Lemon Tart - simple, classic, delicious

Getting into winter, there are abundant of lemons around. This is the time of the year when I have more lemons than I can chew. S mom has a very productive lemon tree and she gave them to us whenever we saw her.

There are a number of lemon recipes we love. Our most favourite lemon recipe is lemon tart. Lemon tart can be made in few different ways, bake or no-bake, butter or cream to emulsify and set the tart. All produce good results. Well, hardly anything can go wrong with lemon tart.

I made the tart using the recipe from Michel Roux’s fabulous Eggs cookbook. I never thought that a cookbook with egg theme could contain such wide variety of recipes, from pastry, ice cream, dessert, to pasta. It is a humble and simple ingredient with endless possibilities. 

Sourdough Pancake with Poached Pear

I’ve been wanted to try making sourdough pancake for quite sometimes. It was regularly suggested by sourdough bakers as a good way to use the starter discard from the feedings.

I make pancake rather often. And I was curious to find out how well sourdough starter would leaven the pancake batter and the taste it would give.

I used the recipe from King Arthur website. The recipe is for sourdough waffle and also good for pancake. Looking at the photo on the site, I was tempted to get the waffle iron. Well, pancake will have to do for now. Unfortunately, I don’t have space in the kitchen for more gadgets.

Pain au Raisins, Snail, Escagot – a pastry with many names

One of the most loved pastry items with multiple identities, Pain au Raisin. Though it is widely known as Pain au Raisins (or Pain aux Raisins), it is also called escagot and snail. Many Aussies know this item as snails due to its shape.

It has everything that ticks, slightly spiced juicy sultana (golden raisin), pastry cream wrapped in buttery and flaky croissant dough. Some are also glazed with apricot jam, and finished off with icing sugar.

Passionfruit Macaron - when the love affair with macaron began...

Passionfruit macaron has a special place in my heart. It was the first macaron I tasted and fell in love at first bite and I still recall that moment vividly. It was from a French patisserie at The Rock, Sydney that I stumbled upon during my trip to Sydney couple of years ago. It was one of those magical experiences. The pretty little morsel that was so light and crisp. It melted in my mouth and release amazing flavour. It was like “wow, what is this stuff? Why haven’t I had them before? Where have I been?”.  It was also fortunate that the first macaron I had was a great macaron. Generally, I find commercial macaron in Australia to be average (to put it politely… as in many instances, they are simply mediocre).

In my opinion, passionfruit makes a fabulous dessert. It is good in cake, slice, mousse, panna cotta, to name a few. And Pavlova won’t be complete without passion fruit. And yes, it makes great macaron.

Pane Siciliano - made into sandwich loaf and focaccia

I was still obsessed with semolina/durum flour and I came across another recipe using semolina flour in Peter Reinhart’s Bread Baker Apprentice cookbook, Pane Siciliano.

I’ve run out of the (elusive) durum flour I bought over a month ago but I still had about 1 kg of fine semolina, which I would love to use it up. I think the fine semolina that I had wasn’t really the semolina flour but they worked well in the semolina bread recipe that I made (I wouldn’t call it “well”, actually. It was more of “alright”).

Apple and Oat Sourdough - fresh fruit toast for a change

I still had some leftover apples from S’ dad’s home-grown. They were delicious, juicy and slightly tart. I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of apples they were. My guess would be ‘Golden Delicious’ because of its golden colour and sweet yet tart flavour. I was pleasantly surprised that the apples were still lovely after being sitting at room temperature for over a month.

We quite enjoyed the apple bread I made couple of weeks ago, from Dan Lepard’s Exceptional Bread. This time I wanted to try different recipe and my heart was set at apple and oat sourdough from Bourke Street Bakery cookbook. The apples that we had would be just enough for the bread.

Daring Baker's Challenge - Maple Mousse Tart

The April 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Evelyne of the blog Cheap Ethnic Eatz. Evelyne chose to challenge everyone to make a maple mousse in an edible container. Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 27th to May 27th at http://thedaringkitchen.com!

As you might have guessed, Evelyne came from Canada, the land of maple syrup and my favourite breakfast dish, pancake with maple syrup and crispy bacon (what a great way to start the day, sweet and savoury at the same time). Her proposed dish was maple mousse served in crispy bacon, very interesting. Though, I would love to know how the mouse would taste like with the crispy bacon. I didn't follow the idea.

Inspired by my new book, “Chocolat: The Chocolate Bible by Le Cordon Bleu”, I intended to make chocolate cup from tempered chocolate to fill the mousse in. It was my first time making the chocolate container and tempering chocolate. Umm, it wasn’t easy. Tempering chocolate wasn’t too bad. But I had trouble taking the chocolate cup out of the mould in one piece. They were broken into pieces.