French Themed Cakes & Desserts

It was Bastille Day on the 14th of July and for the first time at work it was decided that we would create some French desserts to mark the day.  There were definitely a wide range of French desserts to choose from, and as much as I wanted to do many many more, we decided on a few that would be fast, easy and I guess at the end of the day, that sells.

Nonetheless, these are a few of what I did...and perhaps next year, there will be more elaborate ones.

 Rustic looking Eclairs. Filled with chocolate cream and topped with chocolate ganache

 White chocolate mousse, topped with raspberry coulis.

 Chocolate cupcakes topped with butter cream and orange cupcakes topped with chocolate buttercream. The "French" theme fondant cut outs were hand drawn with edible ink.

 Crepes with orange syrup.

 Poached pears and chocolate ganache tarts.

 Tart a Tartin.

Salted caramel macaroons

Baklava

It's been awhile since I added any entries to this blog..and its not so much I have not been baking. But on the contrary, I just have been too busy to keep it updated. I know I should...at least to keep the interest going.
Anyways, today I managed to learn how to make Baklava.
I have often seen these delicacies being sold at various Middle Eastern shops and have smelt the sweet smells that were emitted. As much as I love baking and perusing through cafes and deli and patisseries for all the delectable, mouth watering spread, I never could bring myself to really try any. You see...I love baking, but I do not like eating much sweet stuff.
So knowing how sweet Baklavas come...coz as they say "Eat sweet, speak sweet", I was still rather curious how all the flavours and worked together.
A very nice Greek lady, Alec offered to show me how it's made and so we set off to make this. I must say, if you have all the ingredients at hand, it does not take very long to roll the pastry and bake, and even douse it in syrup.
I must say, this home recipe had all the flavours down to a pat. It was not so sweet and I could still taste the spices and it had a nice crunch of the nuts and flaky pasty when you bite into it.

Rolling the filled pastry around a stick.

Rolled pastry lined up in the tray

Dousing the pastry with hot oil.

Adding sticks of cloves for the finishing touches, before being baked.

Baked Baklava, soaking in syrup.

The whole tray soaking in syrup. Need to let it sit a couple of hours before dishing them out.

Devil Food Cake

It's been a while since I baked something for the fun of it. Having some time as it's the holidays, I came upon this blog http://cafefernando.com/devils-food-cake-for-design-sponge/ and decided to try it out more for the chocolate shards. Love how it's made and found some sites on youtube to learn some ways to make these.
I think I still need to practise on the shards to make it more curved. Perhaps use a better quality chocolate would help.
Besides that I used hazelnut spread to make the ganache as I could not find any Biscoff spread at the local supermarket.

Overall the cake was really moist and am glad I could share it with friends.

Rainbow Cake

A friend was telling me about a rainbow cake she saw on someone's blog and so decided to surprise her and make her one. It's a basic butter cake, with the colours of the rainbow mixed in portions of the batter, which is then topped onto each other to give it the rainbow effect.
I was rather weary of the colours being too gaudy and affecting the taste of the cake, but thankfully the cake still tasted very much like a butter/vanilla cake and no one could taste any of the colours.
It's would be a nice surprise to cover the cake with icing and then have a lovely surprise once you cut into it. Well...it would also definitely be a nice way to make cupcakes, but then that would require lots of time and work spooning the correct amount into each patty.

All the colours stacked on top of each other

Colours all mixed and ready to be assembled.

The inside of the cake

Love the colours...

Lavender Cupcakes

Since moving to Melbourne, I have been fascinated with the lavender flowers and realised that people did use it for cakes and such. So embarked on a mission to make these cupcakes when spring came and lavenders were abundantly available.
Managed to get some pure lavender essence which I used as the flavouring to the cupcakes. Nonetheless I didnt want the cupcakes to taste too much like pot purri so omitted it from the butter cream. Did garnish with some fresh lavenders I picked from the garden. Overall I am happy with the results, and the two people who ate them said they were nice and not too overpowering.

Apple, Cinnamon & Raisin Studel

Another first for me. Learned this recently and decided to try it out at my work place. Quite happy with the results and I must say the apple filling just by itself is just lovely.

Making the Filo pastry is too time consuming, so we used store bought ones.

Perhaps for the next project I'll make fruits of the forest which is a mixture of berries and apples. Getting the hang of rolling up the studel, and I think it could be a little more tighter, and filled with a little more filling.

Citrus Poppy Seed Slice

Somehow am hooked to the combination of lemon/orange with poppy seed. This recipe was rather easy, and I could even use the whole orange and lemon for the syrup needed to pour over the slice.
The rinds were sliced and cooked with the orange and lemon juice with some sugar till it was thick. Once the cake was cooked, the syrup was poured over the cake and then once it was cool enough, I sliced it and added a rosette of whipped cream and topped it with the blanched and cooked rinds.

The tangy-ness of the orange and lemon juice does hit you as you take a bit into the cake, and later you do have poppy seeds stuck to your teeth that reminds you of the great tangy taste of the cake.