I still can't believe how easy it was to make marshmallows from scratch. I followed Martha Stewart's recipe except peppermint extract which I don't have in my pantry. I used coconut extract instead.
By the way, this picture was taken with my brand new iPhone - Hipstamatic App, to be exact. Oh, I love my iPhone.
Here's a great opportunity to review what I learned at baking school a while ago. Chocolate Truffle Mousse Cake, as per my friend Mrs. HT's request. Slices of chocolate sponge nestled in luscious chocolate mousse, topped with rich chocolate ganache.
I could have skipped the decorative sponge part, but... why? That's the fun part of this cake! :D haha I piped the word 'friends' in mirror image with decorating paste and froze it while prepping biscuit joconde. Spread the biscuit joconde over the chilled decorating paste and bake it at quite high temp quickly... and there you have it. The most difficult part might have been finding the right font in right size for the template to pipe on!
Mrs. SP kindly gave me a bottle of Orgeat syrup for me to try. I tried mixing it with cold unsweetened soy milk, and voila! Drinkable 杏仁豆腐 :D YUM!
I love the Orgeat flavour so much that I wanted to use it in non-beverage recipes... Thanks to Google, I found this recipe at FOOD & WINE.
This was my second try to make crème caramel (the first time was at baking school a few years ago...). I used various smaller ramekins, so I got 12 servings in total. I baked (cooked?) 4 at a time. The first group totally failed - a perfect example of custard cooked at high temp. I blame my finicky oven :p
Luckily, the following groups turned out pretty well. No ugly holes. Nice, silky, smooth texture. Caramel was spot-on, I must say :) hehe
In Japan, we don't celebrate Thanksgiving Day the way it is celebrated in North America. I usually don't feel either need or urge to eat turkey this time of the year for that reason, but I just happened to crave it this year :)
So I made no-duck turducken roulade, or should I call it turcken roulade? Brined chicken thighs wrapped in turkey breasts, roasted in the oven. Served with carrots, potatoes and brussels sprouts.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Mrs. S graciously shared a shiso plant with me - actually two; the green one and the purple one. I love, love, LOVE shiso!!
I had some well-ripened tomatoes, so I made this insalata caprese look-alike. Drained medium-firm tofu instead of sliced buffalo mozzarella, shiso leaves instead of basil, and seasoned with soy sauce and rice vinegar for a Japanese touch :)
Mr. & Mrs. S invited me over for the BC Day weekend. Their hospitality is amazing. So is their beautiful residence. They have a lovely backyard garden where they grow various veggies and fruits, which always makes me sigh admiringly and enviously.
They had a good (more than just 'good'?) harvest of plums this year, and I got to have a share of it. I made a plum jam. This one is for you if you like the natural tartness from this type of fruits.
Also I made a plum clafouti (recipe) which tastes much better than it looks :)
The recipe is from Epicurious.com, and is very easy to make. I added a teeny bit of Grand Marnier to the cream cheese mixture for extra orange-y flavour ;)
I'm so excited that Threadcakes is back!! Here's my "first" entry this year :) The design I chose this time is very cute "Chick Love".
Outside is store-bought chocolate fondant with homemade marshmallow fondant decorations.
Inside is Betty Crocker Butter Pecan cake (yes, I *do* use box cake mixes occasionally), Smucker's orange marmalade and homemade orange custard cream.
2010 is such an exciting year for all sports lovers with the Vancouver/Whistler Winter Olympics and the FIFA World Cup South Africa! The Samurai Blue has been playing remarkably well in the Southern Hemisphere and hopefully will continue to make us proud in the next game against Paraguay, whatever the final score is.
In the morning of June 24 (the game day against Denmark), I made some blueberry pancakes for my pre-game(watching) breakfast. Yes, BLUE.
I added some fresh blueberries to my fave Sunny Boy Complete Buttermilk Pancake Mix. Served with more fresh blueberries and blueberry syrup from Summerland Sweets = triple blueberry!
I'm thinking of making more of these again on June 29, the next game day... Am I being a bit superstitious?
last-minute invite to a dinner + fresh berries in season = trifle
Note to myself: next time I make a trifle, I'll definitely make each layers really nice and clean... :(
Leftover cupcakes and marshmallow fondant from the book cake project turned into these cakelettes. The bottom two in the photo have names of my friends in Japanese. I used たのしメール from Arnest Inc. to cut out those Japanese characters.
There was a book talk/signing event for my friend EK's parents, and I had an honour, privilege and pleasure to make a cake for them.
Spirit of the Nikkei Fleet: BC’s Japanese Canadian Fishermen was nominated for this year's Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award.
The 'body of the book' cake was supposed to be the same size as the 'half title page' sugarpaste piece on top of the cake :( and that's one of many, many shouldas & couldas...
The top line was piped with black royal icing and the bottom was written with FoodWriter.
Pacific Dogwood is the provincial flower of British Columbia.
I always have a hard time figuring out cake serving size... a dozen of cupcakes to the rescue!
Here are two kinds of icebox cookies that I baked a little while ago.
p-p-p-poker chips p-p-poker chips
I made chocolate truffles. Just because.
Clockwise from top right: vanilla truffle with toasted coconut flakes, grand marnier truffle dipped in milk chocolate, s'more truffle, grand marnier truffle rolled in cocoa powder. Middle: grand marnier truffle dipped in white chocolate and topped with dried cranberries
Here's a cross section of s'more truffle. Mini marshmallow in vanilla truffle, rolled in graham cracker crumbs. Ohhhh, yeahhhh.
This zucchini-parmesan loaf I baked on March 28 is still moist and yummy as of April 2.
The recipe can be found here at Martha Stewart's Everyday Food. I added a pinch of cayenne pepper, which I think worked out pretty well.
Sunday. My day off. I was hoping for another beautiful day but the weather decided to ignore me :( *boooo* Craving for sunshine, I made something sunshiny in terms of colour and flavour.
The original recipe can be found here. I substituted orange juice with mango pulp and omitted orange zest. Ingredient ratio for the glaze had to be changed a bit because I was running out of icing sugar...
March 14 is Pi Day. I am no math enthusiast but decided to celebrate it anyway by making a mini coconut cream pi(e)!
Garnished with the rum-flavoured whipped cream and a milk chocolate pi symbol.
There was a get-together at The T Family's. I knew we're having a Chinese dinner, so I decided to make something along the same line... You say Chinese desserts? I say mango pudding & egg tarts!
Instead of pudding, I went for a mousse cake.
Mango mousse, topped with mango jelly, nestled in sponge fingers. I used a canned mango pulp for both mousse and jelly. 850g for only $2! Yay, Walmart! :D
My fave dim sum: egg tart. When at a dim sum restaurant, I have to grab a plate (or two sometimes) of egg tarts as soon as I see them even before my actual meal starts... Here I cheated with store-bought tart shells *gasp* Sprinkled with cinnamon à la English custard tart or South African Melktert.
On my day off today, I had a quite strong (almost uncontrollable for some reason) craving for cupcakes. So I made some.
Watching the Olympics almost all day made me do this: 5 M&M'S to represent Olympic rings - they are not interlocking like they should, but they will be completely together later in my tummy. Maple leaf and Hinomaru are cut-outs of Fruit To Go.
Milk chocolate mousse in a blind-baked pie shell, topped with caramelized banana slices and milk chocolate shavings.
PPP stands for Piggy-shaped Pocket Pie. It's filled with quince jam made by my friend VL and baked in the oven (not deep fried).
I had an honour to make a birthday cake for my friend UW. It's a quadruple layer cake with white sponge and orange mousse filling. Sponge was drenched with coconut-flavoured simple syrup. The outside is coconut-flavoured whipped cream and coconut flake coating.
It had been quite a while (6 months?!) since the last time I made something out of rolled fondant, which made it even more enjoyable to make these frangipani/plumeria decoration. Also, this wonderful tutorial made it so much easier!
UW's husband PW asked me if the cake had a name and all I could come up with was "uh... orange mousse coconut cake?" Lame, I know. That got me googling for some info and I found this wiki article; hence the name "Ambrosia Cake"!
Here's more interesting fact! I'm pleasantly surprised how appropriate this flavour combo was for a birthday party ;)
"In ancient Greek mythology, ambrosia (Greek: ἀμβροσία) is sometimes the food, sometimes the drink, of the gods, often depicted as conferring ageless immortality upon whoever consumes it."
