Nutty granola

Been having a bit of a granola/bircher muesli addiction lately.

 Nutty almond butter granola

Triple chocolate praline tart

It's my birthday today!  I guess I shouldn't sound too excited as that means it is yet another year gained, and we all know what it means to a woman as we age yet another year... Sigh.

But on such a lovely day, I reckon I should write about something really delicious that I made about two weeks back. I've been meaning to bake this tart for at least a year now, and after finally getting around to doing so, I really wonder why did I procrastinate for so long. It's amazing.

Triple chocolate praline tart

Ghiradelli's ultimate double chocolate cookies

This is the recipe I think I'll head to in future when I want a really really chocolate-y homemade cookie. No contest here. I first made it a couple of years back in my uni days and promptly forgot about them ever since.

Recently, Sis and I were at home, both craving for something chocolate-y.I flipped through my well-worn copy of sweet treats that I've baked throughout the years, my eyes settled on it straightaway. I remembered how chocolate-y these were. Perfect.

Ghiradelli's ultimate double chocolate cookies

Chocolate hazelnut feuilletine macarons

I mentioned in my last post that I made lime curd macarons for my girlfriend, I forgot to mention that I also made some chocolate macarons at the same time. Yeah, I like variety and I couldn't imagine just packing a box filled with macarons of the same flavour (don't mind me please, it's just me and one of my weird quirks).

Chocolate hazelnut feuilletine macarons

Hazelnut pear brown butter muffins

Fruits such as apples, pears and oranges might seem ordinary at first glance. After all, they are available almost any time of the year, and are readily available in most countries. However, if you dive into the world of fruits into details, there are actually quite a wide range of varieties for every single fruit. Take the humble pear for instance. Before I developed my passion for baking, I only knew of two kinds of pears - the ubiquitous green William pears, and the Asian pear. When my passion grew, I started taking note of fruits in a different light while grocery shopping. Pears come in so many different shapes, sizes and colours! Depending on the season, I might chance upon Anjous (red and green), Bosc, Forelles, Seckels, Korean pears, Bartletts and so on. My, my. I get excited whenever I spot a new variety of fruit in the supermarket aisle.

"Sugar" bowl

Chocolate hazelnut mousse cake

I was in the mood for some chocolate (okay, like when am I ever not?), and a chocolate hazelnut praline mousse cake has been sitting right at the top of my to-do list since...forever. I didn't have a specific recipe in mind, all I knew about my proposed cake was that it should have my beloved hazelnut feuilletine layer, a chocolate sponge, and a chocolate mousse.

With that in mind, I went about collecting recipes from different sources...again. I really must do something about this bad habit of mind, always making a multi-component something sourced from various sources instead of sticking to the original recipes. Tsk tsk.

 

My version of a 'Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse Cake'

Sticky date pudding 2

It's Friday! Here's some pictures of a sweet treat to brighten the weekend. I've used the Masterchef recipe again for the puddings, as I did the last time round. But weirdly, they taste different from what I remembered. The last time I made it, I remembered it to be softer and nicer, but this time round, they weren't very good. Could it be because I use my silicon molds to make this, whereas the last time round I used a metal muffin tray. Will taste be affected because of what material the molds used are made out of? Hmmmmm.

Sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce and hazelnut praline

Hazelnut macarons

Hooray, all's not lost. At least, partially. While I'm stuck in no-laptop-land now, Daddy has provided a spare laptop for me to use in the meantime while we await the IT show in June (please show, come faster please). The downside is that the laptop is extremely extremely slow. Bangs head on keyboard. Ah, but beggars can't be whiners, so I'll put up with it till June.

Anyway, with the laggy laptop, I've still managed to accomplish some things, like downloading Adobe Photoshop CS5 trial (when did they move on to v5?? The last I heard it was like 3 and I was using 2 all the while. Man am I backdated.) and Picasa. With whatever files I still have in my camera, I've managed to edit some stuff to post so my backlog isn't going to be that bad. (: First up, here's some hazelnut macarons...

Hazelnut macarons with nutella ganache

Poire D'Eve

Following my success with the matcha opera, I wanted to try my hand at making other layered desserts. Who else should I turn to but my favourite site, Tartelette. I've bookmarked most of her recipes but the one that I decided to make was this. I was in the mood for fruits. And lately, pears are on my mind alot, they are sweet, and cheap, and plentiful. When I dropped my the supermart and saw those tiny Honey Belle pears from New Zealand, I immediately took a box and place it into my grocery basket. No need to think what I should do with them first. I can easily go online and check my bookmarks for inspiration. And when I did, it was surely the Poire D'Eve that I must do. Poached pears, and crunchy hazalnut biscuit base? I'm in.

Poire D'Eve

Blueberry coconut and chocolate hazelnut financiers

Around the same time I made the icecreams (yes, plural, I still have images of vanilla bean icecream to upload, that's for another post), I had lots and lots of leftover egg whites. I didn't feel like making macarons, but I was meeting some friends that week, so I decided to make some financiers to share. I used the same recipe for the raspberry financiers I made previously, tweaked it around a little, and came up with two new flavours - chocolate hazelnut and blueberry coconut.

Nutty project drives me nuts

I've handed in my 2 assignments due last Friday, with utmost relief. ;) Now all that's left is the assignment due this Friday, and the exam on the 12th. Phew.

Went for a movie How to Lose Friends and Alienate People today with Fiona and Ludwig. Movie was so-so. But the fun part was we had lunch at West End before that and cos we had time, we went St Vinnys! (For those in the dark, it's kinda Salvation Army kinda shop) My first time there. hoho I got a pink patterned bag for $4. ;)

Anyway, cos Therese had said she wanted my help in baking to do some shots for her photomedia, I decided to make Filbert (Hazelnut) Gateau with Praline Buttercream over the weekend. Literally over the weekend. Since the process of making the cake was a damn long list, I spread the job over a couple days. It made things way easier for sure. Then her hsemates, aka the two above, told me on Saturday Therese is not coming anymore. o.o Oh well, since I had already started the job, so might as well finish it right.

Some negative side effects that I had while making the cake were, I overwhipped the egg whites (trust me, you wouldn't want to know how it looks like), so I had to throw away the first batch and do up a second one (which I hand whipped instead of using the electric mixer) and the mountain of washing I had to do. -.- But the effort was worth it (kinda) since the praline buttercream was damn yummy haha.

It's great I halved the recipe so I ended up with lesser portions. One thing about baking so much is that you tend to not want to waste food, so I always cut back on the recipe to whatever proportions possible. I ended up with 6 mini cakes but I only used 5 of those since one of them kinda collapsed tsk tsk. I gave one to Woo as belated birthday, one to my ex-boss (oh did I mention I'm done with my intern thing? (: ), one to Pam who's coming back tomorrow from Bangkok! and one for myself! So there's still one more in the fridge...

hazelnut brittle process

praline paste process

praline buttercream process
assembling the cakes process

the caramalising hazelnuts process with the long long tips.

pouring ganache over cakes process