Tag: ideas

Recipe: Raspberry tart with apple chip

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Makes: 12 mini tarts  (~6cm in diameter)

Time required: 3 hours

Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆

Inspiration:

Most of the time my baking ideas come while walking through the supermarket to see which fruits are available. One of the (many) great things about Hong Kong is that we get fruit imported from all around the world which means that fruits like raspberries are available throughout the year and usually at a reasonable price. Given raspberries are super cheap at the moment, I decided to make a dessert bursting with raspberries. The elements of this tart are:

  • Sable base (my first time making a sable and it was super buttery and delicious that I was hoping some of the bases would crack so I could eat them straight from the oven)
  • raspberry cream
  • fresh raspberries
  • chocolate disc
  • apple chip

Ingredients:

Sable base:

  • 150g butter
  • 70g icing sugar
  • 70g almond meal
  • 100g plain flour
  • 10g salt

Raspberry cream:

  • 300g butter
  • 200g raspberries
  • 150g icing sugar

Chocolate disc:

  • 200g dark chocolate

Apple chip:

  • 1 green apple
  • 20ml lemon juice
  • 40+100g caster sugar
  • 1 gelatin leaf
  • 10g butter

Instructions:

Sable base:

  1. whisk together butter and icing sugar until light and fluffy
  2. sift in the flour, almond and salt and mix until well combined
  3. flatten into a disc on a baking sheet and refrigerate for 1 hours
  4. roll out to ~1cm thick and return to the fridge for another 20 minutes
  5. cut out 12 circles around 6cm in diameter and bake  the circles inside the rings at 160C for 15 minutes, removing the rings after around 10mins in the oven

Raspberry cream:

  1. puree raspberries in a food processor and simmer over medium heat until slightly reduced
  2. whisk together butter and sugar then slowly add in the raspberry and whisk until well combined

Chocolate disc:

  1. temper chocolate over a double boiler
  2. spread onto a sheet of acetate
  3. when slightly set, cut out 12 circles, around 5cm in diameter

apple chip:

  1. place apple and lemon in a food processor
  2. bloom gelatin, then drain and place the bowl over a pot of simmering water to melt the gelatin
  3. add the gelatin and 40g of sugar into the apple/lemon then process until well combined
  4. add the apple puree, remaining sugar and butter to a pan over medium-high heat and simmer until slightly reduced
  5. spread the puree over a baking sheet (in different shapes) and baking at 150C for 5-10 minutes until lightly golden

Assemble:

  1. for each sable base: place raspberries around the edges and fill the hole in the middle with some of the raspberry cream
  2. place the chocolate disc on top of each tart then pipe another dallop of raspberry cream
  3. top with an apple chip (or any other decorations) … i also tried decorating it with a chocolate leaf
raspberry tart - apple chips
shaping the apple chips before placing into the oven
raspberry tart 1
Assembling the raspberry tarts
The finished raspberries tart, decorated with a chocolate leaf
The finished raspberries tart, decorated with a chocolate leaf

Recipe: Lemon Meringue Tarts with blueberry gelee

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Finished: lemon meringue tart with blueberry gelee

Makes: 16 small round cakes (~5cm in diameter)

Time required: 2 hours over 2 sessions (~2 hour at a time)

Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆

Inspiration:

One of the things I love about entremets is that you can take different desserts, flavours and textures and layer them into a small delicate cake. For this cake, I wanted to “recreate” a lemon meringue pie – have all the elements of a normal lemon meringue pie (buttery crust, lemon curd, meringue) but create it in a different form. To add a twist … I included a bluberry gelee which oozes out when you cut into the cake – the sweetness (but also subtle flavour) of the blueberry is a great contrast to the sour lemon curd.

Elements of this cake:

  • buttery biscuit base
  • lemon curd mousse
  • blueberry gelee
  • meringue
  • blueberries and chocolate leaf to decorate

Ingredients:

Tart base:

  • 3 egg yolks
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 150g plain flour
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • 70g pure icing sugar
  • 120g butter, cold

blueberry gelee:

  • 125g blueberries
  • 30ml water
  • 70g caster sugar

Lemon curd:

  • 200g caster sugar
  • juice from 3 lemons
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 2 whole eggs
  • pinch of salt
  • 50g butter

Lemon mousse:

  • lemon curd made above
  • 2 gelatin sheets
  • 450ml whipping cream
  • juice from 1 lemon

Meringue:

  • 2 egg whites
  • 120g caster sugar
  • 40ml water

To decorate:

  • blueberries
  • tempered chocolate leaves

Instructions:

Tart base:

  1. whisk together the egg yolks and vanilla and set aside
  2. in a separate bowl, sift together the flour, salt and icing sugar
  3. cut the cold butter into 1cm cubes and beat into the flour mixture until it resembles a coarse sand. Careful not to overmix
  4. mix the egg into the flour/butter mixture until just combined
  5. roll into a flat disc and refrigerate for at least an hour
  6. once all the other elements of the cake have been prepared roll the dough to 0.5cm thickness and cut out 16 circles just slightly larger than the round moulds
  7. bake at 170C for 12 minutes until the edges of the biscuit base is golden

Blueberry gelee:

  1. bring all ingredients to a boil and then simmer for ~5 minutes until the mixture thickens
  2. place into a piping bag and then set aside in the fridge to cool as you prepare the lemon mousse

Lemon curd:

  1. whisk together all ingredients except for the butter
  2. place all ingredients (including the butter) into a saucepan over medium heat and continue whisking until the mixture thickens into a curd
  3. place three quarters of the curd into the fridge to cool while leaving the remaining quarter at room temperature

Lemon mousse:

  1. bloom gelatin sheets in iced water for 10 minutes
  2. bring the lemon juice to boil then melt in the bloomed gelatin sheets
  3. mix in the room temperature lemon curd and set aside while preparing the rest of the mousse
  4. in a separate bowl, whisk the cream to medium peaks
  5. whisk together the room temperature lemon curd with the cold lemon curd until light and airy
  6. gently fold into the whipped cream to form the mousse

Meringue:

  1. place sugar and water over low-medium heat to create a sugar syrup
  2. meanwhile, begin whisking the egg whites in a large bowl
  3. when the sugar syrup is ready, pour the sugar syrup in a slow steady stream while constantly whisking the egg whites at maximum speed
  4. continue whisking until stiff peaks

To assemble:

  1. pipe the lemon mousse into the round moulds 3/4 full
  2. pipe in a blob of the blueberry gelee then top the remaining of the mould with more lemon mousse
  3. Freeze the moulds for at least 3 hours, until they can be smoothly removed from the moulds
  4. remove the mousse from the moulds then place each lemon mousse piece over a biscuit base
  5. pipe on the meringue, torch the meringue then decorate with blueberries and chocolate
Tart dough - mixing the butter into the flour. Be careful not to overmix
Tart dough – mixing the butter into the flour. Be careful not to overmix
tart dough - pressed into a flat disc and refrigerate for at least 1 hour
tart dough – pressed into a flat disc and refrigerate for at least 1 hour
tart dough - rolled out and cut into round discs
tart dough – rolled out and cut into round discs
circle moulds with lemon mousse and blueberry gelee
circle moulds with lemon mousse and blueberry gelee
lemon meringue tart - decorated with blueberry and chocolate
lemon meringue tart – decorated with blueberry and chocolate
lemon meringue tart with blueberry gelee
Finished: lemon meringue tart with blueberry gelee

 

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Recipe: Raspberry Coconut Opera Cake

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Alternate plating idea for the opera cake

Makes: 20 slices, halve recipe to make less

Time required: 3 hours + extra time to decorate

Difficulty: ★★★☆☆

Inspiration:

Having recently watched the Zumbo Just Desserts tv show, I was inspired by some of the challenges the contestants faced … in particular the Franken-dessert and the Aussie Classics challenges. This is where the “Operington” cake comes in – the elements of an Opera Cake meet the flavours of a Lamington. I always enjoy making opera cakes because there’s so many layers and elements – which also allows for more creativity with flavours and textures

Elements for this cake:

  • almond coconut sponge
  • raspberry buttercream
  • raspberry jam
  • chocolate ganache
  • raspberry soju jelly, for plating
  • chocolate sauce, coconut and fresh raspberries, for plating

Ingredients:

Almond coconut sponge:

  • 9 egg whites
  • 100g caster sugar
  • 300g almond meal
  • 100g desiccated coconut
  • 400g icing sugar
  • 2tsp vanilla extract
  • 100g plain flour
  • 9 eggs
  • 100g melted butter

raspberry buttercream:

  • 200g raspberries
  • 400g butter
  • 200ml thickened cream
  • 200g caster sugar
  • 9 egg yolks

raspberry jam:

  • 200g raspberries
  • 150g sugar
  • 2 gelatin leaf

chocolate ganache:

  • 500g dark chocolate
  • 400ml thickened cream
  • 40g butter

raspberry soju jelly (optional for decorating):

  • 125g raspberries
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 cup soju (or other alcohol)
  • 8 sheet gelatin

Instructions:

Almond coconut sponge:

  1. preheat oven to 200C
  2. whisk egg whites with caster sugar until stiff peaks and set aside
  3. in a separate bowl, whisk together the almond meal, icing sugar and desiccated coconut
  4. add the eggs and vanilla and whisk until well combined
  5. sift in the flour and mix
  6. carefully fold in the egg whites
  7. gently fold in the butter, careful not to remove all the air in the batter
  8. spread evenly over four trays (roughly 15x30cm) lined with baking paper
  9. bake for 8 minutes until just cooked
  10. remove from baking sheet and set aside to cool

raspberry buttercream:

  1. puree raspberries and place in a pot over low heat until the sugar melts
  2. whisk the egg yolks with sugar until light and fluffy
  3. slowly pour in the hot raspberry while whisking the egg yolks to gently heat up the eggs without scrambling them
  4. return the entire raspberry/egg mixture to low head and continue to mix until it thickens
  5. in a separate bowl, beat the butter. Gradually add the raspberry/egg mixture and cream alternating while whisking until well combined

raspberry jam:

  1. puree the raspberries
  2. place the raspberries and sugar over low-med heat until just boiling
  3. add in the bloomed gelatin and set aside to cool

chocolate ganache:

  1. heat cream over med heat until just boiling
  2. pour over the chocolate and let sit for 2 minutes
  3. stir the cream/chocolate until well combined then mix i the butter

raspberry soju jelly:

  1. puree the raspberries
  2. place the raspberries, water and soju over medium heat until boiling
  3. add in the bloomed gelatin
  4. pour into a container (depending what shape you’d like the jelly) and leave in the fridge to set (at least 3 hours)

To assemble:

  1. place one slice/tray of the cake on a cake board or plate
  2. spread over 1/3 of the raspberry jam
  3. spread 1/3 of the raspberry buttercream then place in the fridge/freezer for 10mins to slightly harden
  4. spread over 1/4 of the chocolate ganache
  5. cover with the next slide of cake then repeat steps 2-4 another two times
  6. when all the cake/buttercream/jam layers have been used up, pour the remaining chocolate ganache over the top layer of cake
  7. leave in freezer overnight to harden before slicing the cake with a hot knife … freezing the cake results in cleaner edges when slicing the cake
  8. defrost the slices in the fridge for at least 2 hours before serving
Finished putting together all the layers of the opera cake
Finished putting together all the layers of the opera cake
Plating the opera cake for a dinner party
Plating the opera cake for a dinner party
another plating option for the raspberry opera cake
another plating option for the raspberry opera cake
plating the raspberry opera cake (2)
close up of the Opera Cake for Instagram
Alternate plating idea for the opera cake
Alternate plating idea for the opera cake

 

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Recipe: Black Forest Cake for Easter

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Makes: 6-inch cake

Time required: 2 hours

Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆

Inspiration:

Easter has always been one of my favourite holidays growing up – treating yourself to a few Cadbury creme eggs and Lindt Easter bunnies approaching Easter and then buying so many more chocolates at half-price come Easter Monday!! However since moving to Hong Kong it has been much more difficult to find Easter chocolates … my local supermarkets sell a few Easter teddies or headbands but Easter eggs are much harder to find. So I was very excited last week when I checked Marks & Spencer and found they have a whole section of different sized chocolate bunnies and eggs.

With the past weekend being my last chance to bake before Easter (as I will be travelling the next few weeks) I wanted to make a fun/playful cake using the Easter eggs as decorations. I decided to make a black forest cake as I’m still dreaming about the amazing one I had at L’Eto during my London visit several months back.

The components for this cake are:

  • rich, moist chocolate cake
  • cherry sauce
  • Chantilly cream
  • Easter eggs and chocolate flakes for decoration
Black Forest cake decorated with Easter Eggs
Black Forest cake decorated with Easter Eggs

Ingredients

Chocolate cake:

  • 1 cup plain flour
  • 1/2 cup cocoa powder
  • 1 cup caster sugar
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp espresso powder
  • 60g butter, melted
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla paste
  • 1/2 cup boiling water

Cherry topping:

  • 300g cherries, pitted
  • 100g caster sugar
  • 1 sheet gelatin
  • 60ml brandy

Chantilly cream:

  • 300ml cream
  • 1 cup pure icing sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla paste

Decorations:

  • 3 medium sized chocolate Easter eggs
  • Easter quail egg chocolates
  • Chocolate flakes

Instructions

Chocolate cake:

  1. preheat oven to 160C and grease cake tins
  2. sift together the dry ingredients into a bowl
  3. add the butter, milk, egg, vanilla and mix on medium speed until well combined
  4. slowly add the boiling water while mixing on low speed
  5. distribute the batter into two 6inch cake tins
  6. bake for 20-25mins

Cherry sauce:

  1. puree cherries in a food processor or with a stick blender
  2. place cherries and sugar in a pot over medium heat until simmering. Allow to simmer for 10mins until the liquid has thickened
  3. remove from heat and add the bloomed gelatin sheet
  4. stir in the brandy and set aside to cool

Chantilly cream:

  1. whisk together the cream, sugar and vanilla until stiff peaks form

To assemble:

  1. cut the chocolate cakes in half so we now have four discs
  2. place the first disc onto a cake board and brush with a light coat of brandy
  3. pipe a circle of Chantilly cream around the edges of the cake
  4. now fill the insides of that circle with cherry sauce
  5. coat with a thin layer of Chantilly cream
  6. repeat with the remaining layers of the cake then coat the entire cake with the remaining Chantilly cream
  7. decorate with the chocolate flakes and Easter eggs
pipe a circle of Chantilly cream around the edge of the cake
pipe a circle of Chantilly cream around the edge of the cake
fill with cherry sauce
fill with cherry sauce
Coat the black forest cake with the remaining Chantilly cream
Coat the black forest cake with the remaining Chantilly cream

IMG_2282

Balck Forest Easter cake
Decorate the Black Forest cake with Easter Eggs

 

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Ideas: Christmas baking – macarons and cakes

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Christmas baking: reindeer macarons

Christmas is always an exciting time of year … work is quieter … people are in ‘holiday mode’ … the weather in Melbourne is lovely … AND I have more excuses to bake (and plenty of time to bake since the footy isn’t on).

Leading up to Christmas the past two years, I’ve baked for family dinners as well as charity fundraisers which both present their own challenges. This post showcases the cakes I baked for Christmas dinner in 2015 and as well as the macarons baked for a fundraiser leading up to Christmas in 2014.

For Christmas 2016 … check out the posts on my Gingerbread House and Croquembouche journeys.

Christmas themed macarons:

I really enjoy baking macarons and will find an excuse to bake more macarons whether it’s for a wedding, Christmas, Easter or just any party. Here’s my selection of Christmas macarons for a Christmas charity fundraiser:

  1. Christmas pudding macarons: decorated with tempered white chocolate
  2. Christmas coloured macarons: raspberry and matcha flavoured
  3. Reindeer macarons: red m&m’s for the nose and pretzel antlers
Christmas reindeer macarons

Christmas cakes:

Being in charge of dessert for my family’s Christmas dinner is always a challenge – trying to keep all 9 people happy which includes: my parents who don’t like anything too sweet, my sister who always requests something coffee flavoured and a brother-in-law who wants nothing but a tart (more specifically … the Strawberry and Berry Tart from Le Petit Gateau in Melbourne).

Given these requirements, I came up with the following desserts:

  1. Opera cake: to meet the request of a coffee flavoured dessert
  2. Matcha mousse cake: something not too sweet for the parents
  3. Raspberry & passionfruit tart: not quite the same as the tart from Le Petit Gateau, but still a tart with berries
  4. Mango Cheesecake: At this stage I may as well keep baking and use up everything I have in the fridge
img_9987
All the cakes after four nights of baking

Opera cake:

A decadent cake made from layers of almond sponge soaked in coffee liquor syrup, chocolate ganache and coffee buttercream – this cake is always one of my favourites to bake (recipe to be posted soon).

img_9926
Opera cake – one of my favourite cakes to bake and always a crowd pleaser

Matcha Mousse cake:

Following the matcha trend – I decided to bake a matcha and white chocolate mousse cake for my ‘not too sweet’ dessert. Sitting on top of the matcha almond sponge is a layer of white chocolate mousse which adds a hint of sweetness to the bitter matcha cake.

img_9964
Matcha Mousse cake

Raspberry and Passionfruit tart:

Although the tarts from Le Petit Gateau look amazing, I opted for a more ‘traditional’ tart … baked in a tart pan with plenty of custard and topped with fruit. I made a passionfruit curd to add a bit more flavour to the custard and topped the tart with raspberries, raspberry jam and chopped pistachios. Not quite Le Petit Gateau standard … but still relatively happy with the finished product given it was my first tart or pastry crust attempt.

img_9963
Raspberry & passionfruit tart

Mango Cheesecake:

I wasn’t joking earlier when I said that I was using up the ingredients in my fridge. We had several ripe mangos in the house and cream cheese in the fridge. The bright colour of the mango also looked great with the red/green/brown of the other cakes.

This was a very simple cheesecake to make, comprised of a Arnott’s Nice biscuit base, vanilla cheesecake (recipe to be posted soon) and a mango jelly.

img_9903
Mango cheesecake

I’m always looking for new ideas and challenges for Christmas themed baking, so if you have any great posts or recipes, please share below 🙂

 

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Recipe: Christmas Gingerbread House

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Christmas gingerbread house baking recipe

Makes: 1 gingerbread house

Time required: 1.5 days … in 2-3 hour blocks

Difficulty: ★★★☆☆ …  – gingerbread itself is very simple … the more stressful parts are designing the template and waiting for the icing to set to hold the house together.

Inspiration:

Growing up, my childhood dream was to become an architect. I’ve always had an interest in buildings and construction (having studied Civil Engineering), so baking a gingerbread house was a very exciting Christmas project for me.

The inspiration for this gingerbread house? The French Provincial houses of the leafy Eastern suburbs of Canterbury and Kew in back home in Melbourne – featuring symmetrical proportions, steep roofs and a balcony. The Civil Engineering degree definitely came in handy when designing the house and roof dimensions and building a cardboard template.

img_3200
Cardboard template

Ingredients:

Gingerbread (for a house ~ W30cm, H20cm, D20cm in size):

  • 500g butter
  • 400g dark muscovado sugar
  • 10tsp golden syrup
  • 1.2kg plain flour
  • 4tsp bicarbonate soda
  • 10g ground ginger
  • 10g cinnamon powder

Royal Icing (made in 4 smaller batches):

  • 4 egg whites
  • 1kg pure icing sugar

To decorate – free to use whatever candy you can find, however this is what I chose:

  • maltesers as the rocks lining the side of the footpath
  • pastille lollies for the ’tiled’ footpath
  • rice paper sheets for the windows
  • marshmallow snowman
  • pocky sticks for the snowman arms
  • sour strap candy for the garage door and Christmas tree stars
  • almond flakes to line the ‘stone’ porch
  • preztels for the balconies and driveway
  • m&m Christmas lights
  • chocolate wafer roof
  • plain wafers for the corner detailing

Instructions:

Gingerbread:

  1. Preheat oven to 200°C
  2. Melt butter, sugar and golden syrup over low heat until all the butter has melted
  3. Sift the flour, bicarbonate soda, cinnamon and ginger in a separate bowl
  4. Stir melted butter into flour mixture to make a stiff dough
  5. Divide the dough into 3-4 smaller batches and roll out to 1cm thickness
  6. Tracing the cardboard template made earlier, cut out each piece of gingerbread
  7. Cook in oven for 12 minutes until the edges start to brown
  8. Remove from oven and allow to cool/dry to harden
img_3218
all the baked gingerbread pieces

Royal icing:

  1. Stir together egg whites and pure icing sugar until the mixture becomes a smooth icing
  2. Place the icing sugar into a piping bag fitted with a small round nozzle and pipe along the edges of the gingerbread (one piece at a time) to join the house together. Ensure the walls of the house are completely dry before placing the roof on top of the house
img_3220
gluing the pieces together with icing sugar
img_3222
gingerbread house coming together

Decorate:

  1. Use royal icing (resembling snow) to cover up the ‘messy’ corners and joints on the house
  2. Also use royal icing to stick candy decorations to the house
img_3224
piping ‘snow’ to cover up the joints and corners
img_3292
Front of the house all decorated
img_3242
back of the house

Party time:

Whilst I had so much fun baking, building and decorating the house …. the most exciting part is definitely showing off your house to friends and then demolishing and eating the house.

img_3405
time to show off the house
IMG_3380.JPG
enjoying the lovely view of Hong Kong
img_3383
demolished

I’ll admit that I was a little sad to tear the house apart, however we did enjoy snacking away at the gingerbread house on a lovely Saturday afternoon in the sun.

I’m already looking forward to designing and baking another gingerbread house next year! 🙂

 

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