Sunday, February 21, 2010

Ice Cream over Lotus Tuile Cookies Drizzled with Very Berry Sauce and Banana on Angel Roll Cake Lake

 
My plated dessert project #2 at home turned out lovely and fun.  Over the weekend, I had two special guests at home to entertain.  To end the evening with pleasant finale, I presented them with this long winded plated dessert name:  "Ice Cream over Lotus Tuile Cookies Drizzled with Very Berry Sauce and Banana on Angel Roll Cake Lake".  Well, it seems to be the appropriate description of the plated dessert and my two special guests didn't mind.  After all, each got their favorite sprinkles on top of it.  To make Tuile Lotus Cookies, I took Bo Friberg's advice and purchased plastic binder index pages.  I traced the Tulip patterns in Bo Friberg's, 2003, "The Advanced Professional Pastry Chef", page 717.  After making the pattern, I scrape the excess off, wash, and ready for next use.  And, page 695 for "Vanilla Tuile Decorating Paste".  One of his dessert photo illustration #58 - Red Currant Sorbet in Magnolia Cookie Shells (between page 274 and 275) is my inspiration.

Ingredients
Yield:  for two guests
2 Thin Slices of Angel Roll Cake with Creme Chantilly and Orange Zest
1 C Frozen Nature's Three Berries (Kirkland brand - Costco)
1/3 C Sugar
Creme Chantilly
1/2 a Banana - sliced diagonally - total of 8 slices
Tuile Cookies in Tulip flower shape
Neopolitan Ice Cream - total of 10 ice cream balls - size of grape/each
Melon Scoop
Sprinkles

Method
Berry Sauce
Cook berries with sugar in saucepan until berries are soft and sugar melted.
Cool.  Press berries through sieve.  Save the rest of berry sauce for later use, except 2-3 Tbsp.

Tuile Lotus Cookies
Prepare Tuile batter from Bo Friberg's, 4th edition, "Advanced Professional Pastry Chef", page 695, "Vanilla Tuile Decorating Paste".

Slices of Angel Roll Cake with Creme Chantilly and Orange Zest (Ref: http://rockdavinci.blogspot.com/2010/02/angel-cake-roll-with-creme-chantilly.html that is from http://schneiderchen.de/465Angel-Cake-Roll.html
Cut two thin slices.
Assembling:
When ready, with everything within reach, place a slice of Angel Roll Cake in ice cream serving dish.  Drizzle with Very Berry Sauce.  Place 4 slices of banana.  Pipe Creme Chantilly all around the rim.  Place the molded Lotus Tuile Cookies on top (floating); scoop ice cream with melon scooper into a separate bowl.  5 ice cream balls per servings.   Ice Cream ball is about the size of a grape.  Collect all ice cream balls at finger tips and give a gentle squeeze.
Place on top of Lotus Tuile Cookies.
Drizzle with Very Berry Sauce.
Decorate with whip cream or in this case with Sprinkles of guests' choice.
(double click on photos to view larger image.)
Enjoy!

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Jasmine Rice with Oats

Eating for health is one of my goal for the Year of Tiger.  I like to use long grain Jasmine Rice (Thailand - New Crop 2010) for regular meal.  It is aromatic and flavorful.  I also add 3 sprigs of Saffron and some butter.   This year I am going to cook it with Oats.  For this photo journal, I sprinkled the rice with my favorite Japanese 'FURIKAKE'.

Ingredients:
2 C Jasmine Rice (New Crop 2010 - Thailand - 3 ladies brand)
1/2 C Quakers Oats, after washing and rinsing, soak for 15 min.
3 sprigs of Saffron (India)
2 Tbsp Butter cut into small chunks

1.  Rinse rice till water is clear
2.  Rinse Oats in water till water is quite clear
3.  Mash 3 sprigs of Saffron in a petite bowl with the end of spoon, etc.
4.  For 2 C of rice and 1/2 C of pre-soaked oats, cook in rice cooker with 1-2/3 C of water.  New crop type rice use less water.
5.  Add Saffron and Butter chunks
6.  Mix together with spoon.
7.  Cook

My rice cooker is a old fashion one switch cooker - close to 30 years old.  If you have one of the high tech "Zojirushi" brand pressure cooker type rice cooker, follow its instruction  to adjust water quantity for Mix Rice.

Angel Cake Roll with Creme Chantilly and Orange Zest

This is "Angel Cake Roll" filled with creme chantilly and orange zest.  The recipe came from http://schneiderchen.de/465Angel-Cake-Roll.html   I skipped the Raisins and Blueberry Jam, however.  I like the taste and texture of this cake.  *I used Madagascar Vanilla Paste - if you can see some specs of them.  I have yet to find where to purchase Vanilla powder.

Chiffon Roll Cake

This Chiffon Roll Cake is using most of the ingredients listed for the Strawberry Sponge Cake recipe from Happy Home Baker at http://happyhomebaking.blogspot.com/2007/04/strawberry-sponge-cake.html and some testing I wanted with Cornstarch.
Instead of 140 grams Cake Flour, I used 110 grams of Cake Flour and added 30 grams of Cornstarch. The test result is ... keep on baking. Bo Friberg's explanation of how eggs play their role in sponge cake is noted.

Tiger Stripe Swiss Roll Wannabe

Happy Chinese New Year!  This is the Year of Tiger; And what a fun to find this interesting Tiger Stripe Swiss Roll to celebrate the Chinese New Year.
 Following Angie's fabulous looking Tiger Stripe Swiss Roll formula at http://angiesrecipes.blogspot.com/2009/04/tiger-stripe-swiss-roll.html this is how mine turned out.  I wish I had printed out the recipe procedures beforehand rather to follow my ingredients only hand notes.  Based on the ingredients, I used 1 stage method in beating the egg mixtures.  Then, I mixed moist ingredients with about 1 cup of batter that is at 'ribbon' stage and added to the egg mixture alternately with flour.  When I started to bake, I took time to recheck on the procedures and only to find that Angie used chiffon (two-stage egg mixing) method.  But for my first time in handling two separate components to create one cake, I am very happy with the result.   Do you see the resemblance of Tiger Stripes?  hmmm... maybe next time...

While still warm, roll up the cake between parchment paper and cool on wire rack.
Prepare the Tiger Stripes.