Cake for me .....

I had been wanted to use tempered chocolate on my cake for so long, but I never found any good reason to do so. With some fresh strawberriesin my fridge, I wanted to give myself a reward for my hard work this week. Is that a good reason?....I doubt it!

Well, it was not a perfect cake at all...it actually was a nightmare. I made a chocolate cake using my favorite recipe. The cake turned out as nice as I expected. Whipped cream for frosting was also great. Nothing wrong with that I until I started to play with chocolate!

I don't work well with the heat. Some persons can proof yeast without using thermometer, but I never ever be able to do that. Well, I can only blame myself for not being well prepared. I had about 2 hours (before the sun set) to work on my cake and I am a slow person in the kitchen.

What happened to me ?
My thermometer didn't work .I didn't know it until I dipped it in chocolate that was sitting on double-boiler........ Now you should get the picture of me jumping in the kitchen.

I really had no common sense to check the temperature of melting choc. I just made sure it's melted. Then I added chocolate to cool it down a little bit and brought it back to double-bolier again. At that time, I had no clue on how it would turned out....it was like walking in the dark room.
I knew that the temperature of my chocolate wasn't right because it wasn't easy to spread the chocolate evenly on acetate. I tried my best and let it harden in the firdge......it should have been there not more than 5 minutes. My phone rang at the critical moment.....it was an international call , so I needed to answer.

I tried to cut the conversation short, but it's still too long for my chocolate. My chocolate was hard and it would break if I tried to bend it. Dryer was the only thing I could think of at that time! I ran to grab my dryer and blew on my chocolate.
Yes, it made my chocolate softer a little bit but it was still not easy to shape it as smooth as what I dreamed for. I could either forget about the chocolate or go ahead with this ugly chocolate. Finally, I chose to keep it as it was. Why?............because life is not always perfect and this cake was the cake for me!

I finished it just in time to take some photos before the sun set. While most bloggers are posting their successes on the net, I am posting my failure.....so sad! If you wanna work with chocolate, please make sure your chocolate thermometer works and don't talk with someone on the phone unless you are good at multi-tasking job.

Wish me luck next time playing with chocolate.....Have a good day, everyone.

Strawberry love.....

Another time for strawberry picking...

I think it is the last time for this year.

I went strawberry-picking over the weekend at the farm nearby. This time we went there on Sunday which was not a good day for us. There were lots of people not including 4 buses of toursists.

The sky was cloudy......it was perfect to pick strawberries. We arrived there around 1.00 pm which was too late to get big strawberries!

We didn't snap many photos while picking......we had to be quick because it might rain at any time.

I prefer to come to this farm because they use organic fertilizer and their strawberries taste very nice. I also like that they give us trays instead of punnets or baskets. This way we don't have to stack many layers of strawberries. They wrap each tray for us, so we get them packed nicely just like when we buy from the super market. It is also convenient to give them to someone.

We got less than 3 pounds this time.....just enough to eat them fresh and make some desserts at home.

It's always good to visit strawberry farm. I wish I owned a strawberry farm!!

Enjoy passion fruit ......

Love it...it's wonderfully tart.
Do you like passion fruit? I'm a big fan of passion fruit. It's nice to either eat it fresh or use it as part of my desserts.

I have a big basket of freshly picked passion fruits. Today I want to enjoy it difeferent way...I serve it with greek yogurt. Its bright orange pulp is really refreshing and it really associates with something that's really tart.

Sometimes I use it as a flavoring in drinks and make sauces.Seeds are edible but it can be extracted from pulp by putting pulp in a blender on low speed. Then run mixture through a strainer to retain pulp and juice. Passion is also a good candidate to make jam or curd to be a filling for macarons, but I never tried.

You know it better than me how to enjoy this charming fruit.....Serve it with greek yogurt is one way that I always enjoy.....cool and refreshing.

Let's try...you will love it too.

Can't beleive that I made it!

I made crossaint! Yes, I made it....I have baked many cakes, but I never thought of making an attempt to make homemade crossaint.

Making any desserts that requires a special skills of molding, folding or decorating is not my type. It's not as difficult as I thought but it's not as easy as some people said so. It was a boring night..my house was out of Internet connection. It was too early to go to bed, so I needed to find something to do. At least preparing something for breakfast, so I can enjoy my beautiful morning talking to my flowers in the garden.

It requires patience as well as making any homemade puff pastry, but the most challenging part for me is to roll them nicely. They all turned out to be a little bit different from each other, but I can recognize their shapes as crossaint. I think I made it a little too big ....... I will improve it next time.

I could smile at my crossaint only after I cut them. It's much nicer than I thought I would turn out. Yes, I and Huggie enjoyed it for our breakfast.

Wherever you are, hope you have a beautiful day.

I hesitate to ........

It has been quite a while that I didn't bake. The first reason is that I was enjoying summer gardening and the second reason is that I was on a diet.

Well, it is difficult for me to live without desserts. It is something to color my life. I have to admit that I hesitated to bake this brownie, but I finally did.

I was deciding between baking prune cake and brownie.....prune cake sounds more healthy but dark chocolate is also a superfood,right? Needless to say, I went to the kitchenand and started to bake "prune brownie". Just to be fair, I combine them into one !

The brownie turned out to be super delicious. The added prune makes this brownie unique...a tad of sourness in prune is wonderful. I adapted my cocoa brownie by adding prune. It's not only enhance the taste, but also make this brownie moist and chewy.

It's really worth the wait. I can now enjoy munching my brownie while sitting out in my garden where the flowers are in bloom. Sometimes a little treat can brighten our day, so give yourself a reward after a tough day at work.

Have a beautiful day, everyone.