Devil Chocolate Cakes with Salted Caramel

Hi all, an update after so long.

Time seems to fly, I started working last summer & was thinking I would get into baking soon.

Obviously this didn't happen as you can see there hadn't any update until now.

Hopefully, I will bake more often from now.

To get myself back to baking, I started with my all time favourite, salted caramel cupcakes.

After making caramel & frosting, I realised I didn't have a muffin tray but loose-base mini cake pan I've bought from Lakeland for a long time.

The chocolate batter is not the best for this mini cakes as it's not firm enough, but divinely rich & moist.

Very pleased with it after all.

Caramel & Pear...

I went to Venice with my family as a celebration of passing my PhD viva.

These are the scenes from Venice, it’s a pretty city.

I baked a Japanese cotton cake before going to Venice & immediately fall in love with the light & spongy texture.

I baked it again when I got back to England but a plain & simple sponge cake wouldn’t satisfy my obsessions with photo & food styling.

I poached some pears with white wine then I whipped some cream with salted caramel I made from last time.

My decorating skills become worse… Luckily I bought some shimmer sprays last time when I visited a supermarket.

Shook the can & sprayed on, the cake was covered with a gold shimmer, the photo couldn’t really show the shimmering effect but it does look much prettier.

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.

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.

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.

Cranberry Caramel Madeleines

Hi all, I have to apologise for my absence for the last few weeks.

I was injured on a hiking trip in Wales & took a week resting.

After that, I'm busy with my Ph.D project so I don't really have time for baking & I'll do my best to keep this blog running.

I've never used a madeleine pan to bake madeleines… because I didn't think there's a need for it.

However, when Jenny baked some vanilla madeleines at home, I couldn't forget the moist & crumbly madeleines when they're freshly baked.

So, I decided baked some myself & continued my obsession with caramel I've baked some caramel madeleines using Pierre Hermé's recipe.

The recipe requires inverted sugar which retains moisture & softness.

However, I didn't bother with that & used honey instead.

Also, I didn't have dried apricot so I used dried cranberries soaked in Kirsch.

The madeleines are tender & moist. Yummy!

Pudding Cake, Rose or Caramel?

Continuing with my favourite flavour--caramel, I baked a 6" caramel pudding cake but I didn't take photos of it as I wasn't really satisfied by the look.

I love it very much so I baked it again in the weekend.

The roses are blooming in the garden so I also made rose petal jam.

The colour was gorgeously vibrant, just like a red jewel under the sun.

To some variations, I made some pudding cakes with rose petal jam.

Both taste fabulous after chilling, it's a yummy treat in the summer.

What is your favourite flavour? Rose or caramel?

Carrot, Salted Caramel & Macadamia Nuts

In my last post, I made the salted caramel frosting for chocolate cupcakes.

I really like the frosting so I decided to bake a carrot cake for that.

After frosting, I also made some spiced caramel macadamia nuts for garnish.

On a rainy day, enjoy the cake with a cup of coffee for an enjoyable tea time :)

Salted Caramel & Chocolate Cupcakes

Went food shopping & picked a few pots of double cream as they're on sale.

I decided to whisk up a quick & easy chocolate cake but soon changed my mind & baked them in small muffin tins.

Once I baked the chocolate cupcakes, I thought I should frost them.

I don't always frost cupcakes, in fact I avoid doing so.

I find frosting & icing are overly sweet for my personal taste.

So, the question was what flavour?

Dark chocolate?

Hmm, not very inspiring.

Caramel?

Sound great.

Salted caramel?

Intriguing!

I brought the cupcakes to my college & I had one then.

It's amazing, not overly sweet for my taste.

The caramel is gorgeous with a hint of saltness, so irresistible with chocolate.

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...

Caramel Financiers & Guest Post on Foodforfriendsyeah!

It was a pleasure to be invited by Matt from foodforfriendsyeah to write a food photography guide for his site.

I have to admit that I’m not very good in writing photography guide & I think there’re lot of great food stylists/ bloggers who are much better than me but I had to give it a try.

If you’re ever interested in how I take my food photos, you can read the entire story here.

I hope some people will find it helpful & let me know what you think.

Back to the food, I baked these mini caramel financiers sometimes ago & I thought I’ll share the recipe here.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve baked financiers but I think this was the best ones.

Alright, I’m obsessed with caramel & I couldn’t resist anything made with it.

These little financiers were moist, delicate, not so sweet & with a rich flavour of caramel.

Brésilienne

This is the first time I've tried to test the recipe from the book 素材より素材らしく―杉野英実の菓子 (Le Goût Authentique Retrouvé by Hidemi Sugino) my friend bought it for me from Japan in September.

I've tried to make Pomme d'Eve but the recipe wasn't his, I might give it a try sometimes. 

Evan from Evan's Kitchen Ramblings has tried many desserts, all of them look gorgeous.

The recipe I chose to give a closure to 2011 was Brésilienne.

A truly elegant dessert consists of coffee mousse, caramel mousse & coffee joconde biscuit.

I have to say I didn't do a perfect job to make the entremets look like the photos from the book.

I didn't have the right mousse rings & I did make a mess with the first cake when I spread the glazing on top.

So, I gave up with the glazing part...

I think the taste is the most important.

First of all, this cake is definitely not for people with a sweet tooth, if you're coffee lover, you'll fall in love with it.

When eating the coffee mousse alone, it's quite bitter.

But the sweetness is enhanced by the caramel mousse & the coffee joconde.

I personally think the Cognac syrup for the joconde is a must as it adds a sophisticated note to the cake.

 Thank you for joining me in my journey of baking this year.

Wishing you all the best the coming year.

Crème Caramel au Calvados

On a Saturday, I was craving for custard puddings, so I made some simple yet yummy crème caramel.

The first batch I made was with rose syrup, so I didn't use vanilla to avoid it overtaking the rose fragrance, instead I'd used Calvados which is an apple brandy.

Caramel & Macadamia Ricotta Cheesecake

This was the 2nd ricotta cheesecake I've baked, I found the recipe from Keiko's blog (Nordljus).

In her original post, Keiko mentioned she's not a big fan of baked cheesecakes as she finds them quite heavy.

I agree, most of them are quite heavy but its simplicity is all that matters to me.

My 1st ricotta cheesecake was light, smooth & refreshingly fruity.

You can find that I've tried to accompany the cheesecakes with syrups or fruit compote to make it light & refreshing, the results always over my expectations.

I think this cheesecake was quite heavy by itself, but it goes really well with the caramel macadamia nuts.

I love the nuts, I think it'd be a great snack just by itself.

Pomme d'Eve

I didn't plan to make this cake as I was planning to make a cheesecake.

However, when I scanned through the recipes I have, I decided to make this because I like the name Pomme d'Eve, meaning Eve's apple.

Beside, apple is my all time favourite.

The idea came from a famous Japanese patissier, Hidemi Sugino.

I haven't got a chance to try any of his desserts since he only has shops in Japan.

But it looks so good not to try this recipe out even though it's not his original recipe.

He's written a book called Le Goût Authentique Retrouvé, I didn't get hold of his book but I'm sure it's a great book.

I've seen several desserts made from his book from Evan's Kitchen Ramblings & Nordljus.

The End of 2010

It's hard to believe that it's the end of 2010 & a new year is coming.

I'd started a new course in October 2009, I felt that I wasn't able to complete it as I changed to a new field.

So, I had a stressful & busy study life in from spring to autumn.

I managed to graduate & now carry on with my study, I hope I can manage for another 3 years.

Snow, Whisky & Cheesecake

There was a blast of snow across the whole Britain before Christmas.

Although it caused a lot of chaos, I really enjoyed the snow as I made a trip to Swansea visiting my brother.

It was a brief but a fruitful trip, we went to Rhossili and Brecon Beacons National Park.

Orange Ricotta Cheesecake

It is the season of citrus fruits, no wonder there're a lot of recipes making use of it. 

Here comes another cheesecake, I'm not bored yet with cheesecakes & I hope you're not too. 

This time I used ricotta cheese instead of cream cheese which I always use, the texture is different as expected but the cheesecake is soft & heavenly smooth, topping with sweet yet tangy caramel oranges.  

What this recipe attracted me the most was the caramel orange with Grand Marnier. 

Ever since I pickled cherries with red wine, I've been attracted in using alcohols & wines for cakes. 

I'm also craving for caramel recently, so I thought this is a wonderful combination when i read through 'Food & Travel' magazine. 

I don't always buy food magazine as I prefer books with great photographs.
It doesn't mean that those magazine is not good, actually they're great, it tells you what's in season & certainly many inspirations indeed.

Autumn & A Caramel Cheesecake

It's the end of my 2-week holiday with my family.

My brother has already moved to Swansea for his study while I'm starting my course in London very soon.

Before going back to London, I made a caramel cheesecake with sweet osmanthus poached apple.

I have used sweet osmanthus in my other recipes, it might be quite difficult to get it in London.

Jasmine or earl grey tea works fine too.

The cheesecake is lushly sweet & creamy while the apple topping is refreshingly tasty.