Plum Frangipane Tart

OMG. I can't believe it's been almost one year since my last post. I can't believe how many things have happened to me and how much my life has changed.

Anyhoo, I just installed the Blogger official app on my iPhone and I am ready. Ready to post more. Yes, I said it.

Here's a plum frangipane tart that I made recently. Fresh and simple. Kinda like the way I feel about life.

homemade marshmallows

I still can't believe how easy it was to make marshmallows from scratch. I followed Martha Stewart's recipe except peppermint extract which I don't have in my pantry. I used coconut extract instead.

By the way, this picture was taken with my brand new iPhone - Hipstamatic App, to be exact. Oh, I love my iPhone.

Chocolate Truffle Mousse Cake Ver. 2.0

Here's a great opportunity to review what I learned at baking school a while ago. Chocolate Truffle Mousse Cake, as per my friend Mrs. HT's request. Slices of chocolate sponge nestled in luscious chocolate mousse, topped with rich chocolate ganache.

I could have skipped the decorative sponge part, but... why? That's the fun part of this cake! :D haha I piped the word 'friends' in mirror image with decorating paste and froze it while prepping biscuit joconde. Spread the biscuit joconde over the chilled decorating paste and bake it at quite high temp quickly... and there you have it. The most difficult part might have been finding the right font in right size for the template to pipe on!

Almond Crème Caramel

Mrs. SP kindly gave me a bottle of Orgeat syrup for me to try. I tried mixing it with cold unsweetened soy milk, and voila! Drinkable 杏仁豆腐 :D YUM!

I love the Orgeat flavour so much that I wanted to use it in non-beverage recipes... Thanks to Google, I found this recipe at FOOD & WINE.

This was my second try to make crème caramel (the first time was at baking school a few years ago...). I used various smaller ramekins, so I got 12 servings in total. I baked (cooked?) 4 at a time. The first group totally failed - a perfect example of custard cooked at high temp. I blame my finicky oven :p

Luckily, the following groups turned out pretty well. No ugly holes. Nice, silky, smooth texture. Caramel was spot-on, I must say :) hehe

Turducken Roulade (minus Duck)

In Japan, we don't celebrate Thanksgiving Day the way it is celebrated in North America. I usually don't feel either need or urge to eat turkey this time of the year for that reason, but I just happened to crave it this year :)

So I made no-duck turducken roulade, or should I call it turcken roulade? Brined chicken thighs wrapped in turkey breasts, roasted in the oven. Served with carrots, potatoes and brussels sprouts.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

insalata caprese look-alike

Mrs. S graciously shared a shiso plant with me - actually two; the green one and the purple one. I love, love, LOVE shiso!!

I had some well-ripened tomatoes, so I made this insalata caprese look-alike. Drained medium-firm tofu instead of sliced buffalo mozzarella, shiso leaves instead of basil, and seasoned with soy sauce and rice vinegar for a Japanese touch :)

when life gives you plums

Mr. & Mrs. S invited me over for the BC Day weekend. Their hospitality is amazing. So is their beautiful residence. They have a lovely backyard garden where they grow various veggies and fruits, which always makes me sigh admiringly and enviously.

They had a good (more than just 'good'?) harvest of plums this year, and I got to have a share of it. I made a plum jam. This one is for you if you like the natural tartness from this type of fruits.

Also I made a plum clafouti (recipe) which tastes much better than it looks :)

Kimbap (or something like that)

It had been over two years since the last time I made makizushi...

This is my first attempt at Kimbap. The ingredients are not as authentic as the real deal, but it was pretty tasty :9

Cream Cheese Crostata with Orange Marmalade

The recipe is from Epicurious.com, and is very easy to make. I added a teeny bit of Grand Marnier to the cream cheese mixture for extra orange-y flavour ;)

"Chick Love" Threadless Cake

I'm so excited that Threadcakes is back!! Here's my "first" entry this year :) The design I chose this time is very cute "Chick Love".

Outside is store-bought chocolate fondant with homemade marshmallow fondant decorations.

Inside is Betty Crocker Butter Pecan cake (yes, I *do* use box cake mixes occasionally), Smucker's orange marmalade and homemade orange custard cream.

Samurai Blue(berry) Pancakes

2010 is such an exciting year for all sports lovers with the Vancouver/Whistler Winter Olympics and the FIFA World Cup South Africa! The Samurai Blue has been playing remarkably well in the Southern Hemisphere and hopefully will continue to make us proud in the next game against Paraguay, whatever the final score is.

In the morning of June 24 (the game day against Denmark), I made some blueberry pancakes for my pre-game(watching) breakfast. Yes, BLUE.

I added some fresh blueberries to my fave Sunny Boy Complete Buttermilk Pancake Mix. Served with more fresh blueberries and blueberry syrup from Summerland Sweets = triple blueberry!

I'm thinking of making more of these again on June 29, the next game day... Am I being a bit superstitious?

Yuzu Muffin

Inspired by the hassaku loaf my sister in Tokyo made with my mom's homemade hassaku marmalade, I baked some Yuzu muffins today.

They are super easy & quick to make, packed with intense yuzu flavour, AND contain no added sugar. All the sweetness comes from Korean Yujacha.

Strawberry & Chocolate Trifle

last-minute invite to a dinner + fresh berries in season = trifle

• layers of...
• chocolate sponge
• strawberry slices
• strawberry preserves
• white chocolate pudding
• topped with...
  • whipped cream
  • white & milk chocolate shavings
  • strawberries

Note to myself: next time I make a trifle, I'll definitely make each layers really nice and clean... :(

Cakelettes

Leftover cupcakes and marshmallow fondant from the book cake project turned into these cakelettes. The bottom two in the photo have names of my friends in Japanese. I used たのしメール from Arnest Inc. to cut out those Japanese characters.

Book Cake for Book Talk/Signing Event

There was a book talk/signing event for my friend EK's parents, and I had an honour, privilege and pleasure to make a cake for them.

Spirit of the Nikkei Fleet: BC’s Japanese Canadian Fishermen was nominated for this year's Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award.

The 'body of the book' cake was supposed to be the same size as the 'half title page' sugarpaste piece on top of the cake :( and that's one of many, many shouldas & couldas...

The top line was piped with black royal icing and the bottom was written with FoodWriter.

Pacific Dogwood is the provincial flower of British Columbia.

I always have a hard time figuring out cake serving size... a dozen of cupcakes to the rescue!

Icebox Cookies

Here are two kinds of icebox cookies that I baked a little while ago.

p-p-p-poker chips p-p-poker chips

baker of a lonely heart

Chocolate Truffles

I made chocolate truffles. Just because.

Clockwise from top right: vanilla truffle with toasted coconut flakes, grand marnier truffle dipped in milk chocolate, s'more truffle, grand marnier truffle rolled in cocoa powder. Middle: grand marnier truffle dipped in white chocolate and topped with dried cranberries

Here's a cross section of s'more truffle. Mini marshmallow in vanilla truffle, rolled in graham cracker crumbs. Ohhhh, yeahhhh.

Zucchini-Parmesan Loaf

This zucchini-parmesan loaf I baked on March 28 is still moist and yummy as of April 2.

The recipe can be found here at Martha Stewart's Everyday Food. I added a pinch of cayenne pepper, which I think worked out pretty well.

Mango Pound Cake

Sunday. My day off. I was hoping for another beautiful day but the weather decided to ignore me :( *boooo* Craving for sunshine, I made something sunshiny in terms of colour and flavour.

The original recipe can be found here. I substituted orange juice with mango pulp and omitted orange zest. Ingredient ratio for the glaze had to be changed a bit because I was running out of icing sugar...

Happy Pi Day

March 14 is Pi Day. I am no math enthusiast but decided to celebrate it anyway by making a mini coconut cream pi(e)!

Garnished with the rum-flavoured whipped cream and a milk chocolate pi symbol.