Birthday treat from my daughter

My daughter wanted to bake me a birthday cake, so to make it simple for her, I suggested an easy Tiramisu. I gave her the instructions and she prepared the dessert with me. 

 Blueberry Butter Puffs

Bought some ready made puff pastry from the supermarket and prepared this puff tart with blueberries and lemon zest. 

The jam is made from fresh blueberries and sugar.

Quick and tasty; but make sure that the puff pastry is made with butter and not margarine.

Apple pies for a celebration

Baked 2 Apple pies for my mum's birthday party. Two pies with two different recipes.

The pies were delicious with vanilla ice cream.

This pie crust contained egg yolks and has a more golden finish.

The filling was pre-cooked before baking.

This crust was made from Martha's pate brisee.

The pie was topped with round fluted cutouts.

Madeleines

Madeleines are miniature French sponge cakes made in a special shell- shaped pans.

My first attempt was baking of  chocolate madeleines made from Valrhona cocoa powder.

These chocolate madeleines tasted good especially with vanilla ice cream.

Rose-water and Lemon Madeleines

Baked some madeleines flavoured with rose water for my mum for Mothers'Day.

She requested for a dessert that was light and not so sweet. Thus, I chose this recipe and reduced the amount of sugar stated and it still tasted good. The rose fragrance was mild but refreshing. I also baked another batch with lemon zest.We had an enjoyable afternoon tea sampling these madeleines.

Rose-water madeleines

Lemon Madeleines

Apple Pies Days

I recently tasted a very delicious apple pie at a lunch gathering and decided to try one out.

Using Granny Smith apples, I baked this.

Using a different pie dough recipe(Pierre Herme Perfect Tart Dough), I baked another apple pie and and sprinkled coarse sugar over top before baking.

It produced a shining and golden brown  finish.

My Little Nonya Macarons again!

This time, I used a more concentrated dye made from Butterpea flowers.

The turquoise batter was piped into the baking tray.

The colour of the macarons seemed to fade after baking and some even turned toasty brown.

However, the developement of the macarons on the whole was satisfactory.

The Little Nonya Macaron

My version of The Little Nonya Macaron:

To create this Nonya Macaron, I made use of Butterpea flowers for its natural blue colouring .

The beautiful blue coloured batter was then piped onto the baking tray.

  

Unfortunately, after baking, the blue dye seem to have oxidized due to high temperature and changed to toasty brown.

The filling for the Nonya Macaron is Nonya Cream Kaya.

(coconut cream custard)

The little Blue Nonya Macarons are completed.

Baked a NY cheesecake for my nephew's birthday.

I used the chocolate macarons as decorations.

Today's Bake : Chocolate macarons

Chocolate macarons filled with white chocolate mixed with chocolate bits.

Chocolate macarons: Pairing of the shells

Macaron shells just out of the oven.

Freshly piped macaron batter on baking tray.                                                                                                                                                  

More baking of macarons with the same filling -Orange cream cheese. 

But this time round with just an addition of some Grand Marnier.

After school muffins: Savoury mushroom and cheese muffins.

Macarons, macarons, macarons!

Baked a batch of them today with different fillings.

Macarons filled with passion fruit/lemon curd

Macarons with with confiture au lait de Normandie.

Macarons with orange cream cheese.

Assembled macarons.

Macaron caps cooling on rack

The previous bake of macarons had filling using the recipe of  caramel fleur de sel. 

But instead of sea salt, I used rock salt.

Baked some savoury muffins for  Teatime:

Bacon 'n' Cheese muffins

This is adapted from a Corn muffin recipe and turned out quite tasty.

Macaron baking day again.

Prepared this tiramisu for my sister's birthday. This is a simple cream combination of cream cheese, sugar and heavy cream. A refreshing layer of lemon curd with passion fruit is added to this recipe.

Happy Valentine's Day too.

Baked my first meringue today.

Fruit pavlova which in my version consists of : Passion fruit lemon curd and fresh blueberries.

The Pavlova dessert was first created in the early 1930s in honor of the ballerina Anna Pavlova, a Russian ballerina.

Macarons with hazelnut chocolate cream.

Macarons just out of oven.

Happy Chinese New Year. Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Have a wonderful OX year ahead.

Only managed to prepare this Kek Lapis this new year.

The layering was quite satisfactory and I  managed only 12 layers.

I enjoyed building up the layers but it was a very "sweaty" process.

An enlarged view of the Lapis layers.

Baked this Chocolate cake for my son's birthday :

This is a dual layer chocolate cake with raspberry jam filling and coated with chocolate ganache.

Today's lunch:

Spicy chicken pie.

Filling for the pie :Curry chicken with potatoes

2009 has arrived. Happy New Year.

Baked this Ham & Mushroom Quiche on NY's eve for my family potluck party.