Ganache Patisserie

Rose et Pamplemousse

vanilla-grapefruit parfait, apricot financier, rose crème brûlée, strawberry-rhubarb gelée

Blanc Fraisier
vanilla cake, vanilla sablé Breton, white chocolate black pepper mousseline, strawberries, passionfruit meringue

 

 

 This is my favorite pastry shop in Vancouver. It has been open for three years, but only until recently it became popular. I think it is a hidden treasure hiding in the trendy Yale Town. (or as I called the Yuppy camp of Vancouver)

Vanilla Ice Cream with Berry Compote

I totally forgot about this box of strawberry which I purchased a weeks ago. The fruits are still fine except they are little dehydrated. I’ve just got a nice bottle of Ruby Port which is super sweet. I think they will make a perfect couple in making a fruit sauce. I got this recipe for berry compote from a magzine. Tried it, just delicious. Serve this berry sauce over pure vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt. I made this for my family gathering this weekend and it was a big hit. =)

5 cups berries, blueberries and halved strawberries

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/4 ruby port, or any kind of red wine

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground allspice

1. In a mdium saucepan, combine berries, sugar, wine, cinnamon and all spice. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring often, until sugar dissolves. Boil gently for 2 minutes.

2. Remove from heat and let cool; the sauce will thicken while cooling. Refrigerate for up to 2 days, if desired. Serve at room temperature over ice cream.

Blueberry cream flan

Recipe adopted from the July/August issue of Glow magazine.

Flan:  

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/3 cup butter, softened

2 egg whites

1tsp pure vanilla extract

3 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen (not thawed)

Topping:

2 tbsp all purpose flour

2 cups plain yogurt

1 egg, lightly beaten

2/3 cup granulated sugar

2 tsp lemon or orange zest

1 tsp vanilla extract

1. In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, butter, egge whites and vanilla and mix well. Press into the bottom of a 9-inch spring form or flan pan and sprinkle with blueberries.

2. In a bowl, sprinkle flour over yogurt. Add egg, sugar, zest and vanilla and mix untial smooth. Pour mixture over berries.

3. Bake in 350F oven for 60 to 70 minutes or until the topping turn golden. Serve warm or cold.

Note:

I found making hte flan mix into a dough and roll the rough into a flat round pan-cake works better when making the flan base. The orginal recipe called for a 10-inch cake mode, but I found the flan turn out too thin, so maybe a 9-in flan will work better with this recipe.

The traditional flan recipe uses sour cream instead of yogurt. I do find using yogurt taste lighter and less sour. The yogurt will not completely solifiy but rather like a soft custard. The combination of berry and orange zest is just wonderful.

I also tried to pair this flan with the Rigamarole White Wine of VQA Okanagan Vally. It’s an interesting pair. The wine is quite smooth but do not have the tard taste.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Donald Market is the new food market that I discovered on my random bus ride. It is located in the corner of Hestine and Nanaimo street. I was attracted by its colorful street stand showcasing some of the freshest seasonal fruits and vegetable. From the countless numbers of spring/summer seasonal delights, I picked strawberry and rhubarb for their color, red, being so bright that I simply cannot resist them.

 

Whenever I shop of sweets, I’ve never wanted to pick-up a strawberry and rhubarb pie despite it is the one of the most popular baked desert. I dislike the taste of store-brand after a bad experience with the Safeway pie. Plus, the celery-like rhubarb stalk looked so weird that I don’t know how to deal with it. So naturally, strawberry rhubarb became the combination I try to avoid, for so long, until one blog entry changed my mind about this duo. So this time I want to try to make this pie myself, to see the difference. I adopt the recipe from the “Simply Recipes“, it goes as following:

3 cups rhubarb stalks cut into 1/2 inch pieces (Trim outside stringy layer of large rhubarb stalks; make sure to trim away any and discard of the leaves which are poisonous; trim ends.)
1 cup strawberries, stemmed and sliced
1 cup sugar
3 Tablespoons of quick cooking tapioca
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of grated orange peel
Unbaked pastry for two-crust 9 inch pie

Note: In the recipe of pie-crust, it called for freezing for at least one hour. I found it too long that the dough was hardened so much that defrost take a while. So if you are going to make it in a hurry, make sure you defrost the dough first and then combine the filling with sugar, otherwise too much juice will come out.

Preheat oven to 400°F.

1 Mix the rhubarb and the strawberries with the sugar, tapioca, salt, and orange rind. Let sit for 10 minutes.

2 Turn into a pastry lined pan. Top with the pastry, trim the edge, and crimp the top and bottom edges together. Cut slits in the top for the steam to escape.

3 Bake at 400°F for 20 minutes, reduce heat to 350°F, and bake an additional 30-40 minutes longer. Cool on a rack. Serve warm or cold. If you do cool to room temperature, the juices will have more time to thicken.

The pie came out really nice! a great balance between the sweetness of sugar and strawberry and the sourness of rhubarb, with a hint of orange zest, just wonderful! Now I truly understand the difference between the home-baked-pie and the commercial made one. The pie crust is quite buttery, a nice contrast with the gluey filling. This is my very first pie as well, so I am quite happy with it. I think from now, I will make more pies, with different fillings, ah…..I’ve already got a list of different pies I want to try~ ^_^

Happy Birthday Kathy~

My Birthday Gift to Kathy:
Strawberry Cream Cheese Mousse Cake

La Petite France

My “La Petite France” is different from Nico’s “La Petite France”; mine is really small, a small cafe hidden in the corner of this fusion city, covered by big shiny glass windows instead of bushy greens.

Finding this dessert shop is a truly sweet by-product of my job hunting for my too-much-spare time of last semester of university life, as if I am not busy enough with my thesis writing. They were hiring for counter helper, and attached their website. The pictures of little cakes caught my eyes, and also triggered my “sweet-tooth”. I never miss a chance to pay a little visit to every dessert shop I can find. So there I was with my friend Kathy, in a gloomy Friday afternoon hoping the desserts would make my day worthy of all. And, again, beautifully decorated mini cakes never fail me. It always leave me happy with a big smile.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

La Petite France A French Dessert Café,
10th & Arbutas St., Vancouver

 

La Citron Créme:
a dome cake with orange jelly coating and orange creme filling
Le Choco-poire:
layers of chocolate mousse, spounge cake, pear chocolate mix and sweet liqueur cake

 

 

Me, enjoying a sip of creamy green rooibo tea,
which is a perfect complement of the flavorful cake

 

My sweet confection

“Chocolate Dipolmat Cake” Layers of dark chocolate cake, chocolate custard, puff pastry (puff pastry?! yes!!) and Belgian dark chocolate buttercream.

From Vancouver’s best dessert restaurant, True ConfectionsI just simply LOVE it, so good. I was not sure if puff pastry could go well with the creamy cake, but it turned out to be a teaser of texture. It is a seasonal special for this winter holiday. I will recommend everyone to try it. Especially chocolate and puff pastry lover, you know who you are. ^_^

My Sweet HeavenCoffee, or tea, or me?