Godzilla Cake Topper

Hello!
So two weeks ago, Godzilla the movie came out and it was BAD-ASS. My lil bro, is the biggest Godzilla fan ever and his birthday fell ont eh week after the movie was released. So this year, mostly everythign he received was Godzilla based!
I took the liberty of decorating his cake, since I did not have time to bake him one from scratch, we ordered form a local cake-maker in Edmonton and I had a blank canvas to play with.
The cake topper is around 12 inches for a 10 inch cake, made from a rice crispy structure and covered with molding chocolate and fondant detailing, Food color was used to get Godzilla's greenish hue. The topper took me six hours to construct and sculpt, with overnight hardening and another hour to add detailing like the spikes (made form fondant).

Molding Chocolate Recipe.
250 grams dark choclate
1/4 cup corn syrup

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler. Let cool for 10 minutes on your counter, Stir in the corn syrup and stir until combined into a paste-like consistency. Place in an air tight container and leave in the fridge for 2 hours.
Knead to soften before use!

  

   

 

  

 

 

Fresh Fruit Tart with Vanilla Creme Diplomat

It's Fall and I decided to make a not-so-Fall dessert: a fruit tart.
I have never been a fan of fresh fruit tarts although I always found them very pretty to look at. My brother would always get a few when we drop into a Chinese/Hong Kong bakery while I stuck to my cream puffs or egg tarts.

I've never made a fruit tart. I know how to make the separate components and how the tart is put together but I never made it because I never liked them. I decided to suck it up and use fruits that I would normally like to eat (I'm not a huge fruit-eater either) and make a large tart for the family (mostly for my brother).
I made a shortcrust pastry and instead of the usual pastry cream filling, I made a creme diplomat. Creme diplomat is essentially pastry cream with whipped cream folded into it for a lighter cream. THAT was deliscious.

Creme Diplomat

2 cups milk
1 vanilla pod or 1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tbsp Cointreau liqueur
3 eggs
2 egg yolks
1/2 cups all purpose flour; sifted
1 tbsp unsalted butter

1 1/2 cup heavy cream, whipped

Creme Patisserie 
In a saucepan, heat milk, vanilla and 1/4 sugar on medium heat and stir occasionally. When milk bubbles, remove from heat and set aside.

In a stainless steel bowl, whisk remaining sugar, liqueur,and flour until well blended and sugar has dissolved. Slowly add in a ladle of the hot milk while stirring the egg mixture constantly to avoid scrambling the eggs. Continue doing this until all the milk has been used.
Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and cook on medium heat, stirring constantly with a whisk until the mixture thickens. Remove from heat, remove the vanilla beans (using a sieve helps) and stir in butter.
Cool the cream completely and quickly by lining a shallow baking tray with plastic wrap and spreading the cream on the tray. Cover cream with another layer of plastic, placing it directly onto the cream to avoid a skin to form on the surface.

Once the cream cools completely, transfer to a clean bowl and fold in the whipped cream. Chill in the fridge for 1 hour before placing in tart shell. Voila! Store in a air-tight container for up to 3 days.

Creme Diplomat complete!

Shortcrust pastry

 

Fruit! Plums, peaches, kiwi, strawberries, mango, and oranges.

 

Mini fruit tarts from leftover ingredients!

Ube and Pandan Kaya Birthday Cake

Today was my mom's birthday and instead of ordering a cake, I thought I'd try my hand at one of the complex exotic cakes that is enjoyed in South/Southeast Asia. The cake is a fusion of Pandan Kaya Cake and Ube Macapuno Cake. Pandan is a tropical plant that is used as a flavoring for food and especially desserts. It gives off a green tone when used and is attractive in desserts. Ube is basically purple yam that is sweet and holds a magnificently rich, purple color. Macapuno is just young coconut meat that has been sliced and preserved in syrup. It is used as a filling paired with ube in Filipino cakes.
Since my mom loves pandan cake, coconut and the color purple, I fused the two together to create a green and purple-layered cake via an inspiration photo I found online. The layers of cake are filled with a buttercream and macapuno frosting. The entire cake is enclosed in "kaya," a solid, gelatinous casing made of coconut cream, pandan, sugar and agar-agar. Once chilled, the kaya keeps the cake moist and adds an extra bit of coolness to the cake to be enjoyed on hot days.
I decorated the cake with some whipped cream roses, which are hard as heck to make! I should have used a stiffer frosting or a stabilized whipped cream recipe but I didn't think of it...darn; next time.
This is also my first time to ever do any fancy-schmancy piping work on a dessert...so cut me some slack! Ahahaha! (I need to go get some lessons on piping >.<)

The cake took me two days to complete, with baking and chillin time or whatnot. Because I used preserved ube jam, the ube cake layers were too sweet for my liking, so I will get my hands on fresh purple yams for next time.
My mom was pretty stoked that I knew how to make this cake because it's always been a hassle to pre-order one.
I will try to make a taro-filled chiffon cake in the near future (which will be purple). :)

Makeshift mold extension for the kaya mixture.

Mommy cutting the cake!

Chewy Caramel Almond Candy

Um...I actually have no idea what this would be called but it's a type of candy in Vietnam that originally has peanuts and chewy caramel sandwiched between two thin pieces of rice wafers. My mom wanted to make this after we found ready-made wafers at the Italian supermarket. Instead of peanuts, we used almonds, roasted and arranged on the wafer rounds, which I then smothered with the caramel. I never made chewy caramel before so this was something new for me. And my verdict? I loved it. Buttery and not too sweet cause of the little bit of salt added. My mom and I want to sprinkle on some course sea salt in our next batch for an extra kick in the tastebuds. Yum Yum Yum!!!

Chewy Caramel

1 cup corn syrup or 1/2 cup honey and 1/2 cup agave nectar
1 cup of sugar
2 tsp of salt
1 tsp vanilla

In a non-stick pot or saucepan, combine all ingredients and leave the heat on medium-high until the mixture begins to boil. Stir slowly with a wooden spoon until the mixture seems thickened, golden and all the sugar has dissolved. Stir in 1/4 cup butter, on medium heat, until the mixture is foamy and light. Remove from heat, and stir until the tiny bubbles disappear and leave to cool for around 2-3 minutes, until it is thick enough to coat the spoon. Pour on the pre-arranged almonds and wafer, careful to no go over the edge.
Let to set completely for 2 hours or over night.

Che Troi Nuoc-Glutinous Dumplings in Ginger Syrup

Also known as "Che Xoi Nuoc" in the southern regions of Vietnam, the dessert literally means "floating in water" dessert, due to how the dumplings rise or "float" to the surface of the boiling water as soon as it is cooked.
This is a dish that my grandfather loved when he was with us and since today was 3 weeks since his passing, as an offering, I made him his favorite dessert.
The dough is made of glutinous rice flour and water, mixed to the right dough consistency. Each dumpling is filled with a slightly savory filling of mashed mung beans, salt and deep fried leeks. Afrter the dumplings are boiled and cooked through, they are let to simmer in a pot of palm sugar, water, and ginger until the syrup browns and sweetens the outside of the dumplings. This dish is usually served with a coconut reduction and toasted sesame seeds but my grandpa always opted out of those condiments, so I made it without.

Somalia Charity Bake Sale

I'm part of a Sociology club at my university and we joined another club to help fund raise for the Somalia Famine. Most of us fasted while other managed a bake sale. My contribution was 3 dozen Somalia-themed cupcakes, in vanilla and chocolate flavors (blue cupcake is just vanilla with blue food coloring) with good-ol' buttercream icing. For the blue tints in the icing, I used a duo-tone swirl technique for the blue swirls and the dollop of icing I sprayed with blue cake graffiti spray by Duff. The stars where homemade by piping out stars with melted white chocolate on parchment paper.
We raised a total of $750 sum over the course of three days for the bake sale.
It was rad!

The Somalia Flag

 

 

With a little of batter left over, I made mini cupcakes! <3

Oreo and Chocolate Chip Cookie Brownies

 

I came across this idea somewhere on the web but never got a chance to try it out until now. It's simply a very sweet and fudgey, brownie with a chocolate chip cookie base and oreo cookies in the center. I must say that this must be the sweetest dessert that i have every made, so sweet that I decided to cut it into small morsels, something like fudge cubes. I made these morsels for a farewell, campfire party for my best-est friend, who is moving to another province. I'm glad she and her guests enoughed this insanely sweet treat.