Bourke Street Bakery's Chocolate Ganache Tart

Till date, I have made 3 different tart recipes from Bourke Street Bakery's cookbook. My favourite being the ginger brulee tart. The short crust pastry in BSB's cookbook is one of my favourite as well. Hence, it is only natural that I return to them again. To be honest, I did not enjoy this Chocolate Ganache tart as much as I thought I would....





I think the reason for that is primarily due to the fact that the chocolate ganache used here is made with milk chocolate instead of dark chocolate - supposedly the characteristic that sets it apart from other chocolate ganache tart.  "Milk chocolate isn't as rich, making it possible for even a non-chocoholic to consume a full tart in a few quick mouthfuls..."  My curiosity was piqued by this statement that prefaced the recipe... but this time, curiosity did not pay off for me.
To be fair, I am not a milk chocolate lover. I have always preferred my chocolates to be dark dark dark... with various interesting undertones and overtones... like wine appreciation. Milk chocolate, even one from the industries' best names, just feels flat... all I could taste was a milky sweetness... but different strokes for different folks, I know there are many out there who enjoys their chocolate milky and sweet. Like my boyfriend, who to my greatest surprise, actually likes white chocolates! I am one, who fails to see the point in a white chocolate.

So this is one for those many different folks out there who enjoys a sweet milky chocolate with their tart.


Chocolate Ganache Tart 

Recipe : (From Bourke Street Bakery)
1 qty      Sweet short crust pastry
850g      Good quality milk chocolate, finely chopped.
500ml    Pouring cream (35% fat)

Method:
1.  Follow the instructions here and roll out the pastry and use it to line 8cm round fluted loose bottomed tart tins. This quantity will make 20 tarts. Set the tart cases in the freezer for at least 20mins.

2.  Blind bake the tart cases in a preheated 200C oven for 20-25mins or until golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

3. For chocolate filling, put the chocolate into a stainless steel bowl. Put the cream in a saucepan and bring to the boil over high heat- this needs to happen quickly so the cream doesn't evaporate and reduce in volume.

4. Pour the boiling cream over the chocolate and stir with a rubber spatula or a wooden spoon until well combined.

5. Pour the chocolate mixture into a jug and pour into the baked tart shells until filled to the brim.

6. Allow the tarts to set at room temperature overnight in a plastic airtight container. 

Almond Choux Puff with Caramel Ice Cream & Chocolate Sauce

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If the Genoise Sponge is Lesson 1 in a Culinary Baking Course, then Pate A Choux is possibly either a pre-cursor of Lesson 1 or a more achievable Lesson 1 itself.... Like the genoise sponge, it is plain and non fancy but it serves as the foundation of so many classic and new creations that we have become familiar with.

It has truly transcended all cultural boundaries, for how else would I still bear childhood memories of munching on soft wrinkly cream puffs filled with dry pasty custards? Or that swan-like cream filled puff sitting in the neighbourhood bakery store?

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Of course, with affluence and greater exposure to everything in the world, our palate has become more discerning. I don't think those wrinkly cream puffs with dry pasty custards would work any more.  Thankfully, there are still many ways to 'glam up' the humble Pate A Choux. One can let one's imagination take flight and work with a myriad of interesting cream fillings as exemplified by ZenChef's creation. Or, if you are, like me too lazy to whip up a pastry cream ( my secret confession - creme patissiere is one of my least favourite things to prepare) , there are still many other ways to add pizzazz to your choux puffs.

I made an easy chocolate sauce here to line the plate with and simply sandwich the puffs with Haagan Daz Caramel Biscuit & Cream ice cream. Present this to your guests on a plate like the way I did and they would think that they are eating dessert in a fine-dining restaurant!


Almond Puff With Caramel Ice Cream & Chocolate Sauce
Recipe (Adapted from The Patisserie Of Tony Wong) 
Choux Puff
125g             Water
4g                  Sugar
2g                  Salt
50g                Butter
75g                All purpose flour (sifted)
100g              Eggs
Diced almonds to garnish
Egg wash

Chocolate Sauce
130g              70% dark chocolate
250g              Water
125g              35% whipping cream
50g                Sugar
1g                  Vanilla extract

Method:
Choux Puff: 
1. Boil water, sugar, salt and butter in a saucepan.  Add all the flour into the boiling butter solution and mix well.
2. Cook dough until the mixture forms a ball and comes away from the sides of the pan.
3. Beat the batter on medium speed with a paddle attachment until just warm.
4. Add egg, one at a time. Scrape away the batter from the sides of the pan to the center and continue to mix well.
5. Spoon the choux dough into a piping bag fitted with a plain tip. Pipe 4-5cm diameter choux paste. Brush with egg wash.
6. Sprinkle with diced almond and bake at 200C in a preheated oven for 30-35mins.

Chocolate Sauce:
1. Cook all ingredients in a saucepan until all the chocolate is melted. Simmer down the sauce to thicken.

Assembly :
1. Slice choux puff in half.
2. Spoon chocolate sauce into a shallow plate.
3. Place bottom half of puff on the chocolate sauce. Top with a scoop of ice cream. Cap with sugar dusted top half of puff and serve immediately.

Tish Boyle's Cinnamon Swirl ButterMilk Pound Cake

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I can hear you YAWN..... yes, yet another one of Tish Boyle's pound cake. Pound cakes are hopelessly boring to bake (translated to mean EASY!) achingly uninspiring to photograph... but always satisfying to eat.... After trying out her Luxe Pound Cake and Plainly Perfect Pound Cake, Tish Boyle beckons once more with her claim that this is a 'sure fire bake sale hit' . Are you going to ignore that claim?? Not me!

Thanks to the ButterMilk, this is more moist than the Plainly Perfect Pound Cake. The little citrus hint from the orange zest took backstage to the crumbly cinnamon flavoured streusel that is swirled throughout the cake - great flavour and texture to the otherwise, plain pound cake.


I gave out 4 thick slices of these to my neighbour. They came back within 10mins, all wide eyed to tell me that the cake was VERY NICE! So, I guess, Tish Boyle wasn't exaggerating when she said that these are 'sure fire bake sale hit'.

If I were to bake this again, I would most likely use a bundt pan and give the streusal a more energetic swirl to create a more distinct pattern. Otherwise, there is very little else I could ask from this recipe. It is honestly, plainly outstanding. Book mark this for your next bake-sale event!


Cinnamon Swirl Buttermilk Pound Cake 
Recipe : (From Tish Boyle's The Cake Book)

Cinnamon Streusel Swirl
1/2 cup (60g)             All purpose flour
1/3 cup (72g)             Firmly packed light brown sugar
1/4 tsp                        Ground Cinnamon
Pinch of sale
3 tbsp(42g)                Unsalted butter melted

Buttermilk Pound Cake
2 cups (242g)            All purpose flour
1/2 cup (57g)            Cake flour
1 tsp                          Baking powder
1/4tsp                        Baking soda
1/4 tsp                       Salt
1/8 tsp                       Ground cardamom
1cup (227g)              Unsalted butter, softened
2 cups (400g)            Castor sugar (I used 340g)
3 large                       Eggs
2 tsp                          Vanilla Extract
1 tsp                          Finely grated orange zest
1cup (240ml)            Butter Milk

Method :

1. Preheat oven to 170C / 325F. If using a bundt pan, grease the inside of a 10inch bundt pan with butter  and dust it with flour. I used a loaf pan and lined it with baking paper.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients of the Cinnamon swirl. Add the melted butter and stir until blended and crumbly.

3. Sift together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cardamom into a medium bowl. Whisk to combine and set aside.

4. Using a paddle attachment, cream butter for 2 mins at medium speed in a mixer until very creamy. (2mins) Gradually add in the sugar and continue beating at medium high speed until pale and light. (4mins)

5. At medium speed, add in eggs one at a time and mix to incorporate eggs well.

6. Add vanilla extract and orange zest. Add in the flour in 3 portions, alternating it with milk (2 additions). Mix until just combined.

7. Scrape half of the batter into the prepared pan and smooth it into an even layer. Sprinkle the streusel mixture evenly over the batter. Scrape the remaining batter on top and smooth it into an even layer.

8. Bake the cake for 65 to 75mins, until the cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.

9. Cool the cake for 15 mins before turing out the cake to cool completely.

Baby Doughnuts/Donuts With Chocolate Honey Glaze

As much as I love to play with flour and butter in the kitchen, there are still a couple of very simple and basic items which I have not yet tried. Among them are scones and donuts and one of the more trivial resolutions I have actually set myself in December is to try both this year.

This donut recipe is from an earlier issue of the Donna Hay Magazine. I had bookmarked this for the longest time but like many other little flags that are peeping out from the many cookbooks on my bookshelf, most of them continue to stay... shelved.  My bookmarked recipes kind of remind me of the 1000 concubines old Chinese Emperors used to house in the back quarters of the palace... beauties wistfully hoping to be picked by the emperor to pleasure him...  2 reasons made the sighting of this recipe memorable - the glossy chocolate honey glaze and the fact that these are made into bite sized. (I used a pineapple tart cutter, so you can imagine how small they are...)

Both the dough and the glaze were easy to make. Actual hands on time was less than 20mins and the rest was really leaving the the dough to proof and frying it in oil.


As much as I adore Donna Hay Magazine, I seldom cook or bake from it. I spend more time ogling at the photos than cooking from them... hence I wasn't sure how this recipe would turn out.  The results are pretty good, as far as my limited exposure to donuts can tell. The dough is fluffy and suprisingly, not too greasy. The glaze, as expected, took the whole limelight. I liked it  that you can just pop this into the mouth and not have to munch through a whole full sized donut.

Definitely a great option for kid's parties! So one trivial resolution completed and one more to go!

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Recipe :
Baby Donuts With Chocolate Honey Glaze (From Donna Hay Magazine) 

1 tsp active dry yeast
1/2 tbsp lukewarm water
1/4 cup lukewarm milk
1 tbsp caster sugar
25g butter, melted
1 1/4 cups (185g) all purpose flour
1 egg

Vegetable oil for deep frying

chocolate honey glaze
30g butter
1/4 cup (90g) honey ( I used only 30g)
1 tsp vanilla extract
110g dark chocolate

Method :
1. Place yeast, milk, water and sugar in a large bowl and set aside in a warm place for 10mins or until bubbles appear on the surface.
2. Add the butter, flour and egg to the yeast mixture and using a spatula, mix until a sticky dough forms.
3. Turn out into a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth.
4. Place in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with a clean, damp cloth and set aside to proof for 45 mins.
5. Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for 5 mins or until smooth and elastic . Roll out to 1 cm thickness and using a 3.5cm round cutter , cut 25 rounds from the dough.  Using a 1 cm round cutter, cut a small hole in the center of the donuts.
6. Place the rings on a baking tray lined with non-stick baking paper and set aside for 10 mins or until risen slightly.

7. While the donuts are proving ( I did this during the 45 mins proofing) , melt and mix chocolate , honey and butter in a bain marie (water bath) until smooth and glossy. Set aside.

8. Heat up oil in a deep saucepan until temperature of oil is 180C.  Fry the donuts in batches, giving roughly 3 mins on each side of the donut. Remove donuts from oil and place on oil absorbant paper.

9. While the donuts are still warm, dip them in the chocolate haze and place on a wire rack until set.

Tish Boyle's Plainly Perfect Pound Cake

As you can see, I am continuing my celebration of simplicity. The inspiration to go back to Tish Boyle came about when one of the readers here tried out the Luxe Pound Cake recently and was raving about how good it was. I had baked it once and eaten it once. I remember I did a little dance when I took my first test bite.... the rest was a distant memory among the many recipes I had played with last year....  Going back to Tish Boyle's The Cake Book, I contemplated among a few different pound cake recipe. In the end, I decided to go with the most basic and the aptly named, Plainly Perfect Pound Cake. No one can have one too many basic pound cake recipe. A good pound cake is like the Vanilla ice cream of the butter cake world. Rich and buttery, this can become the basis of more lavish and tasty embellishments that take the partaking of it to new levels of savouring joy.



I love the fine crumb texture of this cake and the fact that I can smell it from a mile away when I was baking it. Instead of the traditional pound cake mould, I had deliberately chosen to bake it in a slim rectangular baking tin so that I can cut them up in tiny slices to be nibbled on like a snack - a perfect presentation for the upcoming Chinese New Year where treats are best served in small finger food sizes. If you find the Kueh Lapis too challenging and time consuming to make for the coming festival, I suggest you consider this recipe as it is easy to whip up and is ... as the name claims, Plainly Perfect!
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Plainly Perfect Pound Cake (From Tish Boyle's The Cake Book)Receipe :
200g/2 cups           Plain flour
1/4 tsp                    Baking powder
1/4 tsp                    Salt
227g/2 sticks          Unsalted butter (softened)
250g/ 1 1/4cup       Castor sugar (I reduced this to 200g)
4                             Large eggs
1 tsp                       finely grated lemon zest
1 tsp                       grated orange zest
1 tsp                       vanilla extract
80ml                      Heavy cream

Method :
1. Preheat oven to 170C.
2. Sift flour with baking powder and salt and set aside.
3. Cream butter in a mixer at medium high speed until creamy (about 2 mins). Add sugar gradually and continue beating for 4 mins until light and fluffy.
4. Reduce the mixing speed of the mixer to low and add eggs one at a time mixing until well mixed.
5. Add the citrus zest and vanilla extract.
6. Add flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating it with cream (added in 2 additions).
7. Pour into 2 lined 3"x 7" pound cake mold and bake for 60-70 mins or until the cake turns brown and a testing skewer comes out clean. (Trish Boyle had baked this at 162C but I had to use a slightly higher oven temperature to ensure that the cake is cooked through without dense uncooked spots)

Pecan Cake & Best Wishes!

2011 would not have been the same for me without Køkken69 and all the lovely acquaintances and friends I have met here.

Despite my crazy travel work schedule, I am suprised that I have pressed on and this space has sustained.
Looking back, I want to believe that I have continued to improve in what I am doing here and am thankful for all the silent and not-so silent visitors who continue to grace this space.

Thank you for visiting.
Thank you for commenting.
Thank you for trying out the recipes published here. The greatest joy I derive out of this space is when I receive excited feeedback for the recipes. Knowing that my posts managed to inspire is priceless!

I leave you with this very humble and down to earth Pecan Cake adapted from Alex Goh's Walnut Cake Recipe in Creative Making Of Cakes.  Happy New Year and may we all have many many reasons to rejoice and celebrate in the new year!

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Pecan Cake
Recipe :
(A)
250g                Butter
20g                  Sugar
(B)
7                      Egg Yolks
(C)
7                      Egg Whites
170g                Sugar

(D)
190g                Plain flour
1/2 tsp             Baking powder
1/2 tbsp           Milk Powder (I omitted this as I ran out of milk powder)

(E)
160g               Chopped Pecans (You can replace this with other nuts such as Walnut)
100g               Chocolate Chips

Method :
1. Preheat oven to 180C. Cream (A) together
2. Add (B) to (A) and mix until light and smooth.
3. In a separate clean mixing bowl, whip (C) until stiff peaks are formed.
4. Fold meringue into butter and egg yolk mixture (2) until well combined.
5. Sift (D) into batter and fold until well combined. Add (E) and mix until well incorporated.
6. Pour batter into lined baking tin and sprinkle with some pecan nuts on top for decoration. Bake cake at 180C for 50mins or test until skewer comes out clean.

Chocolate Rum Balls

First, a shout out for my giveaway of 4 Le Creuset Mini Cocottes. If you have not entered, please check this out.

Rum balls may be a popular Christmas confection but to me, they are one of my favourite childhood treats. They used to be the most coveted item in the my childhood neighbourhood bakery. Dense and sweet, rich and chocolatey, they were possibly the closest to a real chocolate truffle I had ever tasted when I was a child.
Strangely though, they are not such a common sight in bakeries anymore. Well, time changes, it is what it is... the younger generation today will probably grow up reminiscing about Barcook's Cranberry Cream Cheese buns and Bakerzin's macarons (?)......


The traditional rum balls were made with crushed wafer biscuits and nuts but the version I grew up with in Singapore is more cake like and coated with the signature chocolate rice. As I searched through the internet for a recipe, this one, shared by Rima of Bisous A Toi appears to be the closest to what I used to eat as a child.

A no-bake confection, this is totally achievable if you have some left over chocolate cake. I had some left over chocolate pound cake in my fridge and their buttery and rich texture is absolutely perfect for this.
So there you have it, a childhood and festive favourite that can be whipped up easily even by a non-baker. Life seldom comes so easy :)

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Recipe :  (Adapted From Bisous A Toi )

50g           Chopped raisins
60ml         Dark Rum
65g           Desiccated coconut
300g         Chocolate cake crumbs
60ml         Sweetened condense milk
Chocolate rice sprinkles

Method :
1. Place chopped raisins and 1 tbsp dark rum in a small pot and heat gently to simmer.
2. Turn off heat and let raisins macerate for 5 mins.
3. In a mixing bowl, mix together cake crumbs, rest of rum, dessicated coconut, condensed milk and rasins. Mix well until the cake crumbs are combined together.
4. Use a small ice cream scoop, portion out the cake dough, shape and coat with Chocolate rice sprinkles.
5. To store, keep the rum balls in air tight box in the refrigerator.

Martha Stewart's Peanut Butter Jelly Cupcake

If you've always loved a good peanut butter jelly sandwich and if you are not averse to a luxuriously rich buttery cake, I suggest you bookmark this and bake it at the first opportunity you have. This cupcake is gloriously addictive and beats Magnolia Bakery's Cupcake hands down effortlessly!

So far, I've had pretty good results with the recipes from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. I only wish I have the time to bake every single one of them. (See here , here and here for the recipes I have tried...)
The recipes are in general not too sweet though I normally still try to tune down the amount of sugar used. I like it that Martha Stewart's book features a good collection of more adult and classic cupcake flavours and design.


This cupcake is moist and delicious enough to eat on its own. The incorporation of coarsely chopped roasted salted peanuts adds lovely texture to every bite but the creamy peanut butter frosting is one icing on the cake that takes you to the realm of cake-bliss. I would gladly lick the frosting from a spoon.

However, be warned, the deliciousness is the result of copious use of sour cream, thick cream,cream cheese and of course, creamy peanut butter! However, your inhibition gets lost at first bite. So enjoy and worry later!

I am  submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #13: Enjoy Cupcakes! (November 2011) hosted by Min of Min's Blog. Please do take time to check out the event here. 



Recipe : (Adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcake with minor adjustment)

1 3/4 cups              all purpose flour
1/4 tsp                    baking soda
3/4 tsp                    baking powder
1/2 tsp                    salt
3/4 cup /136g         unsalted butter
1 cup                      sugar
2/3 cup                   creamy peanut butter (I used 100g)
3                             large eggs
1/2 tsp                    vanilla extract
1/2 cup                   sour cream
3/4 cup                   coarsely chopped roasted salted peanuts
Creamy Peanut Butter Frosting
1/2 cup                    strawberry jelly or jam

Creamy Peanut Butter Frosting
6oz (170g)              Cream cheese @ room temperature
1/3 cup (40g)          Confectioner's / icing sugar
1 cup (200g)           Creamy peanut butter
1/2 tsp                     Vanilla extract
1/2 cup                    Heavy cream (whipping type)

Method :
Cupcake 
1. Preheat oven to 190C (375C). Line standard muffin tin with paper liners. Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

2. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Reduce speed to low. Mix in peanut butter, add eggs one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed.
Mix in vanilla extract. Add flour mixture gradually and mix well to incorporate. Mix in sour cream and peanuts.

3. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each 3/4 full. Bake at 190C for 20 min until a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean.

4. Cool down cupcake completely and frost with creamy peanut butter frosting. Leave a small well in the middle of the cupcake. Add a dollop of strawberry jam into each well.

Creamy Peanut Butter Frosting

1. Cream cream cheese and sugar together until pale and fluffy.

2. Add peanut butter and vanilla extract and mix until well blended.

3. In a separate bowl, whip heavy cream until medium / stiff peaks are formed.

4. Fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture.

Strawberry Jelly Cheesecake - Strawberry Jelly Heart

As much as I enjoy eating these Jelly Cheesecake, photographing them proved to be an extremely frustrating and uninspiring experience - quite possibly because all the imperfection rendered during cutting and slicing them (e.g. jagged edges) were magnified in ghastly detail through the camera's lens.

A very popular non-bake cheese cake in Singapore, this recipe has been blogged over and over again by food bloggers in Singapore. More well known as Strawberry Jelly Heart, this was possibly the brain child of a local home bakery who had first encapsulated a heart-shaped strawberry in jelly over cheese cake.


The pleasing combination of digestive biscuit base, cheese cake and jello is extremely easy to make-if there was ever a Cheesecake for Dummies, this would easily qualify as one. The only thing that one needs to focus on is to make it look pretty... which wasn't difficult until I started slicing it.

This is an overall crowd pleaser, everyone loved it when I served them - the cheesecake is not overpowering while the digestive biscuit base is fragrant and buttery. The Jello?... brings back childhood memories...

For those who are interested, Valerie Kong conducts a very good and meticulous class for this and other cheesecake recipes. However, the recipe has become well tested in many blogs, an example is Happy Home Baker's blog.



Recipe ( from HHB)

base:110g digestive biscuits(about 8 pieces), chopped into fine crumbs
40g melted butter

filling:
250g cream cheese, soften at room temperature
50g icing sugar
1 tablespoon gelatin powder
40ml boiling water
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 box Jelly crystal (strawberry flavour)
1 cup boiling water
1 cup cold water

Some strawberries, cut into heart shapes

Method:
1. Mix biscuit crumbs & melted butter together and press firmly with the help of a spoon onto the base of a 18cm cake tin. Chill for 30 minutes.

2. Place gelatin powder and boiling water in a bowl. Heat a pot filled with some water until just simmering and place the bowl inside the pot. Dissolve gelatin and boiling water in the bowl. Keep warm.

3. With an electric mixer, beat cream cheese , icing sugar and vanilla essence until smooth & creamy. Blend in gelatin solution and mix well.

4. Pour the cheese mixture into the cake tin. Layer the strawberries on the cheese mixture. Chill for at least 3 to 4 hours.

5. Dissolve the jelly crystal in the cup of boiling water, followed by the cold water. Pour the jelly on the cheese mixture. Let it set before removing from the cake tin.

Traditional Baked Mooncake

When I went to get my mooncake ingredients at Kwong Cheong Thye 2 weekends ago, I was suprised to see the little alley way along Geylang Lorong 27 jammed with vehicles and the shop house corridor blocked by a long queue leading to a traditional Teochew pastry shop. The shop, Thye Moh Chan Cake House has been selling traditional Teochew pastry and mooncake for almost 70 years and they have decided to close down the business as no one in the family was interested to inherit and continue with this traditional craft.

I have never eaten any pastry from Thye Moh Chan so I have little attachment to the shop. Nevertheless, it was still sad to see something so steep in heritage die in our fast paced, modern world. I had mentioned before how I hope our younger generation will not grow up only knowing how to make muffins, macarons and cupcakes. With pretty images of these western treats galore on the internet, everyone dreams of creating treats ala Pierre Herme, Adriano Zumbo.... However,I believe the internet can still cast its influences in many ways. Take for example, I would never ever have dreamt of making my own mooncake last year, if not for this little space which I call my food blog. Just like what I had mentioned in my last Durian Snowskin Mooncake post, baking these pastries is not as difficult as what it seems. True, we don't take the trouble to cook the lotus paste from scratch nowadays but if that is the little compromise we choose to make to connect with our heritage, it is, in my opinion, a harmless little indulgence.

So I promise you that you will continue to see my mooncake features for the many many Mid Autumn Festivals (mooncake festival) to come.  Happy Mid Autumn Festival to all Asians who will be celebrating this day of reunion.



I am submitting this entry to Aspiring Bakers #11: Mid-Autumn Treats (September 2011) hosted by Happy Home Baker.

Recipe :
Dough (from Kowng Cheong Thye)
300g             Hong Kong Flour
180g             Golden syrup
60g               Peanut Oil
1 tbs             Alkaline Water

For rest of ingredients and method, please refer here.