September & October 2016 Class Schedule*

Hi there!

August passed very fast for me. The exciting Rio Olympic games is about to be finished. I was supporting Japanese players and also Malaysian players every night and morning… I especially liked the swimming part! In the meantime, my daughter had a long school holiday and despite us planning to do things with her, our family fell sick one by one… from either fever or food poisoning during her entire holiday^^; So we ended up watching the Olympic games and doing some non-physical activities in and around our house. In any case, it was an interesting summer holiday for me and I am glad my family is well now. Nothing beats staying healthy!

I would like to post September & October 2016 class schedule today, as I will be going back to Japan in the middle of October to early November. Summer is ending and autumn is coming, and I would like to introduce a couple of new yummy autumn recipes. Let’s enjoy the apple fiesta in the next two months ^^*!

Here is the class schedule; and kindly refer to the Class Calendar, too.

 

<September & October 2016 Class Schedule>

1. Apple Tartin Pound Cake & Vanilla Kipferl – Basic Class –

An upside down apple cake with caramelised apple 

It’s a moist pound cake that tastes like apple pie!

Vanilla Kipferl is a melty vanilla biscuit

 

DATE:   September 24th (Sat.) 11:00am-2:30pm – FULL

               September 29th (Thurs.) 11:00am-2:30pm

               October 8th (Sat.) 11:00am-2:30pm <—New Date!

   FEE:    RM200 (RM159 for members)

 

2. Tart au Pomme (Apple Tart) & Kinako Madeleine – Premier Class –

 

Apple tart with creme d’amande, apple comport, and fresh apple on top.

Glazed with caramelized sugar and apricot jam.

Kinako madeleine

DATE:   September 25th (Sun.) 11:00am-3:00pm – 1 more seat left!

               October 1st (Sat.) 11:00am-3:00pm – 1 more seat left!

   FEE:    RM210 (RM169 for members)

 

3. Valencia ~Sadaharu Aoki Style Entremet Cake & Gianduja Sable~ – Premier Class –

Dacquoise, Chocolat Mousse, Chocolat Biscuit, Orange Mousse

with crunchy paillete feilletine

Hazelnuts cookie sandwiched with praline chocolat

 

DATE:     September 10th (Sat.) 11:00am-3:00pm – FULL

                 September 15th (Thurs.) 11:00am-3:00pm – FULL

   FEE:     RM210 (RM169 for members)

 

4. Foret Noir (Black Forest) Cake & Hazelnuts Praline Sable *Request* – Premier Class –

Classic black forest cake layered with chocolate mousse, cherry and cream

Hazelnuts cookie sandwiched with praline chocolat

DATE:       September 17th (Sat.) 11:00am-3:00pm – FULL

                   October 6th (Thurs.) 11:00am-3:00pm     

    FEE:       RM210 (RM169  for members)

 

5. “Beard Papa Style” Japanese Cookie Choux & Caramel Finacier – Basic Class – *Request*

Jumbo choux filled with melty Japanese creme patissiere

and crunchy biscuit on top.

Caramel finacier with melty caramel on top

DATE&TIME:       September 21st (Wed.) 10:30am-2:00pm – FULL

    FEE:                    RM200 (RM159  for members)

 

For registration, kindly email me at caramelmoko@gmail.com (Tomoko).

Thanks and I look forward to hearing from you!!!

Cheers,

Tomoko

 

Japanese Strawberry Short Cake*

 

Strawberry season is here~!

I just finished Strawberry Short Cake class today. Thank you for students who joined the class ^^*. I hope you enjoyed this very Japanese cake! We grow up having this cake in every special occasions such as birthdays, X’mas and even for the weddings. It’s a common yet special cake for us.

 

 

The other day, I made this cake for our friend who came to our house on his very birthday. It was a surprise birthday cake for him! My kids rushed to the kitchen as soon as they saw me putting strawberries on top…

 

 

To join happy birthday song and to blow the candles…

 

 

Happy Birthday to you~♪

Look at how strawberry short cake can make people happy…

My birthday is coming soon, so I am planning to bake this cake again soon!!!

 

 

 

Wrapping up 2014!

 

It’s been a very busy month for me! I blinked and it’s already the end of the year! My family and friends in Japan have already started their Christmas & New Year Holidays (in Japan, this is our biggest holiday of the year) and I am excited to spend my New Year holidays with my family in Singapore next week! Before that, I have a few more classes to go~. I have been enjoying baking many Christmas cakes & cookies with my students this month. I also baked a large Black Forest Cake for my daughter’s 4th Birthday party yesterday. Look!

I was thinking what birthday cake to bake until the last minute, but I ended up making this Black Forest because it was so popular among my students ^^. I also baked some macarons in pink and purple color, with my favorite vanilla and chocolate flavors.

 

I made over 100 pcs and they were snapped up within a few minutes! Yeppie~! I am thinking of baking Strawberry Short Cake for Christmas. So what’s your ‘baking plan’ for the holiday?

By the way, sorry to keep you all waiting for the January 2015 schedule. I will be posting them tomorrow, so please keep yourself posted. Thanks a lot for always supporting me and Caramel Factory!

Cheers, Tomoko

 

 

 

Foret Noir Cake & Hazelnuts Praline Sable*

It’s December! Christmas and Year end is coming, and everyone must be getting busier for the coming gathering and events…!

In Japanese culture, we traditionally do a big house clean-up called “Oosouji” (大掃除) and also prepare New Year cards called “nengajyou”（年賀状）around this time. I called my mother yesterday and she was in the midst of making cards, haha. I won’t be making cards but I am slowly packing up my house so that we can start our New Year feeling fresh!

I am also excited to bake many cookies and cakes this month!

This is one of our Christmas Cake menu; Foret Noir (Black Forest). It’s a three layer cake with chocolate mousse and cherry inside. We will bake buscuit chocolat, chocolate cake using almond powder. The decoration part is always tedious but hope we can all finish up nicely!

Another recipe for this class is Hazelnuts Praline Sable. This is a crunchy hazelnuts cookie sandwiched with praline chocolate. You can have it in room temperature but i like to eat it cold, too!

Here are the class schedules;

DATE:       December 7th (Sun.) 11:00am-3:00pm – FULL

                    December 12th (Fri.) 11:00am-3:00pm – FULL

                    December 20th (Sat.) 11:00am-3:00pm – FULL       

    FEE:       RM210 (RM169  for members)

If you are interested in class, please contact me at caramelmoko@gmail.com (Tomoko). Thank you!

Tips to bake a successful Sponge cake!

I won’t be teaching Strawberry Short Cake this year for Christmas lesson, but if you are thinking of baking this cake for your special day, here are some tips!

1. Egg temperature (40-50 degree C):

     Before whisking egg with sugar, warm up to 40-50 degree C. Do not warm higher than that, as it will make the cake too fluffy (I will explain to you later) or in worse case, make boiled egg ^^;

2. Whisking Egg

After warming the egg to 40-50 degree C, immediately whisk with hand-mixer high speed. This process will make the egg become easily fluffy, however, Do not whisk it too long, as ‘too fluffy’ texture (big air) causes the cake to “shrink” after you bake. The ideal texture is when you lift up the batter, it will drop and you see a ribbon line disappear in 1-2 seconds.

*In my class, if the cake looked very nice and shiny before you put into the oven but sink after you take out, that’s most probably you over-mixed in this step.

The important part is to shift the hand-mixer to low speed and mix for another few minutes. You need to break the big bubble into smaller and finer bubble. This will make the cake stable and it will not easily break the air during later part. If your mixer is too powerful and you are not sure whether the bubble became fine, just gently whisk with hand for about 50 times (ribbon disappear in 2-3 seconds). There is no harm for gently whisking for a long time ‘before’ you add in flour or butter.

3. Sugar (Granulated sugar or Caster sugar)

     Sugar is very important in making this cake, for moisture and also to stablize the cake. And that’s why genoise always have quite an amount of sugar. So Do not simply change the amount so much from the recipe.

     Also, I’d like to mention here that Caster sugar is slightly finer than Granulated sugar. So if you want to have more moisture and finer cake, you can try using Caster sugar.

4. Adding flour and butter

     When you add flour and butter, careful not to ‘over-mix’. Add flour in about 2-3 times and gently whisk about 5 times each time you add in flour. I normally use whisk and not spatula for this process as it is easier for flour to dissolve into the batter. But when you mix in butter, change to spatula and gently mix for 20-30 times from the bottom of the bowl. If the batter becomes darker yellow and watery, it means you have mixed too much.

     *Butter temperature should be about 40-50 degree. The cold butter wouldn’t mix in well with the batter, and the hot one will kill the air bubble and make a dense and hard cake. I usually melt the butter and leave it in a warm water until use.

5. Pouring into the mold

     Try to pour the batter into a prepared mold all at once. If you touch the batter too many times, the bubble will break and the batter becomes too heavy, once again. If the last batter looks too thick (dark yellow), you either pour at the edge (not in the center), or don’t even bother to pour into the mold.

6. After bake

    After you take out from the oven, drop once or twice from 10cm high on the table top and flip upside down onto the rack while to cool down. The fluffy sponge cannot resist the gravity so it will sink if you don’t flip. 

Keeping those points in mind, I hope you can successfully make a sponge cake and decorate them nicely for your Christmas day!

Cheers,

Tomoko

Anniversary Cake!

Five years have passed since I moved to Malaysia! I moved to Malaysia on Apr.16th 2006. Still cleary remember the day – my family sent me off to Narita Airport (except my father who took off to NY the previous month), and 7 hours later I was warmly welcomed by my husband’s family in KLIA.

People normally say “Time flies” and I do too, but trying to look back what I’ve done in the last 5 years and can barely remember some of the memories, I feel that it was quite a long path for me.

By the way, this cake I’m showing you is what I baked at the end of last year (not yesterday) for my 4th wedding anniversary!

I started keeping Japanese blogs when I moved to Malaysia. It was quite a personal blog mostly for my family and friends to update my status here, and reading my posts sometimes make me surprise of how I’ve thought at that time and how I’ve changed in this period.

I guess 25-30 years old is a time of big change in life, and now that I’ve become 30 years old (and a mother too!) I feel like I’m entering a different stage of my life; with more responsibility and matureness.

I still wonder how much I know about Malaysia and its culture and how much I could adjust to it, but one thing I can say is that I really appreciate my husband for understanding me and being by my side all these years with love and care, even in the times of hardships, and also his family and friends around that supported us.

By pursuing my dream (which is to make baking into my career), I’m hoping to learn more about this country, becoming more independent and find my comfortable position in this country.