Ferrero Rocher Cake.

Years back when I was in Sydney, I came across this absolutely divine cake composed of hazelnuts and Nutella, where every esctatic bite was like a divine revelation. And then, I wondered whether it was possible to recreate a similar flavor?
Picture 4 layers of hazelnut cake, brushed with vanilla syrup, filled with fresh chocolate cream and crushed ferrero rochers and wafers, glazed with an indulgent rich nutella and cream frosting.
I did this cake for my sis' birthday and added far too much cream to the nutella so my frosting was literally dripping off the cake and that happened when i was coating the sides of the cake with white chocolate bits. I had to scrape off the drippy mess and I decided to press crushed saviordi biscuits to the sides to stabilise the already very soft cake... hmmm.. remind me not to add too much cream next time.
I wanted to do some white chocolate plastique but for some reason, the chocolate seized up tonight... well, well sometimes the stars are all aligned against you.

Ispahan Cake.

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Ispahan refers to the combination of flavours (lychee, raspberry and rose) that was invented by French pastry great, Pierre Herme.
Making this cake was not too difficult but time-comsuming as the raspberry and lychee gel layers and the rose mousse has to be made separately and assembled. I wish I could get rosewater in Brunei; the ones in the shops here are the artificial type and the last one I bought had such a dreadful synthetic taste that I promptly chucked it in the bin! I should have bought more rosewater when I was in Melbourne.
The buds you see are dried rosebuds. Now you really want to get the ones which are organic and can be eaten; health food shops should carry them and no, don't use the ones in potpourri.. ick.

Simple pleasures.

I've always love how a simple tart can be used to showcase a lovely berry. It's really hard to get sweet berries in Brunei - most of the ones in the shops here are export quality and they can be too sour at times! But not to worry - the sweetened mascarpone filling I whipped up balanced out the tart berries nicely.
I must confess I am not a big fan of doing pastry. The weather in Brunei is so humid and the last few attempts I had with croissant dough and puff pastry turned a soggy mess on me. But this shortcrust pastry is pretty forgiveable - you just have to work in a not-so-hot place.

Tiramisu.

I remember many years ago my first encounter with tiramisu. At that time, I did not know what it was - I thought it was something Japanese, something alcoholic like sake. How wrong I was!
Tiramisu now for sale - $60 for a 10 inch cake.