May 27, 2010

Happy Birthday to him :)

I had been flipping through pages of "Okashi Treats" by keiko ishida" , trying hard to decide which cake recipe should I choose to bake for his birthday. Everything was solved by just his one reply "chocolate cake". :P This narrowed down my options and I could just concentrate baking a chocolate cake for him. :)

Layer mousse cakes is still something I'm not good at but I'm still trying to perfect it. I decided on a chocolate sponge cake with mousse layers. Something new that I tried was a feuillete base! I can't resist chocolate cakes with the crunchy, chocolate-hazel-nutty feuillete base, and could never have enough of it! I bought this packet of feuillete for months and finally get to use it this time.
I almost wanted to make my own praline paste and had even bought a packet of hazel nuts. In the end, I managed to get a small tub of hazelnut cream from Phoon Huat and used that for my praline paste. Hazelnut cream, milk chocolate, feuillete mixed with a little butter and the result of the praline feuillete was simply divine....


The base is a layer of praline feuillete, followed by a brownie cake base and alternate layers of chocolate sponge and mousse. The chocolate sponge was hard and dry. I had probably over-whipped it but since i sliced it into thin layers, it wasn't that significant. The worst thing was I didn't have the time to let the mousse set long enough before pouring the ganache. Hence it got mixed with the ganache and that was what you see at the sides (below). Nevertheless it's a truly yummy, chocolatety cake. I'm just worried for our waistlines! :P

dd loves ramen so for his birthay, I will accommodate him. :) We our dinner at Marutama Ra-men at Liang Court.

One thing good about such limited menu is you don't have to flip through pages after pages deciding what to eat because there are too many choices. The menu is just in this one page.

Side dishes: Gyoza

I ordered this : Aka Ra-men (7 kinds of ground nuts mixture with chicken soup, its mild spicy)

dd ordered the Nama Karashi Ra-men (spicky chicken soup base with toppings)
Their ramen has a rich soup base which makes one really satisfying but (for us) it's easy to feel full after a while and won't feel like eating. Probably it's too rich for our liking, unless it's served in smaller portion.
Yaki Char Siu (grilled roast pork) Yummy! But it's not lean meat. ;)

Ajitsuke Tamago (half boiled seasoned egg). It's hard boiled egg but its egg yolks are half cooked. I yearning to replicate it some day. I found one recipe thats quite similar to this over at Quinn's Baking Diary. Maybe you would like to give it a try first and let me know. :D

5 comments:

Pei-Lin said...

Happy Belated Birthday to your fiance! No worries about the waistline issue! It was a once-in-while thingy! Most importantly, enjoy the quality time you two have together! Btw, the cake looks well done! Keep it up!

Aimei said...

Thanks Peilin!

Heh he must be happy to receive wishes from you. He always said I have made him famous liao by posting his pictures (not good-looking pictures of him which i think are all the same). haha

Yeah I agree also... we all love baking so can never resist such sweet treats...

Bakertan said...

Hi Aimei,

1st time dropping by here. thats a decadent chocolate cake u have there. The combination of praline feuillete, brownie, chocolate sponge and mousse is enough for me drool non-stop. Must have spent alot of time making it. good job!

cheers and happy baking =]

Anonymous said...

May I know where u get the feuillete from? Thanks

Aimei said...

Hi! i think i got it from Sunlik. You may want to search for the address as don't know how to describe how to go.