Mocha Walnut Cheesecake, by Accident

Cheesecake is one of my favourite, whether the bake or non-bake type. For the former, I love them in creamy dense and strong flavour, but not overly rich. For the latter, I like them creamy smooth but not overly airy, which is a sign of too much whipped cream.

I've baked American cheesecake a couple of times. This time round, decided to combine two of my favourite flavour, coffee and walnut. I am never a coffee drinker, due to my caffeine intolerance and a small strong cuppa is enough to keep me awake whole night. However, over the years, I have grown to like it as a flavour in my dessert

I did my usual digestive biscuit crump base, flavoured my cheese mixture with freezed dried instant coffee, and incorporated the chopped walnuts into the batter before pouring over the base. As with most cheesecake, I baked it in a water bath, watching it carefully to adjust temperature and to add additional water in the water bath when necessary.

The cake turned out beautifully, except for a crack in the middle of the cake during the last stage of baking!! My heart sank, seeing the line across my beautifully cake. Somehow, I felt a strong urge to cover that ugly line. After much thinking, I decided to make a chocolate ganache and pour over the whole cheesecake while still in its mould. As I unmould the cake after chilling, I realised it was a beautiful three layers from the side view, much to my delight!

The chocolate, coffee, walnut, or rather, the mocha walnut cheesecake turns out to be much, much better than I had expected. Am so well pleased with it that I would like to include it as one of my signatures!!





The layered pattern as seen from the side. The chocolate ganache sits on top of the original coffee walnut cheesecake, but eating the three layers together creates a nice explosive of flavour in the mouth.

 

Cupcakes

Cupcakes is all the rage now, you see them online, you see them at cake shops and you see them in bookshops (books about them). They are not difficult to make, but if you want special styling, they can take up a lot of time, much much more time than I had expected actually.

I had my first experience when an ex-colleague sms me if I wanted to help create something special for her son's 5th birthday. All she wanted was 25 cupcakes, to be collected on the morning of her son's birthday for a teabreak celebration in his school. I checked for some reference online and gamely took on, thinking that they shouldn't take up too much time and shouldn't be too difficult. As it turn out, I was wrong!

Perhaps the difficulties lies in the all chocolate ganache icing that I used, instead of the usual buttercream icing. But then again, our warm and humid tropical weather is not the same as the cool and dry temperate weather where all these cupcakes ideas originate. I also do not have the luxury of an air-conditioned kitchen or room to work in. This experience now makes me understand fully why an ex-colleague said she had to blast her air-con at 15 deg in one of her bedroom for the whole duration whenever she wants to make sculptured cakes.

The chocolate sponge in the cups baked pretty effortlessly, using my usual recipe. In wanting to avoid using colouring, excess fats and sugar, I opted for dark and white chocolate ganache for the decoration. As mentioned, due to the warm environment, I had a hard time making the ganache hold it's shape. As I spend more time working on it, I also lost the shine of the glossy ganache, and as a result, more time had to be spent to rectify this as well. Being the meticulous me, I also spend more time in selecting similar size chocolate coins and placing them as ears on the cakes. At one point, I started to panic as I barely had enough time to do the finishing touches for the eyes, noses and mouth. This can be seen in the photos, not all the drawing were consistent, but it created a unique look for each individual piece.



The 25 cupcakes, all nicely lined and stuck securely to the cakeboard using flour paste.

 


A closer view of the design, personally I like the panda one better.

  I love these cupcakes for their cute looks and delicious all chocolate taste. My friend has also feedback that the 17 kids ate up all 25 cups within minutes and absolutely love them. Would I make them again? Well... for all the time needed, 18hrs in total, not unless it is a very special child!

Here's the link to the Wilton website reference where I got the ideas from

http://www.wilton.com/idea/Panda-monium
http://www.wilton.com/idea/Bear-Hug-for-One

Meantime, if there's any request cupcakes, I am most happy to offer this much much simpler to decorate version and just as delicious no less - banana sponge with chocolate glaze and topped with  fruits. 




Easy to decorate cupcakes. The cake is baked below the rim so that the glaze and topping can be protected within the cup.



Mooncakes

I love all the different kind of  mooncakes. However, I am fussy about their taste. They can't be too sweet, too oily, too dry nor have artificial taste. Hence, ever since I was taught how to make them while in culinary school, I never stopped trying different recipes and am constantly making adjustments, to the way I feel is right.

After 3 years, I am proud to say I am pretty good with most of them, except for the traditional baked ones. Despite numerous attempts, no matter what amount of oil and liquid I try to adjust for the skin and paste, their ratio just don't work out right. This inadvertently affects the final appearance and shape of the product, making the imprinted designs appear somewhat blur and the mooncake shapes distorted :( Need more attempt on this one for sure.

As it is way too tedious and tricky to cook my own lotus paste, I bough a particular brand originated from Hong Kong, which is not too sweet and oily. Most of the other ingredients are made from scratch while colourings and flavous are from fruit purees, natural pandan juice and instant coffee powder. I've also made my own yam paste for the teochew mooncake, under the guidance of my chef.



Mooncake biscuits, children really love them and if the syrup is cooked right, both the syrup and biscuits can be kept for a year, without preservatives... I ate my last piece 8 months later! The most common shapes are piglets and I love these cute goldfishes as well.



I made this to be served as complimentary dessert at the restaurant during the festival. The brown ones are chendol with pandan center while the yellow ones are mango with chocolate. Getting the agar balls to sit perfectly in the centre on the mould's little ridge takes effort and seems impossible if the moulds have been used repetitively .



Snowskin mooncakes, a huge improvement from last attempt and I think I will stick with this recipe. Mocha skin with Valrhona chocolate pearls lotus filling; strawberry skin with macadamia nuts lotus filling; original skin with sesame seeds lotus filling.



Traditional baked mooncakes, which I still need to improve their look although they taste wonderful.



Fried crispy skin teochew style mooncake with yam paste filling. I had the privilege to learn this from a Chinese head chef during my school attachment. It's a lot of work and involves many steps. Am not confident if I can still make it as nice looking as above.



Mooncake Making Workshop for Children 2010

For the last 2 years, I have had the privilege of conducting different workshops for the home school group of children. These include gingerbreadmen cookies for Christmas season, and also the ever popular mooncake workshop for Mid-Autumn Festival.

J, who is a mum in the group, would usually help me organise such workshop at her home, or at one of the mum’s in the group. The logistic for such work shop is usually enormous, with all the ingredients, bake wares, tasting samples and also the oven. I wouldn’t have been able to make it for such, if not from the support of my brother, and most often, J, who help me with the transportation.

The objective of such workshop was not only to have the children have fun, but also to enable them to learn the story behind these treats for the particular festival/celebrations, as well as encourage team bonding. The children range from age 4-12 years. I usually limit the group size to maximum of 8 and the older ones who were usually faster would help the younger ones.

Working with children is not easy, as they need to be kept constantly occupied and also extra attention in terms of safety and keeping order. However, it gives me great satisfaction interacting and watching them enjoying my sessions; especially when end of the workshops, they proudly present their work to their parents.



Ning and Quinn, busy at work on their piglet mooncakes, while Alethea helps a younger participant.




Demonstrating to the children how to cook their agar mixture.

 


Angel pressing her dough into the goldfish mold.

 


Spike, with his proud creation