Matcha & Vanilla Eclair, Choux

Bon Bon Bon Appetit!

Choux pastry filled with a generous amount of cream, especially what I call 'the double cream' (the combination of whipped cream and custard...) has always been one of my favourite things to make and eat.

This time as well as the classic Vanilla custard cream puffs and eclairs, I also made Matcha flavoured ones.

Seriously..., I've said this before but 'I love matcha soooo much!' This matcha double cream takes the already-awesome-cream-puff to the next level.

Look! It's definitely to die for.;D

Choux pastry is not hard to make, yet the end result looks impressive and can be made into different shapes such as Eclairs, or even with different colours! (Have you seen my Halloween puffs? ;)

I'm now working on my illustrated recipe for choux pastry that will be soon on BON APPETIT., so please bare with me! Meanwhile you can enjoy my quick fun choux pastry making video on Instagram;)

Here comes the Cream puff family♥︎

This is how I make basic custard.
Ingredients:
Egg yolk 2

Sugar 50g

Flour 1 tbsp

Milk 200g

Vanilla beans (1/4-1/2)

1. Mix egg yolk and sugar together.

2. Add flour into 1.

3. In a small pot warm up milk with vanilla (Do not boil!).

4. Slowly mix in the milk into 2.

5. Put 4 back into the pot.

6. Cook the mixture on a low-medium heat until the bubble starts to appear (Be careful not to burn the bottom). *

7. Cook another minute, then pour the mixture in a container to cool it down.

*For Matcha custard, mix 1 tsp Match powder with 1/2 tsp water to make a paste. At step 6 add the paste and mix well.

Orange custard cream

The other day I made orange custard cream... well, I was going to make orange curd but as I didn't have specific recipe in mind and I was kind of going with the flow, I ended up making more like an orange custard than curd, which turned out to be rather tasty! ;D

So the recipe goes like this...
Ingredients:

Orange 2

Sugar 50g

Butter 25g

Cornflour 1 tbs

Egg 1

Egg yolk 1

1. Squeeze the juice out of oranges. Keep 1 tbsp of the juice aside and combine the rest of the juice with sugar and butter in a pot.

2. Bring the pot to boil and strain the liquid.

3. Mix cornflour and 1 tbsp of orange juice.

4. Add 3 into 2 and mix well.

5. Beat the egg and egg yolk and mix into 4. Put the pot back on a low heat.

6. Stir constantly until the liquid thickens.

I'm not a big fan of orange skin so I don't add zest of orange but if you want more punch, then please go for it.

After squeezing the juice, I boiled the remaining of oranges with water, and then pureed in the food processor. I cooked the pureed oranges again with some ginger syrup (approximately 4 tbsp) and strained the liquid to make orange and ginger jam-sauce type thing (it wan't as thick as jam...)

This by-product was also very nice! I used it in the bread and cake, both of which had really nice refreshing orange flavour. :)

I used the orange custard cream as a filling of my Match macarons. And oh yes! Holly molly, the combination of match and orange tasted amazing...

Recipes for the gluten- free cake and brioche I made with the orange cream and 'jam-sauce thing' will be coming soon! Don't miss them;D

Vanilla & Matcha mille feuille

I made puff pastry for Andy because he wanted to make a French biscuit that required puff pastry. (I forgot the name of it but the sweet and crunchy biscuits were very nice... so good that they were gone before we had a chance to take photos...)

With the left over puff pastry, I made mille feuille. One with vanilla custard cream and the other with matcha (green tea) custard cream. The puff pastry puffed up a little too much for mille feuille (I should have rolled the pastry thinner... ;( ... ), but they tasted great, anyway.

As I've mentioned many times in the past, I love green tea, and green tea custard is not an exception! It's so good... and a great variation of vanilla custard. Mix one tea spoon of green tea powder with one tea spoon of water, and add the mixture into the vanilla custard.

Enjoy an European style dessert and a taste of Japan at the same time! ;D

Ultimate custard ice cream

There are so many things we can do with those left out egg yolks after making macaroons or chiffon cakes, and sometime, those yolks with a look of "use me up!" gives me great ideas:)

This time, I opted for a simple custard... but it wasn't just custard, it was for my ultimate custard ice cream! I've always wanted to make really rich cream-brulee-like ice cream, so the time has come!

I've made the custard with brown sugar for a change from normal white sugar, which worked well and gave the custard a good body. Hum, looking already good:) Since I still had dulce de leche from the other day, (remember Torta de hojas I made?) I mixed it in the custard and made lovely marble. Wooow, I could already see it was going to taste amazing.... I even had a spoonful before putting it in the freezer... cheeky...;)

Having waited whole afternoon, I finally got it out for dinner. The texture wasn't rock -hard like the ones you sometimes get, but so smooth that I could serve it straight from the freezer. The taste... oh..man..! This is what I call "The ultimate custard ice cream"! Yum yum yum...

Ingredients;

Corn starch 15g

Brown sugar 120g

Water 80ml

Egg yolk 2

Single cream 160ml

1. Boil sugar and water in a sauce pan. When the sugar is fully melted, turn the heat off.

2. Mix corn starch, egg yolk and cream together. Add them into 1.

3. Put 2 back on a low heat and mix well.

4. When the mixture has become creamy and shiny, turn the heat off. Let it cool.

5. Add dulce de leche in 4 and mix roughly to make marble.

6. Put 5 in the freezer to set.

Wattalapam

So far, I've already tried some puddings for The World of Sweets. Here is another one from Sri Lanka called "Wattalapam". It's a spicy coconut custard pudding.

Ooh, I loved it... this might be the best pudding I've ever tasted... huh? do I always say the same thing when I eat a pudding?... well, who cares, it's just so simply GOOD!  ops sorry, I got bit too excited...

Every spoonful you'll be hit by the spices and the sweetness of raisins hidden in the smooth coconut custard. And of course, don't forget the golden syrup. This guy really plays an important role here since it adds more character to the already-rich pudding;)

To see the recipe, visit The World of Sweets Recipes, Sri Lanka.

Pasta de nata

They aren't squeezy cheese on puff pastry...but they are the lovely Portuguese cream tarts.

The custard filling came out with a really heart-warming home-made taste. My hard mixing action not to make the eggs into scrambled egg has paid off in the end:)

Maybe I could have left them in the oven a tiny bit longer to give them a nicer tan.. still taste pretty good.