Japanese Swiss Rolls

It’s been a while since I attended baking classes because honestly, I have attended far too many and I feel I need to get down to baking more than attending classes.  But when I read about this class, I knew I had to attend.  The Japanese instructor would be teaching her way of baking matcha swiss rolls and macarons, and strawberry shortcake swiss rolls.  I love matcha and anything with matcha in them.

It was the first time I attended that Japanese instructor’s class and I wasn’t really used to her method of instruction.  And I was feeling exceptionally drowsy – I don’t know if it was because I found the first part of the class boring (I already know how to bake macarons) or because of the afternoon sun (they didn’t put down the blinds despite it being a warm afternoon).  I was so close to dozing off.

But I woke up the moment food was being passed around.  Yup, we all got to taste a slice each of the strawberry shortcake and matcha swiss rolls.  The swiss rolls were heavenly!  If I may, I would describe the swiss rolls as tasting authentically Japanese.  You may not know exactly what I mean if you have not tasted pastries in Japan, but there is a difference between pastries made in Japan and pastries made in Singapore.  And I believe the inherent difference stems from the raw ingredients used.

True enough, Chef Aki Watanabe bought most of her ingredients from a Japanese supermarket, imported from Japan.

Her macarons, which we each got to taste in a take-home box, were less mind-blowing.  I think I will stick to the other recipe I have been using, since I do think the Italian meringue method is more trusty, not to mention safer (since the eggs would be cooked).

The moment I met the hubby for dinner that evening, I told him I need to visit Medi-Ya that weekend.  If he was puzzled, he didn’t ask.  That’s the good thing about having a reticent husband, amidst all the bad things.

93/250

The To-Die-For Chocolate Cookies

I’ve totally not kept to my part of the bargain on many counts during this year of sabbatical, one of which is the promise to bake more often.  But I’m not about to berate myself – what’s passed is passed, and what’s more important is being forward looking.  Yup.

And so, I blogged about Natalie a couple of days back.  She was discharged some days back without a proper diagnosis.  It’s unfortunate that nothing peculiar showed up on her MRI scans.  She also did a very painful lumbar puncture.  The results take about 3 weeks to return, and I’m hoping something conclusive could be deduced from the results.  She had been very unhappy, for very good reasons too: she hasn’t been going to school for a week, and the lumbar puncture hurt like mad.  Just imagine a huge needle going into your spine; it’s not something even adults can tolerate without tearing much lest a 7-year old girl.

I decided to cheer her up in my own way, by baking some nice cookies for her.  Just so happened that the Pierre Hermé PASTRIES book that I ordered on Book Depository finally arrived, giving me the perfect opportunity to try out a new recipe.  I picked the chocolate chip cookies to try baking.

The cookies turned out more than well, and I was pleasantly surprise (although I never doubted the maestro’s recipes).  However, I do find the taste a little too adult-ish (Guanaja, at 70% cocoa content, is a tad bitter).  I don’t know how Natalie will take to it.  Fingers crossed.

(Clicking on the picture above will link you to my baking website, complete with the recipe.)

71/250

The 13th Day

Today is the 13th day since.  It is also the birthday of my beloved little sis who requested that we keep it small, without any fanfare.  I understood and respected her wishes – this couple of months had been rather trying for my family.  First we lost a very dear family friend to muscle dystrophy, and then the family pet.  It’s so bad that my dad has refused to enter our house since the day Sugar returned.  He admitted during the car ride after dinner yesterday that he hasn’t gotten over it yet.

Time is all we could give him.  Strictly speaking, we don’t even own time, but that’s beside the point.

The hubby needed some cheering up, and I wanted to make some cupcakes for the little sis, hence I decided on baking some chocolate cupcakes with marshmallows for the both of them.

Happy Birthday, little sis!  May your life be filled with happiness forever.  May you also have a fulfilling career and find the man of your dreams soon.  Last, but not the least, I hope you liked the cupcakes.

Restarting Baking

What does it tell you when you cannot locate your favourite spatula from Japan, and the egg separator seems to be conspicuously missing from the drawer of baking tools?  That you have not been baking for far too long.

The wake-up call couldn’t come at a better timing now that I am left with 10 months 3 weeks of my sabbatical, and I thank my friends for the reminder.

I started a baking blog way back in 2005 but it was neglected for a very long time due to work and family commitments.  I just revamped it last December, so all past posts were wiped out.  Strangely enough, restarting with a clean slate was not as painful as I thought it would be.

I recently baked some biscotti for my friends, and shortbread for my family. Click on the pictures if you are interested in the recipes. The links lead you to my baking blog.

My Gentle Giant is 7 Part II

It is not at all easy to locate a dog bakery in Singapore.  As far as I know, there is only one established bakery who specialises in cakes for dogs.  And I had been faithfully ordering cakes from them at least twice a year in the past few years.  However, a run-in with them over a cake delivered in a less-than-desirable state last November, fuelled by poor complaint handling and service recovery, led me to swear never to patronise them again.

I’m in trouble, because it only meant that if I wish to celebrate my furkids’ yearly milestones, I have to bake the cakes myself.  Since I have 3 furkids, that translates into at least 3 cakes per year, more if I get invited to other dog parties.  It’s not like I have not tried baking cakes for them, but for the same amount of hard work put in, it is a lot less fulfilling to bake cakes for dogs than for humans.  Especially in my case where my dogs will gobble up almost anything that is put into their food bowl, and then promptly walk away to play with their toys or with each other after that.

Effort Put In ≠ Satisfaction from Seeing Genuinely Happy Faces

This is the one true reason why I started out baking cakes for them, but subsequently turned to commercially churned-out ones.

Pride and obstinacy stopped me from taking the easy way out – to forget about the poor service I received and order from the bakery.  It’s a matter of principle and I’m not about to compromise.  With practically no other way out, I started researching online for dog cake recipes.  Eventually I settled on a Peanut Butter Carrot Cake with Carob Cream Cheese Frosting.

I started preparing the ingredients in the afternoon, and only realised that I should have doubled the portion when I started mixing the ingredients together.  This is one of the reasons why I don’t like to use dog cake recipes pulled off the internet, they are rarely precise in the steps description, and the portions are always wrong.  Either that, or they don’t tell you how big a cake pan to use for baking.  Thankfully, I picked a low-fuss cake which permitted time for me to prepare another portion of ingredients to be thrown in to the bowl for mixing.

Sugar and Paris were going mad (Belle was cordoned off so that we could have some time to regain our sanity) when the cake was baking away in the oven.  For some reason or another, they knew that the cake was for them.  Admittedly, the cake smelled heavenly.  I was secretly pleased that the cake was going to taste great, and not bland like other dog cakes tend to be.

Creaming the carob cream cheese frosting was easy-peasy, thanks to the heat spell Singapore is currently going through.  I know the sides didn’t look well-frosted, and would you believe me if I told you it was intentional?  Well… kinda.  I placed the cake on the serving dish before frosting and it got rather difficult to ensure a smooth layer for the sides, hence I decided to go for the ‘rugged’ look.  Besides, I was sure the girls wouldn’t mind.

We waited for the hubby to return home before commencing the celebration.  It was impossible to take a nice shot of Sugar with her birthday cake; we concluded that she is afraid of fire.  The hubby stopped me when he saw how stressed Sugar was getting with the candle burning away in close proximity.  Seems that the hubby is more in tune with the girls’ emotions than I am.  I still have much to learn.

I might be imagining things, but I thought the girls really enjoyed the cake, especially Sugar the birthday girl.  She couldn’t stop licking the carob cream cheese frosting after she ate up the cake.  And I’m pleased!

Between the 3 of them, they only ate up 5/8 of the cake on the day of Sugar’s birthday.  Too much cake in a day would be bad for them so we decided to feed them the whole cake over 2 days.

Happy Birthday once again, my sweetheart.