tea trio chiffon cakes

I love baking, but I’m not very good at it. Most of the time the end products will taste better than they look, so please believe me when I say these chiffon cakes were wonderful!

I’ve been on a bit of a tea kick lately, as evidenced by the last few posts, so I decided to incorporate various flavours into a pillow-soft cake. A chiffon cake recipe seemed perfect for the job, and after scouring the net for some recipes, I came across Tham Jiak’s recipe for green tea chiffon cake. I simply replaced the green tea with earl grey tea and loose earl grey tea leaves to sprinkle into the mixture, and for subsequent batches, experimented with osmanthus green tea and ceylon tea with dried rosebuds!

The earl grey chiffon was simply made with brewed tea and loose tea leaves sprinkled into the mixture, and the other two followed a pretty similar method. I had some osmanthus green tea bags (TenRen, excellent Taiwanese tea company), as well as some loose dried osmanthus flowers. For the last one, I used loose ceylon tea leaves and crushed the pink leaves from some dried rosebud tea. The osmanthus and rose petals made for some pretty decorations on top of the cakes! But the ceylon tea and rose version was the least successful, because (1) I must have somehow measured out the tea wrong, so the end batter was too liquid, resulting in a too-moist cake, and (2) I couldn’t think of any way to invert my tins to allow the cake to cool without squashing the tops flat, so I left it as is – and as expected, they collapsed and have a dip in the middle!

Out of the three cakes I made, my favourite is still the earl grey version. The other two were too subtle, so I may have to make adjustments to the quantities of tea I use next time. I was afraid of going overboard with the osmanthus, but turns out that I could have been a lot more heavy-handed with the delicate golden flowers. Nevertheless, the aroma came through, if not a bit too lightly. The ceylon tea with rosebuds was very nice but I didn’t add enough of the ceylon, because I didn’t want it to overpower the rose! It was really fragrant and not too floral (which I hate – why would you want to eat a soap-flavoured cake?), and again, I think it was only let down by its over-moist texture.

I really like chiffon cake because it’s so light and airy (there’s no butter involved), and you definitely don’t feel bloated after eating an entire one (err… which may be what I did after they came out of the oven…). It’s also a really great base for incorporating any flavour you want. Now that I’ve made these chiffon cakes, my next mission will be to create tea macarons. Mmm, osmanthus-scented macarons? I can imagine that would be divine. But that shall have to wait, for I’d need a million more implements and I really shouldn’t be cluttering up my parents’ tiny kitchen with more frivolous bakers’ “essentials”!

The recipe for earl grey chiffon lies under the entry cut.

la crème de la crème

These aren’t the prettiest crème caramels in the world, but I can tell you that the taste and texture was amazing.

Alas, I was going to make a really awful pun-ny title and write something along the lines of ‘la crème de la crème des crème caramels’ (the best of the best of crème caramels) but I realised the tragic limits of my GCSE French – apparently getting an A* means all you’ll be able to remember six years afterwards is how to say ‘where’s the loo?’ and ‘I’d like a croque monsieur, please’. But I digress.

One of my favourite blogs of the moment is Coco&Me, written by the incredibly lovely Tamami of the Coco&Me bake stall in Broadway Market. It was actually her site that first inspired me to attempt to make macarons in my own home, because of the really helpful tips she’d always write into her recipes. This time her gorgeous crème caramel recipe caught my eye, and it seemed like something I could do easily in our tiny kitchen, and it didn’t require any fancy tools or ingredients.

Now that I’m in Hong Kong, there’s not a whole lot of baking I can do. It was never a big thing in my family, though my mom used to make some awesome birthday cakes back in Canada and would let me lick the whipped cream off the beaters! Also, we don’t have any of the proper utensils here for baking – we’re talking no scales, no rolling pins, no measuring spoons or cups, and no sieves apart from the tiny ones we use to strain our tea. We hardly ever have butter in our fridge, flour is only used for coating marinated meat, and when I trooped to our nearest supermarket, I was utterly shocked that there was no trace of single/double creams on the shelves. I chose the most promising one, ‘thickened cream’ and hoped for the best. It was pretty expensive, too, over a pound for 250ml! Ah, finally some things I can be grateful for back in England… With some quick purchases, I was ready to make some dessert!

The first batch failed, because I’d underestimated just how tiny egg yolks in Hong Kong chicken eggs are. The custard wouldn’t set and was awfully delicate and fell to bits. The second batch was brilliant, if I do say so myself – though the presentation leaves a lot to be desired..

Half-devoured… om nom nom!

Um, you can see that I went a bit overboard with the vanilla (what can I say, I love the stuff). I also didn’t make enough custard for my three ramekins, so that’s why the crème caramels are so flat. Anyways, in this version, I steeped some of my dad’s HK-style tea leaves (a secret blend which I haven’t worked out yet!) in the cream and milk and straining the leaves away before mixing in with the egg yolks. The result? Like silky pantyhose tea in a pudding – absolutely friggen gorgeous. The flavour of the tea cuts through the super sweetness of the caramel and the creamy texture was phenomenal… deary me, was that saliva that just ran down my chin?

Recipe (with lots of helpful tips) can be found over at Tamami’s site.

ode to an egg tart

Hot, silky custard
in a crumbly puff pastry -
an eggy delight.

Far better than
those cold, stodgy custard tarts
sold back in Britain.

the epic macaron adventure

Okay, maybe not ‘epic’, but after a third attempt in three days to make macarons, I am shrieking with joy – FOR I HAVE SUCCEEDED. But if you ask Yuki about it, he’ll testify for the epic mess that followed each baking experiment. Though I was arms deep in icing sugar, and perhaps my black sweater will never be the same again (somehow, it never occurs to me to wear appropriately coloured clothing or an apron when baking), I can now proudly say that I can make macarons.

Though now, I’m scared of making another batch in case it fails! I wasn’t exactly pinpoint precise with the successful batch, because I ran out of icing sugar and made up the difference with caster sugar, and mixed in about 10g of ground pistachios to the dry mix as well, because I lacked 10g more of almond powder! The end batter was also thicker than previous batches, and I had my doubts about whether they’d turn out well or not. Turns out, maybe macaronage isn’t as textbook as it seems!

I’d googled far and wide for all the macaron recipes and tips I could find. These included:

- The widely-referred to A La Cuisine (which is also where I got the Italian buttercream recipe from, more on that later!)

- The epic macaron post from Serious Eats (with links of its own to many macaron-related posts on the internetz)

- Coco&Me’s post on macarons (with many useful tips such as rapping the baking sheet on the counter to get rid of air bubbles in the batter)

- Tartlette’s post which inspired me to use ground pistachios!

- David Lebovitz’s experiment with chocolate macarons (I don’t dare attempt chocolate ones yet, which are apparently the most difficult to master!)was an enjoyable read.

And finally the two posts that were of most use to me:

- Veronica’s Test Kitchen – While in the end the successful batch of macarons didn’t use the recommended 24-48 hour-aged egg whites, it was a super interesting read and I think my failure owed more to inaccurate measuring and overmixing.

- Bernice’s Baking Journey – This was the simplest, no-frills method I’d seen yet! She dismisses the ideas of using aged egg whites, whipping them until stuff-peaks, and using a complicated method of mixing the batter… and her macarons are the best I’ve seen so far, and following the recipe nearly to a tee contributed to my success. So thanks, Bernice!

I am running out of time as I’m leaving for the airport to go to Hong Kong (will be there for the next 6 weeks!) so another entry will follow with the finished recipe (and perhaps a recount of the disasters preceding success!).

vert

1. Romanesco cauliflower – I first saw these beastly green veggies in Blackheath several weeks ago and did a double take. Can’t say I’ve ever seen a stranger looking vegetable before, so when I came across them again in Marylebone Farmers’ Market, I heaved a big heavy one out from the pile and lugged it home. Simply steamed with a dash of cumin, to go with a scrumptious Indian curry made by my flatmate – very lovely. They’re currently in season so give it a try (though they don’t taste any different to normal cauliflower).