A Princess enters her teens with a Mocha Mousse Meringue Cake

My little princess turns 13!

The 17th of February 2017 was the date my little Princess turned 13 and she is certainly not little any more. Being a school day, we woke her early and as usual we hid her presents under the bed.






This year she got a Puma Hoodie, two personalised Arsenal Mugs and two T-shirts. The mugs were ordered from Photobook and as there was a special for two mugs, I designed two different mugs. She was delighted with the mugs but remarked that it may have been better if I hadn't personalised it with her name as that would look more authentic - as if it really came from Emirates Stadium! Nonetheless, she was delighted with her two mugs as well as the Puma hoodie and t-shirts.

Although she is in afternoon school for Form One, she had to go in for the morning session today as there was a farewell for one of the teachers. So it was a bit of a rush to get both her and her brother off to school in the morning. Later at night, we bought some of her favourite Chinese Fried Rice from the shop in Bangsar (Vincent) and had dinner at my Mom-in-Laws before coming home to cut her cake.




I had made the cake on Thursday night and had spent a considerable amount of time trying to decide what to make her. She had said she would like a dessert cake and preferably something new that I hadn't made before. She likes anything chocolate. She also likes anything sour. I contemplated making a lemon cake but thought that would be too simple. Then I thought of a lemon meringue cake - something like a lemon meringue pie. However I wasn't sure whether all of us would enjoy it enough to finish a whole cake. Orange Chocolate mousse cake....orange cake with choc ganache....Sacher Torte.....Coffee Cake..... Mocha Mousse Cake......hmmm.

A dinner for the girls ... ends with a fabulous dessert!

Just this weekend, The Lovely Wife invited some of her old school mates over for a get together. She had asked me earlier if I could cook up a nice dinner for four of her friends. How is a guy supposed to say no to dinner with four lovely ladies?! Errr... I mean FIVE including The Lovely Wife!!

One of the girls, Lynn, has become a good friend of mine as well. The last time she came over, she had told me about some swanky restaurant that she had been too where they had printed individual menu cards with the diner's name on it. She 'insisted' that the next time she came for dinner, I would have to print a menu card for her.


I had planned on individual cards for all the guests but as I ran out of time, I just quickly strung this together - that's my excuse for the Typo Errors!



As you can see from the menu, I stuck to the tried and tested although the Stuffed Peppers were different from anything I had ever done with stuffed capsicum before. I'll post about them soon enough.

I did some small variations on the Mediterranean Rice Tarts where I used beef pepperoni and cheese. I also omitted the bacon from my Chicken Pie and for both dishes, I used Portobello Mushrooms - more out of necessity than choice because the supermarket had run out of white button mushrooms. No complaints though as Portobello's are always good!

The piece de resistance was of course the dessert! Lynn had asked for an ice cream cake and I was actually planning on doing that but kind of changed my mind at the last minute. I didn't want to tell The Lovely Wife what I was planning to make either as sometimes, she will wrinkle her pretty little nose at my ideas just because she thinks it may not be up her alley - oftentimes she is completely wrong!





I spent the better part of Saturday morning making the dessert. It is loosely based on Le Kit Cat the famous dessert creted by Michel Richard, renowned chef of Citronelle Restaurant in Washington D.C. (Adapted from Happy in the Kitchen by Michel Richard)

I added an almond meringue base to the recipe, used more cream and added egg yolks to the mousse. This is what I did:

Ingredients
Base:
3 Eggs whites
150 g castor sugar
150 g ground almonds


Bottom Layer:
2/3 cup creamy peanut butter
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
200g ounces milk chocolate, melted and at body temperature
1 1/4 cups crushed corn flakes

Top Layer:
400 ml heavy cream
200g dark or semisweet chocolate
3 egg yolks
2 tbsp Sugar

Method
Make the base. Line a 9" Springform pan with baking paper. Whisk eggs whites till foamy and then add in sugar and whisk till stiff. Fold in ground almonds. Spread meringue mixture into springform and bake in preheated 170C oven for about 40 minutes or till meringue is cooked. Remove from oven and cool slightly. Remove springform and greaseproof paper from meringue. Allow to fully cool then replace into springform.

For the bottom layer, Whip peanut butter and vegetable oil on medium speed until combined and light in color, 2-3 minutes. Reduce to low, add the melted chocolate and mix until combined. Stir in the crushed corn flakes. Pour over almond meringue in springform. Spread into an even layer. Chill in fridge until firm.

For the top layer, melt the chocolate over a double boiler on low heat. While chocolate is melting, whisk the egg yolks with the sugar and quickly add into the melted chocolate. Remove from heat and continue whisking till smooth. If chocolate becomes clumpy, add in a little warm cream. Whisk the cream until soft peaks form. Fold a little of the whipped cream into the chocolate, then fold in the remaining cream.

Pour mixture over the peanut layer layer and spread evenly. Slice into rectrangles or cake slices to serve.

My Little princess helped with crunching up the corn flakes and she had a lot of fun doing it.


I had planned on making some miniature Le Kit Cat Almond Meringue Cake but I ran out of the peanut feullantine. What I did though was to make mini Almond Meringue Chocolate Mousse tarts! My mom had come over for lunch as Dad had a function to attend and she just Loved my little dessert! This is the first time I've posted a picture of her on this blog too!



I decorated the dessert with strawberries and when I brought it out, it was welcomed with oohs and ahhs. I want to perfect getting desserts cleanly out of a springform without leaving the sides all messed up. I guess the trick is to line the sides of the springform too...



The dessert itself was simply divine. I have to admit that this is probably one of the nicest desserts I have ever tasted - EVER! All the guests loved it as did The Lovely Wife. She too proclaimed that it was probably one of the best desserts she'd ever tasted. Lynn, ever my foodie-fan, simply oohed and raised her thumb in appreciation as she savoured the dessert. Most everyone had two slices while I sneaked in three!

There was some left over for the next day and I cut it into cake sized slices and took a few more photos. I think the dessert tasted even better the next day! Both the kids loved it too and the leftovers were polished off very quickly.



As I sit here blogging about this dessert, I wish I had saved a piece (or two) as it was really, really delicious. I have to say that this is definitely a dessert that I would make again - and again and again!

Oh, and thanks ladies for a wonderful time! It was a lot of fun having you over for dinner and even more fun watching you all enjoy dessert. It's always nice to be in the company of lovely women who know how to enjoy their dessert!

Making a right Malaysian Mess!

Contrary to what the title says, I didn’t mess anything up. Well, not in the literal sense anyway. I made a mess of things, sure, but it turned out to be a pretty darned good mess. No mess up at all. Okay, okay, I’ll stop messing with you all!


One afternoon, the Lovely Wife and I were flipping through Jamie Oliver’s Cook with Jamie when we came across his recipe for Eton Mess. Now I had never heard of an Eton Mess before but the picture of cream with berries and meringue looked rather lovely. The Lovely Wife remarked that this would be something that our son would love as he really likes his fruit and cream, not to mention pavlova!

The Eton Mess has its roots in (surprise, surprise!) Eton – that famous school in England and reputed to be the most famous school in the world. I wouldn’t know about that although I can vouch that Victoria Institution is not only the most famous but also the best school in Malaysia!

Anyway, back to Eton and the mess attributed to it! The Eton Mess is a dessert consisting of a mixture of strawberries, pieces of meringue and cream. It is traditionally served at Eton College's annual prize-giving celebration picnic on the Fourth of June. Apparently however, these days it is celebrated on the last Wednesday in May. Don’t ask me why that is so but I think it just goes to show how Messed up Eton really is…

You can see I’m having fun with this whole ‘Mess’ thing!

I decided to do a variation of the Eton Mess and use a whole bunch of different fruits. I used Kiwis, Bananas, Watermelon, Papaya and Pears. I also decided to flavour my meringue with cocoa – just for a bit of a change. Granted that Kiwis and Pears are not really Malaysian fruits but Watermelon, Papaya and Bananas certainly are. So that's why I call it a Malaysian Mess!

The meringue whipped up nicely and baked even better to a nice crisp. The cocoa meringue gave it a nice twist as it wasn't as sweet as a regular meringue. It was kind of fun breaking the meringue up into pieces and I wish I had got the kids involved in it. Reason I didnt was because I wanted to surprise them with the dessert.

My Kenwood makes whipping cream really easy now using the whisk attachment although you still have to watch that you don't overbeat the cream and end up with a separated mess (ha! There's that word again!!). I flavoured the cream with lots of vanilla and a little icing sugar and it was really quite delicious.

I took a leaf out of Jamie's book and served the Mess in glasses.



The kids simply Loved this dessert and asked for more, and then for more again! The good thing about this dessert is that their dose of fruit - although in all fairness, its never a problem getting them to eat their fruit.

I guess this is really similar to a Pavlova, but somehow serving it in a glass makes a difference. Also, I think my meringue making skills have improved as the meringue stayed crispy for quite a while, even when sitting with all the cream over it.

Or maybe its not my skills that have improved but rather my Kenwood that makes the difference...

Toblerone Almondy Cake - or the Ikea Daim Cake attempt

How many if you have seen or tried the Daim Cake sold at Ikea? It has a lovely almond base and is filled with some sort of golden custard like substance and then topped of with luscious chocolate and chopped Daim. I like this cake and I thought I would attempt to make it. Looking around for a recipe on the web yielded zilch but what I did find was a link to the company that actually produces this cake.
The company website calls the yellow layers 'Golden Buttercream' and so I thought a custardy flavoured buttercream with do the trick. I also decided to use Toblerone as a replacement for Daim since the latter is so expensive. For the base, I decided to modify my almond meringue base by adding an extra egg white and baking it a little longer.
Sounded like a good plan but all good plans sometimes go awry....! The custard buttercream I made turned out too powdery so I thought I would cook it. That didnt turn out to be such a good idea since the butter melted and produced a sticky mass that although it tasted rather nice, refused to set and stayed as a sticky, gooey mass. That's the yellow bits you see leaking out of the cake!
So what I did was to scrape off as much of the goo as I could rescue and convert my Ikea Daim cake to a Chocolate Mousse Almondy Biscuit cake with Toblerone topping!
Turned out rather delicious even if I do say so myself and the guests that partook of this second dessert at the Dinner at Restaurant Dharm went home very satisfied.

UPDATE:
I tried to perfect the Ikea Daim Cake another TWO times and the results (together with the recipes) can be found at the links below. I think Take 3 is the best replication so far!!!
Ikea Daim Cake - Take Two (July 2008)
Ikea Daim Cake - Take 3 and Success (Feb 2009)