Theeggis a magical ingredient. And so when the Ancient Romans has started the domestication of poultry, hence discovering the countless applications of eggs, came the birth of various egg preparations including a savoury dish, the "eel flan", with dessert custard version also in existence flavoured with honey and pepper. With Europe under their wing, their culture and traditions spread across the nation. The food being a significant part of it. Several versions of the original "flan" was translated into sweet and savoury dishes. Its ingredients ranging from, almonds and cinnamon to cheese and fish. It was enjoyed often during the Lent season as this is the period when meat is prohibited. The caramel element was added when the flan traditions reached France and to the rest of the hungry world.
Truly the breakfast of champions! Snack, meal or dessert, whatever you want to make it, this dish will inevitably leave a lasting impression on that foodie taste buds of yours. It plays with thesweet and savoury duo flavour that satisfies both that craving itch we usually get during our first and in-between meals.
Kaya in Malay, the Indonesiansrikaya,kalamay-hatifor the Filipinos. In the malay language, kaya, translates to the word rich, the texture of the said spreadable gold. It has been said that it is an adaptation of the Indian word khoya or kova, an Indian milk custard that is often the base of desserts, together with the many cultures that the Malay people had acquired from fellow Indian traders. The "jam/custard" is basically made up of eggs/egg yolks, coconut milk, sugar, and pandan leaves. Variations in textures, color and levels of sweetness differs from one country to another. In Singapore, it is eaten in between two slices of soft, crustless white bread, with the disputed pair of soft boiled eggs bathing in thick dark soy sauce and white pepper, and of course, fragrant black kopi or coffee meddling with snow white condensed milk.
The "Palm Tree" in French. Also goes by names "Coeur de France", "Jalebi", "Glasses, and "Pig's Ear. Variation from Spain, the sopaipillas. The Afghan, elephant ears. Easily identified by its heart/butterfly shape, one can readily point at this pastry in any bakery and shout, "A dozen Palmiers, sil vous plait!". One is just not enough. It is pronounced as palm-YAY. With YAY as the perfect word to describe it.
The origin of palmiers' significant existence is unfortunately undocumented. Its early recipes dated back in the turn of the 20th century. In fact, an old recipe for "palm trees" is found in Viennese Cooking, O. and A. Hess (Crown: New York) 1960, page 213 was found. Many similar forms of this pastry around the world are out there. Consumed by blissfully daydreaming humans in different parts of the globe. It is made of Pâte Feuilletée or Traditional Puff Pastry. Laminated, rolled and cut into itsheartwarming signature shape.
Palmier Recipe
Pâte Feuilletée:
200g plain flour
7g salt
100g cold water
50g melted butter
100g dry butter
(NOTE: Now finding dry butter at your local grocery store might be tricky. Generally US made butter is about 80% butterfat, 17% water and 3% protein. European butters have about 82-83% butterfat. Dry butter's fat content goes up to 86%! You can use the best quality butter you can find. Though the lamination process will be slightly difficult as your butter will melt faster.)
Sugar Mixture:
100g white caster sugar -I used vanilla sugar. Made it 200% times better! Just pop in an emptied vanilla pod into an air tight container of regular sugar and let the vanilla's powers do its magic! ;)
Food history is as rich as it's going to get. I was always fascinated to where, how or why a dish was born. Getting to know a certain dish in an intimate level is as delicious as actually eating it. It gives the food soul, hence satisfies the consumer's soul as well.
Pâte Feuilletée, or most commonly known as Puff Pastry is thin layers of pastry dough and fat on top of each other, resulting in a light, crunchy, flaky, rich confection. It starts as the dough undergoes a process called lamination. The dough, or the détrempe envelopes a solid fat (usually butter) or beurrage, rolled and folded making layers and layers of dough and fat.
Creation of this pastry is still debated up to this day. Some say a version of the puff pastry goes way back in the 13 century found in Spanish Arabic books. Back then, it was called muwarraga, meaning "leafy" in Arabic. Others would call it foliatil, translating "leafy" in medieval Spanish. Fast forward a couple hundred of years to 1645, where Claudius Gele, a baker's apprentice and artist, whipped up a layered dough and butter concoction for his sick father who was prescribed a diet consisting of flour, water and butter. Despite Gele's mentor's warnings that the fat will weep out of the pastry, he still went on and baked it. To both their pleasant surprise, the heavens sang and a golden cloud of thin layers came out of the oven. With his great invention on hand, he went to Paris and worked at Rosabau Pâtisserie. He then moved on to Florence and continued to spread his pastry wings.
Pâte Feuilletée (puff pastry dough recipe)
200g plain flour
7g salt
100g cold water
50g melted butter
100g dry butter
(NOTE: Now finding dry butter at your local grocery store might be tricky. Generally US made butter is about 80% butterfat, 17% water and 3% protein. European butters have about 82-83% butterfat. Dry butter's fat content goes up to 86%! You can use the best quality butter you can find. Though the lamination process will be slightly difficult as your butter will melt faster.)
Beurre Noisette. One of the many gifts the French have bestowed upon us fortunate foodies. As its direct translation implies, hazlenut butter, which pretty much sums up its celestial flavor. Nutty, rich and smooth. It is personally one of my all time favourite tastes. Brown butter anything, and you count me in!
A financier(pronounced as fee-nahn-see-AY)is a small tea cake, often in a rectangular shape, is made of almonds, flour, sugar, egg whites and of course, the liquid gold, beurre noisette. It is a light, springy and moist cake, best eaten with a hot cup of tea. Its early consumption dated back in 1890, produced by the magical hands of pastry chef, Lasne, who revamped the traditional pastry originally made by the Vistadines or Visitation Sisters. His bakery, located at the Rue St. Denis was near the Paris Stock Exchange. And so as a marketing move, he has transformed the cake into a rectangular-shaped confection to emulate a gold bullion or gold bar. Before you know it, business people in France carried a financier inside their pockets for a quick snack after dealing with actual gold bars. Pooof, the unyielding financier was miraculously born and so has survived the test of time! Selling like hotcakes near or far any financial district! GOLD!
Financier Recipe
145g icing sugar
53g almond flour
55g cake
2g baking powder
1g salt
10g brown sugar (preferably muscovado)
180g egg whites
80g brown butter
Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for about 17-20 minutes.
Let me tell you a short story of how I have hopelessly and defencelessly fell in love with the French Macaron. Before studying pastry and bakery here in Singapore, I have always been fascinated with this mysterious confection. I have a thing for cookies. The classic chocolate chip always has and will have a special place in my sugar-coated heart. And so I considered the macaron as a "fancier" and not really for masses type of confection. Almonds are now considered on the pricier side and not easily accessible in the Philippines. But the the curious food wanderer in me, of course, wanted to see for myself what really the sugary fuss is about. The science behind the macaron is as complex as human genetics. A slight tweak here and there can make the biggest difference in your finished product. And so, after months of delving into this beautiful craft, macaroning, today, I can say with all confidence, from the bottom of my heart, I love you, my sweet sweet, macaron. I really do.
When we had our french macaron class at pastry school, oh boy let me tell you, was it one of my favourite days of my life. The very next day, I went to TOTT Singapore and went ahead with my eyes closed, bought my very first Kitchenaid (Heavy Duty) with solely producing the best macaron in the whole entire universe in mind. The satisfaction of a perfect macaron batch is as close to nirvana. Like biting into the perfect chocolate bar and hearing angels sing.
And so, to make your human busy lives easier than my confection perfection obsessed life, I share you this troubleshooting tips and tricks that will save your valuable life!
Don't forget to check out my previous post for my recipe!
Watch this compilation of failed attempts and why it happened that caused sleepless nights. This is just scratching the surface! I had countless trials that ended up in the confection grave. Sad, sad times..
What better way to start my "food blog" aka "sugar sorcery" journey than with French Macarons. Pronounced as mah-ka-ROHN.Mmmmm, just the sound of macaron, makes my sugary insides tingle. If you share the burden of being a temperamental perfectionist with me, this is the "perfect" confection for you. A lot is taken into consideration in this mind-boggling dessert. The macaron is just as temperamental. Trust me, I had my fair share of tear-my-hair-out-frustrations in achieving that perfect macaron. I will go ahead and give you the gist of how this heaven-in-a-bite came about.
A humble macaron is a cookie, made of fine almond meal, sugar and egg whites. Often mistaken as the equally coveted, coconut macaroon, who is equally delicious but is in a totally different sugary spectrum. In 1533, our girl Catherine de' Medici of Italy and her army of pastry chefs introduced this confection to France upon marrying Henry II. The name is derived from the Italian word maccherone, possibly from maccare, to bruise, batter, crush. The modern macaron has evolved into different forms and shapes. Pierre Herme, Laduree, Bouchon, Aoki, a few names that is on top of the macaroning game. The flavors today ranges from chocolate, sea foam to frois gras. Macaroners upping their game everyday. Its usual exotic fillings are based on ganache, jams, cremeux, and buttercream. It is traditionally round, flat on top, with its signature "feet" as its unique crowning glory. Aesthetically, how the perfect macaron should look like is subjective. But all the same delicious.
So without further ado, let the macaroning begin!
The Rosey French Macaron Recipe:
100 grams aged egg whites (seperated a day ahead and stored in the refrigerator)
Tools and arsenal: piping bag, piping tip # 8, baking sheet/parchment The meringue: HARD peak Almond + Sugar mixture: run through finger tips / sifted Macaroning: folded until the batter has a "tail" Tapping the pan: get rid of those air bubbles Toothpick is you bestfriend: make sure you get rid of bubbles / lumps on top Drying: humidity is your enemy, dry to the touch Baking: low and steady Shell + Filling fridge time Click on this link for Macaron Troubleshooting >> Macaron Troubleshooting
Stay tuned for more sugar sorcery! Part II coming soon, troubleshooting, and why's and how to's!
Hello there! This is your friendly ol' virtual neighbourhood alien correspondent reporting. Rosey is the name and finding one's purpose is now my game.
I started this blog 5 long years ago wearing my hello kitty night gown, my perpetually enlarged eye bags(more like luggage) fully intact, I was 10 lbs of tear-weight lighter, shards of my heart on the floor shattered into countless pieces. I was in a state that no woman wants to admit she has been through. I was helplessly soul-broken. This is the problem I share with intensely passionate people. We love the hardest, but fall and breakdown immensely hard as well. We might even lose our minds along the way. We can't help it. We love hard or just don't love at all.
I wrote what my heart said. What my soul screamed. What my mind debated and argued. I threw all of these thoughts out in the vast void. Not asking for any answers nor solutions, really. I just wanted to let it all out. If I didn't, if I had let these consume me, I would have inevitably exploded. My microscopic remains drifting in the air. Now you see, I didn't even in the slightest way, attempted to search for someone to save me. It might have been fear that kept me from finding love again. Might have been fatigue too. Love has drained all forms of energy in my body, and so I needed to recuperate.
I didn't even see it coming. One day, I was a male wizard killing pixelated monsters on my Ipad, made pixelated armor-wearing friends, a swordsman, a priest, multiple characters you would never meet else where. I was incognito, top player of the entire game. The next minute, I was seeing a stranger everyday. "Dating" in fact. A cold, reflecting flat screen in between us. And before I could even say chocolate peanut butter cups, I had a ring on my finger. The heavy and beautiful kind.
Our story is meant to be written as a novel. Ah, maybe a comic book! It surely is funny now that I have come to think of it. A modern pixelated fairy tale that is yet to be written.
Now that love has come into my life so unexpectedly, I think it is about time to work on the other things that will fuel that galactic love hence fuel the essences of my galactic life. I feel dumbfounded for not being able to keep up with the demands of this life. "Adulthood" is what they call it now I hear. I am not sure how I feel about that term. To me it should be just life. Yours and theirs. Plain, bedazzled, laced, spiked, however you want to make it. "Aldulthood" makes it sound like a chore. Which is the farthest thing of what I want to call this stage of my life. Making that first strong step and the preceding just as strong steps is the struggle. I want to do the things I love and do things that I am good at. Do them the very best I could. That's the goal.
I want to write everyday. Like what I said, just catapult my mind juices into the boundless void! Just do it. And along the way fish out ideas and breakthroughs that wouldn't have been dug out inside this brain if I didn't. I want to share more. BE more. Let's do it, fellow galactic wanderer! We might be a little late. But we can do it!
I am not sure how or why I bumped into your beautiful soul here. But nevertheless, welcome to my humble, feeble, boundless, virtual mind bin. There are no rules here. No genre/categories. No filters. We are all friends in this strange corner of the inter web. You are now my friend. *warm warm, squishy hugs*
I have come to the conclusion that I am running out of time. The hands of time stop ticking for no one. And I feel like I have not caught up with the realities of this lifetime. Every single nano second that we deter ourselves from what the universe has set us to, we stand farther and farther from our destiny. We all have a place in this world. Big or small, we matter. We have a purpose. Our very breath signifies our worth. Our contribution to mother earth.
So the next time you feel like you are a nobody. When you start doubting yourself and hide beneath your sheets. When all you see in front of a mirror is failure and disappointment. Look at the stars. They see you. And they are waiting.
So let's go, virtual friend. We have no time to lose! We have a lot to do! Shine that light!
Trying to shine and hungry,
Rosey
**go on and pass that warm squishy hug! Some one might need it today!
Never have I thought I'd one day be living in a different country. A country where its inhabitants speak different languages, pray to different gods, their houses built on top of each other. It's beautiful. Singapore. Stern and concrete subdued by the ethereal nature. Clean. Safe and straightforward. I have fallen in love not only with a beautiful human but to the beauty of Singapore itself.
Here's the thing. I am about to hit my head with a humility baton, and remind myself I am lucky to be with the person I want to spend my life with. Being a Filipino, with thousands of fellow Filipinosscattered around the world, unable to spend a birthday, a Christmas, all the good and anticipated times of the year, and worse, the bad ones too. Stuck at their desks, taking care of another's child, aiding a disabled, saving a life. When the very ones that matter to them most are infinite miles away, the stars being the sole witnesses of their sorrows.
I miss the Philippines. Mainly because 99% of the occupants of this aching heart are there right this very moment. Some may be snoozing, or is trying to since the karaoke machine next door is too loud. Or having a classic food trip in one of the countless eating stops that grow there like mushrooms overnight. And boy, do I miss my mama's cooking. Don't get me started on those Adobo Squid with coconut milk. Oh my sweet baby Jesus. Love you ma!
I miss my family and friends. So so terribly, achingly much. Is it weird to say my laugh is different here than in Pinas? I don't know how to explain it. It's a muscle I don't get to use as much anymore. It's not sad. It's different, I guess. Somehow an adaptation? Evolution? Indigestion? Who knows? But what I do know for a fact is that I am genuinely and insurmountably happy. I have used that word too many times these past few days. Its meaning becoming clearer and clearer every day since I have begun this new life. This new shining leaf. It's all about contentment. Knowing your needs and wants. Weighing them. Differentiating them. Decisions being made and committing to them. Ichose to be happy. Made and continuously making decisions to stayhappy.
How about you,wandering reader? How happy is your wandering soul?
'til next time.
Yours and hungry,
Rosey
PS.
I present to you semi VLOGS or attempts in the Philippines that made me oh so nostalgic. Did I mention I do youtube now? Yeah, I know. Weird right? Might I add it is, all of this is, undeniably therapeutic.
