One Filling, Two Tastes

I had purposely cooked more curry chicken on Wednesday so that I can make curry puffs and buns during the weekends. Thankfully, I was able to bake what I had hoped for. One filling-curry chicken, two tastes-buns & puffs. I was very happy with the outcome for the buns, but not really the puffs. I was trying to squeeze too much fillings into the puff pastry that they can't "seal" properly. :p And the shape and size became so weird that my sisters rejected it. Fortunately, my kids still love them!





I was yearning to use my vanilla bean seeds since the day I got my hands on it. However, I just didn't find the right recipe to use it. As I was thinking of making Apple Cinnamon Tarts, I decided to use the vanilla seeds for my pastry cream. I cooked my green apples with raisins, brown sugars and ground cinnamons. Then mixed them into my pastry cream. The feeling of scrapping the vanilla seeds out of the beans was really SHIOK! The taste of the pastry cream with its really vanilla seeds is really empowering! I simply love it! No artificial extracts or essence were needed!

What's in my tarts?

Didn't feel like baking up a storm on Saturday after a couple of failed tries on sponge cake. So, I decided to bake tarts (from the leftover dough in the freezer).

Baked tart shells of two sizes.

Upclose with the crispy tart shells fresh from the oven. It was handmade, therefore, it wasn't uniform. :p

These are chocolate with Bailey's Irish creme caramel tartlets.

Pastry cream with Grand Marnier Orange.

Pastry cream with payaya bits (non alcoholic!)

Chocolate with Grand Marnier Orange.

Mini tartlets from left to right: pastry cream with Grand Marnier Orange, chocolate with Grand Marnier Orange & pastry cream with payaya bits.

Cross section of the chocolate Creme Caramel tart.


I baked breads on Friday evening. Didn't turn out to be as soft as I want them to be. There were bak kwa, kaya, Nutella chocolate & red beans.

Re-creating Claire Fontaine

I had loved the cake which we learnt from my baking school called CLAIRE FONTAINE. So I tried to replicate this cake again for my family, knowing that they will appreciate this as much as I do. Here is how it was made.

Sliced oranges were poached with sugar, water and Grand Marnier. It was then chilled for a minimum of two days. This was done on Tuesday.

Pastry cream was made on Wednesday. See how smooth it was.

The poached oranges were carefully selected and decorated on Friday

Poached oranges were cut finely and mixed with Pastry Cream.

Whipped cream was added to the pastry cream with poached orange, gelatine and Grand Manier.

The pastry cream mix was scooped to the cake ring layer by layer.

Finally, the sponge cake was covered with the pastry cream mix, and put it in the fridge to chill.

TA-RAH!! Finally, on Saturday, CLAIRE FONTAINE was revealed! It was brushed with neutral glaze to give it a nice shine.

This is the cross section of the cake - poached orange, pastry cream mix, sponge, pastry cream mix, sponge, pastry cream & sponge.

Finally, with some extra sponge cake and pastry cream mix, I put it into individual container. They're so pretty!

Recipe extracted from my baking school.