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 wouldn't actually hv thought of making my own vanilla sugar since i feel that using new pods for this is just too extravagant. old ones hv all gone into my homemade vanilla extract so there wasn't any opportunity to make this until i found some unused ones in my fridge. due to my carelessness i had forgotten to wrap them tightly so they had dried out, which is just perfect for the task if you ask me!

loosely translated as the bananas of caribbean, this entremet has been on my to-bake list for a long time since i got the book.

i never knew i would hv craving for a simple vanilla cake with a glass of cold milk since i've always thought i had "complex tastebuds" but i did so i went hunting for a recipe in the middle of the night. i didn't wanna spend an hour baking a cake therefore i opted for cupcakes instead. i had really good results with magnolia bakery's red velvet cupcakes sometime back so i just wanted to try their famous vanilla cupcake recipe this time round.

i've put off making this tart long enough and i'm finally glad i made it. having bookmarked this recipe for almost a year, each time i look at it i just feel like i don't hv the courage to go ahead coz i don't hv so many of the ingredients called for, things like titanium dioxide, tahitian and mexican vanilla beans as well as trimoline (inverted sugar) used for the biscuit cuillere (sponge fingers). in the end i decided to make do with whatever i hv and cut corners whenever possible and luckily for me, the tart turned out glorious still. so far i've used a couple of pierre herme's recipes, from the complicated ones like the emotion ispahan verrines and this vanilla tart to some of the basic recipes like candied citrus peel, pate sablee tart crust, choux pastry, passionfruit milk choc ganache for the mogador macaron etc, i must say his recipes are nothing short of amazing. it really makes me wonder - if my homemade renditions could be this good, what more for those coming out of his own hands, the picasso of pastry himself?

ahh, there's just so much to say about these these little cakes which originated from the bordeaux region in france, my (and i'm sure many others') love-hate affair with them. using relatively simple ingredients which resemble a crepe batter, the end result after baking on high heat for a considerable length of time is a thick chewy caramelized crust and soft custardy innards perfumed with rum & vanilla. bittersweet, aromatic and addictive would be the perfect adjectives to describe them.

traditionally baked using copper molds that needed to be treated with beeswax prior to baking, many bakers these days opt for the easier (and cheaper) way out by using silicon molds. i'm no exception. you might too if you knew how much these little copper molds are. one tiny two-inch mold costs about US$20 on amazon. i could easily afford one for sure, but not 16 or 20 thats usually required to make a batch of these babies. so silicon is the way to go.

lately i've been seeing lotsa honey belle pears at the supermarket and for sometime i actually mistook them for forelle pears coz both varieties hv got this blush of red. these are sweet & crunchy and while i totally appreciate the sweetness, i just don't like them crunchy. i really like my pears soft so i decided to poach them. it took me sometime to find the right recipe coz lotsa poached pears recipes use either red wine or dessert wine, something which i do not feel like splurging on at the moment.

remember quite sometime back, 10 months ago to be exact i blogged about embarking on a little project to make my own vanilla extract? well its finally ready and i started decanting it about a month ago.

vanilla bean yogurt panna cotta, mango gelee, mango mousse, mango coulis & torched mango cubes - a prelude to making more complex and multi-component desserts. after months of making just macarons, i'm beginning to miss french patisserie.

Project Vanilla

today, i'm embarking on a little project to make my own vanilla extract. when i heard about how good nielsen massey's vanilla extract was, i couldn't wait to get my hands on a bottle. but when i got it, i was sorely disappointed. i thought the whole thing reeked too much of alcohol and too little of vanilla. and to pay 20 over bucks for a meagre 118ml? just kill me. therefore i don't really use it that much but instead use the vanilla bean paste or the pods.

i made some kickass & ridiculously good vanilla bean ice cream and i can't wait to share the recipe with you guys! it all started with a case of having too much leftover whipping cream from my previous attempt on the apricot panna cotta. nowadays i buy whipping cream in 1L carton instead of 200ml coz its alot more worth it that way. only about 8 bucks for 1L, compared to $3.40 for 200ml, but it'll also mean i get alot of leftovers, so what could be better than to make some cold comfort food like ice cream? vanilla bean ice cream is all i eat these days and i'm glad most patisseries are using vanilla bean in their ice cream coz you just can't beat the real stuff. and yes, i turn my nose up at the cheap supermarket variety, the kind that only use essence in them. i only regret not making it any earlier but its never too late! glad i now hv my stash of vanilla bean ice cream to call my own. and it also makes me wonder what i can't or won't do *chuckles*