Choux Pastry

Choux Pastry (well... cream puff actually) has intrigued me for so long.... The first time I looked at someone making it was 25years ago, during a tea party at our high school counselor's house. My sisters always told me, " senang aja, macam belajar dalam kelas SRT" (it's easy, like how we learned in SRT). Hey... I didn't take SRT, it was not even in the syllabus in mrsm;  and i've never seen my sis made them either.
So.... I attended a pastry workshop last week by Chef Alan Ooi. Here's the pic of my creation :0

After 2 failed attempts at home (the ones we made at the workshop were okay), I tried again and decided to take some photos, and this time I used the mixer instead of using my hand muscles to beat the sticky dough. The detailed instruction with (much better) photos can be found at Delia Online

The paste after being mixed, using K beater

Choux paste pipings

Voila! Choux Pastry

If I'm going to make these again, I'll bake it longer to brown it, and slit the chouxs to let the steam out after baking. Looking at how Yna popped these little munchkins into her mouth (after being piped with whip cream+custard filling), I know I'll be making some more very soon. Here's the recipe I used, using easy to remember numbers

50g butter

100g water

50g flour

1tsp sugar

2 eggs (100g)

Bake at 175C for half an hour

Anytime Cake

My hubby's aunt ordered a cake for her grandkids to enjoy, and the 2 kids really did enjoy this cake, half of it is already gone while I was enjoying my laksa kebuk.
Laksa kebuk (in our family) is fresh home made noodles made from wheat flour, not from rice flour like the dried kind sold in grocery shops. Kebuk is the hand press used to squeeze the dough through, so i guess u can make the dough from semolina or rice and still call it laksa kebuk, ....... as long as it's served with fish based gravy :)

Pink Aurora

Satisfied with the last Thomas n Friends themed cake, Hanani ordered another chocolate cake, this time for her niece's birthday in Gerik. Glad that my choice for the pink background was right, it's Uzma's favorite color. The only Disney Princess my daughter Yna likes is also Aurora, simply because she's the one princess that always wears pink.
Thanks Hanani, and sorry for arriving late;  I was heading to our previous pickup point before I called you :0

My solution to make the white courverture ganache filling taste a little more like chocolate, add pure cocoa butter (the one with slightly yellowish color, the cheaper very white ones are made of and taste like sugar and shortening) I read that white chocolate is not considered chocolate by US FDA since it has no chocolate liqueur or cocoa solids. And btw... chocolate liqueur is halal (i.e. without alcohol), refer here www.ifanca.org/glossary