Selecting a drink that goes with sweets is one of my pleasure!
Coffee? Tea? Hot? Iced? What kind of flavor?
When I baked Yakigashi set, I chose Blue Lady from H.R.Higgins to match with my cookies. It’s a fruit flavored tea with dried mallow flowers, dried marrygold flowers and a grapefruit flavor.
Cookies, madeleine and tarts – those that make your mouth kind of dried would go well with tea rather than coffee. Tea is also a perfect drink when you have few kinds of pastries to munch on!
The other day I made various kinds of petit tarts. If you’ve been following my blog (thanks a lot!), you should know by now that I’m a big fan of tart^^! I like its cruncy texture and butter rich flavor…
The ideal texture of tart is that when you bite onto it, it breaks easily and melts in your mouth. But I see many tarts that do not have this texture… They are as hard as a rock and you need to force break them with your fork^^; I had tart au citronin in a cafe the other day and oh my, it was exactly like that!
This happens because during tart making process the butter melted causing the tart to lose its crunchiness. Tart is rather a sensitive pastry to make.
So these are the tarts I made:
Prune & apple tart,
Caramel walnuts tart,
Pink grapefruits tart (fresh & baked) and
Fresh mango tart
The cream that I used for fresh fruits was creme diplotmate (castard cream + fresh cream). It made the tarts very juicy~.
I believe that my tart is the best! So I hope to teach my recipe and the tips to make good tarts in my baking school Caramel Factory^^!
In Japan, there is a saying Shokuyoku no Aki – “Autumn. A season for good appetites.”
There are many delicious seasonal foods and fruits in autumn such as sanma (pacific saury), kuri (chestnuts), kaki (persimum), apple, pear, grapes and so on. So this is an exciting season for the food and pastry lovers!
The other day I made “kuri no shibukawani” （栗の渋皮煮）, japanese style chestnuts in syrup. This is rather a difficult thing to make, so not so many people (even the baking lovers) intend to make on their own. I myself just used to buy them, but since I cannot get them in Malaysia^^; I decided to make on my own.
It takes about two days to make and your fingers ache from peeling off the hard chestnuts skin. ouch! The inner skin has to be remained (otherwise the value will drop), so you also have to be careful both in peeling and boiling process. That’s probably why the chestnut pastries like mont blanc are valued in Japan.
With the shibukawa ni I made, I baked Gateau Chocolat et Marron. I also used marron cream inside to make the cake moist and rich in taste.
Yummy~…^^
It tasted so good that it was worth making shibukawa ni on my own!
Last week I went to afternoon tea at Ritz Carlton Hotel with my friend! I’ve always dreamed of going to afternoon tea since I moved to Malaysia, so when my friend asked me to go there, we started looking for some places and found this Ritz Carlton Hotel English Afternoon Tea.
Classical Lobby. We received warm greetings from the staffs.
The tea they serve is from Germany called Ronnefeldt, and they had over 40 kinds of teas; from black tea to herbal tea, flavored tea and green tea. After thinking for a few minutes, I chose Darjeeling tea (Jungpana) and my friend chose Earl Grey Tea.
Left photo: Darjeeling, Right bottom: Earl Grey
This is the food trey. It came in three-tiered plates!
<First plate>
Plain scone, Apple scone, Mushroom & potato pie, Kiche
<Second Plate>
Cucumber sandwich, Salmon & creemcheese bread, Ham & cheese bread
<Third Plate>
Fruits tarte, Choux, Chocolate cake, Mango cheesecake, Cassis macaron
Since I have been making many macarons, the most curious pastry among all was this macaron. Just like its vivid color, the taste was thick and good. The crust was a bit thinner and crispier than the ones I make. I also liked their apple scone. They were all quite good.
As for Hanae, she seemed to be excited and started raising her voice as soon as we sat down. She must have felt that the place was quiet and somewhat different from where we usually go^^;. I was a bit nervous because there were some customers in other tables… but they seemed to be ok. Also, the staff was very nice and they tried to play with Hanae and gave her some buscuits. One thing I found about Malaysians is that they are so nice to babies. Wherever I take Hanae, she always gets treated well and be played by people around her. This is something you might not get in Japan (as my japanese friends agree to me, people tend to be indifferent to other people’s babies in Japan), so I feel happy about this.
Anyway, as soon as Hanae got the buscuits she grabbed them with both hands! She munched into them and made this ‘wow’ look and got even more excited. She didn’t want to let them go. I was a bit worried because the cookies looked like shortbread and chocolate chip cookies with lots of sugar, but since I was having a good time I let her enjoy herself too…
We all enjoyed having tea there. Good ambience, good food and heart warming service.
If I have a chance, I’d like to go back there again!
Caramel Factory 