Master Nogami's Milk Hearth Roll 野上師傅的牛奶哈斯麵包001

Its difficult to get hold of the French flour here in the UK. Strong bread flour which is typically used for bread makings have higher protein contains than the "bread" flour in France. 


Bread flour from the UK supermarket brands normally has the protein contains between 12 to 14%. For french breads, the two most used flour are T55 and T65. T55 contains 10 to 11% protein; T65 contains 11.5% protein. The small % difference in the flour makes a huge different in the bread outcome.. like the kneading time, proving time, the texture, the colour of the bread... arhhh


While I've been no luck with the french flour hunting, I still have a very good bread recipe that uses ordinary strong bread flour. The recipe's from the most famous Japanese Boulanger in Taiwan - 野上師傅 (Nogami), his book "名店麵包大公開：天然酵母、無人工添加物、100％健康" ---my bread bible! 


The Milk Hearth (牛奶哈斯) is a soft French bread that uses milk instead of water. This makes the dough silky soft to handle. All other ingredients are very simple like the other basic bread recipes.



After kneading and first proving. The dough's divided and shaped into long logs. Prove for 30 mins. 





The logs are rolled out and form into rolls. I love this dough, its very easy to handle. Soft and manageable.

Chocolatier: Chocolate-Caramel Truffles

Chocolate-Caramel Truffles adapted from Chocolate Desserts By Pierre Herme

Deeply in Love with Marshmallow

Im a softie when it comes to stuff that are pastel and dreamy.....

There might be more dreamy in one case...

And more pastel in the other.....

But when two comes together.... its just so Beautiful and so Marshmallow.

Matcha and Chestnut Mousse Joconde Entrement

“Joconde imprime is a decorative design baked into a light sponge cake providing an elegant finish to desserts/torts/entremets/ formed in ring molds. A joconde batter is used because it bakes into a moist, flexible cake. The cake batter may be tinted or marbleized for a further decorative effect.”

“Entremets is an ornate dessert with many different layers of cake and pastry creams in a mold, usually served cold.”

When Joconde and Entrement come together, they mean a delicate and sophisticated cake that I wasnt prepare to make (in terms of technical skills and pastry equipment that I have in my kitchen). Couple days before I found out the theme of this month's DBs challenge, I had been admiring at pictures of Pierre Herme's "Elysee" which he created during his time at Fauchon. I found its simple and perfectly straight chocolate brown and cream white stripy pattern utterly elegant. I like things with simple patterns and usually with two tones. My second thought was..... some expensive professional equipments must be used. Thanks to this challenge, I was very surprised to know that a plastic “comb” could do the effect! I need to get one next time when I visit a big city. But for the challenge, I used a chopstick!

This was the first cake that I had to come up with a combination of flavours and fillings. It gave me a couple of sleepless night just thinking about how I could actually achieve the structure that I wanted with the limited pastry tools that I have - a small ring! I guess that was sufficient! The look was disappointing, but the flavours were very very very good!

French Pear Tart

This is probably the first recipe that really got me into baking. It wasnt complicated to do and I could easily followed the recipe from the wonderful words of Dorie Greenspan. Its like having your private mentor telling you what to do every single step and more importantly, why you're doing this. I was really excited that something so simple could taste so wonderful!

I made them into individual tins and they were mouthwateringly adorable!

Eric Kayer's Matcha tart and Tony's Birthday!

I love this Raspberry Matcha Tart..... there is something magical going on between the raspberry and matcha in this recipe. Its very simple and straightforward to make, and it tastes amazing! I added extra dose of matcha, not just adding colour but also the intense flavour! Tony absolutely loved this cake! He cut me a tiny piece and keep a massive piece for himself! ><


When baking with Matcha, i've noticed if you dissolve the matcha in a drop of hotwater before mixing in with other ingredients, you get a much intense green colour than if you're mixing the matcha into the other ingredients directly. In this cake, i didnt take this extra step and the green is more like an autumn green. I made another version of the tart before with the extra step to achieve the summer green (below)

Eric Kayser's Normandy Apple Tart

Fall is all about warm desserts. This is when the serious craving starts......

Im still upset that i didnt get to visit Eric Kayser's bakery in my last paris trip a month ago. I wouldnt be visiting paris anytime soon because of the amount of work that needs to be done before spring.... Research is just like Love. While so many people are happily in love and there are always a bunch of others struggling with it. Yeah... the experiment that im running didnt go well, im heart broken.

To heal a broken heart here comes the warm Normandy Apple Tart from Eric Kayser's Sweet and Savoury Tarts. Im pleased with how simple it is to prepare. As T. prepared dinner, I prepared the tart and popped it into the oven just before dinner was served. Of course, it was perfect timing to serve as a desert.