This cookie recipe was adapted from Lee Bailey’s book Country Desserts. 

The best thing about these cookies are how moist, light and fluffy they are. Delicious! 

Makes 15 cookies. 

1 cup sifted all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

140 g. butter

1 cup brown sugar

1/8 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

3/4 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts (I used sliced almonds)

4 1/2 oounces bittersweet chocolate coarsely chopped. 

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees

Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. 

Cream the butter and sugars until smooth, about 4 minutes. Add the egg and mix well. Add the flour mixture and beat thoroughly. Stir in the vanilla, then fold in the nuts and then the chocolate. 

Drop in 2 tablespoon clumps onto an ungreased cookie sheet, leaving several inches between for expansion.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the bottoms are lightly browned. Repeat with remaining batter until used up. 

Ganache filling:

140 g. dark chocolate

120 g. whipping cream

60 g. butter

25 g. Disaronno

4 tbsp ground almonds

14 g. glucose

After a long hiatus of not blogging, I’m back! Mainly because I’m currently not employed. Work at the bakery was slowing down and the owner was making all the wrong decisions and being a jerk.  I’m back to looking for a job. 

I made these chocolates a couple of weeks ago while I was visiting Montreal. Tempering them took a while because the room was so hot. It was so cold out that the heat was really high which isn’t so great when you’re trying to temper. This ganache turned out really good. 

You heat the cream, glucose, butter and pout it over the chocolate. Wait 30 seconds, then stir with a spatula, add the liqueur. I poured it on a flat tray and refrigerated for an hour until I was ready to pipe them in the moulds. I still had some ganache leftover to fill French macarons! I also brushed some gold dust on top. 

This tart was one of the last desserts I made for The Union, the restaurant I was working at when I last posted an entry. My last entry was so long ago, we were in a different season! So much has happened since my last post. I left the restaurant to work in a bakery that I thought would be more challenging. I lasted 4 days before the chef fired me. I was devastated. I tried a couple of other places that didn’t work out before I was hired at Chopain bakery and I’ve been working there ever since. I’m learning so much and I’m excited about sharing all my new skills. I’m also excited about new projects I’m planning to start soon like a cooking show on youtube!

Recipe:

http://newasiancuisine.com/329-pichet-chocolate-vietnamese.html

If you love the coffee and chocolate combination, this is definitely for you. I’m really happy with the way this tart turned out. One of the best recipes from The Sweet Spot book by Pichet Ong (pastry chef of The Spice Market in NYC)

I was at the thrift store last week and found the most incredible cookbook. It’s a Quebecois cookbook in French called La Cuisine Raisonnee. I’ve never heard of this book before but the recipes were very traditional from Quebec and half of the book is devoted to desserts. The only photos are black and white archival pictures from the 20’s to the 60’s of women cooking. I bought it for $4, went home and did some research on it. The book that I have is a 2003 edition of a book that came out in 1919. They’ve been publishing new editions every few years. This book was first published to teach women how to be the perfect homemakers. Since the book came out during the depression, all the recipes are budget conscious. The recipes were created by nuns who gave culinary classes to young women. The recipes are simple and so far I’ve been successful with the 2nd recipe that I’ve tried. These coconut cookies are delicious. Not very sweet and the coconut flavour isn’t very overpowering. 

one of the photos from the book:

The first thing you notice after they’ve baked is that the biscuits are very pale looking even though the bottom is baked. That’s because of the 2 teaspoons of cream of tartar. Also, they’re very tender and light! The opposite of a coconut macaroon. 

The book doesn’t have an English edition, so I translated the recipe.  

1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut

1/3 cup milk

113 g. butter

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp cream of tartar

blend the coconut with the milk and let it sit for 30 minutes

cream butter and sugar, then add the eggs.

Incorporate the coconut/milk mixture. 

sift flour, baking soda and cream of tartar. Add it to the mixture. 

place a tablespoon on a tray. Brush it with whisked egg whites and sprinkle with some coconut. 

bake at 350 F. for approx. 10 minutes. 

http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2009/01/chocolate-biscotti/

I’ve had lots of success so far with everything I’ve ever made from David Lebovitz’s recipes so I thought I’d try his biscotti recipe. They turned out good but too dry. You’re supposed to have a dry biscotti but they came out too hard.  He excluded butter from the biscotti which removes the tenderness from the biscotti and doesn’t make it as rich. Tonight I tried a different biscotti recipe. This time with butter. We’ll see how they compare.

I made this dessert a few months ago for the restaurant. Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of the dessert when it was plated. We had ice cream on top with caramelized bananas on the side with caramel sauce. It’s delicious and I love the pop corn on top that I dipped in the caramel. This recipe is from the book The Sweet Spot by Pichet Ong.  I found the recipe on this blog: http://www.zencancook.com/2008/03/ovaltine-milk-chocolate-kulfi-w-caramelized-banana/

and this is supposed to be the way the dessert looks when it’s plated from the Spice Market restaurant in NYC where Pichet Ong works

http://www.visionsofsugarplum.com/2008/10/somethings-hot-at-spice-market.html

I love the way this dessert looks and I read that it’s the best selling dessert at the Spice Market. Unfortunately Vancouver isn’t as progressive as NYC and you can’t really expect people to order Kulfi here because most people have no idea what it is and don’t want anything they don’t understand. I should be in NYC!! 

I’ve never heard of Kulfi before seeing it in the Sweet Spot. Kufi is a frozen dairy dessert from India. This dessert has to be kept in the freezer and removed when you’re ready to serve. Most of the Kulfi that I’ve found online like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kulfi.jpg

Pichet Ong added caramelized pop corn that you crumble on top which makes it look more fun. I’ve also add that multi coloured India candy that I can’t remember the name at the moment. It’s the candy from Indian restaurant that you get after your meal. 

For a while South East Asian desserts are going to take a back seat. Next week, I’ll be starting a new job at a bakery that’s more European. I’m excited to be starting something new!

I’ve been making a different flavoured cheesecake at work every week. This is the first one I made with the Pichet Ong recipe from his book The Sweet Spot. Every other cheesecake that I’ve made since then is loosely based on this method. The Sweet Spot is the only book I’ve ever food entirely focussed on Asian inspired desserts. In his recipe, he added blueberries and strawberries on top but I thought it would be more Asian to include Kumquats. The great thing about this recipe is that you don’t need to bake the cheesecake. It sets with gelatine. It’s also a great cheesecake for people like me who doesn’t like the rich taste of cream cheese in most cheesecakes. This one is lighter because you’re blending the cream cheese with tofu. I know tofu sounds weird in a cheesecake but once it sets overnight, you can’t tell there’s tofu. 

This is the first time I’ve candied Kumquats. They tasted amazing! 

To candy the kumquats, I sliced them first. Then I boiled 2 cups of sugar and 2 cups of water. Stir over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Add the kumquats, reduce the heat. Simmer until the kumquat slices are translucent. About 30-35 minutes. Remove from heat. Cool the kumquats in the syrup. Strain the kumquats, reserving the syrup. Combine the kumquats and 1/4 cup syrup in a small bowl. Return the remaining syrup to the same saucepan. Boil until reduced to 1  1/4 cup. About 8 minutes. 

I’m not sure if Pichet Ong tested this recipe because I had to use half of the Graham Cracker crust that was included in the recipe. For an 8” pan which is the amount in the recipe his crust would take up half of the pan! 

I used half of this crust recipe:

Ginger Graham Cracker Crust

113 g. butter, melted
174 g. graham crackers, crushed into fine crumbs. 1 ½ cups
1 ½ cups packed brown sugar
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp salt

Grand Marnier Tofu Filling

538 g. silken tofu
1 ½ tsps fresh lemon juice
½ cup whipping cream
1 tsp salt
5 gelatin sheets
341 grams cream cheese at room temperature
156 g. sugar
3 tbsp grated orange zest
1 tbsp grated lemon zest
2 tbsp grand marnier


1- To make the graham cracker crust: preheat oven to 300 F. Lightly
butter an 8 inch round dish and set aside.

2- Put the graham crackers, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger and salt
into a mixing bowl. Mix well, then add the melted butter and mix with
your hands until the crumbs are evenly moistened. Transfer the mixture
to the prepared baking dish and press into an even layer on the
bottom.

3- Bake the crust until golden brown, about 25 minutes. Remove from
the oven and cool completely.

4- To make the cheesecake filling: Put the tofu and lemon juice in a
blender and blend until smooth. Set aside.

5- Put the cream and salt in a medium saucepan and warm over medium
heat until bubbles begin to form around the edges. Stire in the
softened gelatin until completely dissolved. Remove from heat.

6- Put the cream cheese, sugar and orange and lemon zests into the
bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle. Mix on med. Speed until light
and fluffy, about 10 minutes. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the
bowl, add the grand marnier, and mix on medium speed until smooth,
about 1 minute. Gently fold in the gelatin cream and tofu mixture
until well incorporated.

7- Pour the filling into the cooled crust. Refrigerate, uncovered
until set, at least 4 hours, or preferably overnight.

I’ve never heard or tasted Cassava until recently. It’s a very common ingredient in South East Asia and the Cassava cake is a very popular dessert in the Philippines. I made this cake as a special dessert at the Union. The cake is usually made with young coconut but I used shredded coconut instead that was infused with rum. I also feel that the recipe I used wasn’t sweet enough so I increased it to 3/4 sugar and I felt that it still wasn’t sweet enough. I lined the pan with banana leaves because I read about it in a traditional Filipino cookbook but none of the recipes that I’ve seen online mention it. I added pineapple ice cream on top and mango sauce around it. I loved it. 

http://www.filipinainseattle.com/cassava-cake-recipe.html

There’s a video at the bottom of the page giving you a good tutorial on how to make this cake. It’s very simple.

For Valentine’s day, I came up with the idea of giving out cookies to customers when they got their bill. I didn’t know how many people would show up so I made 120 which is double the usual amount on a weeknight. At the last minute, I decide to have write “luv sux” for the anti-valentine crowd. The reaction to the cookies were great! And they also happen to be delicious. I used the candied ginger from my last post. A whole pound of ginger for all those cookies and I still needed more. I made these 3 times because the recipe that I found was only for 15. They taste like shortbread with a nice ginger flavour. I felt that the ground ginger in the recipe wasn’t enough so I doubled it. They’re a bit difficult to roll out. They fall apart a bit so you can get it too thin. I baked them for 15 minutes. Here’s the recipe:

http://www.cherrapeno.com/2008/02/chocolate-ginger-biscuitscookies.html