Cakes, glorious cakes.. and cookies... and.. and.. and..

It's a never ending flood of food almost, but we had a one week break from food when a guest chef came in and conducted an amazing 6 day workshop (23 - 28 Feb including Sat and Sun) on chocolate pralines, chocolate sculpture, and sugar art. To me, the sugar art was the most amazing part. The chef (Stephane Treand) is incredibly talented, and experienced, and did some amazing work. And the speed at which he works to produce his pieces of art is just unbelievable. He does it so fast, and so 'easily', and it is only when you try it out for yourself that you realise how difficult it is. I was, literally, blown away. Check out these pics of his sugar art work:

This was sugar pastillage, with airbrushing, done by him. This was the first piece he did to show us. Totally amazing!



For this one also he used sugar pastillage to first create the jigsaw puzzle - which he cut free hand!! Imagine cutting all those curly pieces FREE HAND!! Then he painted the cat on it - with airbrush. Then he placed it within a simple tear drop shaped mould, placing some of the jigsaw pieces loosely around the picture, then he poured sugar into it and let it set. He then mounted it as shown, and did a sugar poured butterfly (Yes, he also carved the mould for the butterfly BY HAND, in modelling clay, and poured the sugar into the mould to create the butterfly). Amazing!


For the girls face, similar to the cat, he used a sugar pastillage piece on which he air-brushed the girls face, hair, etc, then he cut a mould using modelling clay, into which he placed the face, and poured sugar over it, then mounted it. You know, seeing the way he did the girls make up, he could switch to being an amazing make up artiste too!


We had a couple of days off after he left, and are now back to baking again. So what are some of the things we have been doing since last I updated my blog? Hmmmm.... We did Chocolate cupcakes, Moka Cake, New York Cheesecake, Chocolate Cheesecake, Japanese Cheesecake, Banana Bread, Lemon Bread (with lemon glazing), Marble Cake, Chocolate Brownies and our first attempt at macaroons. Phew! The first attempt at macaroons was a failure - as I over mixed the macaroon mix and it became too runny. But, never mind, will make it again, and again, and again, till I get it right! Tasted good though :-).

The FAILED macaroons :-D :


BROWNIES! Rich, dense, chewy. Had hazelnut praline in it too :


Banana bread!


Marble cake. Too sweet for my taste.


Lemon Cake with Lemon Glaze. SOOO Yummy and TART!


Moka Cake. With butter cream. And I don't like butter cream :-p, though the cake tasted good.


Japanese cheesecakes. Again, not one of my favourites, but came out well.


New York Cheesecake and Chocolate Cheesecake. NICE!


Today being my #2 nephews birthday, I had promised him I would make NY Cheesecake and I did. Then, because my #3 nephew, who does not like NY Cheesecake, was rather disappointed, and also because we can't exactly stick candles in an NY Cheesecake, I also made "4-chocolate" chocolate 2-layer cake. I am happy to say that both cakes turned out rather well, though I think I will put more ganache in between the 2 layers of the chocolate cake next time :-D.

The other excitement was that our cousins from the US (Letha and Ramu), whom we have not seen for YONKS, turned up in KL for a month long holiday, and we got to spend quite a lot of time with them, and catch up on a lot of news. It was wonderful seeing them, and I hope that there will not be such a huge time span passing before we see them again.

That's it folks... till next time, have a good day, every day!