On finding inspiration, cakes and more.

Inspiration can be found in a variety of celebrations such as religious or cultural. Birthdays are fun and there are lots of ideas and information to draw on.  The seasons are also a great source of inspiration for example cherry blossoms for Spring cakes

A few years ago I attended a sugar paste workshop on Foliage (leaves), this has been one of the most exciting workshops I have ever done.   Green leaves are not all born equal, to coin a phrase.

Take the time to look at  leaves in your garden or when out on a walk.  Always try to work from a real leaf for the correct colour.  I have seen many beautiful competition cakes with amazing flowers, only for the cake to be let down by incorrectly coloured green leaves.  Just because the colour on the bottle is labeled as 'Leaf Green' does not necessary mean that it is the leaf green colour that you require.

The following two cakes were made for competitions that I entered.  Competition work allows more freedom to express your creativity and encourages one to think outside the square or cake, so as to speak.

The inspiration for the first cake began with my favourite colour combination. The pink, yellow and apricot roses was the colour combination of  my bridal bouquet. Adding the green gave the cake a light and fresh feel.

For the flowers I was drawn to creating a feminine feel. The flowers that made the cut ( funny ! ) were roses, lilies, the hellebore and last but not least the blushing bride ( my favorite flower ever! ) and ivy.

The  Australian Mud cake was used for all the cakes featured in this blog  It is a dense and  delicious cake, great for sculpturing as well as stacking. Make sure the layers are well supported with food grade dowels.

The inspiration behind this next cake was Paris, I wanted the cake to have a luxurious feel hence, the deep colours of the Roses.

Each layer have their own "story" the cake topper being the Eiffel Tower. 

Next was a nod to the Moulon Rouge representing a corset with a lace up back.( I know it is conservative. )

A hat box always seems to represent luxury,with gorgeous vintage luggage labels representing glamorous destinations.

The cake topper was a piped Eiffel Tower using royal icing.  The first and second level platforms were made using the flood work method.  

A French chef I was working with at the time pointed out , that as I had not added the antenna at the top it was not entirely a true representation.  Soon after making this cake the head pastry chef requested an Eiffel tower for a wedding cake he was asked to make.  This time I added the antenna, pleased to report back that we had a very happy French chef in the kitchen.  Thank you chef S, now it annoys me that there is no antenna :)

For the corset, a cake was made in  an hourglass shape representing the female form.  From previous experience baking this cake in a steam pudding tin, resulted in very little carving and a more structurally sound cake.  In the past I have sucessfully baked a mud cake using an oven proof Pyrex dish. When baking in a pudding shape bowl or steam pudding tin line the base with a disk of parchment paper. Your cake will release easily once cold,there is nothing worse than leaving some of the cake behind in your tin

View of the back of the cake with the lace up detail.  For the design on the corset I used a small calyx and blossom cutter.  The paste was rolled out using a textured rolling pin, adding interest to the corset design.

Close up of the roses which were made in various sizes.  Instead of making the roses on wire, I made them on food grade wooden toothpicks.

For the bottom layer I wanted it to have the feel of a vintage hat box.  Edible imaging was used for the luggage labels.

The Paris inspired cake entailed hours of work and close to two hundred roses.  The Eiffel Tower was a challenge but in the end I was thrilled with the result.

Once judging was complete the general public were invited to view the entries. The greatest compliment I received was from a couple who were visiting from their" hometown' of Paris.  They seemed excited to see the cake and asked to take a picture of the it.

Art Deco inspired wedding cake.

During the consultation with the bride and groom, they revealed their interest in art deco.  The colour scheme for the wedding was red and white.  That colour combination is a bit of a tricky one for me. One needs to find the right balance as it can go from class to tacky really quickly.

My suggestion was a minimum use of red with a touch of black.  The colour of the red powder is called Poncho.  It is a beautiful red, ideal for Christmas.  The Poncho is a concentrated colour, once it has been mixed into your  sugar paste it does gradually darken.  

Art chalks or pastels may be non toxic but that does not necessary make them food grade.  It is always best to follow food guidelines set by your State or Country.  

Working with coloured fondant / pettinice, my good friend V once gave me a fabulous tip.  When I first tried to use the  coloured fondant  / pettinice, I was having trouble working with it as it crumbled really quickly and was difficult to roll out.  Work in  a little White fondant / pettince it binds it together and makes the fondant / pettinice more manageable to work with. ( colour is not compromised, unless that is what you want. )

The flat pieces on the cake needed to be strong, therefore they were made  from Mexican paste.  This paste dries really hard and I did not have to worry about the humidity making the pieces soft.

The decoration for the top tier was inspired by a mirror design.

The second was the ' fish scale ' design, this worked really well with the hint of red.

The bottom layer was inspired by a building facade.

Although in the style of Art deco , who would have thought that three images such as a mirror, wallpaper and a building facade would have resulted in a wedding cake.

Thank you to B and A for giving me the opportunity to make your cake.

The following images are where the inspiration came for the cake design.

www.decomirrors.com.au

Google, Art deco designs

Google, Century Hotel, Miami

"WELCOMEfest" 2015

Mr T&T and I attended "WELCOMEfest", it comes as no surprise that the international cuisine was top of my list. The cooking demonstrations proved to be popular, I loved every minute of the day.

We arrived early as everyone was still getting ready, below are some of  the wonderful food stalls. 

I am always interested in learning about flavour profiles in different cuisines. The gentleman at the Rwandan food stall told me that one of the main spices are chilli. Another ingredient that is widely used is the plantain

.

The lamb brochette was delicious, perfectly cooked.

This was a type of doughnut with a hint of sweetness, light and fluffy. All I needed was a cup of tea

Introducing the friendly ladies from Togo.

This was delicious with a hint of cumin, loved the pastry.

Cuisines represented in the cookery tent were  Iraq, Eritrean, India, Afghanistan, Amharic, Persia and Malaysia.  

Amazing vegetable and fruit carving from Chef Tony Hee. The vase is a paw paw with delicate carving. Good enough to eat ?

 The carrot flower as well as the chilli flower are both in the image below. Alas, no image of  the  onion flower that looked like the Dalia flower and a flower carved from a beetroot. 

This watermelon carving is what Chef Tony did during his demonstration. He kept saying, "This is easy!"  It was suggested that when learning, one should start with a soft fruit. The soft fruit offers little resistance when carving.( a safer option ) Sharp knives are key to carving. Care should always be taken when using knives.

We were given an insight into the Eritrean coffee ceremony. The tradition encompasses sense of belonging with friends and family. The beans are roasted and ground. Frankensence is burnt during the coffee ceremony.  Before the coffee beans are roasted they look like green lentils.  I am not a coffee drinker but who could pass up the opportunity of joining in.  The coffee had an unusual flavour and with the addition of ginger gave me a peppery mouth feel. It was delicious. I love anything that brings meaning to the process.

Other cuisines demonstrations that we saw was an Eritrean dish called Beef Zighni and Enjera bread. ( a type of flat bread ) Delicious !

Two sweet dishes from Iraq. One was Kopme a fried dough pastry, once fried the dough is soaked in a lemon syrup. The second sweet was called Znood El Sit. Semolina is cooked, about a teaspoon full is placed on  two short lengths of Filo pastry and fried. I must admit it did not sound very good, that was before I tried it.
"Oh my gosh, it was amazing!" The orange blossom water added a beautiful delicate flavour to the pastry.
Besides the food stalls and the cookery demonstrations there were activities for children. Music, song and dance performances from around the globe, including a troupe of drummers from Burundi. It was hard to decide what to see as I would have happily sat in the cookery tent all day.
At the start of the day was the Citizen ceremony, it was lovely to be part of an exciting start to the newest Australians.
We spent time walking around, taking in all the sights of seeing people in traditional dress, the sounds of music from around the world and the enticing aromas of exotic cuisine. There was beautiful bead work from the ladies from Eritrea.
While walking around we stopped at  a stall which offers assistance to those who have suffered trauma or torture. One forgets behind every smiling face that day there would have been many stories, happy or sad.
The objective of WELCOMEfest ( mdaltd.org.au ) is to bring Brisbane's diverse cultural communities together to create welcome, discover culture and celebrate everyone's contribution to multicultural Australia.
I certainly felt it that day and hope everyone else did.

Limes

Mr T&T was given beautiful limes from a work colleague. I immediately entrusted my lovely assistant, Google, to do a little lime research for me.
So many ideas so little time or limes, to be precise. As I am always going down the sweet route, I was thinking of biscuits /cookies, lime meringue pie, pound cake or chiffon cake.

The winners were ...

Martha Steward's Lime meltaways. (Recipe can be found on the Martha Stewart webite. )


The other recipe was my Mothers famous orange chiffon cake. For this cake I swapped the orange juice for lime juice. After I had made and tasted the cake I felt that it needed a more lime flavor.

My thoughts on introducing more lime flavour is as follows:

1) For the orange chiffon cake 1Tblsp of zest is required, for the lime chiffon cake I would add 2 Tblsp of the lime zest.
2) A drizzle of lime glaze would be delicious. ( Lime juice and icing sugar mixed together.)
3) Saving the best for last, whipped cream with flecks of delicious lime zest folded through.
This girl loves cream.

For the Lime meltaway recipe, the ingredients are as follows, butter, flour, icing/confectioners sugar, vanilla essence, cornflour/starch, coarse salt, lime juice and lime zest.
The Lime meltaway recipe requires 1/3 of the icing/confectioners sugar be used in the making of the dough. The other 2/3 of icing/confectioners sugar is used to toss the baked Lime meltways in. As I was using a glaze, I only required the 1/3 of icing/confectioners sugar.

The recipe instructions were to cream butter and icing/confectioners sugar using the whisk attachment, normally I would cream butter and sugar using the paddle attachment. I did as I 'read' being, the good person that I am :)
Next, add lime juice and lime zest as well as the vanilla essence. Whisk until all the liquid has been incorporated. I ended up mixing this stage by hand as it was taking too long in the mixer.

As I did not want to over mix my dough, I stoped the mixer just before the flour is fully incorporated and using a spatula finish mixing the dough by hand.

Turn out onto your work bench and gently press together, again you do not want to overwork your dough.

On a floured surface roll out to your desired diameter and wrap in clingfilm.

Martha Stewart gave a fabulous tip on her show 'Martha Bakes'. Using the inner sleeve from a paper towel roll, cut down the one side. Place your rolled dough inside the sleeve and allow to firm up in the fridge.
Without the sleeve, you are likely to have a roll of dough with one flat edge.
The dough that is left in the fridge to firm up in the cardboard sleeve, will remain in a round sausage shape.Greatest tip ever !

Cut the dough into rounds.

Place on a parchment paper lined tray. During baking these cookies do not spread out very much, they can be place fairly close to each other.

My glaze was made using icing/confectioners sugar and lime juice. As I wanted a good covering on my Lime meltaways my glaze was not too runny. For a more transparent glaze, add more lime juice to your glaze mix.

Dip your Lime meltaway in the glaze, gently scraping off the excess. If your glaze is runny, you may not need to do this step. While glaze is still wet, to add a little more flavour, sprinkle with lime zest. This identifies the cookie as lime, it also looks really pretty.

Now could someone please put the kettle on !

Paris Patisserie

Welcome aboard the T&T tour of some of  our favourite Patisserie stops in Paris.

Eclairs by Christophe Adam, tempting selection and beautifully presented and decorated.

Drum roll please.. " And the winner is ... passion fruit and raspberry."

What's not to love about Pierre Herme, so much to choose from. The staff spoke English which was seriously great and they were happy to allow us to take pictures. Winning !

The gorgeous pink creation is one of Pierre Herme signature desserts called the Ispahan. Rose creme with  lychee and raspberries, topped with a rose petal and a dew drop.

Wild strawberries nestled in a pillow of green called Desire was our next choice. This creation was made up of a lemon sable biscuit, lemon creme with banana and strawberry compote. It was delicious light and fresh.

Introducing the Ispahan croissant

Seriously yum, is the only way to explain this work of art.

The center of the croissant hides a delightful surprise of a rose flavoured almond paste along with a raspberry and lychee compote. The croissant is brushed with a rosewater glaze and a delightful sprinkling of freeze dried raspberry pieces.

Chocolate and pistachio macrons too good to pass up. Pistachio paste can divide the masses, (well me, anyway) some pastes can have a very artificial flavour. Very happy to report this was pretty good.

Mr T&T loves raspberries and I love mille feuille, a very happy compromise.

Angelina's is famous for their hot chocolate which was thick, velvet and delicious.  The beautiful 

display of wicked goodness, did not disappoint. 

Fauchon was the next stop, we left with our precious cargo of macrons. Each one was sublime goodness. 

What was wonderful to see was all the other regular Patisserie stores. You do not need to be a 'big name' to deliver a great product.

The owner of this Patisserie store kindly let us take photos. 

The croquembouche was pretty amazing. Macaron tower anyone ?

A big thank you to Mr T&T for being quite happy to explore Paris with me

 Next holiday will be of your choosing, er.. after we have been to the Kitchen and Patisserie stores.

Eclairs

In my last blog I touched on our visit to L'Eclair de Genie by Christophe Adam. The eclairs were all the same length and beautifully decorated and displayed in rows. Our favourite was the raspberry and passion fruit eclair.

During our visit there Mr T&T bought me Christophe Adams book, "Eclairs". Alas, the book is in French. Did that discourage me? No, I love the book, it has beautiful photographs and my little French dictionary does come in handy.

Reading a ( alright, looking at the pictures ) French patisserie magazine a few years ago, I came across a picture of an eclair. The decoration on top of the eclair were of Mona Lisa's eyes, really beautiful. It was one of Christophe Adams creations, at the time he was the pastry chef at Fauchon in Paris.

In my previous blog, the choux pastry recipe that I used for the profiteroles was made with water. For this recipe I used the recipe from "Eclair" by Christophe Adam. I made a few batches, as I was not familiar with this recipe. My observation was that, when made with milk, it browns quicker than the recipe made with water. The fan bake setting on my oven gave me a better result than the bake setting. My oven is small, so you need to take that in consideration when baking.

The method for choux pastry is the same as the last blog. The nozzle I used is what is recommended in Christophe Adams book.( I have a feeling it is a Matfer product.)

The eclairs are piped 15 cm long or 7.5 inches.

The eclairs were baked at 170 deg Celcius ( 338 deg. Fahrenheit ) for 35 minutes

Once cooled, use a small nozzle to make three holes. Fill your eclair with the filling of your choice.

Dip into your coating. Gently remove the excess coating using palate knife, or against the edge of your pot or bowl.

Filling: Creme patissiere with fresh raspberries.

Coating: Fondant with pink food coloring.

Garnish: Fresh raspberries and a light dusting of icing sugar.

Filling: Creme Patissiere with orange liquor.

Coating: Fondant with a little orange juice

Garnish: Candied orange peel.

Filling: Creme Patissiere with dark chocolate.

Coating: Fondant with chocolate

As with anything, practice makes perfect. There are so many great flavour combinations out there. Hopefully this inspires you to create your own beautiful eclairs.