Cardamom – Safflower – Jaggery – Walnut Cookies

I had a strange incident. Several months ago I was in the bank and the teller asked me to write some data. Instinctively I looked around in a search for the keyboard, but instead she handed me a pen. I know it was something completely normal but apparently I've become so used to my laptop that I feel the keyboard as an extension of my hands. I remember those first days when I was writing articles on my paper notebook, then I've been rewriting them on the PC in order to send them to the editors of various magazines with the hope they would get published.(At that time I was writing mainly about aromatherapy, natural cosmetic products and the ways one could make them at home, but apparently nobody was interested on those matters since they were not yet popular enough.) When they finally started to publish my materials (although on completely different subjects) I had to get rid of the writing by hand habit for timesaving reasons. Soon there were no more pens and paper sheets here and there, no notebooks, just cables, memory cards and my new and beloved best friend – my laptop. Even as a journalist, when I take interviews or make reviews, I rarely take notes just because I always have my portable recorder at hand. Apparently my life has become really dependent on the high-tech appliances. Or maybe it's just the time we live in.

I thought I was an old fashioned girl and in my heart I really am. Then why the computer plays such an important role in my life?

I took a decision to commence writing by hand more often. There is no need to systematize every tiny note or thought on the computer. Firstly, I felt odd, mainly because there was no spelling corrector, but now I'm enjoying it, a lot (no matter how stupid this may sound).

I made these cookies several months ago, while I was planning our trip to Paris. This is why I used as a background of the photos my Paris plans notebook. The notebook was a present from my sister, from her last travel to India, and I reckoned it was in unison with the ingredients and flavour of the cookies.


Tea: Massala chai goes really well with these cookies as well as ginger flavoured black tea.

Cardamom – Safflower – Jaggery – Walnut Cookies Recipe:

• 185 gr all purpose flour;
• 7 gr safflower;
• 10 cardamom pods;
• 75 gr walnuts;
• 1 tsp vanilla extract;
• 75 gr confectionner's sugar;
• 85 gr jaggery, melted;
• 120 gr butter, cut into 1cm cubes;
• 1 large egg.

Take the tiny black seeds out of the cardamom pods(discard the outer shell), place them in a mortar, add the safflower and grind them to a powder.

Place flour, sugar, walnuts, cardamom and safflower powder in a food processor (equipped with the metal blade) and pulse till walnuts are ground to a fine meal. Add in butter and pulse till crumbles form, then pulse in the melted jaggery and the egg.

Gather the dough - it should be crumbly and sandy but it should hold together when pressed with hands. Touch the dough just to gather it, do not overwork it. Form the dough into a log (4 cm in diameter). Wrap the log in plastic wrap and refrigerate for two hours.

Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Line a baking pan with paper or silpat. Slice the log into 0,5 cm thick rounds, arrange them on the baking sheet leaving 2 cm space between them and bake until golden brown.

Raspberry Cakes with Matcha - Cream Cheese - White Chocolate Frosting

Raspberry season has started. Our freezer is still packed with raspberries from the bumper harvest last summer and I'm trying to turn them into desserts in order to make place for the new ones, so you are going to see a lot of raspberry sweets in the coming weeks. Hope you like raspberries.

There are several combination which I'm totally mad about: raspberry-matcha tea, raspberry-chocolate and raspberry-milky flavour (sometimes infused with herbs and weeds like lemon balm/like in this melissa raspberry etremet/, mint, lavender, camomile or rose).

I had no intention of making these cakes. It was almost midnight and I was almost dozing over my laptop when I remembered I'd taken some raspberries out of the freezer so it was time for baking, and here's the result. They turned out to be delicious but I wanted the raspberry colour to be more vivid, although this one isn't so bad.

Tea: We had a certain discordance on this matter. I prefered those cakes with matcha latte, while Ivan liked them better with sencha tea.

Raspberry Cakes with Matcha - Cream Cheese - White Chocolate Frosting Recipe:

Makes: six 8,5 cm cakes
For the Raspberry Cakes:

• 65 gr butter;
• 85 gr sugar;
• pinch of salt;
• 1 tsp vanilla extract;
• 1 egg;
• 75 gr raspberry pulp;
• 1 Tbsp rum;
• 140 gr self-raizing flour.

Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Line a baking sheet with silpat or parchment paper. Place 6 rings(Ø 8.5 cm) over the silpat.

Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in salt, vanilla and egg and then raspberry pulp and rum. At the end, beat in self-raizing flour. Fill rings no more than two-thirds full. Bake for around 15 – 17 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack.

For the Frosting:

• 150 gr white chocolate, melted;
• 230 gr cream cheese;
• 6 gr matcha green tea.

Whisk cream cheese to soften it, then add melted white chocolate and sifted matcha.

Scoop the frosting into a pastry bag equipped with star tip and cover the cakes with frosting stars.

Matcha-Chocolate Tangzhong Bread

Ever since we tried Aoki's matcha croissants I crave for them almost on a daily basis. We tried to recreate them twice with no significant results. I searched for the original recipe but couldn't find any, so now it's all about match and fix work. For now we had to stop our green croissant exploits due to the rising temperatures but we'll continue the straggle over that task when the weather permits.

Nevertheless, on the one hand, my craving for yeasty matcha goodness had to be satisfied somehow and on the other hand we had a jar of malted almond spread that needed the company of a nice slice of bread.

As a base recipe we used the tangzhong bread we made as part of the Fresh from the Oven Challenges earlier this year. We just divided the ingredients in two, added matcha tea to one of the parts and cocoa powder to the other.

Tastewise, although imbued with impeccable green colour the matcha taste wasn't as eloquent as I would have loved it to be, but never mind my opinion because I like the matcha notes to be vividly strong. However, it was a good breakfast bread and the addition of malted almond spread made it very special.

Tea: Tamaryokucha tea was our choice this time.

We are sending this bread to YeastSpotting - Susan's weekly bread show-case.


Matcha-Chocolate Tangzhong Bread Recipe:

Makes 2 loaves 20x10 cm


For the Tangzhong :

• 30 gr flour;
• 150 gr cold water.

For the Dough:

• 350 gr strong flour;
• 55 gr sugar;
• 5 gr salt;
• 15 gr fresh yeast (or 5 gr instant yeast);
• 1 egg;
• 125 gr milk;
• 120 gr tangzhong;
• 30 gr butter, melted and cooled;

• 1 Tbsp (7 gr) matcha green tea;
• 20 gr Dutch-processeed cocoa powder.

For Glazing:

• 1 egg, lightly beaten.

Prepare the tangzhong. Whisk together cold water and flour (there should be no lumps) and cook over low heat (stirring all the time) until the temperature reaches 65ºC. Cover and let the tangzhong to cool down before using it.

Prepare the dough. Dissolve yeast in the milk. Combine together dry ingredients: flour, sugar and salt, then divide in two into different bowls. Add matcha tea to one of the bowls and cocoa powder to the another.

Dissolve fresh yeast into the milk and add in the wet ingredients: tangzhong, egg and butter, mix well. Divide them in two – add one part to the matcha bowl and the other – to the cocoa bowl.

Use your hand or stand mixer equipped with the dough hook to mix the wet and dry ingredients into a soft dough. (I used the hand mixer for one of the doughs while the stand mixer was kneading the other one,) Let the mixer do the kneading part for around 15 minutes. Cover the bowls and leave the doughs to become double in bulk.

Knock each dough down onto a lightly floured counter top, give them a quick knead just to let the gas escape. Roll out each dough to a flat rectangular with the desired thickness – I rolled them out thinly – to around 3-4 mm.

Place a sheet of the cocoa dough onto the counter top. Brush it with water then place a sheet of the matcha dough on top. Brush with water again and roll up. Brushing with water ensures a good coherence of the layers.

Transfer to buttered loaf pans. Cover and let double in bulk again.

Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Glaze with egg and bake for around 35 minutes or until done.

Melissa Raspberry Entremet

I'm expecting my head to burst out any moment. My mind is in a state of rattling elation, thoughts of all kind are hopping and popping forming a hodgepodge of exaltation, trepidation, expectation. A thread of sadness is coming through but it quickly and voluntary mingles with the growing mass of emotions. Questions are sprouting and my mind is trying hard on keeping track on them. I have the answers albeit not as obvious and I don't really know if these are the answers I'm looking for.

And just when my head is going to explode into at least a thousand tiny pieces here comes the mind stiffness. Everything becomes blind and blank as a sheet of white paper.

No, there are no weeds in the air, if that's what you are thinking. It's just the intoxication that gets over me every time I finish a good read.

When it happens so that my head bubbles with so many roaming thoughts the best way to put them in order is to make something fancy for dessert.

Tea: Firstly, we tried the melissa-raspberry entremet along with sencha tea and it was good, but then, when we ate it with jasmine green tea it was WOW, it was like an entirely new palette of flavours had erupted. The gentle jasmine flavour corresponds to perfection with the raspberry aroma and the mild melissa hints.

Melissa Raspberry Entremet Recipe:

Makes 6 entremets Ø 5,5 cm, height 6 cm  

Notes: The recipe for the butterless biscuit joconde belongs to Hidemi Sugino, as well as the look of his entremets are the inspiration for mine.

This is the second time I'm making this entremet. The first time my raspberry bavarian cream didn't set enough so this time I had to increase the agar quantity. As I'd said before, working with agar gets really tricky sometimes.

I didn't use any syrup to moisten the sponge layer since it's very thin and absorbs enough moisture from the cream and the mousse.

Melissa (lemon balm) is a weed that chases away the melancholy and brings joy to the heart (according to Avicenna). Together with the flamboyant colour and the profound aroma of the raspberries it makes a joyful bliss to the senses(according to my humble opinion).


Butterless Biscuit Joconde with Raspberry Jam:

• 25 gr almond meal;
• 25 gr all purpose flour;
• 20 gr egg yolk;
• 15 gr egg white;
• 50 gr egg whites;
• 40 gr sugar;
• raspberry jam – I lacked this so I replaced it with pureed home made strawberry jam, this is why the colour of my jam strips is darker than it should be..

Preheat the oven to 220ºC. Prepare 35x24cm baking sheet lined with paper or silicon mat.

Beat together egg whites(15gr) and egg yolks.

In another bowl sift together flour and almond meal. Set aside.

Beat egg whites (50gr) and sugar until firm glossy meringue. Fold in beaten eggs, then fold in the dry ingredients. Spread the batter to a thin layer on the silicon mat and pipe thin lines of the raspberry jam on top. Bake for 5-6 minutes. Let cool.

Cut 6 cellophane strips with the height of the rings and 17cm long.

Cut 6 strips from the Joconde sponge – 3cm tall and around 16,5cm long. It's better to measure out precisely the inner side of the rings so the sponge could fit tightly. Fit each Joconde strip to the bottom side of a cellophane strip, jam side down facing the cellophane. Form the cellophane-joconde strip into a ring and enter it into the moulding ring. Gently push and press the ends of the sponge to meet together to make a seamless cake.

From the rest of the Joconde layer cut 6 rounds to fit inside the 6 rings and place each of them into the bottom of the rings but in that way that the bottom is encircled from the side layer.

Raspberry Jelly:

• 100 gr raspberry pulp;
• 20 gr sugar;
• 2 gr agar agar powder.

Bring raspberry pulp to a boil. Combine agar and sugar and add to the pulp. Cook until dissolved, it normally takes a short time, even less than a minute. Pour into 2x1 cm silicon moulds, I used ice cube silicon mould.

Melissa Milky Mousse:

• 3 sprigs of melissa officinalis (lemon balm);
• 160 ml whole milk;
• 35 gr sugar;
• 3 gr agar agar powder;
• 150 ml whipping cream, whipped.

Bring milk to a boil, turn off the heat, add in the lemon balm sprigs, cover and let infuse for half an hour.

Strain the milk, discard the lemon balm and add more milk to make 160ml.

Combine sugar and agar. Bring the milk again to a boil and add the agar-sugar mix. Cook until dissolved.

Fold the milky mixture into the whipped cream.

Fill the lined with the joconde rings with the melissa milky mousse just a little bit bellow the rim of the joconde. Work quickly since as soon as the temperature of the mousse drops bellow 45ºC it will commence to set extremely fast.

On top of the melissa mousse place a round of raspberry jelly, press it slightly into the melissa mousse.

Bavarois aux Framboises:

• 120 gr milk;
• 20 gr egg yolk;
• 35 gr sugar;
• 10 ml rum;
• 120 gr raspberry pulp;
• 4 gr agar agar powder;
• 10 gr sugar;
• 100 gr whipping cream, whipped.

Make crème anglaise. Whisk egg yolk and sugar until light. Bring milk to a boil, then pour it in a thin stream over the yolk-sugar mixture, whisking all the time to prevent yolks from curdling. Cook until the mixture reaches 82ºC. Set aside, but keep it warm.
Bring raspberry pulp to a boil. Combine sugar and agar, add them to the raspberry pulp and cook until dissolved.

Combine raspberry pulp with crème anglaise, add in rum and fold in the whipped cream.

As quickly as possible pour the bavarois over the raspberry jelly. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

Garnish and Glaze:

• raspberries;
• mint leaves;
• 85 gr water;
• 15 gr raspberry pulp;
• 1 gr agar agar powder;
• 5 gr sugar.

Combine water and raspberry pulp and bring to a boil. Mix together agar and sugar and add to the boiling liquid. Cook until dissolved.

The glaze is a liquid, so it sets much slower than the mousses and creams and it's easier to work with it. But if it sets, it's enough to heat it up and it will liquefy again.

Arrange some raspberries on top of the entremet then glaze with a silicon brush. Wait the glaze to set and repeat if you wish, then garnish with mint leaves.


Enjoy with a cup of jasmine green tea.

Ginger Crème Brulée

Rainy days had come more than a fortnight ago and apparently they won't drop off soon. The sky opens its womb and pours itself furiously day after day. Heavy drops of water are performing wild dances of crop massacre. When I left Vetren last week the garden was already looking like marshland and I don't even want to imagine what it's like today – strawberries rotting on the ground while still green, courgettes drowned in mud, weeds prospering, roses weeping musty petals. I hope the weather would prove me wrong, but I've already stricken off strawberries and cherries from my baking plans. I'm keeping my fingers crossed there would be at least something left of the apricots, raspberries and tomatoes – the holy summer trinity for me.

Till better times for the garden produce come I'm beating the rainy melancholy and the drenched mood with ginger, which also is a great warm-me-up for the soaking wet days. And I was just looking for an occasion to use the blow torch. Usually it's always Ivan who has all the fun with the blow torch but this time it was my turn.

Ginger Crème Brulée Recipe:
Makes 6 small ramekins 6x3cm

• 200 gr heavy cream;
• 70 gr milk;
• 3-4 cm ginger;
• ¼ vanilla pod;
• 35 gr sugar;
• 3 egg yolks;
• sugar for caramelizing on top.

Preheat the oven to 150ºC.

Cut the ginger into thin lamellas. Combine cream and milk into a heavy bottomed saucepan, add in ginger and vanilla pod(cut lengthwise and seeded), bring to a boil. Turn off the heat, cover the saucepan and let infuse for half an hour, then strain and discard the ginger and vanilla pieces.

Whisk the egg yolks together with the sugar until light and fluffy. Add in the infused cream-milk mixture. Divide amongst 6 small ramekins(6x3cm).

Place the ramekins into a baking dish and pour enough boiling water to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins, just take care not to pour water into the ramekins. Bake until the crème brulée is set but still trembling in the center, around 25-30 minutes. When cooled down, refrigerate the crème for several hours.

Before serving sprinkle an uniform layer of sugar on top of the crème and caramelize it with a blow torch.

Raspberry Financiers

Tea makes great part of our life. On our way back from Paris both of our suitcases were packed with tea and teaware. (Of course there were also 3 kilos of chocolate couverture, a kilo of cocoa butter, sac of 50 vanilla beans, small packet of tonka beans, a jar of malted almond spread, black sesame paste, spices and more chocolate.)

My catalogue booklet from Le Palais des Thés became worn out with my notes and remarks in it since I was bringing it alongside all the time just in case we pass near one of their shops and have the stir for tea which of course happened to be almost every day. Other tea shopping stops of ours were Jugetsudo, which is especially good place for buying reasonably priced pastry grade matcha tea, and a couple of shops in the Chinese neighbourhood for teaware acquisitions.

And since we've been avid tea drinkers for over 6 years, but there are no other tea lovers amongst our friends, we decided to share our tea passion with you. I really don't know why we haven't done this till now.

Making a state I must say that we rarely drink tea with the main course, wine goes better there, while for us tea is to be enjoyed with desserts or just on its own. We'll be happy if you join the tea-desserts topic with us, all ideas and suggestions are very welcome.

Financiers are easy and quick to make, besides we always have egg whites in abundance, so this is a good way to put them in use. And raspberries make the whole thing even better with their strong flavour and tangy notes.

Tea – when there are red fruits and especially raspberries involved, Japanese tea comes at once to the mind and Tamaryokucha tea was our choice on the spot.

Raspberry Financiers Recipe:
Makes 15

• 135 gr egg whites;
• 90 gr sugar;
• 65 gr almond meal;
• 45 gr all purpose flour;
• 100 gr butter;
• sometimes we add 15 gr of desiccated coconut for chewiness, but omitted it this time;
• fresh or frozen raspberries.

In a small saucepan brown the butter until fragrant and nutty. Leave it to cool down.

Preheat the oven to 180º C.

In a bowl, sift together almond meal and flour, add in coconut shreds, if using.

Beat egg whites and granulated sugar to firm, glossy peaks. Fold in the dry ingredients, then fold in the browned butter.

Divide the batter amongst 15 silicone moulds. Top with several raspberries.

Bake for 18 – 20 minutes or until done.

Pastry Adventures in Paris – Part II

hot chocolate at Un Dimanche à Paris

We had the luck of having spring sunny smiles all the time we were in Paris, except for one Sunday when we went picnicking and it rained all the day but that didn't deter us from keeping to our intentions.

But good weather has its downs, it's not that I'm complaining of the sun, not at all, but when it's warm there is no hot chocolate. I don't get it – what has the weather to do with one's desires for a potent, flavourful, pungent cup of hot chocolate. It gives warmth when it's cold but it's a great pick-me-up for the hot days too.

Fortunately Un Dimanche à Paris helped us to struggle with the hot chocolate abstinence. First we went there for a take away hot chocolate, but they serve it in tiny paper coffee cups – it was strong and smooth, and velvety, and... oh, so good, but the cups were so small that left us only longing for more. So the next day we returned for a new dose of mighty chocolate intoxication.

The Opera entremet just made it further more decadent.

Choux Pistache - Fruits Rouges was a true taste bud pleaser – fresh, light and memorable.

Considering that before going to Un Dimanche à Paris we went to Pierre Hermé for a couple of pastries and snagged some croissants on the way, I daresay we had a busy day. Of course we headed to the Luxembourg garden – our favourite place for munching on pastries.

Tarte Infiniment Vanille appeared to be very hard to photograph especially with the bright sun and me drooling over it, but we both liked it very much, but of course this was predictable.

However, Plentitude was really surprising piece - it wasn't an ordinary chocolate pastry since the chocolate on top was salted and this gave the whole entremet lovely tangy notes.

I just saw that the recipe for Plentitude is published in Pierre Hermé's Larousse du Chocolat so we're making it soon.

Adam from one of my favourite Paris related dessert blogs – Paris Patisseries mentions a lot Jacques Genin and actually this is the only patisserie he has never criticised. So we headed there. This place proved to be super cool. It even exceeded all our expectations. Monsieur Genin's creations are simple but so tasteful. One of the desserts we chose was Millefeuille Vanille-Framboise. I haven't even thought one could tuck so much vanilla into pastry cream. The flavour was irresistible. And look at that puff pastry – it's my new measure for the perfection.

Ephémère marron was our second choice – again it was fully packed with flavour. I didn't suppose I would like so much a chestnut entremet.

Oh, I forgot to mention Jacques Genin's caramels which were a true killer, especially the mango and ginger ones.

this is how the cold drip coffee is being extracted

Till now I'd always found Paris isn't the best place for coffee afficionados. But things have changed with the opening of Coutume Café. We went there early in the morning( ah... ok then, it was around 10.30 am, but I told you we were on foot, besides we've never been early birds) in order to catch their cold extraction coffee, also known as cold drip, 24 hour drip or Kyoto style coffee. It has nothing to do with the espresso coffee.

In fact, we both found, the cold drip has more in common with coffee liqueur but without the alcohol boost. Shortly, it's not your ordinary coffee. And apparently the caffeine content is higher because both Ivan and I were overexcited afterwords.

inside La Pâtisserie des Rêves

Apparently our early going to Coutume was not early enough because there were no croissants left for breakfast. We both needed something to eat to neutralize the caffeine impact so we headed to La Pâtisserie des Rêves which was nearby.

We left the pastries for another day, which unfortunately never came, and took a couple of croissants, brioche (which was the same as croissant but in different shape) and kouign amann. At the look of the futuristic interior I just couldn't restrain myself of snagging a couple of photos.

The only disappointment we had during our hilarious pastry binges was at Carl Marletti. Not only both of the pastries we tried were stale but the heavy cream was in such an abundance that made them really ecoeurant.

Paradis Latin was way beyond it's shelf life since some of the red fruits inside were mouldy.

And the Lily Valley – we would actually have liked it if it were fresher, since the violet notes are pleasingly tangible, but unfortunately it was not.

On the other hand, we felt in love with Hugo et Victor. We tried the Hugo and the Victor versions of Passion. The sugar content is extremely diminished but the flavour is utterly strong. I dare say that Passion Hugo even tends to be on the sour side but it was delectably refreshing.

Shortly(or not so) these were the pastries we ate in front of the camera.