Chocolate hazelnut mousse cake

I was in the mood for some chocolate (okay, like when am I ever not?), and a chocolate hazelnut praline mousse cake has been sitting right at the top of my to-do list since...forever. I didn't have a specific recipe in mind, all I knew about my proposed cake was that it should have my beloved hazelnut feuilletine layer, a chocolate sponge, and a chocolate mousse.

With that in mind, I went about collecting recipes from different sources...again. I really must do something about this bad habit of mind, always making a multi-component something sourced from various sources instead of sticking to the original recipes. Tsk tsk.

 

My version of a 'Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse Cake'

Brunch

It's the weekend tomorrow. I can't wait. I have a date with the Sister for brunch at Oriole Cafe (tentative, IF we manage to snag a table) on Saturday morning, (where they have the best coffee in town apparently) and to do some shopping after.

The Sis's girlfriends was over for brunch one weekend. We nibbled on some brie on crackers while prepping for the brunch. One of my Swiss girlfriend can make a really mean summer-ish vegetables salsa, which  I fell in love with straight after my first mouth. I got the recipe from her and has made it a couple of times since then. It's a really easy peasy salad/salsa to make and the colourful vegetables make the dish an extremely visual treat. I've included the recipe below as I find myself always losing it and having trouble looking for it again on my facebook wall where she posted it. It'll be good to place it on the blog so I can find it easily in future. ;)

Brunch plate - Poached eggs, toasted tomato bread, salsa, bacon and mushrooms.

Macarons from Tokyo...

I managed to get my hands on Pierre Herme's macarons! Surreal or not. I mean, a few years ago, I would have been all "Pierre Herme" who? But now that I'm slowly morphing into (gasp) a macaron addict, I would have been mad not to have heard of Pierre Herme. Macarons in Tokyo are (gasp again) freakin' madly priced. Then again, it could have been all patisseries in general? These macs cost like S$5 a pop. Almost two and a half times more than the most expensive macs in town...

Matcha macarons

Macarons are sly and finicky creatures. They slowly creep into your life, eventually overtaking it even, and before you know it, from feeling indifferent towards them, you become addicted to them. However, churning out these devious lil things are not 100 per cent fool-proof. Though from my very first attempt, I've mostly encountered success, lately, the macaron baking fairy seemed to have shun me for others.

These stupid matcha flavoured macs? Took me not one, not two but three attempts to see something remotely resembling macs. The first two batches were disasters that looked severely disfigured beyond words, best buried in the deep recess of soon-to-be-forgotten memories (hey, I've got a very short memory span, which works well in such times). I suspected that they failed because the egg whites weren't beaten properly, so for this fortunate third batch, I made sure to whip the whites longer...

And hey yo, they finally passed the visual test (barely), and though they have really flat feet, as least they resemble macs yeah. I was going to seriously cry and stomp my feet if they failed, cos you know, matcha powder is not cheap. Ha.

Matcha macarons with red bean paste filling

Bintan

Short summary of the getaway trip with the girlfriends through photos...