i've been very inspired by all the beautiful eclairs i'm seeing on instagram, namely the ones at maitre choux by joakim prat as well as l'eclair de genie's by christophe adam. of course, how could i forget sadaharu aoki's? his are amazing as well. i don't think i've ever blogged much about eclairs coz i usually shy away from making them. like frosted cakes, they're not my forte. but i think i'm definitely getting better at this.



for this attempt, i used strawberry creme diplomat for the filling. i added strawberry puree into the creme patissiere, then folded in creme chantilly. so basically, creme diplomat is pastry cream lightened with whipped cream. and for the glaze, it was strawberry flavored white chocolate ganache. i don't fancy pouring fondant that much, so white chocolate glaze is the way to go. i also decorated some with a sprinkling of raspberry powder and fresh raspberries. they were soooo good.



in the past, i've always used dorie greenspan/pierre herme's pate a choux recipe. this time i decided to use chez shibata's recipe, i've had chef takeshi shibata's book for the longest time and it was only now that i'm beginning to look at it. chef shibata has pastry shops in japan as well as in places like shanghai and bangkok, and his salted caramel eclairs adorned with cubes of butter is one of the best sellers. i think his eclair recipe is far better compared to the others because it uses bread flour as well as baking them on low heat (150C for 55 mins). as opposed to those baked on high heat from the start, baking them on low heat for a long time ensures they're baked thoroughly so you get really crisp and hollow shells. whenever i try the other methods in the past, my choux would brown too quickly and i get soggy centers. not anymore! i also used a fluted piping tip (wilton 8B) for piping these. using tips like these ensure even baking. if you don't have such tip, you could get one, or use a fork to score lines after piping. i also like his creme patissiere recipe, it uses cake flour to thicken instead of corn starch. i think the texture is way better, not thick and gluey but smooth and glossy.



recipe is from a book, so i won't be posting it, as usual. the book シェ・シバタ スイーツのエスプリ can be found on amazon.co.jp.

probably one of the rare occasions i'm baking. i find myself cooking more often nowadays and i make it an effort to cook everyday. i really enjoy experimenting with the different cuisines. baking, not so much. the thought of having to stuff myself with all these sugar-laden treats every single day like in the past just don't appeal to me anymore. i try and not use white refined sugar so much and if i do bake, i try and limit the amount of sugar to 50g or less per attempt. which is to say i find american style desserts like brownies that uses 1 cup sugar or frosting that uses 4 cups powdered sugar very, very shocking. not that i'll actually attempt making those. or even the traditional japanese red bean paste. just saying.

anyway i'm following cotta and cuoca on facebook. both are japanese baking supplies/packaging stores that also have plenty of recipes on their sites. their facebook pages are updated everyday and i always look forward to seeing new recipes and pics! cotta posted this recipe recently and i knew i had to make this soon. it just sounded really good and its been a while since i made madeleines.

the first time i made croissants was two years ago. i took a random recipe off a blog and it turned out very badly - leaking butter, layers not distinctive, blisters on the surface after baking. i wasn't sure if it were due to my lack of skill or what but after that i was pretty scarred i felt i just wasn't cut out to make laminated dough of any sort. i've been getting my fix from paul and maison kayser and recently, JOHAN, a japanese bakery inside isetan. since japanese recipes all worked out for me somehow and never once had i failed from it, i decided to try out once more. japanese are damn good at making artisan breads by the way, their standard is on par with the european counterparts, if not better.

i made this for the family dinner on christmas and here's whats left of it. totally didn't get a chance to take any photos until after, and only posted it up 3 days after christmas as i'm still up to my neck with macaron orders. but i decided to share this afterall coz its really good and could be made into any shape and not just a log. the family really liked it and were all praises! took a while to do so many components but it was all worth it.

crêpe suzette is a traditional french dessert consisting of a crêpe with an orange sauce, topped with orange liqueur then serve flambéed. though a dessert, i made these for breakfast this morning (without the flambé of course) and it was really good.

last weekend, i had a dessert order for a wedding. i was really happy coz its been almost a month or so since i made anything decent. it was macarons after macarons after macarons, i missed my desserts! my customer requested some of the items she seen on my blog so here's what i did :

i know, you must be wondering whats up with the korean title. i recently watched this korean drama 'lie to me' and this korean cafe called a twosome place sponsored their cafe scenes and had the lead actress eating an ispahan-looking macaron in one of the scenes (episode 3, to be exact) and it made its appearance a few more times after that. being a self-confessed korean drama addict, i've not seen any mentions of macarons in the dramas so i was mildly surprised. yoon eun hye made it look so yummy i wanted to recreate it myself. basically, from the pic on the cafe's website, it looked like berries and whipped cream sandwiched between a pink and brown shell. to be frank, after all these years of macaron making, i've not tried sandwiching them with two different colored shells (i did KIV pierre herme's montebello macaron on my to-do list but i never got around making it), neither have i used whipped cream so i was really looking forward to it.

i was pretty excited about this entremet since i've never made entremets using half-sphere mold, neither have i tried red wine poached pears (i've only attempted poached pears with spices).

not too long ago i came across this french magazine called yummy magazine and almost miss it for good coz the cover wasn't anything much. it resembled a supermarket periodical or an university publication but when i downloaded it, i fell in love with it rightaway, never mind my french vocabulary is limited to just some food words. the magazine had an easy-to-read layout, nice whimsical fonts and good recipes. i was attracted to the deep purple cassis (blackcurrant) macarons on the cover of the #6 issue, which was the christmas issue and wasted no time in trying these out.

it had been an intense week having to make around 500 macarons! as usual, here were some pics i took. flavors as shown here are pistachio, rose, lemon coconut & coffee.

frankly, i would not have thought of making chocolate bonbons and pralines until a girlfriend got me a box from la maison du chocolat on her holiday. they were so good that i felt i should give it a try sometime. previously i had been pretty intimidated with chocolate tempering and even after i succeeded i just stuck with making decor coz they're easier to handle. this time i worked with a larger batch of chocolate so they're not so easily overheated.

i have always wanted to incorporate popcorn into my macarons coz i think the flavor would be so awesome when paired with a salted caramel filling and it really is! all along i've been sticking to one caramel fleur de sel recipe for my macarons which i think is pretty good, but the salted butter caramel cream that pierre herme uses in his macaron book got me really curious. i mean, one that doesn't use fleur de sel, vanilla bean nor glucose/corn syrup, would it be good? i just had to try.

i hope you're not tired of seeing yet another entremet on my blog! it was my friend's birthday last weekend so i made her a cake. i chose a simple one from one of my japanese pastry books and this is basically a white chocolate vanilla entremet with strawberry syrup-soaked almond biscuit sponge and macerated strawberries in spices.

when i bought hidemi sugino's book, this was one of the first entremets i wanted to try out - a coffee and caramel mousse cake but i ended putting off coz i couldn't find the right mousse rings. and when i managed to find the right one, it was the wrong size. was pretty dismayed coz it looked less elegant than his original masterpiece but oh well, this would have to do until i go hunt for the right ones in japan.

pretty excited about this coz its the 1st time i'm using oval molds for my entremets, attempted caramel glaze and also dabbled with a new ingredient - the buddha's hand citron or bushukan in japanese. the citron is pretty similar to lemon in taste and texture, the only funny thing is there isn't any pulp or seeds in there, just peel & pith. tastewise i find it sweeter and more aromatic than lemon and its easily my favorite citrus now.

ahh, just in time for some valentines day baking! i recently acquired yet another pierre herme's cookbook 'le livre des fours secs et moelleux de pierre herme'. its a chinese-translated japanese book which features some of the baked goods like madeleines, financiers and gateaux de voyages. of course, being a fan of the lychee, raspberry and rose combo, it goes without saying this would be the 1st thing i was gonna make from the book.

i was elated that these two french bakeries have opened up back to back on our shores so i couldn't wait to check them out! i first knew about eric kayser through his 'sweet and savory tarts' book and as for PAUL, with over 400 franchises worldwide, its hard not to have seen this name. having experienced very bad service on my 1st trip to PAUL, i knew better than to sit-in at the restaurant again. so takeaway it was.

finally, the english version of the much-awaited pierre hermé's macaron book has hit the shelves and i was elated to get my hands on a copy. it features many of his classic and signature macaron recipes like mogador, infiniment vanille, montebello, olive oil vanilla and ispahan as well as the customized ones he did for his clients like jasmine, oolong and carrot orange. there's also a section where he uses exceptional ingredients like foie gras, black and white truffles and 25-year old balsamic vinegar to incorporate into his macarons so its really fantastic.

elated about the book aside, i was actually more excited to dabble with the italian meringue method, my FIRST after all these years of macaron making. macarons are known to be finicky therefore i just shyed away from anything that would make them even more complicated.

i've been doing alot of sliced cakes lately. not that i'm terribly fond of them but i'm trying to practice on my cake slicing. slicing cakes may be a simple thing but to do them evenly and neatly? not easy! i seriously could use more practice but i can't possibly be baking everyday so its a shame really.

anyway i was craving for a matcha cake and i decided to come up with my own "creation". each component is taken from a different recipe and for a moment i couldn't really decide what to pair it with. matcha is rather versatile and it goes well with either chocolate, adzuki bean, chestnut or black sesame but i decided to go with a black sesame mousse in the center coz i've not made it before.