The Nooblet Patissier

Just wanted to quickly update with this cake. I hate these photos, but I had so much fun making this cake so wanted to show you guys. It's a Rubik's Cube Cake!

The cake is 3 small tiers of chocolate mud, set with ganache and covered with fondant.

In other news, Dad is currently redoing the kitchen, so nothing is being produced there at the moment. We are eating out most nights, and keeping the cooking to a bare minimum at home. Dad's doing an amazing job. I'll show you the photos once its all complete. :)

All the renovating has me trawling Apartment Therapy daily. It is such an inspirational site and everyday I find things that I want to have in my own home. Can't wait to move out into a place I can call my own.

We also drove down to Thredbo a couple of weeks ago, and I'm pleased to report that I am still improving on a snowboard. Yay! I made it up a t-bar lift! Fingers crossed for further progress next year...Hoping to go Japan early 2013! Anyone with suggestions for where to eat/stay?

Blue Ombre Petal Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Nooblet) — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 05:02:00 +0000

Another late night photo...Don't judge me.

Being that it’s father’s day this Sunday for us Australian folks who live on the right side of the world, I’m dedicating this post to dear old Dad.

I usually ask my friends and clients for 2 weeks notice for any cake orders. So last Saturday, when my dad said: “Vicky, you know you gotta make a cake for my friend’s birthday for Wednesday right?”

Um… No? First I’d heard of this cake! Sheesh.

My mum used to hate being around my Dad and I when we were together, because we always bicker. Hard. About anything. And everything. But that’s just how we roll! And Mum never really understood that. Dad and I would fight about everything under the sun, and within 5 minutes, be all chummy again. We knew it was friendly, even when it wasn’t.

In any case, I had a busy weekend, which left last night to do the cake. The ombre petal effect is something I’ve been meaning to try for a little while so I felt this was a good opportunity, seeing as Dad didn’t know what kind of a cake he wanted.

A few hours later, and I was done :) . This morning, i.e. the morning of the day he wanted the cake, Dad waltzes in and says “Gee it’s a bit small.” Guess what? Dad forgot to tell me that the cake is for a 50th birthday celebration, and is meant to serve 30 people. Good one, Dad. Thankfully the cake isn’t that small. Hopefully, he’ll be able to get 30 small servings if he cuts it right. And she wonders why we bicker.

The cake is yellow cake with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream frosting.

Kimmidoll Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Nooblet) — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 00:22:00 +0000

I made this Kimmidoll cake a couple of weeks ago for my combined birthday celebration with le boyfriend. It served 120 coffee portions and about 60 dessert portions and weighed about a ton. If anyone was wondering, we only got down to her fringe... She is all mud and rich dark chocolate ganache inside.

For about 2 weeks after this one, I was scouring the interwebs looking for cute kimmi/kokeshi dolls that could be cake-i-fied. Have a look at these guys:

If anyone is interested in how to make one, it is available as a novelty course at Planet Cakes, who are wonderful! It is no coincidence that they are commonly regarded as the best couture cake company in Sydney.

If anyone is interested in having a Kimmidoll cake made up, please send me an email (see contact link above). Fully customizable in terms of colour. I'm thinking ninja cakes at the moment...

Also, I wanted to stick in a quick mention of Sushi Tei on Liverpool street. We frequent this place quite a lot, but they were so incredibly accommodating and patient with our large booking at such short notice. Great food and great service!

Green Tea Macarons

noreply@blogger.com (Nooblet) — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 00:21:00 +0000

Have I mentioned I love Instagram?

These green tea macarons are wonderful. I love that combination of a very Asian flavour with a very Western style dessert, and this is no exception. I expect that there will soon be some black sesame/sticky rice macarons making an appearance.

The green tea is slightly bitter, which counters the usually very sweet macaron very well. Green tea powder is usually available in a Japanese/Asian grocery. If you have trouble finding it, try also looking for green tea ice cream mix. Hint: if it says 'matcha', you're on the right track.

The cracked one had a bite taken out of it...sorry. Couldn't resist ;p

By the way, these really cute tiny bowls and plates are from Ikea.

If anyone's interested in making macarons, have a quick flick through the Nooblet Patissier site (see pages bar above). Keep an eye out, because I will soon be posting a few more macarons recipes there along with a short discussion on what works for me and what doesn't (this will be mostly talk about the Italian meringue method).

Angry Birds Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Nooblet) — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 00:19:00 +0000

So, one more brightly coloured, kid appropriate cake for you guys! Angry Birds cake! For one lovely Angry Birds fanatic. I'm really sad that I only have these instagram photos of the cake. It disappeared pretty quickly following a dinner at Kobow restaurant in Sydney.

Inside was chocolate mud with dark chocolate ganache. All the Angry Birds figurines were edible, formed form gumpaste.

If you're interested on how to make these little figurines, let me know in the comments section and I'll post up a tuturial for you guys. :)

And...to finish off, a random photo of Miss Bagel. She's a little pig and wants eggs and cake too. :)

Hello Kitty Cupcake Tower

noreply@blogger.com (Nooblet) — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 00:18:00 +0000

I have a friend who's obsessed with Hello Kitty. Adorable!

For her birthday, she asked for a Hello Kitty cake. Who am I to say no?

Amy is one of the sweetest people I know. She's loving, kind, honest and straightforward. I always knew she was into Hello Kitty, but I didn't realise how obsessed until I made her this cake. And what a fitting theme. I think Hello Kitty almost defines Amy. Pink, sweet, fun.

During the party, Amy's beautiful parents came and thanked me, saying that a cake tower like this was "Amy's dream". I could not have been more honored. No one deserves to have her dreams fulfilled more.

Love you!

Tinkerbell Cupcake Tower

noreply@blogger.com (Nooblet) — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 00:17:00 +0000

Had some trouble getting Tinkerbell to sit ladylike...her legs kept wanting to go in opposite directions.

I thought I'd kick off the new blog with this cute as Tinkerbell cake tower. For those of you who don't know me, I go by Nooblet and run Nooblet Patissier, my general baking blog. Very recently, Noobet Patissier underwent an inter-web-mitosis sort of event and divided into two distinct blog: a baking one, and a caking one!

Nooblet Patissier will be predominantly focused of baking endeavours such as breads, pastries and other random dessert stuff. Nooblet cake will be a platform where I will showcase my cakes (which are available for order in the Sydney metro area). I will also be posting caking tutorials here from time to time for those of you who are interested in DIY sugar madness.

Life has been pretty hectic for me at the moment and I'm currently juggling all sorts of life-thingies, both ordinary and regular, and extenuating circumstances. So while my posts probably will not be the most regular at this point, I'll do my best to make sure they keep on coming, however sporadically that may be.

So now! On to the cake!!! I love making kids' cakes. They're so much fun! Wedding cakes most often default to the whites and the creams and the very pastel colours, which are certainly beautiful, but it's a wonderful break to make a loud, bright cake. Birthdays, especially children's birthdays, are so perfect for this!

This Tinkerbell themed cupcake tower was made for a 3rd birthday. It's a chocolate mud cutting cake and light, moist chocolate cupcakes.

Friday Things, and a quick thought on butter

noreply@blogger.com (Nooblet) — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 06:50:00 +0000

It's Friday people!

I just happened to be reading a few things about butter and thought I'd quickly share with you. I randomly stumbled onto a "why is butter yellow" thingy and found it interesting so here goes:

Butter is yellow due to the presence of something called beta-carotene which is naturally found in milk. Beta-carotene is part of a group of naturally occurring chemicals known as carotenes or carotenoids. And yup, carotene's are responsible for that orange colour in carrots.

Apparently, the French produce the best tasting butter in the world. I will let you know how French butter measures up to the Aussie stuff when I get there (must go to France to eat butter...). Since butter is made from milk, and we all know where milk comes from, it comes as no surprise that what the cow eats directly impacts how the butter turns out. Australian cattle feed year round on green pastures with high levels of beta-carotene, which makes for a yellower butter that is richer in vitamins A and K. French cows live in barns and are fed dry food, resulting in a paler butter. Unsalted butter also tends to be a little paler than salted butter.

And this brings us nicely along to that funny debate of which butter to use: salted or unsalted. It seems that cooks are divided into those that use only unsalted butter, and those who don't really care, and so are happy to take advantage of salted butter's versatility and convenience.

Proponents of unsalted butter claim that using only unsalted butter allows you to have complete control of the amount of salt that goes into your recipe. They also point out that salt is a preservative, giving salted butter a longer shelf life, which suggests that unsalted butter is typically fresher.

Personally, I don't really care. I have tried both, and have not noticed a huge difference which I guess puts me into the salted butter basket. Seeing as I don't see much of a difference in my baking when I use salted butter, why would I use unsalted butter at all? If I use salted butter, it keeps a little longer in the fridge (not usually an issue at our house), and I can soften it up to spread on toast for a yummy carb-loaded snack.

So! What are your thoughts? Salted or unsalted?

Recipe of the week: Shauna Sever's Lemon Curd

This is a pretty old post on Shauna's blog, but it includes a fantastic recipe for lemon curd. You crack 10 eggs to make it, but it manages not to taste all that eggy. It's also delightfully tart and lemony. The cake's not bad either.

Incidentally, I also picked up a copy of Shauna's book, Marshmallow Madness, today. This is a wonderfully puffy book with plenty of inspiration and lovely pastel photos.

Coveting:

New boots! What else is new? These ones over at Tony Bianco are particularly tempting.

Quote of the week:

"We are what we repeatedly do." - Aristotle

And that's it from me today! Cheers to the freaking weekend!

Bye Bambi! We will miss you...

noreply@blogger.com (Nooblet) — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 02:29:00 +0000

No baked goods today folks.

This post is entirely dedicated to my beloved Bambi, who passed away last Saturday.

Yes, she was named after the famous one. And, yes, I do know now that Bambi the deer is a boy.

Bambi came to my family in 1997 as a small, runty, bug-eyed puppy. She was our first dog, and one that came after much shameless begging and empty promises on my part. Within the first week, we had experienced toilet accidents, near miss crush injuries, food issues, and had also managed to misplace new puppy in a memorable incident (she fell asleep in the couch lining). Bambi quickly grew into a young dog with a lot of attitude. Despite her stature (small even for a Cavalier), she was feisty, often challenging the German Shepherd who lived nearby. She was a leash puller her whole life, and never got past 'sit' in obedience training.

Bambi loved chicken and cheese. She barked at her own reflection. She was on occasion accidentally drunk. She reluctantly befriended cats, and later other dogs, but only when it wasn't dinnertime.

Bambi was an expert at picking our moods. She knew when we were happy, sad or angry. She also knew when she had done something bad, reliably making herself scarce and plastering a perfect guilty look on her little face. She was always happy to see me, and slept on my feet in winter.

Bambi has had 2 litters of puppies, one dislocated leg, a case of lead poisoning, and a heart murmur. For a runty pup with a wonky eye, 15 years was an achievement I think.

On Friday evening I came home to a Bambi who was very unwell. She wasn't eating or drinking, was terribly restless, and looked to have a mean headache. She wasn't walking straight, was displaying signs of headpressing, and did not seem to register our presence. We opted for euthanasia the next morning.

I'll miss you so much, bug-eye puppy.

Beef Brisket Noodle Soup

noreply@blogger.com (Nooblet) — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 07:32:00 +0000

So, the weather in Sydney's been pretty cruddy lately. In fact, it hasn't really been a great year, weather wise. We went from a non-existent Summer of 90% rainy days straight to a uncharacteristically cold Winter. Which is why I currently have an obsession for soups and stews and braises. Which leads to my second ever savoury post, incidentally also a soup.

Pretty much every day I'm trawling the world of food blogs for soup recipes and photos (yes, just looking at soups makes me warmer). Most of my soup porn seems to be focused on recipes for slowly simmered and braised things, like ox tail soup. And beef brisket. Brisket is something I always want to order in a Cantonese themed restaurant, but somehow seems always to be trumped by some congee, or something deep fried. And every time, after I pay, as I am walking out of the restaurant, I'll see someone's bowl of steaming beef brisket noodle soup and be overwhelmed with sudden food envy (despite being really really full).

I was craving this over the long weekend just past (God bless the Queen), and decided to make it, braving the rain to run out for the meat required (brand new Hunter boots makes this so much more do-able). After a huge steak dinner at home involving parmesan pan bread and green tea tiramisu, the brisket sort of got put on the back burner until later that night, which of course meant I was having a bowl of soup at 2AM. This soup though, is better left until the next day ladled over some freshly boiled noodles and Chinese vegies. Makes for an incredible meal at work.

Beef Brisket Noodle Soup
This recipe is pretty free for you to play around with. If you like more soup, add more stock. If you like your brisket to be more stew-like, add less stock and more tendon to thicken.

Soup
1.25 kg beef brisket
500g beef tendon
2 thumb sized pieces of ginger
6L beef stock*
1/4 cup oyster sauce
1/4 cup light soy sauce
1/4 cup Chinses cooking wine
1 tbsp black or mixed peppercorns
1 cardamom pod

To serve
Bok choy (or any Asian greens you like)
Noodles (I use white wheat noodles, feel free to improvise)

*Use Asian beef stock. Either carefully select one you like from an Asian grocery or make your own with a combination of beef bones and a bit of meat such as chuck or blade steak. When making stock for this soup, I would suggest staying away from bouquet garni, celery, or parsley as it will change the flavour of the soup.

Place the beef tendon in a medium sized pot and cover with hot water. Boil for 45 minutes or until soft enough to cut.
Meanwhile, cut brisket into 2 inch cubes and set in cold water to soak for 30 minutes to remove excess blood.
Rinse brisket and place in a large pot with the ginger. Cover with cold water and bring to the boil. Boil for 2-3 minutes then remove from heat, discarding the water. Rinse the brisket and ginger well with warm running water, pouring off any impurities you can see.
Wash the pot clean. Return the meat to the pot and add the remaining soup ingredients. Bring back up to a boil and turn down to a simmer.
Take the tendon off the heat, and rinse with cold water until it is a manageable temperature. Cut into chunks similary sized to the brisket and trim off any obvious fat. Add to soup.
Simmer until brisket is tender and tendon is meltingly soft (3 hrs for me on very low heat).
To serve, boil noodles and bok choy separately. Layer noodles under the bok choy in a noodle bowl and ladle over the soup and brisket and tendons.

Peanut Butter Cookies

noreply@blogger.com (Nooblet) — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 11:41:00 +0000

When I was small, I was often sent to school with a peanut butter sandwich for lunch. In Australia, PB&J is not nearly as common as just plain old PB. The thing with peanut butter sandwiches, was that they somewhat easy to get sick of. Or maybe that's just being a kid. In any case, peanut butter sandwich lunches came to me in the same way as all the other lunches I got: in bursts.

Day 1, Mum would supply a peanut butter sandwich. It would taste sensational. For some reason, I would always forget how good they tasted. Day 2, continue to revel in the awesomeness that is PB. Day 4, starting to get a bit bored of PB, and is the bread a little stale? Day 6, please...please...no more PB. By this point, I'd have probably complained to my Mum about it, and the next day, magically, lunch would be different. Maybe ham, maybe roast beef, maybe turkey (if I was very lucky). And so the cycle would continue.

As an adult, I eat less peanut butter these days. Somehow, though, it taste better than it used to. And it was only this year that I began to really, really appreciate the stuff. The chief contributor to my new found affection is none other than Costco. How I now love peanut butter. And how I love Costco.

You see, Costco opened its massive warehouse doors for the first time in Australia last year. I was instantly a member. My second trip there, we came back with four 1.5kg bags of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (Mini). And so the obsession began.

It was during this mad PB craze that I was searching for more ways to use my giant, industrial, Costco sized jar of peanut butter. I stumbled upon these peanut butter cookies. Now, for those of you who don't know, I've been toying with the idea of making Chinese peanut or almond cookies for some time now. This seemed like a good avenue to explore. I was not mistaken. They were yummy. And they disappeared quickly (speed of vanishing is how I judge my baking).

Let me know how you go with it :) .

Peanut Butter Cookie (adapted from Joy of Baking)
Original recipe here.

3/4 cup butter*
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup peanut butter**
2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
*I often use salted butter for baking cookies, simply because I like the taste, feel free to use reduced salt or unsalted if you prefer.
**I have tried this recipe with both smooth and crunchy peanut butter, and they both work very well. If you opt to go the crunchy way, make it an extra generous 3/4 cup.

Preheat oven to 170°C line a cookie sheet with baking paper.

Beat butter and sugars together until light and fluffy. Beat in the peanut butter. Add the egg and vanilla and beat to combine. Add the dry ingredients and beat to combine.

Roll the batter into 1 inch balls and place on lined cookie sheet, squashing them a little flatter as you do. Then, using a fork, press into each cookie twice, making the checkered pattern you see above.

Bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove and cool. Devour.

Vanilla Cupcakes Dipped in Fondant Icing

noreply@blogger.com (Nooblet) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 17:15:00 +0000

All by herself with the boys...

The story of these cupcakes must begin with the story of another cake. A birthday cake. A friend of mine announced a birthday dinner the day before it was to happen. I didn't have a present for him! Neither did Nooboy. So, I thought I'd make a cake for him. I thought, why not make my first fondant cake? Sure I've never before worked with fondant. Sure I had no cakes stashed away and must bake new ones. Sure there was only one night's time to get it done. No worries. All under control. Pfft. Me and time management have long been enemies. Oh well. It came out just fine. That's right, Time Management, I owned your ass!

Here is what that cake looked like:

I know it's a bad photo. But I was already 30 minutes late for dinner. To explain the roach, the birthday boy (who is very tall, very macho, and only slightly gay) is terrified of them, so we thought it'd be a fun addition.

After the birthday thingy had come and gone, I was left with a whole bunch of left-over marshmallow fondant, and a whole bunch of pink marshmallows (I can't seem to find white only packs). The only logical thing I could think to do with them was cupcakes. I turned the pink marshmallows into pink MMF, made a batch of cupcakes, painstakingly embossed my rolled MMF with stamps and covered them. And they all mysteriously disappeared before my Canon had a look at them.

I still had a large-ish stash of MMF left, and since I've been smitten with CakeJournal's poured fondant cupcakes for so long, I thought I'd give it a go (I was also a bit lazy to go through rolling, stamping and covering them all over again). I was a bit unsure of how it would go with MMF, but it worked a treat. I just microwaved the fondant with a little bit of boiling water, stirred until it was all mixed in, and gradually added more water until it looked to be the right consistency.

Aren't they cute?

An army of cupcakes waiting to be piped.

They were then piped royal icing and topped with a couple of cachous here and there. And just as Louise from CakeJournal promised, the cakes all had perfect little domes. The vanilla cupcake recipe is from Joy of Baking and is very easy to mix up. I prefer to pipe the batter into the cupcake cases. I find I get a more even result like this, and can control exactly how much batter goes into into each one.

Creme Caramel

noreply@blogger.com (Nooblet) — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 17:18:00 +0000

Remember me waxing lyrical about how much I love custard? In the days before I could make anything, my custard of choice came out of a little plastic cup with an aluminium cover and tiny little tabs on the bottom.

It was delicious. Sometimes I wouldn't even bother turning it out onto a plate. I'd just spoon it straight out of the cup. Yum.

This time, I made my very own. From scratch. In my own oven. With eggs and everything. Aren't you proud?

My only issue is a bit of a silly one. The roasting tin I used to bake these in is kind of big for my oven. I can't just put it on an oven rack. It needs to sit directly in the grooves that the rack itself would rest on. Usually this isn't a problem, but when baking custards in a water bath, it all gets very heavy, so it took me about 10 minutes to get it in there comfortable. During this time my oven lost a lot of heat, so of course, I turned it up. Now, what you may not know about my oven is that it's kind of small and only has a heating element at the top. So, these turned on full blast and basically overcooked the tops (or is it bottoms) of my creme caramels. I had to do what I do for macarons and put in a foil covered oven rack just under the heating element. Dumb oven.

The solution? I just scraped those bits off before turning them out. And they were delicious. =)

Creme Caramel

1 cup caster sugar

1/4 cup water

Quick squeeze of lemon (optional)

2 cups whole milk

1 cup cream (at least 35% milk fat)

2/3 cup caster sugar

Pinch of salt

4 large eggs

2 large egg yolks

2 tsp vanilla extract

Add the caster sugar, water and lemon (if using) to a small-ish saucepan. Heat on medium, giving is a swirl every now and then to make sure all the sugar is dissolving. Try to resist the urge to stir. Instead, brush down the sides of the pan occasionally with water and a pastry brush. Cook it until is looks like caramel. It may take a little time, but watch it closely, because once it starts to take on colour it will brown quite quickly. The darker your caramel is, the more pronounced that burnt sugar taste will be in the end result. Once you're happy with how your caramel is looking, take it off the heat and immediately pour into your ramekins or dariole moulds, dividing equally. Swirl your moulds around a little bit to coat the bottom and gently encourage the caramel to crawl up the sides a little.

At this stage, boil a big kettle of water.

Add the milk, cream, sugar and salt together in a pot and bring to a boil. As soon as it reaches boiling temp, take it off the heat. If you want to add any other flavourings (coffee, citrus, chocolate...) add it to the milk mixture.

Meanwhile, whisk together the eggs, egg yolks and vanilla. When the milk mixture is ready (i.e. scalded) pour into the eggs, whisking constantly. Strain into a jug and pour into the ramekins, over the caramel (which should have set by now).

Arrange a tea towel in the bottom a baking/roasting dish so that is sits more or less flat. Place your filled ramekins on top. Pour hot water into it until it comes up 1/2 to 2/3 of the way up the sides of the ramekins. Bake at 160°C for 30-35 minutes. To check if they're done, you can gently slide a knife into one of them. If it comes out mostly clean, but with a few little bits of gently set custard clinging to it, then it's done. You can also just give them a little shake. They should be wobbly in the middle, but shouldn't be too watery.

When you determine them to be cooked, cool them on a wire rack, then chill overnight*. To serve, loosen the custards with a knife and turn onto a plate.

*I've seen recipes which say that 3 hours of chilling is fine. Which is probably ok, but as well as cooling the custard, chilling also loosens up the caramel, giving you that nice oozy sauce. As far as I can tell, the longer you chill it, the more sauce you will get (instead of it all clinging to the bottom of the mould).

Chocolate Crackles

noreply@blogger.com (Nooblet) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 14:58:00 +0000

This is my second attempt at writing this post. The first one just sucked. I'm not sure why. Something to do with pre-breakfast morning grouchiness. So to avoid that, I'm writing this now at half past midnight.

Chocolate crackles are the quintessential Australian confection. You will almost surely find these at an Aussie kid's birthday party. They're sort of restricted to kids though (no idea why). The last time I had one of these must have been at least ten years ago. Being an Asian migrant, my mother had no idea about these ugly looking chocolate thingys, so I only got to eat them at other peoples birthday parties. Which is fine, because if it were any other way, I'd probably weigh twice as much as I do now.

I made these ones last week for a friend from Canada to try. I've only made these myself once before in my life. That was probably about fourteen years ago. I made these with a teacher at school with two bowls and a microwave (yes, I remember). So yes, a six year old can make these (with supervision of course) and I promise you they are very yummy.

Chocolate Crackles

4 cups rice bubbles (or any other rice puff cereal I suppose)
1 1/2 - 2 cups icing sugar, depending on how sweet you want it
1 cup desiccated coconut
1/4 cup cocoa powder
250g copha*

Mix together the rice bubbles, icing sugar, coconut and cocoa in a large bowl. Melt the copha in a heatproof bowl in the microwave (or on the stove if you prefer). This won't take long, but probably a little longer than butter would take.

When it's all melted, pour it straight into the bowl containing everything else and mix together thoroughly, taking care not to crush all the rice puffs, if possible. If you find that it's all looking a bit gloopy and feels hard to move around, your copha may be starting to set, so just pop into the microwave for 30 seconds or so and it should loosen up.

Spoon into cupcake liners and refrigerate until set. That's all!

*Copha is an Australian brand of vegetable shortening. It is solidified coconut oil and is special in that it is solid at room temperature. For this reason, I'm not sure if you can substitute just any brand of vegetable shortening, as it's pretty important that it sets at room temp. I've heard of using melted chocolate to make chocolate crackles, so that may be the way to go, but the flavour won't be truly authentic.

Chocolate Pavlovas and Mascarpone Mousse > Daring Bakers June 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Nooblet) — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 02:53:00 +0000

The June 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. Dawn challenged the Daring Bakers’ to make Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse. The challenge recipe is based on a recipe from the book Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard.

I did it! It is up :).

I know it's late, but it is here. My first Daring Bakers challenge. Chocolate pavlova with mascarpone mousse. It was supposed to have mascarpone cream on top as well, but I thought that it kinda looked like something naughty... I also didn't want to have to buy a whole extra tub of macarpone just for that, especially seeing as I don't actually like pavlova. I know. I live in Australia and I don't like pavlova. The travesty. While we're on the subject, you should know that I also dislike Vegemite...

I blanched when I read "pavlova" in the Daring Bakers forums, and seriously thought about not doing this one. I mean, why make a dessert that no one's going to eat? BUT! I did it anyway. Aren't you proud? I reasoned that the chocolate may cover up the inherent sweetness of a pavlova a little. And I also planned to make the mousse the star of the show, which is how I ended up with these mini pavlova nests with a massive pile of mousse of top.

However, despite the mousse being lovely and dark-chocolatey, the stupid thing was still too sweet. Damn you, pavlova!

So here is the recipe, taken straight from the Daring Kitchen website. Unadulterated and unchanged. I made 2/3rds of the recipe, so if you also dislike pavlova (in which case you probably wouldn't be making this) feel free to do the same. It works fine.

Recipe 1: Chocolate Meringue (for the chocolate Pavlova):

3 large egg whites
½ cup plus 1 tbsp (110 grams) white granulated sugar
¼ cup (30 grams) confectioner’s (icing) sugar
1/3 cup (30 grams) cocoa powder

Directions:

Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 200º F (95º C) degrees. Line two baking sheets with silpat or parchment and set aside.

Put the egg whites in a bowl and whip until soft peaks form. Increase speed to high and gradually add granulated sugar about 1 tbsp at a time until stiff peaks form. (The whites should be firm but moist.)

Sift the confectioner’s sugar and cocoa powder over the egg whites and fold the dry ingredients into the white. (This looks like it will not happen. Fold gently and it will eventually come together.)

Fill a pastry bag with the meringue. Pipe the meringue into whatever shapes you desire. Alternatively, you could just free form your shapes and level them a bit with the back of a spoon. (Class made rounds, hearts, diamonds and an attempt at a clover was made!)

Bake for 2-3 hours until the meringues become dry and crisp. Cool and store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Recipe 2: Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse (for the top of the Pavlova base):

1 ½ cups (355 mls) heavy cream (cream with a milk fat content of between 36 and 40 percent)
grated zest of 1 average sized lemon
9 ounces (255 grams) 72% chocolate, chopped
1 2/3 cups (390 mls) mascarpone (don't forget we made this a few months ago - get the printable .pdf HERE)
pinch of nutmeg
2 tbsp (30 mls) Grand Marnier (or orange juice)

Directions:

Put ½ cup (120 mls) of the heavy cream and the lemon zest in a saucepan over medium high heat. Once warm, add the chocolate and whisk until melted and smooth. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and let sit at room temperature until cool.

Place the mascarpone, the remaining cup of cream and nutmeg in a bowl. Whip on low for a minute until the mascarpone is loose. Add the Grand Marnier and whip on medium speed until it holds soft peaks. (DO NOT OVERBEAT AS THE MASCARPONE WILL BREAK.)

Mix about ¼ of the mascarpone mixture into the chocolate to lighten. Fold in the remaining mascarpone until well incorporated. Fill a pastry bag with the mousse. Again, you could just free form mousse on top of the pavlova.

Chocolate Macadamia Brownies

noreply@blogger.com (Nooblet) — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 12:59:00 +0000

I was a teenager before I discovered brownies, there being no brownies in our home before then. My parents, my Dad especially, were not big fans of sweets. Eventually though, they met and befriended a baker, who began to bring all sorts of pastry to their mah-jong sessions. There were butterfly pastries, almond stick thingys, uncooked croissants to bake at home, and there were brownies. His brownies were dark, dark chocolate, with crunchy, rich macadamia nuts dotted throughout. Slightly cakey, with a crusty top. And oh so sweet.

It has now been at least a year since I last had a brownie, and that last one wasn't very good. It was uber-dense, which is not a bad thing, but it was also hard as rock... They might as well have called it a cookie.

So, faced with brownie cravings, and a largish gap in the blog, I decided to bake brownies. Chocolate ones with macadamia nuts, just like the ones I remember oh so fondly. The recipe is one I came up with after about an hour of pouring over many, many brownie recipes, and is a happy medium between them. It is mostly done in one bowl (except for measuring), so makes for easy cleanup as well.

Chocolate Macadamia Brownies

150g butter
170g dark chocolate
150g brown sugar
50g caster sugar (optional, if you want it sweeter)
2tsp vanilla extract
3 large eggs
90g flour
30g cocoa powder
150g macadamia nuts, halved
Sifted icing sugar, to dust

Pre-heat oven to 160°C. Lightly grease and line a 20cm square tin.

Melt the butter and chocolate together in a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water, making sure that the water does not touch the bottom of the bowl. When it is smooth and shiny, remove from heat and let cool slightly before adding the sugar and vanilla extract, mixing well with a wooden spoon. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing well between additions.

Sift in the flour and cocoa powder. Fold in with the wooden spoon. Add the macadamia nuts and fold through. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth the top, pushing the batter into the corners of the pan. Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until cooked when tested with a skewers (there may be some moist crumbs still sticking to the skewer, but no liquidy batter). Dust lightly with icing sugar and cut into 16 squares.

Note: I used 72% dark, bittersweet chocolate, but feel free to substitute milk chocolate if you prefer.

Vanilla Cupcakes and Royal Icing Flowers

noreply@blogger.com (Nooblet) — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:38:00 +0000

Yes, my new piping tips have arrived. I am thrilled. Not having a cake to decorate on the day that they came, I decided to whip up come royal icing and make sugar drop flowers. The next day, not knowing what to do with a rather large pile of sugar flowers, I baked cupcakes.

I really like cupcakes. Perhaps now more than ever before. I know that they've been gaining popularity for some time now, and so I'm probably a little late in saying this. But I really like cupcakes.

They're the perfect size for a sweet treat that isn't crippling with guilt. The recipes are easy to double or halve as I see fit. They're wonderful for giving away to friends and family. They're very cute. And they're yummy.

The first twelve of mine went into the oven that was accidentally overheated to 220°C, and were promptly forgotten about, so they came out slightly darker than intended with strange, scary, lopsided domes. But my dogs enjoyed them immensely.

Royal Icing

2 large egg whites
3 cups of icing sugar
1tsp lemon juice (optional)

Beat the eggwhites until frothy (with the lemon juice if using). Gradually add the icing sugar while beating, occasionally scraping down the sides of the bowl, until the icing is at the consistency you want it. It should barely be able hold a peak if you're using it to ice cookies, or a little stiffer if you're piping decorations. Cover the royal icing when not using as it can dry out very quickly.

For piping flowers, scoop out as you need and colour it as you like. Fill a piping bag fitted with a drop flower tip. Pipe onto baking paper with the pastry tip literally touching the paper. Hold the piping bag at a 90° angle to the surface you're piping on and twist as you squeeze. Lift only when the flower is complete. If you like, you can then go over all your flowers and pipe a center onto all of them.

Vanilla Cupcakes
Makes about 45 mini cupcakes.

100g butter
185g caster sugar
1tsp vanilla bean paste (or the seeds scraped from one vanilla bean)
2 large eggs
200g self raising flour
1/2cup milk

Cream together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well between each. Add the flour and milk in alternate batches and fold in with a spoon.

Spoon mixture into mini cupcake tin lined with paper cupcake cases. Fill them only about half full, as the cake will rise during baking. Bake at 180°C for 10-15 minutes or until cooked (test with skewer) and slightly golden on top.

Swiss Meringue Buttercream

90g egg whites (about 3)
160-180g white sugar, depending on how sweet you want it
250g butter, or thereabouts, softened

Boil a small amount of water in a smallish saucepan and turn down to a simmer. Place the egg whites with the sugar in a large bowl and put it on top of the simmering water. Whisk the egg whites and sugar over the heat until the sugar is melted, and the mixture feels smooth when you rub it between your fingers.

Take off the heat, and beat with an electric mixer until soft peaks form and the mixture is cooled. At this stage begin to add the butter, a little at a time, until all of it has been added. Your buttercream may appear to curdle, but keep beating and it will come together.

I piped my cupcakes with a closed star tip and a leaf tip. Feel free to pipe whatever you want onto yours.

Double Chocolate Cookies

noreply@blogger.com (Nooblet) — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 07:09:00 +0000

My parents, as many of you may have gathered, have a lot of friends. Maybe more than me... One of them is obsessed with my white chocolate macadamia cookies. In fact any time that I bake any cookie, she wants to take a big stack home. Which is fine. I don't mind. Except that they cost me to make! Anything with nuts in it will cost me at about $8-10 to produce (I'm generous with my nuts you see). Anything involving chocolate, and the price shoots up as well. Macarons cost a small fortune to make what with almond meal being so expensive (I've taken to ordering kilo bags of the stuff to cut down the cost).

It turns out that baking is an expensive hobby. Who knew?

So, naturally, I don't like to waste things. Which in turn leads to the creation of these double chocolate cookies.

I had a large bowl of melted chocolate and butter left over from dipping my eclairs into. I thought chocolate cookies might be a good way to use it up. And I was not disappointed. Now excuse me as I go enjoy a cookie with a nutty sort of smile on my face.

Double Chocolate Cookies (adapted from the Donna Hay Chocolate book)
Makes about 35 cookies or so, depending on the size of each.

150g dark chocolate
100g butter
3/4cup brown sugar (tightly packed)
1 egg
1tsp vanilla extract
1cup (150g) plain/all-purpose flour, sifted
1/4cup (30g) cocoa powder, sifted
1tsp baking soda
1 1/2cups dark chocolate chips, or plain dark chocolate, roughly chopped

Melt together the butter and the dark chocolate, until smooth and glossy.

Mix together the sugar, egg and vanilla extract. Add the chocolate and butter mixture, mixing well. Stir in the flour, cocoa and baking soda. Add the chocolate chips and stir to combine.

Roll tablespoons of the mixture into balls. Place on baking sheets and flatten slightly, spacing them out to allow for spreading. Bake at 160°C for 10-12 minutes, or until cracks begin to appear on the surface of the cookie.

Butter Cookies

noreply@blogger.com (Nooblet) — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 07:23:00 +0000

I remember when I was little we'd often go around to my parent's friend's houses for public holidays. There'd always be sumptuous feasts, games (for both kids and adults), hours of TV and Royal Dansk Butter Cookies in a big blue round tin. My parents aren't big on the sweets, so we never bought these cookies ourselves, which only made those at other people's homes extra special. The piped ones always went first. And then the pretzel ones. And then nobody would have any room left for the crappy ones (another reason why we didn't buy any: the tins never get finished).

It had been a long time since I last had one of these cookies from a tin. And I missed them. So like any food blogger worth her sugar, I baked some.

They were really good.

And then my Mother gave them all away. I only had 4! 4!

Oh well...an excuse to make another batch I suppose.

Danish Butter Cookies

125g butter*

45g icing sugar

135g plain/all purpose flour

1tsp vanilla essence

1/2tsp baking powder**

*I always like to use salted butter, simply because I like the hit of saltiness among the sweet, but by all means use unsalted if you prefer.

**The baking powder is optional. Most butter cookie recipes are without it, but I like to give my cookies a bit extra crisp fluffiness.

These have got to be the easiest cookies I've ever made. All done in one bowl, with a hand mixer. Simply cream together the butter and icing sugar until light and creamy. Add the sifted flour and baking powder and mix in. Add the vanilla essence and beat in. And the batter is done!

Line a cookie sheet with baking paper. Spoon everything into a piping bag fitted with a star tip and pipe into circles, or whatever shape you want. I found that the batter was a bit too stiff for piping, so I gave it a couple seconds in the microwave until it was pipable. Take care not to nuke it for more than 5-10 seconds at a time though, or you might end up with a melted butter soup. Bake at 150°C for 12-15 minutes until lightly browned.

Try to refrain from eating all of them withing the hour.