Black Gold

It's a strange coincidence that many precious commodities that have flourished and been consumed over civilisations are black in color. Think petroleum, coffee, most minerals and not forgetting the seemingly scarce truffles. Here's another 'black gold', according to us anyways : )

We made these robust and rustic dark chocolate truffles the size of walnuts. They had creamy ganache center of imported chocolate with morsels of prune, apricot, strawberry or date in its epicenter. These were served along with mini cheesecakes and profiteroles for a dinner party at Kristian's last week. Guests relished them one after another with glasses of late harvest Riesling (an excellent accompaniment) and cups of coffee.

The 1st week of August and we are beat

Last week was largely taken up with an anniversary party that we were catering. This is an anniversary cake done over the weekend. The bottom tier is made up of 3 layers of alternating butter almond cake and baked cheesecake. The top tier has 5 layers of the same cakes. Each layer has a lemon curd spread. It is covered in fondant icing with yellow fondant ribbon and marzipan red roses. Marzipan as an icing decoration stays maleable and softer than fondant ones AND definitely much tastier due to the rich almond flavor. I love the contrast of the red roses on white fondant (above) don't you?

We made a mini cheesecake for ourselves to taste before we made the actual size for the required cake. It wasn't hard to imagine the combined flavors of the tangy creamy cheescake, butter cake and lemon curd.

We have made croquembouche or profiteroles several times BUT never managed to take any deserving pictures of them yet! The most recent ones made this past weekend disappeared too quickly before I had a chance of taking some shots...oh well. But try and imagine the above with spools of chocolate ganache arranged in a a pyramid structure with tiny lilac wild flowers and white orchids stuck in between each piece.

The making of mini pavlovas. Again, the finished product disappeared too quickly before they can be photographed. ( I think we need a food photographer friend to help out in this department ) Anyways, they were sensational looking and tasting. In fact, Kristian and I feasted on about 3 pavs each last night with dollops of whipped cream and strawberries while watching 'The Hangover' movie.

On a roll

We've been on a roll all week. Am rather proud of ourselves as we've surpassed our own expectations of making more than 2 new recipes a week (pats Kristian's back). Needless to say there has been A LOT of testy moments coupled with lotsa making up and of course lotsa taste testing. Am fortunate a friend offered to buy some of our 'experiments' and the extras from our orders so I have put together for him a care package of sorts containing loaf cakes, cookies, brownies, and fudge. How lucky he is!!

The above is 3 variations on the date & nut cookie mentioned previously in the blog but had no picture posted. Which do you think is the prettier shape? I have to admit I'm not a fan of dates so naturally these cookies don't really do it for me but Kristian loves them. He polished off the whole lot within 2 days!

These are available for orders, RM25/box (around 400g)
You can specify for roll or pillow shapes.



Okay we had some problems making our fudge. We cooked them without a thermometer as advised, opting to eyeball the hot mixture over the stove for the right color and consistency. It looked fine on the top but little did we realise the bottom was browning too much as the fudge continues to cook after it has been taken off the heat. This lil mishap took moments to rectify and the fudge turned out and tasted excellent ; ) We made them in toffee and chocolate flavors, both with almond bits in them. We are definitely making more of these and in other variations.