Showing posts with label macarons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label macarons. Show all posts

Food Review: Canele Chocolate Patisserie!!

Hello friends! Here as promised, is my latest food review! It concerns the Canelé Pâtisserie Chocolaterie (which by the way, I cannot pronounce) a classy little boutique based out of Singapore.

Anyway, as you my notice, the quality of my food porn pictures has increased by quite a degree! This is because I now have a DSLR camera which is uber awesome. Yes. Awesome. I encourage you all to click on the pics to see them in HUGE AWESOME QUALITY.

But enough babbling, onto the food!

I'm not exactly sure why they called themselves a chocolate patisserie since it didn't really seem like it had much of a chocolate emphasis. The place was very classy though. Black. A lot of black decor. Nice bags.

This little beauty was called The Jupiter. Anyone want to suggest any reasons why? The most brilliant icing job with the ganache; it was just SO smooth. And the sides were so vertical. It was wondrous to look at....

...tasting it however, was a different story. I'm not sure who thought putting passionfruit puree in the middle of dark chocolate mousse was a good idea, but let me just say it is not. It made it feel like there was something sour and greasy in my mouth, like the mousse was off. Not a good taste.

But it was so bloody pretty, so have another look. Ah! Sigh.

This next cake was called the Matcha, for reasons I would completely not have know had I not joined the Daring Bakers. They seem to like incorporating matcha powder into a lot of things, those Daring Baker people. Green tea powder.

This one was much better than the Jupiter; it had a bit of a graininess to it though. I'm not sure what it was. It was meant to be a green tea mousse or something. The biscuit at the bottom was kind of nice as well.

Last of the cakes, and probably the least, is this weird triple layered cheesecake thing that just tasted weird. I'm probably doing it a big injustice because I ate it when it was a bit warm, so I'm not going to say anymore about it. Not as pretty as the others though.

And now for the fun part...

!! THE MACARONS !!

[Haha. Like as if you didn't know it was coming :P]

Caramel, Raspberry, Chocolate, Rose, Passionfruit & Pistachio.

So here's my macaron review:

1. Passionfruit: [6/10] It was not too chewy, no air bubbles at all, a reasonably well made macaron. Little bit grainy/dry but it was still very nice. The passionfruit flavour was very strong. Very nice flavour.

2. Pistachio: [7/10] Very moist. Texture was very very good. The pistachio flavour was very delicate and soft but it was clear. Good flavour.

3. Rose: [8.5/10] Much much better balance of the rose flavour than macarons I've had in Australia, which tend to be too overpowering. A delicious buttercream that reminded me so much of a Malay drink called Bandung (which is basically rose syrup + milk). So moist. Again, the rose flavour was the perfect amount.

4. 80% Chocolate: [7/10] A well made macaron with a good strong chocolate flavour.

5. Raspberry: [7.5/10] A moist macaron filled with raspberry jam, which was sweet and slightly tart, which was a good offset too all the great sweetness.

6. Caramel: [9/10] My favourite out of all of them! Such a delicious salted caramel taste! Ah the caramel flavour in the moist macaron was just heavenly. Just so good.

I hope I don't sound too pretentious. I'm just writing down what I truly felt about everything I tasted on that day. At the end of the day everyone has their own set of tastebuds. I hope you found the pictures enjoyable!

[Fed to my little sister. I know, I'm so nice right?]

Daring Bakers - Challenge SEVEN!

And the challenge for November is Caramel Cake!

Just think of a mountain of sugar. Then cook it till the smells drives you so wild you dip a spoon to taste it and realise BLEH! This isn't SWEET!! Then pour it into a batter, stir, cook, and enjoy!

A lot of people were complaning about how sweet the cake was. Maybe they didn't realise that the caramel was meant to be cooked to smoking point, which kind of removes much of its sweetness to leave that deep burnt caramel flvour.

Well that sort of summarises my first attempt at recreating the Caramel Cake, this month's Daring Bakers challenge, a creation of renowned pastry chef Shuna Fish Lydon, hosted by Dolores (from Culinary Curiosity) and co-hosted by Brownie (from the Blondie and Brownie duo), Jenny (of Foray into Food) and Natalie (the alternative baker from Gluten-a-Go-Go).

Phew. Well that was a mouthful. Don't won't to give any itty bitty little evil computer programs any chance to mess up and get me booted off the DB's. *

ANYWAY, moving along, the cake was really strange. Dense and strong. I would most likely describe it as an "adult cake". Very strong mature flavours. I think with a bit more practice, and more patience, if I could master this cake, it would be quite popular!

The buttercream was quite good as well. Burnt butter was an amazing flavour. Maybe I will try to incorporate it into another type of buttercream. Icing-sugar types are often too sweet!

You can find the recipe on any number of blogs on the Daring Baker's blogroll.

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In other news, I manage to make my first batch of MACARONS!!

YES.