Strawberry Tart

When I made the crème pâtissière for the Éclair, I had made some more so I could use up some egg yolks;  this newly bought rectangular tart tin was waiting for me to use it; British strawberries were also on offer, three good reasons to make a strawberry tart, and the last one - I never get bored of strawberries + custard + tart :)

This rectangular tart tin totally caught my eyes, I like a tart to look different and the cut-out slices look more neat.

Strawberry Tart

Ingredients

80g melted dark chocolate (or milk chocolate)
100g crème pâtissière or custard
375g shortcrush pastry or Ready Rolled Shortcrush Pastry
300g strawberries
3 tablespoons Apricot jam
2 tablespoons pistachio flake for decoration (optional)

Method

1. Heat the oven to 180C. Line a tart tin with the pastry. Bake blind for 10 minutes, and then remove the paper and weights. Bake for 20 more minutes.
2. Leave the tart to cool in the tin.
3. Spread melted dark chocolate onto the tart. Chill for 5 mins.
4. Spoon/pipe the custard onto the tart and place the strawberries on the top.
5. Melt the apricot jam (I microwave for 30 seconds to 1 min), brush the jam on top of the fruits.Sprinkle the pistachio flake and drizzle some chocolate on the top.
6. Chill the tart in the tin in the fridge for at least 1 hour, remove from the tin before serving.

yum yum :-P

French Éclair

When I was in Paris, I saw Éclair in every pâtisserie window, I didnt realize they were actually very popular until I read a book about different varieties of French pastry. They are sold in big profiterole rather than oblong shape in Japan and Hong Kong, while filling and icing are quite similar, my favourite flavours are Earl Grey and vanilla crème pâtissière cream puff from Beard Papa's, they used to have a branch in Oxford Street and sell different flavours everyday, I went there almost every other week to grab one or a box to share with friends, but it is now closed :(

Choux Pastry is really easy to make, I made them as little profiterole last time for croquembouche, this time I made them as mini éclairs.

French Éclair

Recipe adapted from On Cafe:

For the French Éclair

50g butter
60ml milk
65ml water
75g plain flour
1/2tsp salt
1tsp sugar
3 medium eggs

Method:

1. Place butter, milk and water in a saucepan and bring to boil.
2. Mix the flour, salt and sugar together in a box.
3. Once the butter has melted, take the saucepan off the heat and tip in the dry flour mixture. Beat well with a wooden spoon until incorporated.
4. Beat the eggs gradually into the mixture until well-combined, the mixture should be shinny and springy.
5. Transfer the mixture into a piping bag.
6. Preheat the oven to 180'C.
7. Pipe the choux pastry into finger-length for mini éclairs with space in between onto a baking mat.
8. Bake the tray of mini éclairs in the oven for 30 mins, or until golden-brown and firm.
9. Leave them to cool on a wire rack.

For the Crème pâtissière 

3 large egg yolks
50g golden caster sugar
17g plain flour
167ml full cream milk

Method:

1. Beat the egg yolks, sugar, and flour in a bowl to make a smooth paste.
2. Bring the milk to the boil in a saucepan.
3. As soon as it reaches the boil, pour it over the egg mixture, stir well.
4. Return the whole mixture to the saucepan and cook over a low heat, stirring constantly until the sauce is very thick and bubbling.
5. Transfer to a bowl and cover the surface with cling film to prevent a skin forming and leave to cool completely. Refrigerate until ready to use.
6. Pipe them into the éclairs an hour before serving.

For the Chocolate Ganache Glaze 

100g Dark Chocolate
80g Whipping Cream
1tbp Glucose

Method:

1. Break chocolate into pieces and place into a bowl.
2. Boil the cream in a saucepan in medium heat.
3. Pour the the hot cream onto the chocolate, stir well until combined.
4. Mix in the glucose.
5. Carefully dip the top of the éclairs into the glaze, leave them with the glaze facing up on a wire rack until set.

Baby Girl Shower Cake and Macarons

Apart from wedding cakes, I always wanted to make baby shower cakes. I was thinking maybe I could just decorate a dummy one (a cake-shaped foam for display use) just for fun, but it would be a bit of a waste. Then a few weeks ago, Kristina came to me and asked if she could place an order to me for a baby shower cake, I was soooo over the moon and got extremely excited. My dream totally came true!!

Kristina and her friends were planning to throw a surprise baby shower party for Eileen. I was amazed at the level of detail that Kristina had gone to for the baby shower when she showed me a bit of her email; restaurant, flowers, helium balloons, centerpiece, teddy bears, baby clothes, ribbons, cards, decorations, candy boxes with tags, cake and favours and on an on! She told me baby shower is a big thing in America. I was honoured to help make the cake and favours. There was a pink and brown theme, we discussed a few ideas for the cake, teddy bear and shopping chic would be the final design. For the favours, Kristina suggested macarons to be more English : ) she definitely got me as excited as her, especially there were a lot of funny stories in between, especially how to get Eileen to the party! :-P We were all very glad Eileen enjoyed and liked the baby shower very much ♫

My first draft for the design of the cake, we scaled down to 1 tier cake and macarons was more than enough.

I started making bits and pieces a week in advance, made the chocolate cake with pink vanilla and brown chocolate sponge layers with buttercream the day before, I enjoyed putting everything together the most in the end.

Macarons have been very successful recently without any cracks.

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

❤  May God bless Eileen and her baby girl , may you both be happy and healthy  ❤

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

Penguin, Lion and Panda Icebox Cookies

After I made the panda bread, I always wanted to use the same technique to make cookies. I saw Carman making some panda cookies recently, they looked sooo cute, I saved the idea making them this week so I could give some to Scarlett as a leaving present.

I also realised they are called icebox cookies, because they are made from a dough which has been refrigerated or frozen, typically in a log shape. The freezing or cooling makes the dough stiffer, and ideally suited to slicing into thin rounds for baking. Checkerboard cookies made from refrigerated dough. I was looking for good recipes online, and I found Diamonds for Dessert invented these adorable lion and penguin icebox cookies. Definitely a go to me, although i meant to make a smiley face for the panda, it turned out a sad face..  :-P

Panda Icebox Cookies

recipe adapted from Diamonds for Dessert

Make about 12 cookies, depends on how large you make it and how thick you cut it.
150g flour
115g butter, softened
85g sugar
30g powdered sugar
1 egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla bean paste
1.5 tablespoons cocoa powder

1. Cream butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add egg yolk and beat until combined. Add the vanilla bean paste and mix.
2. Sift the flour in and stir until just combined.
3. Split the dough into 1/3 and 2/3 portions and put in a separate bowl.
4. The 2/3 portion bowl will be used for the panda face.
5. The 1/3 portion bowl will be used for the panda ears, add the cocoa powder into the bowl and mix until the dough become dark to resemble panda ears.
6. Divide the chocolate dough into 6 with 2 equal larger portions for the ears, 2 equal medium portions for the eyes, then the remaining 2 portions to be the nose and the mouth. Roll or pipe the dough of each portion into a long log.
7. Divide the plain dough into 8 portions like the picture below for the panda face, roll or pipe the dough of each portion into a long log. Carefully wrap the logs accordingly to form the panda face.

8. Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 15 minutes or until firm. After chilling, slice the log dough into 0.3 inch/8mm thick and place on a parchment lined baking sheet.
9. Preheat the oven to 180C. Bake the cookies for 12-15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

Penguin Icebox Cookies

Make about 12 cookies, depends on how large you make it and how thick you cut it.
200g flour
115g butter, softened
85g sugar
30g powdered sugar
1 egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla bean paste
1.5 tablespoons cocoa powder
Purple food coloring
yellow and white coloured icing tube and melted chocolate, for decorating

1. Cream butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add egg yolk and beat until combined. Add the vanilla bean paste and mix.
2. Take about 3/4 of the mixture into one bowl. Add 50g of the flour to it and mix until a dough forms. Remove from the bowl and wrap with cling wrap and set aside.
3. Take the remaining 1/4 of the mixture and mix in the purple food colouring until the desired colour is achieved. Add the remaining 150g of flour and mix until a dough forms. Wrap with cling wrap.
4. To make the penguin shapes, take the yellow dough and roll out into a log about 2cm in diameter. Set aside. Take the purple dough and roll out into 2 rectangle shapes, one as long as the plain log and another one as long as the diameter to wrap the yellow dough. Wrap the purple dough around the yellow dough and seal the edges.

5. Wrap the entire log in cling wrap and refrigerate for 15 minutes. Preheat oven to 160ºC and line a cookie sheet with baking paper. When the dough is firm, take the log out of the fridge and slice with a knife into 0.5cm slices. Place the slices onto the lined baking sheet, bake for 12-15 minutes and cool on a wire rack.
6. When the cookies are completely cooled, use piping icing and melted chocolate to pipe eyes, feet and wings onto the cookies.

Lion Icebox Cookies

150g flour
115g butter, softened
85g sugar
30g powdered sugar
1 egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla bean paste
1.5 tablespoons cocoa powder
yellow a icing tube and melted chocolate, for decorating

1. Cream butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add egg yolk and beat until combined. Add the vanilla bean paste and mix.
2. Sift the flour in and stir until just combined.
3. Split the dough into half and put into two separate bowls.
4. One bowl will be used for the lion face.
5. The other bowl will be used for the lion hair, add the cocoa powder into the bowl and mix until the dough become dark.
6. Roll the plain dough into a long circle log.
7. Roll the chocolate dough into a rectangle shape long enough to wrap around the yellow circle log. Wrap the chocolate dough around the yellow dough and seal the edges.

8. Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 15 minutes or until firm. After chilling, slice the log dough into 0.3 inch/8mm thick and place on a parchment lined baking sheet.
9. Preheat the oven to 180C. Bake the cookies for 12-15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.
10. When the cookies are completely cooled, use piping icing and melted chocolate to pipe eyes, noses, mouths and ears onto the cookies.

Infinitely Vanilla, Pistachio and Pietra Chocolate Macarons

I am so happy that I am being asked "Can you make me some macarons?" the most :) ♫ I also notice my best-sellers are pistachio, vanilla and chocolate flavours, no matter how adventurous I am making new flavours :-O

Pistachio Macarons Recipe can be found in my old post, I added 3 tbsp of matcha powder to the ganache to enhance the flavour:
http://cheriekelly.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/pistachio-chocolate-and-salted-caramel.html

Infinitely Vanilla Macarons Recipe can also be found in my old post:
http://cheriekelly.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/hazelnut-chocolate-and-vanilla-macarons.html

Chocolate Tiramisu Cake

I have been told by my friends who went to boarding schools how strict the daily schedule was and how awful/unhealthy the food was.... I was very lucky to go to a private day school when I did my a-level here, and home-stayed with my Korean guardian family with my old best family from hk, enjoyed all the delicious mouth-watering korean food everyday and picked up some korean cooking.

Stephen is going back to his boarding school life soon, so not looking forward to the terrible food.. he asked if i could make him a chocolate cake for his birthday, I gladly loved to :) however i couldnt send/post him one to Bath, so we decided to celebrate with him in advance and wish him all the luck with his new school year (^_^)☆

Banana Cake Loaf

New school year starts when September starts. It was a very joyful summer, especially I made a few new good friends, Simon is one and actually my first friend from Dubai, who is a pianist (and a awesome photographer :-P ), spent almost 1.5 months of his summer holiday in the UK and travelling around in Europe, we went to Sardinia together with a group of friends, we have had so much fun and laughter. Summer holiday finally came to an end, he is flying back home tonight, I wanted to make him a leaving little present - moist banana cake loaf would be nice to have on the plane : ) this banana cake also created a very drooling bakery-scent throughout my whole place, best to serve hot when it is still crispy on the top!

Banana Cake Loaf

Ingredients

270g soft light brown sugar
2 eggs
250g peeled bananas, mashed
280g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1.5 tsp ground cinnamon
1.5 tsp ground nutmeg
140g unsalted butter, melted
1 bananna, sliced for decoration (optional)

A 23 x 13-cm loaf tin, greased and dusted with flour

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 170C/325F.

2. Whisk the sugar and eggs with a electric mixer until well incorporated. Beat in the mashed bananas.

3. Add the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and nutmeg to the sugar mixture. Mix it thoroughly until all the dry ingredients are incorporated. Beat in the melted butter.

4. Pour the mixture into the geased loaf tin and smooth over with a palette knife. Line the sliced banana on the top. Bake in the preheated oven for about 1 hour, or until firm to the touch and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

5. Leave it cool slightly in the tin before taking it out and serve it warm.