Pandan Kaya Chiffon Croissant Cereal

I don't usually follow trends but this idea in my head got me so excited I just had to try it out! Presenting my pandan kaya mini chiffon croissant cereal! 

 

I was excited because it is a combination of traditional pandan kaya cake in croissant form and miniaturised as a cereal treat. There's a cereal trend several months ago but I didn't follow it until I have a reason to present my bakes that way. Not only is this visually cute, the form factor of it in bite size and eaten with fresh blueberries makes it a refreshingly good and new way of enjoying pandan kaya cake. Only thing is, it is rather time consuming to assemble a bowl of it😂! You could speed things up by making bigger croissants than I did. I made them tiny enough that you can fit a few in your mouth comfortably with a couple of blueberries. The actual baking and making of the pudding layers is very fast so feel free to assemble in a way that suits your patience level and time best. This can also be made into swiss roll form or layered cake. 

I took the chance to test out Scoop Wholefood's pandan powder for making pandan chiffon cake. Something I had been procrastinating for some time. You may make pandan juice concentrate the traditional way if you wish by blending fresh leaves with a little water, sieving and settling the juice for 3 days, and then using the concentrate that settled. 

Pandan chiffon thin layer cake

Ingredients (makes one 10 x 12" and one 7x7"cake):

Egg yolk batter

2 egg yolks 

21g pandan juice concentrate from 1tbs (heaped) pandan powder and 3tbs water*

18g coconut milk 

14g any vegetable oil

38g cake flour

A pinch of salt

1/8-1/4 tsp pandan paste

1/4 tsp vanilla extract 

Meringue

2 egg whites

15g caster sugar

15g granulated gula melaka 

1/8 tsp cream of tartar

*to make pandan juice concentrate from pandan powder with insoluble fibers, rehydrate the powder with water and let it sit for half an hour. Sieve out the liquid and weigh out 21g for baking. 

Steps: 

1. Preheat oven to 170C. Line baking trays with teflon sheet or parchment paper. 

2. Prepare egg yolk batter. Whisk together egg yolks until pale and thick. Add oil and whisk until well combined. Add coconut milk, pandan juice concentrate and flavourings and whisk until combined. Add sifted flour and salt and whisk until no trace of flour is seen. 

3. Prepare meringue. Use electric mixer to beat egg whites with cream of tartar until firm peak or just reach stiff peaks, adding sugar gradually once egg whites are foamy. Use low speed to whip egg whites for a more stable meringue with smaller air bubbles. 

4. Quickly but gently fold meringue into egg yolk batter in 3 additions. Scoop out the batter onto prepared trays and spread it out in a thin layer using an offset spatula or bench scraper. 

5. Place baking trays in oven and immediately lower to 150C and bake for 10-11min or until skewer comes out clean. Be careful not to overbake or you will have difficulty rolling the sponge without breaking it. 

6. Immediately remove from oven and flip onto fresh sheet of parchment. 

Roll the sponge into a tight roll to cool completely. In the meantime, prepare the pudding. 

Pandan kaya pudding 

A) 

100g coconut milk

5g pandan juice concentrate 

1/8 tsp pandan paste

1/8 tsp vanilla extract 

Pinch of salt

10g gula melaka

15g caster sugar (or to taste) 

75g Water

1/2 tsp agar powder

B) 

13g cornflour 

65g water

Steps:

1. Mix together ingredients in B) in a jug and set aside. 

2. Place all ingredients in A) in saucepan and bring to a boil while whisking. Make sure all agar powder is dissolved. Use medium heat. 

3. Stir contents in B) again. Pour into A) in a thin stream while whisking the contents in saucepan continuously. Continue cooking and whisking for a minute after it starts boiling again. Remove from heat. Do note that as the pudding cools, it will start to set so you will have to stir it now and then if you are not ready to assemble yet. 

Assembly

1. Unroll the cooled cakes. 

2. Spread a very thin layer of pudding on the cake and let it set for 20 min or until pudding is solid (doesn't stick onto your finger when you touch) but still soft before rolling. 

3. Cut triangles 2.5cm base by 7cm height or any preferred size. Layer cake and pudding really thin and use rolling pin gently roll flatter with pudding side down. 

Roll it up like a croissant by starting the roll from the base of the isosceles triangle, pudding side up. Leave it on a tray lined with parchment to set fully. 

You may have excess pudding. Just transfer into a jelly mould and refrigerate it. Enjoy it as a pudding treat. 

If you don't have the patience to make these minis, try cutting bigger triangles or simply make a swiss roll like the one I did below. 

The mini croissant cereal is really delicious when paired with juicy blueberries that are slightly sweet and tart, not too sour or strong tasting so that it doesn't overpower the pandan kaya flavour but rather, complements it.

Store the cake in fridge and consume within 3 days. 

With love, 

Phay Shing

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Tiger Chiffon Cake

 

Which version do you prefer? Cute🐯 or Stripy🐅 (below)?

Some of you had DM-ed me about the Recipe for making orange-chocolate Tiger chiffon cake. So here goes! Hope you will find this helpful!🤗 

Orange Chocolate Tiger chiffon cake 
4 egg yolks 
20g castor sugar 
40g vegetable oil 
45g orange/mandarin orange juice 
60g cake flour, sifted 
Orange zest (1 orange) 
1 tsp black cocoa powder in 1 tsp hot water (cocoa paste) 
@suncorefoods vermillion annatto for the color (or orange food coloring) 

4 egg whites 
45g castor sugar 
1/4 tsp cream of tartar 

Whisk egg yolks with sugar, followed by oil and juice. Add in sifted flour and whisk till well combined. Divide the batter into 1/3 and 2/3. To 1st part: add cocoa paste. To the 2nd part, add orange zest and vermillion annatto powder and mix well. 

In another mixing bowl, whisk egg whites with sugar till firm peaks. Divide the meringue into 1/3 and 2/3 and fold into each colored batter. Pipe tiger stripes at the base and inside the cake using black batter, interspersed with orange batter. 

*Tip: use a toothpick to drag the tips of your piped black stripes to make tiger stripes. 

Bake in a 7” cake pan at 140C for 1hr, or until a bamboo skewer comes out dry. 

Enjoy baking!! Tag me if you try it! See cross section of the stripes in the cake! ➡️🥰 

More pictures here.

Love and stay healthy, 
Susanne

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Yuzu Tiger Macaron Class

 Welcoming 2022 and the Year of the Tiger with these "旺旺虎” macarons!

This is the first time a group of people from the same company wants a class from me and they requested for some cute tiger macarons to welcome the Year of the Tiger. 

I will be teaching this class at Tottstore end January, just in time for Chinese New Year. Yuzu macarons where the shell is lightly yuzu flavoured and the filling is a yuzu ganache with chopped milk chocolate bits. As the group size maxed out the capacity, this class is not open for registration for others to join. Posting this here on the blog as I hope these cutely fierce tigers will put a smile on your face as we welcome 2022 and the Year of the Tiger! 

With love, 

Phay Shing 

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Tigger Chiffon Cake

 

Happy 2022 to everyone! Lunar new year is coming! So all the cute tigers are coming out to play, including Tigger! =)

Tigger is made from my favorite orange chiffon cake. Will be sharing the orange chiffon recipe in an upcoming post!🥰

Does the cake look like a plushie?😛❤

With lots of love,

Susanne

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Tiger Choux Pastry in Macaron Teacup Class

Welcoming the Year of the Tiger with three genres of bakes--- choux pastry tiger in macaron teacups with chiffon cake mandarin oranges on the side! 

We decided to replace the fortune tiger choux pastry class with this instead as it will be a class involving two genres of bakes. For the first time, I will be teaching deco choux as well as creative macarons in a single class. It will be pretty intensive but value for money based on the content and hands-on experience you will be getting. Some parts will be prebaked for you due to the limited time we have in class (we can't accomodate too many rounds of baking) but you will have the hands-on experience of piping all the pieces of choux and macarons, and assembling/decorating all the teacups and tigers. The filling taught for this creation is a savoury one--- bakkwa diplomat cream, which complements the sweet macaron and choux au craquelin very well. 

The chiffon cake mandarin oranges won't be taught in class as I have detailed recipe and  video tutorial in the blog on how to shape and decorate the oranges. 

Please refer to this link for more details and to register soon as the class is in mid-January 2022 . 

With love, 

Phay Shing 

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Dart Monkey Matcha Hojicha Macaron Carousel

"I would like a macaron carousel for my birthday" 

"Ok! Just let me know what character you want." 

That's why I made this dart monkey mini macaron carousel in my elder kid's favourite flavours --- hojicha and matcha! My elder kid is a gamer a Bloons is one of the games he plays. 

I used the swiss meringue method for making the macarons. 

Just to share photos of some of the piped batter and macaron shells... 

Piped batter of the large pieces on carousel frame

Piped batter of Dart monkeys and some darts

Carousel frame made from lightly matcha flavoured shells. 

Dart monkeys! 

The filling for macaron carousel has to be a firm one to prevent unwanted collapse during assembly and I am sharing the recipe in this post. You may replace some white chocolate with butter if you live in a colder climate. 

Matcha/ Hojicha chocolate buttercream

This is a small portion so feel free to upsize it. 

Ingredients:

55g white chocolate, finely chopped or use chips 

5g 100% dark chocolate couverture (may substitute with white chocolate. I use this to temper the sweetness of white chocolate) 

20g unsalted butter

3/4 tbs hojicha or matcha powder

1/4 tsp vanilla extract 

A pinch of salt

Steps:

1. Place everything into heatproof bowl and melt over hot water without the base of the bowl touching the water. Melt the chocolate and butter and stir to mix well. Do not overheat. Alternatively you may use microwave oven to melt in a few rounds at medium-low power in 10 second bursts. 

2. Wait for it to firm up at cool room temperature. Whip it up a little using spatula to lighten texture. 

3. Transfer into piping bag and fill the macaron shells. 

Here's another look at the carousel! 

Assembly of the structure is done using STIFF consistency royal icing.  I get some people report that their carousel frame collapse during assembly but I found out that it is either because icing isn't firm enough or they didnt wait till the icing has set fully before letting the central pillar take the weight of the roof. It is important to make sure that icing has set firm before letting central pillar take the full weight of the roof or removing external supports for assembly especially if you use a soft filling. Sometimes this requires an overnight wait. 

So glad that the birthday kid loved this! 

With lots of love, 

Phay Shing 

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Snowglobe Chiffon Cake

 

Presenting my latest experiment - a Snowglobe Cake that truly Snows!☃️❄ 

Finally succeeded after several attempts and trials (yay!!)😛😍 This is the final prototype with a Hello Kitty Snowman! I have another prototype which I will post soon =) 

Can you guess how I made it snow?❄ All the different steps are important to make the "snow" fly. 

Here's the picture before the snow. You can see the globe is empty. 

See the snowing video here! 

And here's how I did it! 

Make a small hole in the cake and fill with snow powder or icing sugar behind the snowman (swipe to the last pic here). ➡️  Remember to sift it first. This is a really important step!

Cover back the globe. Insert a needle pump into the side of the cake into the hole full of snow powder. Remember to sanitise the needle first! 

Switch on the pump or blower and let it snow!🥰❄

Hope you liked it! 

Happy holidays and stay warm!!❤❤

With lots of love,

Susanne

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Chocolate Milo Coffee Log Cake

I am gearing up for log cake marathon bake in a few days time for my extended family and a friend who have been very kind to support our family all these years. But hubby made some Milo kosong with freshly brewed drip coffee and let me have a sip of it. It is a beverage you have to engage your sense of taste and smell and take your time to let the different layers of flavours and aroma to wash over you. The malt, coffee, cocoa flavour in a creamy tasting base is such a delightful experience! So delightful that I decided to make this the flavour of the log cakes instead of the originally planned chocolate flavour alone. 

Since this is a new flavour, I had to experiment so I made one log cake in advance. It is a little tricky not to let any one of the elements overpower the others so it is a careful balance. I used decaffeinated instant coffee granules instead of drip coffee so that it is a cake kids can eat too. It is also a little more diabetic friendly as I let the malt in Milo impart some sweetness and use some maltitol to replace caster sugar for making the sponge. There isn't any added sugar on my part for the cake filling and chocolate ganache. 

Presenting my chocolate milo coffee log cake! 

The gingerbread man macaron deco is from my macaron class prep! 

I immediately thought of using diplomat cream as the cake filling as I can bloom the cocoa in the milo and dissolve the coffee granules sufficiently in a custard base. It is more stable than dairy whipped cream in hot Singapore and lighter than buttercream. 

Milo coffee diplomat cream

Ingredients :

4tbs (28g) Milo Kosong powder(you may use regular Milo powder (not the 3-in-1 types), but it is sweeter than the kosong version which has no sugar added) 

2 egg yolks

200g + 25g milk

1 satchet (2g) instant coffee granules (I use decaffeinated coffee) 

20g cornflour 

A pinch of salt 

1 tsp vanilla extract 

15g unsalted butter

60g non-dairy whipping cream (this is already pre-sweetened. You may use dairy cream but do add sugar according to taste. Feel free to use more cream if you prefer it lighter and creamier. Adjust coffee and milo amount upwards if need be to compensate. )

Steps:

1. Heat 200g milk in a small saucepan until steaming hot but not boiling. 

2. In the meantime, in a heavy bowl or glass jug, whisk together egg yolks, coffee granules, Milo kosong powder, cornflour, salt and 25g of milk. Once the milk is hot, remove from heat and pour in a thin stream into the egg yolk mixture while whisking the egg yolk mixture continuously. Pour everything back into the saucepan. 

3. Place saucepan back on medium-low heat while whisking continuously. Once mixture thickens, remove from heat and continue whisking until smooth. Place back on heat and continue to cook until custard is able to hold a soft peak. 

4. Remove from heat and add vanilla and butter and whisk until smooth. 

5. Immediately press clingwrap on surface of pastry cream and refrigerate until firm, at least 1h or overnight. 

6. When sponge is baked and ready to assemble, whip the whipping cream until stiff peaks (be careful not to over whip if using dairy cream. I use non dairy for better stability in this bake as we are distributing to various households.) 

7. Take pastry cream out of fridge and briefly whip it to loosen texture. Fold in whipped cream to make diplomat cream. 

Smooth and creamy diplomat cream! 

Chocolate chiffon sponge

You may prepare this while the pastry cream is in the fridge to set. Do note that the chocolate flavour isn't very intense as I didn't want the chocolate flavour to overpower the malt in Milo. The cake is going to be coated with chocolate ganache anyway. 

Ingredients (makes one 10x12" sheet cake) :

Egg yolk batter

3 egg yolks

10g dutch processed cocoa powder

32g boiling hot water

35g cake flour

28g canola or vegetable oil

5g maltitol or caster sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract 

1/2 tsp kahlua coffee liqueur 

A pinch of salt

1/8 tsp baking soda

Meringue

3 egg whites

1/4 tsp cream of tartar 

40g caster sugar or maltitol (I used 30g maltitol and 10g caster sugar for better stability than just pure maltitol) 

Steps :

1. Preheat oven to 170C top and bottom heat or 160C with fan. Line baking tray with parchment paper or teflon sheet. 

2. Bloom cocoa powder by adding hot water to cocoa powder. Whisk together until cocoa is dissolved. Set aside to cool to room temperature. There is no need to cover the bowl to prevent evaporation. 

3. Prepare egg yolk batter. Whisk egg yolks and sugar together. Add oil and whisk until well combined. Add cocoa powder and water mixture and whisk until well combined. Add vanilla and coffee liqueur. Sift in cake flour, salt and baking soda. Whisk until no trace of flour is seen. 

4. Prepare meringue. In a clean metal bowl, beat egg whites with cream of tartar until firm peaks or just reach stiff peak while gradually adding in sugar once the egg whites are foamy. 

5. Quickly but gently fold meringue into egg yolk batter in 3 batches. Pour batter into prepared tray. Gently tap tray on table to release trapped air bubbles. 

6. Bake for 12-14 min or until skewer comes out clean. Immediately invert on fresh sheet of parchment and roll up to cool. Cooling the sponge in rolled up position prevents it from cracking when rolling later on. 

Dark chocolate ganache

Feel free to use more cream if you live in a cold climate. It is very warm here in Singapore so I make firmer ganaches in general. 

Ingredients:

120g dark chocolate couverture (I use 73.5% but it has sugar added so it does not taste bitter)

50g dairy whipping cream

15g unsalted butter

A pinch of salt

30g Milo coffee diplomat cream (optional) 

 

Steps:

1. Place all ingredients except diplomat cream in a heatproof bowl. Gently heat and stir over a pot of hot water without the water touching the base of the bowl. 

2. Set aside the ganache to firm up. About 30min to 1h in aircon room. Or several minutes in fridge. Whip it briefly to loosen texture. 

3. Fold in diplomat cream to the whipped ganache.

Assembly

Components/ tools:

9x6"cakeboard

Serrated knife 

Chocolate sponge

Dark chocolate ganache

Milo coffee diplomat cream

Any cake decorations

Small spatula

Fork

Piping bag (optional) 

Steps:

1. Unroll the cooled sponge cake. Spread a layer of diplomat cream. 

2. Carefully roll it up like a swiss roll. Refrigerate overnight or freeze for 1-2 hours. 

3. Slice the ends of the swiss roll off with serrated knife. Stick the central log onto cakeboard with a little ganache. Coat the whole log with ganache using a small spatula. Attach the cut off pieces on the top and side of the central log. Coat the pieces with more ganache. You don't have to be super neat about this! 

4. You may pipe more diplomat cream and ganache on the cut surfaces of the cake if you wish. Use a fork to carve out the bark pattern on the log. 

5. Attach any decorations as you wish! 

This cake can be kept refrigerated for a week or longer in the freezer. If freezing, thaw it a day or two earlier in the fridge before serving.

Update:

You may assemble the log cake as a stump cake if you don't have a rectangular cakeboard. Glad to have finished all in time! 

The rest are all in log form... 

With love, 

Phay Shing

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Double Chocolate Mint Reindeer Chiffon Cake

Cute Double Chocolate Mint Reindeer Chiffon Cake! 🦌🎂!! 

Cake is super yummy, try it! ❤ Made with @oki.singapore oil! 

Video tutorial here:

Double Choc Mint Chiffon Cake 
3 egg yolks
25g castor sugar
20g dark couverture chocolate (55%)
45g oki sunflower oil
56g water
20g cocoa powder
55g cake flour
½ tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
6g mint extract
4 egg whites
55g castor sugar
¼ tsp cream of tartar 

1. Melt the dark chocolate using a bain-marie. 
2. Bloom the cocoa powder in 40g hot water. 
3. Whisk egg yolks with sugar. Add oil and whisk well. 
4. Add in the bloomed cocoa powder, reserved 16g water and mint extract. Whisk well. 
5. Stir in melted chocolate. 
6. Whisk in sifted cake flour, baking powder and salt till smooth. 
7. Whisk egg whites with cream of tartar till foamy, then add in castor sugar gradually and whisk till firm peaks. 
8. Fold the chocolate batter into the meringue in 3 parts. 
9. Bake at 140oC for 45 min. 
10. Allow to cool completely before unmolding. 
11. Melt 60g white chocolate using a bain-marie. Temper the chocolate by tabling. Pipe the tempered chocolate to make reindeer antlers. Paint with gold dust. 
12. Cut out shapes needed for decoration from colored chiffon sheet cakes. 
13. Assemble the reindeer‘s features and antlers. Enjoy!  

With lots of love,

Susanne

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Gingerbread Man Macaron Class

This is the first time I am sharing a swiss meringue method class for character macarons using dark brown sugar and cinnamon to flavour and colour the macaron shells! Presenting my gingerbread man macarons! 

The filling is of course gingerbread spice flavoured and I have chosen white chocolate ganache as the base in hot Singapore, but I temper the sweetness with a little 100% dark chocolate and a fruity acidity from freeze-dried passionfruit powder. 

This class with Tottstore is already full that's why I didn't put up the ad here in the blog earlier. I thought this picture of the gingerbread man is pretty much kawaii and I had to share it!

I hope many of you are able to have a joyous Christmas despite Covid still going on with many restrictions still in place in many parts of the world. Stay safe and stay warm! 

With love, 

Phay Shing 

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Pokemon vs Dinosaurs Macaron Scene

This is one bake that took a lot of time and planning to create because of the many elements involved! An epic battle between Pokemon and dinosaurs in space! 

I had trouble taking photos of this because something tends to be obscured no matter which angle I take it from 😅. 

Here's a better view of the individual characters. 

T-rex and stegosaurus vs Snorlax, Bulbasaur, Pikachu and Scorbunny! 

I used the swiss meringue method for making the characters, landscape and backdrop. I flavoured and coloured the large macaron pieces with freeze-dried raspberry powder and cocoa powder. 

The cratered landscape is made by using silicone cupcake cases, and waiting for a sticky membrane to form before piping on more "bumps" on the surface and using toothpick to roughen up the surface. 

The batter looks more pinkish now but more brown later on because raspberry powder oxidises when exposed to air and during baking. 

Baked macaron shells for the landscape

The large backdrop is decorated using royal icing but I made the planets using royal icing transfers and painted in the details with edible marker and vodka wash. 

Preparing royal icing transfers for the planets. Dry this thoroughly before adding in the details. 

The backdrop is made by carefully placing the icing transfers onto wet black icing dotted with stars. Use flooding consistency for the royal icing work. 

A look at the undecorated character macaron shells. 

I actually made two full sets just in case of accidental "uglification"or butter fingers 😂. 

The macarons are filled with raspberry swiss meringue buttercream with a little cocoa powder added (for a more brownish hue) , and dark chocolate ganache. I added some reduced raspberry puree (cooking puree over low heat until some water evaporates) into the smbc with ratio of 1:4, and added more freeze-dried raspberry powder. I didn't measure how much freeze-dried powder and cocoa powder went into the smbc but went according to taste and colour. 

I added some crunchy chocolate balls in the craters for some added difference in texture. 

Putting the backdrop and landscape together. 

This was an epic project for me as well! Thank God I managed it! 

With love, 

Phay Shing

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My Melody Winter Chiffon Cake

Hello December! Please keep yourself warm🥰 

Does she melt your heart?❤  

Just a simple My Melody chiffon cake, Christmas version. Hope you like it! 

With love, 

Susanne

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Sugar-Free Chocolate Peanut Tonkatsu Cakepops

This is the third year I am making a Tonkatsu bake for hubby's birthday. Previously, I made choux pastry and oatmeal cookies. This year, I decided to try a sugar-free dark chocolate peanut cakepop! 

Even the nose is made of sugar-free shortbread cookie! 

Tonkatsu always likes to pour sauce on himself to make him more palatable. 

Do note that although I used maltitol here, you may replace with regular icing sugar for the cookie nose and caster sugar for the cake and pastry cream. 

Shortbread cookie nose

Ingredients :

5g sugar (I use maltitol, you may use regular icing sugar) 

10g unsalted butter

15g plain flour 

A little strawberry emulco (may replacs with food colouring) 

Steps:

1. Mix butter and sugar together. 

2. Add sifted flour and form a dough. 

3. Add strawberry emulco a toothpick dip worth at a time until desired shade is reached. 

4. Shape into 5mm ovals and place on lined baking tray. 

5. Freeze tray while preheating oven to 150C.

6. Bake for 10-15 min. Note temperature and time may vary depending on oven. 

Chocolate cake sponge

Ingredients (makes one 7x7" square pan or 7.5"round pan) :

20g alkalized cocoa powder

36g boiling water

33g vegetable oil

22g egg yolks 

54g egg whites

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp coffee kahlua liqueur (may replace with vanilla) 

45g cake flour/ plain flour or combi

83g sugar (I used maltitol but you maybuse regular caster sugar) 

1/2 + 1/8 tsp baking powder

1/4 + 1/12 tsp baking soda

1/8 tsp salt

Steps:

1. Place cocoa powder in mixing bowl. Pour boling hot water into bowl and whisk until a paste forms. Cover bowl with cling wrap and let the paste cool to room temprature. 

2. In the mean time, sift together flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside. Preheat oven to 170C. Line baking tray with parchment paper. 

3. Add egg yolks and oil to the chocolate paste and use electric mixer to mix until well combined and buttercream-like in texture. 

4. Add in sifted flour mixture and use mixer to mix until well combined.

5. In a clean metal bowl, beat egg whites until frothy. There is no need to whip it up until meringue texture. Add to the batter, along with flavourings. Use electric mixer to mix well for 2 minutes. 

6. Bake for 25min or until skewer comes out clean. 

7. Cool completely before breaking it up into fine crumbs. 

Chocolate sponge adapted from Rose Levy Beranbaum's German chocolate cake recipe. The sponge alone may not be out of this world. But when paired with the pastry cream, it is! That's why this combo and variations of it is my default for chocolate cake requests. 

Sponge cake crumbs

Chocolate pastry cream

Ingredients:

1 egg yolk

125g milk

15g sugar (I used maltitol but you may use regular caster sugar, adjust amount according to taste) 

10g cornflour 

8g cocoa powder

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp kahlua coffee liqueur 

A pinch of salt

8g unsalted butter

10g 100% dark chocolate couverture (you may use lower percentage but I am going for sugar-free, you may add more or omit according to taste) 

10g freeze-dried raspberry powder (optional, added for a little acidity) 

10-20g heavy cream (optional) 

Steps:

1. Heat milk and flavourings in a small saucepan until steaming but not boiling. 

2. In the mean time, whisk together egg yolk, cornflour, cocoa powder, raspberry powder(if using), sugar and salt together. 

3. Pour hot milk in a thin stream into egg yolk mixture, whisking the egg yolk mox continuously. Pour everything back into saucepan and cook over low heat, whisking continuously. Once mixture thickens, remove from heat and whisk continuously to smooth out. Put it back on heat and continue cooking for a couple of minutes more. 

4. Remove from heat and add butter and chocolate couverture. Add some heavy cream if you wish to lighten the texture further and increase water content of the pastry cream. Press cling wrap on surface of pastry cream and refrigerate for at least 1h.

Freshly made pastry cream! 

Tonkatsu Cakepops

Ingredients(makes about twelve to fifteen 25-30g cakepops) :

All the chocolate sponge crumbled

All the pastry cream

Some peanut butter (I use no sugar no salt added 100% peanut) 

Some ground peanut powder sifted through coarse sieve (to remove really large pieces) 

Shortbread noses

Chocolate sprinkles (for eyes) 

Steps:

1. Add pastry cream to crumbed cake to form a dough ball. Divide into balls of 25-30g each. 

2. Coat the ball of cake with a thin layer of peanut butter, and then roll it in a dish of sifted peanut flour. 

3. Shape the coated cakepop into Tonkatsu shape. Use toothpick to gouge out a depression where the nose is supposed to go. Pipe some peanut butter into the cavity amd stick on the nose. 

4. Do the same with the eyes, using chocolate ball sprinkles for the eyes. 

5. Shape the hands and feet using some peanut butter and powdered peanut mixed together. Gouge out a little peanut layer on the cakepop before using peanut butter to glue on the limbs. 

6. Keep refrigerated in airtight container. Best consumed within a week. 

A peek at what it looks like after a bite! 

With lots of love, 

Phay Shing

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