Desserts | Voices from within

24Jul/090

Project Mille Crepe – Step 4 of N

The spoiler to this post is... it was a failed attempt =(

It was a long day at work. I was supposed to work overtime as there was just so many tasks at hand, my final assignment at TAS. However, I knew I had to rush home to prepare the pastry cream and later assemble the cake. I left office at 7 and headed straight to town to get the last ingredient - vanilla extract. I called my sis to ask if the bakery shop that sells baking ingredients and equipments would have the vanilla extract that I wanted. Bad luck. The shop was closed when I reached there at 7:40. Called her again and she suggested that I should head to Tesco. I rushed to the baking section and loitered there for almost 20 minutes. I could not find it =( Out of desperation, I got a bar of HERSHEY'S special dark baking bar.

Finally got home at 8:40, had dinner and began to prepare the vanilla pastry cream, err... chocolate pastry cream. Melted the chocolate bar, whisked together the egg yolks, sugar and cornstarch in a pan, then poured the melted chocolate into the pan and ta-daa! The pastry cream was completed in about 15 minutes. I then set it in a bowl of ice bath. It was time to make the crepes!

I took the crepes batter out of the refrigerator, placed the pan over medium heat and swabbed the surface with some oil. Next, I added about 4-5 tablespoons of batter into the pan and swirled to cover the surface. I went into the dry kitchen to get some dishes washed while waiting for my first crepe to cook. When I was done with the washing, I went back to attend to my crepe. My heart popped out immediately. Oh no, we ran out of cooking gas! Work had to stop. Ahhhh...

I had to request Pei Yee to get the 20 crepes done for me tomorrow morning. I wished I could prepare them myself but he will be arriving from Singapore tomorrow morning and I would not have time =( I should say that I won't be able to keep him away from me tomorrow instead (haha). Ah, there goes my failed attempt. I kept the chocolate pastry cream and crepes batter back to the refrigerator.

Time to get some sleep!

Filed under: Eating Out No Comments

24Jul/090

Project Mille Crepe – Step 3 of N

8:40PM - Returned home from a 2-hour badminton training.
9:15PM - Showered and finished dinner.
9:40PM - Finished chatting with mom. Decided that I should start preparing the crepes batter so I could proceed with making the pastry cream and assemble the cake tomorrow.

10:00PM - Started mixing the eggs, flour, sugar and salt

10:10PM - Done mixing by hand

10:20PM - Interrupted by the "nightly call" as I was preparing the pan to cook the butter. Paused for 10 minutes to entertain the caller.

10:30PM - Done cooking the butter and started to heat up the milk

10:40PM - Almost there... Browned butter and hot milk being poured into the mixture

10:55PM - Ready to be refrigerated overnight. Crepes batter - done!

Filed under: Eating Out No Comments

22Jul/090

Project Mille Crepe – Step 2 of N

Ingredients shopping.

Butter, all-purpose flour, cream and milk

I hope I bought the correct items (haha).
This task was completed today but was overdue. The initial plan was to finish shopping yesterday and begin my first experiment. However, as soon as I got home from Jusco, I was too tired to do anything. I was supposed to prepare the crepes batter today but it was all good since I will not have time to proceed with making the vanilla pastry cream and assemble the cake tomorrow - badminton training arghhhh!

Here's a rough idea on the course of making the cake:-

Prepare the crepes batter (day 1 - refrigerate overnight)
Prepare the vanilla pastry cream (day 2)
Assemble the cake (day 2)

Filed under: Eating Out No Comments

21Jul/091

Project Mille Crepe – Step 1 of N

It's a month away from Aug 18th and I am already thinking hard what sort of surprise should I give. After all, it is the first time that I will be celebrating this special day with him. A shirt? A tie? A card? Ughh... I am always stuck at choosing gifts for people. I finally decided that I want to do something simple. Make something edible for him :p
We were chatting online about food (it started with durians, yuck!) two days ago. I realized I had an opportunity to casually ask what does he like to eat most. The outcome of the interview was... Korean food. No, no, this is definitely impossible for me. Next comes, "remember the layer cake I bought for you from Malacca?".

Aha! That's it.

I googled immediately for the recipe. cheese layer cake, rum and raisin layer cake, rum and raisin cheese layer cake. None of the results returned looked like the one I ate! I cannot remember the shop's name at all. How would I know which is the right recipe, having no baking experience at all? I talked to my dear friend, Ying Ying, whose mom is good at making desserts. Hmm.. nothing.

I brought this up to Hiew Ming (another dear friend-cum-ex-colleague), knowing she's quite fond of good food and therefore, she might just know something. She immediately showed me a blog that has the bakery in Malacca published in one of their posts. Yay! The shop's name is Nadeje Patisserie. It is actually quite famous for the said "layer cake". The "layer cake" is called Mille Crepe. Hiew Ming mentioned that Food Foundry sells Mille Crepe too. From there, she suggested that we should go have another slice of Mille Crepe before I begin my quest in making one myself.