Lychee, Raspberry & White Chocolate Entremets

Apology for not updating the blog more regularly.

This recipe was long forgotten & so did the photos.

These entremets have intense lychee flavours & balanced with the tanginess of raspberry.

It consists of 5 components: genoise, lychee jelly insert, white chocolate mousse, fresh raspberry & lychee jelly.

Happy baking :)

Chocolate, Earl Grey & Hazelnut Gateau

This was the chocolate & earl grey gateau I made for my sister's birthday back in August.

I know it’s end of September & I could have posted the recipe ages ago.

It seemed like I always have too many things to do like travelling, making hand creams, cross stitching e.g. & baking seems to be the last on my list.

It’s a rich chocolate mousse cake consists of 6 components:

1. Chocolate cotton cake

2. Hazelnut praline coated puffed rice

3. Hazelnut praline mousse

4. Chocolate mousse

5. Earl grey creme insert

6. Chocolate glaze

It took me 2 days to finish this & it was absolutely worth as the cake was delicious with wonderful combo of flavours.

Doughnut Muffins

Hi,

I have been travelling & taking a long break while looking for jobs since finishing my PhD.

The cities I have been so far are Venice, Budapest, Paris and New York.

My photos are now piled up & the worst is I’m procrastinating, I will need to be organised & get back to baking.

I made these doughnut muffins a while ago & I thought I will post the recipe here just to keep it going.

Earl Grey, Hazelnut & Chocolate Yule Log... Happy New Year 2015!

This was the first time I had prepared a dessert for a Christmas meal.

It was usually Jenny’s job to do it, ever since she’s working as a professional patisserie, she doesn’t bake much at home.

This cake consists of 4 components:

Earl grey creme

Hazelnut mousse

Chocolate sponge cake

Chocolate chantilly cream

I quite enjoyed preparing the yule log & I'm sure I’ll be making this from time to time as I really like the combo.

A rich chocolate cake with a smooth nutty mousse & a sophisticated note of earl grey tea, all combine every well. 

Everyone loved it & commented that it’s very nice.

This has been a great year for me in completing my Ph.D.

Thank you all for your patience & re-joining me this year & the coming years.

Wishing you all the best & happy new year.

Cake Roll with Earl Grey Poached Asian Pear

After reading the newspaper on pear desserts, I was craving for pear mousse dessert.

My sister has been making cake rolls & chiffon cakes, so I wanted to make something different but ended up making cake roll as well because of its simplicity.

Cake roll can be simple filled with some whipped cream but I wanted something more & it ended up with a caramel mousse & some poached pears as the filling.

The recipe for the cake base is from a chinese website.

It’s called japanese cotton cake, as the name said it’s indeed very spongy & light.

For the choice of pears, I prefer Asian pear as it’s juicy & crunchy with a refreshing fragrant.

I’ve used oolong tea to poach Asian pear for the oriental theme, this time I used earl grey tea instead. 

Everything goes wonderfully together & the caramel mousse doesn’t overtake the delicate note from the earl grey tea & the Asian pear.

Milestone in Life... Blueberry Cheesecake

I’m absolutely excited to say that I passed my PhD viva last week & now I’m a doctor, well, not official until I receive a confirmation letter from my university.

So, what next? (I got asked so many times)

The first thing I did was baking cakes from my kitchen, blueberry cheesecake & japanese cotton cake roll.

The plan afterwards is taking a break & slowing down for a bit, well, until Christmas then I’ll start looking for jobs in research & development.

I do miss all the fun of baking, food styling & photography.

I can’t wait to start baking, blogging & travelling.

The recipe I’m sharing is a chilled blueberry cheesecake, which I’ve made several times.

I finally managed to take some photos before it’s all gone :)

Blueberry cheesecake is my sister, Jenny’s best make, she is now busy working as a pastry chef in a hotel so I recreated the recipe for my family.

Don’t miss out the jelly layer, it’s absolutely delicious with the tangy cream cheese mousse & the nutty crust.

Finally...... Raspberry & Passionfruit Tarts

Finally submitted my thesis yesterday night, though it’s not completely over, awaiting viva in a few weeks.

I have no ideas what to do for the rest of the week apart from all those writing & editing.

My mind is still about writing thesis, need something to divert my mind & focus.

I think it’s a great time to start baking again & updating my blog.

The recipe I’m sharing now is from a while back in summer.

A request from my sister, I’d asked her what she’d like to have for desserts the day before we went picking raspberries.

Cheesecake was on the list but passionfruit & raspberry tart sounded wonderful, plus it wasn't difficult to make at all.

We’ve had tart passion framboise from Laduree, it’s amazingly delicious.

Although my sister has the cookbook, it’s not at hand so I simply googled the recipe for it & found a recipe from Bertha’s blog.

Crunchy tart crust, rich yet exotic passionfruit cream & tangy raspberries, just a wonderful combination.

Double Chocolate Cupcakes

Hello readers, I come back for another quick update!

As a little breakup from my writing up, I baked some chocolate cupcakes the other day.

It had been a long time since there was a nice smell of cakes from my kitchen & it’s just great to do a bit of baking.

So, I took some photographs & decided to have a quick update for the blog here.

This recipe uses about 300 g of chocolate, so you can tell it really is ultra rich.

As I like my chocolate cakes to be bittersweet, I reduced the sugar.

I hope you would like it, bon appétit :)

noir plus

I'm now at Turin, Italy when updating this post.

I'm attending a science conference with my colleagues & I have 2 days conference so I'll have some times walking around the town.

I had a long weekend break & took the chance to make some entremets.

I was craving for chocolate so I decided to make the chocolate mousse & coffee creme brûlée from "Top10名师的50道人气蛋糕技术教本" (50 Popular Cakes from Top 10 Pâtissiers).

The original recipe includes a jaconde base, chocolate mousse & coffee creme brûlée.

I used a different cake base & added some caramel hazelnuts for some variations.

I made this recipe into 6 small glasses & 6 little domes.

The chocolate mousse is absolutely divine.

The rich coffee creme brûlée enhances the bitterness & sweetness of chocolate mousse which makes a great combination.

Cadeau

March supposed to be spring time but in London the weather is freezing cold.

My mum's birthday and mother's day are in March so we always celebrate together.

For this reason, I flipped through a few cookbooks & wrote down a recipe even though I didn't feel like baking recently.

To suit my mum's taste bud, I made this entremet with crunchy streusel, nutty praline genoise, tangy raspberry jelly & smooth cream cheese mousse.

This combo turned out wonderfully well, almost everyone had 2 slices to be satisfied.

The recipe is adapted from a chinese cookbook "Japan Cake Boutique", I switched the almond genoise to praline & also added the raspberry jelly.

The cake is different from the cookbook so I renamed it 'Cadeau', meaning gift/present in French.

Tie a ribbon for the cake & it's a pretty present :)

Vanilla Creme Brûlée

Thanks for all the emails & greetings, I'm now getting better :)

This year is a very important year to me, as I'm finishing my Ph.D study and will be writing up my thesis.

As time goes by, I'm getting anxious & stressed.

Sometimes, I have the thought in mind that why I have chosen to do a Ph.D?

Being a patisserie sounds more fun, I know it's not as easy as I think it would be.

Coming to February & it's Valentine's day that I can remember of February.

My blog hardly goes along with the festival, because by the time I remember the day has passed…

I made these creme brûlée after the featherlight chocolate cake as there're leftover egg yolks.

Creme brûlée is easy to make yet delicious, I only used 1/4 vanilla pod for a mild fragrance.

Happy Valentine's day!

Harmonie - closure of 2012

The dessert I've chosen for the closure of 2013: chocolate tart with caramel mousse & caramel pear compote.

One that includes all my favourite flavours over the year.

Chocolate, caramel & pear.

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year & hope to see you next year.

Passion - Passionfruit & Mango Entremet

This was the birthday cake I made for myself last week.
I was planning to make a mousse cake with honeydew melon, coconut & pineapple.
But I didn't have time to get all the ingredients so I changed my plan at the last minute.
I flipped through piles of cookbooks cosily on the sofa.
I can't find the combo I like so I took a few recipes from Le Goût Authentique Retrouvé by Hidemi Sugino & that's how I got to this cake.

"Passion" has 4 layers: genoise, passionfruit creme, mango mousse & lemon cream cheese mousse.
The recipes I took from the book are passionfruit creme & cream cheese mousse.
There're less gelatine in Hidemi's recipes for a smoother & lighter texture.
The cake is light & fragrant with fragrant mango mousse, refreshing lemon cream cheese mousse & exotic passionfruit creme layer.
For the decoration, I simply used white chocolate shards & tied with a red ribbon for a festive look.

I made this into a 6" square entremet & a few cups of mousse.

I think with this recipe it's better make in a 8" round cake.

Be Jenny's Guest at Le Cordon Bleu

This post isn't about me, it's about my sister, Jenny.

I was invited to be her guest to the afternoon tea party at Le Cordon Bleu in London.

A place where she has trainings to become a superb patisserie one day.

On that special day, I went to Le Cordon Bleu with my mum & brother just for the tea party.

Indulgent entremets, lovely pastries & freshly baked scones with home-made jam & clotted cream were offered, along with a selection of teas.

Apart from enjoying the cakes, I had also taken some photos showcasing those pretty cakes made by the students on the day. 

Gateau a la Pistache prepared by Jenny

Chocolate & Coffee Bean Macronade prepared by Jenny

Earl Grey Poached Pear Entremets

I realised I haven't made entremets & mousse cakes for a few months now.

Making delicate & pretty entremets is one of my passion in baking.

It feels amazing the moment I finish the decoration, take a photograph, then taste it, and of course to share the joy with you here.

Have you noticed whenever I make entremets I like to combine different flavours & ingredients?

The most recent one was poire vin blanc using white wine poached pears & caramel, then chocolate & passionfruit.

I'm lack of inspirations recently, instead I like to bake some simple & delicious snacks.

Last week I was craving for pear mousse cake & pear is certainly one of my favourite fruit.

 I decided to bake these earl grey poached pear entremets using the recipe of oolong & asian pear entremets.

It's simply delicious, the mousse is light yet fragrantly rich & the taste nicely balances with the rich chocolate brownie base.

Barcelona & A Recipe for Poire Vin Blanc

Last week, I went to Barcelona for a short  break with my sister.

I walked around the city just exploring & taking photos.

After the break, I made these pear & caramel entremets.

I saw the red wine pear entremets posted on Evan's Kitchen Ramblings & that reminds me of this recipe which I've designed a while back.

Finally got the chance to make these & it tastes absolutely gorgeous!

I really love the white wine poached pears & the caramel mousse.

Refreshingly tangy, fragrant yet rich & creamy.

I was regret that I didn't have another piece before heading back to London...