sure that we do love this exotic fruit. I still have some puree left that I planned to make guava chiffon cake with it sometime. But I'm still curious about the texture though. I'm going to order those pink guava puree online and see it they have the same texture. Only then I can rest assured that my guava puree was normal :). Anyways, Happy Birthday Hengky!

ps: Sorry for the bad picture quality. It was really difficult to get a good shot at night

Caramel Mousse Cake with Flambeed Bananas and Creme Brulee Filling

Early November is always a busy time for me as so many birthdays are happening in the first two weeks of November. We have quite a few people among our group of friends, and when you have about 15 of them or so, you will need to make lots of birthday cakes! Sometimes I wonder if it's a mistake giving your friends so many cakes to try. At first, I thought that I had the advantages because I'd have "victims" for all of my experiment cakes, but maybe it is not always true. You see, when you spoiled them with many cakes, their taste buds started to grow and become more picky. They know what they like and what they don't and that's when you know that they're really spoiled.

It was Aldo's birthday this time, it was on November 6th. Having eaten so many of my cakes, this guy knows enough to know that I really like to use strawberries and raspberries and its friends, especially during summer. You can really tell by the amount of pink cakes I have on summer. You won't see any chocolate or caramel or winter flavor at all when summer is here. So I guess he got a little tired of it and requested that his birthday cake must be different. He allowed me to experiment but not with fruits again, the exact words that he said was "surprise me". Oy! But okay, I guess it's an opportunity for me to get a headstart on fall flavors. To be honest, even though I have the advantage of finding berries pretty easily at this time of the year in California, I got pretty tired of it too. I'm ready for something different and for some reason, I always thought that caramel is the perfect flavor for fall.

I made caramel mousse once before but the caramel flavor wasn't too pronounced, although overall, the cake turned out great. I wanted more this time so I began to think of what other flavors go great with caramel. I immediately thought of banana, and creme brulee too. Since I couldn't decide which one goes better, I decided to use all three flavors in the same cake, brilliant! The hardest part is that I didn't have any solid recipe that I have tried before. So since Aldo was kindly "allowing" me to experiment, I thought hey, it's your own fault if it doesn't turn out great, right? :D

But anyways, I started with a base of chocolate sponge (thank God for leftover sponge which makes my life a lot easier). I moistened the cake with brandy and topped it with caramelized and flambeed bananas. A thin layer of caramel mousse goes on top of it, then I put vanilla bean creme brulee that I have frozen beforehand on top of the mousse. More mousse layer on top, apply the cocoa brush, and a layer of clear glaze. I felt that there wasn't enough mousse because the end result was not as high as I expected, but it turned out ok afterall. I used to associate caramel with sickly sweet, sticky stuff that makes your teeth screaming when you bite into it, but it was nothing like it. It is nowhere near "too sweet", I added salt since I didn't have salted butter (salted butter goes great with caramel), not because it was too sweet but just to balance the flavor.

In the end, I was pleased with the result. Although the decoration is super simple (I didn't want to overcrowd it with lots of stuff on top), I think it looked okay. I was so glad that it was a hit with everyone. I don't normally like to eat banana by itself, but you really can't go wrong with banana cake or dessert, especially when it's paired up with caramel and creme brulee! I have the picture of the inside this time. Happy Birthday Aldo!

Mocha Chiffon Cake

This one will be a short post.

Kiki emailed me on Wenesday/Thursday two weeks ago if I would have time to make a birthday cake for Karen, one of our friends at church. The birthday was actually a month ago, but we're so bad that we forgot about it :(. So Kiki and friends were planning on having a belated birthday lunch on Sunday, well, it's better late than never right? :D

Karen likes anything mocha, and she loves mocha chiffon cake. I was originally going to make another type of mocha cake since it's for a birthday (besides, she already had a plain mocha chiffon cake for her birthday too last year), but the term "mocha cake" is so general. We decided last minute that we'll just go ahead with mocha chiffon cake due to time limitation. I love making chiffon as it is very easy and the result is always satisfying, not to mention very very light. This time, I made it into mocha-rum chiffon cake and frost it with rum buttercream. A little dusting of cocoa powder and pirouette cookies, and it's done. It's very very simple in my opinion, but I hope everybody enjoyed it :).

I made extra batter so that I can use this mini chiffon pan that I bought a while ago. They're personal size, about 4" in diameter, aren't they cute? :D. I have not been doing a good job in posting new cakes lately. It's not that I don't make as much cakes because I do. But some of them were just plain pandan chiffon cakes and Indonesian cheese cake that I'm sure you all are bored with already. I didn't even take any picture of them because I made them so often. But I will be posting quite a few cakes in the next few days as I have them waiting to be posted already :)

A Lovely Bridal Shower for Kathy

It seems like everybody around me is getting married now and I feel so happy for them!
This bridal shower happened almost three weeks ago (yeah, I know it was a long time ago and pardon me for my lack of post lately :( ). It was a week after Yossi's bridal shower, but I didn't need to make a dessert table for it, and also it was on Sunday which made it a lot better because that means that I have the whole Saturday (or almost) to work on it, yay! This cake was pretty straight forward and not as stressful as the dessert table (don't get me wrong, I totally enjoyed making it) since Kathy, the bride-to-be, has decided from the very beginning what kind of cake she wanted, which is Indonesian cheese cake with vanilla and pandan sponge alternating between layers. It's the same cake that I made for her sister, Vicky's wedding cake a while ago. Deciding what type of cake has always been the hardest part for me, so I was so relieved that she knew what she wanted, and an easy one at that too!

Decoration is the second hardest thing after the type of cake itself, but this time, it wasn't as difficult. There was no theme or anything, the invitation mentioned to wear something pretty a.k.a dress, colorful one if possible to match Kathy's cheerful personality. I immediately thought of pink and brown cake. I have been wanting to make a cake with these two color combo for the longest time. I had seen a lot of cake with these two colors and I totally fall in love with it, but so far, I had never get any opportunity or the perfect occasion for it. The color is modern, but still has femininity and girlishness to it. It also gives a cheerful and playful feeling, which I think totally matches Kathy's personality (she LOVES Disney too :D). So the cake and the color are set, next, I need to come up with the design.

After a few days of trying to find inspiration here and there, I decided to make something similar to this .http://carriescakes.com/cakes/399.jpg. This site has been my inspiration and it has a lot of gorgeous designs that I can only dreamt of making. Everything in their side is perfection. They have a pink and brown cake design that I really like. It is simple, clean, and yet so elegant. I have seen similar cake out there with similar design as well. Since Kathy's cake would be 9" and 6" tiered cake only (instead of 4-tiered cake), I need to think how to incorporate the color and the design without making it looking too busy or too plain, and here's what I came up with.

It was my first time using chocolate fondant (it is chocolate-flavored fondant and not just brown-colored fondant). I want to thank Hany SO MUCH for giving me this chocolate fondant for this cake. She even gave me more thatn what I needed! I couldn't imagine how many bottles of coloring I will need if I were to color it myself and it wouldn't be as good either. I would imagine the texture will be too soft due to the amount of the coloring. She has been a HUGE help in helping me out with almond powder (for Yossi's shower) and this chocolate fondant, not to mention the other tips she has. I learned that it's a bit harder to work with dark-colored fondant because the white from confectioners' sugar that doesn't dissolve, will really show in the finished products, making it look dirty. It is not so much of a problem before because I always used pastel color and it wasn't so obvious. I wish I could make the ribbon a lot thinner and a lot more neat, but overall, I think it's acceptable :). I brushed the ribbon with pink pearl dust to give it that shiny look, but I guess it wasn't really showing no matter how much dust I applied. oh well....

I also made a strawberry panna cotta dessert for this shower. It is the same idea as the mango panna cotta for Yossi's shower, but made with strawberries (the idea came from Cannelle-vanille). I was thinking that a light fruity dessert would fit really well since there will be other desserts that were more filling. This time, I didn't use that wine glasses to assemble my dessert (I have learned my lesson) and instead uses this mini 5.5oz tumblers. This is the smallest size I could find, even though I opted for something smaller, maybe 4 oz, but no luck. I was just glad the I found these because I didn't when I was looking for it for Yossi's shower.

It turned out that the cake and the dessert fitted really well with the decoration. There were red roses in a bucket, pink tablecloth, red plates and napkins, even the drink is pink! So the cake and the dessert have the perfect color to match! There were some Indonesian savory snacks too made by Yeye that were really yummy and everything was really sweet and nice. We only cut the bottom 9" tier for the guest to enjoy after the event, and Kathy took home the top 6" tier ( she later informed me that she and Vicky, her sister, finished the cake in one day!!).

In the end, I was so glad that everything was going great and congratulations again to Richard and Kathy! Wish you both all the happiness and great life together.

A Bridal Shower and A Dessert Table

I had the honor to make a dessert table for my dear friend, Yossi's bridal shower last week. She lives in TX with her fiancee currently, but they're going to move to Indonesia for good at the end of the year and have their wedding there. So when Yossi asked me if I would make a dessert table for her bridal shower that was going to be held here in San Jose, I was ecstatic! I was so excited and my head was soon filled up with thousands of ideas. I love making cute petite desserts in small glasses or petite everything, but I don't have many opportunity to do it.

Time went by pretty fast and before I knew it, it was a month away before the shower. I hadn't planned anything at all and work suddenly got really busy, my weeknights and weekends were full of events and full of cakes. I started writing down some ideas, and it took me two weeks to finalize it, but things changed so easily even the day before the shower. It wasn't until two weeks before that I really felt that I need to force myself to focus on this, writing down a timetable on a spreadsheet, cost, things to do, things to buy, where, when, etc. I started to freak out because I knew exactly that I wouldn't be able to do it by myself considering my work schedule at that time. Luckily, I'm surrounded by wonderful friends who are happily lending their hands, or thoughts, or moral support for everything. Without them, I wouldn't be able to finish this.

So the shower was for 50 people and I was planning to make quite a few types of dessert with different flavors. I tried to avoid making tea cakes or any sort of "heavy" cakes, and tried to keep everything light since there are so many types. I counted everything and tried to make every type at least 50 pcs, so that each person can get a taste of everything. In the end, I ended up making 8 different desserts, 1 big cake, and 2 savory (ready-made and bought). I was really afraid that there wouldn't be enough variations, or not enough amount, so i kept adding things to it. Initially, I was going to make a tiered cake as a centerpiece of the dessert table, but I changed my mind last minute, a few days before that I was just going to make one simple cake, not tiered due to time constraint and there will be plenty of desserts and tiered cake would be too much.

Tiramisu and Mango Panna Cotta Verrines


Mini Lemon Tart and Fruit Skewer


Indonesian Cheese Cake and Ispahan Verrine

So there I was, set with the menu, but it wasn't all smooth sailing all the way, nu-uh. From half of my macarons cracked and I had to changed the menu because I won't have enough time, and my trusty Kitchen Aid mixer died on me (this is really an interesting story), and to an online website that I was planning to order things from, suddenly decided that they will go to vacation. Everything that could go wrong went wrong (well, not quite everything perhaps). Some of the menu I was planning includes verrine, which is just dessert in a glass. I was set on my online research of where i can get the petite dessert glasses from, but the day I was going to order, they went on vacation starting that day and won't be back 10 days after. I almost shot myself at that time, didn't know what to do or where else I can get similar glasses with such a limited time. I think I couldn't go to sleep peacefully that night :). So I spent half a day driving around trying to find the smallest cups there is, but unfortunately, the smallest one I could find was still twice as big as the one I wanted originally. I bought it anyway because I had no other choice.

To make the story shorter, I was able to pull it off with the help of amazing friends who were willingly stayed up late on weeknights to help me with the desserts, printing out the menu, etc. I had such an amazing team, we started at 9pm on Thursday and continued for 3 hrs. On Friday, we started at 8pm until about 2:30am, it was super early morning for me everyday that week. I particularly want to thank Hany for all the help she gave me. She was such a HUGE help and was so kindly lending me most of the dessert plates and containers she has. She was also there for advice and support and not to mention that she offered her help many times even though we live oh so far away. Good thing I had quite a few people helping me so that I didn't have to drag Hany down here :). So the final menu of the dessert table includes three different kinds of verrine, tiramisu, ispahan (lychee-raspberry-rose), and mango panna cotta verrine. I also made some mini cream puff with vanilla bean creme diplomat filling, fruit skewer, blueberry mascarpone cheesecake, indonesian cheese cake (nana's last-minute request :)), and mini lemon tart. The big cake was raspberry and white chocolate cake, decorated simply with white chocolate and white roses. We also had some egg rolls from our favorite place and pineapple and teriyaki meatballs.

There are SO MUCH things I could learn from it and what I would do differently if there's a next time. Time management is really important, and also try to keep everything small in size (the wine glasses that I used were definitely way too big and not meant for desserts), variety in flavor and texture is important too, and don't try to make everything perfect because there will be some flaws and if you can't live with it, you'll just stress yourself out. I probably overestimated everything, I was so scared that we wouldn't have enough for everybody that I made more than what was needed.

It was the first time in such a long time that I had so little sleep. I guess I wouldn't be able to sleep well anyway knowing that there are so many things needed to be done and so little time. With the adrenaline pumping, I could stand for hours and multi-tasking all the time. It wasn't until the shower is done and I sat down on a sofa that I felt my body screaming for rest. I really hope that I could do a better job for Yossi's shower, I wish I could do this differently, make that a little more neat, etc. But I did my best and I hope that it's enough for her. Despite all of the craziness happened during the preparation, without a doubt, I would happily do it again :)

My Niece's 4th Birthday, Tinkerbell Cake and Cupcakes!

It was my niece's 4th birthday on October 9th, Krisalyn Satriya (Krisalyn means beautiful bearer of Christ), we were celebrating it just with family and close friends by having dinner together at the house. My niece is just like any other girl who loves anything princess, very girly, loves dresses, stuffed animals and barbie, etc. I made her a barbie cake and a castle cake the years before and after doing some thinking of what cake I want to make for her, I decided on Tinkerbell cake. I don't know where the idea came from, I was browsing around and I had the idea of making a fairy cake at first. But knowing that I won't be able to make a pretty fairy figurine (unless she wants a fairy that looks like a tiger), I decided to just make a tinkerbell cake. I didn't make the tinkerbell of course, it's a candle. I think this is perfect since I was really pressed with time as usual.

I wanted to make just a simple cake, nothing over-the-top since it was only with family and close friends. Besides, my niece would be ecstatic with anything that has a little of tinkerbell or flowers :). I know I wanted the cake to be pink fondant, although the end result was more pink that the one in my head, but it's all good as long as it's not hot pink color :D. I love the little mushrooms personally, although it's very easy to make, I feel a little proud of myself considering that I don't usually have the patience to make this kind of thing. At least they look like mushrooms in the end :).

The inside is raspberry jelly and white choc. and cream cheese ganache that I have made a few times already. This is the first time I made a cream-based cake with fondant. I was a little nervous at first, but it turned out to be fine!!! I frost the whole cake with thin buttercream so that the cream won't touch the fondant. The fondant didn't even sweat for a bit when I refrigerated this. Now that I know I can make cream-based cake with fondant, the possibility is endless as long as refrigeration is not a problem, yay! Thanks to Hany too who gave me the confirmation that I can make cream-based cake with fondant. She makes strawberry shortcake covered in fondant all the time, yum!

The main reason why I chose this cake other than that I wanted to see if I can make cream cake with fondant, is that I also have to please my fruit-lover family. I think I mentioned this before but my family loves everything light and fruity, especially my picky brother, so buttercream is out of the question, but I was so glad that they all loved it. I didn't actually eat the cake at all since I made it so often but even my brother had a few slices! As long as you don't eat the fondant, it's all good :). I love fondant for it's appearance, but it still can't get me hooked on its taste and it's sweetness just yet :D.

My niece couldn't stop starring at the cake the whole night. We took a lot of pictures of her, but it seems like she can't get her eyes off of the cake. After we finally done with the picture taking, she was so glad that she can finally cut the cake, the moment she had been waiting for so long. Happy birthday my beloved niece!

Oh I almost forgot that I made cupcakes too for her to bring to her Sunday School class the morning after. I don't normally make cupcakes, nor do I like making and decorating each one of it, it's not my repertoire :P. But I made it anyway for some reason the night after the celebration. I was REALLY tired and luckily, my other sis-in-law (not my niece's mom) was ready to help me. The cupcake base was ready already, we "just" need to decorate it. Finally we finished every one of them with just a simple decoration, it's faaaarrr.... from perfect but it's for kids. So as long as they see some sparkles, butterflies, flowers, I think they're pretty happy :). I chose fondant decor so that it won't be messy and I know that parents don't usually like seeing their kids eating a mountain of frosting on the cupcakes. This has very little buttercream just to glue the fondant on the cake, and I filled the cupcake with the same white choc. cream cheese ganache from the cake leftover filling.

Strawberry Shortcake

This is kind of a late post since I made it late September, right on the first official day of Fall I think. Luckily here in the beautiful California, the weather was still quite nice, warm days although the day is a lot shorter, but during the day it was still warm and sunny. I can still find my sweet strawberries at my favorite strawberry stall in farmers market, and I was really determined to make a shortcake. A cake that maybe more suitable made in the beginning of summer to welcome the warm weather, but there I was waiting until the summer officially ended to make this summer staple cake. It seems like I was in denial that summer was really gone and maybe I was hoping that I could bring summer back by making a strawberry shortcake? Silly me, of course it won't happen, but hey, you can't blame a girl for trying :)

It was only two layer cake, and I intentionally made the sponge layer to be a bit higher than usual as I'm afraid the end result won't be high enough, but it turned out really high, about 3" high. The cake was only 8" round, but it looks like it's a lot bigger than that with 3" height. For simple cake like this, I like the cake to be very soft, and so I used cotton cake as a base, filled with mascarpone cream that has been flavored with a good doze of Cointreau. I always try to use orange-flavored liqueur, be it Cointreau or Grand Marnier as I find that the combination is prefect. I arranged the strawberries vertically inside the cake so that it would look pretty when cut, and it was! Too bad I didn't have a camera when it was cut :(. Even though the end cake was huge, it doesn't stop anyone who ate it to be intimidated by it. In fact, it was gone pretty quickly even though the slices were pretty big. The overall cake was super light, sweet and slightly tart strawberry and a hint of orange liqueur in the background.

I had to make the same cake again the night after as my niece and nephew kept asking what happened to the cake I made the night before and that they really want it. So since I have another two layers of the same sponge cake, although smaller 6" in diameter, I made another one. This time I used heavy cream without mascarpone and Cointreau of course! The only thing different was that I added toasted almond slices on the side of the cake and sprinkled a little on top too. The whole 6" was gobbled up by both my nephew and niece, not in one sitting though, they had it for dessert for three days I think. I thought it was pretty good since they're still a kid, but they liked it so much! I didn't bother to take a picture of this second cake, I don't know why. Maybe it was because after I was done making it at 9pm or so, they had begged me to cut it :)

I forgot how simple dessert can be this good and I'm sure that I'll be making it every year when strawberry is at its peak. If it's strawberry season at your place, make sure that you put this cake on your list of things to make. Don't forget to use only sweet and fresh strawberry for this.

Chilled Mango Cheesecake with Strawberry Gelee

Ah, finally something that's not completely red.
It was my little nephew's birthday yesterday and he turned 7. No big celebration or anything, we just celebrated it by having dinner with the whole family. And what kind of birthday celebration without a candle on a cake to blow?

I wasn't really prepared on making a cake. All I know is that I need to make something fruity as the consumers are my own family, which are big on fruits. We all love mango and we love something light. I made mango cake not too long ago for the mother (my sister-in-law), but I know that we all love mango so much that you can never go wrong with it. I needed to make something really quick, and I really meant quick as I got only one night to make it plus maybe 15 minutes to decorate it on the D-day. So, I decided on this mango cheesecake, the same one I made here, but I added strawberry gelee in the middle so that it won't be too boring. Besides, I couldn't find a nice fresh and ripe mango to put it inside. I only made a 6.5" cake as there was only 8 of us.

The sponge cake base was already available in the freezer, all I needed to make was the strawberry gelee first as it will need a few hours to set it up in the freezer. I ended up only froze it for 1.5 hours as it was already late at night and I needed to make the mango batter at the same night too so that it will have some time to firm up in the fridge overnight. The gelee was still a little soft but I think I managed to transfer it onto the cake successfully :D.

The cake was very much enjoyed by everybody. It was THE perfect ending to a delicious meal from our favorite restaurant. It was super light, fruity, refreshing, what else could you ask for?

I think I have made use of summer's bounty this year more than I could wish for. As much as I love them, I think I'm ready to see some other color on this blog :D. I can't wait to get my hands back on coffee, chocolate, hazelnut, pistachio, lemon. But don't worry, you would see some red here and there as I store enough berries in the freezer to last me until the next summer :)

Panna Cotta and Strawberry Cake

Time goes by really fast, I thought it was the beginning of summer, but it ends already. I thought it wasn't too long ago that I started become curious about baking world, but now I can make things that I didn't even dream about. It was only yesterday that my little niece was born, and now she has a little baby brother already! Yes, I am officially an aunt of 12 now :). Sometimes these changes scared me as it happens so fast, but it's also exciting to see and experience what God has blessed you with. Surely enough, every tiny bit of blessing and moment deserve a cake!

I'm very thankful for little things that I got, and this strawberry season is one of them.
I buy a huge box of strawberries at farmers market almost every week, or maybe once every two weeks. One box has about 6 over-flowing ripe and sweet strawberries. So every week, I need to come up with some strawberry dessert ideas before these beauties turn bad. But time doesn't always follow the plan, it's the other way around. So I'm often left with a box full of strawberries with a sign of aging and I knew that I need to use them fast.

Ever since I saw Aran's post about her strawberry dessert she posted a while back, I always wanted to make it. She may not know me, but she has been a really big inspiration for me.
She made hers into individual jars, and I absolutely love dessert in individual glasses like that. You can really see the layers and you don't need to put as much gelatin as you would if you make it into a cake form because the glass will hold it well. Unfortunately, I don't have pretty clear glasses like that (it's on my wish-list though :P), so I decided to make it into a big cake form with sponge cake as a base.

I doubled the recipe for each layer to make it into one 7.5" round cake maybe (I trim the edges of an 8" cake). I made panna cotta before, but I've never made a yogurt panna cotta and I was so excited to try it. I know that I love the tartness of fromage blanc, so I was pretty confident that I will like the tartness of the yogurt as much. Making the vanilla bean panna cotta was a breeze, then I had to let it set in the freezer so that it would set up fast, before it seeps out through the cake ring. I made the strawberry mousse, and just refrigerate it to let it set, then make the gelee. I should have noticed that the gelatin is not enough to hold the cream firm enough in a cake form because when I took off the ring, the texture was a little soft. I let it sit in the refrigerator for about two days though before I gave it to my friend to try (simply just don't have time). That's why the red color is not as vibrant in this picture. There is a little panna cotta and gelee leftover, so I put it in a ramekin (no strawberry mousse though).

I didn't get a chance to taste the big cake, but I did eat the small ramekins with my nephew. Well, I should say mostly my nephew because he literally licked the ramekins and the spoon off. It was delicious!!! My friend brought me a slice of the big cake the following day and it tasted just as good. In the future, I think I will add more gelatin if I make it into a big cake, but it's perfect the way it is for individual glasses. It's creamy and very refreshing. I'll need to work on the proportion of each component too to make it a little taller. Try it and you will like it :)

Raspberry and Rose Entremet

Hmm... another red cake, so sorry, but I have a valid reason though (I think) :D.
Two weeks ago was my sister-in-law's brother's bday. Uhm... that's way too confusing, does that make him my in-law cousin? But anyways, yeah it was his birthday. Officially, it was still summer although the weather was a little colder than usual. The sun sets much earlier and the night is not as warm, in fact in was chilly already, but we haven't had a REAL BBQ this year (we as in our circle of friends). This summer for us had been loaded with lots of outdoor activities, hiking, camping, biking, out-of-town trip, you name it. It seems like for the whole summer (or maybe before summer hadn't officially started), every weekend was booked already. So we decided to have a BBQ Pool party, not only for the birthday celebration, but also to celebrate summer!

I was so excited planning the whole menu, I love summer and I love BBQ. To me, summer BBQ means light cocktail or fruity tea, good food, summer fruits, pool, friends, laughter. I started planning on the menu and finally decided on it along with the preparation and the grocery shopping. I already knew what I wanted to make for the birthday cake, it was something involving black raspberry mousse, vanilla bean bavarian, striped joconde, berry compote, cassis syrup, etc., it was one of the "to experiment" cake in my list. So I did the shopping for the cake on Thursday night, I suppose I still have Friday morning and night and part of Saturday to make the cake, plenty of time (at least so I thought)! I was shocked when I couldn't find frozen black raspberries at Trader Joe's! I asked them about it and they said it was discontinued. I think I almost fainted, or at least cried :(. You see, I LOVE black raspberries, and I always wanted to store lots of them in my freezer but I always thought why do that while I can always get them from my trusty Trader Joe's? Now, they're gone!!!! I came home feeling really sad that night and I googled black raspberry on the internet and I couldn't find any that sells them. The next morning, I called a few other TJ and they told me the same thing :(. There goes my only chance.

Friday went by so quickly and I came home late from work, having no energy to do anything else, I just went straight to bed, not knowing what will I make in the morning. I know that I don't have much time to make anything, but I'll figure it out in the morning. Long story short, I have 6 punnets of beautiful red raspberries in the fridge that I bought at Costco earlier (again with the weak will power). I completely adore raspberries but I didn't want to make another raspberry cake, I had it too much. But I had no choice, so I have to make use of them. So, one thing led to another, I came up with this cake. It was two layers of thin joconde, brushed with framboise eau-de-vie, thin layer of vanilla bean mascarpone cream (a mix of pastry cream, mascarpone, gelatin, and heavy cream), and thin layer of raspberry gelee. In my mind, I imagined the thin layers would show perfectly neat, but it wasn't :(. I only freeze the gelee for an hour and it was still soft when I took it out. I had too though as I don't have more time, I had to move on to the next step. That's why the raspberry layer is kinda curly :(. I topped it off with lots of strawberries and raspberries and put a tempered white chocolate sheet on top of it.

Although I wasn't too happy with the neat-ness, but I was beyond happy that they all LOVED it! I brought a small slice home for my nephew to try (I could always count on him for dessert feedback, trust me!) and he loved it! For those who are familiar with rose water, would be able to taste the soft sweet floral taste in the background, following the slightly tart raspberry flavor. I was beyond relieved that night. Yes, I sometimes (of often times) over-analyzed things and put more pressure on myself than what I need to. Oh wells, at least everybody was happy that night, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY DICKY!

Sorry for the poor lighting on the picture, this is the best I can do at that time :)

I realize that it might be a little late, but I want to share with you some of the gorgeous summer produce that I got lately. The small tomatoes are super sweet! I didn't know that tomato can be so sweet, I can munch on them just like that and it's coming from a person who doesn't normally eat or like tomatoes :). I use them to make caprese salad (sweet small heirloom tomatoes, garden-picked basil, herbed-marinated mozzarella balls, good quality extra-virgin olive oil, salt & pepper, and you're good to go) for the BBQ and it was awesome! The raspberries is the leftover from the cake above. Imagine how much will power you need to have to resist these every time you see them. They're just too beautiful to ignore, don't you agree? :D

Fromage Blanc Mousse Cake with Berry Compote

I often find myself having lots of different berries in the fridge, more than what I actually need. You see, I don't enjoy eating berries plain like that as much as I do when they're in a dessert form. I'm such a dessert snob :(, so sad. Even more sad, I realize that I have this satisfaction when I own them. When I see them at farmers' market, I have very little will power to turn them down. It's like they're looking at you and begging you to take them home. I'll take them all home if I could. Then I'd feel really happy after I bought them, but right after they go into the fridge, it's a whole different matter. I have a very sensitive teeth that it hurts me when I bite something cold (heck, I can't even drink ice water without it touching my teeth), so after it goes into the fridge, I hardly look at them. Well, I do check them regularly to see if they go bad, it's like my pet, I keep checking on it time after time hoping that it will stay the way they are, just like when I first bought it.

This time is one of those times that I have too much berries on hand and I HAD to use them. Sure I can freeze them, but it's gonna be different. Frozen berries have a whole different purpose in their life :). It also happened that I have fromage blanc in the fridge that I bought a couple of weeks before. I was really curious about it and I have never used it before. So, I bought one at Whole Foods (the only place I could find it) so that I can experience something with it. The idea got distracted and has been put aside for some time until I saw those berries and the cheese together in the fridge. Besides, it's not cheap, even more expensive than mascarpone cheese, so it's way too good to let it go bad.

I saw some fromage blanc cake before when I was surfing through different blogs and sites, whether it is mousse, charlotte, cheese souffle, etc. I was once again googled it and see what are people use it for in their dessert. The similarity between all of them is that fromage blanc is usually paired up with berries. Then, I remember that I stumbled through Fanny's blog, Foodbeam a few days before and she just made a cake that I think is perfect for me to get my hands on the fromage blanc cake for the first time. She also posted a similar cake from a patisserie she interned with before. I really like the white clean color, you can almost taste the lightness of it and the fresh clean feeling after eating it.

I first tried to make the dacquoise, I have never liked it before. Despite it's being really easy to make, it's usually sickeningly sweet for my Asian taste. But I gave it a go one more time and I cut down the sugar by half from Fanny's recipe and I still thought it's way overly sweet, so I had to throw it away :(. I decided then to stay the tried and true plain old sponge cake that I kept in the freezer. I made the berry compote and freeze it in larger diameter than what Fanny had suggested as I found it too thick. Then I made the mousse and assembled it in 8" ring. I had to stretch the time of making individual component over a few days for making the compote, the mousse, the glaze, and decorating it. It probably took 3 days to complete as I only do it every night after work. I didn't get around to photograph it until I think two days after everything is done, and by the time I had the time, the cake didn't look as nice as it was before. The fruits on top don't look fresh anymore and the pistachio had soaked up the moisture from the glaze, even the color of the glaze is not as vibrant anymore :(, but I'm still happy that I can still get a shot of it anyway.

I didn't expect much from the taste of it as I got disappointed by the look already, but boy was I wrong. I was surprised by the lightness of it, the cheese actually tasted like yogurt, but less tart and more firm in texture. The berry compote is sweet but it has a slight tangy-ness and it compliments perfectly. I definitely want to make this again in the future with some modification :). I think there are some area that I want to do differently, and I can't wait to try it again next time. Sorry for the poor cross-section picture :(, I just wanted to show you how the inside looked like.

Strawberry Pudding

It has been more than three weeks that I haven't updated this little blog of mine. It's not that I haven't been baking that much, I still do. I still take pictures, although not every single one of them. Have you ever thought that sometimes, taking the picture gets in the way of everything? For me, most of the time, I finished decorating a cake in the morning right before I go to work. By the time I finished, I would rush things so that I can go to work ASAP, and to be honest, sometimes I don't feel like taking pictures of it, but I know if I don't, I will regret it later. Those hours and hours of baking, folding, mixing,refrigerating, and decorating need to be captured in the final form so that we can look at it and be proud of it no matter how the result turned out :).

I wouldn't say that my life is going in a slow pace. Even when I have some spare time, I will always think of something to use the time to do something productive, such as cleaning up (and I have lots of that really), folding the laundry, and baking of course! I feel like the time is too precious to just go by unused, although I do feel exhausted here and there, but I'm trying to enjoy every second of it.

Now back to the baking world! This pudding is not actually a result of baking, but the term "baking" somehow and sometime is used to describe anything related to dessert :). It's nothing special, just a strawberry pudding with lots of fresh strawberries inside (and more in the center). It's a request from a friend for her to bring to a gathering that she went. She requested putu ayu too along with the pudding. I thought the pudding was a little too firm though, I guess I need to add more liquid next time. There is actually chocolate creme anglaise accompanied this lovely pudding, but not shown here in the picture. I have never made strawberry pudding with chocolate creme anglaise before but it's what she had requested, and you can never go wrong with chocolate-strawberry combination, can you?

You will see lots of strawberry post coming :D. I just love summer, California summer that is! although I have only experienced summer in a few states, CA, TX and MI (for a short period), but I think everybody will agree that CA has the best summer ever!! too bad I can't find red currants here in bay area :(. Although summer has officially ended yesterday, but the spirit of summer will still be there as long as I still see strawberries in farmers' market :). It seems like it was just yesterday that summer just started and I was just getting excited to welcome the warm weather and the gorgeous produce. I haven't even gotten any chance to bake with cherries (it was gone so fast), peaches, nectarines, plums :(. I guess I was blinded and got hypnotized by those shiny red plump berries lying around everywhere and you know exactly how hard it is to resist them. But I'll try to use some of the last peach and plum this year to make something before they're gone :).

Baby Shower Cake

It seems like everybody is pregnant nowadays in our church (notice a little hyperbolic here), and it's a good thing because that means I get to play with more cute babies, yay!
It was one of our church's friends, Silvi's baby shower party a week after baby Max's birthday! I was going to take a break from fondant cake after Max's cake, but how can I say no to the opportunity to create a cute baby shower cake?? Since I was in a figurine mode, I planned on using baby figurine as well. Now, when I was in the middle of Ma'x birthday cake madness, I heard that a few of my friends are actually quite good in playing with playdough. I was really excited when I found this out as I can use their help for the cake!! So, when we had a dinner together at one of our friends' house, I brought the fondant and the tools for them to play around. They were having so much fun with it and I was too watching them, hohoho.... (evil laugh).

Afterwards, I got a few baby figurines, there's baby with mohawk, sitting baby, and the sleeping baby that I decided to use on the cake. This figurine along with the tiny teddy bear is a courtesy of my friend Cecyl. I was going to put a smile on the teddy bear but the fondant has hardened. But it was okay since it was supposedly to be a stuffed animal anyway. I went with the clean and simple design for the cake. I knew I wanted baby blue color, so here's what I came up with.
The cake inside was vanilla cake with a layer of fragrant blueberry filling and cream cheese frosting. I love the combination of blueberry and cream cheese, it's one of those things that compliments each other.

Anyways, big CONGRATULATIONS and HUGS for Silvi and Ronald! :)

Happy 1st Birthday Baby Max!

Maximillan Christopher Tan, or whom we usually called Max turned one on August 4th a few weeks ago! He's the son of dear friends of mine, Chris and Kiki, and he's definitely the cutest, the most handsome, or you can just say the best baby ever! He LOVES fruits! His eyes are widened super wide when he sees strawberries in particular, he loves plum and can chow down on it for a long time. When he was only a few months old last year, I told Kiki that I would love to make Max's first birthday cake as my gift for him. It was still a long way to go that I really never planned it. I always thought that, "ah, it's still in August, way way too early too plan" until probably a little more than a week before the D-day that Kiki actually reminded me!!

Being a planner, I couldn't be more nervous about it. The parents requested a CuriousGeorge themed cake, a simple one will do as long as there is curious george on it, since baby Max is a super curious baby just like George :). They even offered me their big Curious George porcelain bank and suggested me to just put that on top of a plain cake @_@. I really appreciate the offer, but how could I possibly make something like that. I would be a really mean aunty if I do that to baby Max for his first birthday cake.

So I began my search for inspiration on the cake, realizing that I only have a week to do it. It seems long but not if you only have very few hours to spare on that week, but thankfully I have the whole Saturday, since the party was actually on Sunday. I had a couple of ideas, but nothing really stuck on my head nor I was a fan of the idea until I saw this cutest cake. I browsed through the album and Kylie Lambert is truly one talented lady. I love her cow figurines, they look so cute and funny. So I decided on making "Curious George in a Farm" themed cake, perfect!! The only problem is, how can I find the time to make all those figurines?

If you know me, I'm not a very creative nor I'm an artsy kind of person (I didn't even like cartoons when I was little), I usually freaked out when I have to make fondant figurines before actually do it. It wouldn't help too with such a time crunch. Luckily, I'm blessed with lots of supportive and encouraging friends. Nana offered to help me with the figurines, and she's so good at it! She has the patience that I will never imagine of having! In the end, I have a few other great friends to help me with. Nana helped make the super cute piggy and the ducky, Yanni made the froggy, Fonda helped with the bee, Joana made the cow, and the rabbit actually made by Yossi and Nana (Nana brought it back to CA when she was visiting Yossi). I'm so thankful being surrounded by these wonderful people. So I'll just have to do the rest. I made some more bees, a set of royal icing butterfly (I only used two in the cake), the caterpillar, the yellow hat, and the curious george. I spent hours on curious george alone, hahaha.... the fondant was tooo soft after I added some amount of brown food coloring to get the color I wanted. The hot and humid weather didn't help either. This is the chubbiest george I've ever seen. You can also probably see some nail marks. Yes, I have long nails and after making this george, I decided to sacrifice and cut my nails on four fingers total (and yes, it will look weird if you look at it :D)

Once all the figurines are all set, I spent the whole Saturday making the cake, covering it, and decorating it. The parents love Indonesian-type of cakes so I decided to make Indonesian cheese layer cake for the top tier and lapis surabaya for the bottom tier. I used almost 50 egg yolks to make the cake total!!! and please don't get me started on the butter :P. And finally, the cake is done!!!!! I was super relieved when I saw the finished cake. It may looked simple enough for some of you, but to me, this is a very special cake. Not only that this is for baby Max and the fact that this cake has the love from the loving aunties, but also that I've never spent so many hours on cake like this before. I knew that I needed to give myself plenty of time so that I won't mess it up and I was really happy with how it turned out really. More importantly, the parent liked it too! Too bad baby Max is not old enough to give me his opinion about it :(. The pictures are courtesy of my talented photographer friend San San

The birthday boy and his parents, happily munching on the plums

Frasier with Pistachio Creme Mousseline

At least this time, it's not a raspberry post, but I won't be far from all things berry at least until summer ends :D.

Ever since I started going to farmers' market two years ago, after I moved back to California, it was an instant love. I don't know how many times I've been saying this, but I'll say it again, once you buy fruits from farmers' market, you won't go back to grocery store. Especially in summer, where we're blessed with abundant ripe and sweet berries, fragrant stone fruits, deep-purple cherry, and so many other things. I used to think that berries are all tart and they're just pretty, not good to be eaten just like that, but obviously I was wrong!! I tasted my first SWEET raspberries and strawberries at farmers' market and I was really surprised that I can munch on them just like that without adding any sugar. Since then, I have been a firm believer that you shouldn't buy your berries or fruits in season at grocery store. Plus, you can find fresh produce, great food, and much more depending on how big the farmers' market is. When berries is this sweet, you gotta make a cake with it!

Anyways, onto the cake now. It was one of my dearest friend's birthday a month ago (yes I know, I need to update sooner :D), and he requested a birthday cake for his birthday about a week in advance so that I could have enough time to prepare everything. He understands me well enough to know that I need plenty of time or notice way in advance to make a cake. So, he gave me what he thought was enough time so that I won't have one of those "oh no, I don't have time to make it" kinda excuse, smart guy :P. And without a doubt, I used this opportunity to try out some things new and I decided on this fraisier.

Fraisier is not new to me actually as I made it a few times before. It's like a French style of American strawberry shortcake. Traditional fraisier has two layers of genoise, soaked with Kirsch syrup, filled with creme mousseline (a combination of pastry cream and buttercream), and finally topped off with green/pink marzipan. The version of the fraisier I made before did not have this exact components though. I used Cointreau or Grand Marnier instead of Kirsch (not a big fan of it), and I used vanilla bean creme diplomat (combination of pastry cream and whipped cream) as I like everything light texturewise, and I skipped the marzipan too. There is another version of modern fraisier, which I saw in Pierre Herme's book and some French websites., which uses pistachio-flavored creme mousseline as the filling. Pistachio and strawberry is one of those pair that you cant go wrong with, they go really well with each other. Some version also uses blow-torched italian meringue to decorate the top instead of marzipan.

I've never made creme mousseline before and so I didn't exactly know what is the ratio between the pastry cream and the butter. I read some books and website but they're all suggesting completely different proportion. So, there I was creating my own ratio, which suits my taste. I started with my usual vanilla bean pastry cream, added pistachio paste and weighed it as I kept on tasting it until it tasted strong enough (it is easily overpowered by other flavor, so need to make sure that the flavor is pronounced enough). Same thing with the butter, I kept adding it a little at a time and weighed it until I got the right consistency and taste. I also made italian meringue that I burned with blow torch to create the burnt effect for the top part, while the pattern was created using a metal spatula. I got a little bored with glaze and wanted to do something different :D.

The final result was a success, although I think it's a little bit on the sweet side for me. I guess it's predictable from the syrup (I made it sweeter than usual unpurposedly), the mousseline was also a tad too sweet (an experiment, remember?), but it adds up to the sweetness too, and lastly the italian meringue. Italian meringue has always been too sweet for me and that's why I don't use it that often. I reduced the amount of the sugar in this from my previously reduced-sugar recipe, but it still contribute to the sweetness level. Sadly, I forgot to write down the recipe while it was fresh in my memory :(, and now I have to do it all over again to get the right proportions. Oh well, I guess it's another reason to bake another cake!

Raspberry Mascarpone Gratin

I'm a little scared when I typed the title of this post. It seems like I posted too many raspberry stuff lately and most of them are paired with mascarpone (raspberry tiramisu, raspberry mascarpone cheesecake, raspberry charlotte with mascarpone, raspberry and white chocolate cheesecake, and now this). I apologize, I hope you can bear with me to get through this summer season with lots of raspberry desserts/cakes, plus I think I warned you before that this is coming, right? :P

Anyways, I've gotta tell you about this dessert as I love it so much. The first time I read Helen's post on Tartelette , I fell in love with it. Well in fact, I would easily fall in love with anything that has these two words on it. I kept postponing trying the recipe as somehow either I don't have the perfect opportunity/occassion to make it, or I just don't have everything ready. Until a few weeks ago, I wanted to bring something to work for a couple of friends to say thank you. Cake was definitely out of my options as there are only so many of us, and so I finally found the perfect time to give this recipe a try. Fortunately, I have everything in the fridge.

I gotta say that this dessert tastes like anything I've ever expected and wanted with raspberry and mascarpone combination, not to mention that it's a breeze to make too. Making this is super quick and easy and it tastes heavenly. The floral note of the raspberry and the subtle taste and creaminess of the mascarpone just made me falling in love even more with this two ingredients. I even made another one after this for my nephew and niece as they liked it so much. I had one left from work and gave it to them and turned out that they love it and asked for more. I just gotta make that again. My nephew had 3 ramekins in one sitting! Well, I thought him well to be a dessert snob :P. My niece had 2 and even that surprised me.

I think I would change the direction slightly as when I made this the second time (I didn't pay attention for the first time), the batter looked curdled. the result was okay but I'm still bothered by it. I think it's because the egg is added the last time. Next time, I would whisk the egg and the sugar first, then add the mascarpone and heavy cream. Once the egg is emulsified with the sugar, it'll be easier for the egg to get incorporated with the cheese and cream. The baking time depends on the size and the depth of your ramekins, so watch the texture to know when it's done. Just like creme brulee, you want the center to be slightly jiggly when you move it, and the outside set. It'll firm up in the fridge later on. I like to put pistachio on top as a garnish and as an added texture.

Mascarpone Raspberry Gratins
source: Tartelette

Serves 4-6 depending on the size of your ramequins.

1/2 cup (4 oz) mascarpone, at room temperature
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla bean paste or 1 tsp vanilla extract or 1/2 vanilla bean, seeded
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 cup fresh raspberries

In a large mixing bowl, whisk the mascarpone with the sugar until smooth. Add the vanilla, the egg and the egg yolk. Whisk until fully incorporated and add the heavy cream. Make sure everything is well combined and divide between your ramequins, not filling them all the way to the top, about 3/4 full. Divide the raspberries among the gratins and set the dishes in a deep roasting pan. Fill the pan with water, half way up the sides of the dishes and bake at 340 for about 20-25 minutes or until they seem to be barely set: still giggling a little when you move the pan but not completely wobbly. They will continue to bake and set as they cool. Let cool and serve either chilled or at room temperature.

Raspberry Mascarpone Cheesecake

I made this cheesecake once before, here. I don't normally like cheesecake, especially a dense one. I can probably eat one small spoonful and I will be content. But after tasting a mascarpone cheesecake, it has become my favorite. My love for mascarpone is undoubted, and it's really hard for me to resist putting this cheese into anything I make. Everytime I think of mascarpone, I would immediately think of raspberry and raspberry mascarpone cheesecake was one of the results of that.

When my asked me if I could make something for him to bring to a housewarming party, I immediately thought dessert. Although cake is a form of dessert, I just don't think a cake would suit that kind of party and besides, it would be pretty heavy I think. So, I was thinking something that's special, tastes really good, doesn't take long to make (you know me, I'm in a time crunch all the time), and can't be found in any bakery stores (at least around here). This cheesecake is one of the things that came up in mind. Although my friend said that I can even experiment with anything (he knows that I like to do that often in every opportunity :D), I just don't want to take that risk serving something to a group of people that I don't know. So, I must resist that opportunity and decided something that I like instead, this mascarpone cheesecake. I knew that I wanted to make fruit-flavored summer dessert, and not chocolate or coffee flavored.

If you read my first raspberry mascarpone cheesecake post, you would know that this is originally a regular mascarpone cheesecake (you can find the recipe in that post too) that I modified slightly. The cheesecake recipe is very basic and standard actually, but once you added mascarpone, it completely changes the taste and makes it extra special. I always think that mascarpone and raspberry is one of the best pair, flavorwise. In my first cheesecake, I added lots of fresh raspberries in the middle of the cheese batter and topped off with a raspberry glaze, but I wasn't really satisfied in the glaze part. This time, instead of scattering raspberries inside, I made a raspberry filling (I don't know what to call it). Basically, I just puree some raspberries, strain it, and cook it with sugar under low heat until the mixture thickens and reduced to half the original volume. My idea was to have a raspberry lava center, so that when the cheesecake is cut, they would have a surprise in the center. I also think that you would get more raspberry flavor this way instead of just whole raspberry, without getting annoyed with that tiny little seeds going in between your teeth.

I also put a sour cream topping on top and baked it for about 10mins, just because I have sour cream leftover in the fridge :P. I didn't taste the cheesecake, but I tasted the crumbs and the cheesecake crumbs that's left in the springform pan, and it tasted as good as I remember it. Too bad I won't really find out how good the combination is with the raspberry lava in the center. I absolutely love the raspberry glaze this time. I just found some leftover raspberry syrup for soaking a cake, and I have a little raspberry puree, so I combined them, add sugar/water as I needed and added enough pectin. I didn't even measure anything, but it came out perfect! The consistency is just right, the flavor is there, and not too sweet at all! The glaze was really shiny that I had a hard time taking picture of it without getting the reflection of the light or anything. I forgot to write down the proportion of the raspberry lava center though. I meant to write it down quickly but I kept on putting it off and by the time I actually want to do it, I forgot already :( (it happens quite often actually), so I'll just have to start over and try out some proportion again next time I make this.

Raspberry and Lychee Charlotte

I always thought raspberry and lychee are a great combination. Both have slightly floral fragrance that's not too strong and I think they compliment each other really well. I like to brainstorm some flavor combination for a cake or dessert, including what components I think it should have, and I write them down in my "brainstorming book" :D. Or sometimes I just browsed through the internet and found some interesting cake combo that I'd like to try. I often eat something that taste interesting (in a good way) and thought that "hmm.....this is gonna be really good in a cake", and started to scribble down my notes. Life is so full of good things that there are so many possibilities of different flavors that I don't think I can make them all in my lifetime.

I made raspberry-lychee cake before a few times, usually with rose (usually called ispahan, introduced by Pierre Herme, my pastry hero :D). I was in a charlotte madness at that time, I wanted to make summer berry charlotte, pear charlotte, you name it, and this raspberry-lychee charlote is one of the charlottes I was dying to make.

So I made this for a quarterly potluck party at work with a group of coworkers. I seem to be the default for the dessert person, I don't know why. They immediately asked what dessert I will bring when the invitation was sent out. Making dessert for coworkers is a little bit pressuring compared to making it for your friends. You always want to impress them, while your friends already know your failed and good cakes :), but I took my chance and used this opportunity to experiment with this flavor.

Usually and traditionally, charlotte is composed of soft lady finger sponge, instead of regular sponge cake and decorated with it as well. But I'm not a huge fan of this lady finger sponge as usually they're dry and the texture is not soft, it soaked up liquid really well though. If you're Asian, then you will understand that we like everything to be soft and moist. Fortunately, I had some cotton-like soft sponge in the freezer and I had two layers! Perfect to make this, and what a time saver! Don't you just love freezer. I soaked the sponge layers with a raspberry solution, filled it with mascarpone bavarian cream flavored with framboise (clear raspberry brandy), lots of chopped lychees and fresh raspberries. Put a thin layer of the cream on top of the second cake layer and decorated it with lots of fruits. I bought the Italian lady finger (hard/cookie-like lady fingers, used for tiramisu mainly), to save the time and becauze I like them better than the soft one.

In the end, it turned out great! I wish I can make some adjustment though next time. There are some area that I want to change, such as, the cream needs to be firmer (need to add more gelatin), use vanilla bean instead of extract, and probably a variation on the filling. Bavarian cream is one of the most common fillings for charlotte, another option is mousse. So I chose bavarian cream and added mascarpone to it. But I don't think the mascarpone added much to the flavor and texture if you added to bavarian cream. Next time, I would probably use vanilla bean bavarian cream, or mascarpone mousse instead. But overall, it tasted lovely :)

Black Raspberry, White Chocolate, and Cream Cheese Cake

No, I don't have a husband, if you might asked :D. It's for somebody else's husband.

It all started when I was asked to make a cake for a friend's birthday (she never had any of my cakes before) and turned out she liked it so much that when her older sister was visiting her from Indonesia and was looking for a cake, she mentioned my name. I have never met her sister before, she told me that her sister and the husband were about the pickiest couple when it comes to food, more over, dessert. You see now how much pressure I had when I heard that.

After a few emails and phone calls, she decided to try the black raspberry cake I made here since she's never had it in Indonesia (raspberry is very hard to get in Indonesia, and therefore not a common fruit or flavor). It was actually for her husband's birthday who is a chocolate addict, but she decided on trying something new, something they've never tried before (FYI, her husband is a chocolate lover :D). It was just such a really short notice though.

So, this is what I can come up with, in such a short notice. I think I only had one day to make this. And when I said one day, that means bright and early in the morning, and at night after work around 9pm (oh, and another morning on the day itself before work :D). I hope I can do much better with the decoration though, although I'm not sure what would I do differently if I had more time. But anyways, I'm always happy and grateful for every opportunity I get to contribute something for a special event :)

Raspberry White Chocolate Cheesecake

I didn't have a certain occasion when I made this. It just happened that I have 5lbs of cream cheese and plenty of fresh raspberries in the fridge. You know already my love towards raspberries and I could never passed on picking one or two baskets whenever and wherever I see them, especially at this time of the year. You will see my fridge full of assortment of berries, cream cheese, which is one of the staples, and heavy cream. Those are some of the things that I always have ready in my fridge. You can practically make countless possibilities of cakes with just these few things (considering you always have eggs, butter, flour too :D).

Sometimes, I just didn't think what I wanted to do with the berries especially, when I bought them. Unfortunately, they have a very short shelf life and I often found myself forgetting them and ended up throwing most of them away :(. It's not that I purposely neglect them but a lot of times, I came home really late and didn't get to open the fridge for a few days :(.

This time, it was yet another time that I had to come up with something to use the raspberries that were really threatened to die. Sometimes, I really think it's a good thing. At least this way, I always have to think of what to do with them, or else I would not bake as much. It wasn't difficult at all this time to come up with something. The idea of making white chocolate raspberry cheesecake came instantly when I opened my fridge and saw all the ingredients for cheesecake right in front of me. Besides, I've been wanting to try this recipe for the longest time. I made some adjustment though, I used different almond crust recipe from the previous mascarpone cheesecake I made before and I multiplied the whole filling by 1.5. Looking at the recipe, it looks like the end result would not be high enough, two 8-oz of cream cheese for 8" springform pan. I like my cheesecake a little higher than that, although not as high as NY cheesecake, so I decided to increase the amount of batter. I substitute one 8-oz cream cheese with mascarpone cheese that I had on hand, hoping that it would give a softer texture and creamier taste. I also decrease the amount of sugar, I forgot by how much (need to look at my notes).

Here's the original recipe:

White Chocolate and Raspberry Cheesecake
Source: Epicurious

Crust

• 18 vanilla wafer cookies
• 1 cup almonds, toasted
• 4 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
  

Filling

• 4 ounces imprted white chocolate (such as Lindt), chopped
• 2 8-ounce packages cream cheese, room temperature
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3/4 teaspoon grated lemon peel
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup fresh raspberries or frozen unsweetened, thawed, drained

Topping

• 1 8-ounce container sour cream
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 2 1/2-pint baskets raspberries or one 1-pint basket strawberries
• 1/2 cup seedless raspberry jam

Use a good white chocolate as you won't be able to taste it of you use the cheap kind. I used Callebout and I might want to add more to the batter next time. I did omit the raspberry jam though. I also thought it would taste better with vanilla bean instead of vanilla extract. I did go a little overboard on the lemon zest. I have this habit that whenever I used lemon zest to make any kind of dessert, I always rub them with the sugar using my fingers to release the oil from the zest. It makes all the difference in the world. However, I wasn't thinking obviously at that time, that the lemon zest would overpower the subtle taste of the white chocolate. The white chocolate taste wasn't as pronounced as I would like them to be, and I'll blame it on the lemon flavor :P. But overall, I really recommend this recipe though. The texture is smooth and creamy. I would leave out the zest completely next time and use probably 1/2 pod of vanilla bean instead of vanilla extract.

I shared it with my coworkers at work and we all loved it (yes, that would be including me :D)

Mango Entremet

You see, mango is one of my favorite all time fruits (other than raspberries, and some other fruits). My eyes would lit up everytime I heard a mango cake, mango dessert, mango this, mango that and it's definitely one of the cake flavors that I would pick up if I'm in a pastry shop. You can understand how excited I was when I saw Helen's post about her Chocolate Mango and Coconut Cream Cake. I absolutely LOVE LOVE what she did with the cake. It looks gorgeous, clean, neat, superb! I've always wanted my cakes to look like that, but I guess I have a long way to go :(. Ever since I saw her post, I wrote it down in my "to-make" list, that I need to make something with mango and it has to be square and it has to show the different layers. Helen kindly has her recipe on her blog, and I could just follow that, but you know me, I'm a rebel :D. So, I decided to experiment and make a new recipe for a mango entremet, thinking what layers can go along really well with mango. Mango and coconut are often put together, but I'm never a fan of coconut flavored cakes, so coconut is out of the question and so is chocolate.

After some scribbling, I decided that my mango cake would consist of sponge base, mango mousse, vanilla bavarian cream, and thin raspberry gelee in the middle. I waited for the perfect occasion to make this cake and my sister in law's birthday was coming up, so yay! Just like me, my family loves mango, so this is the perfect event to try this. There's not much can be done earlier except the sponge base. Everything else pretty much has to be made just before you use it. I wanted to make 8" square, but my cake ring can only measure 9x10 at least, so I tried a new method using an 8" square baking pan. I lined the inside of the pan with plastic wrap and let it hang on the side, and assemble everything in it, then into the freezer it goes. After it looks strong enough, lift the plastic wrap and trim the sides. It sounds easy enough on my mind.

Since this is a trial recipe, of course everything will not be perfect. My mango mousse is too strong and too soft, my bavarian cream layer is too thick and needs more gelatin, my glaze was not perfect, etc. I only freeze it for less than 30 minuntes I think before pulling the plastic wrap up and it did not completely set yet. You can probably see that the sides are not straight, etc. I was having a hard time trimming the side of the cake while the cake is still soft, not solid. Oh well, lesson learned: do not rush things! I wasn't 100% satisfied with the look of the cake, I imagined it would be shorter, the layers are thinner, the mousse and the cream are stiffer, etc.

But I was really glad that the whole family liked it! We only have 7 people (5 adults and two kids) and they easily finished everything off! Everybody had second except my little niece, I was surprised enough to see her finished her own cake. This cake surely is a winner, I just had to work more on the recipe (and the looks) :)

Indonesian Goodies

There's a time when I want to bake all things with mousse or cream, anything to do with French patisserie, but there's a time when all I want to bake is some simple Indonesian goodies that reminds me of home. Sure all those gateau, pastries and desserts are great, but there's something about a simple dessert that brings your memory back when you were little.

These are just some stuff that I made over a few weeks, there are some that I didn't even bother to photograph. I made them many times before, so no need to have special post for each one of them. I hope you too have something that would remind you all the precious childhood memories back when you were a kid, and try to re-create some of them :)

bika ambon

lapis surabaya

putu ayu


bolu kukus


weird shape?

1st Birthday Cake!

I was asked to make a 1st birthday cake for a little girl a few months ago. At that time, it sounded easy, she picked the decoration from a picture and it didn't look complicated at all. The process of making the cake was pretty easy too and straight forward. The top 6" tier is blueberry-vanilla cake, and the bottom 8" tier is "lapis surabaya" cake, which has 2 layers of vanilla and 1 layer of chocolate (made from all egg yolks and lots of them!).

I mentioned this a few times before and if you know me well, you would know that I'm not really good at cake decorating. I always have trouble when it comes to decorating a cake. My mind goes blank everytime a cake is finished and ready to be decorated. I think mousse cakes are easier though, just throw some fresh berries, glaze, chocolate, and voila! you got a nice-looking cake. But with fondant, nu-uh! I've never had the patience of making little figurines or decoration that usually go into a fondant cake. I love making wedding cakes or bridal shower cakes, that don't require much; in fact, for me, less is more for those types of cake. I always adore the simplicity and cleanliness of a wedding cake.

When it comes to decorating a cake for a small kid, I was really confuse. I tried to remind myself over and over again that it has to be colorful, not plain white or ivory, so I did my best to make it cheerful (although I think I overdid it :( ). It took me probably a good 6 hours total to decorate this! I know I know, I'm slow, I don't even remember or know why it took so long. I guess I underestimated the time it needs for kneading the fondant, coloring each one of them, shaping them, letting it dry, etc etc. I was pretty happy with the top tier, it looks spring-y (which really suits the season at that time) but I was not for the bottom tier :(. I gave up at the end and just let it be the way it is. I guess I REALLY need to practice my fondant skill.

The surprise came in a day later. The mother emailed me that everybody at the party LOVES the cake!! An hour later, I got a call from a friend who attended the party and he (and his wife) confirmed how good the cake tasted. Although I think they're a little exagerating, but it really blew me off. The disappointment I got from the day before for not being able to make a perfect cake, has been replaced by the relieve feeling after hearing and reading the comments. Phew..! As long as everybody happy, then it's all that matters :) (oh, and sorry for the ugly pictures :D).

Seeing Green!

This was actually made a while ago, in May I think.....

It all started when a dear friend, Putu, contacted me and asked me if I would like to make a cake for her birthday, and of course I would!!! without a doubt! She knew what she wanted, and that made it a lot easier for me. She knew she wanted an Indonesian cheese cake, and she showed me a picture of a green cake that she liked.

Green is her favorite color (obviously :D), and I have become a green-fan these past few years. You see, green is used to be my least favorite color, but once my adult life had started, the love for green has been growing stronger and stronger in me :P. It was a little hard to copy the picture she gave me, not just because the picture was small and I couldn't see the detail and everything, but it's also because my lack of skill to do cake decorating :(. I was never an expert nor I was into cake decorating, like making a perfect basketweave cake with buttercream roses, making small fondant figurines, and all that. But it's not me if I just gave up and say I can't ;).

The pictures of the cake here may look simple, and it is simple. I've never said that she asked for too much or anything, in fact, she was nothing like that. She said just do what I can do, if I can't do roses, then that's fine (she's just a sweetheart :) ). The original pic had a lot more green buttercream roses and more buttercream leaves. Since I don't trust myself to make buttercream roses (plus the weather was too hot to hold my buttercream stiff enough to make the roses), I attempted for fondant roses instead. The side wall is just a simple green-colored fondant to make a smoother finish on the cake, or more like to cover my imperfect skill to smooth out the sides :P.

Overall, of course mine didn't look anywhere close to the original picture, but at least I tried my best and there are still lots of room for improvement.

Raspberry Tiramisu Cake

I warn you, with the abundant amoung of berries showing at the farmers' market and grocery storess, you would see a lot of berry-flavored cakes showing often :D. I'm such a sucker for berries, especially raspberry. It's really hard for me to resist really good-looking raspberries, super sweet strawberries, deep purple color cherries, fragrant stone fruits. I could very easily pass those things in grocery store, but when it comes to farmers' market, uh oh... I would be in a really big "trouble" :).

Again, I also made this a while back for my dear friend's birthday. I always use every opportunity I got to experiment with type of cakes I've never made before. I mean, this is the best way to learn new stuff, plus you have the people to eat it, right??? (assuming the end result is edible :D). Fortunaltely, I have friends who are willing to eat anything including failed or ugly-looking cakes (well, most of them at least).

I was determined from the beginning to make raspberry tiramisu cake. My other option was mango tiramisu cake (my two most ultimate favorite fruits or cake flavors). I believe that there are things that are meant for each other (flavor or ingredient-wise :P). This includes raspberry-mascarpone, raspberry-white chocolate, dark chocolate-rum-coffee, mango-mascarpone, I could go on and on and on about this. So here's a way to combine them, raspberry tiramisu cake.

I thought of regular tiramisu components, mascarpone, cream, savoiardi (italian lady fingers), coffee, rum, coffee soaking mixture. I want this rasp. tiramisu to have the same components that make up a tiramisu, a tiramisu :P. I decided to use the soft lady fingers, instead of the hard ones like savoiardi as I don't think that making a raspberry solution to soak the lady fingers is going to be as good as the original tiramisu with coffee. So I made my own lady fingers or what French called biscuit a la cuillere. Instead of piping the batter one by one to look like a "finger", I just spread it all in a sheet pan. It'll be stacked together anyway, so no one will notice :). The lady finger is then brushed heavily (not soaked) with raspberry solution with lots of framboise (clear raspberry brandy), just like you brush a cake with simple syrup. Then, a thin layer of raspberry jam that I thinned out a little with framboise goes on top of the lady finger, a layer of mascarpone cream, and lots of fresh raspberries inside. This process is repeated twice. I didn't use egg yolk for the mouse as I don't usually use raw egg yolks to make a fruit-based mousse/cream.

The end cake is a lot higher than I would have liked. After a quick trip to the freezer and trim all of the sides, the cake is now ready to be glazed. Now, this is where the problem started :(. I always have problem with glazing a cake, especially if I use Oetker clear glaze. I followed the direction carefully, but it just set up like a jelly in a minute after taking it off the heat. I kept reheating it, adding more water and raspberry puree, adding my own homemade glaze, etc but nothing works. You can see the really poor glazing on top. I was really frustrated, and I was already late to the dinner (hence the poor decoration :( ). I was a little disappointed with the height and the glazing and the decoration, but hey, this is an experiment, I should have expected something like this.

But unfortunately, that's not the end of the problem. The real disaster followed 30 minutes after. As I mentioned, the oetker glaze set up like a jelly layer on top of the cake that wasn't really "glued" to the cake. I wasn't really paying attention to this as I drove really fast (a little speeding and maybe juuussttt a tad "zig zag-ing" :P to the dinner place where all of my friends were waiting. When I opened up the box after I arrived, I was just speechless. The glaze/jelly layer on top was sliding down the cake and it looked like a mess!!! I just couldn't say anything at that point.

Here's a picture of the cake after the "accident":

I made a good note of the ingredients proportions (that I might need to try next time), and I will definitely make the lady finger layer thinner. But I'm not done with raspberries, I mean how can I be with lots of them lying around everywhere I go, tempting me to pick up a basket or two (maybe four). So, more raspberries or berry posts comiinnggg :)

Raspberry Rose Pots de Creme

I think it is the longest time I haven't updated my blog. My apology, and I would use the same excuse everytime :(, and I would blame it on...time of course!!! :D. But really, I wish I have 30hrs/day, and if I do, I'm sure I would have asked for 35hrs/day :).

Actually, I made this a while ago. I don't remember when exactly but I remember when I started to have my eyes on these little things. Back when I was in college, when I still had my own apartment in TX, I used to make lots of different custards and desserts, not so much for cakes though. I was more interested in fine cooking, desserts, and I would invited my friends to have a dinner together in my small one-bedroom apartment :). Pots de Creme is among all of the different custards I loved to make (and I still do). From the many times I baked different types, I started to notice the difference between all of them. Custard consists of eggs, sugar, and dairy, those are the main things. I would say pots de creme is nothing different than creme brulee, minus the caramelized sugar on top. The texture is supposed to be silky smooth and velvety.

About a few months ago, I visited my dear friend's house, Kiki and played with her adorable baby Max. The foodtv was on at that time and I wasn't really paying attention on what show is playing. But then I heard the words "dessert", "raspberry", "rose", and "cream", and you know me well that those words get to me very easily. As a HUGE fan of raspberry, rose, custard, I would be really interested in anything with those ingredients in it, among other ingredients of course. Unfortunately, the show ended before I got the change to know what was it. So I began my search immediately (thanks to internet), and finally got this Raspberry Rose Pots de Creme recipe from Giada and immediately to my "to-make" list it goes. The plan was suspended for a while because I was waiting to have leftover raspberries and cream from other cake I made and finally got the chance!

I would say the ingredients are pretty standard for custard. I baked mine in 6-oz ramekins, while the recipe stated for 4-oz. No biggie, it will just yield less amount of ramekins, that's all. I didn't mash the raspberries however, I thought that it would make the appearance less desirable. I just put whole raspberries inside and I also omit the pop rocks candy.

I didn't really eat a lot of this as my friend gulped them all down, but it has a really nice floral taste in the back ground. Be careful not to use a lot of the rose water as it can be very overwhelming. The only thing I would have done differently though, is bake it a little longer. I forgot to increase the amount of baking time, and as a result, the texture was still a little too soft even after being refrigerated overnight.

I think this is a perfect dessert after a dinner party. It doesn't take too long to make, it's easy, and it certainly will wow your guest :)

Raspberry Rose Pots de Creme
Source: Giada de Laurentiis

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup whole milk
  
• 1/2 teaspoon rose water*
• 4 egg yolks
• 1/4 cup sugar
  
• Pinch fine sea salt
• 3/4 cup fresh or frozen and thawed raspberries, mashed
• 4 packets carbonated candy (recommended: Pop Rocks)

Directions

Special equipment: 4 (4 to 5-ounce) ramekins

*Can be found at specialty gourmet markets

Place an oven rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a medium saucepan, heat the cream, milk, and rose water over medium-low heat until warm, about 4 minutes.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, and salt until smooth. Slowly whisk in the milk mixture. Stir in the mashed raspberries. Using a ladle, divide the mixture between 4 ramekins. Place the ramekins in an 8 by 8-inch baking pan. Pour enough hot water into the pan to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake for 30 minutes until the custard is almost set. Remove the pan from the oven and allow the ramekins to cool while still in the water, about 1 hour. Remove the ramekins from the water and refrigerate for at least 2 hours until set.

Serve with a packet of carbonated candy.

Spring-Themed Birthday Cake

It seems like this blog has been more like a weekly update rather than a blog. My apology for not replying your emails immediately or your comments, but I'm working on it as well as posting more posts and recipe including the past recipes that I promised on the previous posts.

I think you know pretty well already how excited I am at this time of the year (despite the fact the I mentioned it over and over again :D). I've been going to farmers' market every Sunday for the last 1.5 months or so. Not that I always needed to buy something, but I just love being in the crowd, watching the fresh produce, sampling different things, especially under a warm California sun (although it has been raining lately :( ). Strawberry has been showing up everywhere and it's always hard for me to resist them everytime I go, but I've been good so far in terms of self-control.

For the past two years, I've been buying strawberries from the same stall every summer. They sell the best, the sweetest strawberries I've ever had, but I've been disappointed this year. Everytime I visit their stall, I expected the strawberries to be the same as the year before, but they're not as sweet anymore :(. Nonetheless, I will still excited anyway to see and always eager to make something with them everytime I see them. You see, strawberry is the kind of fruit that I enjoy more when I'm making something with it instead of eating it straight. Don't ask me why, but that's just the way it is. The same thing goes for raspberries, hmm... I guess all berries?? I always think of different ways, flavor combination to use berries for dessert.

Now, last Thursday was my boss' birthday. I've always wanted to make a birthday cake for him and so I did. He was a little shy about his birthday but we all had a short little celebration for him. The cake itself is a two-tiered cake, the bottom is 8" square and the top is 6" round. I thought it's gonna take me quite a while to make this, but surprisingly it wasn't. The top 6" tier has two layers of vanilla sponge cake that I already had on hand with mango cheesecake layer as the bottom filling (from the chilled mango cheesecake leftover filling the I froze in a 6" mold). I just made a layer of strawberry flavored cheesecake for the top layer and to cover the sides of the cake. The bottom tier has two layers of cream cheese cotton cake that I flavored with lemon zest, thin layer of fragrant blueberry filling and cream cheese mousse on top of each cake.

The decoration didn't take too long either. I just made white chocolate fence early in the morning, put them on and stacked the strawberries (this turned out to be the start of a disaster later on). So I drove away with the cake, thinking that everything is gonna be alright. When I got to work, the chocolate fence were falling off the cake, some of them were broken, the strawberries were all over the place, it was ugly. I tried to calm myself down, I didn't have time to fix it as I had work to do and I was late already (as usual). When I had the chance to fix it, it wasn't as pretty as it was before. It doesn't matter how hard I try, I thought they looked ugly, the strawberries were dirty from the cream, the chocolate fence wasn't straight anymore ; ;. I knew that I shouldn't put the strawberries at home, they're just too heavy, but I did the best I can to make it look acceptable.

Despite all the mess, it was very well-received by the crowd :P. I like how it looks, it doesn't look over-the-top, but simple and clean, and definitely scream Spring! I'm submitting this cake for Spring Cake Event for Monthly Mingle #32 hosted by Meeta. You can view the event on her blog or the official page of Monthly Mingle

Another Gathering, Another Tiramisu!

Spring has been gorgeous so far, although the weather changed quite drastically lately from 95F to 65 in just two days, but I'm not complaining. It's been beautiful and I'm enjoying every minute of it. The other reason why I enjoy it so much is because Spring is when the tulip is starting to show up everywhere. It's my ultimate favorite flower (especially the white and the soft pink color :D), but unfortunately, the season doesn't last for so long. I think it's only readily available mostly on April-May. So, I'm trying to spend most of my weekend outside enjoying the warmth of the sun and the cool breeze during the day (although my allergy definitely will not do me any good). You can definitely smell the Magnolia blooming at night, what else could you ask for.

In the middle of the craziness that has been happening daily, I saw an email on Wednesday morning that there will be another gathering for a group of people at work on Friday noon, called "Dip Day". It's basically everything dips, chips, appetizer, etc. and it's clearly said in the email that except for me, I have to bring a dessert, @_@. Hmm.... it was Wednesday and that means I have to come up with something to make (which is always the hardest thing for me), and when to make. I knew for sure that I would be coming home late on both Wed. and Thurs., so a plan is definitely needed of what to make, when to buy the ingredients, when to make it, and when to decorate it.

After a careful consideration, tiramisu came to be the winner. I had some of the ingredients ready, which are the lady fingers, rum and espresso (which are staples in my pantry), all I needed to buy were the mascarpone cheese and heavy cream. Tiramisu is probably the ultimate choice everytime I need to make something quick but will still please everybody. I've never met a single person who doesn't like tiramisu so far. Plus it is fairly quick to make as no oven needed and the decoration doesn't take too long either as tiramisu has that classic decoration look already. The downside is, since it is so popular and almost every single bakery has it, each person has what they each call the best tiramisu in their life. It is quite nerve-wrecking to serve something that's probably not going to matach up their high tiramisu standard. I must admit that there are a lot of bakeries and restaurants out there that have a really good tiramisu, and trying to make something similar or at least be the same level as restaurant standard for a tough crowd, is quite a risk, but I did it anyway.

Nothing new to this tiramisu as I make it quite often. Getting bored with the square look, I decided to finally make use of my hexagonal cake ring that I bought more than a year ago to assemble the dessert. This is also the first time I used my Valrhona cocoa powder and I'm in love with it. It has a deep chocolate flavor and the color is wonderful too. I'm glad that everybody enjoyed the dessert, it is always a great pleasure everytime. And I am so glad that in the midst of the heavy work-load that everybody has, we managed to set aside some time enjoying each other's company and enjoying good food. The food has always been great, I guess it's true that there's a chef hidden inside every person :D.

Pink Swedish Princess Cake

I think I need to remind myself over and over again, no more weekday cakes please, but I just couldn't resist. There were times when I just wanted to quit when I was making a cake in a time crunch. When you only have an hour everyday to pull together a cake, your planning must be good. But I'm no quitter, even if it means that I have to wake up super bright and early for a few days to finish it, you can't quit what you have started (there are exceptions of course :D).

Now, the cake. It was a request from a friend who likes princess cake so much for another friend's birthday (talking about selfish :P, j/k). Boy, do we have lots of birthday celebrations lately. The request was that it must be pink because it is the birthday girl's favorite color, despite the fact that traditional princess cake is green. If you follow my blog, you would see that I made this cake a few times before and everytime, I kept changing something whether it's the type of the cake base, the simply syrup, the proportions of cream and/or pastry cream, etc.

This time is no difference. I decided to make my own raspberry jelly instead of the usual seedless raspberry jam used in a princess cake. I always find that store-bought jam is way too sweet to my liking. Although, looking at the economical point of view, making your own is not too beneficial though as the cost of the raspberry itself is equal to the cost of a jar of jam (not to mention the time and labor put into it). Plus, you would still have plenty of jam leftover if you buy it. But I am such a hard-headed or stubborn person if you may call it, that I'd still make it myself despite that I know all the plus and minus behind it. It's not too difficult, just a little time-consuming because you have to puree the raspberries and strain it (the part which I like the least everytime I pureed something --> takes too much time and more dishes to wash) then heat it, add the gelatin, and finally let it cool down to thicken (may take a while). I didn't even use a measurement, just kinda go for it.

I followed the traditional filling for princess cake, which is three layers of sponge cake (usually genoise type), simple syrup to moisten it (I flavored it with raspberry puree-->can't you tell how much I love raspberry already?), a thin layer of raspberry jam (made my own) and cream for the bottom filling, vanilla bean pastry cream as the second layer of filling and more cream on top to cover the cake and to form the dome, and finally enrobed with marzipan. I can never get a soft pastel color for the marzipan, it has a natural brown almond color that whatever color you color it with, it will always be darker. But I found some white marzipan somewhere online the other day, had to try it someday. It's not a difficult cake to make as each filling is pretty straight forward. You don't even need a particular recipe, you just need to know the components that make up the cake.

I wasn't 100% satisfied with the decoration as I think I rolled the marzipan too thin that the cake inside is showing (you can tell from the picture). I also did a poor job on covering it. You can probably notice it too that the bottom part has some wrinkles. I just use the leftover marzipan to make pearls for the bottom border and brush it with pink luster dust to make it shiny. I also had to hunt for the roses though, luckily we have a mini rose plant at the front yard so I just had to pick out the best ones to put onto the cake.

I couldn't make it to the birthday dinner though as work was calling. But I was so.....glad and relieved after I heard that the cake had rave reviews, everybody really liked it. Pheeww.... talking about pressure. I was afraid that I would mess up something in the proportion since I keep changing something everytime I make the same type of cake. Unfortunately I couldn't taste it myself, thanks to my friend who forgot to save me a slice :P, but as long as everybody likes it, that's all I need :D

An Un-planned Chocolate-Tiramisu Entremet and Raspberry Macarons

Why the name? Well, it's because it was unplanned indeed. The story behind it was that it was initially meant as a birthday cake for a friend's birthday. I was going to use this "opportunity" to experiment with new flavor combination that I've never tried before. At least there would be enough people willing to be "the victim" for the experiment cake, I thought. That was the plan two weeks before the birthday. But little did I know that so many things will happen for the next two weeks. From family emergency which makes me to be in charge of feeding the whole family now, including the dishes and helping with the nephew and niece, work also has its way of adding my frustration. Going home at 9-10pm from work was a regular and I came home just wanting to throw myself into bed, not doing anything else. I hardly have time to breath (this is hyperbolic but you know what I mean :D).

But I didn't give up on the cake just like that. The cake I wanted to make has about 7 components including the decoration I was planning to put on it. I originally wanted to make a cake similar to what Aran had made before. She has been my inspiration ever since I found her blog. The minute I saw her post that day, I was in love and determined to make a replica of her creation. The many components that always challenge a part of my brain, the clean-ness of her cut, the decorations, you name it. Plus I still had an enormous amount of meyer lemon juice I had kept in the freezer.

I started on the planning, when should I make the cake base, lemon cream, mousse, and stuff. I woke up super early for two days just to try to beat the time. I made the cake base that she has posted on the blog, but it didn't satisfy me. I guess I'm used to Indonesian-type of sponge cake, which uses tons of eggs (particularly the yolks), very little flour and lots of melted butter, resulting in a light cake but yet so soft. So, I made another sponge cake the day after (this is the day before the birthday), and also the chocolate mousse and the milk chocolate cream. I used Pierre Herme's chocolate mousse recipe from his book "Dessert by Pierre Herme", where I saw the combination of lemon and chocolate for the first time. He has similar cake recipe which uses chocolate cake, lemon cream and chocolate mousse. I have bookmarked the page for almost 2 years now, but never get to it :P. So, back to the cake, I literally gave up the night before. I was really tired that I couldn't make another component. At that time, I was only able to make the cake and the milk chocolate cream.

I made PH's chocolate mousse the morning after and at that time I knew that I really need to buy a cake that day from a bakery somewhere. Which is not a bad thing really, as there are quite a few bakeries that I like around here. I don't normally eat my own cake but I would definitely enjoy it if somebody else made it. So, this is the chance for me to actually eat a cake on a birthday celebration!!! how cool is that?! I quickly changed my mind to not make the chocolate-lemon combination for a few reason. So, I grabbed two 8" layers of chocolate sponge cake I had kept in the freezer (don't you just love freezer? it's just a baker's best friend). The sponge cake I made the night before was too big to be used for anything I will decide to make with the mousse :P, so I kept it save and sound in the freezer. It was enough for a layer of filling and a few mini chocolate mousse cakes (which I did not capture). I kept the partially-done cake in the fridge for a few days as I hardly had time to do anything with it. Until about three days later that I finally forced myself to finish the cake.

So, after not-so-careful consideration and observing what I had in the fridge at that time, the cake was finally done! It was composed of two layers of moist chocolate cake, brushed with strong espresso simple syrup, chocolate mousse and cocoa nibs as the bottom layer, and tiramisu cream for the top layer. Then I piped the milk chocolate cream on top of the tiramisu cream. Thank goodness for the leftover chocolate shavings that I was able to quickly decorate it with the clock ticking. The chocolate decoration on the side as also super quick to make. You only need melted chocolate and a spoon, plus parchment paper or acetate sheet. A tiny white ribbon made it extra cute :P.

The macaron however, was specially made just to decorate this cake. I only needed one pair of course. I couldn't help it after seeing Aran's beautiful macaron she put on her cake that I just had to make it too :D. I filled both the pink and the chocolate macaron with raspberry buttercream. The raspberry one has a square of raspberry jelly in the middle of the macaron. Need to practice more on macaron though, can't get that perfect "feet" and smooth top.

Brought this cake to a friend's place where we all gathered to have this cake as an-after-dinner dessert. I was really nervous at first as I had no idea how this cake would turn out, but I was super relieved when one of my friend took the first bite and quickly said "this is REALLY good". He said that a few times just so that I would believe it (cause I didn't :P), plus "from the bottom of my heart, this cake is really good", haha....Okay....., so I tasted it the day after and to my surprise, I ate the whole slice! I can definitely taste the espresso and the tiramisu cream. The mousse was light, not too bitter as well, plus the addition of the cocoa nibs for that extra texture, it was definitely far from "too rich". Yummm.......The macarons too, were gobbled up pretty quickly. My friend was like munching it and said "hmm....this is good, should make this more often". It was definitely more than good enough for an un-planned cake :D.

On the last note, I'm submitting this for "For The Love Of Chocolate" event entry hosted by Poornima of Tasty Treats

Chilled Mango Cheesecake

I'm so thankful to be blessed to work in a company where the people are so friendly and so easy and fun to work with. I enjoy working where I do right now, it doesn't feel so much like working really because I actually enjoy being with the people around me and doing what I do (there are exceptional times of course :P). There are so much hospitality and laugh and stories shared each day, and work of course even with the people I don't really know. Instead of being my coworkers, they have become friends to me.

Today, we had a potluck party during lunch time for a group of people. I was so excited to try different foods from different countries and just experiencing the good food made by them. I was planning to bring an Indonesian dish (I know they'd love it) and a dessert (by request). Until the day or the night before, my mind was still blank, don't know what to make. There were so much things to be done at work and at home that I didn't even have enough time to sit down and just think about what I wanted to make. So, after forcing myself to concentrate, I wrote down some options for desserts that I can make at home, something light, fruity, and not difficult and take so much time to make, and hopefully fancy enough to meet their "high expectation" :P. I decided not to cook for time constraint since I only have few hours to prepare the dessert and also cook for the whole house too :)

I finally settled on chilled mango cheesecake after a careful consideration. I have one layer of chiffon-type cake left in the freezer, some mango pulp in the freezer as well, and there are so many fresh mangoes almost gone bad, plus unused heavy cream that I bought to make my brother's cake but ended up not using it at all. Besides, I absolutely LOVE mango, one of my all-time favorite fruits, so mango chilled cheesecake it is! I just need to make a stop on my way home to buy some cream cheese, and I'm all set.

I kinda measuring and mixing as I go. Adding the mango pulp while weighing it so that I can take a note for future, how much pulp I needed to make the mango flavor pronounced, thinking that lemon juice might help with discoloration and balancing the flavor, things like that. I tasted the batter, and I couldn't stop my finger from keep licking it (with different fingers excuse me). I poured the mango glaze in the morning and decorated very simple. It's not too pretty, but that's what I had on hand at the time.

When I opened the box at work, I was shocked to find out that the glaze was running down the side of the cake! oh no! I panicked but tried to calm down as I got work waiting for me. I admit that I drove a little too fast (I was late :D) and I completely forgot that there was a cake I need to take care of. But, I can't do anything to fix it except wipe off the glaze from the cake. It doesn't look pretty anymore :(, I should have taken a picture or two before I took it to work.

I was so sad about the appearance because really, it look so pretty before (well, at least for me) :(. But it all paid off after getting unexpected come back from my coworkers!!! I wasn't expecting that many compliments from them, but I'm so glad that they all LOVED it. Even the person who doesn't like mango at all finished a slice. One girl even printed the cheesecake she ate and put it outside her cube, I mean what could be more rewarding than that? I just hope that they didn't sing me that embarrassing happy birthday song when they asked me to cut into the cake (and no, it wasn't my birthday) :D

Strawberry Sponge Pudding Cake with Vanilla Bean Creme Anglaise

The title is a little bit confusing and super long, yeah I know but I can't think of other names that are suitable for this dessert. I want the title to represent the dessert, but of well :P

The term "pudding" in Indonesia is very different than what we call pudding here in the US. Here, we always know pudding as the Jell-o type pudding, at least that custard-like texture. But back in Indonesia, pudding is something that you make using agar agar. It's a gelling agent, almost like a gelatin, but agar agar is derived from plants, instead of animals. The texture it gives is also different than what gelatin does, it sets in different way. Pudding always reminds me when I was a kid. Everybody eats lots of pudding during the childhood, so pudding is often associated with childhood memories. It used to be made with just liquid (water, milk, coconut milk, you name it), agar agar, and sugar. Now, there are so many variation on puddings. People are getting more and more creative with this dessert and sky is the limit of what can you do with it. Another thing about pudding is, no one can mess it up. All you need to do is boil it and pour into mold for basic pudding. Even if it doesn't turn out like you expected, it'll still taste great anyway.

I was craving for one for quite some time, but again, didn't have the time to make it. So last Sunday, I had about three hours of free time. I usually take a nap on Sunday but it was pretty late for nap and I didn't want to stay wide awake at midnight. I remember I had some strawberry puree in the freezer. I pureed the leftover strawberries in the fridge since they showed some threat of going bad real soon. I love to keep fruit purees in the freezer all the times. It's a great time saver whenever I want to make mousse, or jelly, or anything. So I guess that time was reserved for strawberry pudding.

I make the sponge-type pudding this time, which I added beaten egg white (hence the name). I also added some egg yolks to the mixture to get a softer texture. I used a base of chiffon type cake that I had kept in the freezer for times like this. Everything will just be a breeze to make if you have some of the components ready to use. I also made clear jelly to pour on top of the pudding to have the shiny or mirror effect. It looks like strawberry mirror cake really with strawberry mousse filling, but believe me, the texture is nowhere close to mousse. I made vanilla bean creme anglaise for the sauce. It's very common to serve pudding with creme anglaise, or what we usually called "vla".

It happened that on Monday, we had a surprise birthday dinner for my brother and so I brought this dessert over. My friends went crazy over this, it was gone in a split second. Too bad it was a small size cake, about 8", but everybody got a slice at least. I brought the mini ones to work to share with friends and the pictures are again courtesy of Tony :)

I'm not going to type the recipe because I'm not sure if the kind of agar agar I used is readily available. But let me know of you want me to.

Cherry Blossom Birthday Cake

Spring has just arrived and the weather here in San Jose, California has been gorgeous lately. Flowers are blooming, plenty of sunshine, crisp air, it's like having a natural air conditioner. I know that the cherry blossom season had just passed a few weeks ago. I was planning to make a cake with a cherry blossom theme everytime I saw the tree in the street (which is a lot), but business got the best of me. And besides, it was mostly raining when the blossoms were at their peak :(. There's something about this flower that makes me wanting to take pictures everytime I see them. Imagine how many pictures I'd have if I did that.

So, the idea of making cherry blossom theme cake was kind of fade away along with the end of the cherry blossom season until about a week ago. It was one of my beloved brothers' birthday and also one of my dearest friends' birthday last weekend. It was actually on Monday, but we went out to dinner to celebrate two of our best friends. And of course I'd be more than happy to make the cake for them.

I'm a planner, I have to plan everything way before I have to actually do something with it. I always plan what to cook on Monday, Tuesday, and so forth the week before. I always plan wah beforehand what kind of cake I want to make, how will I decorate it, when should I start, what should be done first, etc. The reason is first, because I like everything well-planned and organized, second, because I don't have the time to make something in an instant, especially when it comes to a cake. There are so many steps involved that I just need to break them down and do them separately according to my time. Some inspiration usually comes to mind about what I really feel like making, what flavor combination I'd like to try and so forth, but not this time. I was still blank even the day before the birthday dinner (which is very unusual). But I bought some cream anyway. I will definitely need it for mousse cakes, bavarian cream cakes.

I kinda had something in mind at that time, but then I remembered that we're going to bring the cake to the restaurant, which means, no refrigeration for 1-2 hours. I switched gear immediately and decided to make something that can stand in room temperature without getting soft and becoming a gooey mess. So I went with vanilla and raspberry cake covered in fondant. And what could be more perfect time to put the cherry blossom idea into it! It consists of soft vanilla sponge, raspberry soaking syrup, raspberry buttercream, and raspberry gelee. I've been wanting to try Hidemi's Sugino raspberry buttercream recipe from his book that I got for myself two months ago. The problem is, it's all in Japanese. The ingredient part has French translation, which I can understand a little, but the direction is 100% in japanese. Luckily, it has some step-by-step pictures, so I can try to guess. I added gelee just so that I has some texture contrast. I figured the gelee won't melt or soften that much without refrigeration.

The buttercream recipe is based on creme anglaise. The creme anglaise is mixed with creamed butter, then added some raspberry puree, and lastly, fold in the italian meringue. It's a very lengthy process, but I was determined to make it. In the end, the buttercream was not as stiff as I expected, it's rather "soup-y". Definitely not good firm enough to be spread on the side of the cake and especially after I cover it with fondant later on. I refrigerate it for a while, and added another stick and a half of butter to it. It doesn't help much, but the refrigeration does. The amount of liquid added to the butter was a lot (the creme anglaise and the raspberry puree), so I should have guessed about the texture. Despite the texture of the buttercream, it tasted delicious!

It was a challenge covering the cake with fondant. The cream soften so quickly outside the fridge so I had to go back and forth to keep it firm enough to hold the fondant. So, here it goes. I'm not too happy about the result though. The cake could have been taller, the branches could have been smaller, I don't know, there were so many "could have" or "if only I do this". I'll just hope for the best that the cake will taste good :).

Apparently, we can ask the restaurant to keep the cake in their fridge! Bummer, I could have gone with some other cake selection (here we go with another "could have"), but it's too late now. I'm just thankful that they kind enough to offered their fridge so that the cream wouldn't soften. We ate the cake as a dessert in the restaurant and I was so relieved that it tasted great. The raspberry flavor was so intense, you know that I love raspberries more than any other berries and it's just the way I liked it! The gelee also provides some textural balance with a tad of tartness to it. Phew! at least the cake survived until dinner.

The restaurant was so dark that I couldn't take a good picture of the inside of the cake, and besides, my camera battery died on me. This is the only better picture I can take with the last breath of the battery.

Vanilla Bean and Pistachio Creme Brulee

It has been so long since I made creme brulees and I don't think I've ever blogged about it. This is one of those very simple dessert to make but yet very elegant, my kind of dessert :).

I wasn't really planning on make this really, the idea came last minute when I was thinking what should I do with the leftover cream that's almost gone bad and the leftover whole milk in the fridge (I don't usually drink it straight). Creme Brulee suddenly popped in my head and since it was so simple to make, I thought it's perfect to make on a weeknight after work, when I don't have much time or energy to do anything. I stopped by a store to buy a blowtorch since my old one leaked out on me :(. It has served me well over the years for not just creme brulee, it helped me brown meringue and take out the cake ring from a mousse cake too.

I was thinking of making pistachio creme brulee at first, but I changed my mind in the process and decided to go with two flavors, the classic vanilla bean and pistachio. I only need to make one batch of the cream batter and then divided it in half. Pour the plain vanilla bean into the mold, and add some pistachio paste on the other half. The vanilla bean flavor has a lot more vanilla bean seeds compared to the pistachio one.

The pistachio flavor wasn't as intense as I would expected it to be. The only pistachio paste I have is the brown color one, not the green color. I will need to get myself the green one, one of these days. But overall, I was really pleased with the result and not just me, but everybody who ate it. I gave one to my friend and he is begging for more (I only have one left at that time). My niece and nephew can't stop coming back for more and been asking me to make more of it. It's super creamy without being heavy at all, combined with the crunch of the burned sugar, I think it's just perfect

Plain, before adding the sugar and burn it

I used to make desserts all the time rather than cakes (although cake is dessert too). Things like souffles, custards (pots de creme, creme caramel, creme brulee, etc.), molten choc. cakes, cheesecakes, were regulars in my kitchen when I was in college. But I've been occupied more with cakes lately and I forgot how good it is and more satisfying in some way compared to multi-layer cakes, not to mention a lot simpler and faster to make. I'll remember to make desserts more often now.

(my friend thought it was cool to take a picture of the creme brulee next to an iphone)

Strawberry Tart

Life has been so busy lately. It has always been but I just feel exhausted everytime I come home from work. Those many late nights at work completely consume all my energy and by the time I got home, my brain feels like it stops working.

But on the other hand, Spring has finally decided to peek a little. Weather in California has always been nice, but I just couldn't wait for what feels like a really long winter to pass. Flowers are showing everywhere, the warm sun, squirrels playing in the trees, birds chirping, words just can't describe how beautiful it is. I can't help but smiling everytime I go out of the house, or walking from the office building to the parking lot, I can smell the flowers through the air. It's still a little cold to let my windows open at night when I'm sleeping, but I always do on late spring to early summer. I just want to suck all the fragrance of the crisp air, combined with fresh spring flower smell, and keep it somewhere so that I can smell it when they're gone. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way :(.

A few days ago (two days to be exact), I saw a big box full of what seems like to be a very juicy, big, very bright and fragrant strawberries sitting on the dinner table. Apparently my brother has just bought it from a fruit stall on the street. My brain automatically started working hard thinking what can I turn those precious strawberries into. Then I remember that I had two mini tart shells, already baked, leftover from the lemon meringue tart I made a week or two before. I also got a little vanilla bean pastry cream in the freezer, and heavy cream in the fridge that has been waiting to be used for a while now. What could be more perfect than strawberry tart to welcome the long-awaited spring?

I was so determined to make it that I decided to wake up earlier in the morning and make it before leaving for work. All the ingredients were all ready to use, and all I needed to do was to whip the cream and fold it in the pastry cream, then fill, and arrange the strawberries on top. A quick brush of clear glaze and chopped pistachio give a nice touching finish to the tart. It's very simple but yet elegant, with a clean taste to it, definitely my kind of dessert :)

My friend Tony, just bought a brand new Nikon D90 SLR camera, and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to put the camera into the test. The pictures shown here are from his camera and his "practice" at our cafeteria at work. I like the photos a lot, much better compared to my tiny Canon pocket camera ; ;. Now, I have a lot of money saving to do to get my hands on one of those SLR cameras :(. But in the meantime, I know where to go to for my pictures :). Thanks Tony!

Chiffon Cake Madness

There's not much to say really about this cake. I had to make eight chiffon cakes for our church's snack this past Sunday for about 150 people. With only two pans and another one borrowed from a dear friend, I thought it was gonna be frustrating, but it wasn't too bad. The thing is, you have to wait for the cake to be completely cooled before you can unmold and re-use the pan, that's the most time-consuming part.

I decided to make three flavors, the all-time favorite pandan of course, mocha rum (added some kind of very fragrant rum paste. gotta love coffee-rum combo :D), and trying out raspberry swirl flavor. I thought of the last choice mainly for the kids really. I used a kind of raspberry paste I bought from Indonesian that I haven't used for a while. I love the smell, very fragrant although it barely smells like the real raspberry :D. But I love this combination. Somehow, I get more excited to see plain white chiffon (swirled in this case) rather than mocha or pandan or anything. I don't know why but I just love the clean-ness of the color and you can really tell how light it is. I think it resembles clouds, which is exactly the texture of chiffon cakes, light as cloud.

After slicing, I think I got about 230 slices out of those eight cakes, which is surprising as I expected to get about 185 slices. I was a little worried at the time about having too much leftover cakes. But little did I know that this plain old cake went by so quickly. They were all gone before I had the chance to taste it. It's always a good thing, right? Always a great "unspoken" compliment :D

I wish I had gotten better pictures but I was already late for church that day. So, just took whatever available at the table at that time.

Happy Birthday Hachiko!

Hachiko is the name of my brother's beloved dog by the way. She's a Yorkshire Terrier or what most people called Yorkie. She turns one last Monday and the parents (a.k.a my brother and my sis in law) were super excited about this. They want to have a little celebration so that they could have a picture of it. And when she died 15 years from now maybe, they can take a look at the picture and cry. Okay, maybe it's not the best reason to have a celebration for a dog's birthday, but hey who needs excuse or special occasion to have a little gathering, or more importantly, for a cake! Here's a sneak peek of the dog. She's super cute, isn't she? not to mention super smart too.

So, I thought it would be fun to make a cake covered with fondant, and maybe a little doggie figurine on top. The dog was allowed to eat a small cupcake size cake for her special treat on her birthday. As long as it doesn't contain alcohol, grape, or chocolate, it should be fine. Since this is gonna be fondant cake, I don't have many choices as for the type or filling of the cake. It should be something that doesn't need refrigeration, but still tastes good. The standard filling is buttercream, but what a boring cake I thought if it's just a plain vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream. After a long thought, I decided on super soft vanilla cake (the same one here), layered with a thin layer of very fragrant blueberry paletta (some kind of a jam and tastes like candy) that I mixed with blueberry preserves to cut down the sweetness that usually jam has, and to have texture. Then, on top of the jam, I layered cream cheese frosting that I had flavored with a little rum extract.

It might not the best decision ever because I forgot that cream cheese frosting is softer than buttercream. It took me a good 20 minutes probably just trying to smooth out the side and the top, making it even, not crooked. After a trip to the fridge for a couple of hours, I was ready to cover it with fondant. It became soft again quickly, but I tried to smooth it out as smooth as possible.

I made the doggie figurine the day before and it was my first time! I always said and thought that I would or could never made little figurines like that. I just don't have the patience sitting, kneading, coloring small fondant with multiple color, attach this and that, I just think it's too much work. But I tried last saturday with a laptop nearby playing youtube instruction of how to make fondant dog. I think I did a pretty good job on it :D. At least it looked like a dog, not bear, cat or some random animals. Luckily, I had a little piece of deep brown colored fondant from my last fondant cake and it was perfect for the dog.

I also made the paw prints. Now, I think this is harder than making the dog itself. I used small round fondant cutter to make the paw and shape it into oval by hand with the help of a toothpick. The little fingers were made using regular straw. The straw was a little bent, so it wasn't completely round, a little oval instead and it works very well for the job.

The morning after, I saw the front part of the cake was a little bent, not completely smooth anymore. It was because the frosting went soft and I guess it slide down a little :(. I can't do anything at this point, and besides, it's only for a dog's birthday and it's only 6-in just for the family to eat. So a little less pressure there. If it was a cake order, then I would really sweat it.

Overall, I was pretty pleased with the cake. I think it's simple but cute. I baked some in cupcake pan for the dog to eat. She was only allowed to eat one though. I didn't go overboard with the dog's cake decoration, just a simple swirl, some sprinkles, and ribbon to make it extra pretty :).

She was hesitated at first, and just licking the frosting only (we removed most of the frosting though), but then she gulped it down in a split second. I could tell she was a happy dog that night :D.

As for the adult's cake, everybody loves the cake (including myself). The soft texture of the cake, the sweet and fragrant blueberry and a little tartness from the frosting, compliment each other perfectly. I always love the combination of blueberry and cheese anyway. They're just one of those coombinations that are meant for each other :). It's not as light as mousse cake, although it's not over-the-top kinda cake, but it's definitely comforting and the type of cake that you'd like to have one slice each day ;)

Meyer Lemon Meringue Tart

I have been keeping the lemons for two weeks now. I had to throw some of them away because they went bad :(. You can't imagine how bad I felt when did that. They were too precious to just go to waste. So, I was determined to fulfill their destiny by making a wonderful dessert with it. Lemon tart is definitely the perfect choice for this.

For those of you who are lemon tart fans, you must have heard Pierre Herme's lemon tart. If you haven't, you don't know what you have been missing my friend. The first time I made his lemon tart was actually about two years ago, and yes, it is a long time. But I only made the lemon cream at that time, and I don't remember what recipe I used to make the tart crust.

So this time, I was determined to make his recipe from start to finish. I have two of his books that contains a recipe for his lemon tart. One is Dessert By Pierre Herme, written by Dorie Greenspan. This book is modified to suit American home bakers. The amount of the recipe is written in cups, and tablespoons, which I don't really like as it is not accurate. But Dorie made the recipe sounds a lot easier. The other book I have is La Patsserie De Pierre Herme (the link is for the Spanish ed.). It contains Pierre's original recipe and has both French and English translation in it although the direction is very sparse. You have to scale down the recipe by a lot though, unless you are feeding an army with your cake :D. There are a couple of cakes featured in both books, although the recipe is somewhat different. It is a lot more complicated and some of the ingredients are hard to find here in the US. Dorie does make it A LOT easier on the other book, although it is not 100% PH original I guess. But it is more than enough if you want to re-create Pierre's recipes at home.

It took me approximately two nights and two mornings to make this from start to finish. I started by making the pate sucree for the tart crust. The crust is wonderful as it has vanilla bean in it, and a little almond flour for that extra texture. I made it with my faithful Kitchen Aid mixer, make the job a lot easier. You can also use a food processor, but the idea of cleaning it up doesn't really excites me. Cleaning the mixer bowl is a lot easier :D.

The pate sucree is pretty simple to make once you get all the ingredients ready. With the help of my trusty Kitchen Aid, it's a breeze to make. You can't make only for a single crust though. You will need to make at least the amount enough for three crusts to get the best texture. I halved the recipe from PH book.

I brought this tart to work of course, to thank my coworker for bringing me this wonderful gift (well, he kinda expected me to make something with it when he gave it to me anyway :D). I emailed him and a few other friends that I left it in the fridge. A couple of minutes later, they came to my cube saying everything is gone already. I didn't witnessed that, but from what I heard, they all liked it very much. I even had people (who weren't in my email list) saying how good it was, another also emailed me (not in my list as well) to thank me personally and to tell me how superb it was. He even asked me if I worked at a bakery before, hahaha (I'll take that as a compliment). Some other friends came to my cube 5 minutes later and said that he didn't get any. All he found was just the empty box. Hmm... I guess they did like it :).

Fortunately, I made a mini version of the tart and save it for myself and I completely agree with them (and also the rest of the world for that matter) that it was indeed wonderful. My niece and nephew kept coming back for more. I just wished I saved more :D

My piping is not that great. I was pretty dissapointed with how it looks (despite all of the compliments I got of how pretty it looks) :(

Pate Sucree
yield: three 101/2-in crusts or four 8-in crusts

300g unsalted butter, cubed, at room temperature
190g powdered sugar
60g ground almonds
1 vanilla bean, scrapped
2 eggs, room temperature
500g all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt

• Put the butter in a mixer bowl and cream until smooth and creamy using a paddle attachment.
• Add the sugar, ground almonds, and vanilla bean seeds. Mix until combined.
• Add the eggs one at a time, fully incorporating the previous one before adding the next one (the dough might look curdled at this point but don't worry, it'll come together once you add the flour)
• Combine the flour and salt. Add to the dough in about three addition. Mix until just it comes together. Do not overwork! Like Pierre said, "it's better to have lumps of butter rather than to have an overwork dough".
• Divide the dough in the portions you need. Form each one into a ball and flatten it into a disk. Wrap each disk with plastic wrap and store in the fridge overnight (you can also freeze the dough at this point and thaw it in the fridge overnight).
• Remove one disk from the fridge, and roll it either between two sheets of parchment paper, or just well-floured surface. You need to move quickly though. You don't want the dough to be soft and overworked.
  
• Line your tart pan with the dough and put it back in the fridge for at least 1-2 hrs to rest.
  
• Preheat the oven to 350 F.
• When you're ready to bake, put a parchment paper on top of the dough and fill the bottom with either rice or beans.
  
• Bake for 20 minutes. Take the parchment paper and the beans/rice off, then continue to bake for another 5-10 minutes until it's golden brown.
• Let cool in the ring.

Lemon Cream
Slightly adapted from La Pattiserie de Pierre Herme book.
You can view the recipe that Dorie has modified to American home kitchen here

4 eggs
165 g fresh meyer lemon juice
200 g sugar
zest from about 3-4 lemons
300 g unsalted butter, room temperature and cubed

• Rub the zest with the sugar using your finger until the sugar is moistened with lemon oil.
  
• On a double boiler, combine the sugar, eggs and juice .
  
• Whisk/stir constantly until the mixture reaches 85-86 C.
• Strain the mixture and let cool to about 55-60 C and put it in a blender (if you don't have a hand-held blender)
• Add the butter a couple of pieces at a time, to make an emulsion. The mixture will ligthen in color. Continue running the blender for a few minutes after all of the butter has been added to ensure the airy and light cream. Make sure stop and run the blender a few times to avoid over-heating.
• Pour the mixture into prepared crust and refrigerate.

The italian meringue is optional though. Both books have the recipe only for lemon tart, but Pierre also said that you can also add Italian meringue if you wish. If you're only making the tart without the meringue, glaze the top of the tart with translucent glaze, apple jelly or apricot jelly for that shiny effect.

Italian Meringue

3 egg whites, room temperature
150 g sugar
50 g water

• Combine the water and the sugar in a saucepan and bring the temperature to about 247 F on a candy thermometer. Brush the splatter on the sides using pastry brush that has been dipped in cold water to prevent crystallization.
  
• Meanwhile, beat the egg white until soft peak forms.
  
• When the sugar is ready, with the mixer running on a low speed, pour the hot sugar syrup on the side of the mixer bowl to avoid splatter (it will splatter eventually a little). Do not attempt to scrape the splatter on the sides of the bowl or you'll get lumps.
  
• Continue beating on a medium high speed until the meringue is almost at room temperature. The texture will be marshmallow-y, as light as cloud.
• Decorate the tart with meringue.
• Brown the top with blow torch or under a broiler for a few minutes.

Not wanting to trash more of the lemons, I decided to zest and juice them up and freeze it. I got a little more than 6 cups of juice and about 1 cup full of zest. I don't have to worry about not having lemons in spring or summer for desserts now. And I know exactly who to go to if I ever ran out of them :)

This tart is also my entry for Lemon Day event hosted by zorra at kochtopf.twoday.net
Here's the link the her post:
http://kochtopf.twoday.net/stories/announcing-ankuendigung-lemon-day/

I hope I will have more time in the next few weeks to come up with more lemony desserts :D

Vanilla Cheese Layer Cake

I know, another cheese layered cake. It might look the same as the ones I made many many times before, but this one is different.

I was craving for a simple yet satisfying cake lately. I've been working late for a while and I feel like I deserved to indulge a little. I don't want those fancy cakes with mousse, cream, gelee, chocolate. All I wanted was a simple and comforting cake, and the only thing on my mind was this cake. There's something about this cake that just very comforting, not to mention delicious, and a lot simpler to make than regular french gateau.

I'm trying new recipe this time. I usually use three layers of soft and moist sponge cake (with lots of egg yolks and butter), layered with simple buttercream, and cheese of course. This time is not that much different, except the method of making the cake and the frosting. A regular sponge cake method is beating the eggs and sugar until pale, folding the dry ingredients, then the melted butter at the very end. But this time, I used a recipe that calls to beat the butter separately, and folded in at the end. It uses more egg yolks than usual (although the usual has lots of egg yolks already). It's the same method as "Lapis Surabaya" cake, making the cake super soft and moist. Instead of regular buttercream, I used cream cheese frosting instead. I had about 165 g of cream cheese leftover and the amount is too odd to make something with it, but it is perfect for the cream cheese frosting I needed for that size of cake.

The verdict? I was surprised myself. The cake is super soft, the cream cheese frosting was lovely, not to mention the shredded processed cheese. The cake has to be good for this kind of cake because you will eat it the most, not the frosting, unlike any other french cakes I made where the cake is only the base. I know my friends would go crazy over this cake, but it was on Sunday night when I finished making the cake, so I didn't have time to share to them. I brought a slice or two everyday for snack at work. My little niece (she's 3 years old now) can finish two slices on her own in one sitting. I don't think the cream cheese frosting was that noticeable though, especially since I flavored it with the same thing (vanilla and a little rum extract). So next time, I think I will stick with this kind of cake, although it's more time consuming and more labor intensive, but just use regular buttercream for the frosting and filling.

Lemon Pound Cake

I found out recently that my coworker has a tree full of meyer lemons. I almost had a heart attack! I mean who wouldn't when it comes to meyer lemons? ok, maybe it's just me, but still...

He said that the tree has hundreds of lemons right now and they're big. I didn't believe him at that time, as from my understanding, meyer lemons are small, a little rounder that regular lemons and more orange than regular lemons, but more yellow than regular orange (does this sentence make sense?). But anyways, of course I wanted them, immediately! He said that he had to throw a lot of them away because they're just too many. For a slight moment there, my heart was aching when I heard that :(

So the next day, he showed up in my cube bringing a big plastic bag full of meyer lemons!!! The lemons were big, unlike the usual meyer lemons I saw.
My head was spinning, trying to think what wonderful desserts I can make with this.

It's been more than a week that I have abandoned those wonderful meyer lemons that my coworker gave me. It hurts everytime I opened the fridge and saw them waiting patiently for me to do something with them. My excuse is still the same, no time. I came home late and by the time I got home, all wanna do is just take a shower, eat, and sleep. I don't even think I have enough energy to do something else. Besides, the kitchen is always full of people at night, that I don't feel like juggling with space and everything to make a cake. I just don't like doing something in that kind of environment. I like it when the kitchen is empty, no dirty dishes in the sink, and lots of counterspace. Unfortunately, this rarely happens :(. But I should be thankful to be blessed enough to have a kitchen and all the necessary tools I need for baking :).

My coworker was certainly expecting something out of those lemons. A week had past, and not even one dessert I brought to work. So, I decided to just make something quick that we can all enjoy right out of the oven. Not those multi-component cakes, tarts, mousses. I settled down on lemon pound cake. I've never been a fan to a pound type cake, it's just not my cup of tea. But I baked lots and lots of lemon pound cake a few years ago. It seems like I was always excited to try a new lemon cake recipe. I can't count how many recipes I tried, not to mention lemon tarts, lemon meringue pie, and lemon bars. I was just that crazy with lemons. I just love the smell of fresh cut lemon in the kitchen. It's so refreshing and fresh, I just can't describe the feeling. It's been a while though that I didn't make lemony goodies anymore. I think I skipped last year's lemon season for some reason.

So anyways, I decided to try this lemon cake recipe by Lori Longbotham. I first read about it in tartlettte's blog. The way she described it, is just way too good that I had to try it myself. Besides, how can I resist something that starts with "the ultimate"? I didn't really read the recipe before I decided on this. I thought this is just a regular pound cake, with lots of butter, flour, eggs, etc. So, I prepared all of the ingredients on the night before and planned to bake it in the morning. When I started putting all of the ingredients together, I realized that the amount of butter is amazingly a lot, I also think the baking soda is too little for that amount of flour, but what do I know. I'll just follow the recipe to the tee.

So the next morning, I woke up earlier to bake this cake. When I was about to put it in the oven, I was super surprised when the recipe says that I need to bake it for 1.5 hours!!!!!! It's unusual to bake a pound cake at 300F for 1.5 hrs, but I followed anyway (and I was late for work that day :D).

It was pretty good, although may not be the ultimate for me :). I'm not even sure if I can find an ultimate pound cake if I don't even like pound cake. But I'm glad that at least I tried this recipe.

Here's the recipe taken from tartlette's blog:

Ultimate Pound Cake, adapted from Lori Longbotham:

Serves 12 (in theory)

2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature
2 1/4 cups sugar
6 large eggs
1 cup milk
1 1/2 TB lemon zest
1 tsp. pure lemon extract
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

Preheat oven to 300F. Butter and flour a 12 cup Bundt pan.
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together twice.
Cream the butter and 1 3/4 cups sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Reduce the speed and add the flour mixture, alternating with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour. Stir in the lemon zest and lemon extract.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 1 1/2 hours, or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Poke holes all over the cake with a wooden skewer
Meanwhile, bring the lemon juice and remaining sugar to a boil over medium high heat in a small saucepan, stirring until the sugar is dissolved.
Invert the cake onto a rack, position over a baking sheet and slowly pour the syrup over the cake, it will seep through the holes and into the cake. Let cool to room temp.