D e l i s i o u c i t y

I had quite forgotten that I have this food blog until I received two emails a  week ago.  One of them was the occasional bake request which I, almost by default nowadays, had to decline. The second email was a wonderful letter from a fellow baker, whose words reminded me of how much passion I have for baking and pastries. It was like a cold splash of water that woke me up to the fact that it has been at least three months since I baked anything worth blogging about – or anything sweet for that matter. Unless of course you don’t mind reading yet another recipe for lazy day, uninteresting but effortless, chicken roast. That, my friends, I have plenty of.

I’ve also come to  realize that my visitor counter has been clocking in even when I’ve been extremely quiet the past months, and I really hate to have disappointed everyone with the lack of updates. It came as no surprise that I felt the pressing need to start writing again – which literally means baking again. So here it is, my much too delayed post that I promise will be a delight to your eyes as it was to our noses and taste-buds; sweet shortcrust pastry with vanilla creme patissier (pastry cream) and fruits of the season, and of course, my part-time love, french macarons (or macaroons, as some may insist) – in the most scintillating floral scent of crushed sugared violets; Belgian dark chocolate, and marron (chestnut) paste, straight from France.

Sugared Violets

Actually, the emails I mentioned came in perfect timing. I thought, apart from updating my blog, it was a good opportunity to introduce some of the products of my baking obsession during my turn to co-host a weekly Coffee & Cake Wednesday event at the Institute where I now study. It’s simply fabulous to have these social and informal gatherings, where we would take turn to bring cakes, biscuits and other baked goodies (or non baked, in the case of chilled cheesecakes, fresh fruits and cheeses!)

I was very excited at the prospect of baking for this event, but knew that I had to plan.. because I simply did not have all my paraphernalia from home save my trusty spoonula, medium balloon whisk, small rolling pin and measuring spoons (all safely flown in by hitch-hiking my luggage bag). I purposely chose to co-host the event at the very last bit of the Michaelmas term, so I could amass my baking arsenal that is so absolutely crucial  for my bake projects, especially for the purpose of the perpetually temperamental macaron. Even so, the macarons still gave me trouble.. because now I was deprived of  the oven at home that I painstakingly learned to master over the past year. Ah well, at least about 100 macaron shells were the right texture, while the rest  were chucked into the bin, accompanied with swear words I’d rather not mention here! (but is featured here).

For the macarons, I’ve always been captivated by the sheer ‘prettiness’ of the violet scent and the nuances of floral sweetness it displays, ever since I tasted Canele’s version of the violet buttercream. Duncan of syrupandtang.com also wrote a post on using violet syrup and liquer but it can be quite tricky to capture the robustness of its flavour. Of course, I was more intrigued when Helene of mytartlette.com (yes, one of my many pastry idols!) used crushed sugared violets to merely top the shells. So when I saw some crushed violets on display at a cake shop in the Oxford Covered Market, I was simply elated…

…but only to discover that the shells didn’t work!! For some reason I thought coarser violet particles would lend more than mere subtlety in flavours to the macarons, which isn’t too much of a long shot.. but the violets sunk into the smooth batter (especially baked at low temperatures of 150C), even after the batter puffed up! So in the bin they went. Basically, learning the lingo of a completely different oven involves A LOT of experimentation. With the low temperatures that I started with, it meant that I had to increase the amount of time to bake the shells. This substantially and in effect ruined the shells because they would by then produce ‘tough cookies’ that crunch upon each bite. NO way, hozay! Macarons are supposed to be very delicate with a super-light crack and not crunchy by any means. I can only be thankful for the cheaper prices of almond meal in UK, compared to Brunei.

Apart from the largely failed (save 10 pieces?) violet macarons, I also made the usual chocolate ones with the dust of cocoa… only this time I used Belgian dark chocolate instead for the filling. French Valrhona can get very expensive and after spending a hefty sum on my new baking paraphernalia, I thought I’d just stick to Belgian from Tesco’s (ooooooh the shame!!) which firmed up too well thanks to the cold weather and/or possibly some steam escaping into the chocolate whilst I tampered it into a ganache. Still, nobody complained; instead the wonderful people from the Institute were only too kind to say the nicest things to me ^_^

For the third macaron flavour, I used chestnut paste that I found at this awesome delicatessen also at the Covered Market; a purveyor of fine foods and ingredients that is forever going to be bookmarked in my list of places to go.  Every winter that I was in London, I always always had roasted chestnuts by Oxford Street from the stocky man with the charcoal-dusted fingers, who sells them at a pound per (tiny) bag. So chestnuts have become a traditionally winter flavour in my book, and yes, I did make sure that  I bought some of the roasted ones from the very same man last week! For the macaron filling, you may find that it can be a bit watery so I thickened it with white chocolate (ganache) and a few grams of almond to lend some texture. If you’re in the mood to make your own paste, you can find some good pointers from my favourite Singaporean blogger, Karen.

Finally, the fruit tartelettes were really done on a whim so I must admit that I did not use my usual pastry recipe  (although I did find there was no trouble in having cold fingers to work the dough, thanks to the weather). I have no shame to admit that I used ready-to-roll sweet shortcrust pastry from Jus-Roll (they’re good); and here’s a recipe for creme patissier (pastry cream) that you may like to try for your mini tarts.  Simply top with any fruit you like, excluding durian, I should think:

Remember to not overwork your pastry; make sure your fingers are cold; and that the pastry cases are baked blind with parchment and pastry weight/beans/rice to hold them down.

Lastly, our little get together was co-hosted by my friend Francesca, who brought along a gorgeous semi-freddo and a block of authentic Italian Parmigiano!

See you in the next gastroventure, and do tell me what you’ve been up to!