Piece Montée

A piece montée, which means "mounted piece" in French, also commonly known as croquembouche, refers to an assembled structure of cream puffs to form a towering dessert centerpiece. Cream puffs are truly reminiscent of my childhood; my mum made the best and whilst I love eating them, I've never attempted making cream puffs before. Pâte à choux was on my to-bake-before-Paris list, so I was extremely excited when I first learned about May's challenge. The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri. 

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It finally puffed!! Puffed Pastry Tarte Tatin

I went for the stars on my first attempt on pâte feuilletée. Instead of the regular pâte feuilletée, I was overly ambitious and attempted the inversée de Pierre Herme! I'm not sure what I was thinking (or drinking) that day! It was a hot day, 80˚F outdoors (I wonder where have all the warm weather days disappeared to lately?!), my beurre sec was not truly "sec" and with

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Catching Up

It seemed like time stood still the past week. A week away from the internet, a hiatus from blogging and minimal to zero indulgence on time-wasters like one of 'em social networking sites. I needed to re-prioritize and re-focus on the most critical part of life that I've somehow neglected. I've often heard of how a minute or a phone call or a doctor's report can impact one's life deeply. Still, despite our personal experiences not too long ago, last week's news were totally unexpected.

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Barefoot Bloggers: Spring Green Risotto

This month's Barefoot Bloggers first pick by Kimberly of Indulge and Enjoy is a refreshing break from baking for me. I hardly make risotto and when I did, I served it with proteins, so Ina's Spring Green Risotto is certainly a welcoming change.

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Great Expectations

It seemed that life just flashes before my eyes in the past couple weeks. Since D and I both made the decision that I should go absolutely go for IT, the wheels were set in motion and everything happened so fast. It hasn't even been a month since I got my acceptance letter from the pastry school. It was only a week ago that I visited the French Consulate to get all the necessary travel paperwork out of the way. But in exactly 3 weeks, after 10 full months of "career hiatus" -

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TWD: Classic Berry Tarts

I’ve been looking for a simple, yet elegant and impressive dessert to serve or to bring to parties. Eureka! I think I’ve found it in this week’s pick: Classic Berry Tart by Cristine of Cooking with Cristine. And to think that I was almost going to skip this week’s bake, especially with all the ongoing preparations for the move!

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Keeping it real

Earlier this week, I posted some photos of my first foray into ice-cream making. I'm a, what the French say, débutante, when it comes to photography; up until beginning of this year, I've only been shooting with a simple point-and-shoot camera.  The ice-cream photoshoot was one of the most frustrating one that I've ever come across since I started to get more serious with photography - food photography, actually - and started shooting with a digital SLR. It was a hot day, thus I had to work fast to prep, style, get the props ready and shoot all at the same time. Definitely a true test to my multi-tasking ability! I was completely dissatisfied with the shots.

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Financier and decisions, decisions, decisions!

When I had my first financier, I was still a financier but had no idea that the it was called a financier. Now, isn't that a cute play on words? Alright, alright, I'll spare you the agony.

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TWD: Burnt Sugar Ice Cream

My very first ice cream maker! My very first attempt at making ice cream!! And it will definitely not be the last. In fact, I love this whole process of making ice cream so much that I've already put the ice cream maker tub back to freeze to get it ready for the next batch! Ah, the joys of discovering something new. Something wonderful. Something as simple as making ice cream. Thanks to Becky of Project Domestication for this week's pick. Certainly a refreshing change after the cakes, cookies and tarts we've been making. Timing is definitely perfect as we get ready for the summertime.

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