Chocolate hazelnut bites

Everyone knows I am a big sweet tooth, I can't survive a day without digging into my candy jar four times a day, eating dessert after lunch and dinner, and a midnight dose of sugar. Sugar is therapeutic, kicking up one's energy while consoling one's emotion, unfortunately it comes with a side effect of extra fat.... the amount of sugar intake.. totally depends on self control (which I have none) and how you evaluate the pros and cons (I rather work out fanatically to offset the cons).

I love cookies, bite size snacks, something one can nibble on while getting bored or enjoying a moment at ease. They come in simple ingredients of sugar, butter, and flour for a classic sables; or spice things up with chocolate, nuts, herbs, citrus, for more indulgence. Yesterday I made a batch of chocolate hazelnut cookies based on David Lebovitz's recipe.

what you need:
8oz or 225g bittersweet chocolate (I used half 72% Valrhona Araguani)
1.5oz or 45g butter
2 eggs
1/3 cup granulate sugar
1 cup toasted hazelnut
1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
a pinch of fleur de sel
more granulate sugar and powdered sugar for coating the cookies

how to proceed:
Preheat the oven to 190c.
Chop the chocolates into small pieces. Melt the chocolate and butter together in a bain-marie.
Whip the eggs and sugar together until they turn pale and form a ribbon. Stir in the melted chocolate.
In a food processor, pulverize the nuts with the flour, then add the baking powder. Add a pinch of fleur de sel. Stir the ground nut mixture into the chocolate batter.
Chill the batter in the fridge for 1-2 hours.
Roll the chocolate cookie batter into 1 inch balls. Roll each ball first in the granulate sugar, then the powdered sugar.
Bake in oven for 15 minutes, swapping the top and bottom baking sheets about half way through the baking.

The recipe was amazing, crisp on the outside and soft and moist inside, full of intense flavor of chocolate and hazelnut. What else does a chocolate lover ask for if every bite is chocolate. Note that not to take short cut of using hazelnut powder because it is the tiny pieces of hazelnut that gives the essential texture. A little bit of flour and butter just to lighten things up.

Next time I probably would add some coffee powder to accentuate the flavor.. making it mocha hazelnut cookies.. I think it would be awesome!!

Cookies fantasia

I suddenly had the urge to make cookies in the recent weeks. Cookies just like muffins are very easy to make, making the dough is just a matter of combination of ingredients. The basic of butter, flavor, egg yolk, and sugar, with an added twist to spice up the characters. It doesn't really require much techniques to produce decent products, with additional care and creativity, you can create something personal and exceptional.

Three kinds of cookies in one day, from left to right, almond chocolate, hazelnut, and chocolate mix with vanilla flavor.

I tried something different yesterday, mixing green tea flavor with chocolate. surprisingly it tastes better than the plain one.. simply because the green tea dissolves the greasiness of butter and goes well with chocolate. It is easy to eat a dozen of them because of the lightness... perfect for the weekend afternoon with your own cup of black coffee.

Rivera

I followed Pierre Herme's recipe to create this chocolate cake for J's b-day. The formal name of the cake is Rivera.

What's so special of this cake is its divine lemon curd - rich without a sense of heaviness. I love having a layer of sourness to bind with the chocolate-y flavor. Layers of chocolate chiffon cake also lighten up the cake. It's not as filling as it seems..or have I been eating too much lately.. =P..

This is actually my first time making lemon curd.. mainly because i am not a big fan of its unpleasant and dense buttery texture and it's too filling for me. This recipe, although a bit complicated, helped remove my aversion towards lemon curd. The citrus aroma is firstly released by rubbing sugar onto the lemon peels, and additional lemon juice is added to the egg mixture and then constantly beating the mixture to incorporate air until it's double in volume. Butter is then added to the batter and forms a smooth silky texture.



I tried a different recipe to make the chocolate mousse..again super complicated as comparing to my own recipe. First need to whip up the cream to medium peak, set aside. Secondly melting the chocolate and cooling it down into room temperature. Thirdly making sugar syrup and heating the syrup until it reaches 257F exactly (cannot go over or you will end up having caramel), carefully incorporating into the egg mixture in a steady stream, the main purpose is to cook the egg mixture at the same time beating it up to create volume. Beating the egg mixture with highest speed if not the syrup will become hard candy, then fold the chocolate into the whipped cream, and finally little by little folding the egg mixture into the chocolate mousse.

Hum.. I am sure this lemon curd can be perfect for a tart, with toasted meringue on top....better than hongkie egg tart which I have been eating everyday recently..

Raspberry & chocolate

It's summer again. A lot of people hated it, but I am one of the rare cases that happen to enjoy the summer time in Hong Kong. The humid air, the unbearable heat, the smell of sweaty people surrounding you are indeed intolerable. But I like the hot weather that slows everything done, a flow of fresh crisp air whenever you walk into the air con, and the sweating that helps you detox.

I made a raspberry chocolate cake to celebrate black charcoal head's b-day. I almost just wanted to make a fresher summer fruit cake because of the weather, but since he loves chocolate so much I have to made something that's extremely chocolaty to satisfy his taste buds.

The sponge cake base is a butter-free chocolate cake. I don't like using butter for cake because butter will take away the flavors of other ingredients. I like my cake to be eggy and fluffy.

Have to give credit to the whipped egg whites for the airy texture, evident by little holes that gives the cake its stereofoam like structure.

Melting my valrhona chocolate for the chocolate mousse.
Making some mini cakes for individual tasting. I have been looking for tear-drop cake molds for a long time, lucky me I found these at one of the HK vendors. Although not my favorite Mafer branded molds, but these also have beautiful shapes.

Either I don't have talent decorating large cakes, or there's an unknown standard guidelines or procedure that I need to learn from professionals. I found it difficult to make my large cakes presentable. I tried to beautify it by making some printed chocolate cones but still looks a bit weird.. so pardon me for not putting together a complete cake for window display, the taste is really good though.
The combination of raspberry and chocolate is impeccable, raspberry's sweetness and sourness compliment the heavy chocolate mousse perfectly. I made the jelly with fresh raspberry, and enhance with the citrus flavors of grand marnier and lemon. The chocolate mousse is made with valrhona chocolate and creme anglaise.
Received the greatest compliments from BCH and his entourage....glad to know my time was well spent!

Black forest wonder

My latest creation of black forest chocolate cake. I am extremely happy with this attempt. The chocolate sponge cake was baked perfectly. The sweet aroma of chocolate truffle between layers was sensational. Not too ordinary whipped cream with a hint of vanilla taste. One disappointment is that I couldn't find brandy cherry in HK, I tried to compensate by drowning the cherries with kirsh, but still not enough to enhance the flavor. Nonetheless, I'm v. glad that my guests all liked it very much and praised my effort in serving a cake which would have cost >300HKD at cova.

The Fluffy Goddess

Soufflé is like magic - everybody loves to see it and enjoys eating it. I always order soufflé if it is on the menu whenever I visit a restaurant. I have tried both sweet and savory, from lobster to passionfruit; chocolate by far is the best that I have ever had. The uniqueness of soufflé lies upon its fragility, it only has a few seconds of glory at the maximum peak and total fluffiness, as soon as it clashes with cold air, it then get deflated and wrinkles up into a sad and clumsy cake.

Yesterday, when I was debating whether to make a chocolate cake or almond cookies, a sudden crave called for chocolate soufflé. I quickly went to my bookshelf and fetched for the old recipe, within two hours time, I recreated the dessert with additional ground hazelnut. Here is a picture of the happy soufflés enjoying a steam bath in the hot oven.


Making a soufflé can be very tricky and failing is common. I have lots of bad experience before, including overbeating the egg white, curdling the yolks, overmixing the batter, etc, etc.... the demand for precision is particularly painful, and the stress level is like going through a brain surgery. Still, up to today, I need to be fully concentrated whenever I make a soufflé, making sure I don't overbeat the meringue and mess up the procedures, and hold my breath when taking these babies out of the oven. Luckily yesterday the soufflé was able to sustain its peak when I took them out of the oven, I got so excited and kept snapping pictures, forgetting to sprinkle powdered sugar to make it more presentable....anyway, I will make up for it next time..