Pierre Herme

My friend, ‘the cake baker’, pointed me in the direction of patissier Pierre Herme from France. “Let me google”, I replied and my-oh-my ... yum! Even the chocolate bars sounds delicious.

TABLETTE CHOCOLAT NOIR AU CITRON ET À LA BERGAMOTE: (A bar of dark chocolate lightly flavoured with lemon and bergamot, with bits of candied lemon.) Reminds me of earl grey tea chocolate since earl grey contains bergamot.

TABLETTE AZUR: Chocolate bar with a chocolate yuzu ganache filling with bits of candied grapefruit.

Plénitude: chocolate macaroon, dark chocolate chips with pure sea salt, bitter chocolate mousse, bitter chocolate ganache, crunchy caramel

Millefeuille Montebello: Pistachio and Raspberry Millefeuille

Tarte Infiniment Vanille: sweet tart dough, white chocolate and vanilla ganache, biscuit moistened with a vanilla juice, vanilla mascarpone cream)

Perfect Flavor Ice Cream

What’s with all the frozen dessert posts lately? You ask. I must be dreaming of summer...the longer days, warmth of the sun, the general population looking happy, the mark of the end of another year....and of course there’s ice cream/sorbet/gelato/frozen yoghurt. At Perfect Flavor ice-cream, they let you create your own ice cream creations – bliss!

First, you choose the base: mousse, sweet cream, cheesecake, French custard, gelato or sorbet.

Next, add your base flavour: chocolate, vanilla, caramel or coffee.

Then, you choose the ‘mixins’ which besides the usual chocolate, nuts, caramel, berries includes: marshmallow, cardamom, ginger, saffron, brioche, earl grey tea, lavender and white pepper ..to name a few.

I assume *sigh* that it only ships to the U.S. Then again, I probably won’t even buy because at $119.99US for a 4 pint tub, it ain’t recession friendly!

Last Supper (well, alomst)

I managed to cook up a meal which took effort last night. Wedges with rosemary salt, Moroccan sirloin, roasted carrots with spinach and tomato salad. Rare for a weeknight ...the usual weeknight meal normally has fewer ingredients done in the oven or one-pot style (less washing!). I’m not sure if it’s because we are moving next week and I’m preparing myself for a few days of take-away, pasta+sauce and Korean 2mins noodles.

I’ll be saying goodbye to the ‘light it yourself’ gas appliances. Must admit I was a bit afraid at first to light the oven, thoughts of “What if my arm catches on fire?’ ran through my mind. Next week, I’ll be saying hello an electric stove top (gasp!) and oven. Happy about the oven part - it’s easier to control but I hope it doesn’t take 30mins to boil an egg (as my mum would say) on the stove. I am also very excited about the newer and bigger kitchen. Bench space! Woo!

Rosemary Salt

Wedges...mmmm

Moroccan sirloin with veg

Pinkberry Frozen Yoghurt

From the list of 'why can't we get this in Australia?'... I present you Pinkberry.

Pinkberry is frozen yogurt chain specialising in low-fat, soft served style yogurt with distinctive flavours and fresh toppings resulting in a 'perfect marriage of extraordinary taste palates....'. I'll just let some of the flavours speak for themselves.....

Pomegranate

Coconut

A few of the toppings include (depending on season): blackberry, pineapple, kiwi, cookies and cream, Italian caramel and cherry.

There's also fruit parfait

I'll have a pomegranate yogurt with cherries and dark chocolate chips please!

Gourmet Popcorn

I would love to cook and entertain more but time and apartment size doesn't always allow for that. From here on, I will include my cooking/entertaining stories but also information, sites and pictures of exciting food products that I come across.

Popcorn, once reserved for the movies (the buttered kind) and kids parties (the sweet muti-coloured kind. Funny ... sugar & colouring for a room full of kids!), is not much of a gourmet food. The gourmet-ist that it got was the salt & vinegar and honey flavours from Kernels. Until I came across this ....

479 degrees Popcorn from the States serves up small but tasty selection. My favorites are:


Chipotle Caramel + Almonds: I love chilli chocolate, but chilli and caramel? Yum!



Black Truffle + White Cheddar: Oh la la, truffles. To be honest there probably won't be much truffle flavour. Buy it for the la-di-da factor.





Ginger Sesame Caramel: you don't expect this for popcorn.

High Tea

Having been given the notice to ship out of our apartment by the end of the month, there can be no better way but to say farewell with high tea (the high tea was actually planned before but where's the drama in that?).

I made my own Raspberry Jam in the microwave and cheated by adding gelatin to set the jam. It tasted pretty good and it was so quick and easy. I used 1 cup frozen raspberries, 1 cup caster sugar, squeeze of lemon juice and 2 sheet gold strength gelatin leaves. First you microwave the berries and lemon juice for 5mins, then add sugar, stir and microwave for a further 10mins (be careful as it might boil over the bowl). Soak the gelatin leaves, squeeze the excess water, stir into the mixture, put it in the fridge and voila! homemade jam.

To save time, I brought the sweet tart shells and filled it with various flavoured creams. You can add anything to whipped cream: berries, lemon, lime, chocolate, nuts, candied fruits....the list goes on.

Also, thanks to the 'cake baker' for baking such a yummy flourless Mandarin and Almond cake.

Buttermilk Scones
Ingredients
1 tbsp icing sugar

2 1/2 cups plain flour

1 1/2 tbsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

1 cup buttermilk

30g butter, melted

Method
1. Pre-heat the oven to 200c.

2. Put all the dry ingredients into a bowl and mix. Add the wet ingredients and stir with a cutting motion with a knife.

3. Knead quickly and press out onto a floured surface to 3 cm thick. Cut with a scone cutter or round cookie cutter.
4. Bake for approx 10mins until slightly golden and puffed. Served warm with jam and cream.

Chocolate Mousse
Ingredients
250g dark chocolate
200ml thicken cream

Method
1. Chop the chocolate into fine pieces and put into a bowl. Heat 1/3 of the cream but do not boil. Once warm, pour into the chocolate and mix until smooth.

2. Whip remaining cream until thick and fold into the chocolate mixture. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Lemon and Mint Cream

Ingredients

250ml thicken cream

zest of 2 lemons

2 tsp vanilla

handful of mint leaves, finely chopped

Method

1. Whip cream until thick and mix in lemon zest and vanilla.

2. Just before serving fold in mint leaves.

The tea and coffee bar

Pre-high tea chocolates

Flourless Mandarin & Almond Cake, Moroccan Chicken and Smoked Salmon finger sandwiches

Scones with homemade Raspberry Jam and Chocolate Mousse Tarts

Lemon and Mint tarts