its always nice to revisit old recipes. i remember this being the best out of so many panna cottas i've attempted and is also my hubby's favorite but ironically i always make the mango version far more frequently and only made this once. and despite the fact that december is not the strawberry season, i managed to snag a really sweet and aromatic punnet. rare consider that the berries we get are usually pretty sucky.

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.

sometimes i think its nice to revisit some of the old recipes i made before. this is a japanese strawberry shortcake where the genoise sponge is colored pink and soaked with a rose-flavored syrup. the 1st time i made this cake was in 2007 when i was still pretty inexperienced and definitely less meticulous in baking. i remember using non-dairy whipped topping for the cake which is pretty shocking to come to think of it. i shudder at the thought of vegetable fat now so there's absolutely no yucky non-dairy cream, creamer, margarine or shortening in my desserts (actually i haven't been using them for many years).

mother's day falls on the 13th which is just two days from now and i made this cake for the mothers in my maternal family (mom, grandma & aunt). i wanted something feminine and pretty hence i added some heart-shaped chocolate decor and tinted them pink. think it would be even better if i had some chocolate transfer sheets on hand.

i've always thought theres only a kind of ichigo daifuku (strawberry mochi) out there, that is the one wrapped with anko. lately i've been seeing a few variations, some wrapped with matcha, some sweet potato. even this shiro-an (white bean paste) version is becoming quite a common sight, or maybe it was all along common but i didn't realize it. with a huge batch of shiro-an stashed away in the freezer and some leftover strawberries, this is a perfect dessert to make. since the mochi uses microwave method, it only takes about a minute and a half to do so its very quick.

you know, daiso sells this whole series of japanese cooking & baking cookbooks (or rather, booklets) and despite not knowing a word of japanese, i went ahead and bought all of them. with 20 recipes per book at 2 bucks each, i think its a steal! i particularly like the one on chiffon cakes coz some of the recipes like spinach chiffon, genmaicha chiffon & red wine chiffon really appealed to me. i started by making the one i saw on the cover, a strawberry version.



overall the taste was pretty good and quite similar to the purple sweet potato chiffon i made. not airy like sponge but it has this denser, still fluffy cotton-like texture like a japanese souffle cheesecake. the use of lemon juice (probably to preserve the color of the cake) made it slightly sourish but i liked it.

unfortunately i didn't manage to capture the cross section as it was really dark and rainy the past few mornings but it looked just like a regular chiffon i made so you'll have to use your imagination. i was also too lazy to frost the cake with creme chantilly so i left it as it is but you could do that.

recipe source : chiffon cake booklet from daiso (book #4)

*recipe removed due to copyright restrictions.

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.

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.

these are by far my utmost favorite cupcakes and i absolutely adore them! i think my cupcakes have turned out really well the past few attempts - from the donna hay's double choc cupcakes to magnolia red velvet and vanilla ones but this just tops it all in terms of taste and texture.

ever since taking a liking on macarons many years back, i started appreciating other meringue-based desserts like pavlova, tarte citron and marshmallows as well. this is the one i usually make when i want a sweet-tooth quick fix coz its so effortless and easy to make. this time round, i came across the idea of doing red marbled swirls from a food mag and was immediately taken to it. it makes the otherwise plain meringue look lively and whimsical.

i've practically been living on foodgawker and tastespotting 24/7 these days. beautiful food photos aside, i can't believe how much creative ideas and inspirations i've garnered from the site. i lost count of the photos i bookmarked and the recipes i wanted to try out "tentatively". i mean, how could you say no to stuff like strawberry yogurt-covered pretzels and very vibrant-looking red velvet cake made not with red food coloring but beet puree? and then i also came across this polka-dot strawberry milkshake which involves sticking cut marshmallows onto the side of the glasses to give it a polka-dot effect. totally creative and this is something that i wouldn't think of in a million years.

i just realized i don't make tarts or cookies as often as i would like mainly due to the weather. the dough gets soft and sticky really easily and i simply don't like going through the hassle of re-freezing & re-rolling the dough, but i decided i want some variety in the stuff i bake so i forsee i'll be making stuff like cookies, tarts & bread more often from now on.

i don't think there was ever once i would polish off a whole punnet of strawberries in one sitting but ever since i discovered eating them with balsamic vinegar & sugar, it was all too effortless to do so. basically i think the strawberries we get in singapore are pretty sucky so they need some dressing up. macerating makes the berries extra juicy as the process draws out the juices and enhances its natural sweetness.

i bought a tub of cassis puree almost a year ago and it was basically left untouched. frankly there really aren't many dessert recipes that use cassis so when i saw this from hidemi sugino's book, i jumped at the chance.

this is a second recipe i tried from hidemi sugino's book and its nothing short of amazing. during the lunar new year, my family requested for a cake (as with every year, or rather, every occasion) so i decided to make this coz its one of the easier recipes from the book. in terms of appearance, its similar to the fruits rouges but simpler to make and better tasting.

i'm not sure if anyone has seen or heard of the ladurée sucré book. i didn't know about its existence until the lovely felicia very generously loaned it to me (she bought it on her recent trip to paris). the book is unlike all other books i've seen - velvety suede cover with gold trimmings and delicately packed in a ladurée's signature pastel green box with lilac tissue paper (hubby commented that it looked harry potter-ish lol). i fell in love with it at 1st sight but was even more fascinated with the recipes as i flipped the pages. i don't think i've ever classified any cookbook as totally "my type" but for this one...YES! the book features lotsa dainty and feminine desserts like rose petal ice cream, pistachio financiers, vanilla eclairs, raspberry rose verrines etc.

and one of them that caught my eye was the guimauve fraise et fleur d'oranger, or strawberry & orange flower marshmallows. the name itself is very lovely and it was after i made it that i realize what a fantastic pairing it was. the orange blossom water is both floral and fruity and is a great complement with the strawberry puree. really delicate. i also felt it was about time i made marshmallows again since i wasn't exactly satisfied with my previous attempt on the passionfruit version.

my first recipe from hidemi sugino's le goût authentique retrouvé and i'm really happy with it. i think i must be crazy to purchase a japanese book when i don't understand a word of it but i just couldn't resist coz first, he's a famous pastry chef, secondly the recipes are all so fantastic! some of my friends were really kind to offer help to translate but i just don't wanna impose on them. they can afterall help translate one but not the whole book, which is frankly what i need. you would wanna fully utilize the book too if you had spent close to a hundred bucks on it. so while half-heartedly trying to memorize all the hiragana & katakana characters, i gave up in the end and went ahead with this recipe. luckily the ingredient portion was written in french as well so i could understand a little. it was not all that difficult since this is not the 1st time i've attempted to make a cake without the given methods/steps.

something i tried from a new chiffon cake book i bought last week. i realize i don't look at chiffon cakes like the way i used to in the past coz they're made in so many exotic flavors like earl grey, black sesame, yuzu, purple sweet potato, rose, matcha etc these days. no longer are they just limited to boring flavors like pandan and chocolate. decided on this cake coz i wanted to put my really expensive $60/kg sevarome pistachio paste into good use. the cake turned out really soft and fluffy and is probably the softest chiffon cake i've ever tasted. was really good! and chiffon cakes aren't exactly the most photogenic subjects around so i only hv this pic.

*recipe removed due to copyright restrictions.

i made a strawberry shortcake for my friend huiyi's birthday and this is by far my best attempt. i've always shyed away from anything to do with whipped cream mainly for two reasons - i tend to overwhip the cream to the point that it splits and secondly, i just don't hv the talent in frosting whole cakes. when i found the solution to these two major problems, i jumped at the opportunity to make one again. with regards to overwhipping the cream, my pastry chef gf told me to whisk it on high speed, never mind that the bowl and beaters are not chilled. it worked! secondly i read that instead of frosting the cake painstakingly, you could pour the cream into a mousse ring like you would an entremet. that worked too!

tarte aux fruits rouges, or red fruit tart is a simple summer berry tart thats hard to go wrong with. while i'm not sure if there's a fixed recipe to it but i think the most common version would be to use a pâte sucrée (sweet crust pastry) and crème pâtissière (pastry cream) or custard. in here though, i used pierre herme's pâte sablée crust, a really nice, rich and buttery crust with ground almonds hence the name 'sandy dough'. i then filled the tarts, or rather tartlets with creme d'amandes, a baked almond cream traditionally used in frangipane tarts and brushed with a generous a layer of raspberry jam before adorning them with berries.