The Snowlady Chronicles

Tarte aux Poires

Saturday September, 5 2009

Tokyo, Japan

Gorgeous Summer Day

For my last cake class, I learned how to make a tart with almond filling and it was the best tart I've ever made!  Highly recommend this tart as it is easy to make and you can make different versions of it, eg, blueberries, peach, etc.  The crust was so buttery and flaky.  I had a piece and gave the rest to the concierge office of my apartment building and they gave it a 2 thumbs up!

Ingredients for the crust (Parte  Choucle)

• 60 grams of butter at room temperature
• 50 grams of powdered sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1 egg yolk at room temperature
• few drops of vanilla essence
• 80 grams of cake flour and 30 grams of almond powder sifted twice together (2 flours thus sift twice)

Ingredients for the Filling (Creme Amande)

• 35 grams of butter at room temperature
• 35 grams of sugar
• 35 grams of egg (break 2 eggs, beat and measure)
• 35 grams of almond powder
• 7-10 drops of vanilla essence

Topping

• Well drained canned pear slices, sliced thinly
• Glaze made from cooking 40 grams of apricot jam with about 20-40cc water
• Finely chopped pistachios

Making the crust:

• Make a large circle with the flour as shown below

• Add the ingredients for the crust as shown below.
• Take care so the egg yolk does not touch the sugar
• Rub salt in with the vanilla essence

• First squish the butter and eggs with your fingers until blended
• Then squish the salt with the butter/eggs and finally the sugar
• Clean hands if you like and with a bread scraper, "cut" in the flour
• • As it gets somewhat blended, make a mound
    
    • slice the mound thinly several times, with the scraper, flip and repeat until well blended
    • BUT, do not over blend!

• Then stretch the dough, with palm of hands, 5 times to make a fan.  Do this only once.
• Gather dough, shape as disc, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate (can put in freezer for about 20 min)

Now make the Filling:

• With hand held mixer, soften the butter
• At medium speed continue mixing the butter and add the vanilla essence
• Then add sugar and continue to blend
• Add egg in 4 parts while mixer is going at medium speed
• Sift almond powder over mixture and blend with a spatula
• Set aside

Assembling and Finishing

• Roll dough out evenly to cover a 15cm tart pan.
• Clean the dough on both sides carefully and poke holes with a fork.
• Carefully, lift dough with rolling pin and plan on the tart pan as shown below.

• Shape the dough to the pan, pinch sides, and cut excess dough
• It should look like the photo below. 

• Fill the tart with the filling and place the pears as shown below or any other way you wish.
• Bake at 170-180C for 30-35 minutes
• Take out of oven, remove the tart pan
• Let cool slightly, then brush the tart well with the glaze
• Sprinkle with pistachios and you are done!

The finished product:  Tarte aux Poires

Roule The(there is supposed to be an accent on the e) Vert

Saturday August1, 2009

Tokyo, Japan @ ABC Cooking

I'm getting irritated with Typepad's editor.  Can't figure out why I get double space no single space sometimes.  Anyhow, I'm sure it is one of those things they will fix along with the Facebook feed.

Well, today I learned how to make a Roll Cake.  We made a green tea flavored rolled cake filled with azuki cream and chocolate/green tea cream.  The filling was delicious especially the azuki cream, especially since I love azukis.  Azuki's are Japanese red beans that are often used in traditional sweets.  They are sweetened by boiling them with sugar.  Sometimes they are just boiled until softened but many times are made into a paste so it can be used as a filling for the traditional Japanese sweets.  I find anything made from azuki to be delicious! 

The cake is relatively easy to make.  However, I'm not a fan of tea flavored cakes or sweets so it tasted OK to me.  However, if you love green tea, you will love this relatively easy to make cake.

We first made the Green Tea Souffle Cake:

Ingredients:

• 35 grams of cake flour
• 5 grams of Matcha - Japanese Green Tea Powder
• 25 grams of unsalted butter
• 25 cc and 50 cc of milk
• 2 egg yolks
• 2 egg whites
• 1 whole egg
• 30 grams of granulated sugar

Sift the cake flour and the Matcha together twice.

Melt butter on low heat in a non stick sauce pan and remove from heat.  Add flour/matcha to the pot and with spatula mix well. 

Return pot on low heat and fry the batter until shiny and then remove from heat.  (it should expand and bubble a bit)

Then add 25 cc of milk heated to 80C to the batter and mix well.  Then place the batter in a mixing bowl.

In a separate bowl, mix egg yolks with the whole egg.  Then add the egg mixture in the batter 1/3 at a time while beating the batter at medium speed with an electric mixer.

Then add 50 cc of the milk in 2-3 parts while continue to beating at medium speed and set aside.

In another bowl, beat the egg whites until frothy.  Then add 1/2 of sugar until shiny and then add the rest of the sugar and continue beating until the egg whites are creamy.

First fold 1/3 of egg whites into bowl with the batter.  Then dump the batter into the bowl with the egg whites and fold until well blend.

Dump the batter in a lined with cooking paper square 23x23cm pan in the center and make even with a scraper.  Tap the pan a few times to remove any air bubbles.

Bake at 180C electric oven for 13-15min.  For gas over bake at 170C for 10-12 minutes.  

While baking, make the Green Tea Ganache:

Ingredients:

• 25 grams whipping cream
• 20 grams white chocolate
• 1tsp Matcha

Pour warmed whipping cream over the white chocolate to melt.  Add the Matcha and blend well with spatula.  Put it in the refrigerator to cool, then beat with electric mixer until stiff.  Place the ganache in a pastry bag with a size 8 (japanese) tip.  

Now make the Azuki Cream:

Ingredients:

• 10 grams of condensed mild
• 50 grams of boiled azuki beans
• 100 grams of whipping cream

Put all the ingredients in a bowl and blend at medium speed with hand held electric mixer.

Assembling the Cake:

First cut the edges so they are all smooth.  Then brush the cake with a syrup made from 10cc sugar water and 5cc of matcha liquor (you can use any kind of syrup). 

Then spread the Azuki Cream over the cake.  Leave a bit though in the bowl.

Pipe 3 lines of the Match Ganache at the top half of the cake.  Then cover the line that is closest to the edge with the left over azuki cream. 

Then roll from edge where the Matcha Ganache is as depicted in the photo.  It will be easier to do if you have cooking paper underneath the cake. 

Then slice the cake in 1/3 and you are done.

Voila! A Japanese influenced French dessert!

Mille Crepes

Sunday July 26, 2009
Tokyo, Japan
Hot Hot Hot!  When Will It END??

Took a fun cake class today.   Learned how to make the perfect crepe and made a dessert called Mille-Crepes.   It was very easy to make and delicious.  Basically all you have to do is spread flavored cream in between layers of crepe and you are done!  The cream was so good, I think I'll make that again and just serve it with fruit.  Also, the key to making crepes I think is to have a very good non stick teflon pan.  I guess I'll have to go to Kappabashi again and buy one :))

Ingredients

• Crepes
  • 75 grams of cake flour
  • 35 grams of sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 250 cc of milk
  • 15 grams of melted and cooled unsalted butter
• Cream
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 50 grams of sugar
  • 20 grams of cake flour
  • 200 cc of milk
  • few drops of vanilla essence
  • 10cc of rum
  • 200 grams on whipping cream
• 1/2 tsp of white chocolate powder
• One 18cm in diameter and 5-7mm thick sponge cake (optional)

How to Make:

We first made the cream by whisking the egg yolks with the sugar.  Keep on whisking until the mixture turns whitish in color.  While doing this, warm the milk on very low heat.  Then sift flour over the egg mixture and continue whisking.  Add 1/3 of the warm milk and whisk.  Then add the rest of the warmed milk and keep on whisking.  Once well blended, pour the mixture over a sieve into a pot.  Stir the mixture constantly while heating it at medium heat over the stove.  When it becomes creamy, remove it from the heat and continue whisking.  Then put it back on the stove and whisk over medium heat for just one more minute.  The mixture will be bubbling but continue whisking.  Then pour the cream onto a plate and cover with plastic wrap, flatten and refrigerate until ready to use.

While the cream is cooling make the crepes. Sift the flour into a bowl and then add the sugar and stir.  Then add the eggs and whisk until well blended.  Add 1/4 of the milk and whisk.  When well blended add the rest of the milk and whisk.  Add melted butter and whisk again.  That's it for the crepe batter.

Now let's make the crepes.  Heat a 18cm or so in diameter teflon fry pan over low-medium heat.  You can butter the pan if you like to make buttery crepes.  Fill a ladle 3/4 full of batter and pour the batter in the heated pan.  Shake the pan to distribute the batter.  The crepe is ready to be flipped when bubbles appear and the edges are cooked. Now there are 2 ways to flip the crepe.

For the first way.  Place a chopstick, about 1/4 from the diameter of the crepe.  Take another chopstick and carefully lift the edge of the crepe (you can turn off the heat while doing this).  Using your fingers, carefully roll the edge of the crepe over the chopstick.  Then lift the chopstick and gently flip the crepe.  If you turned the heat off turn in back on and heat for 30sec-1min.  Then when done dump the crepe on cooking paper and use your hands to gently straighten the crepe.

The second way is a bit trickier but faster.  Carefully, place a chopstick underneath the crepe (again about 1/4 of the way from the diameter).  Twist the chopstick toward you gently until you reach the end of the crepe.  Then lift the crepe and flip.  Scary at first but after 2 tries I was able to do it and preferred this approach as it is definitely more efficient.

You should have about 15 crepes.  Now its time to assemble the cake.   The first thing we need to do is to "soften" the cream.  Peel the cream from the plate into a bowl.  If you successful made the cream, you should be able to peel the cream from the plate.  Using a spatula, vigorously mix the cream until it gets soft again.  Add 10-12 drops of vanilla essence and the rum and continue mixing with the spatula.  The cream should be very smooth by now.

In a separate bowl, whip the whipping cream at high speed until it becomes a smooth cream as depicted in the photo below.  At this point, one can add gelatin (4grams powdered gelatin dissolved in 16cc water) to "firm up" the whipping cream.  I prefer not to do it but it depends on your taste.

Then blend the whipping cream with the cream until well mixed. 

Now its time to assemble.  If using a sponge cake as a base layer, place a dallop of the cream onto the sponge cake and spread to about 2cm from the edge (as you layer the cake it gets heavy so the cream will disperse to the edge from the weight. If using crepe as base layer do the same.   Then top with crepe, repeat with cream and continue repeating until finished.  Then sprinkle white chocolate powder over top and your are finished!

Cake a L'orange

Friday July 10, 2009
Tokyo Midtown ABC Cooking Studio
Hot and Humid

After a grueling week at work due to an ulcer that acted up and feeling like I'm falling further behind in all my to-do's, it was time to escape again this week and bake a cake.  This week I made Cake a L'orange.   Its a very easy cake to make and because its flavored with orange, its summery and can be eaten for breakfast instead of a muffin.  

Here are the ingredients:

Orange Compote

• One orange (about 200 grams in size)
• a bit of salt
• 40 grams of sugar
• 80 cc of water
• 7.5 cc Grand Marnier

Cake

• 80 grams of egg (break the eggs and measure - about 1.5 eggs)
• 100 grams of sugar
• 40 grams of sour cream
• 90 grams of cake flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 30 grams unsalted butter
• few drops of vanilla essence

Apricot Glaze

• 40 grams of smooth apricot jam
• 20-40cc of water

How to Make:

• Orange Compote
  • Wash the orange well with the salt (must take the wax off before cooking)
  • Slice the orange carefully in 2-3mm widths
  • add to a small fry pan, sprinkle sugar and pour water over the sugar
  • Place cooking paper cut to fit the pan over the oranges
  • Heat on medium heat until just boiling
  • Lower heat and heat for 5 minutes.
  • Stop heat and let sit for 10 minutes
  • Carefully pat dry the slices of oranges very well.  Choose 2 or 3 perfect slices and place in bottom of cooking paper lined loaf pan (18x8x6cm)
  • Chop rest of orange into fine dice, pour grand marnier over, mix and set aside

Cooking the orange slices

Placing 2 perfect orange slices on the bottom of the loaf pan

Dice remaining oranges and mix with Grand Marnier.

• Making the Cake
  • In a large bowl add egg and all the sugar.  Beat at low speed until well mixed
  • Then continue beating on low speed over water warmed to 35-40C for 15 seconds only to allow air to get into the mixture
  • After 15 seconds, remove from water and continue beating at high speed until creamy
  • Add sour cream and beat on high speed the sour cream first and then blend
  • Beat at low speed to finish
  • Sift cake flour and baking soda together once onto a sheet of plastic wrap
  • Sift the flour/baking soda mixture again over the batter
  • Fold the batter until just blended
  • Fold the diced oranges in the batter until blended.
  • Pour at once into loaf pan
  • Tap loaf pan to remove air bubbles and to settle the dough
  • Bake at 180C electric oven for 35-40 min (170C, 35-40 min in Gas Oven)

This is what the batter should look like after folding the flour/baking soda mixture.

This is what the batter should look like after adding the diced oranges.

• While baking, make the Apricot Glaze:
  • Heat the jam and water on low heat until thick and syrupy.  Add the water little by little as you do not want the glaze to be watery

• Finishing the cake
  • Take cake out of oven, check the cake by piercing a toothpick through the cake.  If there is no wet batter, the cake is done
  • Remove the cake from pan carefully and place on side to cool
  • After it cools for about 10 minutes,  slice about 5cm of the top off so that the cake is steady when standing (the bottom of the cake is actually the top)
  • Generously glaze the top of the cake
  • Sprinkle with ground pistachios if you like

Let the cake cool on its side

Since the bottom of the cake is actually the top, you have to slice a small piece of the top off so that the cake can stand steadily.

With pastry brush, generously brush glaze on the top of the cake.  Decorate with crushed pistachios if you like.  Voila!  Cake a L'orange

Gateau Blanc

Saturday July 4, 2009
Tokyo, Japan
Sunny
Happy Independence Day!

After a very long week with dinners Tuesday night to Friday night, I was very much looking forward to a quiet 4th of July weekend in Tokyo.  But I did sign up for a cake class, as what is 4th of July without cake and besides, I was craving a Kosher Hot Dog but could not find one so cake will have to suffice :)).

Usually, when I take the cake class at ABC Cooking there are a total of 4-5 students.  But I lucked out and was the only student for this particular class.  I had my usual teacher who is very good (she used to work at Robuchon)

Today I was making a a Genoise cake with white chocolate cream icing.  The cake itself is easy to make as I made it before.  What I learned during this lesson is how to assemble and decorate the cake to look like a white dome. 

Here's the recipe :

• Ingredients for the Genoise Cake:

• 2 eggs, 70grams sugar, 70grams cake flour
• 20grams unsalted butter melted and mixed with 10cc milk and about 5 drops of vanilla essence
• Syrup:
  • 30cc syrup (made by heating one part sugar to 2 parts water) and 15cc framboise
• White Chocolate Cream
  • 200 grams whipping cream, 30 grams white chocolate, few drops of vanilla essence

Instructions:

• Genoise Cake: 
  
  • Beat eggs with electric mixer on high for about 1 minute, then add sugar and beat for another 1-2 minutes.  Next, Beat over water heated to 70-80C for ONLY 15 seconds.  Then remove from water and continue beating with the bowl tilted until the eggs resemble soft whipped cream. 
  • Sift flour over eggs and mix by gently folding until just blended.  Pour butter, milk, vanilla essence mixture over batter and continue to gently fold until no flour is visible.
  • Pour into a 23cmx23x3 roll cake pan lined with cooking paper.  Spread batter to cover whole pan using a scraper.
  • Bake for 12 minutes at 200C in an electric oven.
  • When baked remove the cake gently from the pan using the cooking paper and cool.  When cooled, flip the cake, remove the paper, and flip the cake over again. 
  • Using no. 12, 10 and 6 circular molds, cut three size 12 cakes, one size 10 cake and one size 6 cake.  Baste the cakes with syrup and set aside

       

The baked Genoise Cake

The 5 round cakes.

• White Chocolate Cream:
  • Melt chocolate over double boiler and add vanilla essence
  • Let cool a bit, then add a little whipped cream and mix at high speed with electric mixer.  
  • Gradually add the rest of the whipping cream and whip until nice and creamy but not too stiff.

Assembly (the hard part)

• Take one of the No. 12 cakes, flip it and baste with syrup.  Spread a dollop of the white chocolate cream on the cake and spread using an icing spatula
• Place 6 frozen raspberries in a circle on top o the cake. 
• Place  another dollop of cream and shape like a dome by using the icing spatula
• Place another no. 12 cake and use hands to shape it like a dome
• Baste with syrup, place another dollop of cream and again shape like done using spatula. 
• Repeat with no. 10 cake and finally with no. 6 cake
• Then cover the whole cake with the cream (you should have 1/2 of the cream left so use it all).  Then with a spatula smooth the surface
• Refrigerate or if in a hurry freeze for about 5 minutes of so.
• Decorate the cake as you wish.  You can melt some more white chocolate at pour it over the cake.  It give the cake a quite elegant look. 

This is what the first layer should look like

The second layer:  Use the spatula to smooth the sides.  Hold the spatula at an angle while turning the Lazy Susan to preserve the shape of the dome

Continue shaping with the spatula until the last layers

Then cover generously with the cream.

Smooth it out by lightly brushing the spatula against the side from bottom to top.

Not a perfect dome but pretty good for the first time I think!

I decorated it with silver balls and candied lilacs and poured melted white chocolate over the top of the cake.

Voila!  Gateau Blanc

Yummy!

My First Attempt at Making French Macarons (not Macaroons!)

Saturday June 28, 2009
Tokyo, Japan
ABC Cooking
Hot and Humid

Very excited to go to my cake class today as we learned how to make Macarons.  Unlike Macaroons, Macarons are the famous French cookies invented by the famous patisserie Laduree of Paris.  They are VERY popular in Japan and all the famous patisseries of France who have an outpost in Tokyo sell their version of the macarons.  Not only are they delicious but also gluten free!

Here's how I made them:

Ingredients (for 8 macarons)

•  30 grams of egg white
•  30 grams of fine sugar
•  35 grams of almond powder
•  30 grams of powdered sugar
•   food coloring

•   For the ganache filling:  40 grams of whipping cream, 30 grams of chocolate   

How to Make:

• Put egg white in bowl and break them with a fork or with the beaters of a hand held mixer.  Then beat at high speed until soft peaks form.  Then add 1/2 of the fine sugar, beat again and add rest of sugar.  Continue beating until the egg whites form stiff peaks.  Its important that the egg whites become stiff.
• Sift almond powder and powdered sugar twice.  Gently add the sifted powder and powdered sugar to the egg whites and blend very gently with a spatula.  Add desired food coloring (8-12) drops and fold very gently. 
• Now comes the tricky part.  You need to "break" the egg whites.  You do this by scraping all the "dough" to one end of the bowl with a spatula.  And then spread the dough along the side of the bowl.  Do this 1 to 3 or 4 times until the dough becomes shiny and elastic.  DO NOT OVER DO THIS.  Be very careful

This is what the dough should look like prior to "breaking" the egg whites

This is how you break the dough

This is what it should look like after breaking the egg white.  Shiny and elastic

• Put dough in pastry bag fitted with a No. 8 decorating tip and make 3cm round cookies on a cookie sheet covered with cooking paper.   Make sure its not a "mountain".  One can do this by squeezing the dough out by holding the pastry bag perpendicular to the pan.  First make a 2cm cookie and then place the decorating tip inside the middle of the 2cm cookie and squeeze some more dough gently.  This way the dough spreads outwardly instead of piling up so you get a mountain.  Make 16 cookies.
  

• De-gas the macarons by tapping the pan on the table several times (IMPORTANT!).  Poke any left over air bubbles with toothpick (work fast!)
  

• Then let the cookies sit for about 20 minutes so the skin of the cookies dries a bit.  This way when you bake them the heat escapes the bottom so you will get a smooth surface (IMPORTANT!)
  

• Then bake in 140C electric oven (130C gas oven) for 13-15 minutes. 
  

You know you succeeded it the top is smooth and "pieds" feet formed (see photo below)

• While the cookie is cooling (do not remove from cooking paper until cooled!) make ganache by heating the whipping cream in a 500 W microwave for 30 seconds. Add the chocolate to the whipping cream and whip until stiff.  One can add freeze dried fruit powder (sold in specialty stores) to add flavor to the ganache.  Be creative!
• Assemble the macarons by spreading the ganache on one side of the cookie.  Top with another cookie.  Twist the top a bit to make sure its sticking and voila you made a macaron!  Refrigerate the macarons to make sure the ganache remains stiff

I made strawberry, mango, green tea and coffee flavored macarons!

Short Cake: Japanese Style

Saturday June 13, 2009
Tokyo, Japan
A Pleasant Summer Day

One of my absolutely favorite desserts in the world is the Japanese style strawberry shortcake.  Unlike the Western version where sweet biscuits are the base, in Japan they use sponge cake as a base.  But the sponge cake in Japan is more delicate and fluffy than the ones I've made using Western recipes.  So when I found out that ABC cooking was offering a class on how to make Japanese style short cake, I jumped at the opportunity. 

It was surprisingly easy to make.  But they taught me a new technique in making the sponge cake:  whip the eggs and sugar over warm water for about 15 seconds which makes the mixture very frothy.  This technique is key to a fluffy sponge cake or genoise cake as my instructor calls it.   Here's how to make it:

Short Cake from ABC Cooking:
Genoise Cake Ingredients:  2 eggs, 70 grams of sugar, 70 grams of cake flour, 20 grams of melted butter, 10 cc of milk,  few drops of vanilla essence

Syrup:  30cc of Sugar syrup made from boiling one part sugar and 2 parts water,  plus 20cc Kirsch or strawberry syrup

Whipped Cream:  200 gram whipping cream and 10 grams sugar

Fruit for decoration:  sliced strawberries, blueberries

Instructions:  Beat eggs with handheld mixer on high,  add sugar and beat a bit more,  then beat over 70-80C warm water for only 15 seconds.  Then remove from water and continue beating until super frothy.  Sift flour over batter and blend with spatula until just blended. 

In a small cup, mix melted butter, milk and vanilla essence.  Pour over batter by first pouring onto the spatula and let the butter mixture drip into the batter.  Blend using spatula gently.  

Pour batter in a cake pan (15cm or so diameter).  Tap the pan gently to remove air bubbles and bake in 180C electric oven for 23 min (170C for gas).  When done remove from pan and let cool.

The batter should look like this before baking:

 

The baked cake


When cooled, slice in half.  Brush 1/3 of syrup on top of bottom half and brush rest of syrup on the top half.  Make whipped cream by beating the whipping cream with sugar.  Frost and decorate with fruit.  And voila you have a Japanese Style Shortcake!
 

By spreading a thin layer of whipped cream, you can even out the surface which will make fancy decorating easier. 
 

The end result:  My first Japanese style Strawberry Shortcake

Tarte aux Fruits Frais

Sunday May 17, 2009
ABC Cooking, Tokyo Midtown
Tokyo, Japan

I was excited about this particular cake class because we were making a fruit tart.  Fruit tarts in Japan are so delicious!  Unlike the ones in the States, they are not too sweet and are light  This particular tart was done French style.  We learned how to make a French style tart crust and cream filling.  The tart was topped with kiwis, grapefruit, strawberries, peaches and pear.  Delicious!

The tart crust was the best crust I've ever had.  Its pretty simple to make:

    Soften 45 grams of butter with a mixer and then add 40 grams of powdered sugar and blend. 
    Add one egg yolk a few drops of vanilla essence and about 5cc's of milk.  Blend with mixer. 
    Sift 90 grams of flour, and blend by cutting by either using 2 knives or a scraper. 
    Working on a cold surface, roll the dough out and place in a 15cm tart pan.
    Bake at 180C for about13 minutes with beans, then remove beans.
    Continue to bake for about another 11-13min.

The tart was then filled with cream flavored with vanilla and orange liqueur.  It had a pudding like quality and was so good that it could be served by itself with some fruit.  Here's how we made it:

Heat about 200cc of milk until lukewarm. While heating the milk, in a separate bowl mix 2 egg yolks and 50g of sugar until syrupy.  Sift 20g of flour into the mixture and blend.  Then slowly add 1/3 of the heated milk, blend and then add the rest.  Pour the mixture into a pot through a sieve and cook  the mixture until thickened.  Place the mixture on a plate, cover with plastic wrap and cool.  While cooling, in another bowl whip 60 grams of whip cream together with 4grams of gelatin dissolved in 16cc of water.  Put the chilled cream in a bowl and blend with some vanilla essence and orange liqueur to taste.  Fold the whipped cream in the mixture and then you are done! 

To make the tart, place a thinly sliced sponge cake over the crust, fill with cream and decorate with the fruit.  Glaze the tart with nappage (an apricot glaze) by heating 40g of nappage with 10cc of water.

Enjoy!

Mousse au Chocolat et aux Noix

May 9, 2009
ABC Cooking
Tokyo Midtown

Its been awhile since I went to my cake class so although I was not up to it, I decided to take a class the day after I returned from my vacation in Korea.  You see, I've been having a terrible time with allergies in Tokyo this year.  So sure enough as soon as I land in Tokyo, my allergies act up again.  Anyhow, instead of canceling at the last minute and pay the 1000yen fine, I drag myself to ABC Cooking and learned how to make a chocolate mousse cake while loaded with allergy drugs.

Making a mousse cake is easy if you have patience.  Its really important you don't rush to mix things and follow the instructions exactly or else you will not get a fluffy mousse but instead something that looks like a turd. 

So first thing we learned in this class was how to make a caramelized nuts.  The nuts (walnut and almonds) were used for decoration.  First thing we did was make caramel which is basically heating sugar with water on medium heat.  The key here is to let it sit -  do not stir!!  Once its gets slightly brown, swirl the pan so the sugar water is evenly heated.  Once brown and syrupy, remove from the heat and add butter, nuts, cover well and cool.  Voila- caramelized nuts. 

Our next task was to make the chocolate mousse.  We first heated an egg yolk with milk on medium heat until just syrupy.  Then removed it from heat and added sweetened chocolate and cacao powder.  Mixed it well until shiny and poured it into a bowl.  In a separate bowl we whipped some egg whites to make the meringue.  Then in another bowl we made some whipped cream.  We then folded the whip cream into the chocolate mixture.  Once incorporated, as a final step we folded the meringue into the chocolate mixture very carefully and then the chocolate mousse was done. 

We made the cake by layering the mousse with a 2 thinly sliced sponge cake.  The cake was then glazed with an icing made with mild, chocolate and corn syrup.  It was then topped with chocolate powder and the caramelized nuts.  

I have to say, it was one of the best chocolate cakes I've ever made as the mousse was light and fluffy!

Mousse au Cassis

Friday April 11, 2009
ABC Cooking
Tokyo, Japan
Warm and Beautiful Spring Day

Its a bit strange being in Japan in one of the holiest weeks for many.  Its actually business as usual in Japan and I would have forgotten about Passover and Easter had it not been for my ex-pat friends. So what did I do during this holy week?  Work very long hours albeit again not very productive and for Good Friday decided to go learn how to make a Mousse cake. 

So off I was to ABC Cooking for my first class in April.  I have not been able to go to any because I've been so busy and because of up coming holidays and business trips, this will be my only class in April.  I learned how to make Mousse au Cassis.  

I've always wondered what Cassis is and found out its blackcurrant.  Cassis is the French word for blackcurrant.  The recipe requires pureed Cassis which can be bought at any specialty store or one can make it by slowly cooking the cassis with a little bit of sugar and then passing the puree through a sieve to make sure its smooth.

What was interesting about this recipe is that any type of puree can be used.  Just make sure you add gelatin to the puree before using it to flavor the mousse. Making the basic mousse is easy.  First you make whipped cream sweetened with sugar.  Then you make the meringue by whipping egg whites with sugar.  However, before using the the mixer to whip the egg whites, first break the membranes by "cutting" the egg whites with a fork or with the beaters of the mixer (do not turn on the mixer!).  Then whip until shampoo like, add 1/2 of sugar, whip some more and then add the rest until stiff (do not overmix).  Now add your fruit puree to the whipped cream but do it in thirds and fold with a large whisk (this prevents air bubbles from entering).  Once the batter is marble like, it time to add the meringue.  Again add in thirds and fold with a large whisk and finish with a rubber spatula so that it is completely blended (again don't overmix).  So that's basically your "batter".  You just fill a mode with the batter and layer with cake or cookies and then refrigerate until set. 

We also made a  cassis jelly topping to set the mousse.  Making the jelly topping is easy because its basically mixing the cassis puree with syrup and Mizuame and hardening with gelatin.  In Japan, Mizuame is commonly used as sweeteners.  Its a thick, sticky, sweet liquid similar to corn syrup.  However, its made from potato.  The "high quality" mizuame is made from rice and malt but is hard to find.  So one can use corn syrup if you can't get mizuame.  I prefer mizuame because its less sweet than corn syrup. When pouring the jelly topping on the mousse you have to work quickly though as the jelly will harden very quickly as the mousse is cold.

1.5 hours later, I was done and it was a pity I could not try it as I had an appointment for a small medical procedure so had to fast.  So I gave it to the concierges at my apartment and they enjoyed it.

Mousse au Cassis