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 :)

Chocolate & Passionfruit Mousse Cake

I have to apologize for abandon this site for a month…

Things get a bit hectic in my work & I got a bit demotivated recently.

Of course, one of the reason was that my new camera was sent back to Fuji for servicing.

I got my camera back so there was no excuse not to bake & photograph.

Last weekend, I went to Basildon & took the chance to make this chocolate & passionfruit mousse cake.

Since I hadn't baked for a while, I thought I would make something easier to get starting again.

I love passionfruit & chocolate combo, passionfruit is tangy & refreshing, taming down the richness of chocolate.

For the decoration, I simply copied from the previous cake design & used white chocolate pieces.

I also tied it with a red ribbon & it looks great & delicious after all :)

Crémeux aux Framboise

I baked this cake for my friend’s birthday.

I first saw the recipe from cake chef, which is a Japanese website showcasing Japanese patisserie.

It’s called Cremeux, meaning creamy & smooth.

The cake is composed of 3 layers: almond genoise, white chocolate yogurt mousse & mascarpone mousse.

I really like the mascarpone mousse & white chocolate yogurt mousse combo, but I was thinking it would be overly sweet so I added a raspberry jelly layer.

I renamed this cake ‘Crémeux aux Framboise’.

The mousse is smooth & creamy, the raspberry adds a tangy freshness.

For the decoration, I wrapped the mousse ring with bubble wrap & made the cake from upside down so that the top mascarpone mousse would pick up the pattern.

It worked out really well & I simply garnished with fresh fruits.

Happy baking!

Mother's Day & A Sweet Paradise

March is a very busy month, family birthdays & mother's day.

I've baked 3 cakes including this one this month.

 I made 'Jasmin' again for mother's day since my mum likes it.

My sister Kelly suggested to put in some bird's nest (燕窝) in the jelly so I did.
This time I made it into a simple round-shape & garnished with white chocolate shards.
Spring has come & camellia has started to bloom in the front garden so I took a few for garnish.

My patissier-to-be sister Jenny had made us some chocolate macarons & a delicious blueberry cheesecake.

At the end of the day, we're a bit overwhelmed by the desserts.

Chocolate Concerto

March is a busy month for me, birthdays & mother’s day, all these take almost all my weekend breaks.

Last week, I made a chocolate mousse cake as a birthday cake.

Even though I wasn’t happy about the photos, I’ll post it on my blog anyway.

The cake tastes great, not very sweet, rich & divine, just how I like it to be.

I made a 8” square but it was a bit thin, I think using a 6” square is much better.

The cake consists of 3 luscious layers of dark, milk & white chocolate mousses & a rich chocolate cake.

To enhance the taste of chocolate, I didn’t put in sugar for the mousses as suggested from the recipe.

Plus, brushing the cake with Grand Marnier syrup adds a sophisticated note.

The original name is Trios Mousses au Chocolat - chocolate trios.

I prefer ‘concerto’ as it really is a showcase of chocolate.

Jasmin

I have to admit I was delighted when I completed the challenge to make this lovely dome-shaped cake.

I’ve had an urge to make this cake as it had been in my mind for 2 weeks.

I could have made this earlier but I didn’t really have times, plus this would make a lovely birthday cake for my mum.

I made a red wine poached pear mousse cake for my mum’s birthday last year & she wasn’t fond of it but this time she really likes this.

I wasn’t settled for the design even though I had the recipes & decorations drawn up.

I changed them as I was making it, that’s why I’d spent a whole day & it’s great I didn’t mess up the decoration, phew…

I almost did with the glaze, can’t really see it from the photos as I’d it covered by the strawberry lace tuiles.

The cake is composed of 6 components: 

1. white genoise

2. jasmine creme brûlée

3. jasmine & lychee jelly

4. jasmine & white chocolate mousse

5. lychee milk glaze

6. strawberry lace tuiles

Original design (bottom) & composition (above).

I named this cake Jasmin as there is a base note of jasmine with fragrant & sweet lychee, they work wonderfully together.

My mum loves it, my sister loves it  & I love it :)

There was one suggestion from my sister that I could use nappage neutre instead of the milk glaze, it might be easier to work with but I bet I still make a mess with that…

Earl Grey Chocolate Mousse Cake

Last week, I made a chocolate mousse cake for my birthday.

I always wanted to make an earl grey chocolate mousse cake & finally got around to make it for my special day.

I wasn't happy with the decoration overall, I wanted a dome shape & the chocolate ganache wasn't smooth.

I wasn't going to post this but it did taste really nice & rich so I decided to post it anyway.

I might try to make this again sometimes & I believe decoration will become better with practice.

I tend to design the cake before getting to make it e.g. the look & the flavours.

It's not always turn out like the drawings but I find it inspiring :)

I draw more often now as I have an iPad which is great for drawing but I rarely show my works here.

Jenny also made me an apple & red wine mousse cake which was pretty & delicious.

Lychee & White Wine Mousse Cake

Mid-Autumn Festival fell on 12th Sept this year, sadly it's Monday.

So we had a pre-celebration on the day before.

I attempted to make mooncakes last year but it wasn't very successful, so I didn't think of taking that challenge.

Instead I decided to make a mousse cake with lychee & white wine.

I love lychee so when I came across the idea of using lychee & white wine, I was thrilled not the try it.

Even though I like to use wines & spirits in baking, I don't like the bitterness of alcohols.

So I decided to create my own recipe.

Belated Birthday Cake + Giveaway

I was expecting snow over the weekend when I was back to Basildon.

But I was disappointed as there was no sign of snowing even it's freezing cold.

As I usually do when I'm home, I spent sometimes in the kitchen baking.

I never mention that I've subscribed epapers from PChome which is a chinese website from Taiwan.

There's a great selection of free epapers you can subscribe, that's how I got the recipe from.

When I read the epaper, I was so tempted to try that.

It's also the perfect time now as it's the season of chestnut, plus it can be my belated birthday cake.

The recipe uses Grand Marnier to increase the depth & favours.

I didn't follow the recipe fully as I didn't have the chestnut sauce directly translated from chinese.

I think it's not the same as chestnut puree so I decided to take the caramel apple but use another recipe for the chestnut mousse.

I was absolutely satisfied with it.

Chestnut is earthy & rich but the caramel apricot & apple is fruity & tangy, so the combo gives a subtle & intense favour.

Sister's Birthday - Chestnut Mousse Cake

Last Sunday was my sister's birthday.

I made her a birthday cake, a chestnut mousse cake.

I wasn't happy with the decoration so no picture of the birthday cake was taken.

The cake is delicious with an intense aroma of chestnut, & the texture is very smooth.

To satisfy myself, I made a few petit ones & also try out the new silicone mould I bought a while ago.

I really love making petit ones, much easier to decorate with.

Bank Holiday Weekend I ~ Jasmine & Lychee Cheesecake

Photo taken by Sei-Him Cheong

It was Bank Holiday weekend last week, so I decided to go home.

My mother has complaint she hasn't seen me for a while so I headed back to Basildon.

It was a very busy weekend.

I baked, went shopping, played with the dogs, had Dim-Sum with my sisters & watched a movie with my brother.

I spent most of the times in baking cakes & cookies for my family.

Also, my brother took all the photographs for me, he's much skilful, as seen from those photographs.

As I'm still tidying up the recipe & photos, I'll slowly post them on my blog.

Passion Fruit & Caramel Coffee Mousse Cake

The weekend was nice & warm.

I have a few friends had their birthdays last weekend but I only made one birthday cake for a close friend that I have known for 8 years.

He has helped my family & me a lot since I came over to England.

Special Days for Mother

My mother's birthday is coming this week so I decided to make a bracelet & a cake.

I know she loves cheesecake, but I would like some variations this week, so I made a mousse cake instead.