Peach pistachio frangipane tarts

I'm heading out for a litle shopping soon in town with my girlfriend later, so let's make this entry short and simple shall we?

Following the success of the previous tart I made,  I used the same recipe for the tart base for these tarts. Lovely luscious peaches, with their seductive pink hues and tantalising aroma, how do I resist them?

Peach pistachio frangipane tarts

Lost.

Oh my god. It's the end of April. In less than 2 months. I'm going to kiss QUT bye-bye. Graduation. I'm so not looking forward to it. I have so many choices I have no idea which to decide on. One thing I detest at this moment is anyone who ask the fatal question "So what are your plans after graduation?". The million dollar answer to the question is "I don't know, so stop asking me."

Pistachio paste is used for the pistachio buttercream.

Macarons from front to back - Coffee; Grapefruit; Pistachio.

Koko black chocolate is superb. I decided that since I like chocolates, and like muffins, I should just combine the two so I don't eat double the fats. snigger. Rough chunks of these in a muffin? Yummy.

Special two-in-one muffin. Nah. Actually it's leftover batter. (:

Fiona & Claudia's graduations + Ludwig's farewell. I baked green tea muffins and checkerboard cookies and dressed them up in the pretty packaging from where else but my fave store in Singapore...Daiso! (:

I tried my hand at baking other bread besides focaccia. Sweet buns dough, with various fillings.

I like the chocolate ones best. No surprise. ;)

Lemons lemons lemons. I love zesting the lemons and rubbing it in sugar. The smell oh the smell. I wish I could smell like lemon sugar. Someone should bottle the scent of lemon sugar seriously. (:

For Rick, Gerald & Esther's graduation, it's chocolate pie (tasted suspiciously brownie-like) and lemon almond oatmeal lace cookies.

Cravings for double dark chocolate cookies, so made some hugeass ones. A glass of cold milk with these is simply the best.

Finishing up used bits.

Everyone likes to start their day differently. My sister likes to start it off with some focaccia bread. I, on the other hand, am perfectly fine with eating cold cereal for breakfast. Not to say that I don't like focaccia, I do, just that I cannot eat it for consecutive days without getting a bit tired of the same fare.

Sister made me bake lots of foccacia so that she can eat roughly twice the portion she eat if eating store-bought foccacia. The store-bought loaf is roughly equivalent to four servings. One portion of the recipe yields two loaves. She made me do two portions. We had four loaves of bread in the house. In the end, she didn't even manage to finish all before the bread went moldy. Sigh. Sis, ah, Sis.


I made fruit tarts the other day just because I realised I havn't had the opportunity to make them in Singapore yet. To play safe, I reused the recipe I made the other time round, just makin additions to the dough by adding chopped pistachios. The taste was somewhat similar to the first time I made (sans nuts). But nuts seem to be a healthier addition so, I'll add them again next time, just that I'll chop them up finely cos this time round, there were a few chunks of pistachio visible in the dough...

As usual, my refrigerator was chock full of fruits. In addition to the grapes and mandarins we already have in stock, I got some blueberries and raspberries (a treat, considering their price!) as what is a tart without berries?

I love fruits. Especially berries. The reason being because they are expensive. As it is hard to obtain these fruits cheaply, whenever I actually get to eat them, I actually feel happy. Laugh at me if you must, but I get a cheap thrill just biting into a raspberry. It tastes especially sweeter somehow. ;)

It was a chore to segment mandarins. It didn't help that the mandarins used for the fruit tarts were of the mini variety. Big fingers need not apply.

I made six medium sized tarts and decorated them with a single fruit for each. The mandarin tart as you can see, consists of my hard work (segmenting...) so of cos, who best to eat it then yours truely. (:





I had a gathering with my girls two days ago. I had a pack of cream cheese left, and my sister had reminded me to use up whatever ingredients I've bought before head back to Brisbane, so what to do, but some sort of cheese cake? So, I decided to make something to bring along to share with the girls.

Again, I reused the recipe for the cheesecake pops I made a few months back. It helps that the portions are pretty small, so it's safe to pop one, or two of these small morsels without feeling overwhelmed by the cheesy-ness if compared to a whole slice of cheesecake.

I had bought a medium bag of pistachios some time bag, and just got around to using it just only. So it features alot in the goodies I'm making recently. Here, I melted chocolate, coat the chilled cheesepops with chocolate and chopped pistachios. It struck me halfway through coating that some people might not like nuts, and I only had a few sticks left - explains the few non-nuts sticks.

I made creme brulee today. Will be talking about it with pictures in the next post. Together with the macarons that I am going to make (on Tuesday hopefully!), in an effort to clear the bits and pieces of baking ingredients in the pantry...

Eclairs.

When I think of eclairs, I think of Beard Papa. I'm not really an eclair person. I'm more into other baked goodies like cakes and brownies and whatnots. However, the only eclair that I remember being really into was the ones from Beard Papa. I recall the first time I tasted it, it was at the Takashimaya basement outlet. I ordered one (measly small piece it was, that costs me about two bucks) and took a bite out of it.

I was hooked. The creamy chocolate cream (I normally detest cream of any sort) that simply melts in your mouth - I still remember how happy I felt eating it - and then proceeded to declare it my pick-me-up treat. It was back in the secondary school days I think. And for a period of time, whenever I dropped by town, and if I was feeling low, an order of Beard Papa's chocolate eclair was sure to be on the list of things to get. A mouth of that yummy dessert and I'm all perked up (I reckon it's my inner happy endorphins that got a kick out of all that sugar rush...).

I was browsing through all my favourite food blogs as usual, when I saw the Daring Bakers baked good of the month - Pierre Hermé chocolate éclairs. Since I am experimenting with different baked goodies lately, I decided to make it for fun's sake. I used the choux pastry dough as per listed, made a batch of almond pastry cream (that's simply to-die-for) and topped the treat up with melted 70% lindt dark chocolate before adding chopped pistachios/a raspberry to the eclairs.

Of course, I hurried to complete the pastry in hopes of snapping some pictures of it before the sun sets as my digital camera sucks at night photography (do I hear a new camera hollering my name?). I was lucky (since I did the almond cream the day before, I only need to make the pastry today), I managed to get in some day shots of the completed goodies before passing the sweets on to the housemates. (:

Chopped pistachios atop an eclair.

Almond pastry cream. Lusciously divine.