Strawberry Matcha Éclairs

Well, since my Totoro puffs didn't turn out the way I imagined them to, I thought I would work on some éclairs instead. The good thing is, the choux dough recipe is the same (so refer back to the Totoro post), the only thing you do differently is how you pipe them out.

And you know what? You're supposed to use a star tip, but I couldn't find mine. It's probably at my parent's house - all my baking supplies are now split apart because my condo can't fit everything. But the éclairs turned out just fine with a round piping tip.

After the éclairs cool, cut them in half so that you have your elongated boats. If you made the choux dough correctly, the interiors should be semi-hollow.

It's strawberry season again (yay) so I chopped them up into tiny little cubes. Then sprinkled a teaspoon of sugar on it, gave it a toss, and had it macerate for a bit. It's sitting in a sieve so that any excess liquids can drain off.

Using tiny dessert spoons, I filled the with the strawberries I so painstakingly sliced.

Then came the fun part, decorating with matcha buttercream! I was originally going to make matcha pastry cream, but realized I finished using all the milk on the choux dough. Oops! Oh well, it worked out in the end as buttercream is so much easier to make and also pipes out beautifully.

Doesn't the smooth matcha buttercream look like avocado? In fact, these éclairs remind me of sub sandwiches or avocado toast. I know you're supposed to put the tops back on the éclairs . . . but they're so much prettier when they're like an open-faced sandwich!

You can also pipe the buttercream in first and then top it with strawberries. Don't forget to decorate! I had sprinkles and milk chocolate crispearls on hand. You can also switch out your piping tip for different designs.

Howard's colleagues are going to have a happy Monday eating these (I hope)! There's too many for Howard and I to finish. There's also a key lime pie in the freezer, but more about that later.

Matcha Canelés

How has your week been? May has become this crazy busy month for me at work. It used to be that summer was a bit quieter for us in publishing, but now that we work with a three season span, there's just no break. There's more books to read and promote than ever. What have been your favourite reads this year? I've started sharing some of the ones I really love on Instagram, so it's become more of a mix of baked goods, books, and food.

Like I said in my last post, I am on my matcha binge to use up all the deliciousness that we brought back from Taiwan. The next thing I really craved was canelés. I missed this delightful treat with its crispy outer shell and custard center. Really good canelés are difficult to find in Toronto, and the places that make them usually stick with the vanilla flavour. So a girl's got to make her own matcha canelés!

I used the original recipe I followed from the Redpath canelés project here and included 3 teaspoons of matcha powder. The only thing I wish I had was a better mold for the batter, these silicon ones make it really difficult for the canelés to pop out. Not quite non-stick and if you try to invert it out, the canelés get little benty sides.

This time, I rested the batter in a pitcher. I simply cover the top with plastic wrap and sat it in the fridge and gave it a few stirs from time to time.

It looks like some freshly squeezed green juice on my counter. But trust me, I am not one to make leafy green drinks.

The recipe yield enough for me to make about 20 canelés in the mold I have. I was able to fill it once fully and then half the next round.

They're a bit wonky shaped due to the silicone mold, but the taste makes up for it. You just pop these into your mouth and revel in the matcha flavour.

It's hard to resist them when you take them out of the oven. Sometimes you just want to ignore the cooling time and be a rebel with a burnt tongue.

Todd English Food Hall

Todd English Food Hall

The Plaza Hotel

1 West 59th Street

New York, NY 10019

If you're in New York City and near West 59th Street (chances are you will at one point be because there's a bunch of goodies there you'd be visiting, from Central Park to the shops and restaurants), stop by the Todd English Food Hall for a snack or quick meal.

Under the Plaza Hotel, as the name implies, there's a wonderful collection of food vendors and plenty of seating in around the hall. If you're into dessert like me, you'll really like this one-stop location for so many great treats!

So we continued my macaron tour by stopping at La Maison du Chocolat for a chocolate macaron.

These were by far the most we've paid for a macaron, but we're guessing because they are larger in size and they're using quality chocolate.

Chocolate lovers rejoice because this macaron is probably one of the richest and creamiest one there is. I would recommend sharing it, because it is a huge portion of chocolate. Texture wise, the shell was a bit too soft for my liking, it felt too delicate and on the verge of breaking.

Our next reason for stopping by the Food Hall is Lady M, makers of fabulous and delicious cakes. Howard and I made a very dire mistake here.

See if you can guess what we did wrong. Look at the photo above and then the one below.

That's right. We only ordered one slice of green tea mille crêpes cake. Sharing is not a good idea here. We should have ordered the green tea, chocolate, chocolate banana, and original in my opinion. What? Four slices shared among two people is normal! Normal! It was embarrassing at how fast we consumed that slice of cake. Each of us with our fork and fighting for the next piece . . .

FP Patisserie is nearby, having already visited a different location, we didn't stop for macarons here.

Cupcakes? Yes! From Billy’s Bakery no less.

Mmm bread!

No bread? Maybe pies are more your thing.

It's worth a visit, especially if you need to pick up items for a Central Park picnic!

World Class Cakes

World Class Cakes is a collection of globally-inspired desserts. The idea behind this book was to compile recipes from various countries that have been passed down from generation to generation. Despite the title of the cookbook, there are more than just cake recipes, it includes pastries, tarts, bread, and cookies too.

World Class Cakes
250 Classic Recipes from Boston Cream Pie to Madeleines and Muffins
Written by Roger Pizey
Foreword by Marco Pierre White
Photographs by Šárka Babická

ISBN 13: 9781937994167
ISBN 10: 1937994163
Publisher: Race Point Publishing
Hardcover: 288 Pages

Roger Pizey is a celebrated baker and patissier with over twenty years’ experience. He trained for two years with Albert Roux at Le Gavroche before joining Marco Pierre White as his Chef Patissier. In the foreword, we learn that Marco tried Roger's Tarte Tatin (recipe included in World Class Cakes) and made the smart decision of offering Roger jobs at Harvey's, The Restaurant, Mirabelle, and Criterion. As Marco was becoming the first British chef to be awarded three Michelin stars, Roger was creating the desserts for his restaurants. Roger also worked as Head Chef at Criterion Restaurant before returning to pastries at Petyon and Byrne. That's an impressive resume!

The recipes in this book are introduced either with a brief originating history, an account of Roger's first discovery of it, or tips on preparing it. The ingredients and instructions are easily labelled and written. There are some British phrases or terms that were kept from the original publisher, but they're easy enough to figure out. Best of all, there are lots of great photos in this book, one for each recipe!  The cover itself showcases the Devil's Food Cake and to show you more samples, here are the ones that adorn the book itself:

Have a look at that back jacket cover in the photo above.

The front endpapers.

And the back endpapers.

Guest chefs lend a hand in the book and share their favourite recipe. You'll find creations from Donovan Cooke, Willie Harcourt-Cooze, Thierry Busset, Paul A. Young, Mark Hix, Lucas Glanville, Richard Corrigan, Nancy Silverton, Rachel Allen, Shannon Bennett, Marco Pierre White, Oliver Peyton, and Christopher Farrugia.

One of the neat thing is the city guides in the book. If you travel to eat, you'll like learning about new places and I personally think that they're quite brave to include this guide, especially since this information can change on a monthly basis! There are "Where to Eat Cake . . ." features for Tokyo, San Francisco, Berlin, Singapore, Stockholm and Copenhagen, Rome, New York City, Paris, Harrogate, Madrid, Melbourne and Sydney, London, and Vienna. Most of the bakeries are classic establishments, so they probably will stand the test of time.

I've been wanting to use my leaf baking molds and my matcha powder, so I was very pleased to come across this recipe for green tea cakes.

Green Tea Pound Cake
Recipe from World Class Cakes
(Serves 10)

2 3/4 cups of all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
2 tablespoons of matcha/green tea powder
1 1/4 cups (2 1/2 sticks) of unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/3 cup of sugar
4 eggs, beaten

1. Preheat the oven to 325F and grease and line a 10 x 3 1/4 x 3 1/4 deep loaf pan with parchment paper. Or in my case, grease silicone molds in the shape of leaves.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder, and matcha powder together in a bowl.
3. Using a mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Slowly add in the eggs, mixing in a little bit of the flour halfway through.
4. Add the rest of the flour into the batter and mix until fully combined.
5. Pour the batter into your loaf pan or silicone molds and bake in the preheated over for 30 to 35 minutes, since cakes were individually sized, I baked for 20-25 minutes.
6. Let the cake(s) cool for about 10 minutes and turn out to cool on a wire rack.

Now that autumn is here, we've watched the green leaves change colour. I liked that this cake had a crunchy exterior, but a soft and firm texture on the inside. They're really lovely tea cakes to enjoy with a hot beverage. Not quite as crunchy as a biscotti and not too sweet as other cakes, the only thing I didn't get was the brilliant green colour that the cookbook's photograph achieved. Perhaps it's the brand of matcha powder we're using, it's quite subtle, but the flavours are there. It's better than eating green colour dye!

It's feeling a little bit colder these days. Heck, we even saw some flurries when we drove out west during the weekend, but I do like how the cooler weather keeps the kitchen nice and manageable when the oven is on.

After plating this for my dad and Howard to try, it reminded me of all the little squirrels foraging for nuts in our neighbourhood right now.

Disclaimer: The Public Relations and Marketing Manager of Quayside Publishing Group reached out to us and provided the review copy of World Class Cakes. No incentives were used to produce a positive review of this book. All opinions are our own.

Takahachi Bakery

Takahachi Bakery

25 Murray Street

New York City, NY 10007

(212) 791-5550

Despite having visited New York on an annual basis, we love that there's so many neighbourhoods and places to explore in Manhattan. We never stopped by this little corner before and I wish with all my might that something like this would pop up in our home town.

Takahachi Bakery should be on your list of bakeries to visit the next time you're in New York City. They have a great combination of sweet and savoury items available.

Similar to some of the bakeries in Toronto, you can grab a tray, tongs, and pick up the items you wanted. They also had a grab-and-go counter for quick lunches, beverages, or snacks.

At the back of the bakery, they have an area where you can sit and enjoy your purchases while looking on at the bakers through the big windows at the back. They're making everything fresh!

And they have macarons, so they were a must-visit for our macaron tour! We were so full from lunch, so I told Howard we would only get one from each bakery to try. Err... that suggestion went out the window pretty fast.

I couldn't resist! They had lots of our favourite flavours. Black sesame, green tea, passion fruit, and honey ginger. We liked every single one of them. There wasn't a miss in terms of the flavours of the macarons. Each shell had the nice and light meringue cake interior - no hollowness here! The fillings were delicious and were not overly sweet either.

5 Years

It has been five great years of baking, eating, and blogging! We want to thank each and every one of you for visiting our blog. We hope you're enjoying our culinary journey and we love hearing from you!

We celebrated in a bake-ly manner. The kitchen was a busy, crowded space this weekend. We tried new recipes for this blogiversary and made almond cupcakes with green tea frosting. Then, because there was so much frosting leftover, we also made macarons to use up the rest.

The almond cupcakes and the green tea frosting didn't turn out as beautiful as it did in our minds. It just shows you, even when you're celebrating, you win some and you lose some!

So we're very sorry that we can't share the recipes, the cupcakes turned out dry and the frosting was much too soft (even after multiple chilling attempts). But at least we can secretly enjoy them because they're celebratory treats.

Until next time, we hope you eat cake for breakfast, too!

Matcha Macarons

I made these matcha macarons for my dad today. He has to attend a holiday potluck party tomorrow and he asked me to make him macarons. He claims that with all these macarons I've made, he's only eaten three. Which is possible as I haven't had that many myself. I keep giving them away! In fact, I only got to snack on two of these matcha macarons. My mom stole one and my dad prevented my brother from taken any. I hope dad's party guests appreciate how much we refrained!

French Meringue Macarons
(Makes about 40-50 macarons)

2 3/4 cups of almond flour
2 3/4 cups of powdered sugar
3 tablespoons of matcha powder
1 cup of egg whites (from 6-7 eggs)
A pinch of salt
3/4 cups of granulated sugar
Festive sprinkles for decoration (optional)

1. Line your baking trays with parchment paper.
2. Separate your egg whites 2-3 days before baking. Cover and store them in the refrigerator. Two hours before you start making your macarons, take the egg whites out of the refrigerator, uncover them, and let them come to room temperature.
3. Sift the almond flour, powdered sugar, and matcha powder together. If you have a food processor, put the ingredients in to create as fine as a texture as possible. This will help create smooth macaron shells.
4. Using the whisk attachment on your mixer, whisk the egg whites with the salt. Pour the granulated sugar in three stages. Dumping it all in can deflate the egg whites, so you want to add a little bit at a time. When the egg whites reach stiff peaks, turn the mixer off.
5. Fold the sifted almond mixture with the egg whites. You want to end up with a smooth batter that creates a ribbon when you lift it up from your spatula.
6. When the batter is ready, fill your piping bag and pipe equal rounds on the parchment paper.
7. Carefully tap your tray against the table or counter to eliminate air bubbles.
8. After piping, add the sprinkles on top. Let the macarons rest in room temperature for 15-30 minutes.
9. Preheat the oven to 300°F/150°C (325°F/160°C for a non-convection oven, although a convection oven is preferred for baking macarons).
10. Bake your first tray of macarons for 14-15 minutes. After the first five minutes, open the oven doors to let out some of the steam.
11. When the macarons are done, let them cool and then gently peel the macarons off the parchment paper.

After all the macarons have cooled, I usually pair them up and store them in a container while I prepare the filling:

Matcha Buttercream
(Makes enough to fill 40-50 macarons)

1/2 stick of unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 stick of cream cheese
3 tablespoons of matcha powder
2 1/2 cups of powdered sugar
1 teaspoon of milk

1. Using a mixer, beat the butter and cream cheese together until smooth.
2. Add in the matcha powder and powdered sugar. Mix until incorporated.
3. If you find the consistency to be too stiff, add a teaspoon of milk and mix until the buttercream is smooth. Fill your piping bag and pipe out a dollop on the bottom of the macarons. Add the top of the macaron and gently sandwich the buttercream in between.

Yum! I can see these being a repeated favourite with my parents. I'm actually tempted to make another batch already...

Have a wonderful New Year's Eve tomorrow!