Fraisier Cake & Financier au The*

Premium menu for March class is Fraisier, a French style Strawberry cake. In Japan we have Strawberry short cake, a lighter type of Strawberry cake with pate a genoise (sponge cake), fresh cream and strawberry. Many of the traditional French cakes use buttercream in their cakes, and so as Fraisier cake.

Following the tradition, in the class we bake biscuit genoise and make it into thin slice and sandwich with creme moussline and strawberries. The traditional Fraisier cake has marzipan on top. In the class, we will coat with strawberry nappage. I will use Korean strawberries in this class ^^*!

The second menu for this class is financier au the, a tea flavoured petit gateau. Since we use egg yolk for the Fraisier custard cream, we use egg white for this buttercake!

Here is the class schedule;

DATE:      March 4th (Sat.) 11:00am-3:00pm

                   March 9th (Thurs.) 11:00am-3:00pm

                  March 26th (Sun.) 11:00am-3:00pm – FULL           

    FEE:     RM210 (RM169  for members)

If you are interested in joining this class, kindly email me at caramelmoko@gmail.com (Tomoko).

I will be repeating this class in April. Thanks.

Thanks and I look forward to hearing from you!

Cheers,

Tomoko

March 2017 Class Schedule*

Hi there! Today I would like to post March 2017 class schedule! (Here is the class Calendar)

March 3rd is Children’s day in Japan for girls, called “Ohinamatsuri“. Japanese families with daughters put up Ohinamatsuri dolls in their houses for a month, and celebrate with special dishes such as chirashi-sushi, clam soup and strawberry cake. Each of the dish and ingredients have special meaning. For instance, having clam (hamaguri) in the soup is a wish for the girl to find her perfect soulmate, like the two identical shells of a clam!

I also put out Hinamatsuri dolls for my daughter in early February ^^.

To celebrate this event, I would like to make Fraisier, a French style strawberry cake. I also am conducting Yakigashi Special class, since school holiday is coming soon. The simple and delicious yakigashi will fill you and your family’s stomach! I believe that this can also be one of the options for the coming Ramadan baking season too!

Here is the class schedule;

1. Fraisier (French style Strawberry cake) & Financier au the – Premier Class –

French style Strawberry cake with biscuit genoise (sponge cake),

creme moussline, strawberry and strawberry nappage

Financier petit gateau with earl grey tea flavour

DATE:      March 4th (Sat.) 11:00am-3:00pm

                   March 9th (Thurs.) 11:00am-3:00pm

                  March 26th (Sun.) 11:00am-3:00pm – 1 more seat left!            

    FEE:     RM210 (RM169  for members)

2. Hokkaido Chiffon Cake & Miroir Cookie *Request* – Basic Class –

Earl grey tea flavoured chiffon cake

Miroir cookie sandwiched with Hazelnuts praline chocolat

*For details of this class, kindly refer to my post Caramel Factory Chiffon Cake & Miroir Cookie. This is an one time repeat lesson, so please don’t miss out!

DATE:      March 5th (Sun.) 11:00am-2:30pm 

    FEE:     RM200 (RM159  for members)

3. Sachertorte (Austrian style chocolate cake) & Apricot Sable *Request* – Basic Class –

Austrian style moist chocolate cake 

sandwiched and coated with apricot jam, glacage au chocolat

French style biscuit sandwiched with apricot jam

*For details of this class, kindly refer to my previous blog post Sachertorte & Apricot Sable. This is an one time repeat lesson so please don’t miss out!

DATE:      March 12th (Sun.) 1:00pm-4:30pm* Re-scheduled from 11th March. 

    FEE:     RM200 (RM159  for members)

4. Yakigashi Special – Season Special Class-

*Coffee Walnuts Pound cake

*Blueberry Cheese Tart

*Coffee Nuts Cookie

This is my first time introducing you to some coffee flavoured cake and cookies! The tasting session will be with coffee (of course, I can also make you tea), so the graduates with “Coffee & Macaron Master Course” please help me make hand-dripped coffee in the class ^c^!

DATE:      March 18th (Sat.) 11:00am-3:00pm – FULL

                  March 29th (Wed.) 11:00am-3:00pm             

    FEE:     RM250 (RM195  for members)

If you are interested in joining the class, kindly email me at caramelmoko@gmail.com (Tomoko).

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

Cheers,

Tomoko

January 2017 Class Schedule*

Another one more week and it’s New Year! Then Chinese New Year is coming. Looks like we are going to be busy planning the schedule ahead and baking for these festive period…!

Today I am posting January 2017 class schedule. My macaron class is finally back with new recipe. It’s specially designed for CNY and Valentine’s day. I will also be conducting pistachio and strawberry related classes next month. Hope that I can share joy of baking and bring some happiness to your family and friends^^…

Here is the January 2017 class schedule;

1. Love Rose Macaron: CNY & Valentine Special! – Season Special Class –

 

Big and small heart shape macarons

with framboise and rose flavour buttercream

*Macarons are made by Swiss Meringue (New recipe)!

DATE:     January 15th (Sun.) 11:00am-3:00pm – FULL

                  January 21st (Sat.) 11:00am-3:00pm

                  January 26th (Thurs.) 11:00am-3:00pm

FEE:         RM250 (RM195 for members)

 

2. Choux de Noel & Tea Snowball Cookie *Request* – Basic Class –

Wreath style Cookie Choux (Earl grey tea flavour)

with Earl grey tea creme patissiere & pistachio chantilly

For details of this class, kindly refer to my previous blog Choux de Noel & Tea Snowball Cookie.

DATE:        January 14th (Sat.) 11:00am-2:30pm 

    FEE:       RM200 (RM159  for members)

3. Pistachio Pound Cake & Chilled Yogurt *Request* – Basic Class –

Rich and moist pistachio pound cake with pitted cherry inside

 Simple chilled yogurt cake

For details of this class, kindly refer to my previous blog Pistachio Pound Cake & Chilled Yogurt class.

DATE:       January 18th (Wed.) 11:00am-2:30pm

FEE:          RM200 (RM159 for members)

4. Strawberry & Pistachio Tart *Request* – Basic Class –

Strawberry tart with pistachio creme d’amande!

For details of this class, kindly refer to my previous blog Strawberry Tart.

DATE:       January 22nd (Sun.) 11:00am-2:30pm

FEE:          RM200 (RM159 for members)

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

Thank you and have a great 2016 year end holidays!!

Cheers,

Tomoko

December 2016 Class Schedule*

Today I would like to post December 2016 class schedule. Thanks for waiting!

Christmas season is coming and I am excited to introduce some Christmas style cakes and cookies to you! “Pistachio x Red berries” is my theme for this year’s Christmas. We will make this combination into Choux wreath and Entremet layer cake. I will also be repeating some popular classes from the past such as Strawberry Short Cake and Raspberry Cheesecake. Of course, gingerbread cookie too. I myself cannot go through Christmas without baking those items!

Here is the class schedule;  *Kindly refer to Class Calendar as well.

1. Choux de Noel ~Earl Grey Tea x Pistachio~ & Tea Snowball Cookie – Basic Class –

Wreath style Cookie Choux (Earl grey tea flavour)

with Earl grey tea creme patissiere & pistachio chantilly

DATE:       December 3rd (Sat.) 11:00am-2:30pm – FULL   

                    December 18th (Sun.) 11:00am-2:30pm 

    FEE:       RM200 (RM159  for members)

 

2. Entremet de Noel ~Framboise x Pistachio~ & Sable au Citron – Premier Class –

Entremet layer cake with pistachio dacquoise, pistachio pain de gene,

raspberry mousse & vanilla mousse

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

                 December 15th (Sun.) 11:00am-3:00pm

                  December 23rd (Fri.) 11:00am-3:00pm – 1 more seat left!

    FEE:       RM210 (RM169  for members)

 

3. Strawberry Short Cake & Pate de Fruits Framboise *Repeat* – Basic Class –

Japanese style Strawberry Short Cake

Pate de Fruits, a French style jelly, in raspberry flavor 

DATE:        December 17th (Sat.) 11:00am-2:30pm 

    FEE:       RM200 (RM159  for members)

 

4. Raspberry Cheesecake & Ginger bread cookie *Repeat* – Premier Class – 

Non-baked type of layer cheesecake with sable, biscuit joconde,

and raspberry coulis in between

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

    FEE:       RM210 (RM169  for members)

 

5. Caramel Nuts Tarte & Sable Mandian – Premier Class – *Request*

Caramel Walnuts Tart

Sable Mandian, using cassonade sugar and various nuts!

DATE:        December 7th (Wed.) 11:00am-3:00pm 

    FEE:       RM210 (RM169  for members)

 

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

Thanks and I look forward to hearing from you!

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!!!

 

 

 

Sponge Cake Recipe*

Hi there!

I see a lot of people having a long weekend! Some are visiting their families and some travelling overseas for Christmas holidays… ohhh sounds fun!

As for me, I am enjoying baking and talking to my students every day. My old students have also been coming by to my shop just to say ‘hi’ to me (aside from coming to classes), and I feel very happy seeing them again! This is the cake I taught yesterday, and the balance became my breakfast this morning with Blue Mountain Blend Coffee. Yum yum!

 

 

 

So today, I would like to introduce you a simple Sponge Cake Recipe. For details of the steps, please find it in my other post – Tips to Bake a Successful Sponge Cake (I added butter details). I hope some of you get to bake this cake and celebrate your Christmas Day!!! 

 

 

 

<Genoise Recipe> 18cm/6″ round mold

Egg:                                   3pcs (180g)

All-purpose flour:          90g

Granulated sugar:         90g

Unsalted butter:             25g 

Honey:                                 5g *can be replaced with liquid glucose.

*Preheat the oven to 190 degree C.

*Double boil and melt unsalted butter with honey. Keep to 40-50 degree C.

 

1. In a mixing bowl, combine egg and granulated sugar. Put onto warm water and make it to 40-50 degree C (slightly warmer than your hand). Start whisking with high speed. Change to low speed and whisk for another few minutes.

2. Sift in all-purpose flour in 3 times and gently whisk.

3. Take one scoop of the batter and combine with melted butter and honey. Pour the batter back into the bowl and gently mix using spatula. Mix for about 20-30 times until the texture becomes shiny (butter well mixed in).

4. In a 180 degree C preheated oven, bake for 30-35 minutes. Take out from the oven and cool on a rack upside down.

5. Once its completely cooled down, decorate with whipped cream and strawberry or other fruits!

*The cake can be kept in the fridge with cling wrap for overnight before decoration. It can also be kept in the freezer for 1-2 weeks.

 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

 

Tomoko

 

 

 

 

 

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

Happy Anniversary*

It was me and my husband’s anniversary yesterday, so I made a special Strawberry Short Cake!

I like to eat Strawberry Short Cake (it’s very Japanese^^) but I seldom bake this cake because it’s tedious to make and rather costing because of strawberry and fresh cream. So every time I make this cake I do feel special!

After thinking how to decorate the cake… I decided to just go for a simple one. I initially wanted to put many strawberries on top but the strawberries I found were too big and kind of ugly…^^; so I had to slice them all into smaller pieces.

If you notice, I kept one to make into a heart shape^^*.

The cake itself is 15cm round but it is 4-tiers cake! I baked two sponge cakes and stack them up to give some height. It looks lovely and gorgeous, isn’t it^^?

It was so tasty that I probably finished more than half of the cake by myself… Japanese love to eat cream so this is no problem for me. My husband liked it too, so I was glad I managed to make our anniversary cake this year again.

I served them in my favorite tea pot & cups from Wedgewood. The tea we had was also from Wedgewood – English Breakfast. Happy Anniversary to us^^*!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you all!

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas holiday with your family and friends^^. I also spent precious time with my family and friends. I’d been quite busy for the last couple of weeks, so I was so happy to see my daughter Hanae having so much fun with us! She also became 2 years old on the day, so I made her a Christmas cake and let her have a bite! She said, “Hmmm… it’s nice~!”

She saw me pouring tea and started playing with the tea… she is a girl, after all.

When your birthday falls on the same date as those holidays, your presents or birthday cakes tend to become 2-in-1, and I feel that’s a bit pity… So I am planning to make her a Birthday Cake this weekend!

Strawberry Short Cake * December Basic class

It’s December! Christmas is coming soon, and I’m happy to announce some new exciting classes during this festive season.

This month we will be making lots of Christmas cakes! First, this is a traditional Japanese Strawberry Short Cake. It’s one of my favorite cakes to eat during the winter season in Japan. During my trip to Japan last week, I had the chance to try a few strawberry cakes in some of the best patisseries in Tokyo, so I hope to bring this delightful recipe and introduce it to all my students here! You will learn how to bake sponge cake and the tips to decorate it nicely using turning table. I am excited about this class because this simple and delicious cake is rather difficult to find in Malaysia. I miss having them!

Strawberry Short Cake I found in Japan trip (@ Les entremets de kunitachi)

Strawberry short cake and other cakes (@ Rouge blanche Denen chofu)

Each of you will bake this cake in 15cm size whole (and you also get to bring back 1 extra sponge cake). For this class, I brought back cute Santa Claus all the way from Japan, so let’s decorate your cake nicely and practice for the coming Christmas!

Another item for this class is Raspberry pate de fruits, a traditional French style jelly.

Here is the details of this class schedule.

DATE:       December 15th (Sat.) 11:00am-2:30pm      –> FULL

                    December 22nd (Sat.) 3:00pm-6:30pm      –> FULL

                    December 24th (Mon.) 11:00am-2:30pm    —> FULL

                     January 5th (Sat.) 10:30am-2:00pm <– New!        

                   *Limited to 6 students per class

    FEE:       RM180 (RM135  for members)

To register for classes, please contact me via email or sms: caramelmoko@gmail.com / 012-352-3106 (Tomoko). Thank you for visiting my blog and hope to hear from you soon!