Inner Solace

(via theresalighton, thedaintysquid, soyforbreakfast, sinkinsin, mildlymediocre, pigtailsandcombatboots)

:D

Must have.

Taiwan Bread (recipe)

Another Thermomix specific recipe.  Not a fan.  It’s sweet like other Asian bread, but dense.  The brown sugar used also gives it an unusual sweetness.

Also had difficulty with the rise.  Had to leave it for a couple of hours before it doubled in size for the first rise, and another couple for it to rise in the loaf pan.  And it still came out dense.

edit: It also dries out very quickly.

I’ll be sticking to my Tang Zhong bread.

Salted Caramel Maple Ice-Cream (recipe) with pecans and a slice of Torta Caprese.  Both Thermomix recipes.

The ice-cream is brilliant.  Best ice-cream ever.  There are really no other words to describe it, just try to make it yourself.  If you don’t have an ice-cream maker (which I don’t), you can still adapt the recipe for your stove-top then do the hand-churn every few hours. Toss in the chopped pecans (toasted is best) in the last churn.  Trust me, it is absolutely worth it for this ice-cream.

The recipe suggests chopped chocolate.  Don’t do it unless you really want the sugar rush.  The pecans however make it perfect.  Or do both if that kind of thing tickles your fancy.

A little note though.  I have never made ice-cream before and it took three days for the ice-cream to freeze to a gelato consistency.  At first I was concerned the custard wasn’t thick enough, but it seems ice-cream custard bases are very runny.  Just barely coats the back of a spoon.

Also important is the container you freeze it in.  I tried freezing it in one of those microwaveable 360 containers from IKEA.  Seems they insulate a little better than I thought.  The second batch of ice-cream I made got frozen in a plastic ice-cream container and that froze solid in the expected time-frame.

Now the cake.  I was somewhat disappointed by the Torta Caprese.  It was meant to be baked at 180C which I did and it came out dry.

There was a note in the recipe which I didn’t see until after that said to drop it to 160C if you have a ‘very hot oven’.  Correct me if I’m wrong but very hot or not, 180C is still 180C.  I presume they meant fan-forced which would make lowering the temperature by 20C make sense, but I didn’t see any other indications that the recipes were written for non-fan-forced ovens.

I had a taste of this cake at the Thermomix cooking class the other week though and it was moist.  But to be quite honest, Clotilde Dusoulier’s Melt-in-your-Mouth Chocolate Cake or Anouchka’s Chocolate Cake from Joanne Harris’ The French Kitchen are far better examples of that kind of thing.

As a side note, the Torta Caprese called for grating chocolate in the Thermomix.  This was an interesting experience.  I have crushed ice in the Thermomix before for sorbets, but never done chocolate before.  They really need to put some sort of warning on that process because by jebus was it loud.  Hard chocolate flung against stainless steel is not a fun sound.  Ice will shatter, chocolate does not.  I needed to borrow Eric’s over the ear headphones to muffle it ever so slightly until the hard part was over.  The chocolate was perfectly grated at the end of the process, but it so wasn’t worth it.

Chocolate macarons filled with chestnut buttercream and vanilla bean macarons filled with rose buttercream.

I’m getting the hang of the buttercream now.  Was a bit concerned that the rose water wasn’t blending well enough into the buttercream, but the flavour was delicate and discernible.  Also crushed some dried rosebuds to add extra little flecks of rose petals.  I might try to add those to the macarons themselves next time.

Had trouble baking them long enough so that they’d dry out correctly without browning the vanilla shells though.  Definitely a challenge skill.

Also getting a bit better at piping without making a monstrous mess.  Go me!

Frangipane tart, with pears poached in Chocolate Port.

Would have been divine if I had cream to turn the Chocolate Port poaching syrup into a thick sauce.

And Chocolate Port is luvverly.

Bill Granger’s Chocolate Self-Saucing Pudding.

Tasty with ice-cream. That is all.

Last week I learned lemon curd but used shop bought shortcrust for the lemon meringue tart (recipe adapted from Marylise) because I was a little pressed for time.  It reminded me that I rarely made tarts because I’m too slack to make my own crust and shop pastry always disappoints.  Never again.

New thing learned this weekend Number Three: Pâte sablée.  So easy, so quick, and tastes amazing.

The tart wasn’t bad either.

Baking challenge time again. This was a valiant attempt at the Japanese style cheesecake.  It’s halfway between a light cheesecake and a sponge and consistently light and fluffy all the way through.

You can find them at Utopia bubble tea or Esther’s bakery on William Street in Northbridge, although I find the Utopia version far superior in texture.

It’s pretty much a light cheesecake mixture with egg whites folded in, but the trick is to be able to fold it in evenly. Something I have yet to master.

This cake came out fluffy and sponge on top, and a little more dense and cheese at the bottom. Not quite the effect I was after, but it didn’t make it any less delicious.

I did find the process of trying to fold in the cheese mixture into the whipped whites quite difficult though, the cheese mixture kept resisting and sinking down.

But this just means I need to keep trying… ^_^