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.

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.

Caramel Cafe Noix

Well, I made this cake 2 weeks ago & I should have updated the blog last week.

But I just couldn't get in the mood to write.

I get overwhelmed with my thoughts lately, mainly because I'm stress about my work.

A lot of tasks to be completed, experiments to be carried out, parties to attend, cakes to be baked…

Back to my obsession with cake & caramel.

Yes, another caramel entremets.

This cake has coffee genoise as a base, caramel coffee mousse & crunchy caramel hazelnuts.

The bitterness of coffee blended well with the sweet & rich caramel flavour, finally with the nutty crunchy hazelnuts.

A lovely combination of different textures & flavours.

Dark Chocolate & Hazelnut Cake with Toffee Tuile

Chocolate cake again!

The glory of autumn & winter is when I'm craving for chocolate & don't feel guilty of having too much of it.

I baked this dark chocolate & hazelnut cake on a cosy Sunday morning.

This is a true chocolate heaven, very rich & dark chocolatey.

It's very moist & dense, almost like the texture of a brownie.

It's best serving in a small slice with a cup of tea or coffee.

I also made some caramel-dipped hazelnuts & toffee tuile for decoration.

The tuile were simple to make, it's fun to see them melting & bubbling in the oven.

Caramel-dipped hazelnuts were more difficult & I burnt myself with the hot caramel, so be careful.

The end result was a pretty presentation of the chocolate beauty.

Chocolate & Hazelnut Meringue Cake

I baked this lovely chocolate cake before going to Wales. 

I was so excited about the trip so I didn't get to share this on my blog.

Sometimes when you see a recipe you know you have to make it.

This was one of those, but I totally forgot I have saved this recipe so I would bake it next time.

The problem with my ever growing library, I just have too many recipes on my baking list & I can only make one at a time.

I saw the recipe from a good looking chinese website.

I then found out the recipe is originated from Martha Stewart.

I guess everyone knows who she is:)

I've purchased an iPad app 'Martha Stewart Makes Cookies' when it's on offer, it is gorgeous!

Though I haven't tried any of the recipe, it's fun browsing the pages & seeing the videos.

Back to the cake, the cake is flourless, rich & smooth.

I baked the meringue a bit longer as I wanted a crispy topping to add contrast with the soft & smooth chocolate cake.

It tasted divine & I was happy to have tried it out :)

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.